POLL: What to do about the Drug problem?

[WadePatton]

GIVE THEM AWAY! The ONLY way to end the brutal drug trade.



And PARENTS - raise YOUR children, don't depend on the government to do it for you.



Um, let's see... Cigarettes and Booze are illegal for kids to buy-but some get them anyway. Prescription and other drugs are illegal for everybody without proper prescription or altogether-seems like they get those too! Yeah, more laws that makes perfect sense. NOT.



Some drugs are fairly dangerous, but most are not--otherwise all the users would be dead and there'd be no drug traffic anyway.



We tried outlawing alcohol, that didn't work. Now we have a "war on drugs" and boy is it effective.

 

[Champane Flight]

I can

I can speak from experience, I did about every drug known to man in my younger years. My drug of choice was speed, my drug of major abuse was alcohol. I would like to see alcohol under stricter control, with a ban on all advertising.



I know that the legalization of drugs would not stop abuse, it would just stop the illegal commerce and change in into legal commerce. It would stop the street gang murders over dealing turf and bring an end to some junk being cut with posion or the sale of pesticide sprayed pot. Of course there would be the abuse of drugs by young people, although not near as dangerous as the dangers faced now by the same young people.



Education is the key, the schools and parents need to know what, where, and who their kids are hanging with. THEY themselves need to examine their own habits, it is hard to tell a kid not to smoke pot if the kid see's his own parent getting bombed on Martinis every night, or smoking pot. The old adage of "Do as I say, not as I do" isn't going to work on kids. They are smarter than that.



I say legalize and spend the tax money (real sin tax) on treatment centers that are desperatly needed and always overcrowded. That and send our teens to these treatment centers for their education!



Now, I have seen people hooked on almost every drug known to man. I can tell you what the worst is in my opinion. Nicotine is it folks!



I have been clean and sober for the past 17 years. I gave up cigarettes and tobacco 7 years ago. If you have any questions about the effect, side effect, or addiction rate of any drug, ask me. I wouldn't believe everything you hear on the street.

 

[WadePatton]

Yeah, what CF said, and of the most common drugs used in our society today:



Nicotine is THE most addictive.

Caffeine is one of the strongest- and very addictive--you just try to quit! (I have. )

Alcohol is the most toxic- causes more damage to more systems in the body, but is only mildly addictive.

THC (pot) is non-toxic, and non-addictive--no matter what you've heard.



We got drugs, we gonna have drugs (it is part of human nature to seek altered states-drugs or otherwise)--minimizing the negatives is the key.

 

[sdalton]

What it all boils down to is that there are no easy solutions to the drug problems today. Education of our youths sounds good, but every major program trying to date is a complete failure. I dont know much about "Ozzy's" program. But I do know that parent know more about how to educate their children about drugs that any goverment program around. Take care of your own children so someone else wont have to do a half arse job and let your child fall through the cracks.

 

['956Wheel]

You got drugs from pot to meth to heroin and so on.



The pot smoker will be (was) our president someday, The rest, for the most part, are simply commiting slow suicide... . give them all they need!



Pot, allow it to be commercially grown and taxed as is alcohol. A pothead is harmless, chances are he will sit around all day looking at his belly button. The alcoholic likes to look at other peoples belly buttons!



Mike

 

[Skydiver]

It does need to be controlled.

Most everything I have read so far makes sence.

The govt. is failing bad on controlling drugs. I think there is big money going under the table.

The following is a true story about how cocain affected my life.

In 1983 we had a drug abuser that was hired on here where I still work now. Long stringy hair,full beard ,dark sunglasses worn ALL the time and always wore a long sleeve cotton shirt. He had 2 motorcycles. 1 of them was always for sale(so he said). He would get calls at work 4 or 5 a day about this motorcycle. When people would come to the plant to see this bike they would dissapear for 5 minutes. PARANOID is not the right word. This guy was major paranoid all the time. He even kept a lawyer on retainer and threatened to sue almost everyone here at least once for the most trivial sheet. Well one day while at work by my self I noticed that he did not close his locker all the way. So I took the liberty to check his green cloth bag he would carry. There were 7 bags of pot in there. Turns out he was selling pot to support his coke habit. This guy put all of us through pure hell. I was very happy to see him go.

I thank God I never got hooked on cocain. I tried coke 1 time in August 1979. The next day my mother asked me 4 times "why are you so irate". Well guys that was all it took. No more for me. I do work in a drug free govt. workplace thanks to the dopehead Bill Clinton. Pot is not the problem in USA. Coke ,crack and meth is.

Tim

 

[Briar Hopper]

Annex Mexico. That's how we got Texas a few years ago. Ship all the drug bums there. Bring in the hard-working Mexicans to safety, there's enough work for them. Then make the Rio Grande look like the Berlin Wall.

There's no simple solution. Fight on, fight harder, fight smarter, never give an inch !!!! Legalization will be the beginning of the end of our country...

Even the lightest drug use has the worst effects, on the individual, and those around him ! Never mind the old cop-outs about alcohol & tobacco !

 

[Arcticat]

Originally posted by '956Wheel

The pot smoker will be (was) our president someday

The coke user will be (is currently) our president someday.

 

[Arcticat]

Originally posted by Briar Hopper

Never mind the old cop-outs about alcohol & tobacco !

What cop-outs? Are you denying that alchohol and tobaco are the most lethal and addictive drugs in widespread use? What makes escaping reality through something you buy at a liquer store any better than doing the same with something you buy on a street corner? For those that think that drugs being illegal discourages their use among teens, OPEN YOUR EYES! You obviously have no idea what is going on in this country with young people. Don't you remember what it was like to be a teenager? The more you are told not to do something, the more you want to try it. Kids today don't want to be told to just say no without any explanation. If you want to affect change, have an honest and frank discussion with your kids and show them what these drugs can do in real life. You don't have to look very far for great examples. Any kid with half a brain can make the right decision if they are given ALL the information.

 

[Champane Flight]

Got dope?

Any kid or person in America right now can aquire illegal drugs within 2 hours. And what can you get? Anything..... You can also get pesticide sprayed pot, this was shipped after being sprayed by our own crop dusters in Columbia. And after you smoke it your lungs will take a severe turn for the worse, not to mention having other severe health problems to go with it. Or maybe you can get a little acid, which has been cut with a little styricnine for the extra buzz at little cost. All these things and more is what you get when you buy off the street.



Right now we have a drug prevention plan where a Cop goes to the local school and talks to the kids about drugs. This is not working very well because the Cop has NO idea (except for the busts he's made) about drug addiction. Get a recovering addict in there, have him talk frankly. Let him take them to the local treatment center and see a junkie, or drunk come in off the street! Let them watch the treatment and see some of the successes and failures, (more failures). This is education! Not "Just say no".



The nations (Not talking Betty Ford class) treatment centers are run down. There are not enough of them, most are packed full and have people sleeping in the halls. The case load for the counselers is tremendous, and one on one is no more. Most have cut time in from 30 days, which is barely enough time, to two weeks which is just sending them back to addiction.



This is NOT a cop out. Alcohol kills MORE than illegal drugs ever have. Yet we sit on our duffs and do nothing about it, because after all, we all like a beer after work. The message goes over the air every day "Drink Bud,Coors, and whatever, and you can look healthy and play in the sand". They don't show the guy puking on the side of the road, or waking up in jail after beating up his old lady.



Yes, legalizing is not the real answer to the problem. Getting people to stop using is the real answer. This will not happen overnight, and will not ever happen in todays enviroment and so-called drug war attitude. Most look down at a junkie or drunk as a lesser human being. Folks, it is just another human, with a problem. Some can be helped, and some can't. We all have our problems, some are more serious than others (how do you treat Bombitus?)



Pot does have health issues to. It will deteriate the lungs the same as cigarettes do, long term pot smokers have some memory loss. This is the same with any drug, if you abuse, it will catch up to you. Long term smokers have some memory loss. Did I already say that? Ummmmm... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .

 

[RBachant]

The war on drugs is a lost cause. We pump millions of dollars into a program that at best drives up the price of drugs on the street, if they make a huge bust. All that does is make drug trafficers and dealers more money. It has been going on for over 30 years and there is no measurable difference in the lessining of drug use because of it.



The percentage of the population that uses drugs in America is higher than the percent that uses in Amsterdam, drugs are legal there, go figure.

 

[TPilaske]

I agree with illflem. Watch the Osbournes for a half hour and you'd never wanna even look at the stuff! On the other hand, isn't that a great show! Ozzy kills me... .

 

[FATCAT]

What a laugh!

The war on drugs will always go on ... forget about the "cost to society", drug inforcement is a fantastic jobs program for govenment around the country and at the federal level.

Like others said, billions are pumped into this useless effort each year. Are there ever any big layoffs in gov't? NOT!!



Just like when prohibition was over, you had hundreds or thousands of federal & local enforcement officers who would have been out of work so walla ... you have the birth of the corrupt ATF department, created to keep them all employed and find another way to harrass the public and strip them of their God given rights. (Primarally by the bad Rosevelt ... Mr. Marxism FDR).



I say legalize all the drugs ... no stupid bans on advertising (anyone remember the 1st Amendment to the Constitution), just make sure that criminal laws for killing someone while under the influence is a mandatory death sentence upon conviction e. g. driving while drunk/high on crack/heroin what ever. And for those who OD, tough, sorry if it offends anyone but I knew a few kids who had a run in with a 350 year old oak while completly toasted back in highschool ... Oh well they were loosers anyway ... personal responsibility and all that.



Just think of the windfall that the lawayers would have if it were legalized ... you thought Big Tobacco got their pockets cleaned, just watch what would happen to the drug companies that would produce this stuff (if any company would be foolish enought to do it).



Anyway, this discussion is just academic ... it will never happen. Too much money and power is at stake. The gov't would never give up the opportunity to sieze someones property and assets when just one pot plant is found on there property.



I would like to see one thing though, a lot of pot smoke blown into the halls of Congress ... so all these pricks would be stoned all the time and do nothing all day ... No man's liberty is safe when Congress is in session!

 

['956Wheel]

Osama taught me this!

In Afghanistan the main crop is/was herion, Osama used the Taliban to grow the I TRIED TO BY-PASS THE CUSSING FILTER and the the American drug users to fund terror by buying the I TRIED TO BY-PASS THE CUSSING FILTER. Now its time for the Americans to fight fire with DOPE, we make it legal and use our prisoners to grow and process the stuff, tax it, sell it and use the money to fight the war on terror! Too simple? Heck, Osama even used our planes as "fail proof" bombs!



Mike

 

[TxDieselKid]

Make it legal? Is beer legal for teens? Does this stop them from drinking it behind parents' backs? Nope. Some say rise your children better so that they wont do it. B. S. I have been brought up like that all my 22 years not to drink beer and guess what, I checked yes on the alcohol poll. I bet some of you might be amazed by what some of your kids have done (are doing). Some of yall admit to smoking pot in your teens, did you do it with your parents? Same type of thing. Making it legal is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard of. Did legalizing beer make the demand go away after proibition? Some say make it legal, and then expect their own kids not to try it? If it were legal, it can't be THAT bad for you right? If it was legal when i was growing up who knows, I might have tried it, untill it is legal, I never will.



Andrew

 

['956Wheel]

Andrew, there is a lot more than meets the eye on this one. Dope money is in the hands of criminals and terrorists unlike alcohol money they tax it and the funds go into a variety of government functions. Legalize dope, you bet! Lets get the moneys that have been killing families and cops as well as numerous uninvolved go to a positive use. It would not be trully a lost battle as your and my community as well as our nations fight on terror will benefit. We are spending billions of dollars fighting a drug war while terror is being supported by the profit made by the drug cartels.



PUT THE MONEY TO USE AND MAKE EVEN MORE. Yes, it sounds extreme but the "fire" has only grown since we started fighting it.



Mike

 

[TxDieselKid]

Originally posted by '956Wheel

PUT THE MONEY TO USE AND MAKE EVEN MORE.



Mike

And let all our kids fry their brains legally!



I am fully aware of everything you stated, not trying to be cocky, but I still think it's wrong. I still say if it is legal, more would do it because it is legal, and more readily avaible.



Andrew

 

[SlyBones]

I think the problem is no fear of drugs.



In the animal kingdom the mother has 5 babies, eats one of them, and the other 4 behave really good.



You figure it out from here.

 

[Sled Puller]

TDK,

Perhaps this would help:



The places where they would go to /shoot up/ smoke/whatever, would leave the dead lie where they fell for 24 hours. or better yet, move them in front of the counter, so newbies have to walk around, or on top of them.



The frying eggs commercial was a joke. Show us a junkie puking on itself, maybe that would get the message across.





I think more kids try stuff that is Illegal, just out of spite, then the ones that try something that is legal, thinking it must be ok.



Only a friggin idiot would start smoking these days, or even try them for that matter. Read the label. It may as well say :WARNING YOU WILL DIE FROM USE OF THIS PRODUCT.



Morons line up evreyday to pay $5 a pack now.

tell me how many kids wait until they are 18 to try a smoke?

 

[sdalton]

Sled Puller, Good start on lining the dead up in front of the counter.

I dont know how to stop the children from smoking now. It seems almost all smoke. Schools might include a class devoted to the after effects of drug use and smoking, starting in elementary school, through high school. Show real footage of patients, operations, wasting away during terminal cancers, and them being autopsyed. A few trips to cancer clinics wouldnt hurt either.