Poll: My solution to the drug problem

[Monocle Man]

1. Get your hands on billions and billions of cameras
2*. Hire many many people to place those billions and billions of cameras so that every public spot will be recorded
3. Recordings get transferred to a huge server (probably one server per region)
4. If a person is found using illegal drugs, track that person down with the camera-records and follow that person to the dealer
5. Arrest dealer
(Can be used for any reported crime)

Along with that you can build "Groove Houses":
1. People may buy drugs and use them there in the company of friends and lava lamps (100% legal of course)
2. Once they're out of drugs they may leave the Groove House and receive a discount ticket for the Anti-Groove House (place to get rid of drug addictions)
3. If family, friends or the person who is responsible for the Groove House thinks someone is taking far too much drugs they can call people to drag them to the Anti-Groove House
4. Using drugs outside a Groove House is a crime

* "Right to have privacy"? Since when did you have privacy in public places?

 

[AkJay]

Well, look at cigarettes, they are 10 dollars a pack, and that doesn't stop them from being bought, so apparently prices don't matter in terms of addiction.

 

[KaZZaP]

I don't really care how or why just legalize the shit already. Its getting ridiculous alcohol messes you up so much more then dope does. Its IMPOSSIBLE to smoke so much dope you black out or get so high you run over 35 pedestrians. I'm so fucking sick of feeling like some kind of second class citizen criminal because I smoke dope. Fear that if my school or my work finds out I could get fired or kicked out. On the other hand if went up to them and say hey I had 10 beers on the weekend they would just say good for you.

Fuck this backwards world.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Better idea. Legalize Marijuana. There is no person in the history of mankind that has actually died from Marijuana.

 

[capnpupster]

A lot of what are now known as "controlled substances" used to be legal, widely available, and they were a public health disaster. Legalizing all currently illegal drugs for public consumption would be idiotic, in fact even proclaiming that there is one solution to every illegal drug problem is a vast oversimplification of the subject. Meth, for instance, could be shut down by a single law, forbidding the production of a Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine(which are used in some cold medicine and such, but are not necessary). That's what they did with Quaaludes, and now you almost never hear about them. The difference is that some drug companies are making a lot of money from the ephedrine products so they refuse to allow congress to ban their production. And before anyone asks, no meth producers could not simply start production of their own ephedrine, it is just too complicated.
Marijuana, on the other hand, should be legalized, regulated, and taxed to kingdom come(just like tobacco and alcohol). There would still be pot "bootleggers" but most people would just find it easier to go buy it from the corner drugstore and pay the tax.
Cocaine is a much more difficult problem because of the imported nature of the product. Honestly I don't know enough about it, and the geo-politics involved, to even suggest a course of action.
And, as has already been said, you cannot eliminate the drug issue, only attempt to minimize it.
If anybody gets the chance to see it, I suggest watching "Hooked:illegal drugs and how they got that way", a History channel show that provides a great view on the history of this subject.

 

[Good morning blues]

Your solution is how it works in most first world countries, which have less of a problem with drugs than the States but still considerable difficulties.

Anyone who wants to use drugs does - the fact that it's illegal doesn't make it any harder to get your hands on them. If possession were legalized, you would not see a significant increase in drug use per capita - you haven't in the many countries where possession is legal, after all. Furthermore, keeping the legal status of drug production the same is never going to change how difficult it is to do. Additionally, this solution does nothing to address the real problems of drug use, which are addiction and funding for organized crime.

The best way to do it is to replace drug education programs with localized and effective efforts that distribute real, unexaggerated, true information to students, to launch widespread anti-drug ad campaigns, and to legalize, regulate, and tax every recreational drug.

 

[bjj hero]

Buy up all of the opium from Afghanistan etc at a premium price. Drug lords and terrorists would be out bid for it, they then can't sell it on, cutting their AK budgets.

Have an ice cream van-esque smack van that will dish out this wonderful clean, un cut heroin to whoever wants it. A big add campaign with free drugs in big letters (with a warning that drugs are harmful of course). The dealers won't be able to compete with free, they are put out of business.

Most of the users would OD removing the market, the drug dealers are out of work and the credit crunch has caught up with the drug lords and terrorists.

Whats not to like?

 

[WeedWorm]

Wont work, plain and simple. People will buy drugs (illegal or not), regardless of how much they cost. No matter how expensive alcohol and tobacco are, people will still drink and smoke. Same goes for weed, coke, heroin, meth, everything. People will smoke, snort and shoot up, no matter how much it costs.

Anyways, the only ways to get rid of the "drug problem" is too either make everything legal (which will never happen) or to stop the production and importing of drugs into the country (which is even less likely than making everything legal).

 

[bluemarsman]

The only real way to solve the "problem" is to legalize. People should be able to decide what they want to put in their bodies.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Shoot drug dealers in the head, without trial?

 

[Riding on Thermals]

Things might be different where you're from, but here in the U.S. cops try to use killing as a last resort, even if the person in question is holding a deadly weapon. With that said, dealers and junkies would feel less inclined to be holding if they knew they could be rightously shot for not cooperating.

And wether or not drugs are legal, if I find anyone near my children holding or especially distributing, they will end up in the hospitol. I would much rather go to jail for manslaughter than for one of my kids, or any child for that matter, to get addicted.

So, again, you're saying that if I was sharing a bowl with a few friends in the woods and the cops showed up I am just as much a threat to society as a bank robber with an AK and body armor? How is that in ANY way righteous? Where do you get the right to decide what goes into my body?

Addicted to what, may I ask? You sound like the prototypical fear-mongering parent that was responsible for prohibition and the continued legal status of benign intoxicants. If you ever drank alcohol you've already "done drugs." Don't kid yourself -- just because alcohol is legal doesn't make it in any way better for you. And finally, don't you think that it would be better to educate your children about the reality of addiction and responsible substance use than send people to the "hospitol?"

You can't possibly shield them, but you can certainly arm them with enough knowledge to be informed and responsible. Or you could just beat the shit out of people, that'll show em the danger of drugs

 

[Zac_Dai]

Theres a drug problem because of hard drugs like heroin, which destroy lives.

Although I don't have the answer I think the solution lies in why people do hard drugs in the first place? What makes someone a drug user?

Drug dealers won't make money if people don't want to buy them.

 

[mrpenguinismyhomeboy]

Better idea. Legalize Marijuana. There is no person in the history of mankind that has actually died from Marijuana.

Yeah I was thinking legalization, but I that would have even more trouble getting through congress then this would.

I think it'd be better off if you legalised it all and had stringent health and safety laws involved in the production and selling of drugs, just like when chemists make regular ones.

Well I was thinking of that, but that seems rather immoral, maybe not in the case of marijuana, but definitely in the cases of crystal meth in heroin. I think that legalization would only allow businesses to profit from them. I think that marijuana is fine, but crystal meth and heroin and all those other psychoactive drugs seriously fuck you up. I'm more talking about those rather then marijuana.

 

[New Troll]

Things might be different where you're from, but here in the U.S. cops try to use killing as a last resort, even if the person in question is holding a deadly weapon. With that said, dealers and junkies would feel less inclined to be holding if they knew they could be rightously shot for not cooperating.

And wether or not drugs are legal, if I find anyone near my children holding or especially distributing, they will end up in the hospitol. I would much rather go to jail for manslaughter than for one of my kids, or any child for that matter, to get addicted.

So, again, you're saying that if I was sharing a bowl with a few friends in the woods and the cops showed up I am just as much a threat to society as a bank robber with an AK and body armor? How is that in ANY way righteous? Where do you get the right to decide what goes into my body?

Addicted to what, may I ask? You sound like the prototypical fear-mongering parent that was responsible for prohibition and the continued legal status of benign intoxicants. If you ever drank alcohol you've already "done drugs." Don't kid yourself -- just because alcohol is legal doesn't make it in any way better for you. And finally, don't you think that it would be better to educate your children about the reality of addiction and responsible substance use than send people to the "hospitol?"

You can't possibly shield them, but you can certainly arm them with enough knowledge to be informed and responsible. Or you could just beat the shit out of people, that'll show em the danger of drugs

I never said I never drank, or even did drugs before. And I never said I'm shielding a teenager or 'young adult' or whomever. But to say a six year old, no matter how many times they're told something is bad, is going to do the right thing would be very niave. If I catch someone even smoking a joint, which I by no means see as bad as cocaine or meth or the sort, near one of my sons, or by any other child, then yes, I am going to get very upset.

And yes, if you're sharing a bowl with your buddies in the woods, and cops came along and caught you, and then you gave them reason by either running or acting aggressively, they should be allowed to calm the situation using better means than just chasing or talking. Wether that be pepper spray, tazer, beanbag, aiming for a non-vital spot, whatever, I'm okay with that. Yes, I wish there was an easier way to differentiate different situations, but the world is way too complicated as is, so why bullshit the situation?

 

[Riding on Thermals]

:snip:
I never said I never drank, or even did drugs before. And I never said I'm shielding a teenager or 'young adult' or whomever. But to say a six year old, no matter how many times they're told something is bad, is going to do the right thing would be very niave. If I catch someone even smoking a joint, which I by no means see as bad as cocaine or meth or the sort, near one of my sons, or by any other child, then yes, I am going to get very upset.

And yes, if you're sharing a bowl with your buddies in the woods, and cops came along and caught you, and then you gave them reason by either running or acting aggressively, they should be allowed to calm the situation using better means than just chasing or talking. Wether that be pepper spray, tazer, beanbag, aiming for a non-vital spot, whatever, I'm okay with that. Yes, I wish there was an easier way to differentiate different situations, but the world is way too complicated as is, so why bullshit the situation?

I understand your need to protect your children, but what situation are you imagining where your 6 yo is exposed to and summarily addicted to something while you're around? Do you expect to turn away from them for a minute at the grocery store and find that someone has injected them with heroin and that they have the means and opportunity to pursue that addiction? Or that if you encountered someone smoking a joint that the second hand smoke would make your kid trip balls and devote their lives to tie-die and jam bands?

I never said you were shielding a teenager either; if your child is old enough to communicate they're old enough to be talked to.

I remember when I learned what marijuana was: I was 8. I got out of my car with my dad and we passed another car in the parking lot in which 2 people were smoking, I knew what cigarettes were and that the smoke smelled different. I asked my dad what it was and he calmly explained that marijuana was. My father has never done drugs and rarely drinks more than 3 beers at once. My point is that education is the key, not misinformation or threats.

As for your other plan, I couldn't disagree more. I firmly believe that a police officer shouldn't use more force than is absolutely required. If I run away from a chill bowl in the woods, they better run after me. They don't get to take a shot at my legs. This is all academic of course, I don't do drugs in public. But your original premise was that a joint is as dangerous as a handgun, which is outrageously incorrect.


PS - what drugs have you done then? Also, you've never had a drink in front of your kids?

 

[Xojins]

The drug "problem" will never be solved. They're all already illegal in every aspect, so how would legalizing it solve any "problems"?

However, I think there should just be regulations put in place like with alcohol; can't use in public, can't be under the influence in public, etc.

 

[Jurassic Rob]

Drugs should be legalised, then it will be easier to control, and it will be safer, as registered dealers won't cut them with crap, and OD's will go down.

The only drug I use or will ever use is weed. Legalisation will come just keep on waiting!

 

[New Troll]

PS - what drugs have you done then? Also, you've never had a drink in front of your kids?

Drugs, more than I'll ever remember.

Drink in front of my kids, never. In fact, I quit drinking alcohol altogether. My children are so much more important to me.