Recreational Drug Use

[Spectre557]

And really, couldn't the government make millions off of Drugs?

I completely agree, and this is why I think it's a win-win situation if they legalise drugs. Instead of spending millions/billions of pounds/dollars on it, they instead earn a shedload of cash, some of which could be invested into drug rehabilitation, the NHS, and other public services which would need extra funding.

[epitaph44]

Some people (such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) are beginning to realize this.

If everyone smoked pot, there'd be no war

There has recently been a proposed bill that states that marijuana would be sold and taxed openly in California to adults 21 and older.

In my view at least, this is far too good to be true. Although, it is a step in the right direction. People should really be looking at why marijuana is illegal. In my opinion, alcohol is exponentially worse than some other recreational drugs. Humans should be aloud to choose certain things for themselves. This should be one if them.

[AtlasDark]

Trying not to bias based on what I'm told, as I believe that we were all told at one point or another that drugs can only lead to death and destruction; of course, certain drugs do carry with them detrimental side-effects and present health hazards.

Here's one (rather crazy) pitch - what if we were to create a synthetic (per se) drug, one that we have spawned in laboratories rather than DIY botanical gardens? If scientists can create such, the substance would only cause certain events to occur, certain reactions to follow, and can be sold, meaning a monetary benefit for business/gov't and a psychological benefit for consumers. It boils down to this: what if we were to fund drug research, or the creation of a "more perfect" drug?

[neocontra]

Drugs aren't going to prevent wars. Just the illegalization of drugs will cause certain wars. The war on drugs has been extremely effective at costing the American taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars.

Legalizing marijuana would take that particular drug out of the informal economy of the U.S. and put it in the formal economy, taking it out of the hands of drug dealers, gangs, and other degenerates and putting it in a more docile setting. Thus those degenerates would have to find another way to make their money, and with our money and manpower away from the war on pot and put toward stopping more serious drugs (like meth, coke, heroin, etc), that will be much more difficult.

[AtlasDark]

Didn't the counterculture already attempt to separate from society on the premise of peace, tolerance, friendship, and the use of certain drugs? Seems to me that it didn't work so well, though I don't recall what drug they were using.

[Heath Winchester]

Eh...LSD. Bad LSD at that. My mom had some that was cut with rat poison.

[AtlasDark]

The concept seemed well-intentioned, though they were horribly underequipped and poorly structured to do so and went about it (perhaps) the wrong way.

Which leads me to ask the question: What went wrong? Was it really the drug use that caused the prevalence of violence and such, or was it a social structure collapsing? I tried looking into this but gained no definitive answer, only more of the generalisation that "drugs caused them to fail, end of story." I believe there may be another factor that led to the collapse of the counterculture.

[ph4nt0m]

I think whatever a person puts in their body is purely up to them and shouldn't be regulated by the government. Not that I would encourage kids to shoot up, but that should be a moral parents should teach the kids when they were younger. My parents always told me that weed was evil and wrong and it clearly isn't. The reason I smoke isn't because I feel like I'm getting away with murder or something. It simply feels good, man.

[Heath Winchester]

The concept seemed well-intentioned, though they were horribly underequipped and poorly structured to do so and went about it (perhaps) the wrong way.

Which leads me to ask the question: What went wrong? Was it really the drug use that caused the prevalence of violence and such, or was it a social structure collapsing? I tried looking into this but gained no definitive answer, only more of the generalisation that "drugs caused them to fail, end of story." I believe there may be another factor that led to the collapse of the counterculture.

The biggest thing I believe was that they simply had too forget it. Vietnam changed people. I don't think it had anything to do with drugs. Without Vietnam I don't even know if there would've been such a prominent hippie culture. But Vietnam was, in my opinion, also the destroyer. But the drugs didn't do anything except maybe they smoked too much pot and weren't motivated enough but seriously; it takes a lot of weed to do that. Many of them were very active in other aspects so I don't consider it to be very important.

[AtlasDark]

I see your point. The war was quite a stimulus.