There seems to exist in the human animal a curiosity about alternative states of consciousness. Some human animals allow this curiosity to destroy their lives. Some don’t. Some experiment occassionaly their whole lives with no observable ill effects.
In many parts of the world the government’s criminalization of this behaviour has provided criminals with an opportunity to make vast sums of money. Hundreds of thousand of people are incarcerated on drug related charges and still society is burdened with inumerable drug related problems.
I don’t think anybody could reasonably argue with what I have said so far. There may well be a few of you who disagree with what I say next.
The governments (of Cananda and the United States at least - I am familiar with their drug problems) should go into the drug distribution business. Citizens of those countries should be allowed to buy any drug they want PROVIDED THEY HAVE A LICENSE. To obtain the license you would need to be of a certain age and you would need to have passed an exam which tests your knowledge of the effects of the drug you are buying. A system like this would show respect for the natural human desire to experiment with drugs. It would dry up a major money supply for many large criminal organizations. It would ensure that people got pure drugs. It would keep people out of jail and it would ensure that addicts had access to treatment. It would also become a source of revenue for the government and save billions of dollars a year on law enforcement. Give people a while to get used to this new system and then deal harshly with anyone attempting to operate outside of it.
Hmmm. This really reads like an old Robert Anton Wilson book, Trajectories, I think.
The basic idea seems sound, however, in practice it doesn’t work out so well. The Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau was in such a business for quite some time and that’s lead to a tremendous health cost burden to the nation . . . albeit, the health dangers of alcohol and tobacco are quite a bit less than some of the trance-inducing substances that would fall into the categories you’re discussing (and a number of those are quite the big time health and public safety danger - the number of traffic deaths caused by alcohol is pretty high and one can only wonder what it would be like if cocaine were readily available to idjits behind wheels).
I agree, for certain drugs, decriminilization and even legalization makes sense . . . but not for all of them . . . and I don’t believe the government should be in the drug business, taxing the business and regulating it to keep it honest so to speak but not running it.
I couldn’t find a web reference and I’m too lazy to type it out, but there is actually a neurolinguistic programming process that allows folks who want to get high to recreate their high experience through suggestion alone. There’s a guy who sells hypnosis tapes that walk a person through a marijuana experience as well (mj, a drug that should be legal). His page seems to be down but I did find this though catanna.com/altered_states.htm
I have a couple MP3s that aren’t exactly the same thing but they do fit in the altered state of consciousness realm . . . Feel the Glow and the Color Purple at phillips.personal.nccu.edu.tw/DRTRC/index.html
Interesting topic. In any case. However, I really think the follow-through would not be so rosy as you’re predicting.
Sorry I neglected to mention that in my “brave new idea” we would accept that people are going to do drugs, but we would also accept that it is a fundamentaly dangerous thing to do, so certain retstraints would need to be imposed. We allow people to run bungy jumping operations but not without first passing safety tests first. Why not license magic mushroom distributors to run little vaction retreats with trained medical staff available if neccesary. To get heroin and cocaine you would need to already be an addict, and you would get counselling and support if and when you decided to quit. I guess it should be possible to get a license for cocaine and heroin even if you are not an addict already but that license should be really difficult to obtain.
I know this idea doesn’t have a hope in hell of being realized but I think that is only because a lot of people are not willing to admit that the war on drugs has already claimed way to many innocent victims.
On second thought that bush seems like an inteligent guy. Perhaps I should run my idea by him.
[quote=“bob”]
The governments (of Cananda and the United States at least - I am familiar with their drug problems) should go into the drug distribution business. [/quote]
America is already in the drug distribution business. We started in central america in the 80’s, then outsourced to other countries… On the homefront, we have a large drug business, in the guise of MDA’s pushing their drug of choice that lines theirs and the PPO/HMO pockets. Poor Americans everywhere now have some ADHDDEHKW kind of disese that seems to affect 3 out 5 ppl in the pop. So, they have 6 new drugs to use…
I thought Maxine Waters had the franchise on Sandinista cocaine going into Da’ Hood ?
Maxine alone started the entire crack cocaine epidemic in the USA.
She worked hard for tha money.
Isn’t that how her boyfriend financed all those chicken places?
(I work on getting as many stereotypes as possible into one sentence)
As a side note - I completely agree with the ADD/jumpy kid problem.
Personally I attribute it to several things:
Poor nutritional intake
Increased/excessive TV & video input
Too much sugar
Nutra-Sweet/aspartame intake
Not enough excercise
Other things probably also contribute to this phenomenon. And the drugs just exacerbate the problem. Treating the sysmptoms and not the causes.
[quote=“namastestore”][quote=“bob”]
The governments (of Canada and the United States at least - I am familiar with their drug problems) should go into the drug distribution business. [/quote]
America is already in the drug distribution business. We started in central America in the 80’s, then outsourced to other countries… [/quote]
Some would say that the US got into the drub biz even earlier. Like the late 50’s in the Golden Triangle.
This is an interesting point that bob raises, however, I fear, moot as well. Logic and government don’t exist in the same space.
Don’t countries like The Netherlands and Norway have social programs that approach bob’s nirvanic vision? How are they working out?
And the latest chapter of this sad, silly saga sees Afghanistan back to producing 70% of the worlds heroin. That’s gotta be doing wonders for the war on terror.
Toe - I’ve never been to the Netherlands or read any reports on the subject, but from the people I’ve met from there, the sense I get is that they have quite a balanced understanding of what drugs are about. They’ve experimented themselves with most of them, perhaps learned something from the experience, and decided that psychoactive drugs are to be approached cautiously and wisely. People climb mountains, kayak in rivers, surf huge waves, swim with sharks, blast themselves into outerspace in tin cans… They do not, however, do these things unprepared. Instead they inform themselves of the risks. They surround themselves with competent people and they wait till the weather is right. The same should be true about the way that people are exposed to drugs. Instead, because it is illegal, people get their dope cut with god knows what, supplied by who knows who, and in situations where the result is guarenteed disaster.
If you had to pass a really hard test to do drugs it could really change the demographic.
Losers and wastoids wouldn’t be caught dead with drugs and all the overachievers would be scrambling over each other to pass that test.[/quote]
All Taiwanese students would have to go to cram schools to pass the test. Publishing companies would write books with strategies for passing the tests. The government would give work permits to expert drug dealers to come over as drug test trainers. You’d need to pass the G.D.P.T - General Drug Proficiency Test just to get into University.
In the end there would be a wide variety of tests with different names, but at the end of the day they’d all mean the same thing.
You’d still get students believing that they’d have a better chance of passing the test if they went to Canada to study, and they could be right.
Then, just because this is Taiwan, once enough people have got a licence and are adicted to drugs, they’ll make it illegal again.
Shoooot, how yous think we payin for all that stuff over there. I know my taxes aint enough and my SSI is gone so what is Georgie gonna do? Halbutron(sp) can’t enroll enough fools to do half the work… :loco:
[quote=“Bassman”][quote=“jplowman”]
If you had to pass a really hard test to do drugs it could really change the demographic.
Losers and wastoids wouldn’t be caught dead with drugs and all the overachievers would be scrambling over each other to pass that test.[/quote]
All Taiwanese students would have to go to cram schools to pass the test. Publishing companies would write books with strategies for passing the tests. The government would give work permits to expert drug dealers to come over as drug test trainers. You’d need to pass the G.D.P.T - General Drug Proficiency Test just to get into University.
In the end there would be a wide variety of tests with different names, but at the end of the day they’d all mean the same thing.
You’d still get students believing that they’d have a better chance of passing the test if they went to Canada to study, and they could be right.
Then, just because this is Taiwan, once enough people have got a licence and are adicted to drugs, they’ll make it illegal again.
And this is my understanding of Taiwan.[/quote]
Ohhh bassman, you funny!!! And soo right, but maybe we should take a look at what My favorite mayor in the whole wide world in Chicago, is doing…
