Woodrow Guthrie shared Fractal Multiverse's photo.

01/23/2013

Woodrow Guthrie shared Fractal Multiverse's photo.

about an hour ago

Your thoughts on this? Do you agree?
(2)

Give me one good reason why alcohol should be legal and "illicit" drugs shouldn't be.

1. Illegal drugs are deadly.

Legal drugs kill more people than all illegal drugs combined. And when I say "legal drugs", I mean alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs.

"In the United States, smoking is responsible for about one in five deaths annually (i.e., about 443,000 deaths per year, and an estimated 49,000 of these smoking-related deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure)."
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/

In 2009, alcohol use killed 24,518 people, and FDA-approved drugs killed 63,846 people. "We estimate that illicit drug use resulted in approximately 17,000 deaths in 2000, we included deaths caused indirectly by illicit drug use in this category."
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death

2. Illegal drugs make people crazy.

Alcohol makes people crazy. "Alcohol induced psychotic disorder is characterized by prominent hallucinations or delusions that are judged to be due specifically to the effects of alcohol."
http://www.psychtreatment.com/alcohol_related_psychotic_disorders.htm

3. Illegal drugs turn people into criminals.

"According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), 37% of almost 2 million convicted offenders currently in jail, report that they were drinking at the time of their arrest."
http://www.ncadd.org/index.php/for-youth/drugs-and-crime/230-alcohol-drugs-and-crime

Drug prohibition distracts law enforcement from actual crimes. "In 2011, arrests for marijuana exceeded arrests for violent crime by more than 100,000, according to a report from the FBI."
http://www.nationalmemo.com/marijuana-arrests-now-exceed-arrests-for-violent-crime/

-John-

Image: http://beaudeeley.deviantart.com/art/Omnia-Est-Intra-300358689

 

Mike,  In my Catholic high school's library we had a copy of the Consumer's Union Report - Licit and Illicit Drugs. They recommended decriminalization across the board as the only sensible strategy to reduce the harms associated with drug abuse. This was back..1986 and I've never believed differently since reading it. Apparently the whole thing is available online now (originally published in 1972):

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm

LIFE IS A GAME OF CONNECT THE DOTS, IF YOU DON'T CONNECT ALL THE DOTS OR DON'T CONNECT THEM IN THE RIGHT ORDER YOU NEVER GET THE PICTURE