Chests of Opium Imported to China.
Posted on 03/13/2012 9:55:41 AM PDT by JustSayNoToNannies
/johnny
Chests of Opium Imported to China.
Drug War bootlickers (a.k.a. closet socialists) arriving to spam this thread with ad homenim attacks in 3-2-1 ...
One single example is by definition utterly insufficient to establish what is "normal." Even the DEA isn't dumb enough to say 21st century America is identical to 19th century China.
Many soldiers on both sides of the Civil War who were given morphine for their wounds became addicted to it, and this increased level of addiction continued throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. In 1880, many drugs, including opium and cocaine, were legal — and, like some drugs today, seen as benign medicine not requiring a doctor’s care and oversight. Addiction skyrocketed. There were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S. That is twice as many per capita as there are today.
By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict.
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So we had 400,000 opium addicts in 1880, many of whom were addicted Civil War veterans. The population of the US in 1880 was around 50M. That works out to an addiction rate of 0.8% in 1880. Now, in 1900 the addiction rate to either opium or cocaine was 1 in 200. That is an addiction rate of 0.5%.
So in 1880 there were 0.8% addicted to just opium vs 0.5% to either opium or cocaine in 1900. The DEA is telling us that addiction declined substantially between 1880 and 1900, despite these drugs being legal.
Ask your nearest middle school student what drugs they have seen or heard of being used in their school.
Then ask them how hard it is to get their hands on beer.
One is illegal and has nearly a trillion dollars a year spent to prevent its use, one is for sale on nearly every street corner.
Game, set, and match.
I don’t think the drug war is worth the money and freedom it costs us. Maybe it would be different if the government wasn’t so corrupt and inefficient. If they were really at war with drugs they would stop them at our border instead of allowing them to flow into the country.
Not mentioned by the DEA, you mean? I mentioned it:
"The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reported in 2002 that teens said for the first time that they could get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer (http://www.casacolumbia.org/download.aspx?path=/UploadedFiles/b0ooqrvk.pdf). This is the DEA's idea of "progress"? What this shows is that the best way to restict teens' access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market)."
Nice catch!
ENDING THE FEDERAL DRUG WAR WILL NOT LEGALIZE DRUGS.
But they work really hard at trying to make you believe it would.
This will assuredly make America a better place.....
Once legalized it will be much easier for parents to convince their kids of the destructive effects of drug use.
And the kids, ever mindful of parental warnings, will heed their advice....
Why....didn't you see John Stossle’s citation of the success in Portugal?
Never mind that he avoided citing the failures in the Netherlands and Sweden.....
This will assuredly make America a better place.....
Ending the negative consequences of the futile and counterproductive War On Drugs will make America a better place. If that weren't so, we'd narrow the array of poisons by returning to alcohol Prohibition. Do you support that?
Once legalized it will be much easier for parents to convince their kids of the destructive effects of drug use.
And the kids, ever mindful of parental warnings, will heed their advice....
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reported in 2002 that teens said for the first time that they could get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer (http://www.casacolumbia.org/download.aspx?path=/UploadedFiles/b0ooqrvk.pdf). What this shows is that the best way to restict teens' access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market).
Why....didn't you see John Stossle’s citation of the success in Portugal?
Never mind that he avoided citing the failures in the Netherlands
How did the Netherlands fail?
and Sweden.....
"Penalties for possessing, using, or trafficking illegal drugs in Sweden are severe, and convicted offenders can expect long jail sentences and heavy fines." - http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1032.html
The number of eighth graders who reported trying illegal drugs increased from 2009 to 2010, according to data released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
But other statistics contained in the report "America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2011" are much more promising: The number of 12th graders who reported binge drinking decreased, as did the number of teens who gave birth.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/eighth-graders-illegal-drugs-teen-births-drop/story?id=14028428
Your response doesn't make sense. One single example of a person getting their head blown off is plenty enough information to decide that the same thing will happen to someone else who sticks their head in a cannon. (And it doesn't matter if they are a 19th century Chinese person, or a 21st century American. The same stupid act, yields the same stupid result.)
If I recall correctly, by 1905 50% of the Adult male population of Manchuria was addicted to opium.
The obvious answer is that if it's not self evident, it is pointless to explain it.
My recollection is that legal alcohol kills ~ 50,000 people per year. Isn't that a small sacrifice to pay for it? Only 50,000 dead people? (per year) Yes, we certainly need another bunch of substances to add to the death rate.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reported in 2002 that teens said for the first time that they could get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer (http://www.casacolumbia.org/download.aspx?path=/UploadedFiles/b0ooqrvk.pdf). What this shows is that the best way to restict teens' access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market).
But that benefit will be more than overwhelmed by the incidence of Addiction spreading throughout the land. The Loss is far greater than the benefit.
How did the Netherlands fail?
Don't know about the Netherlands, but I know the Swiss weren't very happy with their experiment.
Platzspitz, Zurich Switzerland. 
Platzspitz? Looks more like the Spitzplatz.
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