Marijuana is illegal in a majority of Western nations, yet it is a very commonly used drug. Some countries have decriminalized it’s use, but continue to make it illegal to grow and sell in large quantities. Do you think it would be better for countries to legalize marijuana (and maybe some hard drugs) or should the laws remain as they are? Remember, keep the comments friendly and use good arguments for your view.
Should Drugs Be Legalized?
My answer is that marijuana should be – in doing so it will reduce the workload of police who can concentrate on other crimes, and it could also provide many jobs that currently don’t exist by creating an industry of commercial growers and producers. As for hard drugs, I think that under close medical supervision, some hard drugs could be legally given by a doctor to reduce drug crime.
I'd ban alcohol. By far the worst drug today, maybe not when compared to heroin or something, but in terms of mass comsumption, *****.
Um… The first year Prohibition was lifted crime dropped the lowest it had been in thirty years- and not just one or two speicific types of crime; murder, theft, drunk driving, assault, etc.
yeah ***** should be legalized but there should be restrictions. it should be bought only with a prescription from a doctor.
Why? It's not dangerous, and people are only going to abuse a medicinal system, so just legalise it fully.
You should visit holland
Here they sell ***** and other softdrugs in the “coffeeshops” legally. They never cause any serious problems, ye sure, there are victims of overusage or whatever, but the same goes for alcoholabuse. I wouldn’t recommend legalising hardrugs though. If it becomes legal, they (the government) will make them alot more expensive, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we?
@Twinkle: that’s not legalising
Darn so close to first comment this time! Anyway I agree with Twinkle…
the only reason the government would want to legalise them is if they could put a tax on it, and rest assured, they would. At the moment (i live in australia, right in the middle of kings cross, the main red light district)most soft and hard drugs are fairly easily available, and while i personally think that legalisation would increase the amount of damage done to heavy users in terms of health and social standing (if they haveto pay more for it this is), my friend thinks it would decrease the number or recreational users. In other words, legalisation would end up being bad for your pocket and your country, whereas plenty of people are quite happy right now scouring the earth looking for stuff, let’s keep it that way.
I think ***** should be legalised, but not any other harder drugs. By legalised I mean taxed, controlled, and available only in certain outlets, so, for example, you couldn’t just walk into a Tesco & buy some. Anyone wanting to sell it would have to get a liscence, and the liscences would be controlled as well. Doing this would virtually eliminate the contact with drug dealers people would have if they wanted to get some, dealers who could lead them onto other harder drugs.
***** is a lot safer than alcohol, which is legal, and people don’t get violent after taking some, so it’d be a lot safer for everyone. As I posted in a debate on the BBC website recently, I’d rather wake up on my sofa with a half eaten pizza next to me after a night of smoking pot than wake up in an alleyway covered in stale vomit & urine, sans trousers after a night of drinking.
So yeah, I say legalise & control.
Yes. All drugs should be completely legalized. In my opinion it is not up to the state to decide what people do with their lives – up to and including suicide. Laws should be in place to keep you from harming others, but what drugs you take should be none of anyone’s business.
Note: I smoke a pipe of regular tobacco a couple of times a year, I drink a beer every few weeks and get drunk at a party about twice a year. I don’t do any other drugs either, apart from the occasional painkiller. My viewpoint is from the standpoint of a non user who have had good insight into the drug user community through work.
Absolutely. But just *****. And put an age limit (say 18) on it just so parents dont go all ape***** about it. But coke, heroin, meth etc should still be illegal no doubt about that. Those can seriously wreck lives. And i disagree with the above comment (#6), what u do inevitably affects those around you
I would say 21, like alcohol.
i think heroin should be irrdicated complertely, wipe out poppies, we have no need for it. anybody who takes heroin deserves to die as over the few thousand years people have taken it, nothing good has come of it. i have no sympathy for addicts as you might have thought they would have heard something negative about it by now! (sarcasm) also ***** wont be legalised due to taxation, if you could grow tobacco in your garden the government would make it illegal. right now drugs busts and arresting assetts are much better for the government, speeking as a scottish citizen myself.
yes it should, Like you see here in the Netherlands, the amount of problems will reduce once there legal. but there should be restirictions in the amount people are allowed having on them. Now I’m no specialist, but I do know studies show that legalizing soft drugs reduces the majority of problems coused by the same drugs. or something like that. like I said I’m no expert.
Sure, legalize weed. I think there is enough evidence to prove that ciggs and alcohol are just as bad, if not worse.
As for other drugs? Ban them, sure. I do feel bad for people who get addicted to drugs, it is not always fair to blame them. I know this will cause controversy, but I think some people are born into situations where drugs become inevitable to all but the strongest of personalities.
Ganga is good for Asthma
I think drugs should be legalised in order to control them and to stop dodgy drug dealers.
I believe that Pot for sure should be legalized. It is much safer to get high on that, than it is on alcohol for sure. I say that as a user of both.
Alcohol messes up your senses and your reflexes a hell of a lot more than smoking a joint does. Plus you dont have a hang over the next day!!!
I think ***** should be legal for sure. I have never heard of anyone smoking a joint and raping someone or getting violent. The only thing I rape after smoking a joint is my fridge… poor bastard lol. Now as for the hardcore drugs, I’ve seen first hand what they can do to families and communities and it’s not pretty.
in a serious note, it think that Ganja should not be legalised (but seriously, boil the weed root in water and drink it – instant cure for asthma) because people are never satisfied, when they get fed up of weed they would go for the hard stuff. (Oh and weed gives you inspiration to write reggae music – or so i’ve heard) but its bad, very bad and it would make you real hungry and then you begin to look like a hard piece of wood (or so i’ve been told)
romerozombie: silence! I will not hear such evil ideas!
If weed were legal the Dept. of Agriculture has estimated the actual value to be approx. $.10 an ounce. SO that sells illicitly for approx. $250 an ounce. The difference: $249.90 per ounce, if used as tax revenue would go a LONG way. Besides that, there has never been a documented case of death from *****. We can’t say the same for alcohol or cigarettes can we. Time for a change.
Yeah, just *****, very tight restriction with prescription and all. I don’t agree with it being alcohol and tobacco substitute though.
I used to work in a prison and I’d always ask the dealers if they thought drugs should be legal. Without exception, they all said no. If drugs were legal, they said, they’d be out of a job!
This taught me two things. First, the dealers are benefiting from the current system. Second, if the first thing the convicted dealers planned to do once they got out of jail was to start dealing, then punishment is also worthless.
Seriously, when have you (or someone you knew) ever had a problem getting drugs because they’re illegal? The only thing making them illegal does is make them more expensive, and more dangerous because they’re completely unregulated.
Legalize drugs. Have a “drugging age” same as we do for a drinking age, let grownups make grownup choices. It’s your body and you should be able to say what you do with it, even if it’s something stupid.
Legalize it, regulate it, tax the crap out of it. Create a revenue stream instead of a financial black hole.
legalize it. all of it. i’m not a drug user a little weed in college not withstanding. the war on drugs is one of the biggest jokes of all time. take all the money spent on that travesty and lower our taxes by that amount.
Legalize the soft drugs. De-criminalize possession for the rest of them. The war on drugs does not work and causes more social problems than it solves. In the United States right now , today, 99.1% of their citizenry is in jail. I don’t know what percentage of that horrendous number is drug related, but we all know its huge. Spend the money that is now being wasted on ineffective incarceration and enforcement on education, health care and social programs proven to alleviate the underlying causes of drug abuse. An interesting stat that I read, drug abuse is actually lower in The Netherlands where it is legal than in the USA where it is not.
http://www.taima.org/drugfacts/nl_usa.htm
guys .99.1% just shy of 1%, please excuse the typo
Sorry for the double/triple post. The percentage of violent offenders incarcerated in the USA is roughly 30%. I would imagine/infer that the large majority of the rest of the prison population is drug related, either through theft or possession etc…
Rob: I don’t know where you live but I only pay 100 to 120 for an ounce of very good ganja no where near 250.
You are getting ripped off!!!
I live in Montana, USA. It is legal to be in possession of “medical *****” as long as you have a prescription for it. However, ***** can not be obtained legally whether you have a prescription or not! You still have to see your local drug dealer!
#16 srichards, “because people are never satisfied, when they get fed up of weed they would go for the hard stuff.
I know of people that have smoked week their whole lives, and have never got *fed up with it* and moved on to hard drugs. And they are professionals. My aunt is a nurse specializing in tumor tracking and my uncle her husband repairs very high tech hospital equipment and commands high money just to walk in the door and just look at the machine. They are in their 50′s, pretty well off and will probably smoke pot for the rest of their lives.
And how in God’s name does smoking pot cause you to look like a hard piece of wood???? I just dont understand that comment.
#16 srichards; you are mistaken and full of *****. I’ve smoked weed my entire life (since grade 7), and other than the odd mind expanding hallucinogen I have never dabbled in hard drugs. No coke, no meth, no oxy’s, no vicodin, no nothing else. Of my 4 children I have had drug problems with one of them, and it was Oxycodone. Prescription drug abuse is rampant where I live, and way too readily available. Far worse than a little weed or a tab of acid. Mind you addiction runs in my family, I have alcoholics all over the place, so it is quite possible that if hadn’t been oxy’s it might have been something else. Throwing him in jail would have made the situation worse. I put him under house-arrest, told everyone who phoned he could not talk because he was an oxy addict. Same thing to anyone who came to the door. It worked, it caused him great pain, no sleep for a week, horrendous twitching,,,,awful drug
legalize all drugs. at first have government administered regulation and taxation that over time would be handled by private citizen groups or small public businesses, to take the government out of the picture entirely. the revenue from taxation would go to public education. rehab centers. training more professional counselors to deal w/ addicts. make addiction a medical issue not a legal one. educate the pubic from early on about the dangers of misuse and addiction. make a distinction between recreational usage and addictive behaviors. keep strict laws and penalties for public drug usage..like driving under the influence. other ‘crimes’ committed while under the influence. have a kind of ‘what goes on in the privacy of your own home is a personal not a government concern’ attitude. the exception being….
if you get wasted and fall asleep in your bathtub allowing it to run over and flood your downstairs neighbor’s bathroom then ..not once but 3 times in less than a year..then you should be taken out and shot! ARGH! yes, that last bit was personal. and all too true. supposedly the apt. management is finally getting this ***** outa here. i’ll believe it when i see him hauling his crap out. heh…so yes, there are limits even for me. i don’t give a rat’s ass what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes but when it involves flooding my bathroom at 2am on Sunday morning…i draw the line! and call the cops! grrr…
srichards; I do not look like a hard piece of wood. In fact I have no wrinkles, not including laugh lines. Those I have in abundance. My mom whom I favor, drinks. She is wrinkled to rat ***** and looks 10 years older than she is. I look 10 years younger, minimum. I get mistaken for one of my kids friends when I don’t have make-up on and wear a ball cap. (I have short hair)
In a perfect world, maybe doctors would only give hard drugs to people that need it medically, but to me it is all too obvious that many doctors would be selling these drugs to people that don’t actually need it. In other words the doctors would become the drug dealers.
Weed should be legal and taxed and regulated like alcohol. I mean, it’s already our (USA) number one cash crop by far, and we waste sooooo much money putting non-violent drug offenders in jail.
-In 2006, drug law violators comprised 19.6% of all adults serving time in State prisons – 249,400 out of 1,274,600 State prison inmates.
-According to the US Justice Department, 27.9% of drug offenders in state prisons are serving time for possession.
-According to the American Corrections Association, the average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the US is $67.55. State prisons held 249,400 inmates for drug offenses in 2006. That means it cost states approximately $16,846,970 per day to imprison drug offenders, or $6,149,144,050 per year.
-It’s deeeeeeelicious.
Oh Mom424 thank you for clarifying that for me, I do not look like a hard piece of wood either I am 40 years old and still get mistaken for being in my late 20′s early 30′s and I have been smoking pot for oh i would say at least 25 years and have no plans to stop.
a few laugh lines and some worry lines between my eyebrows and thats about it
So…everyone is naming these statistics that seem a little out of place to me. Could these stats have come from wikipedia? I’m not saying they’re wrong, maybe just taken out of context.
Chris; no. my stats are from the FBI, ministry of health etc. Check out the link and read the notes at the bottom. Not taken out of context. The percentage of US population incarcerated has been all over the news for more than a week now.
-In 2006, drug law violators comprised 19.6% of all adults serving time in State prisons – 249,400 out of 1,274,600 State prison inmates.
Source: Sabol, William J., PhD, Couture, Heather, and Harrison, Paige M., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2006 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2007), NCJ219416, p. 24, Appendix Table 9, and p. 25, Appendix Table 10.
-According to the US Justice Department, 27.9% of drug offenders in state prisons are serving time for possession; 69.4% are serving time for ***** offenses; and 2.7% are in for “other.”
Source: Mumola, Christopher J., and Karberg, Jennifer C., “Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004,” (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Oct. 2006) (NCJ213530), p. 4.
-According to the American Corrections Association, the average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the US is $67.55. State prisons held 249,400 inmates for drug offenses in 2006. That means it cost states approximately $16,846,970 per day to imprison drug offenders, or $6,149,144,050 per year.
Sources: American Correctional Association, 2006 Directory of Adult and Juvenile Correctional Departments, Institutions, Agencies and Probation and Parole Authorities, 67th Edition (Alexandria, VA: ACA, 2006), p. 16; Sabol, William J., PhD, Couture, Heather, and Harrison, Paige M., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2006 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2007), NCJ219416, p. 24, Appendix Table 9.
it seems curious that the argument used by several people is that weed should be legalized because it isn’t as bad as tobacco or alcohol. we can agree, seemingly, that there are problems/concerns with legalizing pot. so we dismiss these concerns by saying that there are other things out there with more problems?
shouldn’t the bigger concern be that we should figure out how to solve the rest of these problems?
Legalize it all…I am a cop and have worked in the narcotics division at my department and there are a few things that I have noticed. If someone wants to do drugs they will no matter what the “gubment” says. If someone is not doing drugs at this time they probably wont if it is legal. Much of the crime in my city is drug related, not all but some, territories, debts owed, needing cash for more. Why not tax the drugs and make some money off of it I’m sure it would reduce my taxes somewhere down the line. Why the hell should I have to pay for someones rehab because they cant afford it, less criminals in prison feeding off everyones public funds. Why would anyone head to the bad section of town to get a hit when they can go to the “shop” and buy a hit that is known to be “real dope” and not “turkey dope”. Legalize it, I choose not to use myself but if you want to you will and have been why would I waste my time trying to stop someone who doesnt want to so I can get to someone who wants my help.
-It’s deeeeeeeelicious.
Source: Me
DiscHuker: Exactly what problems/concerns with legalizing pot are you talking about.
Not being a smart ass just wondering what kind of problems are you talking about
And I agree with DJ, if it is legalized then the government can tax it which will help with the government budget.
DiscHuker; We already know how to alleviate these problems. Reduce poverty through education, health care, and social programs. Provide hope to those have none by having true equal opportunity for education. Provide a safe and stable environment for our children with quality day care and subsidized housing. Remove the criminal element from the equation by decriminalization. These tactics are proven to work. Money is not the issue as TMo has kindly pointed out; knowledge is not the problem, we know how; political will is what is lacking. Short-sighted political gain over the welfare of society. The story of our times.
My answer as with im sure is mom424′s is ***** should be legalized. And so should hard drugs, you’d see less crime and death if it was legalized. And you should be allowed to put whatever the hell you want inyo your body, thats why amsterdam ROXS!
Mom424, the reason I stated money as the main argument for legalization is that it could be diverted towards making our society better and safer and pay for those social programs you mention.
TMo; yes, I was thanking you for giving us the exact savings that decriminalization would provide. Enough for a good start!
Csimmons; No you should not be “allowed” to put whatever you want into your body. It just shouldn’t be illegal. I am not for rampant drug use. Moderation in all things. Just because something feels good does not mean you should do it. And you are mistaken if you think weed is innocuous (harmless). It ruins your lungs, contributes to apathy and dampens ambition (remember the Stoner under-achievers at school), contributes to obesity, and has a proven effect on the immune system.
Be aware of the consequences of your actions at all times and make your decisions accordingly.
not sure that legalizing would end all the crime associated with drugs. as long as it still costs money, people without money would still need to turn to crime in order to get the legalized drugs that they have no money for.
seems that price and not necessarily availability is where the crime comes from
mom424: I did put all of those into thought, but shouldn’t people be free to do whatever they want to do to their bodies(in moderation of course)?
And although I have never taken or plan to take drugs(except for prescriptions)I believe people have the right to take drugs, but maybe there should be a law saying only in moderation, it might work.
here are my thoughts. i think it should all be legalized and government made for a few years then natural selection would take over. because as most of you have agreed, those who want it are gonna do it anyway. the ones who are “hard-core” are gonna o/d and die. then after those people kick off let the “gubment” step in and start reducing the quality of the drugs. eventually making them weaker and weaker.
I agree with hippymom, legalizing drugs may in fact them weaker and weaker until they are barely taken.
i have no problem with the legalization of a relatively harmless drug such as *****. theres no physical dependency, no evidence of long term psychological effects, and the long term physical effects would be no more damaging than a lifetime of smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.
i think if the government decided to spend some of the billions they blow annually on the drug war and instead researched it a little bit, they could save those billions in the future simply by decriminalizing *****.
in my opinion, they wouldnt even have to make it truly “legal”, but simply drop the penalties on it. its probably not something that i would ever expect to see being sold at wal-mart, but if the government simply stopped caring, it would save them billions by not fighting it and would make a lot of people in america very happy
And, as TMo said, it costs too much to keep a person on drug charges in jail per year, that money could go toward health-care or other useful purposes.
EricB:***** isn’t exactly harmless, but you are right, And this is my opinion, but i think the only reason that cigs and alcohol are legal is because the best kinds of ‘em are made in america, if Marlboro made weed, weed would be legal.
I believe that ***** should be legalized. I have never used it (nor have I used any recreational drugs), but I have friends who do. I’m around them when they’re smoking, and they don’t go off and do stupid stuff, or turn to harder drugs because they’re not satisfied. I think the whole idea that ***** is a “gateway” drug is just an excuse for people with no self-control. My friends, and in fact most potheads I know, don’t smoke a joint and say, “damn, that just wasn’t enough for me, I’m gonna go buy an 8 ball!”
They smoke, relax, get the munchies, maybe play some video games. No one dies, no one goes all bananas because they smoked some reefer. It’s not a big deal. Really. Regulate the growth and production, tax it, do what you gotta do, just stop making it out to be such a huge problem!
For the most part, I think harder drugs like Coke, Heroin, Meth, and even Ecstasy should be kept illegal, or at the very least legalized and regulated SEVERELY. Perhaps even going as far as setting up “safe houses” where people can pay a fee and get their fix in safety and privacy so they’re not out on the streets with it.
I don’t see why softer drugs shouldn’t be legal, it would do more good than it would harm. Harder drugs should definitely not be legal though, they’re just too dangerous.
I entirely agree with Mom on, I think, every point she’s made.
Drugs should be at least be de-criminalized. Certainly ***** and other soft drugs can be legalized with little danger.
The fact is that our drug policy, which has gone on for decades now, is no more successful (and has proved far more destructive to society) than Prohibition. All we’ve done is spent billions while coming no nearer to a solution, and helped to give power and wealth to organized crime (again, exactly paralleling Prohibition) while forcing millions into prison. Yet drug use goes on, rising and ebbing with the flow of fashion.
We never seem to want to ask or address the hard questions about WHY drug use is so rampant in our society. The questions get to the heart of some nasty issues about America that I expect few people have the courage to face.
Well, our choice is to go on throwing money away while screwing our own society as well as the societies and economies of other countries or to face up to this issue finally, and come to our senses. Maybe someday we really will grow up.
Csimmons; Not going to jail and being free to do whatever you want is not the same thing. Doing whatever you want is irresponsible and detrimental to society. Some substances are not safe in any amount. Crystal Meth comes to mind as does crack cocaine, both are known to produce addiction responses after as little as one or two doses. So, No, people should not be free to put whatever they want into their bodies, they just needn’t go to jail for it.
I do think that cannibis should be legalized along with Hemp. The plants that have inebriating effects should be rgulated similarly as alcohol is. the benefits of widespread hemp production are numerous.
to Csimmons: i understand when people say that weed isnt harmless, but for anyone with a little self control, the harm doesnt amount to anything worse than what cigarettes or alcohol could amount to.
and another reason i think most drugs will probably stay illegal is because the government would have a hard time taxing them and making money off of them. thats why i always throw in how much money they could save each year by calling off the drug war
EricB:
The government does a fine job regulating and taxing alcohol. Doing the same with ***** will see an economic boom and a huge decrease in drug-related crime because the prices will be lower to purchase legally, and the underground market will disappear.