Fester “predisposition to drug addiction was probably genetic.”

Yes, I am aware of that. I could even give you names where it incidence presently applies.

However, a “pre-disposition” identifies a greater likelihood, it does not commit or condemn someone to addiction as a irresistible fact and the easiest way of avoiding the risk is to avoid taking an illegal drug in the first place.

Fractelle “Col, once again you attack the person and not the argument:”

Oh your hypocrisy is rank.

“And the majority of drug users do not go on to become addicted.”

Just as a majority of car hoons do not die in accidents.

However, they present a significantly elevated risk to other law abiding citizens who happen to be using the roads.

So too drug abusers have a greater likelihood of becoming involved in violent crimes against people and in property crimes due to a loss of contact with reality (psychosis) and a need to fund an addiction (regardless the drug source being illegal or legal).

“Anyone who has followed this thread would know that my posts consist of well reasoned knowledge and research,”

You flatter yourself

“You forget many people read these pages and do not post. They are, no doubt, able to follow an argument. They know who has presented cogent debate and who hasn’t.”

I rely on it.

I note you have not even attempted to challenge one observation of mine

Observing, the legalization of gambling into Victoria saw a significant increase in gambling activity across the full spectrum of society, versus when casinos and poker machines were banned.

Indicates the legalization of presently illegal drugs will similarly erupt and increase exponentially as gambling did.

Further gambling is not physically addictive. The addictiveness of illegal drugs will ensure their use and consequently the numbers of addicts will exceed the numbers of “problem gamblers” and the social consequence of more drug addicts will result in

An explosion in burglary and theft crimes
An explosion in the demands placed on public services both legal enforcement and medical and judicial by drug related illness and crime.

Fractelle,
Yes I have expressed my stance on capital punishment, mainly in Col’s thread about the death penalty. Capital punishment is never justified, for many reasons.

Col (and PALE if you’re still in this discussion),
Ask yourself whether countries that apply/have applied the death penalty for drug dealers have fewer problems with drugs than countries with a softer approach.

Even if we did have the death penalty for murderers, that does not mean it’s justified to apply it blindly to all drug dealers because you’d have to have proof that every individual drug dealer actually has contributed to someone’s death.
And even then, the drug user took the drug of his own free choice- addiction is not 100% good enough reason to redirect his responsibility to the drug dealer. An addict can go to his GP and ask for help with his addiction. His choice was not to do that but continue taking drugs with the knowledge that risk is involved.

There’s no proof that ALL drug dealers have been the cause of the death of drug takers, because some drug dealers might have supplied drugs to people who were merely recreational users and in that case the drug dealer might have contributed to the drug user’s hours of fun at an XTC party.
You can’t give the death penalty to anyone for ‘potentially’ contributing to somebody’s death. The worst a drug dealer could be charged with is manslaughter. Australia would never give the death penalty for manslaughter.

Did Indonesia and China get rid of their drug problems because they apply the death penalty? Their drug problems are greater than in the Netherlands or Switzerland or Sweden with their softer approach.
France is talking about copying the Netherlands drug policy because they have fewer drug problems than all the surrounding European countries and especially the UK.
The USA with their tough policies doesn’t make much progress in reaching their goal either.

Continued

I reminded you that even the communist party in China wasn’t able to get rid of the drug problem long-term and think about it: they shot drug dealers AND drug users. Did that do much good?

This is only one story from one city but it gives an example of a soft approach:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/feb/24/drugsandalcohol.davidrose
“Two countries took the drugs test. Who passed?
In Holland, there is no war on drugs. They believe this is a social problem, not a criminal one. And all the evidence suggests that their policy works”

Gambling is a different social and health problem than drugs- it’s better to compare apples with apples.
At least I'm looking at different countries with different drug policies and it's obvious that some work better than others.

Celivia “Gambling is a different social and health problem than drugs- it’s better to compare apples with apples.”

The point with gambling and drugs, it is a comparison of “apples with apples”

Gambling is a voluntary pursuit in which many people seek to indulge and it can cost them a lot of money and in Victoria poker machines and casino games were, for many years, prohibited.

Illegal drugs - almost likewise

Gambling was legalized in the mid 1990s and since that time the numbers of people ending up in court, in bankruptcy and in dire straits has increased considerably.

The only difference between gambling and illegal drugs

Gambling is not physically addictive.

Legalizing illegal drugs will increase their usage, just like legalizing gambling, with the numbers of people ending up in court, in bankruptcy and in dire straits increasing considerably.

It will also INCREASE the number of DRUG ADDICTS which will in turn increase, exponentially, the crimes of theft, burglary and the deprivations and destruction to families and children, more so than that caused from the harmful affects of excessive gambling because of the “Physically Addictive” nature of drugs.

I have no statistics on that other than the 25% of male addicts in China following a century of legal opium and the relationship to gambling.

“At least I'm looking at different countries with different drug policies and it's obvious that some work better than others.”

China is “a different country” but more importantly,

I ask, what real data do you have to challenge my reasoned observations, apart from a couple of small scale tests, the outcomes of which are ambiguous and a bunch of pro-junkie propaganda?

I would like to see changes made but the changes you are seem to be proposing lack the national based research and do not reasonably support or give comfort to achieving any real and positive benefit which would warrant their adoption.

Hi all

I think capital punishment is wrong in all circumstances; it is state-sanctioned murder and makes us no better than the offender. Having worked in prison systems, I can reliably point out that a large percentage of inmates would not be there if it were not for illegal drugs.

And gambling is every bit as addictive as drugs. It's worth remembering that a large proportion of those who deal in drugs (and I don;t mean the big-time non-users) deal because they are addicted themselves and that is how they finance their own habit. It is also true that there is an "inherited vulnerability" to an addictive personality.

I think education is the key, but once someone is addicted (to drugs, alcohol, or gambling), they have to WANT to give it up. And where do we draw the line in the sand? Will cigarettes become illegal in our lifetime/s? Alcohol causes as much, if not more, social damage as drugs per capita. Will the government start compromising welfare recipients because they drink/smoke/use drugs?

Cheers
Nicky

Col

A genetic predisposition puts drug addicts in a similar category to diabetics. Perhaps you owe more to your genes than your character in avoiding drug addiction?

I would recommend that you read the transcript or listen to the podcast if you have the bandwidth.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2008/2342505.htm

For example, you differentiate between drugs like nicotine, alcohol, amphetamines or opiates on the basis of them being "physically addictive". Yet, from the transcript:

"The most addictive drugs appear to be nicotine and opiates; these are the ones that are hardest to stop but the probable reason for that is the way that those drugs are taken. At least the way nicotine is taken by smoking is intensely reinforcing because a very rapid spike of nicotine gets to the brain each time you puff on the first puff of the cigarette and that rapid gradient in concentration is what stimulates the reward pathway, just as injecting opiates intravenously produces a rapid gradient. The route of administration and the rapidity of onset of the drug is what makes for the particularly addictive properties."

"I have no statistics on that other than the 25% of male addicts in China following a century of legal opium and the relationship to gambling."

The research I cited found your figure to be out by a factor of 10. Dr Newman calculated total opium production from the available English records, then allocated amounts of opium to the population. The calculation showed that there could only be a small percentage of addicts unless the production figures had been grossly underestimated.

It is a shame that research into vaccines to combat drug addiction gets no support from drug companies. It makes me wonder how much addiction to prescription medication exists, and whether such vaccines would threaten profits from these drugs.

http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=723