Smoking

[vgchartzgirl]

mrstickball said:

akuma587 said:
I'm not saying all drugs should be legal, but there are a lot of drugs that are currently illegal for no good reason.

The criteria should be:

1) How physically dangerous is the drug (toxicity, side effects, etc.)

2) How addictive is the drug

3) What effect does it have on a society that people take that drug (and this can't just be broad generalizations that people so often rely on, it has to be based on something rational and something provable)

Using any other criteria that aren't based on some kind of evidence or research is too unstable of a foundation for a criminal justice system to justify punishing people for using those drugs. Its a very regressive kind of attitude to do otherwise.

Very good way(s) of quantifying the legalization of given drugs. One must remember that, at one time, many banned substances were legal (such as opiates).

Sometimes, I wonder how many regimes America supports by the banning of substances, that in turn, mutilate and kill people in their home countries. I'm not trying to justify horrendous drugs, but it is an interesting line of discussion - if heroin was legal (and caused a price collapse of said drug), would it not topple drug runners in the golden crescent and golden triangle?

Very interesting discussion. I've thought about this one the past few days, and it's crazy to think about, but should be questioned - could the adage of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' work in some sort of reverse way to hurt drug usage & homebrewed production if it was legalized, and have a positive social impact if people became responsible?

That is true, seems like the government goes back and forth on what is ok and what is not ok.  I think if certain drugs (like weed) were legalized, at first, people wouldn't be responsible, it would just be a bunch of people acting stupid just because they can be stupid.  But, after a few years, after a few laws were in placed (something like a "you can't drive when you are under the influence of weed"), then people would use it as a recreational drug.  I mean, if someone got stoned off their ass, then they'd just fall asleep and be happy, but when people get drunk, they just get mad and cause trouble.