You can't fix one form of bad behaviour by implementing another form of bad behaviour.
Unfortunately, you can.
And if the "another form of bad behavior" is proven to cause a lot less of damage that the "one form of bad behavior", we call it a success. Even (or despite) the fact that could be better forms of dealing with the given problem.
I can't tell if you are really too stupid to understand, or lying to pretend you don't get it for your rhetorical games to protect yourself from actually listening to dissenting opinions.
Thank you very much by keeping this argument so civilized and constructive. I'm pretty sure you were a fabulous orator in your graduating.
Now, with your consent, I will move my stupidity to threads of a lower civilized level - I don't want to taint your oratory skills with my "rhetorical, lying games".
Speaking frankly, I misplaced that paragraph. I was having an argument with another guy and, well.... the wires had crossed a bit. Sorry.
Other than that, this post of yours are plain wrong. Just that.
As I said, prohibitions are tools. They can be used by educated people to educated other people, or can be used by uneducated (or evil) people to do evilness to another people.
Drunk driving is a Prohibition. You think this is bad? COMMON!
I had thought, it would be nice to have a few opium plants growing. If I had a bad pain, I would have a natural, not horribly addictive, pain killer on hand. Instead, my options are combinations of chemicals produced in labs, that ensure the continued profits of pharmaceutical companies. And these drugs are *known* to have severely toxic side effects. Due to chronic pain, I'll probably die of liver failure by the time I'm 50. Why? Ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and if it gets really really bad, some prescription only drugs. I'm confident my pains could be managed well with opium and marijuana. But hey, there's no good profit in a drug that I can grow at home.
You got a excellent point here. Marijuana is also well known to be a good pain killer on cancer patients.
However, this is a bit off the argument (or what I think it's the argument): legalize unrestricted, recreational use of all drugs.
We can't direct compare today society with past ones. We have too much more information today, too much more technological resources and environment knowledge to compare, ipsi literis, our decisions with the ones made in the past.
And he should have studied more history before doing the statements he made.
The opium use was devastating on China - and he's stated that there were no abuse problem in the XIX Century - exactly the Century of the Opium Wars (1840, more or less, IIRC).
You should paid more attention on the History that does not agrees with you before trying to make me do the same!:-)
Making everything cheap is the solution for all the problems?
Not all problems, but often, yes. Not to get too far off-track, but since you asked, look around yourself a bit. What things do you currently enjoy which are more affordable than they were 50 years ago? Making things more affordable IS a great way to make life better and solve useful problems, believe it or not.
Yes. Gasoline and other fossil fuels were more affordable when I were young. I wonder if this is somewhat connected to all that "global warming" thing?
Things are expensive nowadays because there're a lot more people disputing resources. You can't make things cheaper just because you want. You must increase the production (on a world where food production is already near critical) or decrease consumption.
If we get rid of the tabaco and alcohol taxes, who is gonna pay for the costs of their abuse's consequences? (car acidents, lunger cancer, these little things you carefully avoid in your argument - or do you think that all that drugs are just vitamins with stereoids?).
Those responsible will pay for consequences. Who, else?
Humm... Lung treatments are so cheap nowadays, aren't?:-)
Look, pal... Medical care is expensive. A LOT expensive. Two orders of magnitude more expensive than the price of the drugs needed to make you sick. And sick people can't work to pay for the treatment.
So, basically, what you are meaning is that drug induced sickness will be the next cause of violence, since besides drugs would be so cheap that everyone would buy it for chips, the ones the became sick because of the drugs will have to resort to any other means (legal or not) in order to pay for the medical bill.
You're exchanging a money problem for another, bigger, one.
Prohibition increases violence? Good! Let's get rid of that pesky murder law. It's the reason for all that murderers are criminals nowadays! X-D
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are suggesting here, but repealing a "murder law" would be at least as effective at reducing murder as any law could do. For one, murder is best prevented by action taken at the appropriate place and time (self-defense) rather than by threats of future punishment. People generally don't kill others, not because of any law, but because it is indecent. Only when the risk/reward ratio is increased significantly in certain situations does murder look like a good idea, and unfortunately the drug war often does exactly this. Face years in brutal isolation for participating in an illegal trade, or attempt to take out the person that can identify you instead? You want that to be a rational choice?
You almost got a good point here.
Unfortunately, while the absolute number of murders is raising, the fact is that the proportional number of murders is decreasing - and it's because of the murder prohibition. In America, killing people is the last option for solving a dispute because of a entire century of Law Enforcement. You are right, the risk/reward is too bad to solving problems by killing people. In America.
In Colombia, it's not.
Since you are going to reasoning, explain to me exactly what makes you thing that it's better to prevent a statistically small number of death by murder (comparing to the total number of dying people in the world) by allowing a huge, crescent, number of deaths by OD's, drugs induced sickness, social disrupting by drugs abuse, accidents et all?
We can't correctly deal with the alcohol abuse problem, what makes you think that we would do it with more drugs being legalized?
(By God's sake, we got almost 4 deaths a day in São Paulo city on transit accidents. In the same period, we got circa of 1.2 homicides a day on the entire State - you tell me where the bigger pr
There're a significant parcel of the population that can't hold themselves and commits crimes motivated by alcohol. Since it's significant, but yet too small compared to the majority of people that enjoys alcohol, it's willing to fight to the right to enjoy alcohol and, yet, does not cause any trouble to the society, the alcohol is not banned (but severely controlled - get caught driving drunk if you don't believe me).
On the other hand, nicotine besides being highly addictive, is not scientifically proven to cause misbehavior. I don't know of a single crime motiveted by the consumption of nicotine.
Making everything cheap is the solution for all the problems?
If we get rid of the tabaco and alcohol taxes, who is gonna pay for the costs of their abuse's consequences? (car acidents, lunger cancer, these little things you carefully avoid in your argument - or do you think that all that drugs are just vitamins with stereoids?).
Prohibition increases violence? Good! Let's get rid of that pesky murder law. It's the reason for all that murderers are criminals nowadays! X-D
Prohibitions are tools. They can be used for the good, or for the evil. Grow up and learn to face the consequences of the decisions YOU DO, instead of pleading "not my fault, it's the prohibitions! It's their fault" childish.
I'm sorry (well, not!) but I think that YOU missed the point.
Making drugs so cheap that you don't need cheaper drugs won't raise funds to the increased medical care that the mass (ab)use of that same drugs will create.
I hope you don't think that all that anti-tabaco campaign is just a right-winged FUD.
There's no way all that drugs would be legalized and keeped cheap. Cigarettes and Alcohol are facing increased tax to fund the medical care need by their abuse, don't think that mahijuana and others would be dealt differently.
The division of what is "good", "acceptable" and "evil" is not arbitrary.
There're people studying their use, abuse and consequences in order to decide what's need to be controlled, and what's need to be prohibited
Mistakes can be made about that decisions (and a lot of BUT MISTAKES are being made by people that profits with that bad decisions), but please don't reduce all that to "arbitrary".
Heroin is a devastating drug, marijuana is not that bad - but I know people that have their lives ruined by it. Just like alcohol do to some, by the way. And this is not arbitrary - is just observation.
These more addictive (and cheaper) substances were invented because there're people wanting them. They would be invented the same way if the drugs were legalized and (substantially) taxed for the inevitable health caring funding.
The core problem here is simple: people wants to get high, and they don't care about the consequences. All the rest is secondary to that.
There's no laws forbidding you from jump seat on a cactus, there is?
And you are ignoring that you can turn up approval for all mentions of you before going to your wall.
Once someone do something bad about you, you will have the chance to do not approve the post (on your wall, you cant do nothing about the other's walls) and file a complain.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, you can.
And if the "another form of bad behavior" is proven to cause a lot less of damage that the "one form of bad behavior", we call it a success. Even (or despite) the fact that could be better forms of dealing with the given problem.
We call it civilization.
Thank you very much by keeping this argument so civilized and constructive. I'm pretty sure you were a fabulous orator in your graduating.
Now, with your consent, I will move my stupidity to threads of a lower civilized level - I don't want to taint your oratory skills with my "rhetorical, lying games".
YOU are being arbitrary.
Marijuana is not unharmuful. It's as harmful as any other smoking drug.
More facts, less wishful thinking, please.
Read more. I know we are capable of.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/27/crime-smuggling-alcohol-tobacco
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/648986/posts
http://www.atf.gov/alcohol-tobacco/
Speaking frankly, I misplaced that paragraph. I was having an argument with another guy and, well.... the wires had crossed a bit. Sorry.
Other than that, this post of yours are plain wrong. Just that.
As I said, prohibitions are tools. They can be used by educated people to educated other people, or can be used by uneducated (or evil) people to do evilness to another people.
Drunk driving is a Prohibition. You think this is bad? COMMON!
You got a excellent point here. Marijuana is also well known to be a good pain killer on cancer patients.
However, this is a bit off the argument (or what I think it's the argument): legalize unrestricted, recreational use of all drugs.
No, I'm not joking.
We can't direct compare today society with past ones. We have too much more information today, too much more technological resources and environment knowledge to compare, ipsi literis, our decisions with the ones made in the past.
And he should have studied more history before doing the statements he made.
The opium use was devastating on China - and he's stated that there were no abuse problem in the XIX Century - exactly the Century of the Opium Wars (1840, more or less, IIRC).
You should paid more attention on the History that does not agrees with you before trying to make me do the same! :-)
FINALLY a good question! :-)
As far as I know, a bit harder than alcohol on the hallucinatory effects and somewhat as bad as tabaco on the health.
However, there're documented nasty psychological effects on prolonged and consistent use (this information is being disputed, however).
Marijuana, in my opinion, can be legalized but with heavy control on his use (so heavy as alcohol), and so taxed as tabaco to fund medical care.
Yes. Gasoline and other fossil fuels were more affordable when I were young. I wonder if this is somewhat connected to all that "global warming" thing?
Things are expensive nowadays because there're a lot more people disputing resources. You can't make things cheaper just because you want. You must increase the production (on a world where food production is already near critical) or decrease consumption.
Humm... Lung treatments are so cheap nowadays, aren't? :-)
Look, pal... Medical care is expensive. A LOT expensive. Two orders of magnitude more expensive than the price of the drugs needed to make you sick. And sick people can't work to pay for the treatment.
So, basically, what you are meaning is that drug induced sickness will be the next cause of violence, since besides drugs would be so cheap that everyone would buy it for chips, the ones the became sick because of the drugs will have to resort to any other means (legal or not) in order to pay for the medical bill.
You're exchanging a money problem for another, bigger, one.
You almost got a good point here.
Unfortunately, while the absolute number of murders is raising, the fact is that the proportional number of murders is decreasing - and it's because of the murder prohibition. In America, killing people is the last option for solving a dispute because of a entire century of Law Enforcement. You are right, the risk/reward is too bad to solving problems by killing people. In America.
In Colombia, it's not.
Since you are going to reasoning, explain to me exactly what makes you thing that it's better to prevent a statistically small number of death by murder (comparing to the total number of dying people in the world) by allowing a huge, crescent, number of deaths by OD's, drugs induced sickness, social disrupting by drugs abuse, accidents et all?
We can't correctly deal with the alcohol abuse problem, what makes you think that we would do it with more drugs being legalized?
(By God's sake, we got almost 4 deaths a day in São Paulo city on transit accidents. In the same period, we got circa of 1.2 homicides a day on the entire State - you tell me where the bigger pr
Read this: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2540052&cid=38145694
The guy is right. While agreeing with you that would be easier just to fill the check, the fact is that the whole thing stinks.
If we are talking about alcohol, you are right.
There're a significant parcel of the population that can't hold themselves and commits crimes motivated by alcohol. Since it's significant, but yet too small compared to the majority of people that enjoys alcohol, it's willing to fight to the right to enjoy alcohol and, yet, does not cause any trouble to the society, the alcohol is not banned (but severely controlled - get caught driving drunk if you don't believe me).
On the other hand, nicotine besides being highly addictive, is not scientifically proven to cause misbehavior. I don't know of a single crime motiveted by the consumption of nicotine.
Making everything cheap is the solution for all the problems?
If we get rid of the tabaco and alcohol taxes, who is gonna pay for the costs of their abuse's consequences? (car acidents, lunger cancer, these little things you carefully avoid in your argument - or do you think that all that drugs are just vitamins with stereoids?).
Prohibition increases violence? Good! Let's get rid of that pesky murder law. It's the reason for all that murderers are criminals nowadays! X-D
Prohibitions are tools. They can be used for the good, or for the evil. Grow up and learn to face the consequences of the decisions YOU DO, instead of pleading "not my fault, it's the prohibitions! It's their fault" childish.
Why stop here?
About 250.000 people gets hurts (something about 40.000 of them die in situ, another 80.000 die some months later) by alcoholized drivers in Brazil.
And alcohol is not even prohibited.
You shouldn't make direct comparisons between present society and earlier ones.
We have a such more complex, more populated and (faithfully) more educated nowadays. We do not use Laudanum for headaches anymore.
And I strongly suggest you study History better before making such statements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
Sorry, but... BULLSHIT.
Cigarettes and alcohol are not prohibited, and yet people seeks thugs to buy them cheaper.
This would not happens if you were right.
I'm sorry (well, not!) but I think that YOU missed the point.
Making drugs so cheap that you don't need cheaper drugs won't raise funds to the increased medical care that the mass (ab)use of that same drugs will create.
I hope you don't think that all that anti-tabaco campaign is just a right-winged FUD.
There's no way all that drugs would be legalized and keeped cheap. Cigarettes and Alcohol are facing increased tax to fund the medical care need by their abuse, don't think that mahijuana and others would be dealt differently.
on my last post, where is written "BUT MISTAKES", please read "BAD MISTAKES" - or, optionally, "BUTT MISTAKES" is you are on the mood. =]
The division of what is "good", "acceptable" and "evil" is not arbitrary.
There're people studying their use, abuse and consequences in order to decide what's need to be controlled, and what's need to be prohibited
Mistakes can be made about that decisions (and a lot of BUT MISTAKES are being made by people that profits with that bad decisions), but please don't reduce all that to "arbitrary".
Heroin is a devastating drug, marijuana is not that bad - but I know people that have their lives ruined by it. Just like alcohol do to some, by the way. And this is not arbitrary - is just observation.
Your logic is twisted.
These more addictive (and cheaper) substances were invented because there're people wanting them. They would be invented the same way if the drugs were legalized and (substantially) taxed for the inevitable health caring funding.
The core problem here is simple: people wants to get high, and they don't care about the consequences. All the rest is secondary to that.
There's no laws forbidding you from jump seat on a cactus, there is?
Prohibition is what keeps your home safe from people that thinks that's right to stole good from others.
The problem is not the prohibition. It's the lack of consensus about what must be prohibited and what should be just controlled.
The problem is not the "selfish" criminals.
The real problem is the real selfishness of the people that buys drugs from that criminals.
Liers wil lie.
There're psychological triggers that inhibits liers from lie when facing the interlocutors. These triggers doesn't happens they use a computer.
Digital media does not favors lying. It simply does not inhibits it.
1) Take any old but effective idea from the past ...
2) Use it on a Apple device
3)
4) PROFIT!
Serious, nice idea but far, far away from an advance or breakthrough.
And you are ignoring that you can turn up approval for all mentions of you before going to your wall.
Once someone do something bad about you, you will have the chance to do not approve the post (on your wall, you cant do nothing about the other's walls) and file a complain.
A new, big chinese counterpart for the HAARP?