Fractelle “The words 'harm minimisation' aren't in your vocabulary are they?”

I wrote, immediately above “I am trying to minimise the ‘harm’ which they are attracted to, by making it illegal.”

(memory loss becoming a problem for you?)

"Drugs are illegal, users must be terminated... (sorry I mean) punished"

I can assure you, a drug user is doing more to ensure his ‘early termination’ than if he followed the statutes, which I support and not imbibe in illegal substances.

“I can't get this image of Davros out of my head.”

Sounds like “Davros psychosis", fractelle.

Does he talk to you too?

Steel there is no comparison between Muslims and illegal drugs. Your analogy of me to stevenlmeyer is therefore, facile.

(but I would rather be compared to stevenlmeyer than you)

“You think we all will suddenly start taking drugs,”

No but you will create the social values which, through legalization, endorses a habit as being more generally acceptable.

That will influence children as they grow and you will see the use of presently illegal substances rise and rise.

Chinas opium addiction epidemic in the end of 19th century did not happen overnight, it took around a century to get that bad and legalizing drugs of dependency today will be no different,

worse because modern derivatives are more addictive than the old stuff

Fester, fester, “moron why their ideas are moronic. I mean, what you really need is an IQ boost.”

So you have come back here to throw ad homenines around, as usual,

You cannot argue the point, have to attack the man.

No problems with my IQ, probably a lot higher than yours but modesty induces me not to say how much.

“a moron vilifying human beings and inanimate objects just grates me.”

May you choke on your own hypocrisy.

Keep up the ad homenines, you condemn your own views with your insane posting (and strengthen mine).

As Margaret Thatcher Said “. . .if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

. . . just the rattle of empty vessels

Col,
I understand that you are mainly worried about the social costs of drug legalisation and not about the private costs of drug users/abusers.
Then, why are you not advocating outlawing other drugs that have social costs, like tobacco and alcohol?
Alcohol is, socially, more damaging than any other drug.
Smoking has social costs as well.
According to the CSIRO:
”In 1998 - 99, the social costs of tobacco use in Australia were an estimated to be $21.1 billion, about 2.3% of the gross domestic product.”
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=NB04021.pdf

I still think it’s inconsistent of governments to legalise some drugs and not others that are equally or sometimes even less harmful than the legal drugs.

The majority of illegal drug users are no different than the majority of alcohol users.
There are abusers on both sides. The abusers cause the most social damage, not the users.

It is wrong to punish drug users when they do not cause social harm.

I agree that legalising a drug may not completely get rid of black markets but these will be greatly reduced because there will be far less demand for it.
When legalised, at least users will have a choice- buy from the legal market where there is control and regulation on quality, strength etc., or buy from the odd black market with the risk that the quality has been tampered with and strengths can vary, increasing the risk of overdosing.

Also, legalising a drug may actually reduce use. An example is tobacco.
According to the Cancer Council,
“Australia has succeeded in cutting its daily smoking rates in half over the last 20 years, from 35.4% of adults in 1983 to 17.7% in 2004. The World Health Organization rates smoking as the second major cause of death in the world.
In 1945 approximately 72% of Australian men smoked. In 2004 only 18.6% of Australian males were daily smokers.
In 1945 26% of Australian women smoked. In 2004 women were smoking at a slightly lower rate than men with 16.3% still smoking daily.”
http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/editorial.asp?pageid=37

Col You can't do simple mathematics like stevenimeyer... the comparison is fine. You even defeated your position with your last comment, by describing a process that took over one hundred years. Such a process is not an "epidemic" as you keep claiming. I've said before that is like saying hospitals today are as dangerous as those 100 years ago...the conditions are so different, it's stupid. We have vast amounts of information and education as well as ways to help actual addicts who abuse them. Your constant repetition of this epidemic doomsday scenario in an educated, somewhat rational society, is as credible as stevenimeyer's claims about the imminent takeover of muslims of countries across the world, when it would take hundreds of years under strict conditions, which obviously is not credible, but very scary to those who are gullible enough to believe it.

Cevelia “Alcohol is, socially, more damaging than any other drug.”

Only because it is more commonly used than other drugs.

And the number of alcohol addicts is not a high % because of number of users.

Smoking, whilst legal is being tolerated less and less, illegal use in offices, enclosed public areas, even in cars with children.

It is diminishing.

I smoked for 25 years. I went ‘cold turkey’ and stopped. No symptoms of physical withdraw. It is not physically addictive.

“The majority of illegal drug users are no different than the majority of alcohol users.
There are abusers on both sides.”

You continue to ignore the point that illegal drugs are far more addictive and harmful than alcohol or tobacco and their legalization would send a flag of acceptability, encouraging people toward a life of addiction and dependency. A dependency far more insidious than tobacco or alcohol.

“It is wrong to punish drug users when they do not cause social harm.”

It is the slope to greater addiction which does the harm.

Making acceptable to people the idea that using a drug of dependency is acceptable behaviour instead of condemning its use through legal prohibition.

Your example of using the reduction in tobacco use is invalid because. Like I said previously, it is not ‘physically’ addictive.

Steel the Chinese addicts to opium was 25% of Chinese males.

That was an “epidemic”. It was the growth which determined its use would be made illegal.

“the conditions are so different, it's stupid”
The conditions are… modern derivatives are more addictive than opium

therefore the speed and level of saturation of addiction will be greater and develop faster than 100 years ago.

That is simple logic, even someone like you should understand it.

“Your constant repetition of this epidemic doomsday scenario in an educated, somewhat rational society,”

“Addicts” have surrendered their “educated values” and any pretense to “reason” to the “monkey on their back”.

“ways to help actual addicts”

Better way is to minimise / prevent addiction by prohibiting drugs of dependency.

You are the gullible one, consistently denying the obvious consequences.

Col

Thank you for proving conclusively that you have no idea of the meaning of the words ‘harm minimisation’. I guess there are just some things that are difficult for you - like spelling Celivia’s name correctly more than once. While we all have our little foibles, clearly you require special care.

Now for your claim that alcohol is only worse than hard drugs because it is legally available.

Wrong.

Alcohol is more addictive than heroin - particularly for young people under 21 years of age.

http://www.healthfirst.net.au/content/view/1203/42/

“Alcohol is a legal mood-altering and addictive drug. It can be purchased by anyone of legal age according to local law.

Alcohol is by far the most common drug of abuse across all age groups. Alcohol is involved in nearly 50 percent of all major injuries, including motor vehicle accidents, assaults, stabbings, and shootings….

….People who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at age 21. Many people have been exposed to alcoholism in some form in their family; they grew up with or married an alcoholic or a problem drinker or had a relative who was an alcoholic or problem drinker.”

As alcohol is more readily available it is more frequently a gateway drug to hard drugs than is marijuana.

http://www.caan.adf.org.au/alcoholandeffects/

• Short-term/acute effects of alcohol include the following* :
• relaxation
• elevated mood
• decreased inhibition and judgment
• decreased reaction time, alertness and co-ordination
• impaired vision and perception
• emotional lability
• aggression
• slurred speech
• sleep disturbances
• memory impairment

And something Col needs to consider:

• Long-term / chronic effects of alcohol include the following:

• brain damage
• cancer
• hepatitis
• liver cirrhosis
• pancreatitis
• heart disease
• mental illness, e.g. alcohol dependence, depression, anxiety
social problem

Unfortunately, it looks like Col is reverting to form in this discussion. He started by stridently arguing a pro-prohibition case, using any dubious references he could glean from the Internet, but as these have all been refuted by other posters he has become increasingly obnoxious in his long-winded argumentation.

Now we have Col belligerently pushing his point of view, while insulting anybody who happens to argue against it. It's a pity really, because Col has on (rare) occasion shown himself to be open to persuasion - unfortunately, in this case it seems that his tabloid-fuelled prejudice has rendered him impervious to reason.

In which case, there's not much point in arguing with him about the stupidity of maintaining the 'war on drugs' in its present form. Meanwhile, our gaols will continue to be filled with people convicted of drug-related crimes, the police will continue to be corrupted, and Col and his partner can continue to derive their incomes from working in the penal system that prohibition maintains.