Subject:
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Re: Arkham Asylum - A cool set, but a bit disturbing.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:39:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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9776 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Timothy Gould wrote:
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I dug up some statistics (page
288- of the PDF) and it would appear that in the US just under one third of
drug users are using something other than marijuana. So when talking about
high-risk people (those whose actions are a danger to someone other than
themself) we’re looking at a fraction of a third, which is a small portion.
In most other developed countries I’ve seen statistics for the percentage of
drug users using something other than marijuana is even lower.
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Yeah, but if the percentage of people who posed an immediate risk to people
other than themselves was significantly higher, there would be more political
capital to do something about it. Once the public perceives a lack of risk to
themselves, they are less thrilled about spending lots of money to combat a
situation that they see as “mostly resolved”.
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And to anticipate any arguments that marijuana is harmful (I have no doubts
that it is) I did say ‘no more than users of legal narcotics’. Yes marijuana
has its problems but I’m yet to see anything from a reputable source
suggestion they’re in any way worse than those associated with tobacco or
alcohol.
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The only hard statistic I’ve seen so far is that one joint = one beer in terms
of how impaired it makes you as a driver. I would have figured it’d be higher
than that, as most people that I’ve witnessed don’t show any signs of impairment
from a single beer.
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I should also note that crime associated with drug use is not neccessarily a
result of the drug use so much as a result of its illegal nature. If one
could get a recreational prescription to Oxycontin one wouldn’t need to mug
anyone. It also strikes me as a very inefficient way of an addict to get a
hold of their drugs. Robbing a pharmacy would have much better yields. Are
you sure it’s really that common or is it just overreported because of the
unpleasantess?
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Oxycontin is a known high-risk drug, so pharmacies probably take extra measures
to ensure that it does not get stolen from them (including, I would assume, not
storing it in quantity, but probably just getting in enough to fill known
upcoming prescriptions), though I’m sure it still happens. This drives the
street price up (IIRC, the expose I watched on it suggested that a single pill
can fetch $600-1000 each). The people who mug prescription users for the
pills aren’t doing it so much for personal use as they are to harvest a supply
to sell on the black market. One individual they cited has her husband drive in
a separate car behind her, idling in the parking lot while she goes in to get
her prescription, and waiting with cel phone ready in case anyone does anything
when she’s returning to her car. Then he follows her home to make sure she’s
not being tailed by anyone. All this just to get her a legal supply of pills
that prevent her from being in excruciating pain.
The thing is, Oxycontin use is very rare, and once you’ve been mugged once for
it, I’m sure there’s plenty of incentive to adjust your routine to prevent a
second occurance. I have personally only met one person who positively
identified him/herself as a prescription user, and have never heard of any
muggings through regular news channels.
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That means that most governments are making it illegal for people to use
something they enjoy for no good reason. Furthermore by making things illegal
(as opposed to hard to get, for example) they are helping to increase robbery
and property crime. Is this the action of a moral government and/or legal
system?
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“No good reason” is highly debatable. As far as I know, marijuana use has a low
incidence of related crimes (it’s in plentiful supply, many people grow their
own crop for personal use, it’s not horribly expensive, and it has low enough
withdrawal symptoms that users aren’t constantly chasing after the next hit).
Stuff like Oxycontin is an exponential-use drug. The more you use it, the more
you need to use it, and withdrawal is reportedly bad to experience (there’s a
Texan clinic that avoids that problem by inducing a coma until the drug has
cleared out of your system, since it’s a physical addiction and the cravings
will mostly go away once you’re clean). Therefore, even if it were legal and in
plentiful supply, you’d eventually have people who couldn’t go to work because
they wouldn’t be able to wait more than a couple of hours before taking another
massive hit. Also, all you have to do is ask your local ER about drug overdose
cases to see “good reason”. Marijuana is supposed to be no worse than alcohol,
but one is illegal and the other isn’t. I suspect part of that is the fact that
marijuana use was more contained when it was outlawed, whereas we have
Prohibition to show how well it worked for alcohol. And tobacco was a staple
industry of early America, which makes it that much harder to illegalize (though
some inroads have been made by way of making it illegal in restaurants, bars,
and public buildings in most States). Between those three, it’s probably
difficult, but not impossible, to overdose. Once you get beyond them,
however...
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Yes. I double checked and sure enough you are right. The wikipedia article
does state, however, that ‘illegal narcotic’ is commonly used by paypersons
to refer to illegal drugs in general, including by law enforcement.
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Yes, which is why many law enforcement agencies will have a “narcotics”
devision. And this is why the medical profession prefers the less easily
confused term “opiates”, since all true narcotics are apparently opium
derivatives or produce similar results.
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