Right Honourable Terry Tory
“Knight, Batb and scar should stick to what they truly know and avoid commenting on something they have obviously never “experienced”
I am not unfamiliar with the common recreational drugs and have managed to kick them all, most notably alcohol and tobacco. So now we’re going to legalize weed and outlaw the hamburger? Doesn’t sound like my society.
If we could let drug addicts die on the street scratching at the hospital door without being let in, fine. When they fail the tests of parenthood and their kids are hungry and adopted out, fine. If I am allowed to cut an addict in half with my shotgun when he steals from me to buy drugs, fine. Society has huge costs from addictions.
Addicts are addicts whether tobacco, alcohol, weed, narcotics etc. They lie, cheat, and steal without exception. I have had a dozen robberies in the last dozen years. Any guesses to how many are induced in one way or another by addictive substances? I suspect 12. Obviously none of the airy fairy friends of potheads here don’t live in the world that I do.
‘Ever tried to have an intelligible conversation with a pothead?
Grandad: “Yes I have. And did.”
‘Talk to yourself, do you?
I read lots of your posts, on a variety blogs, and agree with the lions share of your take on matters. Not this time.
Scar >
You said much better what I’ve been trying to say. “Been there done that”!
We were all young once. I’ve worked my entire life in the oilfield industry, and have watched most of so called “potheads” never amount too much over the decades. Heard all the arguments for and against, and am always amazed listening to a grown man explain to me how pot doesn’t affect him while he sits at the bottom of the rung (industry wise) without a hope of real advancement. Usually bitching because of some A-hole advancing ahead of him (A-hole = young ambitious drug free individual).
Whatever, it just leaves more of the good jobs and money for the rest of us. Thanks I suppose.
Knight99 I started in the oil patch in mid July 1965. I still call bullshit. Same goes for your sanctimonious horseshit Scar.
Knight99 — It’s not essential to the argument whether you think pot is good or bad for a person. Do you think the gov’t should be trying to stop it? Do you think the gov’t will someday even get close to success?
It’s very clear that currently we’re not close to success as drugs are easy to get but what we have done is create criminal culture around it.
Personally I don’t smoke it and I will do my best to educate my kids about pot and other drugs. I actually think pot is a far more risky drug than most do.
Knight 99:
Me thinks you might be confusing correlation with causation – they are 2 very different things.
Grandad L>
“I still call bullshit”
Yea, so we keep hearing. Thanks for the input to the conversation; your comments have been the most amazing words of brilliance I think I’ve ever read on SDA.
Guess we should pack it up and go home now, Grandad L has laid it all to rest in 4 words repeated over and over again.
Peter Jay >
A reasoned debate.
“…but what we have done is create criminal culture around it.”
This goes back to what I said earlier, you do not take criminals out of society by legalizing drugs. They will always be criminals and will simply move onto something else.
Of course we will never get drugs out of our society, but allowing the free flow of drugs carte blanch is not the answer. Amsterdam has proven this if you take the time to research the massive drug problems and associated crimes they have that you won’t find in the tourist brochures.
Scar nailed it, where do all these people who are not doing drugs but want legalization live? Not in a world that deals with drug abuse to be sure. I understand the users; they’ll defend their position literally to the death.
As far as government involvement, believe me I’m a small government advocate. That does not change the fact that we need help in protecting our communities. It’s the Liberal agenda that has made our communities unsafe from drug dependant crime along with the laws preventing us from defending ourselves and our homes from what they promote and have created in our society. Like welfare dependence.
So yea, the drug lobbyist can go f*ck themselves. The bulk of them are losers that pay little or no tax at all, many getting their extra money selling a little dope on the side. If it wasn’t for ambitious hard working people most of whom are smart enough not to use drugs, the bulk of these idiots wouldn’t have the few handouts and freebies they enjoy on our dime at all.
Paul >
Am I supposed to guess at what your trying to say?
I have had a dozen robberies in the last dozen years. Any guesses to how many are induced in one way or another by addictive substances?
That’s because drugs are illegal and therefore very expensive. The only people profiting from illegal drugs are crime lords and politicians and often the difference is indistinguishable. To solve the problem give addicts all the drugs they want as often as they want. Many will OD and will no longer be a problem. Others will have a chance to get their lives back together when they don’t have to be involved in criminal activity to feed the addiction. Of course that will never happen because illegal drugs are way too profitable and the general population has been brainwashed into believing that drugs can be controlled and that all users are useless addicts.
Grandad, I usually agree with you too! (I was wondering if it was you.) But, not this time.
I’m not arguing, Right Honourable Terry Tory, the comparative merits of addictive substances. I just happen to think, like others here, especially scar and Knight 99, that we need not add to the list of them.
Frankly, I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who smoke a lot of dope (something I did in my, sometimes, misspent youth: Yes, I inhaled). There’s plenty of medical evidence to show that it damages the brain — something a lot of alcohol will do too — and very often leads to the use of harder drugs. ‘Makes sense. ‘You stop getting off on MJ and need more and more to make you high, and it stands to reason you’re going to try something stronger.
No amount of being put down and told I don’t know what I’m talking about is going to change my mind about the legalization of pot. Widespread use began in the ’60s and having lived through the ’60s, and managed to survive the ’60s, I’m not enthusiastic about the promotion of a ’60s phenomenon: Everybody must get stoned.
Long on rhetoric. Short on facts. Saying it’s so don’t necessarily make it so. Know what I mean.
All above, it’s not useful to argue about the merits of pot. You’re never going to agree. The real question is — even if it was bad for you (let’s leave that to debate), should the government seek to force its prohibition?
I would argue that it should not.
I would expect that those who argue for it should state clearly how the drug war is helping.
Is it making drugs harder to get?
Do you believe it is lowering the crime rate?
Clearly, these things must be happening, as you must, as limited gov’t conservatives, have a very good reason for the state creating a massive bureaucracy to interfere with the lives of private citizens (read the wiki article on the DEA).
And, Knight 99, I have to disagree with you. Obviously, there will always be criminals. However, it is pretty clear that there is a much higher level of organized, violent crime from monopolies created by gov’t prohibition policy. Milton Friedman explains why in this vid: http://youtu.be/nLsCC0LZxkY
Knight 99 –
WRT your “pothead” comment and my causation vs. correlation response – I’m suggesting that some people – because of their genes,, upbringing or education have addictive personalities. Most but not all are from dysfunctional or disadvantaged families.
A toke here and there is not likely to addict anyone unless they are so predisposed. Many young people experiment with hallucinogens, yielding to peer pressure, most then eschew their use and move on to productive lives.
What this here conversation demonstrates is that the entire force behind pot prohibition is bullshit prejudice against pot users. That’s it. These ‘people’ want the government to use its force to protect ‘society’ from supposed ‘harms’ inflicted by drug use. As Margaret Thatcher said, there is no such thing as society.
Paul >
Oh ok, thanks for clarifying.
I can’t disagree with that, I don’t think it tracks with what I was getting at, but ok fine, there’s lots of addictions out there, some people seem more predisposed than others to become addicts.
As Margaret Thatcher said, there is no such thing as society.
~LAS
Maggie Thatcher was wrong about a lot of things.
The worst was to invent the idea of Global Warming to fight the Coal Miners Union and promote nuclear as an alternative.
To be clear, I don’t agree with the drug war. I do agree with people having the right to put whatever they want to into their bodies.
What I do disagree with:
-Open borders,
-“free” healthcare,
-“free” welfare for healthy people who care not to work or prefer to get high all day long.
-Gun control for law abiding citizens to open or conceal carry to protect themselves from drug addicts and others that may rob them.
-No lethal defensive rights for property owners to defend their property against home invaders.
-Generally the lack of rights associated with what the Left believes I should live my life in the face of their ghettoizing of western culture and its subsequent drug culture.
You give me my rights to defend myself, my home, and my family so that I can legally pull out a gun when robbed by 3 individuals looking for drug money, scrap entitlement programs including welfare and healthcare for drug addicts, and I will back legalizing drugs without another word.
My stand is not complicated or unfair.
Bankrupt BOB rAE IS THE LEADER NOW….things are going good….he screwed one party why not another…////
Knight99: You give me my rights to defend myself, my home, and my family so that I can legally pull out a gun when robbed by 3 individuals looking for drug money, scrap entitlement programs including welfare and healthcare for drug addicts, and I will back legalizing drugs without another word.
Completely agree with you but to get to this situation we have to eliminate the statists and control freaks that make up the current governments. It wouldn’t surprise me if corrupt police, judges and organized crime see the current system of drug prohibition as a mutually profitable enterprise. If decriminalization were to occur, then the price of currently illegal drugs would drop significantly although that of certain niche psychedelics would likely stay the same.
I experienced side effects of the war on (some) drugs the last time I bought a house when we were just about to finalize the deal and the realtor mentioned he needed to see identification from myself and my wife. I came close to hitting the roof over this and we compromised when he let me utilize my finest doctor handwriting to copy my drivers license # (which I doubt anyone could read). This is just one of the ways in which the totalitarian state is invading every aspect of our lives under the guise of “fighting drug trafficking”.
It’s friday night, I don’t have to work tomorrow, I’m no longer on call and so I can indulge in my current favorite recreational drug which happens to be a bottle of Jagermeister. Alcohol is also the most dangerous drug we have available as it causes brain damage, liver disease, stupid behavior, unwanted pregnancies and legal problems. Yet, it’s legal and is one of the few drugs where withdrawal can be fatal. The second most dangerous drug is tobacco which the government loves as statists rake in huge amount of tobacco taxes from users, sue the pants of the tobacco companies and tobacco users die young thus sparing the medical system the huge expense that would occur if they lived longer.
Cannabis is as ubiquitous as caffeine in BC where there seems to be a Starbucks on every street corner. Most people go through a pothead phase where they drift through life in a haze of marijuana smoke until they smarten up and do something with their lives. The fraction of totally zoned out potheads is similar to the number of skid-road alcoholics. Caffeine abuse is something I’m running into more now and am surprised that people don’t realize that perhaps their anxiety might be caused by the 20+ cups of coffee they’re drinking daily.
People like altered states of consciousness (ASC) and every mammal studied will self administer drugs with very little training. I’m often at a loss to determine which is the safest way to go; a very thin obsessive runner with multiple stress fractures from over-exercise or the same person on opiates. In both cases the endorphin system of the brain is being activated. Similarly I see people who are such adrenaline junkies that they’ve suffered multiple fractures and assorted other injuries – giving them cocaine or amphetamine would produce almost the same mental state in them. Non-drug means of producing ASC’s can be far more deadly than using drugs to produce ASC’s like the various means primarily homosexuals use to enhance orgasms.
The only drug around that I know of that produces instantaneous brain damage is MPTP which destroys substantia nigra neurons and gives almost all people who use it Parkinson’s often after using it only once. This effect was first discovered in the early 1980’s when a kitchen chemist screwed up making some demerol and produced MPTP instead. Interestingly, MPTP was also being sold in kilogram quantities as a photographic developer at that time but now it’s a few thousand dollars/gram and sales are restricted to Parkinson’s disease researchers.
Religious fanatics can produce ASC’s through self-flagellation and the toxins produced by their festering wounds will give them religious visions. In my view, LSD is far more rational and safer. The only reason I can see for statists to prohibit people from experiencing the full range of ASC’s that psychedelic drugs allow is because they are likely terrified that people might see through the scam that they are engaged in.
As Alexander Shulgin, psychopharmacologist, psychedelic chemist, psychonaut and author of Pihkal put it: Our generation is the first, ever, to have made the search for self awareness a crime, if it is done with the use of plants or chemical compounds as the means of opening the psychic doors. But the urge to become aware is always present, and it increases in intensity as one becomes older
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who smoke a lot of dope
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who drink a lot of alcohol.
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who eat a lot of junk food.
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who rack-up a lot of debt.
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who show a lot of intolerance.
Well said Doctor Loki.
Your statements show more knowledge of the subject with more credibility than all the paranoia propaganda pushers combined.
Thank-you.
Loki nailed it!
Loki >
Well said!
I couldn’t disagree with anything you wrote in your last comment.
I suppose the issue for me is that pot legalization is overwhelmingly a left political issue. They are wrong on nearly every level of influence in our society and the legalization of pot is another hypocritical stance they take demanding freedom for themselves while taking freedoms from others that don’t have the same world view. That said the dopers world view is an altered mental state from the onset.
As far as the well thrown out there comparison to alcohol, pretending it’s some right wing drug, I personally could care less if alcohol was legal or not. Sure I also have an infrequent drink of alcohol occasionally but wouldn’t miss it at all if it didn’t exist. It is every bit as dangerous in society if not more so than pot. That still does not make pot healthy by default as so many fool themselves into thinking.
So again, I could care less what anyone does to themselves, the bottom line is that I refuse to pay for the fallout or pick up any pieces. If they can’t afford needles too bad, get a job. If they come rob me for money I should have the right to shoot them. If they get sick and need medical assistance, they should pay out of pocket.
Knight 99 — I agree the pot issue is mainly on the left. To me, they are logically inconsistent.
It sickens me that the same people who don’t let a doctor sell her services to whom she wants or denies the right of citizens to defend themselves will get behind pot legalization. They’re really not for liberty.
Peter Jay >
Bingo!
I will not get behind their “logically inconsistent” issues, until we straighten out what is really important in a society, namely fixing the things they have wrought on our once functional societies since the mid 70’s.
Legitimizing mind altering substances is not a mature and rational way of fixing a decaying system of welfare abuse, healthcare abuse, and the overall liberalized dependence on a nanny big government.
If we could restore our society to a society of independent winners who don’t need everyone else paying their way to party and be a successful loser, we could then move on to saying do what you want it’s your dime.
I could care less what anyone does to themselves, the bottom line is that I refuse to pay for the fallout or pick up any pieces. … If they come rob me for money I should have the right to shoot them.
Agreed. But that’s a separate issue from stopping the un-winnable, un-efective, resource wasting, ‘war on drugs’. Decriminalize drugs and take the profit out of it for crime lords and their politician lapdogs.
North of 60 >
‘….take the profit out of it for crime lords and their politician lapdogs.”
We keep going in circles with this.
In simple terms:
Let’s pretend you have a dirty cop who takes cocaine out of drug storage and sells it on the street for profit. The next day you make cocaine legal and the price drops. Does that cop the following day become a good cop who now does not break the law or seek other illegal profit making schemes on the side?
The same goes for dirty judges, politicians, and the mob. This argument of stopping crime and taking profits from big crime is a flawed argument. The eastern Canadian Mohawk tribes make huge underground profits on legally available but highly taxed cigarettes. If you lowered the tax’s and took that particular enterprise away, do you think they will move on with their lives and get regular jobs?
Therefore why doesn’t the hypocritical left simply demand cigarette tax’s lowered so that it takes the illegal profits out of the Indians hands and end all their crime?
I very much appreciated your analysis, Loki, of drug use/addictions involving multiple substances.
I’ve often figured that the reason “the war on drugs” has always failed — and continues to fail — so miserably is because, as you allude to, too many police, judges, doctors, etc. are profiting from the illegal drug trade.
So, would it be safe to say that though many doctors know what you do, they’re profiting from illicit drug use and that’s why they don’t divulge to the public the facts that you have? (That’s pretty much a rhetorical question.)
Let’s pretend you have a dirty cop who takes cocaine out of drug storage and sells it on the street for profit. The next day you make cocaine legal and the price drops. Does that cop the following day become a good cop who now does not break the law or seek other illegal profit making schemes on the side?
No, but that dirty cop is severely disempowered as are the Zetas and other criminal elements. As for the other issues of smuggling around taxes (which is not 1/100 as violent as the pure black market): okay legalize and keep the taxes low.
LAS >
“okay legalize and keep the taxes low”
Yes, sounds great. Have you ever heard of a Liberal Left party lowering taxes? Ya know the same people who want to legalize drugs.
You’re welcome to your opinion about believing your disempowering cops and mobs. I say they move onto something else and fast. You can also turn a corner street dealer into a B&E artist overnight by forcing him off the street. Now he’s in your home instead of on the street corner. It’s just another example thrown out there while we go around the circle.
Right Honourable Terry Tory
“Knight, Batb and scar should stick to what they truly know and avoid commenting on something they have obviously never “experienced”
I am not unfamiliar with the common recreational drugs and have managed to kick them all, most notably alcohol and tobacco. So now we’re going to legalize weed and outlaw the hamburger? Doesn’t sound like my society.
If we could let drug addicts die on the street scratching at the hospital door without being let in, fine. When they fail the tests of parenthood and their kids are hungry and adopted out, fine. If I am allowed to cut an addict in half with my shotgun when he steals from me to buy drugs, fine. Society has huge costs from addictions.
Addicts are addicts whether tobacco, alcohol, weed, narcotics etc. They lie, cheat, and steal without exception. I have had a dozen robberies in the last dozen years. Any guesses to how many are induced in one way or another by addictive substances? I suspect 12. Obviously none of the airy fairy friends of potheads here don’t live in the world that I do.
‘Ever tried to have an intelligible conversation with a pothead?
Grandad: “Yes I have. And did.”
‘Talk to yourself, do you?
I read lots of your posts, on a variety blogs, and agree with the lions share of your take on matters. Not this time.
Scar >
You said much better what I’ve been trying to say. “Been there done that”!
We were all young once. I’ve worked my entire life in the oilfield industry, and have watched most of so called “potheads” never amount too much over the decades. Heard all the arguments for and against, and am always amazed listening to a grown man explain to me how pot doesn’t affect him while he sits at the bottom of the rung (industry wise) without a hope of real advancement. Usually bitching because of some A-hole advancing ahead of him (A-hole = young ambitious drug free individual).
Whatever, it just leaves more of the good jobs and money for the rest of us. Thanks I suppose.
Knight99 I started in the oil patch in mid July 1965. I still call bullshit. Same goes for your sanctimonious horseshit Scar.
Knight99 — It’s not essential to the argument whether you think pot is good or bad for a person. Do you think the gov’t should be trying to stop it? Do you think the gov’t will someday even get close to success?
It’s very clear that currently we’re not close to success as drugs are easy to get but what we have done is create criminal culture around it.
Personally I don’t smoke it and I will do my best to educate my kids about pot and other drugs. I actually think pot is a far more risky drug than most do.
Knight 99:
Me thinks you might be confusing correlation with causation – they are 2 very different things.
Grandad L>
“I still call bullshit”
Yea, so we keep hearing. Thanks for the input to the conversation; your comments have been the most amazing words of brilliance I think I’ve ever read on SDA.
Guess we should pack it up and go home now, Grandad L has laid it all to rest in 4 words repeated over and over again.
Peter Jay >
A reasoned debate.
“…but what we have done is create criminal culture around it.”
This goes back to what I said earlier, you do not take criminals out of society by legalizing drugs. They will always be criminals and will simply move onto something else.
Of course we will never get drugs out of our society, but allowing the free flow of drugs carte blanch is not the answer. Amsterdam has proven this if you take the time to research the massive drug problems and associated crimes they have that you won’t find in the tourist brochures.
Scar nailed it, where do all these people who are not doing drugs but want legalization live? Not in a world that deals with drug abuse to be sure. I understand the users; they’ll defend their position literally to the death.
As far as government involvement, believe me I’m a small government advocate. That does not change the fact that we need help in protecting our communities. It’s the Liberal agenda that has made our communities unsafe from drug dependant crime along with the laws preventing us from defending ourselves and our homes from what they promote and have created in our society. Like welfare dependence.
So yea, the drug lobbyist can go f*ck themselves. The bulk of them are losers that pay little or no tax at all, many getting their extra money selling a little dope on the side. If it wasn’t for ambitious hard working people most of whom are smart enough not to use drugs, the bulk of these idiots wouldn’t have the few handouts and freebies they enjoy on our dime at all.
Paul >
Am I supposed to guess at what your trying to say?
I have had a dozen robberies in the last dozen years. Any guesses to how many are induced in one way or another by addictive substances?
That’s because drugs are illegal and therefore very expensive. The only people profiting from illegal drugs are crime lords and politicians and often the difference is indistinguishable. To solve the problem give addicts all the drugs they want as often as they want. Many will OD and will no longer be a problem. Others will have a chance to get their lives back together when they don’t have to be involved in criminal activity to feed the addiction. Of course that will never happen because illegal drugs are way too profitable and the general population has been brainwashed into believing that drugs can be controlled and that all users are useless addicts.
Grandad, I usually agree with you too! (I was wondering if it was you.) But, not this time.
I’m not arguing, Right Honourable Terry Tory, the comparative merits of addictive substances. I just happen to think, like others here, especially scar and Knight 99, that we need not add to the list of them.
Frankly, I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who smoke a lot of dope (something I did in my, sometimes, misspent youth: Yes, I inhaled). There’s plenty of medical evidence to show that it damages the brain — something a lot of alcohol will do too — and very often leads to the use of harder drugs. ‘Makes sense. ‘You stop getting off on MJ and need more and more to make you high, and it stands to reason you’re going to try something stronger.
No amount of being put down and told I don’t know what I’m talking about is going to change my mind about the legalization of pot. Widespread use began in the ’60s and having lived through the ’60s, and managed to survive the ’60s, I’m not enthusiastic about the promotion of a ’60s phenomenon: Everybody must get stoned.
Long on rhetoric. Short on facts. Saying it’s so don’t necessarily make it so. Know what I mean.
All above, it’s not useful to argue about the merits of pot. You’re never going to agree. The real question is — even if it was bad for you (let’s leave that to debate), should the government seek to force its prohibition?
I would argue that it should not.
I would expect that those who argue for it should state clearly how the drug war is helping.
Is it making drugs harder to get?
Do you believe it is lowering the crime rate?
Clearly, these things must be happening, as you must, as limited gov’t conservatives, have a very good reason for the state creating a massive bureaucracy to interfere with the lives of private citizens (read the wiki article on the DEA).
And, Knight 99, I have to disagree with you. Obviously, there will always be criminals. However, it is pretty clear that there is a much higher level of organized, violent crime from monopolies created by gov’t prohibition policy. Milton Friedman explains why in this vid: http://youtu.be/nLsCC0LZxkY
Knight 99 –
WRT your “pothead” comment and my causation vs. correlation response – I’m suggesting that some people – because of their genes,, upbringing or education have addictive personalities. Most but not all are from dysfunctional or disadvantaged families.
A toke here and there is not likely to addict anyone unless they are so predisposed. Many young people experiment with hallucinogens, yielding to peer pressure, most then eschew their use and move on to productive lives.
What this here conversation demonstrates is that the entire force behind pot prohibition is bullshit prejudice against pot users. That’s it. These ‘people’ want the government to use its force to protect ‘society’ from supposed ‘harms’ inflicted by drug use. As Margaret Thatcher said, there is no such thing as society.
Paul >
Oh ok, thanks for clarifying.
I can’t disagree with that, I don’t think it tracks with what I was getting at, but ok fine, there’s lots of addictions out there, some people seem more predisposed than others to become addicts.
As Margaret Thatcher said, there is no such thing as society.
~LAS
Maggie Thatcher was wrong about a lot of things.
The worst was to invent the idea of Global Warming to fight the Coal Miners Union and promote nuclear as an alternative.
To be clear, I don’t agree with the drug war. I do agree with people having the right to put whatever they want to into their bodies.
What I do disagree with:
-Open borders,
-“free” healthcare,
-“free” welfare for healthy people who care not to work or prefer to get high all day long.
-Gun control for law abiding citizens to open or conceal carry to protect themselves from drug addicts and others that may rob them.
-No lethal defensive rights for property owners to defend their property against home invaders.
-Generally the lack of rights associated with what the Left believes I should live my life in the face of their ghettoizing of western culture and its subsequent drug culture.
You give me my rights to defend myself, my home, and my family so that I can legally pull out a gun when robbed by 3 individuals looking for drug money, scrap entitlement programs including welfare and healthcare for drug addicts, and I will back legalizing drugs without another word.
My stand is not complicated or unfair.
Bankrupt BOB rAE IS THE LEADER NOW….things are going good….he screwed one party why not another…////
Knight99:
You give me my rights to defend myself, my home, and my family so that I can legally pull out a gun when robbed by 3 individuals looking for drug money, scrap entitlement programs including welfare and healthcare for drug addicts, and I will back legalizing drugs without another word.
Completely agree with you but to get to this situation we have to eliminate the statists and control freaks that make up the current governments. It wouldn’t surprise me if corrupt police, judges and organized crime see the current system of drug prohibition as a mutually profitable enterprise. If decriminalization were to occur, then the price of currently illegal drugs would drop significantly although that of certain niche psychedelics would likely stay the same.
I experienced side effects of the war on (some) drugs the last time I bought a house when we were just about to finalize the deal and the realtor mentioned he needed to see identification from myself and my wife. I came close to hitting the roof over this and we compromised when he let me utilize my finest doctor handwriting to copy my drivers license # (which I doubt anyone could read). This is just one of the ways in which the totalitarian state is invading every aspect of our lives under the guise of “fighting drug trafficking”.
It’s friday night, I don’t have to work tomorrow, I’m no longer on call and so I can indulge in my current favorite recreational drug which happens to be a bottle of Jagermeister. Alcohol is also the most dangerous drug we have available as it causes brain damage, liver disease, stupid behavior, unwanted pregnancies and legal problems. Yet, it’s legal and is one of the few drugs where withdrawal can be fatal. The second most dangerous drug is tobacco which the government loves as statists rake in huge amount of tobacco taxes from users, sue the pants of the tobacco companies and tobacco users die young thus sparing the medical system the huge expense that would occur if they lived longer.
Cannabis is as ubiquitous as caffeine in BC where there seems to be a Starbucks on every street corner. Most people go through a pothead phase where they drift through life in a haze of marijuana smoke until they smarten up and do something with their lives. The fraction of totally zoned out potheads is similar to the number of skid-road alcoholics. Caffeine abuse is something I’m running into more now and am surprised that people don’t realize that perhaps their anxiety might be caused by the 20+ cups of coffee they’re drinking daily.
People like altered states of consciousness (ASC) and every mammal studied will self administer drugs with very little training. I’m often at a loss to determine which is the safest way to go; a very thin obsessive runner with multiple stress fractures from over-exercise or the same person on opiates. In both cases the endorphin system of the brain is being activated. Similarly I see people who are such adrenaline junkies that they’ve suffered multiple fractures and assorted other injuries – giving them cocaine or amphetamine would produce almost the same mental state in them. Non-drug means of producing ASC’s can be far more deadly than using drugs to produce ASC’s like the various means primarily homosexuals use to enhance orgasms.
The only drug around that I know of that produces instantaneous brain damage is MPTP which destroys substantia nigra neurons and gives almost all people who use it Parkinson’s often after using it only once. This effect was first discovered in the early 1980’s when a kitchen chemist screwed up making some demerol and produced MPTP instead. Interestingly, MPTP was also being sold in kilogram quantities as a photographic developer at that time but now it’s a few thousand dollars/gram and sales are restricted to Parkinson’s disease researchers.
Religious fanatics can produce ASC’s through self-flagellation and the toxins produced by their festering wounds will give them religious visions. In my view, LSD is far more rational and safer. The only reason I can see for statists to prohibit people from experiencing the full range of ASC’s that psychedelic drugs allow is because they are likely terrified that people might see through the scam that they are engaged in.
As Alexander Shulgin, psychopharmacologist, psychedelic chemist, psychonaut and author of Pihkal put it:
Our generation is the first, ever, to have made the search for self awareness a crime, if it is done with the use of plants or chemical compounds as the means of opening the psychic doors. But the urge to become aware is always present, and it increases in intensity as one becomes older
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who smoke a lot of dope
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who drink a lot of alcohol.
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who eat a lot of junk food.
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who rack-up a lot of debt.
I’ve never been much impressed with the people I’ve known who show a lot of intolerance.
Well said Doctor Loki.
Your statements show more knowledge of the subject with more credibility than all the paranoia propaganda pushers combined.
Thank-you.
Loki nailed it!
Loki >
Well said!
I couldn’t disagree with anything you wrote in your last comment.
I suppose the issue for me is that pot legalization is overwhelmingly a left political issue. They are wrong on nearly every level of influence in our society and the legalization of pot is another hypocritical stance they take demanding freedom for themselves while taking freedoms from others that don’t have the same world view. That said the dopers world view is an altered mental state from the onset.
As far as the well thrown out there comparison to alcohol, pretending it’s some right wing drug, I personally could care less if alcohol was legal or not. Sure I also have an infrequent drink of alcohol occasionally but wouldn’t miss it at all if it didn’t exist. It is every bit as dangerous in society if not more so than pot. That still does not make pot healthy by default as so many fool themselves into thinking.
So again, I could care less what anyone does to themselves, the bottom line is that I refuse to pay for the fallout or pick up any pieces. If they can’t afford needles too bad, get a job. If they come rob me for money I should have the right to shoot them. If they get sick and need medical assistance, they should pay out of pocket.
Knight 99 — I agree the pot issue is mainly on the left. To me, they are logically inconsistent.
It sickens me that the same people who don’t let a doctor sell her services to whom she wants or denies the right of citizens to defend themselves will get behind pot legalization. They’re really not for liberty.
Peter Jay >
Bingo!
I will not get behind their “logically inconsistent” issues, until we straighten out what is really important in a society, namely fixing the things they have wrought on our once functional societies since the mid 70’s.
Legitimizing mind altering substances is not a mature and rational way of fixing a decaying system of welfare abuse, healthcare abuse, and the overall liberalized dependence on a nanny big government.
If we could restore our society to a society of independent winners who don’t need everyone else paying their way to party and be a successful loser, we could then move on to saying do what you want it’s your dime.
I could care less what anyone does to themselves, the bottom line is that I refuse to pay for the fallout or pick up any pieces. … If they come rob me for money I should have the right to shoot them.
Agreed. But that’s a separate issue from stopping the un-winnable, un-efective, resource wasting, ‘war on drugs’. Decriminalize drugs and take the profit out of it for crime lords and their politician lapdogs.
North of 60 >
‘….take the profit out of it for crime lords and their politician lapdogs.”
We keep going in circles with this.
In simple terms:
Let’s pretend you have a dirty cop who takes cocaine out of drug storage and sells it on the street for profit. The next day you make cocaine legal and the price drops. Does that cop the following day become a good cop who now does not break the law or seek other illegal profit making schemes on the side?
The same goes for dirty judges, politicians, and the mob. This argument of stopping crime and taking profits from big crime is a flawed argument. The eastern Canadian Mohawk tribes make huge underground profits on legally available but highly taxed cigarettes. If you lowered the tax’s and took that particular enterprise away, do you think they will move on with their lives and get regular jobs?
Therefore why doesn’t the hypocritical left simply demand cigarette tax’s lowered so that it takes the illegal profits out of the Indians hands and end all their crime?
I very much appreciated your analysis, Loki, of drug use/addictions involving multiple substances.
I’ve often figured that the reason “the war on drugs” has always failed — and continues to fail — so miserably is because, as you allude to, too many police, judges, doctors, etc. are profiting from the illegal drug trade.
So, would it be safe to say that though many doctors know what you do, they’re profiting from illicit drug use and that’s why they don’t divulge to the public the facts that you have? (That’s pretty much a rhetorical question.)
Let’s pretend you have a dirty cop who takes cocaine out of drug storage and sells it on the street for profit. The next day you make cocaine legal and the price drops. Does that cop the following day become a good cop who now does not break the law or seek other illegal profit making schemes on the side?
No, but that dirty cop is severely disempowered as are the Zetas and other criminal elements. As for the other issues of smuggling around taxes (which is not 1/100 as violent as the pure black market): okay legalize and keep the taxes low.
LAS >
“okay legalize and keep the taxes low”
Yes, sounds great. Have you ever heard of a Liberal Left party lowering taxes? Ya know the same people who want to legalize drugs.
You’re welcome to your opinion about believing your disempowering cops and mobs. I say they move onto something else and fast. You can also turn a corner street dealer into a B&E artist overnight by forcing him off the street. Now he’s in your home instead of on the street corner. It’s just another example thrown out there while we go around the circle.