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If (illicit) drugs were legal.


dimreepr

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55 minutes ago, koti said:

That depends on pricing. 

If we assume that "market forces" act on the price then it will settle to some value or other.

If the government decides to tax it  then the price will be somewhere between  zero and the current price.

 

It's fair to assume the price will go down.

For the sake of a discussion, let's assume the price falls to half the current "street" price.

(Like Dimreeper, I'm not convinced that the outcome depends strongly on  price)

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2 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

If we assume that "market forces" act on the price then it will settle to some value or other.

If the government decides to tax it  then the price will be somewhere between  zero and the current price.

 

It's fair to assume the price will go down.

For the sake of a discussion, let's assume the price falls to half the current "street" price.

(Like Dimreeper, I'm not convinced that the outcome depends strongly on  price)

That sounds reasonable.

I’m not sure though, that I wouldn’t be tempted after 20 years to have some cocaine at half price and at 100% purity. I’m not sure how that would save my life. 

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I would think it depends entirely on the type of drugs.

I don't see a particular problem with legalizing 'soft' drugs like pot. Although legalizing pot while making tobacco products almost illegal seems counter-intuitive. But should I care, I don't smoke either ?

Legalization of 'hard' drugs would turn an acute problem, where people die quickly from related crime and overdosing, into a chronic problem, where safe-injection sites and availability lead to ruined lives and ( most likely ) eventual death.  And I shouldn't care because I don't do 'hard' drugs either.

Problem is, I do care.
A lot of people use drugs as a 'crutch', to escape from the unfortunate state of their lives. Much like alcoholics use booze.
What may have started as a 'pleasurable' experience, becomes a 'crutch' as a coping mechanism.

There is another 'crutch' that people use as a coping mechanism.
And although it is legal, I don't see many advocates for religion here.

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I don’t consider pot to be a drug and I’m sure Im not alone on this, pot is a non issue as far as Im concerned. I bought 12 grams of „Orange Skunk” including strain number and some other details in a store (not a coffee shop) in Zurich in 2001 and I have received a full VAT invoice for it including my company details. I did one of the dumbest things in my life by bringing it back with me on the plane with the invoice wrapped around it thinking that would somehow help me in case they found it.

What I’m wondering is, what would happen to people who have no prior experience or/and are prone to drug addiction and might not even know about it...if you suddenly tell them its legal to have coke or speed it might end up in a disaster („might” is an understatement) I think it might work for some environments, obviously for the people who are down the rabbit hole up to their nose it might be benneficial but for a large number of people it could be a distaster. Pot, Speed, LSD, Coke, Crack, Heroin - they’re all a very much different blend and you can’t put them all in one basket. So which drugs do we want to make legal and in what circumstances/environments? We wouldn’t want me to have coke again this time legally again now would we. 

Edit: Edited a lot.

Edited by koti
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15 minutes ago, koti said:

I don’t consider pot to be a drug and I’m sure Im not alone on this, pot is a non issue as far as Im concerned. I bought 12 grams of „Orange Skunk” including strain number and some other details in a store (not a coffee shop) in Zurich in 2001 and I have received a full VAT invoice for it including my company details. I did one of the dumbest things in my life by bringing it back with me on the plane with the invoice wrapped around it thinking that would somehow help me.

What I’m wondering is, what would happen to people who have no prior experience with drugs if you suddenly tell them its legal to have coke or speed. I think it might work for some environments but for a large number of people it could be a distaster.

If pot had been legal some 30 years ago when they were locally wild strains that were exported, it might work in terms of harm reduction but it's too strong now and everything is skunk-related. Everybody wants to breed the next strongest variety and that increases the number of potential mental health casualties. I  think the current status quo keeps it as low as it can be.. Changing  the behaviour of drug addicts only comes from within and it's extremely rare for them to stop... except by dying. Whilst they are on them they don't care. Whether one uses an oppressive regime or thoughtful one they are going to get out of their heads and still do all the criminal activities to have more than they given by the state. Colour me cynical.

Edited by StringJunky
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4 hours ago, koti said:

. I’m not sure how that would save my life. 

Did anyone say it would?

4 hours ago, MigL said:

I don't see a particular problem with legalizing 'soft' drugs like pot.

The distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs is not based in science, it is largely political dogma.

 

4 hours ago, MigL said:

A lot of people use drugs as a 'crutch', to escape from the unfortunate state of their lives.

It was observed during the Vietnam war (among others) that soldiers used a lot of drugs to get through the experience.

Most of them quit taking the drugs when they got home.

That's because their "home" environment was supportive.

If you want to reduce  chronic drug use, what you should do is make everybody's "home" supportive.

The "war on drugs" tends to do the exact opposite.  This fact is known to the politicians.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

The distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs is not based in science, it is largely political dogma.

 

I would love to know more about this, please elaborate. 

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1 hour ago, koti said:

I don’t consider pot to be a drug 

Then you plainly do not know what you are talking about.

Just now, koti said:

I would love to know more about this, please elaborate. 

Show me the science behind the distinction.
It's not my job to try to prove a negative.

 

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Everybody wants to breed the next strongest variety

Not really.

However, the law fails to distinguish between different strains even though the potency varies enormously.

The law will  punish you for selling old fashioned weak dope or the modern super strong  skunk in the same way.

 

However, if you breed and import skunk, you can dilute it down with tobacco or whatever. Your customers will still get stoned, so they will pay just as much.

But, because you can get the same  intoxication of the same number of customers with less actual plant material, you don't need to move as much product.

So you are less likely to get caught smuggling it.

So, the drive to higher potency strains of cannabis was driven by the government's policy of criminalisation.

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27 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Show me the science behind the distinction.
It's not my job to try to prove a negative.

I asked a sincere question and I’m here to learn. I assumed you being the forum chemistry expert you could lend a hand. And yes, since you’re the chemistry expert - it is your job John. 

Edited by koti
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49 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Then you plainly do not know what you are talking about.

Show me the science behind the distinction.
It's not my job to try to prove a negative.

 

Not really.

However, the law fails to distinguish between different strains even though the potency varies enormously.

The law will  punish you for selling old fashioned weak dope or the modern super strong  skunk in the same way.

 

However, if you breed and import skunk, you can dilute it down with tobacco or whatever. Your customers will still get stoned, so they will pay just as much.

But, because you can get the same  intoxication of the same number of customers with less actual plant material, you don't need to move as much product.

So you are less likely to get caught smuggling it.

So, the drive to higher potency strains of cannabis was driven by the government's policy of criminalisation.

That's one way of looking at it I hadn't thought of. Plausible. The way I looked at it was that, as the import routes were blocked off from the traditional resin-dope countries, people were driven to grow it locally and that led to them pursuing and breeding ever stronger strains just because they could, whereas before that they were happy with the various strengths that came in and just went with the flow. Every now and again you got stuff, particularly sensimilla-types, as strong as now but not all the time but it was mostly relatively mild resin. That coupled with suppliers mixing the properly made resins with all manner of noxious bulking agents, which I think drove people even more to local growers or doing it themselves.

 

Edited by StringJunky
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14 minutes ago, Abigboi said:

The easier it is to die from an overdose, the harder the drug is. MDMA and pot are next to impossible to OD on, heroin not so much.

Plenty of people have died using MDMA. There's no way of knowing what constitutes a lethal dose in a person until they reach that point.

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Quote

If (illicit) drugs were legal.. How many lives would be saved?

 

Sorry, but I could not resist..

It begs for to be rephrased to:

"If (licit) drugs (medicament) were for free.. How many lives would be saved?"

3 hours ago, koti said:
 
3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

The distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs is not based in science, it is largely political dogma.

I would love to know more about this, please elaborate. 

i.e. alcohol and cigarettes, caffeine containing drinks, are also drugs (if we classify drugs as psychoactive substances). (and they cause majority of deaths, rather than the real hard narcotics)

Better classification of psychoactive substances would be whether they are exclusively created artificially in chemistry lab, or whether they are naturally produced by some microorganisms, plants or animals (and then just cleaned up eventually in lab).

Caffeine, cocaine, cannabinoid, ethanol.. etc. the all have some medical use.. (or used to have, in the past, when there was no replacements).. and they have natural, organic chemistry, origin.

Legalization of narcotics has some pros such as having impact on cleanness of the product which appears on the market (people die because of addition of some unknown substances to reduce power and have the better price.. even if "unknown substance" was harmless, giving them 100% product later, can cause death because of overdose, as they don't understand how to calculate it and what was cleanness of product they used to), reduction of people imprisoned (people who are addicted, and cannot longer control it... that reminds me experiment with mice, which received sugar mixture in 1st pipe, cocaine mixture in 2nd pipe, and regular meal in 3rd pipe.. and they preferred... sugar pipe.. to the level it caused their death... they were addicted from sugar! it stimulated their brain the most), and easier healing of narcotics-addicted people (as they would not be afraid of asking for help).

Legalization of narcotics would also wipe out gangsters from this "business".

 

 

 

Edited by Sensei
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Proper fight with narcotics addiction should looks like 1) learn what narcotics person used 2) reduce it tiny bit per day e.g. few percent less than they used to (which means it must be continuously given to person)... just tiny bit per day decrease.. in long term...

If it's meant to be scientific experiment, narcotics-addicted people (obviously the same drug), should be split to two groups, in one group, use current harsh method (instant reduction of drugs), and second method with slow diminish of narcotics with time.. Then compare results..

Regardless of method, narcotics addicted people must learn physics, chemistry, inorganic chemistry, and organic chemistry, to learn what happens with their brains when they take narcotics, at molecular level, and what happens if they don't. What's the most important is, that they must understand that after rehab, they cannot take the same amount of stuff, as they used to prior rehab, because it means overdose for them, and instant death..

 

Edited by Sensei
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In then U.K. they cracked down on smuggling so everyone started growing proper plants rather than buying diesel soaked resin imported by unscrupulous indidividuals. 

That illegal money for weed now goes to local people who spend it in the U.K. rather than to criminal gangs who further their nefarious activities. Obviously some gangs grow in the U.K. but all the weed I encounter is now grown by people I have known all my life, and I imagine it is largely the same across the U.K.

So in a way I suppose I should thank the U.K. government for ushering in the new age of high quality weed 2 decades ago! Nice work!

Edited by Scott of the Antares
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11 hours ago, koti said:

I asked a sincere question and I’m here to learn. I assumed you being the forum chemistry expert you could lend a hand. And yes, since you’re the chemistry expert - it is your job John. 

How can I prove that a distinction between two classes does not exist?

However, I try to convince you.


You don't even consider dope to be a drug; the law and the pharmacopoeia do.

If there's no agreement on whether dope is a drug or not, how can there be agreement on whether it's a "hard" drug?

Also, since I'm the chemistry expert and I say there's no difference, you should accept that fact from me- as an expert.

10 hours ago, Abigboi said:

The easier it is to die from an overdose, the harder the drug is. MDMA and pot are next to impossible to OD on, heroin not so much.

 

OK, that's one definition.
Since nicotine is exceptionally easy to overdose on- it is more toxic weight for weight than cyanide- nicotine is a hard drug.

Plenty of people are killed by alcohol

Caffeine is lethal if taken in excess.

 

On the other hand, LSD is almost impossible to overdose on in the sense of  killing you.

The permanent brain damage is a different matter.

So LSD and cannabis are soft drugs- in spite of the well known dangers of long term damage.

Tea, tobacco, cocaine, heroin and beer are all hard drugs even though the range of observed harm caused by them, and the range of social acceptability, are enormous.

 

Is that distinction helpful?


Other definitions of "hard vs soft" also exist, but they all (as far as I know) run into similar problems when you look in detail.

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12 hours ago, koti said:

I asked a sincere question and I’m here to learn. I assumed you being the forum chemistry expert you could lend a hand. And yes, since you’re the chemistry expert - it is your job John. 

The statement is self explanatory. John said the distinction is not based on science. Which type of scientific research would show it isn't scientific? You are asking John to prove a negative. 

Lots of thing are unhealthy. Fast food is linked to any number of serious health problems like heart disease. Fast food can be described as a "soft" or a "hard" health risk. It is all relative to the individual, quantity, and view of the person making the assessment. 

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11 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

The statement is self explanatory. John said the distinction is not based on science. Which type of scientific research would show it isn't scientific? You are asking John to prove a negative. 

Lots of thing are unhealthy. Fast food is linked to any number of serious health problems like heart disease. Fast food can be described as a "soft" or a "hard" health risk. It is all relative to the individual, quantity, and view of the person making the assessment. 

Is there a scientific distinction between say, a double cheesburger and heroin?

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27 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Lots of thing are unhealthy. Fast food is linked to any number of serious health problems like heart disease. Fast food can be described as a "soft" or a "hard" health risk. It is all relative to the individual, quantity, and view of the person making the assessment. 

And if you make KFC illegal, Cartman is ready to smuggle it for you (at a price)...

14 minutes ago, koti said:

Is there a scientific distinction between say, a double cheesburger and heroin?

Does it matter?

Edited by dimreepr
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