Why do governments feel the need to make drugs illegal? If anything, it causes a lot more problems than there were before. If they were legalized, there would not be nearly as many violent actions over getting them since the prices would not be nearly as high. There would not been as many people over doing it with drugs, since it would eventually just become a normal thing in day-to-day life.
People get drugs anyway, so making them illigal is pointless. Making them legal would lower the crime rate, and we would stop inadvertantly paying for the taliban. Because, when the drug prices go down, thae taliban would not be able to get enough money from the farmers.
everyone would be all trippy and acting all weird, i saw this video a while back of someone who was high taking a nap in the middle of the street, and we can all see the problems in that.
they should legalize weed because u can't get wasted off of it andit's better for u then siggeretts, and less addicting then siggeretts, so i don't see the the problem in it.
That's debatable, whatever. First, you have to define the terms of what is "worse", then you have to do a whole range of estimates according to these standards. For example, all things considered (at least all things considered from a public health perspective, like from the WHO: prevalence, total risk to health and incidence of illness associated with, Disability Adjusted Life Years estimations etc.), I would say that cigarette smoking is "worse" than the recreational drugs combined.
However, this isn't particularly meaningful, even though it's more meaningful than trying to estimate the risk for any single individual, and saying that one is worse than the other. Different people react differently to different things, simply put.
The biggest single factor as to what's allowed and what isn't is culture (and, backstage, economics). Smoking nicotinic substances (plus the 3000+ inhaled and solid types of poisons inside your average cigarette) has, up to more recently been an accepted part of many cultures around the world for yonks (still, in Japan and France nowadays, you're more likely to be uncool for not smoking), whereas recreational drug usage has not, for the most part.
Furthermore, many who are suspicious of the motives of the federal administration feel that the war on drugs is an economic bastion of sorts, in that it allows for a systematic blackmarket arms trade for various political wars and military interests. I won't speculate on this, but obviously any system can be exploited- various anti-corruption hearings regarding corruption in the Australian Police Force, for example, point to the war on drugs being a very lucrative one for some (providing they don't get caught).
There are other things that are culturally instituted but also constitute a big health burden. If you ever work in a hospital, you may notice that a significant proportion of the patients are there for alcohol-related issues, or due to an incident that involved alcohol.
In fact, I would say that in certain countries, alcohol is a greater burden than cigarette smoking and recreational drugs, but it, too, remains quite legal.
I agree with Strop on several points. From my work in an urban hospital, I can say confidently that alcohol and cigarette smoking are the cause of a significant proportion of ailments, ranging from mild (alcohol-induced minor injuries, smoking induced minor asthma attacks) to severe (end-stage lung cancers, alcoholic hepatitis). This is not a minor subset of the population, either. A significant proportion of 50+ aged men and women are treated for alcohol and tobacco related illnesses, and the cost to the state (because they are often in the lower economic brackets) is ENORMOUS.
Likewise, in developing nations, like China, almost 1/3 of the worlds smokers live there, and deaths due to tobacco related illness are climbing too rapidly.
So if these products cause so much harm and expense, why are they legalized? Money. They bring in huge amounts of revenue from taxation for the government, and they are probably, worldwide, trillion dollar industries.
Also, due to sensationalism in the media and pliability of the legislative bodies (during early 20th century US), drugs were improperly categorized into drug classes. Even though our knowledge of their effects has expanded, many drugs remain in classes too severe/too mild. Marijuana is one which is not nearly as addictive or dangerous as the rest of the drugs in its class, and yet it remains there.
Even if they don't legalized drugs, they should at least reorganize the legal status of all drugs to better match their potential for harm (pathophysiologically and societally). Then maybe the prison system wouldn't be so overwhelmed.
Even if they don't legalized drugs, they should at least reorganize the legal status of all drugs to better match their potential for harm (pathophysiologically and societally). Then maybe the prison system wouldn't be so overwhelmed.
Hell yes!
I'm rather tempted to start posting lyrics from System of a Down right about now...
