FPTV: The War over the War on Drugs, Part IV of IV

Should drugs like marijuana, heroin, and cocaine be legal? Watch the fireworks as Ethan Nadelmann, author of "Think Again: Drugs" in the September/October 2007 issue of FP and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance clashes with David Murray, chief scientist at the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy. (This clip is Part IV of IV: A Legalization Scenario)

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• drugs

[stpeterican]

He is the man put there to lie, he knows it and we know it.  The policy dictates the science, not the other way around, so logic is not part of the equation.

[thimoneus]

I remember when ecstasy was big in the 80's. It seems like it is much bigger now. They actually talk about it on the news and in documentaries a lot, and "rave" is a mainstream term. I think making it illegal made it much more popular. I also think the rise in the popularity of ecstasy is the reason LSD went out of style. That is another negative because LSD is a much safer drug than ecstasy.

[Whiterhin018]

The pharmaceutical empire/cartel was an intended consequence of the drug war scheme. Restrict access to heroin, cocaine, marijuana etc.. and synthesize methamphetamine (Desoxyn), Amphetamine salts (Adderall), Dextro-amphetamine (Dexedrine), prescription opiates which are only accessable via prescription, and offer them as "medicines" while condemning the recreational use of said "medicine" thus opening up a niche for black market diversion of pharmaceuticals which generatesmore cash to be seized

[Whiterhin018]

What the prohibition advocate fails to realize in his argument is that the regulation of the prescription drug market is the problem, recreational drug users/addicts will do anything to get these drugs and if there is not a legally sanctioned market regulated by the government then of course you would expect to see diversion into the black market of pure pharmaceutical cognates of the illicit drugs. Artificial scarcity via prescription regulation drives up the demand, thus driving crime rates.

[Moglitronable]

These fucking people trying to force feed their own fucked-up morality on us. Whatever happened to the Constitution being the guide for such issues? Didn't we need a fucking CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to make alcohol illegal? Why doesn't anyone talk about that?

[majikninja07]

use will go up ?tell that to the netherlands, and like they pointed out no1 that is on here will go out take meth crack or heroin are gonna run out and buy up pounds to stay high forever

[The3rdPlateau]

Can't agree more with you there

[thimoneus]

Yeah, that's true. Illegal "ecstasy" contains all kinds of no telling what. If MDMA were legal, you could just go to the store and buy MDMA without any of the added mystery poisons. So people who say MDMA should be illegal because it's dangerous are going about things the wrong way.

[The3rdPlateau]

My mistake, I meant to say, that being said, ecstasy is much more dangerous than LSD, but MDMA is only slightly more dangerous than LSD. Got a little mixed up there haha

[The3rdPlateau]

I agree that LSD is much safer than ecstasy, but I'd have to say that it is only slightly safer than MDMA itself. The problem is that, while ideally ecstasy would be just that: MDMA, the reality is that ecstasy is whatever chemical is cheapest to adulterate it with, and then some MDMA. These other chemicals might not even be all that harmful until they're mixed with MDMA or with each other. That being said, LSD is much more dangerous than ecstasy but only slightly more dangerous than MDMA.

[The3rdPlateau]

the manslaughter thing is a myth, i got arrested once for having 1 ecstasy pill on me, fortunately i was a minor but even so i only got a year of supervised probation.

[LetsTalkSexTalk]

I think it is kind of sad that the pro legalization guy never talked about the countries that have legalized many of these drugs. In this part he could have said that their drug use is actually less than ours and yet it is legal and available there.