Okay, guys - let's bust out the pot

[St. Jarvitude]

Remember - the Justice/Public Safety doesn't only have to be The Gungeon of DOOM!!, it's also the Drug forum.

So let's spark up a J and pass it around...

:smoke:

[MrSandman]

1. Watch out for the Drug Warriors...nt

[St. Jarvitude]

2. Damn!

You're kidding, right? People actually talk about stuff other than guns in this forum?

[MrSandman]

5. Just gets lost in the buzz...

of neenner, neener....more to you...my guns...don't need...assault wea...

There are some drug warriors. Personally I think the stuff should be legalized and regulated. Good luck getting that one enacted.

[Jack_DeLeon]

3. At the least Marijuana should be legalized...

many people can debate about whether other drugs should be legalized but I think most people would agree that Marijuana should be legal.

Personally I would probably also legalized cocaine, and sometimes I think we should just legalize all drugs.

[St. Jarvitude]

4. Agreed - almost everyone I talk to favors legalization of pot

Even some of the hardcore nut * supporters I talk to favor it.

The only guys I know who are opposed to it are the clean-cut, 50's drug propaganda movie types.

[goju]

7. All, or nothing

If we are going to legalize one drug, we have to legalize all. If, that is to say, our objective is to reduce the social ills that accompany drug use/abuse/trade. If our goal is just to get high, then its a different story.

The drug war clearly isnt working. Its costing lives and billions of dollars with no end in sight. Legalize all drugs and regulate them carefully. Homemade drugs, meth, ecstasy etc should remain illegal, if not manufactured by whatever agency would control legal drugs.

The trick would be regulating them and selling them cheaply enough to eliminate the illegal or black market drug trade, which is responsible for as much death and despair as the war in iraq. I dont have all the answers and Im just shooting from the hip but we should look seriously at this and get some mainstream brainpower behind it.

[LibLabUK]

8. Interesting..

The thing that worries me about the whole legalisation issue is the question as to how one defines a recreational drug.

The problem as I see it, and it's one that you address in a way that I don't think will sit well with the legalisation lobbey, that by legalising all drugs you would inadvertantly remove the restrictions on the marketing, sale and dispensing of therapeutic drugs and it would thereby hurt more people than it would help.

Even your argument may have some inherent problems when you look at it from the perspective of current drug licencing regulations.

Would cannabis et al pass the current regulations regarding therapeutic drugs?

The answer is no.

Would they have to be governed by different, more relaxed rules?

The answer to that is probably.

Could then a pharmaceutical company classify it's products under the same legislation governing recreational drugs to bypass the multimillion dollar expense of passing it through the therapeutic licencing regulations?

If the answer to that is yes, then we have a major problem.

I've never seen these issues addressed by the legalisation lobbey, and until I do, and they address them in such a way as to allay my fears in this area I cannot support legalisation.

I do however favour the decriminalisation of cannabis for personal use, and would like to see sentences for possession of drugs for personal use reduced to either mandatory treatment or community service.

[mosin]

10. If it's not marketed to diagnose or treat an illness...

then it shouldn't be subject to the current drug licensing regulations.

I absolutely favor the removal of all criminal penalties on the possession and use of all drugs. People should, however, be held strictly liable for the consequences of their actions, whether or not intoxicated or undur the influence of a foreign substance.

I generally favor allowing a legal, but regulated -- primarily through strict consumer disclosure rules -- market in drugs.

I generally favor relaxing the strict medical drug requirements as well, allowing quicker access to the market, again, with strict consumer disclosure requirements. The combination of traditional tort doctrines -- product liability, fraud, negligence, assumed risk, etc. -- and mandatory disclosures should serve to protect consumers, while reducing the costs associated with the FDA bureaucracy.

[LibLabUK]

11. It never fails...

"I generally favor relaxing the strict medical drug requirements as well,

Then I guess you must not actually know much about the requirements for the licencing of medications.

allowing quicker access to the market, again, with strict consumer disclosure requirements.

How do you think they work out what information to put into those patient information sheets?

What about evidence-based medicine and the ethics of prescribing untested or poorly tested medication to the sick?

The only medicinal drugs that should be licenced are those that offer a benefit over existing treatments, and that benefit should be proven through large-scale Phase III trials.

The benefits need to be one or more of the following:

1. More effective
2. Easier to administer (pill vs. IV, patch vs. pill)
3. Fewer side-effects

That's the way it is currently, and speaking as someone in clinical research, I think that that is the way it should be.

We have to remember that the reason we have the system we do now is Thalidomide.

Having the ability to sue or imprison is all well and good, but it doesn't revive the dead nor repair birth defects. In medicine prevention really is better than cure, and the system that you propose is all about punishing after the fact and doing nothing towards prevention. This is the antithesis of the current system.

[mosin]

12. Bad guessing

Then I guess you must not actually know much about the requirements for the licencing of medications.

Then you would be wrong. I am quite familiar with the U.S. drug approval process and the procedures for clinical trials. That's why I know how broken and inefficient it is.

What about evidence-based medicine and the ethics of prescribing untested or poorly tested medication to the sick?

The only medicinal drugs that should be licenced are those that offer a benefit over existing treatments, and that benefit should be proven through large-scale Phase III trials.

You assume that I propose to end Phase III clinical trials. Nothing could be further from the truth. I merely propose to remove an element of government bureaucracy that has proven itself incompetent to balance competing risks. Pharmaceutical companies would still have an obligation, legal, moral, and financial, to adequately test and demonstrate the safety and efficacy of their products. Doctors would still have an obligation not to prescribe or recommend inadequately tested products for their patients. Patients would still have an obligation to read the fine print of their medical disclosures--disclosures that would need to become consumer friendly. I expect that third-party, private certification agencies--the pharmaceutical equivalent of Underwriters Laboratories--would emerge to give doctors and patients confidence in pharmaceutical products. I would even suggest privatizing the FDA, making it the first of the private certification agencies.

Having the ability to sue or imprison is all well and good, but it doesn't revive the dead nor repair birth defects. In medicine prevention really is better than cure, and the system that you propose is all about punishing after the fact and doing nothing towards prevention. This is the antithesis of the current system.

I agree what I propose is the antithesis of the current system. The current system is horribly broken. It does not begin to pass the cost-benefit test. People die when good drugs are delayed to market. People die when bad drugs make it to market. People die because our health care system is too expensive. People dying is reality. The best solution is one which produces the greatest benefit given available resources. Our current system fails that test.

[LibLabUK]

13. Hmm...

That reads just like a Cato Institute position paper.

When you talk about private certification, you sound like a Libertarian.

[mosin]

14. Position papers

I sound like a Cato Institute position paper? And to think I wrote that off the top of my head. :)

I've been called a libertarian--you know, guns, drugs, etc.--but I am definitely not a Libertarian.

Keep in mind that I'm a Democrat from Texas, where the Republicans want to repeal virtually the entire federal government. That tends to push us moderates into the Democratic Party.

[LibLabUK]

15. Hmm

"I sound like a Cato Institute position paper? "

Yeah, the concept you described is eerily close to their position on the FDA, even the terminology you used.

I'm not a fan of corporation-funded right-wing think tanks. Cato has some really unpleasant ideas about health and welfare. And they're exporting their ideas over here, the Conservatives are leaning more their way... Thatcher was a big fan of them.

But, I don't mind tossing ideas around... it's better than most of the "guns are great, guns are bad" threads in j/ps.

"Keep in mind that I'm a Democrat from Texas, where the Republicans want to repeal virtually the entire federal government. That tends to push us moderates into the Democratic Party."

I can see that, you have that Ron Paul (is that his name?) in the Senate, he's a pretty nasty piece of work imho. He has some pretty offensive opinions on minorities, and has he ever voted in favour of anything other than tax breaks?

[mosin]

17. Ron Paul

Ron Paul is an actual Libertarian. He was a Republican Congressman. Then he ran as the Libertarian candidate for president. Then he became a Republican Congressman again. He is running for re-election unopposed. No Democrat or Libertarian opponent. To the best of my knowledge, he is the only completely unopposed Texas congressional candidate.

I will go check out the Cato position paper on the FDA. The only papers I've read of theirs lately are their social security proposals. They had actual legislation introduced implementing their proposal, so I went to the source.

[Columbia]

6. Remember, it's puff, puff, give

:smoke:

[alwynsw]

9. Don't Bogart that joint!

(Oops. My age is showing.)

[BigDaddyCaine]

16. i so much agree

but i hate to say i smoked my last jay last night. Im down to a few roaches.

[grannylib]

18. The poster in your post reminds me of the one in HIGH school that

said "I want you to do your homework." My favorite prank in HIGH school was to roll "joints" out of pencil shavings; I taped one in Uncle Sam's mouth on that poster, but the best was putting some of them through the vents in the jocks' lockers on the days of locker inspections and watching the morons' faces when the principal would open their lockers and the "joints" would fall out...hilarious!

[goju]

19. Yeah?

My favorite prank was kickin the shit out of the dickheads who put a bag of weed and a pipe in my car at lunch, and then called cops on me!

Yeah, that was real funny of them. I got kicked off the wrestling team, suspended for 2 weeks from school, spent a day in jail (ripped right out of class), and my dad pulled me out of karate to work in his warehouse for 3 months. Not to mention that I was never able to convince anyone that it wasnt mine, mom, dad, coach, or instructor. Yep, that was fuckin hilarious.

But what was even funnier was catching up on the 2 dickless, sissy ass, spoiled little pansy stoner punks who pulled that stunt. I never thought Id be arrested twice in one month, and neither did they. Imagine how FUNNY it must have been for them when their mommy's had to pick them up, minus a few teeth on one collapsed lung on the other? Yeah, it was all in good fun. I can laugh about it now, but I have all my real teeth too.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

20. Don't just legalize the hard drugs...

Make them free. The costs of manufacturing enough coke, heroin, and speed for all the addicts would be a tiny percentage of the damage they do maintaining their habits.

As for weed, it should be like wine. Since I'm NOT a libertarian, however, I would suggest acreage limitations to prevent shitty Marlboro Joints 100s, etc.

[HiddenInVA]

21. Legalize? Maybe....

I personally haven't been convinced that marijuana is any more harmful
than other, more legal, substances floating around out there, so I
could see maybe legalizing it. IF.

IF they regulate it's sale like they do tobacco or alcohol. (Yes, I'm
sure that the kids will find a way to get it, as they do now.) And
(this is the kicker) enforce the abuse/consequences of any of it's
side-effects that come up legally. In other words, if you toke up, go
out and get a case of the dumbass, it's all about responsibility, as it
should be for the guy who gets wasted at the bar, then jumps in his car,
and gets busted at the checkpoint for DUI. Or gets into an accident,
etc.

I wouldn't have any more sympathy to somebody who gets stoned and
wrecks, as I do with the drunks that I have to cut out of their
wrecked cars. Gee, sorry about that....:o

I never tried it, but I can say that it was good for food sales back in
HS, as I was selling some serious hamburgers to the guys that had the
munchies after a few good rounds of the bong.:D

[LibLabUK]

22. Hmm..

"I wouldn't have any more sympathy to somebody who gets stoned and
wrecks, as I do with the drunks that I have to cut out of their
wrecked cars."


Are there reliable road-side tests and effective kits for measuring the levels of the intoxicants in the bloodstream?

Is it possible to agree a level of intoxication with regard to cannabis use?

Is it possible to give advice to people, and advise people sensibly on driving and cannabis use. For instance generally how long after ingesting/smoking is it safe for someone to drive (this is something that can be defined pretty well for alcohol)?

Will the manufacturers of cannabis products be given liability waivers in the case that cannabis isn't as good for you as is claimed currently, or will there be another series of lawsuits a la tobacco?

The answers to these questions should be a priority for all in the legalisation camp.

[HiddenInVA]

25. Don't know

I really don't know the answer to any of your questions. My post was
just a personal observation, and one based on my experience of dealing
with drugs & alcohol in the EMS world.

I really don't see it happening in todays litigation-loving society,
but, you never know.....

[NorthernSpy]

26. we could develop some kind of objective impairment testing

Lots of things -- not just drugs and drinking -- can make a person unfit to drive. I think that finding a way to detect and measure the performance impairment itself would be much more to the point than writing a bunch of (inevitably arbitrary and unscientific) legal standards for blood concentrations of various stuffs. Going this route could also obviate the need for drug testing in most work situations, and it would catch a lot of serious impairments that drug tests cannot detect.

Unless, of course, the real point of drug testing is to maintain an ongoing pharmacological inquisition into the lives of citizens, rather than to make highways and jobsites safer for the people who use them...


Mary

[slackmaster]

23. Sounds reasonable

As long as it would be legal to grow your own, as is the case with tobacco and yeast poop (beer and wine).

[TX-RAT]

24. Didn't know you could grow your own tobacco.

Where would you get the seed? Never mind, did a goggle.