10 reasons to legalise supply and use of drugs

[merle haggard]

if they ban me having a marlboro with my rare pint or a cup of coffee theres no way im going to stand by and see potheads running about shouting yippee . If they relax or throw out the smoking ban then ill think about it . But im fecked if ill be semi criminalised while the stoners get a pat on the back . No way .

[feargach]

Actually if you researched a little better you'd find that the majority of people who have developed schizophrenia were highly susceptible to it anyway.

Yes, over 99% of the drug users who developed schizophrenia had several instances of schizophrenia in their near-relative biological family history. The other 1% were adoptees whose family history is unknown.

Schizophrenia is like red hair, you don't catch it from your behaviour, it's either present in your genes from the moment the sperm enters the egg or it's not there at all.

The onset of the disease is usually extremely stressful, and naturally sufferers turn to drugs with a sedative effect in order to calm down.

[pete2]

The state already has to cope with the effects of drug use, its debatable whether legalisation would lead to an increase in admissions/deaths etc
It would be interesting to see the statistics of illness/death from alcohol and smoking compared to drug use

It will never happem anyway to suggest legalisation would be political suicide

shutuplaura and goosebump make the same point, wondering if use will increase. I suppose its a big gamble, but when the cat is out of the bag how easy to get it back in there?

People need to cop on and consider how other smaller, sweeping changes have damaged society longterm. If I had faith in the wisdom of progressives advocating this I might support it, but they have been wrong on every public policy they rammed down the nations throat for the last 30 years.

[pete2]

Yes, over 99% of the drug users who developed schizophrenia had several instances of schizophrenia in their near-relative biological family history. The other 1% were adoptees whose family history is unknown.

Schizophrenia is like red hair, you don't catch it from your behaviour, it's either present in your genes from the moment the sperm enters the egg or it's not there at all.

The onset of the disease is usually extremely stressful, and naturally sufferers turn to drugs with a sedative effect in order to calm down.

Except people who smoke marijuana and hashish are 4 times more likely to develop schizophrenia. Cause -> Effect.

[Pedro Pique]

Apparently many people with AIDS use coffe .

[ivnryn]

So quality controlled hashish and marijuana doesn't increase the risk of testicular and lung cancer? Its specifically cancer im worried about since it costs a lot to treat it. How will this and other social fallout be paid for, presumably not through taxation of the product because it would tax the product out of everyones price range.

Tax on cigarettes almost certainly covers any additional cost to the health service. It seems reasonable that a similar tax on the use of other drugs would cover their costs too.

In fact, you could try to match the additional tax to the social cost. If a drug does massive damage, then you can tax that at a high level, and thus people would generally go for the ones with the lower levy.

Another massive experiment with society, change for changes sake. Simply madness.

... or perhaps, people think that the change would be better than the status quo?

Except people who smoke marijuana and hashish are 4 times more likely to develop schizophrenia. Cause -> Effect.

Not necessarily, the causation could go the other way. If schizophrenia makes you more likely to want marijuana, the you would expect to see more of them who smoke.

To perform a proper test, you would need to eliminate this effect.

For example, give marijuana to 1000 people and then compare their incidence of schizophrenia, compared to a control group which didn't smoke.

Ofc, that test wouldn't be legal.