Carlos Santana to Obama...

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Aramike

I have no problem with people sustaining medical problems due to drug use. What I *DO* have a problem with is people getting health care on the public dime for these inevitable medical problems because their crack habit leaves them broke. I *DO* have a problem with endangering all of our safety by making crack available to people who'd literally do ANYTHING for it.

I have the same objections, which is why I advocate the phased abolishment of Federal Healthcare and support the encouragement of private gun ownership. As with most things, I favor a de-centralized, libertarian approach.
However, if we were to look at potential healthcare costs for drug users in a legalized drug system, with the same healthcare system we have now, I suspect that the funding that could be taken from the Drug War would more than make up the difference. Using a very rough estimate from the DEA annual Budget (approx. 2.5 billion, I used wikipedia, I was in a hurry and that was one of the lowest figures) and statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics citing 9.4 million illicit drug users in the workforce
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/du.htm (and 14 billion in additional costs, rounded to 11.5 billion as a conservative estimate of shared costs)
and the average amount of dollars spent on U.S. Healthcare per person (about $7,000. I used wiki again, short on time) I have concluded that about 7 billion would need to be spent annually if every single one of them required government healthcare for drug related problems. While imprecise, this is the estimate I came up with that was most in favor of your argument about healthcare costs.
I have thus far been unable to find statistics about the average cost drug users incur upon the healthcare system, but then again, I'm assuming that all drug users need the national average in healthcare cost. We can agree that this is a conservative estimate in your favor, yes? The cost to the workforce alone would be around 9 billion, not including other groups, but then we also aren't factoring in private insurance, which covers more than half of the nation.

Furthermore, it is a FACT that legalizing an activity causes more of that activity to occur.

Is it? I have graphs concerning Prohibition period if you want to see them. I also have a wealth of data on gun-control and murder rates that might be applied. I'm sure you have some supporting your case as well. Present them and I'll present my counter-arguments. My prohibition graphs concern average alcohol consumption per person, arrests for public intoxication per capita, and some of the later drug surveys. Admittedly, none of these are perfect because of typical statistical innacuracies, but neither are yours.

Certain types of drugs are so inherently dangerous that legalizing them in the name of "liberty" puts all of us at risk.

That is true, but risk is part of what makes a free society free, is it not? Honestly I'm a little astonished that you would put forth such an argument. For all the harms that drug abuse has caused, surely you must see that the harms of the state are, will be, and have been, much greater. I have already posited the point that private industry is a much more effective, efficient, and beneficial regulator.
What would you have us do?

Also, I don't have a problem with the so-called War on Drugs ... just with how its being fought.

Pursuant to my last question, how would it be fought more effectively? It is easy to postulate as to how it might be done, but it is nigh impossible to deny that the state is not the answer, or to formulate an effective state remedy.
I am curious to see how you would like to see such a war persecuted.

[kiwi_2005]

Take a look at amsterdam are they all gone insane with lustful desires & on the brink of killing each other cause of cannibis? Nope didn't think so either.

[Arclight]

http://home.deds.nl/~quip/amstercrime.html

Perhaps not insane, but it isn't exactly the most pleasant place at night...

[antikristuseke]

Does not sound at all diferent to anywhere else I have been.

[Arclight]

By Dutch standards it's pretty bad.

Nice article "tackling drug related crime", even if it's in favor of legalization.

*edit; some interesting observations.

"It seems, even where they are legal or tolerated, that drugs breed violence. It is poignant that my brother, who has had bitter and damaging problems with drugs and alcohol, is most adamantly against the legalization of drugs. Sometimes I think back in the States we should legalize drugs and let all the fools who are going to kill themselves do it and be done with it. It is like that laboratory rat that can give itself drugs by hitting a bar in front of him and proceeds to do so continuously until it dies. Essentially, addicts are no different. There are no free lunches or miracle cures in this world and the transient pleasure from drugs is usually paid for in one way or another. I have no pity for today's lotus eaters who are so blithe to embark upon their Faustian agreement (pleasure for your soul). I am so tired of the argument that chemical dependency is a "medical disease" which discounts so much personally responsibility. People know the stuff is dangerous in the beginning but eiither refuse to believe it or gravitate towards it for exactly that reason. It is sad that people are so prone to abuse the extraordinary freedom they have here. And it is precisely because so many of my generation have been so damaged by drugs and alcohol that I have so little pity for them."

"All throughout Europe, I have been struck by a smug boredom, a gentle and flaccid comfortableness. There is a lack of primal energy. People talk more where in the U.S. people move. We could learn a lot from the Europeans about how to sit down, relax, and enjoy a good dinner and lively conversation. I think the French, especially, enjoy "clever" dialogue. The emphasis in the States is on efficiency, convenience, success, get it done, bottom line effectiveness. And then with the dronish work-obsessive Japanese, we have come full circle."

[August]

Originally Posted by Frame57

Seeing as you do not want to play, I will still answer yours. This becomes the lesser of two evils. You baited it by giving the pot head an occaisional toke and the other is a drunkard. Obviously I would go with the occaisional pothead.

And you didn't bait yours with a quarter ounce a day smoker vs the straight arrow?

My point was that the only valid measure of a persons ability on the job is their performance on the job, not what they may or may not do in their off duty time. Now it's quite likely that both the heavy pot smoker and the heavy drinker are not going to have good track records, regardless of the legality of their favorite drug, but again it's their job performance that counts.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Frame57

Well, this does explain things Steve..... Do you get the munchies still?

I think I can show that my potato chip/dorito addiction predates any other problems I might have.

Or does salt-and-grain consumption lead to harder drugs? I demand an investigation! And reparations from Laura Scudder!

[Frame57]

August mine was basically A. A pothead and B. Not a pothead. No real distinction, either you are or you are not. I am not making a case here over booze and pot. Because it just boils down to the lesser of two evils. I just would not rust anyone who needs a crutch of any sort. My question could certainly apply with alchohol as well. Last summer I has emergency surgery for a ruptured gall bladder and I did not have time to check the surgeons credentials. Nor did I have the time to see if he was a pothead or not. But hypothetically if I had a choice of doctors and knew one was a substance abuser I would make the obvious choice.

[Frame57]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I think I can show that my potato chip/dorito addiction predates any other problems I might have.

Or does salt-and-grain consumption lead to harder drugs? I demand an investigation! And reparations from Laura Scudder!

MMmmmm! Nachos....

[August]

Originally Posted by Frame57

August mine was basically A. A pothead and B. Not a pothead. No real distinction, either you are or you are not. I am not making a case here over booze and pot. Because it just boils down to the lesser of two evils. I just would not rust anyone who needs a crutch of any sort. My question could certainly apply with alchohol as well. Last summer I has emergency surgery for a ruptured gall bladder and I did not have time to check the surgeons credentials. Nor did I have the time to see if he was a pothead or not. But hypothetically if I had a choice of doctors and knew one was a substance abuser I would make the obvious choice.

Perhaps there lies the crux of our disagreement. I don't see the occasional toker to be an "abuser" any more than the person who has the occasional drink to be a drunk.

[Sailor Steve]

Frame, that's your choice, and I can't say I don't agree with you. But that's also my choice. Whether said surgeon is or isn't using dope in his off-hours is cause for concern, but he may be doing it whether it's legal or not. And if he perfomed heart surgery on your mother and brain surgery on your daughter, and the day before your scheduled gall-bladder removal you found out about his nocturnal habit? At that stage it wouldn't change my mind. He might actually claim it as the reason for his steady hands.

But the question is should it be legal, not should we judge the user on his use. One is a general societal question and the other is a matter of personal judgement.

[Frame57]

Occaisonal is fine. It just seems to me that because pot is illegal and thereby harder to obtain than going to store and buying a fifth of booze on occaision, that the pot smoker would tend to be a bit more of a habitual user rather than an occaisional one. Why risk the legal repurcussions for an occaisional buzz?

[Aramike]

ACK! I had a big reply written to Undersea last night, and it timed out.

I'll catch up with that again later tonight.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Aramike

ACK! I had a big reply written to Undersea last night, and it timed out.

I'll catch up with that again later tonight.

Don't you hate it when that happens? I'd like to see your points, but if it is a lot of trouble to re-type them, that's ok. I have a habit of questioning my own arguments, so I'd just call it "unresolved"