Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Legalize it!

Well you can criticize my political ideas all you want but lets look at a simple chart to see what might happen if we legalized all drugs and started up a drug licensing program like I suggested back in February.

Legalize Cocaine = a broken economy in countries like Columbia, Venezuala, Bolivia. But it would mean that the US couldn't meddle with them at their will or does it? There's oil in Venezuala isnt' there? and the abasador already said the leader should be assassinated on public television.

Legalize Heroin/Morphine = a broken economy in Afghanistan where we are fighting a war that will probably never end...

Legalize Crystal Meth = natural selection of species it's the bottom of the fucking foodchain right here. Not to mention that a government controlled lab facility would probably be alot safer than a lab moving in next door to you or into an apartment building where there could be innocent children.

Legalize Pot = Problems with grow-ops will dissapear overnight. Farmers will get another crop to plant in the spring. Reports of domestic violence will go down.

Just some things I thought people should consider.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeff for PM Jeff for PM. That's all I gotta say. We had a good long talk about your drug policy bakc in February i guess. You should also add that it would create more jobs. You'd need to police the policy, and also your chem labs or whatever. Tho I think if your idea ever got close to passing, you and your family would get killed off by someone. Your policies would mean alot of dealer gangs and whatever's would be losing thousands. The US won't legalize it cuz then they got no reason to stick their nose into some third world countries. Stupid medling US

Pilot said...

I wholeheartedly disagree with you. Especially in a nation like Canada where an already unstable Universal healthcare system would be cippled or disabled by an influx of drug related ailments we just can afford it. Let alone the added cost of licensing nad product quality control.

Solutions to such problems must be aproached from a different angle.



Decriminalization - Especially of softer drugs such as ceremonial psychoactive cacti and plants and low-risk drugs, and complete legalization of use of most other drugs under a doctor (or even team of doctors) supervision and perscription.



Legaslization of the "grow-op". Hear me out on this one before you object or agree. My personal opinion on the "war on drugs" is the supply chain from plant to consumer. Due to the secrecy involved it is almost ocmpletely impossible to find out where your product has been prior to your supplier, and even then he can be shadowed in secrecy. Legalize the ability to possess a personal supply of plant, but INCREASE penalties for larger supplies (I'll suggest an arbitrary number of more than 5 plants in the case of marijuana). This will have the following results in my opinion:

1) greater knowledge of the supply chain - because the act is legal you will be able to trace the path of your product back to it's grower.

2) Prevention of large-scale or corporate interference. As is the case with LEGAL AND ILLEGAL product, mass production usually prompts chemical additives, genetic modification and unusual grow practices to allow for the greatest yield and potency of product, thus improving profits. This is the case with tobbacco and alcohol on the legal side and products such as marijuana and LSD on the illegal side.

3) The "journey to the goal" argument. Ideally this plan would ask that each user grows or produces his/her own product. This creates the ideal situation of less long distance movement of product, higher quality control as you plan to consume the product yourself and allows one to mediate on their willingness to use the product. A person might be more prone to use a product they don't want to if it's readily availiable as opposed to one they have to wait for.


Education and Therapy - people who use drugs aren't evil, but alot of evil people use drugs. Motivation for using drugs usually stems from one or more innocent reasons. Addiction, depression, curiosity, boredom, fear and many others. One does not set out to do drugs to hurt themselves or others, their reasons for using are selfish, but not harmful. When a person is captured using a criminalized or de-criminalized substance, we need to use less hickory stick and more hugging. Oh here comes the hippie in me. Basically we should abolish jail sentences and fines in favour of therapeutic community service (repairing damage done), therapy, classes and education. The respose (not "punishment") to drug use would be tailored to the type of drug, frequency and duration of use, effect on the induvidual and damage done to the community and society.


I'm not saying that my solutions are the best, heck what do I know. But i'd like to summarize some of the key points that I feel are effective drug "control" or drug "handling" procedures and are essential to understanding and deraling with society's drug use.

- Open minded research - officials must spend time and care on understanding each drug for what it is and what it does, not what it is perceived to be by society.
- A Tiered system - Not every drug is the same. Marijuana is a world away from Heroin. Just as Alcohol and tobbacco are regulated differently, so should illicit drugs.
- Greater treatment, therapy and education. I feel that education is getting better, but it still needs work. Therapy and treatment is appaling and too slow.
- Removal/reducation of the criminal element - The more we criminalize drugs, the more aspects such as organized and violent crime come into play.
- Reducation and transparency of the supply chain - Drugs are sold and marketed in extreme secrecy, often across great distances. Supply chains need to be reduced and made so that parties involved are accounted for and held accountable for tampering with product.

Well if anyone has read this far, I think you can see, I've thought about this. I'd actually welcome a chance to openly debate thsi with Mr. Demoncrush... and I know I will, as I think we both have good ideas, but we need to make them more attainable and applicable to current society.

Finally, we have to consider that some drugs ARE HIGHLY DANGEROUS and should be in the hands and bodies of no one, regulated and observed or not. No good can come from sanctioned use of drugs like Crystal Meth or Heroin, and we need to consider that when regulating these substances.

Thank you for your time.