Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Invention .45 wrote:

Could it also be that if heroin had been available in quality-controlled form she would be less likely to have overdosed in the first place? Could it also be that if she herself were not worried about being arrested she might have taken her drugs in a more controlled setting?
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It really makes no difference. If you buy your drugs from the corner market, or from Mr. Dealer down the block, you still choose to take it. You choose HOW MUCH you take. The right drug can kill with the 1st, 2nd, or 100th use. The drug itself is what killed, not where it was purchased from. ;)


And as for the drugs being controlled by the state, govt, whatever, then the issuing party becomes liable if someone dies using the drug they issued to them, legal or illegal. No one wants that kind of trouble. Its not worth it.

The govt said it was legal to take, they gave it to her, now shes DEAD.....LAWSUIT....
 
You choose HOW MUCH you take. The right drug can kill with the 1st, 2nd, or 100th use.
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This statement shows a lack of knowledge about drugs. The individual user has no control over the purity of the drug they take. The heroin user chooses how much powder they cook up for a hit, but they have know idea of the actual ammount of heroin in the powder they bought. The user may cook up the exact same ammount of grams of powder each time, but when they are use to getting say 50 percent pure heroin, then suddenly get a batch that is 80 percent pure they will overdose. The chose how much powder to cook up, but not the ammount of the actual drug they took. Many overdoses can be attributed to the user getting an unusually pure sample of their drug of choice. If drugs were sold in grades stating how pure the sample was some of these cases could be prevented. BTW I'm not advocating the legalization of heroin, I'm just stating a fact).

I've also heard that some law enforcement agencies are starting to investigate some "overdoses" as murder cases. Think of how easy a drug dealer could get away with murder. You don't like someone, just give them an unusually pure sample of what they want and don't tell them. They go home and overdose. The investigating cops look at it and dismiss it as just another overdose when in reality it was murder. Sure it would be tough to prove, but its murder just the same as someone shooting, stabbing, strangling or bashing the victim with a blunt object.
 
Derius I see that you are a fan of Thomas Jefferson. You might find it interesting that Jefferson was a drug farmer. He grew opium poppies for medicine at Monticello. In fact his strain of poppies grew there until 1987, when the DEA finally shut it down. Guests and visitors could even buy packets of seeds labled "Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Poppies" so the visitor could take the seeds home and grow their own. Why did he grow them? Its good medicine. Most prescription painkillers today are derived in some way from the opium poppy. Only the painkillers are more expensive, and in many cases more addictive than the natural opium the plant produces. The drug companies line their pockets selling this stuff, when for a few pennies a person could grow what the needed in their own home.
 
And as for the drugs being controlled by the state, govt, whatever, then the issuing party becomes liable if someone dies using the drug they issued to them, legal or illegal. No one wants that kind of trouble. Its not worth it.
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This practice is carried out every day. Drugs, even opiates as strong as heroin (fentanyl) are distributed all the time by licensed physicians and pharmacists. The liability is covered by malpractice insurance. The individual doctor or pharmacist will decide whether or not he wants to pay for a rider on his malpractice insurance to cover recreational drugs.

The law could also specify that if you are an occasional user of now-illicit drugs you have no legal standing to sue. It could require that habitual user carry a rider on THEIR medical insurance.

It really makes no difference. If you buy your drugs from the corner market, or from Mr. Dealer down the block, you still choose to take it. You choose HOW MUCH you take. The right drug can kill with the 1st, 2nd, or 100th use. The drug itself is what killed, not where it was purchased from.
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I originally wasn't going to repeat what has been replied to this one, but I changed my mind because it is a very central issue. When you buy your drugs from Mr. Dealer as it stands today, you do NOT choose how much to take. Quality varies a lot, depending on how greedy the seller is. Not so if Abbott sells it.

The reason you die on the 1st, 2nd, or 100th use is that's the particular time you got a dose from the bottom of the bag where the cutting agent didn't mix in. It's due to lack of QC.

If you noticed the statistics that were cited, somewhere around 17,000 deaths per year are attributed to drugs. Notice that this has to be divided amongst heroin, methamphetamine, MDMA, GHB, ketamine, LSD, mescaline, benzodiazepine/alcohol mixes, cocaine, and any other of 50 or so different stimulants, hallucinogens and depressants.

So for any given drug, on average, there might be 40 or so deaths a year.

It's very very likely that half of those are QC problems and not deaths resulting from actually receiving the expected dose.

For example, not too long ago, a girl died and I think a few others died in the Orlando area from a drug called PMA. This happened because MDMA is illegal. They thought they were taking MDMA but were in fact taking the far more toxic PMA. What I read is that an error in manufacturing resulted in the active ingredient being PMA and the pills contained about 100 mg of PMA (the manufacturer thinking he was making MDMA). Unluckily, the relatively safe dose for PMA is 10 mg.

I don't know any specific stories, but it's common knowledge that heroin and cocaine deaths are usually due to unexpectedly high product strength.
 
Fal 4 Me said:
The user may cook up the exact same ammount of grams of powder each time, but when they are use to getting say 50 percent pure heroin, then suddenly get a batch that is 80 percent pure they will overdose.
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It doesn't seem very likely that a 60% increase in dosage would be lethal, particularly for a regular user. More likely culprits are cutting agents and people combining drugs... usually the "hard" drug with alcohol in particular. Choking on vomit while passed out is a common cause of death in "drug overdose" cases where the hard drug is a downer. It's the alcohol that causes puking, not the other drugs. We ought to label such deaths alcohol overdoses, but no... hard drugs are baaaaad, so they must have been the primary cause of death.
 
The evidence showed that Prohibition enforcement was, at best, ineffective and, at worst, spawned law enforcement corruption on a grand scale. Prohibition was not a success.

Alcohol use declined during the first two or three years of Prohibition (a trend that had begun before Prohibition started) but rose every year thereafter. There was, in particular, an increase in the use of distilled liquors. There was also evidence of increased alcohol use and addiction among minors.

Enforcement of the laws was disorganized and ineffective, with employee turnover of more than 50% in some years. It seems apparent from reading the report that law enforcement could not have had a significant impact on the illegal distribution of alcohol and even the recommended improvements in enforcement would not have solved the problem.
Corruption was rampant with up to ten percent of the enforcement employees being discharged for cause in any given year.
Despite this, the Commission recommended that Prohibition be continued but that law enforcement efforts should be improved in several respects.

The evidence, however, was overwhelming that Prohibition was not a success and it was repealed two years after this report was issued.
 
Invention 45 and FAL 4 ME:

I am well aware of what you are saying, and your statement that I know very little about drugs is completely untrue. The fact is, for a long time user, a 50 or even 70% increase in purity has done nothing to them. Most of he users that die this way are the recreational users, or 1st timers who get ahold of a really pure dose. The fact is, you as a drug user KNOW how this crap is made, you KNOW its not controlled or regulated, and you KNOW that its most of the time cut with lethal ****. THEY JUST DON'T CARE. They pick up the spoon, the needle, lay out the line....whatever.....and they use the drug, knowing the potentially lethal consequences. They die because they choose to use the drug....period.

Take Richard Pryor, who freebased, and did it for years and years. An INCREDIBLE amount of drugs, and some of the best, purest crap that money could buy. Eventually, after years of abuse, one particualr hit caused him to have a massive heart attack. The fact stands that it can be the 1st, or 100th time, and you can die.

And if the government regulated it, you would get the same grade dose evey time, but it wouldn't change how often you took it, or wether or not it would still kill you.

And I am well aware that several of our founding fathers grew crops that are now considered illegal. George Washington grew more POT than Mexico....
 
The most obvious concern when dealing with drug safety is the possibility of lethal effects. Can the drug cause death?

Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.

This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.

By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.
 
And if the government regulated it, you would get the same grade dose evey time, but it wouldn't change how often you took it, or wether or not it would still kill you.
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Doubtful. Drug users are not as suicidal as you think; they care about staying alive as much as you do, they simply have different priorities and to them, getting high is worth the risk. With government regulation there would be physician's writing scripts for non-lethal doses. There would be many that would continue to abuse - just as many still abuse morphine and vicodin despite their prescriptions - but that number would drop dramatically because an addict is going to want to stay alive for his next hit. No junkie wants their trip to be the final one.
 
Take Richard Pryor, who freebased, and did it for years and years. An INCREDIBLE amount of drugs, and some of the best, purest crap that money could buy. Eventually, after years of abuse, one particualr hit caused him to have a massive heart attack. The fact stands that it can be the 1st, or 100th time, and you can die.
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First: that paragraph could be viewed as an endorsement for the relative safety of cocaine.

Second:

The last part of that statement can be said for any time you get behind the wheel and drive. The reason it can happen at any time is that there are factors beyond your control, and that driving is inherently dangerous. When and if you die from it is a statistical matter, mostly.

Same with drugs, except unlike driving there's no quality control.

And exactly how is it you know that Richard Pryor didn't just have a heart condition that would have killed him anyway? And how do you know that he wouldn't have died earlier by, say, falling down the stairs if he hadn't been reclining in a cocaine-induced stupor?

For an individual death, the answers are hard to determine. But overall, the statistics speak very loudly. Somewhere around 50,000 deaths per year from driving. Somewhere around 40 deaths per year per illegal drug (and none per year for some of them).

It might even be argued that if drugs were legal but driving under their influence were illegal and had severe penalties, there would be a drop in deaths due to drugs themselves (a QC result) AND a drop in traffic deaths (more people interested in staying put and getting high than in driving and risking severe penalties, and overall, fewer drivers on the road).
 
Well here we are again.

The real problem with this situation is very deeply seated into the religious belief of the people.

It actually goes back to Zoroastor, Duality.
Good, bad,... heaven, hell.... God, Satan.

I am being serious. But in order to understand this you would have had to study and read as much as the person making this statement.

Drug laws have been inflicted at numerous times and places.

If you will follow the correlation of what I have said, you would be able to make a very good arguement as to why we should do away with religion.

Now if someone could come up, and say yes!
I believe it is a good arguement, then I would go along with the fact that the drug laws of today should be reviewed in ther entirity and put some sense into our society.

But it won't happen.

We on this board might mention it and quibble over it, but the fact is if you want to make a change you have to have the cajones to put your money where your mouth is.

Start a petition and go door to door in an area, any area, of your middle class of America, raise the question I have.

Then connect it to the problems we have today regarding anything. LOL See what happens.

Laugh Out Loud.

The Boxer Rebellion is an interesting side bar regarding the thought of Drugs and people.

Mexicans, want to come to America to deliver their stuff. We are sheep to be sheared. Simple.

No laws, no crime, I could go along with it as long as they let me enforce my way on the person commiting the crime. Vigilante rule will come again and then we can start the whole thing over again.

We can have a retired religious Colonel, in the forefront leading the men to slaughter.:cool:

HQ
 
Harley, understanding your arguments is like grappling with a great puzzle. But since I'm in science, I get a perverse sort of enjoyment trying to piece them together.

So here goes.

The real problem with this situation is very deeply seated into the religious belief of the people.
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You'll get no argument from me with that one.

It actually goes back to Zoroastor, Duality.
Good, bad,... heaven, hell.... God, Satan.

I am being serious. But in order to understand this you would have had to study and read as much as the person making this statement.
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Maybe yes, and maybe no. For me, no. It is much, much simpler than that. Here's how it goes.

Religion has its beneficiaries. Who? Every priest, pastor, reverend, bishop, pope, nun, rabbi, mullah and ayatollah who lives in the "house of god" rent-free for life. It's a massive racket that is made possible because people fear death and the unknown and because they're indoctrinated from their earliest years.

Drug laws have been inflicted at numerous times and places.
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Inflicted is a good word. I hope that's the one you meant to use. Drugs throw a giant wrench into this indoctrination. Those with the most to lose, the preachers, rail against them out of self-interest. Parishoners, better known as sheep (they even call them that themselves), would rather swallow it all down than think.

If you will follow the correlation of what I have said, you would be able to make a very good arguement as to why we should do away with religion.
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AMEN, I think is the proper word to use here.

Now if someone could come up, and say yes!
I believe it is a good arguement, then I would go along with the fact that the drug laws of today should be reviewed in ther entirity and put some sense into our society.
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I do believe we have said similar things.

But it won't happen.
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I suspect you are correct.

We on this board might mention it and quibble over it, but the fact is if you want to make a change you have to have the cajones to put your money where your mouth is.

Start a petition and go door to door in an area, any area, of your middle class of America, raise the question I have.

Then connect it to the problems we have today regarding anything. LOL See what happens.
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That's the reason I argue it when it comes up. I'm very sure this board has people on it who'll never ever come over to my way of thinking. But there could be some who see the arguments and are on the fence. That makes this as good a place as any to discuss it.

The Boxer Rebellion is an interesting side bar regarding the thought of Drugs and people.
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An historian I'm not.

Mexicans, want to come to America to deliver their stuff. We are sheep to be sheared. Simple.
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Assuming this is so, they are aided by drugs being illegal.

No laws, no crime, I could go along with it as long as they let me enforce my way on the person commiting the crime. Vigilante rule will come again and then we can start the whole thing over again.
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I don't remember anybody here advocating "no laws".

We can have a retired religious Colonel, in the forefront leading the men to slaughter.
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I guess that has to do with the historical stuff you mentioned earlier, so I don't quite get that remark.
 
Some say without studing history we are doomed

To Make The Same Mistakes.

LOL, Invention_45. Complexity is the reason.

We are not talking a flat sided surface, we are talking very convoluted and very mystifing.

The Brain of man is truly amazing.
Now if we could only both agree, never happen.
But we are closer than you think.

Arguement for it's own sake, is a good clue.

HQ
:cool:
 
Check out meth,guns and glory

Latest installment of the crime in Sacramento CA. Capitol of CA.

Back in the 50's and 60's Sacto had it's problems with the biker gang called the "Hells Angels" they moved to Oakland they say.

We have a lot of them still around and their cousins and nephews.

Small town of Elk Grove have several Harley Davidson dealers in town.

Not that it is bad, but it is old biker haven. More Tatoo's of the old days then I have seen since leaving (retiring) from law enforcment.

Eye to eye contact and we have made each other. LOL

Meth is an ongoing problem just like alcohol. One is bad the other is ugly.

This story that I just put up is the new group, that are becoming deeply involved and are even more dangerous.

It is unbelievable the atrocities that are going on, this is just one of many that occur all over the US. Very SAD.

HQ
 
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