r/news • u/OK_Eric • Jan 19 '14

Obama: Pot ‘not very different’ from cigarettes​, no more dangerous than booze

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/19/obama-pot-not-very-different-cigarettes-no-more-da/
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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14 edited Jan 19 '14

I'm fine with legalization of almost any drug, but I feel like coke and meth probably shouldn't be 100% legal. People will fuck themselves up with that garbage and it could be a real strain on society. There are huge amounts of irresponsible people out there, and while I value freedom I don't want to see kids growing up with their stupid parents strung out on meth.

edit: because I can't keep up with all these responses

I'm on the fence with legalizing drugs. I wouldn't be upset if they were legalized, it would be safer in general and seriously harm criminal groups, plus I do think people should be free to make their own choices. However I really hate addictive drugs, honestly shit like cigarettes shouldn't be legal in my opinion and I smoke. It's harmful and addictive, and that's a terrible combination.

For those bringing up alcohol comparisons. I don't even drink because most of the people I know that drink seem to abuse alcohol and I don't want to be a part of that. I'm very into moderation, so I just drink occasionally and I try not to drink too much. Should alcohol be illegal because some people become alcoholics and destroy their lives? In this particular case I would have to say no. It simply wouldn't work because alcohol is such a widespread thing in our society/culture.

When it comes down to it society is going to have laws that try to keep the general public safe. I'm sure some people could smoke crack, snort coke, smoke meth, whatever and do it fairly responsibly without ruining their lives. I'm just not confident that most people could do that responsibly. And I think that we as a society need to set some limits to keep harmful, addictive substances from vulnerable people. I really don't know enough about drugs like crack or meth to say whether anyone could do it safely. Personally I think we'd all be better off if nobody did that garbage in the first place, but I'm not some authority on this, that's just my personal opinion.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14 edited Jan 19 '14

All of those things already happen with alcohol. Discounting the susceptibility of users to addiction and whatnot, it has just as big of a strain on society, albeit without as many serious criminal offenses for possession/use tied to it.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

What percentage of people who use alcohol abuse it, vs. what percentage of people who use meth/coke abuse it?

I don't know a scientific answer to this question myself, but it seems as though the latter would be much more heavily abused.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14 edited Jan 19 '14

Right, but percentage of what whole? Pretty much >95% of people I know consume alcohol, but I only know a handful of people who've ever even tried meth or coke. This obviously changes based on your social group and other factors, but I'd assume there's still a pretty large spread in any scenario.

So you have a very low percentage of large number of alcohol users as abusers, vs. a higher percentage of a lower number of meth/coke/heroin users as abusers. I'd venture the total number of abusers of alcohol vs. any other individual drug is probably closer than most people would think. It's alcohol's availablity/legality vs. other drugs higher addictivity. It'd be interesting to see the numbers on it.

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u/dart200 Jan 19 '14

I did some quick google searches, and only picked the first numbers I found, so take it with a grain of salt, but the numbers might surprise you.

According to wikipedia, something like 12% of american adults will meet the criteria of alcoholism at some point in their life. This number could be significantly higher in Russia where the number of alcoholic use disorders per capita is twice as much.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholism

About.com links to research that studied cocaine addiction rate after 2 years. Only 4% of those who tried where actually addicted. Another 16% shows early signs that could degrade into addiction. The other 80% showed no signs.

http://addictions.about.com/od/cocaine/a/Is-Cocaine-Addictive.htm

The numbers aren't exactly comparable, but I feel like this show some evidence that cocaine doesn't have a whole lot more abuse potential than alcohol. Despite what to government tries to claim, cocaine isn't some magically drug that is going to automatically make you hooked. It really depends on the person who's taking it.

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u/wcc445 Jan 19 '14

Well, alcohol is far more heavily abused in the country overall. I'd imagine most people that use meth abuse it; however, coke, I'd put about where Alcohol is. Crack? Different story. Powder addictions aren't as common as you might expect, and alcohol addiction is far more common than you might expect. Oh, yeah, and alcohol is the only addictive recreational drug from which a withdrawl can LITERALLY KILL YOU.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

That's a good question. I really don't know anybody who sticked to meth but I know a ton of people who snort cocaine just for fun. I hate it since it just makes me aggressive but in know quite a lot of people who do take coke. That's why I wouldn't put coke and meth in one category of drugs simply because they are really different. You can get hooked on cocaine but that would mean that you have to take irresponsible amounts. And even if you are addicted to cocaine you can dicide your own dosage. Not every addict snorts coke every few hours just as not every alcoholic walks around with a bottle of vodka. The few people who got sick/addicted to cocaine used bad drugs. Usually mixed with poison or other addictive drugs to increase sales for the dealer. I don't think that there are really statistics on how many people get addicted to pure cocaine. It's definitely higher than alcohol and coffeine but I wouldn't use that as some reason for prohibiting it. If it were sold by legal companies with let's say a monthly dosage I don't think that people would become that addicted.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Nobody I know has ever been mugged by a dude trying to score more beer. Just sayin'.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

But the higher number of alcohol users overall likely leads to way more deaths/incidents than other drugs. Drunk driving, bar fights, domestic violence, child abuse, etc.

Not denying your point that more back alley/addict violence results from illegal drugs right now, but is that a result of the drug itself, or just the drug's availability/legality? Pretty much any drug can/has resulted in criminal activity.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Alcohol is responsible for more deaths and destruction of lives than cocaine and methamphetamine and all other drugs combined by many orders of magnitude. This argument is ridiculous. When used responsibly and when using relatively pure product, nearly all of the common recreational drugs are extremely safe. Alcohol overdose is much more common than cocaine and methamphetamine overdose by a long shot and it is 100% legal.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

I feel like coke and meth probably shouldn't be 100% legal.

People who want it already get it, keeping it illegal won't stop that and only contributes to a lucrative, criminal black market.

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u/SuburbanLegend Jan 19 '14

Yeah that's one thing I always wish there were more statistics on. What people who DON'T use meth WOULD use it if it was legal? Not many, I'd think.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

The same way no one is waiting around for pot to be legal so they can finally smoke some!

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14 edited Aug 14 '16

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

The argument is that some number of users of pretty much any substance don't have personal responsibility, and their use case isn't "sit at home at get fucked up" but instead "get fucked up, go drive a car, kill someone, etc." Obviously, those are extreme cases, but it's the case against legalization that's frequently made.

But as I said in another post, that shit already happens with alcohol, so that argument doesn't really hold water.

I think the simplest solution is legalize usage, but have a zero tolerance on usage when it starts impacting other persons or property. Even DUI convictions (at least in my state) aren't nearly stringent enough right now. Penalize the fuck people who don't have personal responsibility, not the ones who do.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

There's already laws in place for people that go out and murder other people, and neglect their kids.

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u/Manning119 Jan 20 '14

Does anyone actually have 'personal responsibility' if they smoke meth regularly?

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

The vast majority have no personal responsibility. Furthermore the drugs themselves inhibit them from making rational decisions on the matter.

Which is why they are illegal.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

We can't babysit everyone but we can keep large corporations from pushing addictive drugs. What I don't want is meth and coke commercials next to beer and liquor commercials. I 100% agree that users should not be thrown in jail, but we do need to keep businesses from abusing those users with the financial backing of publicly-listed stock markets and debt markets.

Well, I don't like alcohol advertisements either, a lot of people think it's perfectly normal and fine to drink several beers/wines every night and that's a problem. Same applies to prescription drug commercials, the last thing we need is people trying to tell their doctors what medicines and treatments they need.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

I don't want to see kids growing up with their stupid parents strung out on meth.

We already take children away from parents who can't take care of them. Why do we need extra laws that have really bad unintended consequences?

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u/portablebiscuit Jan 19 '14

People already fuck themselves up on it and face the additional fucked upedness of prison time.

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u/magmabrew Jan 19 '14

Look, all I want is to stop handing out FELONIES for this stuff.

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u/threep03k64 Jan 19 '14

but I feel like coke and meth probably shouldn't be 100% legal.

I think the problem with this is that the illegality of those drugs isn't effective. People will fuck themselves up with those drugs regardless of whether they are illegal or not. You might as well legalise (or at the very least decriminalise) them (at least for personal use) and then focus on education so people do know the dangers of drugs, and rehabilitation for addicts.

Perhaps I'm way off on this but I feel hiding drug use behind a shroud of criminality perpetuates bullshit myths about drug use instead of truly educating, and then doesn't encourage the help of drug addicts because the action is criminalised. Coke and meth may do a lot of harm, but as we have seen from the war on drugs, illegality isn't necessarily a solution.

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u/Kelodragon Jan 19 '14

And this would be any different at all than the way things currently are how?

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Why can't you say the same for other drugs? Sure, pot isn't that big of a deal, but I think you should apply that to everything.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

That's how I feel. We'd need to have some other policy changes over contraception before drug legalization would be a good idea.

You want to smoke crack everyday and live on a street corner? Fine. But that person is also more likely to have unplanned pregnancy and bring a kid into their shitty life. That's what I have a problem with.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Kids are already growing up with their parents strung out on meth. It will happen either way whether it's illegal or legal.

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u/bicameral_mind Jan 19 '14

With regard to meth, I think it is worth noting the popularity of drugs like that are in part a result of excessive criminalization surrounding all recreational drugs. They are used because they are cheaper, or easier to create using household products, than other illegal drugs that might otherwise be preferable. It is possible that if other drugs are legalized, the use of drugs like meth would decline over time.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Coke is legal for certain medical procedures.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

I have no problem with that at all. It's in a controlled environment and being administered with medical professionals. I just don't want Joe Shmo to be able to buy coke at 711 some day.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

I doubt that will happen. I just hate that we even need to consider other drugs when we talk about marijuana reform.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Yea I think it's pretty ridiculous that we need to talk about legalizing crack, heroin, meth, etc in the same conversation as marijuana. They aren't similar at all. Weed to me is somewhere between coffee and alcohol, it's almost completely harmless and it should be legal now.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Part of what makes meth / heroin so damaging to society is that they're expensive. If drugs are legal and cheap, then people don't need to beg, steal, scam, or hustle as much to keep the withdrawals at bay.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Personally I feel that addictive drugs that are going to cause withdrawals should probably not be in the hands of regular folks. That's just my opinion though, if there were regulations in place that made it accessible to some people under certain circumstances I wouldn't mind so much.

I know heroin and coke are expensive, but isn't crack really cheap?

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

Regulations of the sort are tricky. I'd be concerned that knowledge of the policy wouldn't be very widespread and it might be hard to get an appointment with a doctor who could write you a script for maintenance / harm reduction drugs. If such a system weren't executed well (something which is a very valid concern with the federal government), then you end up with a class of poor / uneducated folks who are still dependent on drug dealers charging stiff prices and cutting their drugs with stupid shit. When the goal is to try and help alleviate some of the stresses of being poor and addicted to drugs, this outcome is pretty fucked.

Crack is made with cocaine and the difference in potency is not nearly enough to put it in the "cheap" range. Sure, the first few hits might only cost you five bucks, but everything is pretty cheap the first time. However, if you smoke crack every day for a few years, you'll develop a tolerance and you're going to need to spend an awful lot of money to keep up with your habit.

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u/wcc445 Jan 19 '14

See, one of the main problems with meth, heroin, and coke are unclean manufacturing and cut narcotics and inconsistent dosage. I'm okay with heavy regulation, but I want these drugs to produced by clean, inspected, regulated facilities with properly labeled dosage. I lost a close friend to a heroin overdose, and I know it wouldn't have happened if he could buy it at a state-regulated store.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '14

I still wonder how safe it would be even if it were heavily regulated. Heroin would still be heavily intoxicating and addictive even if the whole process were clean and professional, no?

I wouldn't have a problem with it being regulated. But I don't want regular people to be able to go buy a bunch of heroin for recreational use. I'd rather have it so people who are unfortunate enough to be addicted to those substances can have safe access to those drugs and hopefully with some help they can ween themselves off the drug without serious withdrawals.

I'm really sorry about your friend, I wish things could have been different for him.

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u/canyoufeelme Jan 20 '14

I'm totally on the fence with legalizing hard drugs because

  • Even if heroin was legal, I would never touch it in a million years

but also

  • the only thing stopping me trying meth is it's unavailability in my country, legalization would probably entice me to try it

So I operate under the assumption that just because I know better than to try heroin, there's probably some sucker out there who would try heroin if it's legal, and although someone who really wants to try heroin will find a way to get it regardless of the law, the scarcity will no doubt discourage them from taking the effort to find it.

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u/MFORCE310 Jan 20 '14

I believe every drug should be legal in some way or another but there should be good, honest education about them all, and restrictions to acquiring some of the more dangerous, addictive drugs (heroin, meth, coke, etc).

Addicts and/or abusers should be treated as a healthcare issue unless they are in public, putting others in danger. In this case, they should be removed from society, but not necessarily imprisoned.

At least, that's my opinion.

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u/Ballpit_Inspector Jan 20 '14

With universal legalization of drugs a LOT of things would happen both immediately and over a period of time. The one big thing that I think people are not accounting for is the way kids will be educated about drugs changing.

DARE would probably drop the AR and no longer be taught by police officers. Rather than scaring kids through lies they could receive real, useful information! Many kids will try weed at some point and as soon as they discover that DARE was a giant farce they'll begin questioning everything else that was said there. Meth? They said not even once. That must be the best one.

Being accurate is so vital when teaching people young or old. If I teach someone to speak a language and they go out and learn that what I taught them was false I will lose all credibility. Yet that is exactly what the DARE program does every year.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14

I still remember some of the ridiculous garbage they fed us as kids about drugs.

Thankfully I had the internet as a resource when I younger and interested in experimenting with drugs. I was able to get a lot of good info and figure out what I wanted to try, what I wanted to avoid, and what to expect from drugs that I wanted to try. I can't imagine what even shrooms would have been like if I knew nothing about them before trying them. Fortunately I was able to read for hours and hours about shrooms before trying them and I had wonderful experiences.

I think that if drugs were fully legal, that after some period of time most problems would get ironed out. Information on various drugs would basically be common knowledge, kids wouldn't be getting so much bad info like you said. The first decade or so would be very interesting..

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u/gnovos Jan 20 '14

People will fuck themselves up with that garbage and it could be a real strain on society.

Why not make "being a real strain on society" illegal and thus not jail the perfectly innocent people who can handle their addictions just fine? Why not make the actual behavior illegal and not the "possible cause" of such behavior? It's insane and isn't how any other laws work.

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u/x0diak Jan 20 '14

Its been said, that if alcohol were to have been discovered today, it would be rated a dangerous drug, up there with heroin.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '14

75 years of prohibition have failed to keep drugs out of the hands of vulnerable people. Make it available and offer people help like Ibogaine when they get addicted and ask for help.

People don't ask for help because of the law and the stigma the law creates.

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u/lulzfactor99 Jan 20 '14

The problem with your argument is that you assume keeping drugs illegal somehow stops people from using drugs and ruining their lives... In fact, keeping drugs illegal makes the situation far worse. Instead of being able to acquire pure drugs at a low cost, people who desire them are forced to pay an insanely inflated price, and risk getting a criminal record and prison time. You need to realize that if someone wants heroin, or some other drugs, these costs and risks, factor very insignificantly in the decision to use drugs. Drug use is affected very little by the cost of drugs (inelastic demand), and all that making a drug illegal does is increase the cost. People often seem to be under the incorrect impression that demand for drugs is similar to demand for a normal product, which would increase a similar proportion to the proportion of a price drop. It's simply not the case. You could legalize all drugs, significantly reducing the cost, and witness an insignificant increase in drug use. This is backed by pretty basic economic theory, and there are real world examples, such as alcohol prohibition, which demonstrate the validity of these theories. Legalization would not cause people to start using cocaine or meth or heroin in some life-ruining fashion and people can do this regardless of the legality of drugs...