Let's set something straight

i dont live anywhere near a big city, but coke and weed are so very easy to get here its pretty funny, considering they are illegal and all.

heroin would never be legalized, so this is not a believable example at all

 

I don't see why not, either, AS LONG AS THE CONTENT WAS LISTED ON THE PACKAGE. Otherwise, they would run afoul of "truth in labelling" or "pure food and drug" laws, no? Legalization of drugs would only work if consumers were aware of what they were getting, in what purity, and in what dosage. THAT is the appropriate role of the government--regulating the marketplace to assure minimum standards of safety, purity, and content. Just what they now do with food, beverages, and prescription drugs. Legal drugs would be a hell of a lot safer than the completely UNREGULATED stuff sold on the streets nowadays, which can be cut with anything....

First off, I don't agree that the number of drug-related accidents would necessarily rise. REPORTING of them might go up, if the victim didn't fear legal action from drug use, though. How many accidents now are actually caused by drugs, but aren't discovered or reported as such because of the draconian drug laws?

Secondly, any rise in accidents would be offset by a DECREASE in overdose cases. When drugs are legal and available in known, standardized dosages, the "crapshoot" effect fades away, and users will be far less likely to take more than they intended.

Absolutely. All drugs should be available to adults without a prescription.

Yep. Since a large amount of what passes for medical practice is matching a list of symptoms with a disease, and then with an appropriate drug treatment, why not allow people the FREEDOM to treat themselves as they see fit? Of course, most people would still want (and be able) to see a trained physician for their expert opinion, just as most people take their cars to a trained mechanic when they need repair, rather than doing it themselves. But eliminating the legal requirement for a prescription would cut out the "middleman" for many common, easily diagnosed maladies, reducing health care costs and empowering people to take a more ACTIVE role in their own health care. Of course, this would require people to LEARN SOMETHING, and generally THINK FOR THEMSELVES, which may be a bit much to expect from most of the American sheeple, unfortunately.

 

Good point, but all that is under the assumption that people will actually read the labels or give a shit what's in their drugs, and take the "suggested" dosage, which won't happen. They could stick anything in the stuff, list it by a scientific-sounding name, and put it at the bottom of the list in the number 1/100 font, and nobody will care. Just look at what goes into Pepsi and Coke (and a lot of other common food for that matter). And cigarettes. Even if it were regulated and listed, plenty of bad shit would still get in.

Good point.

There would be a decreace in ODs, but I don't think it would be by much. If you get addicted to heroin or crack, are you really going to take the "suggested dosage" after you've built up tolerance the course of months? Of course not, you'd pump your veins full of as much of the junk as you can get your hands on (just like the junkies and crackheads do now). I don't know the ratio of "cutting agent ODs" to regular OD's so it's hard to give a figure, but even if the number of cutting ODs fell, the number of regular ODs would rise since the drugs would be more readily available.

Like you say, Americans just won't be able to responsibly self-medicate, and a plethora of OD problems and issues would arise from that, probably nullifyng any cost reduction pros that cutting out the middle man would give.

 

I'd still go see a doctor for a second opionion. I don't trust myself a whole lot with that kind of thing. Especailly because I have so little knowledge on the subject...

 

So where does the constitution give the government the power to protect people from their own stupidity? If people are too lazy/ignorant to read labels or follow instructions, perhaps natural selection should be allowed to hold sway?

Anything that goes into food has to pass stringent safety standards. That doesn't mean that eating huge amounts of junk food is GOOD FOR YOU, but there are no toxic levels of chemicals being deliberately added to foods.

Cigarettes are an industry unto themselves, unfortunately. Due to the political pressure from tobacco companies, they have exemptions to many of the pure food and drug and labelling requirements. Eliminating these exemptions and many/most of the harmful additives from tobacco products would be part of the overall package of reforms needed.

No, you would increase your dosage as needed to overcome tolerance, just as you always did. But now you would be able to do that with certainty. The amount of heroin in every "bag" would be regulated, and dose to dose consistency would be a helluva lot better than now, where users can and are killed by suddenly getting a purer batch when they are used to heavily cut street junk.

Nobody without a death wish simply shoots as much drug as they can obtain. Junkies are well aware of the possibility of overdose death.

Adverse reactions to cutting agents are responsible for many if not most of the deaths attributed to "overdose". Pure drugs would eliminate these.

So the responsible people should be penalized, while society is "dumbed down" to the lowest common denominator?

 

so far as self-medicating, i can't tell you how many well-intentioned total idiots i know. they're like 2 year olds. they have no idea how stupid they really are. not opinionated-stupid, just not-of-a-higher-order-of-intelligence-stupid. the danger of this is they really don't know they're morons, and will think "hey, i can diagnose this myself!" and go and do something totally, radically, irreversible. while that evil devil in me says "let 'em! darwinism is a GOOD THING," i still have that little compassion in me that says we should still maintain SOME control over what medications people can buy.