[talaniman]

I just don't like the idea of someone all hopped up on meth driving down the highway next to me

Whether he gets tested or not, whether the substance is legal or not, he is still driving down the highway next to you, on his dope.

[talaniman]

The Moral Majority has got this country by the balls

And they can afford lawyers to keep their kids out of jail.

[jillianleab]

Nope, there's no way to prove it.

But...you can be brought in for a drug test if you fail the sobriety tests, as far as I know. You can certainly get a lawyer and fight it, but most people aren't going to do that.

Frankly, the kids texting while they drive scare me more than the possibility of a meth-head driving.

You can be brought in for a drug test, but the test doesn't say if you are high at that point in time, only if you've ingested the drug. If the drugs are legal, it's no problem to fail the drug test. And field sobriety tests are subjective, and it leaves it up to the officer's discretion. I don't like that idea, lol! :)

Texting and doing god knows what else while driving are also bad, I'm just saying if drugs were legalized, one would think it would still be illegal to drive under the influence. How do you know if someone is under the influence? With the drugs we are speaking of, you can't know. That's my barrier to making these drugs available OTC. Medical use that you can only get with a prescription? I can go with that. And yes, I know, there's a black market, people will trick the doctor, I know. But at least it's a bit harder to get and more controlled than walking in CVS and picking up a doobie with your Moon Pie.

[excon]

Hello again:

Here's another consideration... What if people, who are high on drugs, can drive just fine?

Have you ever heard of an accident caused by someone being high on pot?? I haven't. Yes, with 25 million pot smokers in this country, I know a lot of them drive while smoking a joint. In my view, they're perfectly capable of doing so.

No, I don't have a death wish. No, I won't ride with anybody who has been drinking, and I don't drink and drive myself.

There are some drugs that make you "drunk". Nobody can drive when they're drunk. But, other drugs just make you high. Being "high" isn't the same as "drunk". Being high on pot ISN'T drunk. Being high on meth ISN'T drunk, Being high on LSD ISN'T drunk.

Some things to think about...

excon

[jillianleab]

Being high on LSD isn't like being drunk, but it still impairs your abilities. A lot depends on how much you've taken and when you've taken it, but if you're at the peak where everything has trails and lines are wobbly and you're seeing things out of the corner of your eye that aren't really there, you're a danger on the road. Ten minutes after you take it? When you're coming down hours later? You're probably no more dangerous at that point than anyone else. I've encountered some people so stoned on pot they can't negotiate walking down the hall, much less drive a car. Will one bong hit, one bump of coke, one bump of meth impair you to the point you can't drive? Probably not for most people, but again, there's no way to know how many bumps and how many hits someone took.

It's like driving after drinking, there's a legal limit because that leaves you in the "safe" zone. Beyond that and you're no longer "safe" (we could get into how silly those laws are, and how low the limits are in some states, but that's not really the topic... ). So maybe one joint is "safe" but two joints is "unsafe". How do you know how many someone had? And if you involve puff puff give you need to start doing math... and well... I don't think stoners and math work well! :)

[Synnen]

No... but great spaghetti monster, excon--high on LSD while driving is as bad as texting while driving!

But I agree with you--some drugs simply do not affect people the same way as alcohol does. I mean--it's legal to drive after taking cold medicine!

And honestly--technology follows need. If drugs were legal, someone would have a test for field sobriety that was accurate for them, if for no other reason than that there would be money in it.

Besides--I thought if you failed a pee test, it was because the drug was ingested in the last x hours--though I don't know how long that would be. I know right now they're able to test the AMOUNT in your system and determine how long ago the drug was introduced--why wouldn't THAT work for a test back at the station? Granted, it would suck to be taken in and given a drug test because you were just tired --but if you're tired enough to fail a field sobriety test, well, you're really too tired to drive anyway.

I'm not trying to argue here--honestly at this point it's a discussion I'm interested in, and if I'm wrong about something, well, correct me!

[tomder55]

Have you ever heard of an accident caused by someone being high on pot??

Yes I have

[jillianleab]

No...but great spaghetti monster, excon--high on LSD while driving is as bad as texting while driving!

But I agree with you--some drugs simply do not affect people the same way as alcohol does. I mean--it's legal to drive after taking cold medicine!

And honestly--technology follows need. If drugs were legal, someone would have a test for field sobriety that was accurate for them, if for no other reason than that there would be money in it.

Besides--I thought if you failed a pee test, it was because the drug was ingested in the last x hours--though I don't know how long that would be. I know right now they're able to test the AMOUNT in your system and determine how long ago the drug was introduced--why wouldn't THAT work for a test back at the station? Granted, it would suck to be taken in and given a drug test because you were just tired --but if you're tired enough to fail a field sobriety test, well, you're really too tired to drive anyway.

I'm not trying to argue here--honestly at this point it's a discussion I'm interested in, and if I'm wrong about something, well, correct me!

Technology does follow need, you're right there. I know with the pee tests it detects how much of the drug is in your system, but some drugs can stay there longer than others. It would be silly to say you can't drive a car for three days after smoking pot because you'll have trace levels in your body, you know? The problem with being hauled in for being tired and suspected of being high is that when you leave things up to the officers, people get harassed and targeted. Already we see a disproportionate number of minorities being pulled over for traffic violations; imagine giving the police the power to temporarily impound the person's car because the guy's eyes are red. I can just see the abuse of allowing that sort of power.

And I know you're not trying to argue! :)

[excon]

Hello again,

Ok, should the drug war continue because we can't tell who is high?? Uhhhh, NO.

If we could, would that end it?? No.

excon

[talaniman]

Alcohol is the nations legal drug of choice, and one of the most dangerous substances for a human to ingest-LEGAL.
Why should I be going to jail for a few lines, when that drunk just totaled a few cars??

[jillianleab]

Come on, excon... you know I'm not saying that!

I think the war is severely misguided, and I don't think if there was a breath test for each illegal drug to test your intoxication level it would be over. BUT, it might help. MIGHT.

I'm just saying MY resistance to making all drugs legal and OTC is the fact they can't be tested for the same way alcohol can be. I think decriminalization, especially of small amounts is called for, but it will never happen. Remember, if you're pro-legalization you're a degenerate and you hate kids. At least that's what the gubment would have us think...

[inthebox]

Nope, there's no way to prove it.

But...you can be brought in for a drug test if you fail the sobriety tests, as far as I know. You can certainly get a lawyer and fight it, but most people aren't going to do that.

Frankly, the kids texting while they drive scare me more than the possibility of a meth-head driving.

And yes, it was an exaggeration--but seriously, look at it this way: If you went home at night, had a couple beers while watching the game, and went to bed, and got up for work in the morning, that's not that bad, right? I mean, unless you show up visibly drunk, you're not going to lose your JOB over it.

You CAN lose your job over recreational use of drugs. Okay, I get that you shouldn't do that on the job--but I can tell you that the entire McDonald's kitchen I worked at in college was high as a kite every flippin' day at work. Frankly, a little pot makes a bad job go over a little better, not that I condone it in the least. But...unless you are in the military, in a high security position, or working with machinery that could hurt someone else (or the company, financially), random drug tests are a crock of crap. A temp, working in an office, filing papers, shouldn't be randomly tested for drugs. what the heck are they gonna do? Misfile? HOLY GOD, NO! Not misfiling! (for reference here--stupid people do more damage to filing than high people ever have. I have seriously worked with people that don't know their alphabet without singing it who are filing). And I don't know many professional people that would bring drug use to the office, any more than they'd drink in the office. But where's the harm in toking up the night before while watching the game? You're sober in the morning for work---yet you can lose your job because of what you do on your OWN time, and you're doing something that isn't hurting anyone.

/shrug

I know that too many of our generation have been indoctrinated into the "unless it comes from your doctor it's BAD" idea about drugs. And honestly--I don't know if we'll ever see legalization of drugs. Too many people are making money off of it for them to shut down the narcotics section of every other police station in the country, not to mention the drug testing companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the companies making money off of things like nylon rope (because hemp rope is now MORE expensive than nylon rope), and the liquor companies who may or may not lose a section of their customer base. And really--anyone pushing for legalization is liable to be arrested, tested, and sentenced. There just isn't a powerful lobbying group out there (aside from NORML) for the legalization of drugs.

What it will come down to, in the end, is someone showing they can make more money in tax dollars for the government while keeping a fairly tight control on the drugs themselves. And open-minded people in Congress. The Moral Majority has got this country by the balls, if only in the fact that anything "immoral" might lose someone votes, and god forbid THAT happen.

FR Notice - CPG for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers



If you are wondering about the relationship between doctors and drug companies -
Again - laws and regulations on the books.


Now it might not be a big deal for the local McDonald worker to be high, but how about your surgeon, or airline pilot, or otr truck driver, school bus driver, teacher, train conductor...


Sure legalize everything,. it is not a "moral" issue, but a practical common sense issue. Legal or not these drugs have ADDICTIVE potential and HEALTH consequences.

[inthebox]

There are 10 drugs that were legal that have been pulled from the market in the last decade .
Rezulin: Given fast-track approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Rezulin was linked to 63 confirmed deaths and probably hundreds more. "We have real trouble," a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) physician wrote in 1997, just a few months after Rezulin's approval. The drug wasn't taken off the market until 2000.

Lotronex: Against concerns of one of its own officers, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Lotronex in February 2000. By the time it was withdrawn 9 months later, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had received reports of 93 hospitalizations, multiple emergency bowel surgeries, and 5 deaths.

Propulsid: A top-selling drug for many years, this drug was linked to hundreds of cases of heart arrhythmias and over 100 deaths.

Redux: Taken by millions of people for weight loss after its approval in April 1996, Redux was soon linked to heart valve damage and a disabling, often lethal pulmonary disorder. Taken off the market in September 1997.

Pondimin: A component of Fen-Phen, the diet fad drug. Approved in 1973, Pondimin's link to heart valve damage and a lethal pulmonary disorder wasn't recognized until shortly before its withdrawal in 1997.

Duract: This painkiller was taken off the market when it was linked to severe, sometimes fatal liver failure.

Seldane: America's and the world's top-selling antihistamine for a decade, it took the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 5 years to recognize that Seldane was causing cardiac arrhythmias, blackouts, hospitalizations, and deaths, and another 8 years to take it off the market.

Hismanal: Approved in 1988 and soon known to cause cardiac arrhythmias, the drug was finally taken off the market in 1999.

Posicor: Used to treat hypertension, the drug was linked to life-threatening drug interactions and more than 100 deaths.

Raxar: Linked to cardiac toxicities and deaths.

Others like ephed as you note are restricted because the drugs were being abused . By the logic that is being proposed here there is no drug that should not be available to the consumer. Should the 10 items above be permitted back into the market ?

Here is another

Vioxx


eMJA: Cardiovascular safety of rofecoxib (Vioxx): lessons learned and unanswered questions

"the increased risk of 16 events per 1000 patients treated for up to 3 years "
I wonder if cocaine, heroin, meth, are "safer"

The ironic thing is that the drug co , Merck, was doing a study to see if this medicine could help reduce the liklihood that colon polyps would turn into colon cancer. The damning data and evidence is from their own study, at the drug co's cost.



Notice that in the list Tom provided the major risk is heart related.

Lets go legalize cocaine, meth, ectasy, ice etc... - they all have cardiac side effects.

So legalize ADDICTIVE drugs with no medical purpose and with much greater cardiac risks, and take off the market legetimate medicines with a medical purpose,. and sue the drug co too.

[Synnen]

Every single drug out there has addictive potential and health consequences.

Name me one single narcotic that doesn't.

What I'm saying is that I'm sick of spending money to "fight" the war on drugs. Just legalize it, let the real idiots kill themselves off in the first year or so, and let the sensible people make their OWN decisions about what to introduce to their bodies.

Slap a warning label on it.

Let companies have their own policies on it--As in, those jobs where being on ANY drug (including NyQuil, for god's sake--that stuff messes me up more than pot EVER did) could be hazardous to another person's health, it's not allowed. I mean, we have the right to bear arms in this country, yet private property is private property--and I have yet to see very many public places where firearms are not banned, and plenty of private companies have those signs up as well. It's not ILLEGAL to have a gun--just controlled, regulated, and stipulated as to WHERE you can have said firearm. Heck, almost everyone I know owns a gun. Does that mean, since guns have NO health benefits, and are dangerous, that THEY should be banned too?

Look, I'm honestly trying to see your side of things, but to me what it looks like is that the rich doctors, surgeons, rock stars, politicians, whatever can do these illegal drugs. Heck, physicians often write each OTHER scrips for drugs that could be addictive and have health consequences--and not just to the doctor, but to the patients he/she is seeing that day!

So what it sounds like to me that you're saying (and it's not that I'm being stubborn here--this is honestly what I'm hearing) is that it's okay to do drugs IF you have a connection, and IF you don't get caught, and IF you DO get caught, well, it's only the dumb ones that get caught anyway. I mean, do you honestly think that all of the surgeons, or airline pilots, or otr truck drivers, school bus drivers, teachers, train conductors, etc are SOBER 100% of the time? Hell, every otr driver I ever knew had weed--it was the best source for GETTING it. You hear about surgeons and doctors on the news who are caught addicted to prescription drugs. Every teacher I know (and I work in a college) drinks, even if it's only occasionally. I don't know any school bus drivers or train conductors or airline pilots--but I'm betting that a good portion of that population uses mood altering intoxicants at some point or another--even if it's only alcohol!

Most people won't lose their job over a drunk driving incident--unless their job is driving, of course. I can't think of very many jobs where a drug possession charge wouldn't have you packing up your desk, though.

[talaniman]

If you fight a war on drugs and after 50 or so years there is more dope, and not less, and even more people to put in jail, shouldn't you change SOMETHING, or just keep doing what you know is ineffective?

[inthebox]

Not all legal drugs are addictive:

- for example, do you know any chemotherapy addicts? Fosamax addicts? etc...


There is a difference between ADDICTION [ maladaptive behavior ] physical dependence [ e.g... alcohol or valium ] and prescribed use.


The gun analogy is false because that is a 2nd Amendement issue.

[Synnen]

Chemotherapy isn't exactly a narcotic. And it's extremely damaging to your body and it's really just poisoning your body in hopes of killing the cancer--instead of just poisoning your lungs, or your liver, or whatever.

So you're saying that the ONLY argument in favor of guns is that it's a second amendment right? So... if you're going to argue the Constitution as to reasons something is valid--well, the Constitution is the ONLY thing that grants the Federal Government any rights. If it is NOT specifically in the Constitution, it is reserved for the STATE to decide whether it is allowed. Therefore, a FEDERAL law prohibiting drugs is actually un-Constitutional. And therefore, the WAR on Drugs is un-constitutional.

Really... your whole argument is that drugs are dangerous and unhealthy. Well--DUH.

But... who the heck are you (or who the heck is our government) to say what I can and can not do that is dangerous only to ME. If I am in a controlled situation (as in, imbibing in my own home, on my own time), who am I hurting? And if it's just the danger and unhealthy thing, then you should be pushing for alcohol and cigarettes to ALSO be illegal by the SAME standards as you hold other drugs.

[talaniman]

We all know what happen to the alcohol, during prohibition. Since we learned nothing, the very same thing is happening all over again. This time we have built more jails fill them up, and build more.

[Allheart]

Hello everyone -

Just some more thoughts.

Before you are willing to open the flood gates of drugs, think of others. Visit a rehab and see the beautiful humans struggling hour by hour just to remain sober. See how the drugs have detiorated their hearts, minds and bodies.

Visit with the families, whose loved ones have mistakenly overdosed trying to regain that first feeling of being high.

Some say they have a right to do it in their home and no one is harmed and they can handle the ill effects. I am in awe of that and these people then need to reach out to others and help them to be able to do drugs, stay in their homes, not effect others and not to have their lives destroyed.

Perhaps pot you are able to keep it in the confides of your home but with some of these other drugs, the effects hurt everyone around them. Neighbors afriad to let their children go out and play, because their neighbor is so off the wall high on drugs.

People have a right to live free of the worry of what will happen to them at the hands of someone high on drugs.

If you are so strong and responsible and able to maintain a normal life and believe it is your right to do whatever drug you wish to, then be sure it doesn't effect anyone else. And if you have that much control over these powerful drugs, then you need to jump in and share how you are able to accomplish this with those who suffer daily.

May we never be so focused on what is our rights, that it overshadows what devasting effects it can have on others.

No, what we are doing now may not be working 100%, but to go the complete opposite way is not the answer either.

[Synnen]

Allheart--

Alcohol destroys the lives of people around them daily. People who drive under the influence - not even ADDICTS, just IDIOTS who think they're sober enough--and end up killing the innocent around them.

Visit any Al-Anon around you and find out the devastating effects of alcohol. Visit a hospital where someone is dying of liver failure. Visit an Al-a-Teen meeting. Visit a high school where they are mourning the underage driver who was going home from a party and killed himself and 3 of his friends, and the family of 3 in the other car.

Yet ALCOHOL is legal.

Many of the drugs out there are no more addicting than alcohol is. Many of them are used for the same kind of "high" you get from alcohol.

Should I be out preaching to people that they should take personal responsibility for their actions and not DRINK, either? Why is it MY responsibility to teach people that they can just say that they've had enough, or that they're driving, or that they've had too much lately and need to cut back?

Do YOU enjoy a glass of wine after dinner? Are you able to limit yourself to that ONE glass of wine? Yet --some people can't. Some people are hopelessly addicted to alcohol. Should the rest of us lose OUR privileges (not rights--privileges) to have a safe and legal alcoholic drink because a few idiots don't know when to say "enough"?

Same thing with drugs. There are ALWAYS going to be a few people for EVERYTHING that ruin it for the rest. Why should those who CAN control themselves be responsible for those who can't? Do you make it that the smartest person in the class has to teach the dumbest, just because he/she can control himself in the classroom and focus on learning, and not screw off? Or do you promote the smart one and tell the dumb one he has to repeat the grade until he gets it right?

Perhaps those in favor of keeping drugs illegal should visit the jails and talk to all the people who are being deprived of normal lives and seeing their children grow up all because they were arrested for having a paltry (in perspective here) amount of weed on them when they were pulled over for having a taillight out. Or visit the families for whom the head of household is now in jail, and who are struggling to pay the heat AND by groceries. And if you suggest Welfare for those families, I'll smack you. In that situation, as a taxpayer, I'd be paying the support of a drug dealer, all his legal fees, and for his wife and kids to live in a place as nice as mine (part of my building is Section 8 housing), while receiving free food and diapers.

Make it legal, regulate it, and it then becomes harder to get overall. You will ALSO not have drug dealers pushing people to continue trying harder, more expensive, more addictive drugs--you'd have to go to a different dealer for each TYPE of drug, and some drugs would require a prescription. As far as I'm concerned, Valium addiction is JUST as severe as meth addiction, and Valium is legal. Make meth legal, make it by prescription only, and then the only people who end up doing it are the ones already addicted, and their friends.

Drugs are NOT that hard to get. I've been able to find a connection for just about anything within a month of moving to a different state. I honestly, truly, completely think that drugs would be HARDER to get if they were regulated--which means legalized.