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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (218650)	9/5/2007 9:05:50 PM
From: alanrs	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793750

>Alcohol usually takes about 20 years of using heavily, to start someone sliding downhill.< There seems to be no 'one size fits all'. I've heard everything from "I knew I was an alcoholic from the first drink" to everything was fine until x happened and then all hell broke loose. I've know people who ended up in intensive care directly as a result of alcohol or drug use (and not the car accident that came with it) at 19. With the DTs. Without hope. >Most of the druggies die very early.< Not necessarily a bad thing, and not a legal/illegal issue. >Just saying "legalize the stuff" won't make it go away.< No, and that's kind of the point I'm trying to make. It won't go away, no matter what. Might as well find a way to deal with it. Prohibition historically has magnified the original problem without addressing anything. It just makes something bad worse. Just as an aside, calling for studies and statistics is pointless. Ask a sociologist how he/she would craft such a study. I doubt it could be done. The government (our/your government) has done studies and the results have been 'massaged' to fit dishonest agendas. ARS

To: KLP who wrote (218650)	9/5/2007 9:21:54 PM
From: robert a belfer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793750

Isn't some drug use legal in Denmark?

To: KLP who wrote (218650)	9/5/2007 9:23:43 PM
From: miraje	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793750

There are old drunks. There are VERY few old druggies. Most of the druggies die very early. I should probably stay out of this discussion but what the hay, I'll throw in my 2 cents worth. Druggies, as you call them, are similar to alcohol users in that the majority of them are social users and not addicts. I'm a child of the 60's and during my teens and twenties, tried just about every illegal drug from A to Z. Some I liked and some I didn't. I became addicted to none and lost interest in using and experimenting with them decades ago. Lost interest in cigarettes and gave them up more recently. Still like a drink or two in moderation and probably always will. As a teenager in the late 60's, illegal drugs were easier to obtain than alcohol. That is still true today. As has been noted here, the only thing that "illegal" does is to drive up the price and create criminal enterprises, all the way up the ladder to include entire nations. Most of my friends and acquaintances from back then went the same route, outgrowing and losing interest in drugs as they grew older. Most of them are honest and productive citizens, raising families and contributing to society. I know a few who did get strung out and died early, as well as a few who bit the dust due to alcohol abuse. Bottom line, not just as a libertarian but as a pragmatist, the war on drugs is a waste of time, money, and a dangerous excuse for authorities to trample on the freedoms that we hold dear. Those who want to use or abuse drugs will do so, regardless of the legal status of thier substance of choice. And I wouldn't be at all surprised to see usage levels decrease with legalization, especially among youth, as the allure of the "forbidden" would disappear..