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AuroEdge wrote:Bear in mind that just as decriminalized does not mean legal, the state of a drug being legal doesn't equate to being unregulated.
Exactly. Legalizing drugs would mean that the FDA could regulate drugs so you know what you're buying. I personally wouldn't buy these drugs anyway, but at least those who choose to use them aren't going to accidentally overdose because they got a batch of stuff that's more potent than they were used to. Also, who knows what else is mixed in there? I imagine that if you snort coke regularly, you're also snorting rat shit and whatever your coke has been cut with.
Amen to that.
The biggest win in my eyes is eliminating all drug-related crime, especially internationally. Even as a bonus, imagine the improvement in South American nations with warlords lacking a market in the U.S.
"He who cannot draw on 3,000 years is living hand-to-mouth." -Goethe
Jeeba Jabba wrote:
That's his decision. Not yours to judge or correct.
Which is why I've never said anything to him about it. If he wants to waste years while hes still young, not getting out and living a life, fine. Still sucks for all the friends he's abandoned.
I'm not okay with being the leach on society that a good percentage of potheads are.
OneThirty8 wrote:
AuroEdge wrote:Bear in mind that just as decriminalized does not mean legal, the state of a drug being legal doesn't equate to being unregulated.
Exactly. Legalizing drugs would mean that the FDA could regulate drugs so you know what you're buying. I personally wouldn't buy these drugs anyway, but at least those who choose to use them aren't going to accidentally overdose because they got a batch of stuff that's more potent than they were used to. Also, who knows what else is mixed in there? I imagine that if you snort coke regularly, you're also snorting rat shit and whatever your coke has been cut with.
That'd be a plus, but why? Why should something like that be legalized that you could drop dead from so easily? Legalizing it would make it widely available and cheaper. Yeah there are some people that could manage the responsibility of it always being available, but how many people out there wouldn't? The majority of the population are too big of idiots.
Jeeba Jabba wrote:
Amen to that.
The biggest win in my eyes is eliminating all drug-related crime, especially internationally. Even as a bonus, imagine the improvement in South American nations with warlords lacking a market in the U.S.
Thats about the only real positive I could see coming from legalization. That and saving the ridiculous about of money spent on the joke of a war.
AuroEdge wrote:Bear in mind that just as decriminalized does not mean legal, the state of a drug being legal doesn't equate to being unregulated.
Exactly. Legalizing drugs would mean that the FDA could regulate drugs so you know what you're buying. I personally wouldn't buy these drugs anyway, but at least those who choose to use them aren't going to accidentally overdose because they got a batch of stuff that's more potent than they were used to. Also, who knows what else is mixed in there? I imagine that if you snort coke regularly, you're also snorting rat shit and whatever your coke has been cut with.
That'd be a plus, but why? Why should something like that be legalized that you could drop dead from so easily? Legalizing it would make it widely available and cheaper. Yeah there are some people that could manage the responsibility of it always being available, but how many people out there wouldn't? The majority of the population are too big of idiots.
News flash: Drugs are already widely available and cheap. I could score just about anything I wanted in a few minutes if I wanted to. Figure a ten-minute drive into the city of Poughkeepsie from where I am right now, and five minutes or so until somebody asks me what I need.
OneThirty8 wrote:
News flash: Drugs are already widely available and cheap. I could score just about anything I wanted in a few minutes if I wanted to. Figure a ten-minute drive into the city of Poughkeepsie from where I am right now, and five minutes or so until somebody asks me what I need.
Hey man, no need to be a prick.
By widely available I mean pick it up from the corner store. And cheap being less than they are now.
I could make a few calls and get about anything in under an hour, I'm aware of their availability.
AuroEdge wrote:Bear in mind that just as decriminalized does not mean legal, the state of a drug being legal doesn't equate to being unregulated.
Exactly. Legalizing drugs would mean that the FDA could regulate drugs so you know what you're buying. I personally wouldn't buy these drugs anyway, but at least those who choose to use them aren't going to accidentally overdose because they got a batch of stuff that's more potent than they were used to. Also, who knows what else is mixed in there? I imagine that if you snort coke regularly, you're also snorting rat shit and whatever your coke has been cut with.
That'd be a plus, but why? Why should something like that be legalized that you could drop dead from so easily? Legalizing it would make it widely available and cheaper. Yeah there are some people that could manage the responsibility of it always being available, but how many people out there wouldn't? The majority of the population are too big of idiots.
News flash: Drugs are already widely available and cheap. I could score just about anything I wanted in a few minutes if I wanted to. Figure a ten-minute drive into the city of Poughkeepsie from where I am right now, and five minutes or so until somebody asks me what I need.
This is true. Drugs also come in many forms and qualities so you could find a personal favorite.
AuroEdge wrote:Bear in mind that just as decriminalized does not mean legal, the state of a drug being legal doesn't equate to being unregulated.
Exactly. Legalizing drugs would mean that the FDA could regulate drugs so you know what you're buying. I personally wouldn't buy these drugs anyway, but at least those who choose to use them aren't going to accidentally overdose because they got a batch of stuff that's more potent than they were used to. Also, who knows what else is mixed in there? I imagine that if you snort coke regularly, you're also snorting rat shit and whatever your coke has been cut with.
That'd be a plus, but why? Why should something like that be legalized that you could drop dead from so easily? Legalizing it would make it widely available and cheaper. Yeah there are some people that could manage the responsibility of it always being available, but how many people out there wouldn't? The majority of the population are too big of idiots.
News flash: Drugs are already widely available and cheap. I could score just about anything I wanted in a few minutes if I wanted to. Figure a ten-minute drive into the city of Poughkeepsie from where I am right now, and five minutes or so until somebody asks me what I need.
If drugs were really that accessible suffice to say more people would be doing them and we'd have less of the problems we currently face notably the inherent violence you get with black market drug sales. This is not the case though.
"The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is
that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too." -Oscar Levant
OneThirty8 wrote:
News flash: Drugs are already widely available and cheap. I could score just about anything I wanted in a few minutes if I wanted to. Figure a ten-minute drive into the city of Poughkeepsie from where I am right now, and five minutes or so until somebody asks me what I need.
Hey man, no need to be a prick.
By widely available I mean pick it up from the corner store. And cheap being less than they are now.
I could make a few calls and get about anything in under an hour, I'm aware of their availability.
Didn't mean to be a prick, but I doubt that legalization would lower prices much (the government will want their cut, after all) and where I live, you buy your weed outside the corner store and your Dutchies inside. So not much would change there, really.
AuroEdge wrote:
OneThirty8 wrote:
hearld500 wrote:
OneThirty8 wrote:
AuroEdge wrote:Bear in mind that just as decriminalized does not mean legal, the state of a drug being legal doesn't equate to being unregulated.
Exactly. Legalizing drugs would mean that the FDA could regulate drugs so you know what you're buying. I personally wouldn't buy these drugs anyway, but at least those who choose to use them aren't going to accidentally overdose because they got a batch of stuff that's more potent than they were used to. Also, who knows what else is mixed in there? I imagine that if you snort coke regularly, you're also snorting rat shit and whatever your coke has been cut with.
That'd be a plus, but why? Why should something like that be legalized that you could drop dead from so easily? Legalizing it would make it widely available and cheaper. Yeah there are some people that could manage the responsibility of it always being available, but how many people out there wouldn't? The majority of the population are too big of idiots.
News flash: Drugs are already widely available and cheap. I could score just about anything I wanted in a few minutes if I wanted to. Figure a ten-minute drive into the city of Poughkeepsie from where I am right now, and five minutes or so until somebody asks me what I need.
If drugs were really that accessible suffice to say more people would be doing them and we'd have less of the problems we currently face notably the inherent violence you get with black market drug sales. This is not the case though.
Drugs really are that accessible. Plenty of people do them. I don't like drugs, but I also don't like that the people who are using them are snorting/injecting/ingesting unknown substances in addition to the stuff they intend to do. I was just reading about all the different things that cocaine is cut with, and it's pretty scary. If you have a bad reaction, medical personnel won't know for sure what all is in your system. They'll know about the coke, but they may have to guess on the rest. It could be meth or a number of other stimulants, could be a number of different anesthetics that are used to simulate the numbing sensation so you think your coke is more pure than it really is... or it could just be baking soda. You just don't know.
Jeeba Jabba wrote:
That's his decision. Not yours to judge or correct.
Which is why I've never said anything to him about it. If he wants to waste years while hes still young, not getting out and living a life, fine. Still sucks for all the friends he's abandoned.
I'm not okay with being the leach on society that a good percentage of potheads are.
Wow, I had no idea he was taking money directly from your pocket to support himself.
"He who cannot draw on 3,000 years is living hand-to-mouth." -Goethe
toastman wrote:Legalizing drugs is a lot harder than it seems on the surface.
So is prohibiting drugs, or figuring out most other kinds of policy. I don't think Yegge is really wrong about the big-picture issues he discusses, but I think he's also blowing the problem out of proportion in order to illustrate his point. He says he was inspired by the complexity of Amazon's system, but in a way that argues against the relevance of the point to the actual decision. Amazon's system exists. It was built. It even works most of the time. However effective the Amazon management might be, I doubt that they managed to hire people who were able to hammer out all of those implementation details in a meeting 15 years ago before they started actually building the system.
"You know, I have a great, wonderful, really original method of teaching antitrust law, and it kept 80 percent of the students awake. They learned things. It was fabulous." -- Justice Stephen Breyer
toastman wrote:Legalizing drugs is a lot harder than it seems on the surface.
So is prohibiting drugs, or figuring out most other kinds of policy. I don't think Yegge is really wrong about the big-picture issues he discusses, but I think he's also blowing the problem out of proportion in order to illustrate his point. He says he was inspired by the complexity of Amazon's system, but in a way that argues against the relevance of the point to the actual decision. Amazon's system exists. It was built. It even works most of the time. However effective the Amazon management might be, I doubt that they managed to hire people who were able to hammer out all of those implementation details in a meeting 15 years ago before they started actually building the system.
That's Yegge's point however. It took a lot of time and effort to make Amazon's system. And it's always wound up being more complicated than first thought. Prohibition is relatively simple: You can't have it and if you have it, you go to jail. It covers just about all cases. Driving while stoned? Illegal, because you shouldn't have had drugs in the first place. Selling drugs? Illegal, because you shouldn't have had them in the first place.
All in all, I'm not against legalization. The "War on Drugs" has created more problems that it has solved and has put a lot of people in prison who really shouldn't be there. However, I'm of the opinion of a sort of sliding scale. Some drugs, such as marijuana should be relatively unregulated, while others such as most opiate derivatives need to be controlled a little more since abuse and addiction are huge risks.
toastman wrote:Prohibition is relatively simple: You can't have it and if you have it, you go to jail. It covers just about all cases. Driving while stoned? Illegal, because you shouldn't have had drugs in the first place. Selling drugs? Illegal, because you shouldn't have had them in the first place.
That's just describing it at a high level and ignoring the implications, though, which is exactly the opposite of what Yegge did for legalization. It's easier to ignore the hard questions about the status quo, since someone already (ostensibly) decided the answers. For example, what's the legal standard for "stoned" while driving? Who gets to decide? Which tests are considered reliable? Can a cop suspend your license if you don't pee in a cup? Is any detectable amount illegal, even if it's so low that it might be from secondhand exposure?
Maybe it is relatively simple, but that's not saying much.
toastman wrote:That's Yegge's point however. It took a lot of time and effort to make Amazon's system. And it's always wound up being more complicated than first thought.
And my point is that this essentially tells us very little about whether it was a good idea to do it. Yes, we need to keep in mind that "shit is not easy". Nobody should imagine that Congress is going to pass a bill and the next morning we'll all wake up in a world that's magically changed overnight. This goes for any major policy goal (including prohibition). But people can come up with policy positions and propose legislation, and we can try to figure out whether that's better or worse than the status quo.
"You know, I have a great, wonderful, really original method of teaching antitrust law, and it kept 80 percent of the students awake. They learned things. It was fabulous." -- Justice Stephen Breyer
BoneyCork wrote:Whcih drugs exactly? I don't want to live in a world where my future kids can start legally doing heroin.
Why not? If you raised them properly, there shouldn't be any concern.
Plus, it's a lot easier to illegally obtain drugs than it is to legally obtain them if you're underage.
I agree with the second point. You can't just walk into the right area and boom you've got drugs but teenagers will find them sooner or later. Hell, all they do is two things, go to school/work and network with other people.
"The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is
that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too." -Oscar Levant
BoneyCork wrote:Whcih drugs exactly? I don't want to live in a world where my future kids can start legally doing heroin.
Why not? If you raised them properly, there shouldn't be any concern.
Plus, it's a lot easier to illegally obtain drugs than it is to legally obtain them if you're underage.
First point: A properly raised law-abiding child could still end up doing heroin...because it's legal. They day you legalize it is the day it stops becoming less evil than everybody considers it now.
The secoind point I completely disagree with, especially with harder drugs. This may be a country thing.
BoneyCork wrote:Whcih drugs exactly? I don't want to live in a world where my future kids can start legally doing heroin.
Why not? If you raised them properly, there shouldn't be any concern.
Plus, it's a lot easier to illegally obtain drugs than it is to legally obtain them if you're underage.
First point: A properly raised law-abiding child could still end up doing heroin...because it's legal. They day you legalize it is the day it stops becoming less evil than everybody considers it now.
The secoind point I completely disagree with, especially with harder drugs. This may be a country thing.
Then you raised a law-abiding child who's an idiot.
And the second point is completely accurate. Kids were selling pot at my school, which was an expensive Catholic college prep school, by the time I was 12. By the time I was 20 I was still dialing distant friends to beg for them to meet me at the store so that they could buy a 12 pack of beer for me. Cocaine or heroin can be scored simply by asking anyone on a stroll down the block. Drug dealers don't care about your age, because they're already doing something illegal. Vendors do.
"He who cannot draw on 3,000 years is living hand-to-mouth." -Goethe
Jeeba Jabba wrote:Cocaine or heroin can be scored simply by asking anyone on a stroll down the block.
Where the hell do you live? And that's a figure of speech, I know you live in New Orleans, but Jesus Christ. I don't think I'd want to live in an area where drugs were so readily available.
Jeeba Jabba wrote:Cocaine or heroin can be scored simply by asking anyone on a stroll down the block.
Where the hell do you live? And that's a figure of speech, I know you live in New Orleans, but Jesus Christ. I don't think I'd want to live in an area where drugs were so readily available.
You would be surprised how easy it is to score drugs even in a good neighborhood in Poughkeepsie. I imagine that New Orleans isn't much different in that regard. It is a product, and there is a demand for it. Because there is a demand, there are plenty of people willing to supply the product. It's not restricted to the places you would think of as bad neighborhoods.
Jeeba Jabba wrote:Cocaine or heroin can be scored simply by asking anyone on a stroll down the block.
Where the hell do you live? And that's a figure of speech, I know you live in New Orleans, but Jesus Christ. I don't think I'd want to live in an area where drugs were so readily available.
You would be surprised how easy it is to score drugs even in a good neighborhood in Poughkeepsie. I imagine that New Orleans isn't much different in that regard. It is a product, and there is a demand for it. Because there is a demand, there are plenty of people willing to supply the product. It's not restricted to the places you would think of as bad neighborhoods.
I guess things are just different here. Topeka is kind of an old folks town. I've hung out with some rough people so I know where to get drugs if I wanted them, and they are in the most stereotypical "bad" neighborhoods you can imagine. Hell, whenever my friend needed weed he'd have to enter his dealer's apartment alone and be searched at the doorstep for weapons, then take care of business and leave immediately afterward without even making eye contact, and they've been doing business together for years. That's for a small bag of god damn weed.
There's no in between here. You have the clean, wholesome neighborhoods here where the elderly take their daily strolls with their dogs and grandchildren, and you have the neighborhoods that you don't even want to drive through unless you drive fast or unless people know you as a customer.
I guess based on this fact alone I should be supporting drug legalization, especially weed. I just don't want to live in a nation of potheads. In a way I already do, but at least people aren't as open with it. I used to smoke pot and have nothing but bad memories tied to it, I refuse to smoke it ever again. I'd hate to be exposed to that shit every god damn place I go.
