You just say that because you've never seen what happens when there are no drug laws.
When the hippies discovered LSD, they used it like candy, legally. Look at where those hippie liberals took the country.
Nearly every "evil" drug in existence today was legal and often commercialized during one of the greatest periods of economic and social expansion of the United States.
If they banned tobacco, the drug cartels would be raking in billions by cooking and distributing crack nicotine instead. Hasn't the abject failure of alcohol prohibition taught anyone anything?
Hmmm---and where would that be?? The only places I currently know about were the Netherlands and now Mexico.
"When the hippies discovered LSD, they used it like candy, legally. Look at where those hippie liberals took the country."
Oh, baloney. First, hippies were never more than a tiny minority, and secondly, even of those, the LSD druggies were a small minority. Marijuana was the "toke of choice".
They forces. With Guns, and courts, fines and prisons.
The left, and the big business Republicans FORCED the county, us, to hand over half of everything you ever earn for all of your life.
I've never been robbed by a criminal. But I get robbed each and every day, with real money by the government.
I can handle a stoner, doper or a armed ‘honest to God’ criminal. I can not defend my self from the thieving of the IRS, ATF, Congress and the President.
Yes I have seen the effects of legalized drugs; I lived in Europe for over three years. Be careful of what you assume on this forum; we have some very experienced and thoughful people on FR.
Instead of engaging in over-generalized banter, let us get specific. An old friend of mine investigated a multiple murder. A daughter was raped and murdered, a boy was tortured and murdered and the grandparents were murdered by a drug dealer who was looking for a 17 year-old kid who owed him under a hundred dollars. That was in the US!
Laws cannot take the place of human dignity. If some person wants to do drugs they will do them despite what laws say. As the nation has clearly lost the drug war, it is time to get into the business and clean things up in a way that takes money and power away from the criminals.
Think about that.....
Like how Portugal and the Netherlands have lower rates of marijuana use than the U.S.? That's what you were talking about, right?
You mean like back before they started this insanity in 1900?
Are you claiming there has been a fundamental change in human nature in the last century?
Unless your 100 years old, you have NOT seen what happens when there is no drug laws.
When the hippies discovered LSD, they used it like candy, legally. Look at where those hippie liberals took the country.
First off, it was the whole generation of people from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, that took the country in the wrong direction, not just the hippies who were but a percentage.
Simple Fact: Every generation before is responsible for the problems that the current generation has to deal with.
I don't think it has ever been all that commonly used, many people are scared off by the exaggerated horror stories, but there have always been small pockets of concentration.
In my experimenting days (30-some years ago) I used the stuff maybe 3 or 4 times. I'd have to say out of all the things I tried, which included nothing narcotic or addicting, that was the most pleasurable. I think it's main appeal to me was it had no noticeable physical effects. I was always a lightweight when it came to the irritating qualities of so many of those things, and LSD just didn't have any of that. Just 3 or 4 hours of abject hilarity followed by a complete and uneventful return to the natural world.
I don't think it's something people ought to use every day, but I don't think people should get drunk every day either, and certainly we have no shortage of such folks and huge numbers of them go on to slow and painful deaths because of it. Meantime where are all the fried for life zombies from LSD use? In fiction, that's where.
There were no drug laws in THIS nation prior to 1914, with the Harrison act. HOWEVER did we manage to get that far without big brother watching our every move and jailing us for using substances then available over the counter at ANY pharmacy in the country????
And the first drug laws were put in place explicitly to control certain elements of the population. Opium in smokable form was associated with the Chinese immigrants. It was their form of relaxation after a LONG hard day. Yet, they were demonized (right out of the predecessor of Alinsky’s playbook) and the notion was sold as “Let’s outlaw this because smoking opium makes white women have sex with Chinese men.”
No, the drugs were NEVER the problem. The problem has always been CONTROL OVER OTHERS, pure and simple- well, simple but much more evil than pure.
I doubt if you have either...were you born before the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act became federal law on Dec. 17, 1914? Or the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937?