Quote:
Originally Posted by uselessaccount
I don't know a great amount about each drug, but I think laws are obviously there for a reason. The same way that a rail protects you from falling off a bridge or something, the laws kind of help to stop people from eventually overdosing or messing up their life. Most people won't fall off a bridge, but the fact that it's there stops the few that would've fallen off as opposed to if it wasn't there. Also truth is, whether you yourself are affected drastically by illegal drugs or not, it does drag down communities and countries. The line shouldn't be drawn where one person or a group of individuals feel that they have self control, because there are always people that can't control themselves. I guess what I said isn't too relevant to drugs themselves but I think it's a fair explanation of why anti-drug laws are the way that they are.
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I think you'd be a bit surprised at the history of some of our drug legislation then. There are quite a few ties to racist legislation against Mexican immigration in the early 1900s that account for marijuana being illegal, and Harry Anslinger was the man who led the crusade for it's illegalization. I suggest you read
this link and come to your own conclusions about what kind of rails our government is building.
That's not the only one though. Ecstasy in unadulterated form is a drug known as MDMA (3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine) (note, this doesn't mean it's methamphetamine just because it has that inside the name. It's a totally different drug that simply has the amphetamine group inside of its chemical structure). There were studies done in the mid 90s that demonstrated that MDMA could cause holes in the human brain. This study was led by a man named George Ricaurte who was receiving funding from the government. Funnily enough, he
retracted his paper in 2002 when it came to light that his test subjects were given methamphetamine instead of MDMA. Let me say it again, he administered
the wrong drug on which the entire study was based. The government still cites this study as one of the backbones for the illegalization of MDMA. No studies since have been able to demonstrate any kind of serious serotonin loss from controlled use of MDMA.
When MDMA was originally synthesized by Alexander Shulgin, he saw it as a tool that could help therapists with patients who were suffering from Post Tramautic Stress Disorder and sent the drug out to psychologists that he knew. Additionally, the man responsible for the initial large-scale distribution of ecstacy was a standing member in the Christian church who saw it as a way to help people come to a purer, more insightful understanding of their problems. (search for the video documentary Ecstasy Rising if you want to learn more about this).
Both the non-medical and therapeutic use of MDMA were made illegal in 1985 despite the Drug Enforcement Administration Administrative Law Judge Francis Young's recommendation that physicians be permitted to continue to administer it to their patients. (from
http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/x_01.htm)
These are just examples of the government enacting completely asinine legislation for two drugs. I won't even get into how absurd I believe its legislation of psychedelic drugs is, that's a diatribe for another day. But hopefully you should understand that the government is
not always out for "what's best for you." Organizations like the Drug Enforcement Agency thrive off of continually being able to capture and arrest "drug abusers" and those that distribute drugs. Without a large scale drug problem, these people don't bring home any money to their families. This creates quite a bit of an agenda for them to keep pressuring legislation against all kinds of drugs, whether it is proper or not.
I hope that you actually do choose to look into and research issues of law like this, because a society that blindly accepts whatever rule structure the government feeds down to them is quickly going to become oppressed.
Edit: Oh, that's why I get Albert Hoffman mixed up as Alexander Hoffman. It's Albert Hoffman and Alexander Shulgin. My brain is dyslexic in the most subtle of ways...