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Sounds like you need to read-up on the prohibition and what making alcohol illegal did to our country.
by danielsju6 13y ago
Sounds like you need to read-up on the prohibition and what making alcohol illegal did to our country.
- genwin 13y agoIt's a question of what does more harm than good. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol can still be sober at work. Whereas a crack addict will tend to be high all day, unable to work, thus needing to rob to feed their addiction.
- __alexs 13y agoCrack is unusually addictive but many people maintain casual cocaine habits for years on end. Both of these drugs have the same classification, and the same penalties in most of the world. Crack is also particularly bad for your health outside of just being extremely addictive. If it wasn't a Class A drug people would rapidly end up in treatment for it anyway. Ultimately there's hardly any actual science involved in the War on Drugs, just as there wasn't during prohibition.
- genwin 13y agoThere should be evidence heavily involved in a war on drugs, on a drug by drug basis, for sure. I'd estimate the totality of the drag on society, even parenting, in determining the resources to apply to reduce the usage of that drug.
- baddox 13y agoYou're making a big assumption: that the war on drugs, even if it cost no money and ruined no lives on its own, in any way lowers the number of people addicted to hard drugs and the amount of violence related to hard drugs. While I don't have any specific data, it seems pretty obvious to me that it only increases both.
- genwin 13y agoI do make the assumption that a war on drugs can lower the number of people addicted to hard drugs, and from there the amount of violence related to it. But that assumption includes the way I would handle it, like forcing users to be in rehab before prison is considered.
- bashinator 13y agoYou mean, "related to the consumption of it". Obviously, the illegality of hard drugs has led to vastly elevated violence in their production.
- genwin 13y agoSure, but maybe it wouldn't lead to that when addicts are given rehab and no prosecution. Maybe then usage could be reduced.
- baddox 13y agoYou're also conflating all levels of alcohol usage with crack addiction. It's possible for many people (though granted, probably nearly genetically impossible for some people) to use either without becoming addicted. And for alcoholics, it's often very hard to hold down a job.
- genwin 13y agoIt's a matter of percentages. Perhaps 5% of alcohol users have a significant problem with it, that drags down those around them. I don't know what the percentage is for crack but I bet it's over 90%, high enough that we shouldn't take a chance on the users who aren't addicted to it promoting it to the 90% who would become addicted it.
- rhizome 13y agoI don't know what the percentage is for crack but I bet... Hello, old friend.
- genwin 13y agoWell I don't the percentage for a lot of things I bet I'm right about the minimum percentage for!
- baddox 13y ago> I don't know what the percentage is for crack but I bet it's over 90% According to this spurious page [0], "up to 75% of those who try cocaine will become addicted." Of course, the page also says "an estimated one-in-four Americans between the age of 26 and 34 have used cocaine at least once in their lifetime, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy." Since it looks like around 15% of Americans are between the age of 26 and 34, that would mean that "up to" 11.25% of Americans will become addicted, which seems unlikely. We need some better data. [0] http://www.treatmentsolutions.com/cocaine-addiction-treatment/ http://www.treatmentsolutions.com/cocaine-addiction-treatmen...
- 13y ago
- anigbrowl 13y agoThat's nonsense. GCracks'a horrible drug, crack addicts are tedious & depressing to be around, but they're not all as dysfunctional as you suggest. The most common crime I've seen among extreme crack addicts is prostitution rather than robbery.
- genwin 13y ago> GCracks'a horrible drug, crack addicts are tedious & depressing to be around, but they're not all as dysfunctional as you suggest. Have you researched this, as you suggested I do, or is it just what you believe?
- whyleyc 13y agoI didn't mention alcohol - I was talking about caffeine. Alcohol is in a class all by itself in terms of the social issues it can cause.
- pyre 13y agoWere alcoholics robbing people for money to feed their habit during Prohibition?
- jlgreco 13y agoOf course there were. Even today there are alcoholic bums that will mug you for booze money. You don't really think they are all crack or smack fiends, do you? Heroin withdrawal can make you wish you were dead, alcohol withdrawal can make you dead. More troubling however is community-consuming gang violence. The sort that we see today and the sort that we saw during prohibition.
- genwin 13y ago> Of course there were. Safe to assume a very small percentage of alcohol users, which makes the difference here. Safe to assume that during Prohibition the vast majority of alcohol users could have been sober during working hours to pay for it.
- jlgreco 13y agoThe vast majority of cocaine and pot users live outwardly normal lives too. That isn't the point though, is it? Prohibition railroads people who were in control of their habit, it gets in the way of assistance to people who are losing control of their habit, and it further marginalizes and radicalizes people who have already lost control of their habit, and it dramatically radicalizes those who provide for habits. This myth of "alcohol is not a 'hard drug'" needs to die. Prohibition of alcohol wasn't somehow a different animal than the prohibition of other drugs, you just relate to alcohol more than you relate to cocaine.
- pyre 13y agoWell, there is one difference between alcohol and other 'drugs' (with the possible exception of pot): alcohol has been a mainstay of human culture for a long time. The same can't be said of cocaine, heroine, meth, etc.