Sky News:Mexico Blames US Over Drug Crime And Murders

[Bang]

The drug war is a joke. So was the way that Bush ran the war in Iraq for the first 2+ years. In each case, some people suggested the proper approach was to give up. What those people can't/won't address is what happens if you give up and things get worse?

Maybe the answer is to do what we did in Iraq and do a better job of fighting the drug war?

That could be much more efficiently accomplished if we choose our battles more carefully. Wasted efforts of law enforcement in tracking down pot smokers can be much better spent going after heroin, meth, and coke dealers.

I'll agree with marijuana. I think that should be decriminalized. However, I don't see how in any way, decriminalizing or legalizing heroin, coke, meth, crack, whatever, would benefit our healthcare system. I don't even know how someone could make that argument :doh:

You are 100% correct; heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, these things and their derivatives cannot be made legal. These are highly addictive killers that can leave you dead after the first use, fifth use, fiftieth use, whatever. These drugs cannot be used recreationally, those who tell you they can are lying to you and themselves. In very few instances do the users of these things not pay a heavy price.

You know from the medical standpoint, I know from the other side. I used to use, and I used to sell. I loved my cocaine freaks, they were bank; easy reliable money, whether they had to wreck their lives to pay me for their high or not wasn't a concern, because the fact is they would, without fail. I got paid before their mortgage, before their electric company, before their child support, before they even got their paycheck home. Parents of babies happily gave me their grocery money. (I didn't deal smack or meth. Coke was my trade way way back when.)

I never met anyone who ever used those things once.

Legalizing marijuana would be smart on many more levels than not. Legalizing the other stuff would be a nightmare.

~Bang

[The 12th Commandment]

I agree with Bang and keastman. But assuming that basically makes this whole thread pointless.

We're not going to legalize those drugs. A market will continue to exist for them. The cartels will continue to make bank and guns and money (don't think there will be any lawyers) will continue to flow from our side to theirs. Thus making the premise of the Mexican argument correct. They share blame too and they finally got off their ass and are doing something about it. It's time for our leaders to step up and try to combat the demand side a little more seriously.

[Special K]

Easy, you simply allow them to destroy themselves,or find a functioning level in society.(which many do)

Of course we would need to restrict their access to public help at the same time.(except of course rehab)

Make the hard choice to deny care and support and use will drop,as well as it's burden on health care.

Lol, yeah, and you just know the public conscience will deny public healthcare funding to these folks...

What those people can't/won't address is what happens if you give up and things get worse?

Maybe the answer is to do what we did in Iraq and do a better job of fighting the drug war?

I agree with this. What we are doing now is highly inefficient. Go figure, the government doing something wasteful and inefficient.

I think that decriminalizing pot would free up a lot of law enforcement resources that could be put to better use fighting the bigger issues which are hard drugs.

You know from the medical standpoint, I know from the other side. I used to use, and I used to sell. I loved my cocaine freaks, they were bank; easy reliable money, whether they had to wreck their lives to pay me for their high or not wasn't a concern, because the fact is they would, without fail. I got paid before their mortgage, before their electric company, before their child support, before they even got their paycheck home. Parents of babies happily gave me their grocery money. (I didn't deal smack or meth. Coke was my trade way way back when.)

I never met anyone who ever used those things once.

Legalizing marijuana would be smart on many more levels than not. Legalizing the other stuff would be a nightmare.

~Bang

Wow Bang, interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing. Obviously I've only seen it in the healthcare setting, but I think that my experience pretty much correlates with what you are talking about.

The hold the drugs had over the patients we dealt with who were heroin or meth addicts (meth being the large majority) was mindboggling. Honestly, seeing patients come into the ER, then OR, then f/u at the office on MULTIPLE occasions just blew me away. They didn't give a flying frick that this is the 4th, 5th, bazillionth time they've wrecked their car, or fallen off a cliff, or severely cut themselves with tendon and arterial involvement, etc... Didn't even phase them. Nothing would stop them from seeking their next high. Nothing.

That was my experience with some addicts which led me to the conclusion that this stuff absolutely ruins lives. Everything else be damned, family, friends, home, health, whatever...they had to have their high.

I've never gotten the perspective of a former dealer though, so it was very interesting reading through what you had to say.

Thus making the premise of the Mexican argument correct. They share blame too and they finally got off their ass and are doing something about it. It's time for our leaders to step up and try to combat the demand side a little more seriously.

Well, I agree that we need to change tactics with our "war on drugs" to become more effective at combatting the hard drugs. Sure.

But the Mexican government can go pound salt if they are trying to shift the bulk of the blame on the US. Their police forces and government officials are totally entrenched in this whole trade, corruption beyond belief. They really want to fight the problem, it starts on their end. They're letting these cartels buy influence and/or slaughter their way through the city streets.

Geniuses, if you want to be taken seriously, get your damn troops into these violent border cities (something they are FINALLY doing in Juarez...after how many murders???), declare martial law, and take these dealers and runners out. It's absurd how long Mexican officials have half-assed this whole issue, and now to try to shift a large part of the blame on us? Get real.

[ACW]

The drug war is a joke. So was the way that Bush ran the war in Iraq for the first 2+ years.

Except we've been fighting the drug war en masse for 30-40 years, and in general for a century. :coach: IT HASN'T WORKED!!! :coach:

[Bang]

Wow Bang, interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing. Obviously I've only seen it in the healthcare setting, but I think that my experience pretty much correlates with what you are talking about.

The hold the drugs had over the patients we dealt with who were heroin or meth addicts (meth being the large majority) was mindboggling. Honestly, seeing patients come into the ER, then OR, then f/u at the office on MULTIPLE occasions just blew me away. They didn't give a flying frick that this is the 4th, 5th, bazillionth time they've wrecked their car, or fallen off a cliff, or severely cut themselves with tendon and arterial involvement, etc... Didn't even phase them. Nothing would stop them from seeking their next high. Nothing.

That was my experience with some addicts which led me to the conclusion that this stuff absolutely ruins lives. Everything else be damned, family, friends, home, health, whatever...they had to have their high.

I've never gotten the perspective of a former dealer though, so it was very interesting reading through what you had to say.

I could tell you stories. Like me for example. People doing that typically make money. Not me, I did it to feed my own habits. Risked my life, my freedom, and my future to keep me in powder. Thankfully I am stubborn as a mule and was able to walk away from it after a few years without totally ****ing up my life.

And you're also right about the other part,, you 100% cannot trust a junkie no matter what they say. Cocaine, meth and heroin addicts (I've known plenty of all 3) are THE most manipulative people you will ever meet. Their every thought is geared toward one thing, getting that buzz and they'll say anything, do anything and sacrifice practically anything to get it.

~Bang

[Hubbs]

You are 100% correct; heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, these things and their derivatives cannot be made legal. These are highly addictive killers that can leave you dead after the first use, fifth use, fiftieth use, whatever.

So are.... *drumroll*

Adderall

OxyContin

Vicodin

Codeine

Valium

Thorazine

Ambien

Sonata

Soma

Ritalin

The 'Tussin

And, of course, alcohol.

Those are off the top of my head.

[The 12th Commandment]

None of those will leave you dead from the first use. Of course were those other legal, they'd be more pure and strengths would be known. I suspect at the very least we'd see less overdoses. Maybe it'd be a net gain as far as treatment cost the public bears. Don't know for sure.

[PokerPacker]

None of those will leave you dead from the first use. Of course were those other legal, they'd be more pure and strengths would be known. I suspect at the very least we'd see less overdoses. Maybe it'd be a net gain as far as treatment cost the public bears. Don't know for sure.

how about huffing whipped-cream canisters?

[Hubbs]

None of those will leave you dead from the first use. Of course were those other legal, they'd be more pure and strengths would be known. I suspect at the very least we'd see less overdoses. Maybe it'd be a net gain as far as treatment cost the public bears. Don't know for sure.

*blink*

Are you kidding me? You can overdose on any of those. You think people looking to use them to get ****ed up rather than in the neatly-measured way of medical intent don't blow off the pharmacist's instructions for how many pills to take?

[The 12th Commandment]

*blink*

Are you kidding me? You can overdose on any of those. You think people looking to use them to get ****ed up rather than in the neatly-measured way of medical intent don't blow off the pharmacist's instructions for how many pills to take?

I wasn't thinking of it that way, your right of course. I do think they've seen less overdoses in places where they have real progressive drug policies. That comes with another set of problems.

[Bang]

*blink*

Are you kidding me? You can overdose on any of those. You think people looking to use them to get ****ed up rather than in the neatly-measured way of medical intent don't blow off the pharmacist's instructions for how many pills to take?

I'm not sure what your argument is. To outlaw prescription drugs that are beneficial because people abuse them?

Many drugs we use now that are beneficial are derivatives of the poppy and of the coca. The difference is that they are intended properly and manufactured to be properly used for a specific purpose, and regulated to somewhat insure they aren't abused. Then they are prescribed by a doctor who knows the effects of what he's prescribing and what benefit it will have for you.

Cocaine and heroin are not manufactured for any beneficial use (regardless what the junky may tell you), and in those forms are decidedly deadly and enslaving. And the main problem with them (and meth) is that they tend to destroy everyone around the junky as well. I've never met anyone with a junky in their family or close circle that is not adversely affected in some way, and most of the time it's not just minor.

~Bang

[[[ghost]]]

how about huffing whipped-cream canisters?

Sharpie Markers and Paint Cans FTW

[deejaydana]

Two things stood out to me from the article:

1) he implicates American officials (but zero details)

2) the number of deaths mentioned (5,300) for 2008 is about 1,000 deaths understated.

Mexico (outside of perhaps Italy) is THE model of gov't corruption in the Western World (well, I'm sure Venezuela and Cuba are close as well). Doesn't Mexico need to fix their broken gov't first before singling the U.S. out for scorn? Drugs are certainly a huge issues plaguing that country but they are not THE main issue which makes that a sorry nation. The recent escalation in drug violence is simply a signal that the law enforcement has finally started to well, enforce.

[Hubbs]

I'm not sure what your argument is. To outlaw prescription drugs that are beneficial because people abuse them?

Many drugs we use now that are beneficial are derivatives of the poppy and of the coca. The difference is that they are intended properly and manufactured to be properly used for a specific purpose, and regulated to somewhat insure they aren't abused. Then they are prescribed by a doctor who knows the effects of what he's prescribing and what benefit it will have for you.

Cocaine and heroin are not manufactured for any beneficial use (regardless what the junky may tell you), and in those forms are decidedly deadly and enslaving. And the main problem with them (and meth) is that they tend to destroy everyone around the junky as well. I've never met anyone with a junky in their family or close circle that is not adversely affected in some way, and most of the time it's not just minor.

~Bang

My point is that it's arbitrary. Absolutely, 100% arbitrary.

I'm about to graduate, and I don't know if you've happened to read anything about the rampant spread of Adderall on college campuses, but I know at least two kids who are completely, full-blown addicted to the stuff. Hell, I would be too - I've had a prescription for about a year - if it didn't happen to dehydrate me so much that it's really tough for me to take it two days in a row.

I also happened to do cocaine once. It was almost exactly the same as Adderall. I used to date a girl who had done both, and she said the same thing. Speed? It actually has almost the same chemical composition as Adderall. I actually had a doctor tell me that Adderall was nothing more than legalized speed. You probably know that meth is short for "methamphetamine" - the generic term for Adderall is "amphetamine salts."

Lexapro? I had a script for that for a while, too. My doctor warned me that he had another patient for whom he had also prescribed Lexapro a couple years earlier. This kid went on a trip to Ohio without his pills. Two days later, he was cutting himself in a near-hallucinogenic state, and the hospital he went to frantically called my doctor to get his dosage information so they could give him a few of the pills they had there.

Or, hell, try OxyContin. It turns into morphine in your bloodstream. Morphine and heroin are brothers, or, at the biggest stretch, cousins. Morphine is insanely addictive - just like virtually any opiate-based substance, of which there are plenty of legal ones.

If your argument is that drugs which are powerfully addictive, enough to ruin lives, and can kill with an overdose should be illegal, then what you're really saying is that you believe that hundreds and hundreds of prescription drugs, all sorts of over-the-counter drugs, and, yes, alcohol too, should be illegal. Because the ones we've outlawed have virtual identical twins in every CVS. A whole lot of them.

[Special K]

Except we've been fighting the drug war en masse for 30-40 years, and in general for a century. :coach: IT HASN'T WORKED!!! :coach:

Gee, I think that could quite possible be the reason he specifically stated we need to CHANGE our approach to the war on drugs.

So are.... *drumroll*

Adderall

OxyContin

Vicodin

Codeine

Valium

Thorazine

Ambien

Sonata

Soma

Ritalin

The 'Tussin

And, of course, alcohol.

Those are off the top of my head.

What is your point?

Can you please tell me the medically beneficial effects of straight heroin, crack, and meth?

P.S. All of those you listed (besides the alcohol) are controlled substances that are only legally dispensed by a medical professional. And even with that, the rates of abuse and resulting deaths of these drugs are skyrocketing on a national level.

[Hubbs]

Already elaborated on my point in the post above yours.

[Bang]

My point is that it's arbitrary. Absolutely, 100% arbitrary.

I completely and totally disagree. Those drugs you mention have beneficial intent, heroin and cocaine do not. Those drugs are only to be obtained through controlled methods for specific purposes, and even though illegal prescription drugs are easy to get, that doesn't make an adequate comparison.

I can show you plenty of people who used Adderall or Oxycontin or Vicodin or Valium as intended, and are not hooked, and are done with it.

But you can't show me that same thing in a heroin user. You can't show me that in a meth user.

Fact is people can abuse and be addicted to just about anything.. sugar, drugs, alcohol, sex, anything. But some things are meant for no other purpose, and are not harmless little fun time drugs.

Heroin.. have some today, tomorrow you want more, and tomorrow it takes more to get the same high,, then you want more, and it takes more and more and more to get that feeling... then one day your tolerance hits the limit and you're dead the next time you use.

(Quick poll for everyone who has ever known anyone who was a heroin addict... how many of them have you actually seen get better? I'd bet most of you saw whoever it was go down the drain til they're either dead or gone from your life... or still in it and providing all the same drama. I'm not saying it can't be done, but the odds are way against you from the second time you use heroin.)

Cocaine can give you a heart attack the first time you use it. It doesn't matter what kind of shape you're in, how young you are, nothing. Everyone in here who's ever done coke has felt that heart racing, heard their pulse in their ears, and most likely every one of us wondered if this was the heart attack.

These drugs aren't controlled in their manufacture, they're not controlled in their distribution. The people you get it from don't care if it kills you, and you don't know what has been put into it. I've seen people spray gobs of roach killer on piles of cocaine, for no other reason than to give it a smell and a texture that would hide the baby laxative they cut it with.

There is no logical argument to legalizing these types of hard drugs. The risks are too great. It was said earlier on that people have the right to choose whether or not they want to **** their lives up, but the fact is, these choices are presented to a lot of people at very young ages,, elementary schools, middle schools. Times when people base their decisions on what their friends think is cool, times when these "people" can be easily pressured into doing something they have been told is wrong.

I could support decriminalization, put people you catch with small amounts of heroin into needle exchange programs designed to get them either clean, or under controlled circumstances. Force people to get clean by not putting them in prison, that's usually a pretty good idea.

Meanwhile, people selling coke, heroin and meth need to be dealt with heavily.

~Bang

[NavyDave]

what if cracking down on drugs cause terrorists to control the drug market and use the money to buy nuclear weapons and then they bomb DC with the nukes? what then?

I guess terrorists haven't been helping to grow those poppy plants (OPIUM) to increase funding for actions in the middle east and Asia?

[NavyDave]

:yes: And it's heroin, no e.

Fine. So you're also opposed to jailing them.

I want them jailed, shamed by having their face, name and place of employment on TV.

EDIT: If it DOESN'T work, it's no worse than now. Prohibition isn't working.

Build more prisons put them on chain gangs to clean up the environment and other touchy feely stuff liberals love

[Special K]

My point is that it's arbitrary. Absolutely, 100% arbitrary.

No, it's really not. But carry on.

Or, hell, try OxyContin. It turns into morphine in your bloodstream. Morphine and heroin are brothers, or, at the biggest stretch, cousins. Morphine is insanely addictive - just like virtually any opiate-based substance, of which there are plenty of legal ones.

This is why these opiate-based drugs are HEAVILY CONTROLLED. You may choose to ignore that part to bolster your argument, but the fact remains that physicians and healthcare professionals strictly control the amount of morphine, oxycontin, etc. that are dispensed to a patient.

What is interesting in this whole debate about how people claim prices will go down if a substance is leagalized. Maybe someone can tell me the street price of an oxycontin these days? The fact that oxycontin is legalized has not done jack crap to bring down prices, stop under the table dealing, etc.

In fact, the rate of painkiller use and related morbidity and mortality has skyrocketed over the last decade.

Interestingly, the fact that these painkillers ARE legal and are dispensed by health professionals lulls people into a false sense of security...hey, my doctor gave me these, they can't be THAT bad.

If your argument is that drugs which are powerfully addictive, enough to ruin lives, and can kill with an overdose should be illegal, then what you're really saying is that you believe that hundreds and hundreds of prescription drugs, all sorts of over-the-counter drugs, and, yes, alcohol too, should be illegal. Because the ones we've outlawed have virtual identical twins in every CVS. A whole lot of them.

Evidently you haven't read anything either I OR Bang has stated in this thread or else you wouldn't be suggesting that we are arguing from the stance that drugs leading to possible overdoses should be illegal.

I am arguing that LEGALIZING hard drugs such as meth, crack, coke, heroin does NO GOOD medically speaking. There are no beneficial medical effects of this crap. If you disagree, I encourage you to dig up scientific, peer-reviewed literature that states that meth is medically useful. Or that crack is medically useful. Or coke. Or heroin.

[Larry]

This is why these opiate-based drugs are HEAVILY CONTROLLED.

What is interesting in this whole debate about how people claim prices will go down if a substance is leagalized. Maybe someone can tell me the street price of an oxycontin these days? The fact that oxycontin is legalized has not done jack crap to bring down prices, stop under the table dealing, etc.

So, tell me. Is Oxycontin legally available to everybody, or is it heavily controlled?

[Special K]

So, tell me. Is Oxycontin legally available to everybody, or is it heavily controlled?

So, tell me. Do you always ask questions to which you already know the answer?

[Bang]

So, tell me. Do you always ask questions to which you already know the answer?

I did, and eventually one of them said yes. A pretty one, too!

:cool:

~Bang

[Larry]

So, tell me. Do you always ask questions to which you already know the answer?

Always.

There aren't any questions to which I don't already know the answer.

So, tell me. When people point out that you are arguing contradictory positions in the very same post, is your reaction always to attack the person who pointed it out?

[Hubbs]

Bang/keeastman, do you understand that the reason that cocaine and heroin aren't used for "beneficial purposes" right now is because no doctor is able to prescribe them because they're illegal? The only thing people use them for is to get high.

Actually, I shouldn't say the only thing, because, to go back to Adderall, the entire reason that girl I dated was able to try it was because one of her friends used it in place of Adderall for the same reasons because it actually had less side effects for her. You'd probably say that she's a complete and total rarity, but just think about the massive difference between how these substances are used. The legal ones are organized very specifically, measured very specifically, and doctors know which positive benefits correlate to which drugs to make proper prescriptions possible. The illegal ones aren't organized at all, the personal doses are completely and totally arbitrary, and virtually every time someone uses them, they use quantities that would result in a rapid onset of brutal detox effects and addictions if Adderall and OxyContin were used in the same quantities.

Adderall can be prescribed at the 5 milligram level. I have a 10 milligram prescription, myself. These pills are really, really small. If you crushed them into powder to snort a line, you'd get one about a quarter of an inch long. How long were your average coke lines, Bang? Do you have any idea how much Adderall you'd need to crush to match them? Do you know how little of those coke lines would go into making a single "pill" of legally prescribed coke? I've been to parties where people actually were crushing up Adderall and snorting it, and believe me, you need a bunch of pills to create the lines that these kids wanted for a really solid punch.

I understand that you have a particularly strong reaction to cocaine and heroin because the former had a powerful grip on your life for a while, and you saw what both did to others' lives. My point isn't that random, usually massively overdosed use, by anybody at all, without medical research into how their brains will react to certain substances, had medical benefit. It doesn't. My point is that saying random, usually massively overdosed use, by anybody at all, without medical research into how their brains will react to certain substances, will almost always fail to have medical benefit, is just as true about hundreds of legal substances. Saying that doctor-prescribed, specifically-dosed, properly-used amounts of cocaine or heroin would have no medical benefits simply isn't true. Hell, heroin would be used in the same way as morphine. And cocaine most certainly does have practical uses:

The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Inc. considers cocaine to be a valuable anesthetic and vasoconstricting agent when used as part of the treatment of a patient by a physician. No other single drug combines the anesthetic and vasoconstricting properties of cocaine.

Or this.

but can be administered by a doctor for legitimate medical uses, such as local anesthesia for some eye, ear, and throat surgeries.

Or even a little old-school remedy:

(I only mention that because cocaine really was used for toothaches, not because I blindly believe that all folksy remedies were anything more than Placebo effects. In this case, however, cocaine actually did number the tooth.)

Now, does all that mean I think it should be legal for little kids to pop some cocaine after a visit to the dentist? Not necessarily. I think there can be other, perfectly legitimate reasons for strict control of any given substance, or even outright illegalization. What I'm trying to say to you is that everything you're saying about cocaine and heroin is true about hundreds of substances I can get at the pharmacy. Hundreds. Random snorting of random and usually unnecessarily large amounts of Adderall or Vyvance will produce the same rapid changes in lifestyle for a very large percentage of the general population that random snorting of random and usually unnecessarily large amounts of cocaine does. Random shooting of random and unusually large amounts of OxyContin will produce the same rapid changes in lifestyle for a very large percentage of the general population that random shooting of random and unusually large amounts of heroin does. To say that their use under those circumstances is the reason why cocaine and heroin should be illegal is to make an argument that is, yes, completely arbitrary.