Unfortunately, because addiction is something no one can control once they fall into it, legalizing it only enables the addicts to get it cheaper. It still destroys their lives, and they cant escape it. Yes, legalizing it would save the government alot of money and jail space, but people who have the tendency to bungee jump into anything new and exciting are still going to be the ones trying this stuff and getting hooked. And treatment only seems to help for a while, pretty soon the powerful call of the addiction causes them to lapse back into their old habits again. The recidivism rates are very high. The Danish have been undergoing a grand social experiment since the 70's to decriminalize drugs and recently the percentage of people addicted to hard drugs has risen quite a bit. They are now looking at going back to criminalizing it to some degree, as their experiment has not seen the results they were looking for. See http://www.drug-rehabs.org/articles.php?aid=434 .
On 4/11/08, William Robb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Rebekah" > Subject: Re: Faces of meth images > > > > wow, that's crazy. I feel so bad for people that get trapped into > > stuff like that. I've never been much interested in illegal drugs. > > Honestly, I once tried weed in college because everyone seemed so > > obsessed with it, and it seemed "safer" than other things I could have > > tried. I came away with the decision that it was definitely not worth > > it and I'd rather eat ice cream, which is much more legal ;) > > Addicting recreational drugs are so unnessary and should be completely > > banished from the planet. > > > I listened to a documentary about cocaine addiction a few years ago. The > fellow being > interviewed was of the opinion that banning drugs is a fools game (look how > successful your > country's "war on drugs" has been), in that all it does is give the banned > substance a cachet > value which makes it more enticing, and increases secondary crime, since the > price of the > product goes up with the risk factor. > In a nutshell, banning drugs, be it meth, coke, marijuana or alcohol has > little negative effect > on consumption, but has a tremendous positive effect on crimes like break > and enter, armed > robbery and murder, as the addicts will tend to do whatever they need to do > to feed their > addiction. > OTOH, if you decriminalize the stuff, the risk factors of production and > selling go down a lot, > the price goes down a lot, addicts no longer need to be marginalized into a > criminal element > that may be very violent and abusive (yer basic street whore is often dead > before she hits 30), > and since you are no longer building jails to hold the people you have > criminalized > unnecessarily, you have a lot more funds for treatment programs to help > people get off whatever > is jonesing them to death. > > What we are doing now isn't working, and will never work. The choice we have > is to continue > playing the fools game or try a different approach, perhaps finding > something that will work. > > William Robb > > > > > -- > > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
