Philosophical Vegan Forum

I recently read an article about an herbal "drug" called Kratom, and it piqued my interest. Apparently it is being used mainly for people either trying to quit using heroin or alcohol, or just to get a moderate high. It is currently legal, but due to it being pleasurable and having never caused a single death, of course the DEA wanted to place it in the schedule 1 drug classification. (Tylenol kills people every year, but using a plant that makes you feel good must be punishable by prison time, right? ) But....they actually decided not to make it illegal due to public outcry. (I tried a moderate dose myself, and it is intoxicating, but less so than alcohol or marijuana. It has an opiate like effect, but it is mild. I had a few drinks waiting for it to kick in, but once it did I noticed my desire to continue drinking was markedly reduced.)

I am quick to criticize the government on many, many things, so this common sense decision actually floored me.

Is this a sign the government is starting to concede that the "war on drugs" is a losing battle, and only serves to make criminals of otherwise law abiding persons? Marijuana is slowly creeping into legality, and some locales are even starting to treat "hard" drug users as persons with a treatable problem instead of criminals. (I don't consider addiction a disease as you always have a choice to use or not to use. As a former addict myself, I consider it a series of poor choices you choose to keep making. But I don't believe poor choices that do not harm others should be criminalized.)

What would be the best way for us as a society to deal with drug use?

Would legalizing and regulating even "hard" drugs such as cocaine and heroin be beneficial or more harmful?

I contend that legalizing all drugs and taxing them would provide enough revenue through taxes and reduced cost of incarceration to both treat addicts who wish to get clean, and in fact would lead to a surplus that could be used for other socially relevant causes, such as providing for the homeless or simply fixing the damn roads. Thoughts on this?

Decriminalize, but don't legalize. Selling drugs should be more similar to a parking violation. Fined, not taxed.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Decriminalize, but don't legalize. Selling drugs should be more similar to a parking violation. Fined, not taxed.

Why do you prefer decriminalization of legalization? Wouldn't regulated drug industries effectively eliminate unsafe and / or unethical drug dealing processes, be beneficial to the econonomy, and help contribute to public progams?

Cirion Spellbinder wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:Decriminalize, but don't legalize. Selling drugs should be more similar to a parking violation. Fined, not taxed.

Why do you prefer decriminalization of legalization? Wouldn't regulated drug industries effectively eliminate unsafe and / or unethical drug dealing processes, be beneficial to the econonomy, and help contribute to public progams?

Cirion said it (and much more eloquently that I would have, I'm sure) before I could. Wouldn't decriminalization have the same basic outcome as legalization? So why would it be more advantageous to ignore the "law breaking" than just concede that banning it is ineffective?

(edited for small spelling error.)

Legalization means you can buy it more easily. It's better that you can't pick up a bag of crack at the check-out aisle at Walmart.
People shouldn't have easy access to these drugs, but if they do manage to find them they shouldn't be punished, and the sellers shouldn't be punished so hard that they will resort to violence or criminal action to avoid being caught.

It's a balancing act between protecting people from exposure and temptation and preventing criminal behavior that causes more harm.
It's also better than alcohol isn't sold or used in public. Imagine how much that would help alcoholics if they had to track down a dealer and it wasn't tempting them in every grocery store and gas station. Of course, that ship has sailed. But if we don't have to reintroduce these drugs to store shelves, we shouldn't.

brimstoneSalad wrote: It's also better that alcohol isn't sold or used in public. Imagine how much that would help alcoholics if they had to track down a dealer and it wasn't tempting them in every grocery store and gas station.

In certain areas of the country where alcohol is prohibited to buy, alcoholics will purchase hair spray and mix it with a jug of water to drink. (NBA) Or drink aftershave. And there was a time when drunks had to find a dealer, it was known as prohibition and it was ineffective; It only succeeded in making criminals like Al Capone wealthy.

I was addicted to cocaine, especially the "crack" version. I haven't used in twelve years now, but I guarantee if I wanted to and had $100 in my pocket, I could find it in any major city in the US, and even the smaller cities with a bit more time. People who have the inclination to get/stay intoxicated will find a way. Alcohol is obviously banned in prisons, but the inmates make their own "wine". (Pruno)

Addicts will find what they want, but even though a drug may make you addicted, I stand by the assertion that it won't make you violate your most basic morals. At my lowest point, I sold everything I owned for drugs, but I never once resorted to stealing because that would have violated my moral code.

Decriminalization seems to me to be a lazy legislative process. (It's illegal, but we don't care.....unless we think we can charge them with even more criminal acts. (Sleeping in public, pan handling, selling merchandise without a permit, etc.) The majority of drug "dealers" are actually addicts trying to
finance their own habits. Every time the "man" actually busts a major dealer (after spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars) two more pop up to take over the trade. Either ban it totally, or make it legal.

PsYcHo wrote:People who have the inclination to get/stay intoxicated will find a way.

I understand. My concern is for people with the inclination or desire to get clean. Would it have been easier or harder if there were gum-sized packages of crack at every checkout counter for $1 each?

brimstoneSalad wrote: I understand. My concern is for people with the inclination or desire to get clean. Would it have been easier or harder if there were gum-sized packages of crack at every checkout counter for $1 each?

,

The same. Once I decided to quit, I still hung around my addict friends at first. The moment that I knew I could take back control of my life was when I sat in the same room with my "friends", and they were smoking crack in front of me. (trying to get me to use, because each additional user can contribute when the dealer comes around) I talked to them, and admittedly I felt a huge desire to participate, but I had made the choice to stop using. . I didn't wave a magic wand that removed all temptations. I hated the fact that a substance was controlling my thoughts and actions.

To this day, I still occasionally crave it. But I made the choice to stop using. About three years after I stopped, I found a "loaded" (filled with smokable crack) pipe in a hotel room. I craved it like no one who hasn't done it can understand. I stared at it for a while, thought about the pros and cons of smoking it, and with shaking hands threw it in the toilet and flushed. I made the choice to stop using and take control of my life. To this day I know I could go to a house withing walking distance and buy some. I choose not to. It's not an easy choice, and if I said I wasn't tempted I would be lying. Legal or not, I could get it.

I think that experience is probably pretty unique to you, having a particularly strong will power.

http://www.livescience.com/10556-temptation-harder-resist-study-suggests.html

Cigarette cravings: Fifty-three university students who smoked were placed into a high- or low-control group, in which a bogus test suggested each had either a high or low capacity for impulse control. Then, the participants had to watch a film called "Coffee and Cigarettes" without smoking. Participants chose their level of temptation with corresponding levels of payoff. They could either keep the unlit cigarette in another room (lowest), on their desk, in their hand, or in their mouth (highest).

On average, low-control students chose to watch the film with the cigarette on the table, and those who thought they could easily resist temptation chose to keep the cigarette in their hand. About 33 percent of the high-control students caved and smoked during the film, while just over 11 percent of the low-control participants lit up.

Despite being paid for for resisting the temptation to smoke (having more motivation), those who held the cigarette in their hands vs kept it on the desk were three times more likely to smoke.
The amazing thing in this study is that being told they were good at resisting didn't even help them when the impulse kicked in (or, it probably helped, but not enough to overcome the harm of higher level of exposure).

Anyway, generally speaking, people are more likely to cave to temptation the closer and more accessible it is.
Watching others do it. Seeing it. Touching it, smelling it.
If you have to walk two blocks to satiate your addiction instead of one, your will power has a better chance.
If you can't even buy groceries without being within a couple feet and three words ("pack of camles", etc.) of your vice, you're basically fucked unless you have enormous will power and commitment -- most people simply don't.
Anything and everything that removes the offending item from sight or immediate vicinity helps prevent relapse.

Keeping drugs illegal puts them out of sight, because people don't want to be fined. It means no advertisement. It means it's not sitting there staring you down in the check out line. Decriminalizing them crashes the market price which means less thieving and murder, and it's no longer financially viable for drug dealers to stand around on the street asking people if they want to buy drugs since they don't sell for as much.

Yes, there would be speakeasies and drug dens, but by nature these things are out of sight, less convenient, and only known to the initiated. They aren't standing around outside playgrounds trying to get ten-year-olds to buy crack or weed with money they stole out of their parents purses or wallets.

PsYcHo wrote:To this day I know I could go to a house withing walking distance and buy some. I choose not to. It's not an easy choice, and if I said I wasn't tempted I would be lying. Legal or not, I could get it.

I know, but that's not the question. Wouldn't it be MORE tempting if you had to see it every day in the check-out aisle of your local grocery store or gas station? Wouldn't it be more tempting, like the pipe in the hotel room, if it was right there, not just within walking distance?

The point is not to make it so drug addicts can not get it. The point is to make it so that people trying to quit the addiction (who may want to quit, but not have your impulse control) have a better time of it, and so that fewer people try it since it's not being sold everywhere.

Decriminalizing it will crash the market place and get rid of the corner boys, without legalizing it which would put it in corner stores. People will have to go out of their ways to get drugs, they'll be able to get them if they want, but people trying to quit won't have it thrown in their faces all of the time like it is with alcohol and used to be (and still is a bit) with cigarettes.

brimstoneSalad wrote:
Wouldn't it be MORE tempting if you had to see it every day in the check-out aisle of your local grocery store or gas station? Wouldn't it be more tempting, like the pipe in the hotel room, if it was right there, not just within walking distance?

I see your point, but this is the exact scenario that alcoholics and former cigarette smokers have to deal with every day. Some states have tried to solve this problem by only allowing alcohol sales in specific stores, which I think is a great idea. Legalization doesn't mean a lack of regulation. Why have a law on the books if it is not to be enforced?

brimstoneSalad wrote: The point is not to make it so drug addicts can not get it. The point is to make it so that people trying to quit the addiction have a better time of it, and so that fewer people try it since it's not being sold everywhere.

I contend that the money saved by not having to enforce the prohibition, coupled with the increased tax revenue from users, would be able to provide addicts who want to get clean with free rehabilitation. A statement that is often repeated among former addicts is "you will quit when you want to."

brimstoneSalad wrote: Decriminalizing it will crash the market place and get rid of the corner boys, without legalizing it which would put it in corner stores.

We seem to agree that criminalizing drug use is wrong. I think total legalization, with regulation, would solve the problem of making it too available.