A recent discussion further to legalization

This is part of a discussion on the WFP website I was commenting on the other day (full story here).

POSTED BY:Common Sense and Reality

APRIL 17, 2009 AT 8:59 PM

Chris Buors, the crime is bringing in this poison. It’s making available a substance that is causing violence and crime. Hard drugs, like "E" and cocaine are the reasons your home is broken into and your local 7-Eleven is robbed at knife point. It’s the reason someone unknown to you will threaten and harm you for your purse or wallet - so they can get their next rock of cocaine or what ever their poison of choice is. It causes addicted people to do things they wouldn't normally do. It is destroying our society - its is killing people, some of them innocent. If our government would take a stance and treat those who traffic it or possess it, like the States do, maybe we would have less shootings, robberies, thefts and break-ins in our City.

More drugs in the Peg = High Crime

Less drugs = Low Crime.

Let’s face it, when your home is broken into, no one is buying diapers and food with your flat screen TV.

POSTED BY:rck

APRIL 18, 2009 AT 12:36 PM

Common Sense you are right that many violent street level crimes and B & E's are related to the drug trade, but unfortunately your equation is still wrong, because drug enforcement creates more problems than it solves. Consider that if drugs were legalized tomorrow the price for them would tumble considerably, most of what someone pays for a rock of crack or whatever is the price of risk. That's not to say people who are hopped up on this insidious substance won't go and do stupid things, but there would be less pressure to rob people at axe point, a situation that only the most desperate person finds them self in.


Now consider what a taxed, monitored supply of drugs could provide for society:
-Taxation that could be used directly to rehabilitate people whose lives are ruined by these substances (face it people will ALWAYS use and abuse them legal or not)
-Millions returned to the budget of law enforcement because they won't be spending so much money to stem the tide of illicit substances that somehow still manage to make it onto our streets.
-The cash starvation and subsequent death of most of the country's most powerful street gangs, and a serious blow to the organized criminals above them.

Now let's reconsider your equation:
Taxation on drugs directed to rehabilitation + increased budgets for law enforcement - violent gun toting street gangs who live and breathe the drug trade= a safer, saner Winnipeg.

POSTED BY:Common Sense and Reality

APRIL 18, 2009 AT 1:34 PM

Just look at the problems society is faced with the legalized drugs of alcohol and tobacco: The social problems of alcoholism and the deaths related to drinking and driving, and the health problems of both drugs resulting in billions of dollars being spent by the government to care and treat these people from psychological problems to cancer. So now let’s add cocaine, meth, and heroine to the legal side and let’s make it readily available at any quantity for a moderately inexpensive price and see what happens. The amount of people that would become dependent on these powerful drugs would burden our society beyond belief.

The chemical makeup of certain drugs (hard) causes them to be highly addictive due to how they create the “high” experienced by the user (neurotransmitters and dopamine) as compared to other “softer” drugs like marihuana and alcohol. Be careful what you wish for if it is your wish to legalize drugs.

POSTED BY:rck

APRIL 19, 2009 AT 11:18 AM

CS, I refute your notion that legalization of drugs would create an epidemic of addiction. As with alcohol abuse the majority of abusers will be in the minority and the percentage of the population who would choose this life would remain low. Most of us would not consider a life of smoking meth or main-lining heroin to be a very good one, and would not take it up just because it's legal (or if we did would fight like hell to get free of the addiction). One would hope that legalization might serve to encourage the development of high-producing drugs that aren't as devastating as meth, heroin, etc. Furthermore, it would permit the introduction of more safe injection sites where chronic users could be monitored and offered social services (addictions counicilling, health care, housing, etc.) along with their daily fix.



Still, the main point: PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS DO DRUGS. The way to make the best of this situation is collect tax on it and create a mental health program that attempts to address the root cause of their substance abuse. The worst thing to do is let gangsters keep all that money while not having enough in the budget to look after the lives that are ruined by the fact that no one is capable of making these drugs (or more to the point, the desire for them) go away.


It's awful that people cause so much damage to themselves and others by smoking, drinking, doing drugs, whatever, but they do. There's no point in trying to change human nature at gunpoint, because it won't happen that way. The thing to do not to hurl resources at the supply side of the problem, but find ways to address the demand. The demand for smoking has gone down considerably since the government and other NGO's started campaigning against it, likewise the demand for drugs can be lessened by increased education much more effectively than through prosecution.

nicotine, valium, vicodin, ecstasy and alcohol...

This is an editorial submission I made to the WFP today.

A recent letter to the Winnipeg Free Press made the rather simplistic argument that illicit drugs should never be legalized because the express purpose of drugs is to get people high. The author was of the opinion that everyone who snorts a line of coke or takes a hit off a bong immediately gets behind the wheel of a car and causes a traffic accident. Ignorant as this opinion is it got me to wondering what really is behind the continued prohibition of illicit narcotics.

The war on drugs makes absolutely no sense when one looks at it rationally. It has cost tens of thousands of lives worldwide, billions in tax dollars and is no closer to being over than it was on the day it started. It has turned some developing regions into “narco states”—where despotic drug mafias and totalitarian political factions rule—and created a lucrative black-market economy in the developed world that siphons off billions of dollars annually.

Our view of illegal drugs is really just a problem of perception. People are taught by others, most of whom have never even used the narcotics in question, that drugs are inherently evil. I’m not out to glorify drug use, but I do know many people who use them or have in the past—they are not a disproportionately wicked bunch. Some have gone to prison, some are ne’er-do-wells, but most of them are pretty regular folks and some are even extremely successful. They are like everyone else who has ever done something that someone else pointlessly told them not to do. They discovered the thing they were told was so bad and dangerous was actually pretty harmless and enjoyable, and continued to do it despite the risks.

Yes, some people do get addicted and ruin their lives; on the other hand we gladly allow people the choice to destroy their lives with alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs every day. The chemically addictive properties of many narcotics are no more of a menace than many of the legal options that people get hooked on, indeed some of the banned substances are not at all chemically addictive. But perhaps our disdain for them gives society somewhere to direct the fear and disgust many people feel for those who experience addictions, and/or the desire to distort their realities.

The dilemma with legislating our disgust though is that it creates a whole new host of problems. For one thing laws that are considered to be inane or arbitrary are ignored, no matter how well meaning—stakeout a three-way stop sign in a residential neighborhood for a few hours if you don’t believe me. In the long run such regulations lead to greater disrespect for the law in general.

Another difficulty is that making drugs illegal puts the lives of people who make bad choices in very bad hands. Users usually find their next fix without too much trouble, their dealers are happy to sell them all the drugs they can afford, no questions asked. However when someone wants to escape the brutal cycle of depression, anxiety and criminality that accompanies serious substance abuse they often find there is no sympathy and nowhere to turn.

A third problem is that increased enforcement tends to raise the price for illicit drugs driving even more dollars underground. The billions that drug users spend on their habit disappear into thin air. Instead of being responsibly managed by people who might think to open a rehab clinic or a homeless shelter the proceeds build armies for foreign despots and supply guns for the gangs in our cities. In other words, in the process of trying to save people from themselves our primary accomplishment thus far has been to make some extremely nasty criminal organizations, juntas and terrorist syndicates very rich, powerful and dangerous.

The demand for narcotics has not abated since drug enforcement became the international juggernaut it is today. Whereas the music of the sixties glamourized the use of drugs as mind-expanding, the music today glamourizes not just the drugs but the violence and big payouts that accompany a gangster lifestyle. It used to be that the pusherman was reviled; now he is a hero.

The moral superiority that drives the continued prohibition of certain drugs while generously prescribing others is hypocritical beyond belief, meanwhile the war on drugs is a costly exercise in futility. The way forward is to legalize narcotics while finding ways to make them less sexy to youth.

Allowing people to indulge will not create more of an epidemic than already exists, it will however permit scientists to study drug use more effectively, let help agencies attempt more controversial methods for rehabilitation and give governments access to a fair share of the profits. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all though will be that the lives of countless peace officers, military personnel and civilians will be saved by starving the drug armies out of existence and denying street gangs access to easy money.

Thoughts on the Inevitability of Global Warming

Here is the link to an article I read today, and my response (as submitted to the WFP commentary). I am interested in your opinions, don't be shy!


Obama's Emission Cuts: Pragmatic Suicide
by Gwynne Dyer

I'm of the opinion that it really is too late to do whatever the Gwynne Dyer's of the world would have us do about Global Warming (don't get me wrong, Mr. Dyer is one of my favourite columnists). Whether you are of Mr. Lambert's opinion or Rev. Blair's (personally I'm on the fence) it matters not. We are not capable as a species of relinquishing our desire for greater economic wealth, and no threat of imminent doom is great enough or near enough at hand to change the course of our civilization, period.

I myself am very conscious of what I consume and always will be, no matter if I am preventing Global Warming or not. I do so because I believe a better life for me does not exist in things, and I also believe that the generations that come after me should not have to suffer unduly for my greed. But I am also aware that my views are in the minority, and understand (not merely out of cynicism or spite) that most people want to live for today, have been told to live for today and can only live for today. If the world goes through an apocalyptical climactic change sooner rather than later so be it, geologically speaking it was bound to happen anyways. Drive your cars, live your lives, but don't neglect to prepare your children for the tomorrows that you will be lucky enough to escape—perhaps they will be among the few to survive the wars and mass starvation that are bound to follow if the predictions are anywhere near right.

(BTW, not to toot my own horn too loudly but I was made aware today that my most recent to the editorial pages of the Freep was published last week while I was nowhere near a local news stand. Read it here, if you dare.)