Drug use/drug testing in the CF (merged)

[Bruce Monkhouse]

....and new life breathed into a dead horse[where have I heard that before?].........oops she's down again :sniper:

Folks the drug thing is one of those issues that probably has been done too many times here, do a search and you will find threads up the hoop......

 

[48Highlander]

I know I'll probably get flamed for this because of recent events, but after seing some of the comments in the other thread I just had to say something.

I was recently going over the "gun control" thread where I found some very good points made about how the perception of the media and the general public tends to be quite different than reality.   There were figures brought up which suggested that criminalizing or restricting the ownership of firearms actually produces MORE violent crime rather than less.   Seems that when you make guns illegal, only criminals have guns.   Made sense to me anyway.

Then, roughly one day later, I see some of the same people saying that the killing of 4 RCMP officers is a good example of why marijuana needs to stay illegal.   Now, that just doesn't sit right with me.   If most of us can agree that making weapons illegal does nothing to curb crime, how can we argue that making drugs illegal does anything positive either?   The fact of the matter is that whenever we criminalize any commodity, we invite the criminal element to exploit it.   Wether it's criminalizing the production and sale of alcohol, marijuana, gambling, or trying to control the sex trade, the result has always been an increase in criminal activity.   Criminalize alcohol and you get rum-runners.   Criminalize marijuana and you get grow-ops.   Criminalize gambling and you get bookies and loan sharks.   Criminalize prostitution and you get pimps and kidnappers.

I'd like to hear what the rest of you think.   I started a new thread specificaly so this wouldn't be linked to the tragedy in Alberta, so let's keep it seperate ok?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Prohibited substances are prohibited for a reason.  People who use firearms don't incur major health care costs ie become a burden to the rest of society simply by using them, in the way that drugs (legal or otherwise) do.

 

[TheCheez]

I disagree.

Just because something is popular(and therefore profitable) should not be grounds for making it legal. Yes we spend a lot of resources trying to stop pot from getting onto the street(where it is effectively legal) but lets say it became legal and we would now spend the money trying to get people to use it responsibly instead. Like: Don't toke and drive and employer drug tests. Once criminal activities that have been legalized may promote freedom of the population(which is great) but some things need to be restricted to promote an overall healthy society. Whether or not pot is one of them is not what this is about though.

To apply this to some other examples you gave: Gambling only becomes uncontrollable to a small % of people compared to those who are capable of simply buying a 6/49 once in awhile or spending Friday night at the Casino with the boys. Alcohol has so many social and economical ties that getting rid of it to ensure no one comes to work hung over and attempting to stop drinking and driving. If everyone had a gun the crime would just be committed by those with the most guns. Would you really want to live in a society knowing that anyone on the street, in your office, on your bus, is capable of killing you?

People who are really determined are going to do it anyway. Whether or not having something available to the general population legally is up to government and society to determine if that is the culture we want to live in.

 

[pbi]

I am of two minds on this issue. Right now it is very difficult to discuss under the shadow of the RCMP murders: you are right to say that we will get flamed. In fact, it might be wise to realize that they did not die because of anybody's personal views on the subject of legalization-they died because a homicidal/suicidal maniac, who apparently exhibited every known trait of antisocial personality disorder in one squirming mind, was very well known to police and should have been jailed, hung or drowned years ago, decided to kill some policemen. But, anyway...

Under the Volstead Act in the US in the 1920s,the sale of alcohol was illegal: we call this time period "Prohibition". The proceeds to be made from the sale of illicit booze were so high (the huge demand for booze did not drop-it was just harder to get...) that criminal violence reached frightening proportions, including gun battles between police, Revenue, and FBI agents on one hand, and the gangs and booze runners on the other. These fights sometimes included weapons as large as GPMGs mounted on police vehicles and .50 cal weapons mounted on US Coast Guad cutters on the Great Lakes. IIRC there are some Canadian homes on the shore of Lake Erie near Windsor that still have slugs and bullet marks from some of the firefights. Police, criminals and innocent citizens died. People died horrible deaths from badly distilled bath tub hooch. Canadians made lots of money selling and running booze to the US (sound familiar?). The social toll from all of this was pretty disastrous. Organized crime grew exponentially, fuelled not just by booze profits but by the the related industries of prostitution and protection/extortion. Judges, public oficials and police were corrupted. Eventually the Volstead Act was repealed, as having achieved very little.Which brings me to my dilemma.


Clearly, not a lot of money is made today from the sale of illegal booze in North America. Not very many gangs and criminal organizations get violently involved in selling beer or wine out of the back of cars on street corners. The police are not raiding stills or shooting it out with booze runners. So, it could be said that legalizing alcohol, by repealing the Volstead Act, brought about the sharp reduction in crime and criminal profits associated with the illegal sale of booze. So maybe we should do the same with drugs: remove the incentive for criminal activity by legalizing it.

But, on the other hand, only an ignorant fool (or perhaps an unscrupulous distiller...) would try to deny the huge and pervasive damage done by alcohol in our society. It is heavily involved in domestic violence, child abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, aboriginal problems, drunk driving crashes, rowdy and stupid public behaviours, and careers and lives wrecked by alcoholism. And all of this has been going on for decades, so that the toll of affected North Americans is probably in the millions. There is an idea floating around that in "some European countries" because alcohol (especially wine...) is introduced at the family table, there are somehow less alcohol-related issues. I am not sure that this is true. I have some relatives who are involved in alcohol counselling and rehab in Portugal-they have told me that the teen alcohol problem is severe, to a great extent because booze is so easy to get. It makes sense: if you could never get booze at all, there would probably be no alcoholics. If there is an unlimited supply of booze (as we enjoy today...) then every individual with a predisposition to substance addiction who cannot handle the stresses in their life can easily turn to booze: thousands (if not millions...) do.

So-there you have it. If we legalize drugs, we will probably spare ourselves the social burden that criminal involvement brings us. On the other hand I am not sure that we would not just be exchanging one social burden for another, and adding to the massive problem we already have with booze.

Cheers

 

[48Highlander]

Prohibited substances are prohibited for a reason.   People who use firearms don't incur major health care costs ie become a burden to the rest of society simply by using them, in the way that drugs (legal or otherwise) do.

Yeah, obviously healthcare concerns are something that's going to trouble our great socialist leaders.  However, smoking and drinking produce the same sort of burden on our society, yet both are legal.  Alcohol consumption is even glorified in commercials, even though it leads to vehicular accidents, brain damage, weight gain, and liver problems.  So obviously healthcare costs aren't that big of a concern.  And even assuming they ARE, does that mean that criminalizing a substance will eliminate that cost to our healthcare system?  Or that it will significantly impact the number of people who use/abuse that substance?  Hardly.  It just means we're going to spend a lot more money attempting to fight it, while giving all the revenue to the criminal element.  Revenue which they can then use to buy weapons, and branch out into other illegal activities.  

Instead of spending billions a year to create jobs for criminals, why not legalize it, licence it, tax it, and use the revenue to fund the healthcare system?  That way you eliminate the criminal element, and the number of users should stay roughly the same, or if the netherlands are any indication it should even drop.  At the same time you're generating revenue for the healthcare system, so it ends up being in better condition than it is now while drugs are illegal.  What I'm trying to say that, if people are going to do it anyway, and our current system isn't stopping them, isn't it time to try something else?  How long do we have to keep beating our heads against the wall and throwing more money at the problem before we're ready to try a new approach?

 

[Wizard of OZ]

I think this is a real bad time to start this post.

It just shows that Grow ops are not the mom and pop operations some people think they are.  They present a danger to the entire community.  What if it had been two kids who just stumbled onto the property and where shot as he protects his crop.  What of the drug houses busted in BC last week that had toxins flowing into the townhouse complex affecting the whole neighbourhood.

The risks far outweigh the benifits (if any) of this drug.  It is dangerous in all forms weither you are a light or heavy user. 

Could you imagine how dangerous the roads would be.  the only way to test imparied under this influence is through a blood demand.

How messed up the schools would become.  You see the kids smoking now under 18 how hard do you think i would be for them to get this stuff.

I think the penaltiles need to be harsher for grow ops and the judges need to wake up and smell the coffee.  If they had to run for election every 5 yrs they would sure as hell represent the will of the people within the limits of the law a lot more then the tend to now.

rant done

sorry

little heated on this issue right now.

 

[Thirstyson]

You see the kids smoking now under 18 how hard do you think i would be for them to get this stuff

It's invariably easier for a kid an any city these days to obtain pot rather than cigarettes or alcohol. All they have to do is ask their friends, unlike convincing a store clerk that they're 18/19.

 

[McG]

Instead of spending billions a year to create jobs for criminals, why not legalize it, licence it, tax it, and use the revenue to fund the healthcare system? 

Then where do you draw the line?  There will always be that next level of high that the criminal element will be ready to provide.

 

[stukirkpatrick]

Then where do you draw the line?   There will always be that next level of high that the criminal element will be ready to provide.

thats a good point - what would we consider the next "common" illegal street drug, if marijuana was legalized?   The repeal of prohibition did not stop criminal organizations from committing crime, they just moved on to other areas.   What would all these illegitimate pot suppliers do once their business stopped - since I'm assuming if marijuana was decriminalized it would be sold in stores by legal suppliers - would they just give up and find a legal business to run?   Or would they figure out how to start a heroin lab, or other more serious drug type, and making it more available to the public?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Maybe the answer is to teach discipline and respect for one's own body starting in elementary school. Don't tell kids its ok to eat cheezies for breakfast or sit around like a slug playing videogames - conscript for national service out of high school and give people some sort of purpose in life, and they will be less likely to "need" to escape from reality with mind-altering substances.  Some people can handle using them recreationally, for others - and it seems to be becoming way too common - it is simply a crutch.

In other words are we talking about real problems, or symptoms?  I think the problems associated with illegal substances are symptoms.

 

[48Highlander]

thats a good point - what would we consider the next "common" illegal street drug, if marijuana was legalized?   The repeal of prohibition did not stop criminal organizations from committing crime, they just moved on to other areas.   What would all these illegitimate pot suppliers do once their business stopped - since I'm assuming if marijuana was decriminalized it would be sold in stores by legal suppliers - would they just give up and find a legal business to run?   Or would they figure out how to start a heroin lab, or other more serious drug type, and making it more available to the public?

Well, statistics from the Netherlands (ie. Amsterdam) show that after marijuana was legalized, the percentage of the population who use it went down, and is now lower than the level of usage in the US.  Along with this, the average age at which people became exposed to marijuana went up, and the usage of "hard" drugs (cocaine, heroin, etc) also went down.  Now, obviously I can't gaurantee that we'd have the same result if we legalized it in Canada, however, I think it's worth a shot.  You're right that career criminals wouldn't simply give up, however, if they turned to producing harder drugs they'd be creating more supply without an increase in demand.  The result?  Probably more gang related shootings in the short term.  Considering the state of our "corrections" system, I can't say I'd be too opposed to that   Criminals eliminating eachother is preferable to criminals killing cops.

I know there's probably some holes in my argument, however when I look at what an absolute failiure the "war on drugs" has turned out to be, and how much money is wasted on it every year....and then I look at the Netherlands and how much better their situation is....well, like I said, isn't it time we tried something new?  It reminds me of the long-guns registry fiasco.  Just keep pumping more and more cash into a system whose entire prmise is totaly flawed, and hope that it'll somehow fix itself.  There has to be a better way.

 

[chrisf]

I just had to interject this little tid bit... you all realise that the primary reason that marijuana is illegal is because of the lobby of the alcohol producers pre-prohibition days? They saw it as a danger to their business, as it was possible for the consumer to grow and consumer their own marijuana much more easily then it was possible for the consumer to distill and consume their own alcohol...

Obviously I'm not going to claim there are no downsides to marijuana, but I am willing to say that the long term effects are no worse then alcohol. The only functional argument I can see to maintaining it's illegality is because there is no quick tests for it's effects at say a police roadblock to check drivers...

As others have pointed out, if you legalize it, you remove the criminal element that deals with it now.

While, to be honest, I've never actually used marijuana, I can assure you, while underage, it would actually have been easier for me to obtain marijuana then alcohol.

 

[1feral1]

Nope to dope!

Never legalise it periodfor general consumption. Thats my opinion.


Cheers,

Wes

 

[McG]

Obviously I'm not going to claim there are no downsides to marijuana, but I am willing to say that the long term effects are no worse then alcohol.

Except that alcohol does not produce second hand smoke that can cause cancer in non-users or impare designated drivers.

As others have pointed out, if you legalize it, you remove the criminal element that deals with it now.

No, you just force that criminal element to deal in "harder" drugs.

 

[rw4th]

All other issues asside, I   think the real question is simple: when do we declare the "war on drugs" lost? It seems to me that with the quasi-acceptance marijuana has in our current society that the "war on pot" has defenitly been lost. I think we need to re-org and re-think our strategy. Making marijuana legal but controlled (like booze) seems to me like the only logical direction to move in. I don't think it's a good thing, but at this point it might be the only thing left to do to control it.

As for what happened with the RCMP recently: making pot legal won't really reduce these types of confrontations, it will only shift them. Meth tweakers can be even more dangerous.

 

[QORvanweert]

All other issues asside, I   think the real question is simple: when do we declare the "war on drugs" lost? It seems to me that with the quasi-acceptance marijuana has in our current society that the "war on pot" has defenitly been lost. I think we need to re-org and re-think our strategy. Making marijuana legal but controlled (like booze) seems to me like the only logical direction to move in. I don't think it's a good thing, but at this point it might be the only thing left to do to control it.

As for what happened with the RCMP recently: making pot legal won't really reduce these types of confrontations, it will only shift them. Meth tweakers can be even more dangerous.

Speaking from personal observations, I believe that tobacco and marijauna should be prohibited. Pot is certainly far far far easier to get then anything else and it causes the most problems. Yet, I think that it would be unfair to legalise tobacco and prohibit marijauna. They should both be contraband. With regards to the alcohol quandary, well, I am a lowly no hook private certainly not qualified to comment on that.  ;D

 

[Brad Sallows]

Part of the difficulty faced by the US during Prohibition is that in Canada there was no Prohibition.

Many people - especially those who favour decriminalization - misunderstand the situation: if we decriminalize in Canada we will not eliminate the problem the US eliminated by repealing Prohibition; we will instead create an analogous situation.  Unless the US gets on board with decriminalization at the same time we do, I suspect we will enrich the people who currently run the industry (changing them from criminal to businessman overnight) and antagonize the US.

 

[CivU]

"Pot is certainly far far far easier to get then anything else and it causes the most problems"

How is this the case?  Alcohol is far more socially problematic than marijuana...

 

[SeaKingTacco]

First, I must agree with PBI that this current thread has little, if anything, to do with that anti-social wack job in Alberta.

I must admit to being seriously conflicted on this issue- because it is not a simple one.

I have had a sneaking suspicion for years that the "war on drugs" has been an abject failure.   Most of the so-called war has been focussed on removing supply, rather than attacking demand.   Yet, despite years of effort, prices for most drugs have fallen and availability has grown.   In BC, there is quite literally at least one grow op on each city block.   It is estimated that the crop is worth $ 7 BILLION dollars/year (source: Global news BC, last night).   Much of the crop goes to the US, (in exchange for illegal weapons, cash and cocaine) but alot of it stays here.   You cannot walk downtown Victoria and not see people openly smoking Pot.   The cops do not even bother stopping it, because the prosecutors won't go to court over simple possession.   So why not attack the buyers?   Well, the buyers are you and me (well, not literally- no one on this board would smoke pot, right   ) and we are voters and that would not do.   No government would last it's term if they went after everyone who smoked pot.   I suspect (I have never used pot) that people who use pot are much like those who use alcohol- there are those who have limits and those do not.   I think that those who are going to abuse a substance may either be genetically pre-disposed to an addiction or may have some sort of emotional or other problem that they are trying to mask (think sexual abuse or PTSD- something like that).   If I am right in my supposition, it would be incredibly complicated to "heal" everyone who abused a substance- but I think that this is where the real root of almost all the problems that our society faces.

So much for theory- now the practicalities.   Pot is illegal in the US.   Will remain so for the forseeable future.   I suspect that if we full-on legalized pot up here (you know- Labatts and Moosehead selling the stuff under their brand name), the border would almost completely snap shut, at least in the short term, with us having the most to lose, economically.   I think it would also put us in violation of several UN drug eradication and trafficking agreements that we have signed (recent opponents of our participation in missile defence take note!   You can't have it both ways!).

To legalize pot, we would need to have a reliable road side test.   After we have spent the last 20 years fight drunk driving, I do not want to share the road with those so stoned that it would take them 30 seconds or more to decide to hit the brake at a stop sign.

I think the jury is still out on the relative health risk (long and short term) of pot.   It would seem a bit hypocritical to me for the goverment to continue running ads against smoking and drinking while at the same time legalizing another substance like pot.   That said, we would still have to have prohibitions against people like pilots, professional drivers, heavy equipment operators, soldiers, etc for consuming pot because we cannot have a situation where THC gets re-released into a 747 pilot's booldstream during in a stressful situation.

Would we really get rid of organized crime by legalizing pot?   The US experience with Prohibition suggest to me that they would just change games.   Once alcohol was re-legalized in the US, did the mob not just turn back to gambling, extortion and prostitution?   What would stop our organized crime syndicates from just moving into methy or something like that?

Having something illegal that is this widely used anyway just promotes cynicism and a lack of respect for all laws in general.   Maybe this stuff should be made legal (and taxed) and brought out into the open.   On the other hand, I hate legalized gambling in BC, because I see it as a tax on the stupid and the poor.

We need a full debate on this issue in this country.   Not one where 15 second sound bites get thrown around, but a real one.   I still can't make up my mind...

Cheers!