To those who stand out in front of Duke Tower in the morning, virtually blocking the doors I need to enter to go to work every day- Is there nowhere else you can go? Nothing makes me want to enter the building more than a bunch of nicotine-huffing greeters to pollute my lungs. Now, I understand people smoke; I used to smoke… but can you at least stand off to the side…. like, 25 feet at least? If you wanna stink like cigarettes that’s your business, but don’t nauseate me when I am in the already vulnerable state of having to face an entire workday……
—Chokey Smurf
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.
Cover your mouth with your sleeves or something.
Or the smokers could obey the law, either or…
Reformed sinners preaching damnation…what’s with that?…do you fear temptation?
It’s just smoke not a harbour baptism.
I agree with L0GiC.
Self-entitled non-smokers. They’re always the first to reach for the joint when its 420 rotation…
I’ve seen somewheres (maybe MicMac Mall) that the no smoking distance at the entrance went from 15 ft. to 15m. Maybe smokers can’t read.
P.S. I smoke little cigars only at home (outside cause wife is non-smoker) with a drink. Never in public.
here we go one more fucking time,give it the fuck up, will you all.and by the way, law says only 16 feet, so chew on that a fucking bit.
Hey OP!… Say something to them you fucking pussy!!
16 feet is a lot farther away than RIGHT BY THE FUCKING ENTRANCE, life sucks.
Just sayin’ 😉
hey! I think I know them… pretty sure they work with me.
they’re actually pretty nice and one just quit a month ago so there’s one less in your way.
there are also multiple doors to enter so shut yer yap and go through the doors 25 feet away if it’s killing you so god damn much.
…and I expect when YOU used to smoke nobody told you to go stand in the middle of the fucking street, did they you fucking hypocrite?
There is NOTHING worse than a reformed smoker…unless it’s a “born-again” Christian that decides that once he/she is old and miserable, it’s time to spread the guilt and pain they have bottled up in their own miserable lives….
I have a suggestion OP…why not take some of that righteous (and false) “outrage” that you feel about smokers and do something to REALLY help the world we live in instead of sitting in your miserable little cubicle and stewing about the unfairness of it all…
Bring on the caffeine tax and coffee/food ban in cars…might as well go whole hog with the nanny-state, eh?
Or a reformed fatty….like they’re still fat but eating better and only utter the words “do you know how much FAT’s in that?”….I mean I’m chunky, myself, but I just want to say to them “do you know how much fat’s in YOU?”
heh.
No, there is no other place to go. If smokers migrate 50 yards away from the closest doorways then they get dirty looks and whining from people who walk along the sidewalks – the same people who have to go through the doors.
Oh, as an aside – this morning the Tufts Cove power plant was laying down a thick black greasy layer of smog through peninsular Halifax, because of a temperature inversion. You could smell it for hours. Funny…I don’t think any non-smokers noticed…they were too busy bitching about the smokers.
Here we go with another smokers hero gang bang. Wwwannnn don’t bad mouth our cancer sticks boo hoo. If we are going to fuck up our life’s we are going to fuck up yours with our stinky shit smoke. That’s right no one made us stand on the smoke filled street. Ya we should be out in the world doing something.. wow lets all start smoking stinky ass smelling tobacco! Then cry and bitch when we get to fucking addicted to quit. My name is smelly shitty cigarette smoker and I am going to spread my stink to everyone as payback for my crack head addiction. Criminalize cigarettes so I can get your girlfriend to take care of my pecker for crackarettes.
take a fire extinguisher to them!
I vote killerb spend a week living with smokers and then another week living with crack heads. killerb might gain some hands-on perspective since TV and google supplemented by public education hasn’t worked for this little lamb, poor waif, so young.
Kay you just don’t get it do you, smokers would be just as bad as crack heads if there was prohibition on tobacco. What next are you fuckers going to try to tell me it doesn’t cancer? Maybe you can convince me it does smell like old shit because of you smokers in my hallway? Maybe you can tell me how to get out my fucking lease before June. Maybe you fuckers can tell me how they can put up a big ass no smoking sign but it can still smell like shit smoke in the building. I should shit in font of your doors so you can endure the shit smell for awhile. My only happy place is the thought that all your asses will die of painful lung cancer. I wish I was there right before it happened I would piss right in your face. Maybe one day you stupid fuckers will realize this is the kind of hate non-smokers have for you fuckers ruining our lifes smoking in apt buildings. I love the fact that you best fucking argument is “it’s not as bad as crack”, WOW good argument you have there. Any your even better argument is name calling, WOW you smoking crack heads are just too busy thinking about your next hit eh. Go smoke another one it will will make you feel better. But I understand when your mind is so fucked up and warped from your crackarettes you think of anything, any bullshit to justify the shit you do.
killerb, you’ve never actually seen a crackhead itchin’ for a fix, have you? It doesn’t compare AT ALL to a person looking for a cigarette, prohibited or not. STOP talking out of the side of your head and maybe people would take you seriously.
You know what else causes stink others have to contend with? Hot heads dropping dead after having a coronary. They can’t help but shit their pants.
Sublet your property and stop being such an ass. One person or ten people pissing you off doesn’t mean the whole world is trying to piss you off. Roll up a towel and put it front of your main entrance door and hit the classifieds, buddy.
I for one don’t live in a fucking apartment building so kindly, go fuck yourself, little b.
1# Kay your going to die of cancer. Maybe you retarded fucks should quit your addictive shit?
2# Fuckthecoast Your going to die of cancer. Maybe you retarded fucks should quit your addictive shit?
Bye the way your bitching about my grammar, when you can’t even spell “Sentence”. Holy shit talk about making yourself look like are complete fucking shit for brains smoker. I would expect nothing less.
fu.ckthecoast, regardless of your point of view on this issue, you’re an asshole. Throwing around the word ‘faggot’ doesn’t make you sound tough, it makes you sound like a homophobic dirtbag. I sincerely hope your comments get deleted.
Seeing some of you post different distances, & someone said the By-law says 15ft.
Hmmm 15 f e e t …I wonder whose feet we should use??? I wonder if different places might want to use different feet???
I have decided that from now on (until a judge convicts someone) I am going to us the foot of a red ant to be the distance required.
I’m not exactly sure how long a red ant’s foot is…I’m really not even sure if its called a foot !
But what I am sure of is, they are really fuckin’ tiny ! ! So as long as they are far enough away from the door for it to close , they’re far enough outside for me !!:)
Nicotine, kay, is the most addictive substance out there. While it doesn’t alter your state of being like crack does, who KNOWS what the mass population would really do if it was prohibited?
I’m getting pretty sick of the “poor me, I smoke and wahwah people bitch because I have an awful dirty disgusting habit when I blow my cancer smoke into their faces” schtick. As far as I’m concerned, MY right to breathe clean air > your “right” to smoke cancer sticks.
I really don’t blame smokers though for their addiction — the government takes tons of tax dollars off of them, yet does nothing for those who want to quit. Case in point: wellbutrin, an anti depressant is also sold as zyban, a smoking cessation aid. Under the NS family pharmacare program, patients taking wellbutrin have to get special permission to have it covered and fill out shitloads of paperwork just to prove they’re not taking it for smoking cessation. No, they’d rather have to shell out millions upon millions every year to treat smoking-related diseases than pay a measly 40 bucks a month for MAYBE 6 months or so to help someone quit.
/rant
Actually, Kitty, the most addictive and abused drug on the planet is caffeine, which alters your state of being but to a different degree than that of nicotine, pot, heroine, etc… ALL of which “alter your mind”. The question is does use cause destruction to others? One could blow a gasket like little b over here living downwind from a pig farm so if it’s the smell that bothers you, tough banana’s! That’s what the pig farmer up the road would tell you too if you went whining to him over the way his choices make him smell.
Smokers suck ass. Non smokers suck ass. There’s so much more shit to bitch about then this played out crap. There’s always going to be asshole smokers who smoke to close to entrances, people, cars, kids, anything. And there’s always going to be asshole non smokers who will whine and bitch about someone smoking. Whatever. Get the fuck over it. Worry about yourself and how YOU live and less about what other people do.
Actually, kay, caffeine does not affect anything in your brain, unlike cocaine, heroine or nicotine for that matter. Caffeine gives you an energy boost by metabolising fats in your body and thereby accelerating your heart rate. Addiction occurs because your body doesn’t “reset”. It happens quickly because your sympathetic nervous system doesn’t want to mess with your heart rate too much. This is why caffeine acts as a hunger suppressant as well. Cocaine and Heroine act by actually replacing certain neurotransmitters in your brain, thereby altering your brain chemistry. This is also why those drugs are among the most addictive substances (heroine is probably the hardest to kick, because it’s withdrawal effects can actually kill you).
I will agree that caffeine is widely used, and that you can actually become intoxicated by caffeine (just drink 4 or 5 cups of coffee in a short span and you’ll see what I mean) but caffeine is nothing like heroine, cocaine or nicotine for that matter.
Kay, you are dead wrong. Caffeine is actually the 5th most addictive substance after nicotine (most addictive), heroin (second most addictive), cocaine (third most addictive), and alcohol (fourth most addictive).
The rest of the list varies depending on where you get your information, but nicotine is always #1. It’s estimated that over 30% of people who try nicotine will become addicted, which is higher than the other substances I listed.
How can it still surprise you that kay is an idiot? Y’all humour the bitch more than I do.
Does it matter how one becomes addicted? Isn’t the fact that coffee drinkers CAN’T FUNCTION without their daily fix pertinent to the argument over which addictive substance is most destructive to the non-users around you?
Kitty, you’re right, it depends where you get your information but you show me a list of addictive substances where coffee isn’t on top as the most widely used/abused addictive substance on the planet and I’ll show you a crock of SHIT.
Fever, I know everybody thinks you’re a doctor and maybe you are so, if that’s the case, you should avoid inaccurate, blanketing statements like, “caffeine does not affect anything in your brain.” If you’re “all that” then you know, like I do, caffeine is one of the most unique drugs we have in that it increases the metabolism of each cell it comes into contact with, which is also why it serves as a popular catalyst to hasten drug action of other drugs. I hardly think this applies to each cell that’s not brain tissue. If caffeine didn’t affect the brain caffeine addiction would be about as popular as orange juice addiction, which is to say not at all.
I have begun carrying a filter mask and putting in on when I must travel through smokers
jesus kay,killerb has a hard on for smokers. maybe he/she/it should go and spend some time in the closet with chris griffen’s evil monkey. that ought to straighten him/her/it out.
whatever it takes, I guess. Perspective is hard to come by when one’s head is shoved so far up one’s ass. I suppose such a position might lead one to believe it’s a black or white, stinks or doesn’t stink kind of world.
I find it interesting ALL forms of prejudice are abhorred by the bitches except for this one… and people wonder why I like to spank sheep on LTWWB.
Big difference between prejudice of something done which is by choice and can negatively affect others, and prejudice of a person’s race or other similar traits.
yeah, you tell that to the guy who didn’t wear deodorant or to the teenager who won’t manage their volume on the bus. Tell that to the kid who won’t stop picking his nose and eating it at the table across from you at your favourite restaurant. If people minded more of their own business and less of others or at least stopped looking down their noses at each other we’d all be nicer bitches to know.
I was only clarifying the fact that caffeine does not affect the brain primarily. It affects your heart rate for the reasons I mentioned, which is exactly why you get a big energy burst. Yes, people need that caffeine fix, but since caffeine does not actually replace neurotransmitters, it affects your brain in a significantly different way than opiates or stimulants like cocaine. Perhaps that I should have said that addiction to caffeine is much more different than addiction to opiates or cocaine. The way it affects your whole body is completely different.
My original point is still this: caffeine addiction is a much different beast than any other addiction, and caffeine is a much different drug/chemical than anything else I’ve mentioned. Perhaps you should avoid statements like caffeine alters your state of being, hm?
“”Hmmm 15 f e e t …I wonder whose feet we should use???”‘
Although this was clearly merely a pot-induced “musing”…it is important to remember that the first measurements of “feet” WERE in fact the king’s feet…and yes, it changed over generations…
One note on “addictions”. It is amusing to see all the ‘experts’ come out of the woodwork with their clinical defrinitions of what makes an ‘addiction”…one armchair MD was even armed with a “list” of rankings…a top ten of things we’d find it rather hard to do without, to understate it, lol…
As Kay said, it matters less the physiology of the “addiction” than it does the fact of how hard it would be to stop…
What do you think would be harder for most people (guys especially perhaps) to “quit”? Crack, ciggies, or masturbation?
Heroin, caffeine, or the t’internets?
Look at the big picture kids, put down the Reader’s Digest Book ‘o medical facts, and think for yourselves…
Mr frosty…there was rum involved as well… I’ll have you know !
Lol…rum and a fatty, a newfie breakfast
All I know for sure is my favourite pot-a-day coffee drinker is reduced to a sweating, shaking, pathetic excuse for a human bitch who complains about a 4-day-headache associated with caffeine withdrawal and my friend continues to relapse year after year. Classic behavior of the addicted or would you argue that too, Fever? How that’s any different or better than your average junkie’s experience I don’t really know… well, okay, okay, maybe it’s not so severe or devastating to recover or relapse from caffeine addiction versus booze or hard chemicals but the acceptance of mind altering drugs in society at all, including nicotine, shouts VOLUMES at this bitch. Why should anybody form prejudice against anybody else whose lifestyle has little or no impact on another?
Piercing your face is okay even though seeing it offends my grandmother and her priest and ALL their friends. Nearly overdosing on poisonous alcoholic beverages after work and every weekend is okay and even expected. Guys acting and dressing like girls or vice versa warrants no societal prejudice so, come on people! We’re supposed to care about each other, ourselves and our families. Isn’t that what fuels any “societal” fire? So then what is it about smoking that makes you think prejudice is a good thing? Any time? Did someone name you Deacon? Judge? God? No? Piss off.
I love smoking bitches with or without rum.
Frosty, your my favourite bitch EVER
thanks for the list kitty!
I’m a stronger person than I thought! kicking 2 of the 3 I’ve entertained in your informative top 4….
killerb sounds like a twatcycle yet again… you think illegal smokes are bad now… they’d be far worse if you were to go through tobacco prohibition… and you’d be missing out on all that wonderful tax money (which I actually expect you’re too far young to contribute t in any way at this point since you sound like a brainwashed, government teenie-bopper who likes to write as crudely as possible. Go dry hump your picture of rob pattinson and clean your braces)
and I’ve kinda seen what kay is getting at, with the caffeine shakes when people don’t get their usual levels of soda and/or coffee in a day… but I would say they are far from incapacitated or incapable of being productive.
@ Pretty Kitty,
@ kay:
As far as the battle over which substance is more addictive, if I believe what I read above, it seems, that:
If 70 out of 100 people drink coffee(/pop), and caffeine addicts 10% of its users, then 7 people will be addicted to caffeine.
If 20 out of 100 people smoke(/chew) tabacco, and nicotine addicts 30% of its users, then 6 people will be addicted to nicotine.
Nicotine would addict a higher proportion of it’s users, and caffeine would addict more people.
So you could both be right. Play nice, kids. 🙂
No no….only one can be right….Bring in the jello and foxy-boxing gloves.
In fact, why should we even care what people put into their bodies anyway?
It’s possible (and common) to live your entire adult life as a user of opiates for instance. Many war vets have done so. Mnay literary figures of the last century as well…you don’t think Lewis Carroll came up with “Alice” over a nice cuppa, did you?
The damage from opiates, and powdered cocaine, usually comes much more as a result of the PROHIBITION of said drugs, and the resulting artificially high price, and inconsistancy of purity. Full stop.
If coca was the same price here as in some parts of South and Central America, do you actually believe there would be ANYWHERE NEAR as much crime? Whose gonna break into Killerb’s home for instance, and make off with his valuable collection of Osmond Brothers records, when they could get a nice 8-ball for 2 chickens and a drink of rum?!
I ask you?
Seconded. Prohibition is stupid.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Since people already have a huge selection of things they can use to hurt or kill themselves (I can’t believe circular saws are legal! ZOMG! Ban them now!), it is ridiculous to try to restrict access to SOME of them.
Hurting yourself is more a side effect of the drug that you don’t really get until it’s too late. If you intend to hurt yourself, sure there’s all kinds of legal ways to do it. Addicts don’t just hurt themselves, they hurt others in the process, and I’m not just talking about crime. Lifting prohibition from certain hard drugs would not be a positive step.
There are all kinds of ways to get high, too. Pick a cleaning product. Many of those will do the trick. …laws against them? I don’t think so. How about any of a number of things that are meant to go in your car? They’ll work too. Rules against those? Nope. And, of course, there’s drugs that are meant for other things. Yes, there are rules, but not so much for the over-the-counter stuff. Getting high is easy. Getting high is mostly interrupting communications in the brain. Oh, and let’s not forget that our laws are all for doing it with nicotine and alcohol.
I propose a pilot program, much like those used lately to investigate which alternative vehicles to allow on roads.
Let’s pick a province at random and allow one or two of the less ‘hard’ drugs (at first) to be produced, bought, and sold without restriction, and see how they do.
In the first while, will productivity drop to zero because everyone is off getting high? If so, how long will it last? Regardless, will the place be the #1 tourist destination in the continent overnight?
Over the long term, will society fall apart, be just fine, or do better than before?
Let’s find out…
“”Addicts don’t just hurt themselves, they hurt others in the process, and I’m not just talking about crime.”‘
I see the word “addict” used a lot…and in general, someone who is a drug “addict”, in other words, they have no control over their usage, is different from a drug “user’, or even an “ab-user”…
I would be curious though, Miles, if some of your examples of how an “addict” hurts others are not actually more examples of how “prohibition” hurts others?
Folks do things like spend the grocery money/pawn their belongings/steal and borrow from family…because of the artificially high price due to PROHIBITION.
In what way does a casual and careful user of recreational drugs, even so-called “hard” drugs “hurt others”, as you say?
Examples?
Ever ask a junkie with a brand new ounce of his drug of choice to do ANYTHING that didn’t involve getting high? It’s ALL consuming. I have yet to see regular yet ‘recreational’ use of opiates or amphetamines NOT become devastating addiction that quickly rearranges the morality and value system of the user… and their family. Making the drug cheap and legal isn’t going to make a junkie mother pay attention to her kid, etc.
Have you ever seen a crack baby? Not pretty but it happens. Maybe abuse charges are laid and the baby taken away, damaged goods from birth put up for adoption, I don’t know. Whatever punishment, even execution, cannot equal the injustice of providing the drug that made that baby that way on a free market. I care about my neighbour enough not to feed them the rope they would hang on. I like my family that much too.
If cocaine were cheap and legal I, for one, would be 20 year old corpse by now. You say “powder cocaine” as if it’s crack one puts into a syringe.
Frosty, have you observed the overall quality of life in South and Central America or have you only visited homes of drug lords?
These drugs absolutely and positively REMOVE a person’s ability to objectively practice freedom of choice so much so that freedom is LOST… to a non-sentient object. We need this among the masses like we need polio. It’s THAT powerful and why prohibition is plain.
Drug addiction happens very quickly. When you see these kinds of drugs CONSISTENTLY take hold of the most decent people and turn them into monsters you have to think twice about public exposure let alone the marketing the shit. Take the rich, for example; rock stars, movie stars, business tycoons WASTING their lives, careers and earnings in pursuit of a high that’s never enough. These are people paid very well to do what they ONCE loved. Now they check into Dr Drew to find camera’s to sit in front of. If YOU had an endless bank account could you imagine buying cocaine every day as the FIRST order of business? Scary. It’s in society’s best interests people work and stay productive. No need to legalize HUGE pitfalls in productivity on purpose.
Michael Jackson should have, could have, but decided to die under anethesia instead. If that doesn’t tell you how BAD this shit is for EVERYBODY… the LIFESTYLE, I dunno
Touched a nerve.
/rant
PS… it’s not what the junkies DO that hurts their families. It’s what the junkie’s don’t do.. or do instead of… dysfunction, I tell ya!
NoDogma, I think it would be highly unethical to conduct an experiment of that nature.
You would have to first convince me that (excluding pot) the drugs that are currently illegal that you want to legalize/decriminalize are less harmful to individuals and to society than alcohol and tobacco. You would also have to compare the ability of those drugs to be used “recreationally” without causing addiction or abuse and compare that to drugs that to alcohol and tobacco.
Also, No Dogma, remember that the ONLY use of recreational street drugs is to get high. Lysol and circular saws are sold to do jobs other than getting high and causing self harm. I don’t think your argument that since these things are legal, street drugs should be too is a good one. Also, by your logic, why should we bother requiring prescriptions for pinkillers and other behind the counter drugs? Do you think they should be more readily accessible too?
@Frosty: I think Kay said pretty much what I would say in response to your questions and comments. I’ll add that I don’t think narrowing my broad comment about the harmfulness of drugs to only apply to “casual and careful users” is appropriate either. First you would have to demonstrate that “hard” drugs are capable of being used in a casual and careful manner. I contend that they either can’t or can be only at such a low rate that considering only casual and careful users is moot.
I have seen how street drugs can ruin the lives of people and families and it’s not because sons and daughters turn into criminals, it’s because they lose their personality, their ambition and become a slave to the drug they are addicted to…often against their own will. It would be unethical for a government to support legalizing such substances.
People don’t always become a “slave to the drug”…sometimes they become a “slave to the uncertainty of supply”, “slave to the price” slave to the stigma” “slave to the fear of the authorities”
And I don’t think any one drug itself causes folks to ignore their health/families/careers etc…You don’t take MDMA and say “I think I’ll be mean to my kids”…the opposite, in fact. I think folks can do all those things if they are gamblers too…it’s the people that do it, not the drugs.
…anyway, not the place or time for debate on this complex topic. The “just say no” arguement is lost on me anyway…it’s simplistic, it’s fallacous, and does a disservice to our youth by not being honest…as well as completely ignoring the science of the drugs themselves, the power of our conciousness, our dreaming, hallucinations, drug-assisted spiritual awakenings etc etc
Sorry you folks have only known “losers” that like to alter their consciousness, lol – there ARE others out there, just not in your circle of aquaintances I guess…
DISCLAIMER” having said that, I work in an industry with mandatory and random drug testing, have never failed a test, never will, and I can say that I have never taken an illicit drug where it’s illegal…I just read a bit of Castenada/Crowley in school, lol.
Drugs are baadddd, don’t do ’em…go have a drink instead, maybe buy another lottery ticket…
I think you are missing my point Frosty.
What I am trying to say is that the % of people who drink alcohol and have it ruin their life is lower than the % of people who smoke Crack and have it ruin their life.
I’m sure it’s POSSIBLE for some people to use most illicit drugs recreationally and not have them ruin their life, but for many of the drugs that remain illegal the propensity for addiction and/or damage is much higher than for the drugs that are currently legal yet controlled. The risks just outweigh the psychoactive “benefits” of most illicit drugs.
As I said to No Dogma…why bother requiring prescriptions for drugs if these things aren’t dangerous and have a propensity for addiction?
Anytime someone wants to point to someone “ruining their life” with drug use they have to use the example of “crack”, don’t they?! Who’s talking about crack? Not me. But the reason people started to “freebase” cocaine in the first place, was because they were getting shitty “cut” dope back ‘in the day’, (a by-product of prohibition!), that wasn’t getting the job done… “Crack” is a chemically altered form of a natural drug (coca) that bears little or no resemblance to it’s original form.
For example:
Would you say that someone had a “drinking” problem if they went to all the trouble of building their own still, and used a mishmash of cooking wine, soured pig slops and rotten potatoes just so they could get drunk? Of course you would!
And yet, this is what millions of people drank during the alchohol prohibition of the 20’s!! They dropped dead like flies, many going blind from drinking methyl alchohol…all because of prohibition. people had their lives ruined all right – thrown in jail, caught up in organized crime, spending all their cash…
Prohibiton doesn’t work, full stop. People are going to use alchohol and drugs whether you make it a “crime” or not, people like YOU just don’t get it (yet).
When it comes to drugs in general, the inconvenient truth is that far more lives are ruined by the by-products of prohibition, than the drugs themselves. We’re not going to agree on that concept, clearly, as long as you say things like “I’m sure there may be “some” users of drugs who “don’t ruin their lives”…”
Good grief.
It’s interesting to study the history of WHY certain drugs were made “illegal”, or why others ARE legal and “need a prescription”. Do you really think it’s to “keep us safe” because they’re dangerous? Heh heh, Big Pharma (including early cocaine merchants) love people like you.
Lots of things are ‘addictive’, in one form or another…some physically, some are highly “habit-forming”. As I’ve said many times before. Why is it any of your, or my “government”‘s business, what I put into my body? Why should I care if some people “lose their ambition”, as Kay said, so what? Lots of morons “lose their ambition’ playing these moronic computer games too, don’t they? What about all the sugar-addicts that sit around stuffing processed sugar into their gobs all day long?
We don’t need the gov’t to outlaw processed sugar too, do we? (Although I gaurantee if the makers of Sweet and Low wielded the same powers as the early pharmaceutical companies, it soon would be!)
And this is actually a better analogy than you might think, Miles. If opium, for instance, could have been patented (no natural occuring substance from a plant CAN be)…it would certainly have remained a legally condoned drug, and would have remained the world’s most widely used medicine, as it was for thousands of years before Big Pharma came along!
Or the gov’t that gave in to their lobbying and hysteria…
99.9% of “drugs” originally exist in nature ffs, get your greasy political vote-buying, dogamatic, church-going, god-“believing”, booze-drinkin’, wife-beatin’, daughter’s friends-lusting, gamblin’, lottery ticket-buyin’, hypocritical hands of my goddam poppy plants…
I don’t want the “gov’t” in my bedroom, at the alter, in my kitchen, designing my car…OR in my ‘den’.
Why do you have to be so condescending all the time Frosty? Good thing you have it all figured out…maybe you should run for office and see how you do.
We ARE talking about crack because we are talking about illegal street drugs. The comment was perfectly relevant to the conversation. I used alcohol on one end of the spectrum and crack on the other to illustrate a point that some drugs are more ‘addictive’ and damaging to a greater percentage of users than others.
So, if you are NOT talking about crack, what are you talking about? Pot, heroine, ecstasy, mushrooms? Let’s be specific then. Maybe there are some drugs in there that could be decriminalized. But that’s my point…each drug is different and you can’t just legalize everything. That doesn’t make sense.
You say prohibition doesn’t work. Doesn’t work at what? Preventing EVERYONE from using drugs?…of course not. But it does prevent some people from using because they fear the criminal charges or they can’t readily access it. I also think it would be unethical of a government to condone the use of most drugs that are currently illegal because the risks associated with use are too high. I do think that there are some drugs currently on the illegal list that could be decriminalized, but I don’t think should be sold in the corner store. There’s a big difference between making criminals out of users and turning criminals into merchants. Besides, criminals still have their hand in alcohol, tobacco and gambling. Legalization and state control didn’t get rid of that in its entirety.
Yes, pharmaceutical companies make money off of their proprietary versions of certain drugs. They also campaign to keep those drugs illegal. Those drugs (synthetic and natural) should also be regulated anyway because they are dangerous. Most are easy to OD on, or become habit forming or form physical dependence. But sure, prescriptions are only needed so drug companies can keep their monopolies, it has nothing to do with medical research and severe adverse side effects or propensity to lethally over dose. It’s all the drug companies fault.
You asked why it’s anyone’s or the government’s business what you put in your body. I personally don’t care what you put in your body. Eat a dick dipped in cocaine and cyanide for all I care. The government cares because they have an obligation to serve the will of the people and the majority of the people don’t want hard drugs in their communities. When they didn’t want alcohol, they brought in prohibition. That didn’t work, so they went back to the way things were. Pot is starting to shed it’s bad reputation so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it decriminalized at some point. Smoking is falling out of favour, so you see more restrictions on its use. Convince the masses that crack cocaine and heroin and esctasy and mushrooms and LSD are good for communities and you might see some change. Until then, the government is doing it’s job and doing what the voting majority want. Now, maybe their efforts would be better focused on improving the social and economic factors that can contribute to addiction and drug use in the first place, but that’s probably another discussion.
Finally, just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Lots of natural chemicals/drugs in nature will kill you. Pharmaceutical companies often take ideas from nature and change them, not only so they can patent it, but so they can remove unwanted side effects. Acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin) is less irritating than the ‘natural’ willow-bark derived salicylic acid in use before aspirin.
Miles, you post some of the most rational, well-thought and relevant points on LTWWB and manage to do it without going on tangents insulting other people’s opinions in an effort to make yourself feel good and make others feel bad. Kudos! You’ve made your intelligence abundently clear; if only others would follow suit… =)
M: “”Why do you have to be so condescending all the time Frosty?””
L:: Don’t necesarilly mean to be, but one has to keep oneself entertained, if no-one else, or else what’s the point? Are you implying that you would be up to a proper debate on the topic? When folks say silly things like insinuating that “perhaps” there may be the odd drug user that “doesn’t ruin their life”, it’s hard not to smirk a bit at the ignorance. Have you ever heard of a little civilization like China? You DO know that millions of Chinese used opium for thousands of years happily and successfully to both treat illness AND relax? Until, of course, it was “outlawed” by western and European influence…(prohibiton)?
Oops, there I go again…
M: “We ARE talking about crack…”
J: No, you are. I mentioned coca in my original post.
M: “I also think it would be unethical of a government to condone the use of most drugs that are currently illegal because the risks associated with use are too high”
J: And yet, contrary to your logic, the gov’t continues to “condone” driving automobiles, the biggest killer, by far, of our youth. If your definition of “condone” in this case is, as it seems to be, “not prohibited” – Then our government also “condones” skydiving, smoking, climbing ladders, overeating, high fat diets, sedentary lifestyle, unprotected sex, racing cars, flying, AND not getting a flu shot…all of which cause more deaths than overdoses. Overdoses I should add that are primarily a result of unknown dose strength, caused by, you guessed it, prohibition.
M: “There’s a big difference between making criminals out of users and turning criminals into merchants”
J: lots of folks are all for decrimialization/legalization of possession of pot, for instance, and then say “go after the dealers”! This is stupid nonsense, of course. If you have legal demand, you need legal supply.
M: The government cares because they have an obligation to serve the will of the people and the majority of the people don’t want hard drugs in their communities.
J: Guess what? They’re already there. Also there are the shady underworld criminal types that sell the stuff. In fact, until 40 years ago in the UK, opiates were available to “addicts” by prescription and sold at the local chemist. Now it’s necessary for criminals to come to your neighbourhoods and deal, yes, I don’t blame folks for not wanting that!
M: “When (the ‘people’) didn’t want alcohol, (the gov’t) brought in prohibition…”
J; Dude, that’s “schoolbook history”, lol. If you want to even START to understand the prohibition of alchohol in the ’20’s – the morality of the temperance movement is the wrong place to look. That had been around for 100 years. Google “Henry Ford, gasoline, alchohol, John D Rockerfeller funding prohibition, distillery, income tax, revenue” , that’ll get you started…
M: “Until then, the government is doing it’s job and doing what the voting majority want.”‘
J: Thank God it’s NOT doing “what the voting majority want”!
On any given day we’d have to bring back hanging, when a murder’s been on the telly…re-prohibit abortion every few years, make prayer mandatory in public schools, re-prohibit gay marriage -good lord…the last thing we really want is the gov’t doing what the ‘majority’ want…in fact, isn’t the gov’t actually HERE to “protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority”!! We should have mob rules!?
M: “Now, maybe their efforts would be better focused on improving the social and economic factors that can contribute to addiction and drug use in the first place…”
J: Not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that only poor people use drugs for rescreational purposes? Why can I not help thinking you are referring only to the ‘crack’ addicts of the ‘ghettoes’ here? Hmm. I wonder if they would have turned to crack in the first place if there had been affordable, pure coke available. We never heard of all these drug problems before the “war on drugs” cranked the price way up, and the quality was down, did we?
M: “Finally, just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”
J: I agree.
Easy Going Gal (gushing): “Miles, you post some of the most rational, well-thought and relevant points on LTWWB …. You’ve made your intelligence abundently clear…”
Miles: (to frosTy): “Eat a dick dipped in cocaine and cyanide for all I care.”
?
M: “Finally, just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”
J: I agree.
Well…at least we agree about something 😛
LOL, I didn’t tell you TO eat a dick, I just meant you could and I wouldn’t care because it’s not my business.
And yes, I would be up to a proper discussion on the topic. Debate isn’t exactly what I’m looking for as it implies that I am taking a particular side, and I’m not. I’m just trying to better understand the argument for legalizing street drugs. If you said something like there’s no way in hell we should legalize any street drug, I might make the case that pot and ‘shrooms ain’t so bad.
If you didn’t lump me in with all the “greasy political vote-buying, dogamatic, church-going, god-“believing”, booze-drinkin’, wife-beatin’, daughter’s friends-lusting, gamblin’, lottery ticket-buyin’, hypocritical hands” types, you might realize that I’m not as fundamentalist and dogmatic about the issue as you imply.
I think the case can be made to decriminalize or even legalize SOME of the drugs currently on the street. I think it would have to be done on a case by case basis though and you would have to have medical and social evidence to support the decision. I don’t think that’s naive or ignorant.
If you are arguing that “anything goes” and that all street drugs should be legalized then we are having a philosophical discussion about the right of the government to tell you what you can and can’t do. Since you are reluctant to talk about crack and are mentioning cocaine and heroin, I gather that you want to make some distinctions. Do you agree that some street drugs (e.g. crack) should not be legalized?
If you are arguing that some drugs should be legalized because they aren’t that bad then let’s name names and discuss it (cocaine, heroin, LSD, Pot, mushrooms?). In that case would essentially be saying that there is a line that can be drawn where gov’t intervention is warranted and discussing where that line should be is, I think, a worthy endeavour and really what I was trying to get at with my comments here.
Of your lengthy point-by-point reply (which I appreciate by the way), you mentioned my comment about the ethics of government condoning street drugs. You suggested that, by my logic, it should be unethical to condone automobiles (etc.). It is apparent that you either missed my point about risk or I didn’t make it clearly. It is not unethical to ‘condone’ (read legalize) driving, drinking and smoking because the risk is (perhaps arguably) not as great as for certain street drugs. Although smoking and drinking and auto accidents kill more people than OD’s on illegal drugs, the percentage of drivers and drinkers and smokers who die is much lower than the percentage of users who OD. At least that’s my assumption. If you have data or an argument that speaks to that I’m willing to hear it. Also, death is not the only parameter that needs to be considered. As well, neither smoking nor alcohol nor driving, while legal, is outside the influence of government control. We need licences to drive, cars have to meet government imposed safety standards, alcohol and tobacco sales and production are controlled.
A world without ANY government regulation would not be very safe or organized. I’d rather discuss the appropriateness of the government’s response, rather than debate whether it’s needed at all.
Finally, no, I am not saying that ONLY poor people use drugs. My reference to “social and economic factors” includes the issues of the poor, but isn’t limited to it.
Miles: “[…]highly unethical to conduct an experiment of that nature. You would have to first convince me that (excluding pot) the drugs that are currently illegal that you want to legalize/decriminalize are less harmful to individuals and to society than alcohol and tobacco”
Actually, establishing just how harmful these drugs would be, to society especially, would be exactly the point of the experiment.
…and let’s not forget that the status quo is not a natural one. It’s too easy to resist trying something new when you believe things have always been done a certain way. As baD mR fRosTy has pointed out, I believe, prohibition is the new kid on the block, and going BACK to less regulation on drugs is not such a wild suggestion.
Consider the period of alcohol prohibition as a pilot program testing restrictive laws on personal activity (vice testing drugs), and it is fairly clear that the practice did not stand up to scrutiny. Looking at all the time spent with prohibition of other drugs, and though it may not appear as spectacularly wrong as with alcohol, that may be just a case of not seeing the forest for the trees. I’m proposing a little perspective, and an honest trial. Without that large-scale field test, arguments that prohibition of any drug (yes, even the prescription types) is beneficial have a weak bases for comparison.
As far as the ethics side of this, I suppose you could make the trial opt-in. I’m sure you would have no shortage of volunteers. Of course, you skew the results when you don’t do your study on a population subset representative of the whole.
…and again, I have yet to hear any convincing argument that legalizing drugs would be more dangerous. That would have to be true for us to even begin to talk about ethics, and I see the opposite: that prohibition is the more dangerous state. I think it’s unethical to NOT explore an alternative to a situation where criminals have exclusive rule over a huge market and empower themselves to do more harm through money made from it.
Forgive the typos etc. Typing big rants in a tiny window doesn’t lend itself well to reviewing.
One more thing, Miles: I don’t think you can dismiss my “universal availability of things that can be used to fuck yourself up” argument so easily.
According to your logic, there’s no way Lysol should be allowed on store shelves. How can you justify letting people get at something and OD on it just because you can get your house a little cleaner. Just because something has a good purpose doesn’t mean that that purpose is good enough to offset the damage it can do. That doesn’t sound like a trade-off you should be willing to make…even if it WERE possible to restrict people from all dangerous things.
And of course you CAN’T, as baD mR fRosTy has pointed out, and THAT point just has not been addressed nearly well enough yet. To get this concept, picture two broad classes of tasks with me:
The first kind is one where if you accomplish some of the work, you get some of the result. That is true of eating an orange, say. You eat half of it, you get half the taste, energy, vitamins etc you would have gotten had you eaten the whole thing.
The second kind of task is one where anything less then all of the work gets you no result. An example of something all-or-nothing like this would be trying to kick a ball out from the bottom of a pit (I know…it’s late). Unless you can get one amazing kick in, the ball will always roll right back to where it started, and you will have wasted your time and energy.
With the first type of task, if you can’t do it (all), it may still be worth some effort.
With the second type, if you can’t do it, you shouldn’t even try.
I think the idea of removing dangerous vices falls more into the second category, only instead of wasted time and evergy, you have crime and social ills on top of it all.
At very least, nanny state laws should be limited to things that clearly (more clearly than recreational drugs) directly affect other people, but that’s another discussion…
Dogma, Perhaps I would have a better time understanding your position if you gave an example of what you would like to see happen. Which drugs would you like to see available? Are we talking about decriminalization or legalization? What is the government’s role in regulating access to these drugs (prescription, licence)? How will they be distributed (corner store, Drug store, government-run speciality store like NSLC, drug cafes)? Is the goal to just educate about drug use? Will the government be running anti-drug campaigns like with smoking or will it not really care, like with booze? Are you against government regulation/control of drugs or just the criminalization of drugs?
For the moment I would be happy with marijuana on the shelves of the NSLC (renamed Nova Scotia Recreational Substance Commission…NSRSC…or something), as long as private production were also allowed (as with wine kits). For the commercial stuff, though, rules as with alcohol would be fine.
Later on, though, I would like to see most if not all drugs included. …but I would be willing to wait for feedback on the first phase first.
I have never done any illegal drugs, by the way, in case you were curious. My motivation here does have to do with valuing individual choice, but even more than that, I am interested in eliminating the black market and its many problems and costs to us all.
Then I think we are pretty much on the same page. I think even if you legalize drugs, the government has to have a role in regulating and controlling the production and sale of them to ensure quality and safety and standardization of the product.
I also don’t want the government removing my ability to choose, but I acknowledge that sometimes it is necessary to prohibit access to things that are grossly damaging to the health and safety of society at large. I think there are certain street drugs that fit these criteria.
As for the issues associated with prohibition (black market, crime) I would support alternatives to prohibition that try to maximize safety and security and minimize cost and crime. For some drugs, decriminalization may work. For others, regulation and control of supply and accessibility may work. Determining the best method for drug control would depend on things like the rate of physical addiction, psychological addiction, demand for the drug and risk of overdosing. Since each drug will have different attributes with respect to these parameters, you would have to come up with an individual regulatory plan for each drug. That’s why I don’t support blanket legalization of illicit drugs. I think they need to be controlled…not necessarily prohibited, but controlled.
“”Although smoking and drinking and auto accidents kill more people than OD’s on illegal drugs, the percentage of drivers and drinkers and smokers who die is much lower than the percentage of users who OD””
And YOU have missed MY point, lol.
No-one (unless they be suicidal) PURPOSELY takes an OD. The main reason folks OD is because of the inconsistancy in the drug’s potency, due to, yep, prohibition…which is, again, my whole point…
“”That’s why I don’t support blanket legalization of illicit drugs. I think they need to be controlled…not necessarily prohibited, but controlled.”‘
Except, of course, something doesn’t need to be illegal to be regulated, e.g. alchohol, prescription, morphine etc…
Otherwise, I agree…but we need to take the “criminality” element out of the possesion and use first, people are rotting in prison because they failed to control their habit. When they get out they are felons, can’t get a job, have low self-esteem, are angry at the unjust laws (Drugs come from PLANTS for fuck sake…”I just did 10 years for a fucking PLANT”) and the cycle starts all over again.
For the life of me I can’t see why any reasonable person wouldn’t see the system needs to change.
Can you imagine how many prisons we’d need if suddenly it was made “criminal” to be morbidly obese for instance? After all, it’s now the leading killer, passing cigarettes…
Frosty, I’m curious what your vision of a prohibition free Canada would look like. Similar to Dogmas? Anything you would add/change?
Two other points I’d like to add.
1) With respect to OD’s. It’s easier to OD on certain drugs because the window between ‘getting high’ and ‘overdosing’ is pretty narrow compared to other drugs like alcohol. Also, as a user builds up tolerance, they push the upper limit of how much drug their body can handle before the physiological effects become severe.
2) This survey data speaks to my comment that illicit drugs are inherently more dangerous than alcohol.
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/drugs-drogues…
Note that the data records harm to self as defined by: “Alcohol and Drug related harms include harms in any of the following 8 areas: physical health; friendships and social life; financial position; home life or marriage; work, studies or employment opportunities; legal problems; difficulty learning; and housing problems”. These data would not include people who die from drug and alcohol use since this is a self reporting survey.
The highlight is this: among alcohol users, 8.7% report harm to self compared to 21.7% of drug users reporting self harm. Overall, illicit drugs cause about 2.5 times more harm than alcohol. Since the drug data is pooled for all illicit drugs, you would expect that self harm for some drugs (pot?) is much lower and for others it would be much higher (crack). So, the key question now is would ending prohibition reduce harm by over half? If so, there would be a stronger case for eliminating prohibition. Keep in mind also that these numbers don’t indicate the severity of harm either, and that would also have to be taken into account.
opps, missed that recent post which answered some of my comments.
I generally agree with those comments too frosty. I don’t think criminalizing users is a good use of resources. The money spent to try and warehouse someone for possession would be better spent supporting someone in need of rehab.
I can get behind the idea of picking up some weed at the liquor store, but I’m still not comfortable with the idea of going to the pharmacy to pick up some cocaine…but if that’s what it takes to save lives and money maybe I’ll have to get used to it. It would take some more data to make me feel comfortable with that model though….I’ve seen too many people with addictions to support the government sanctioning the sale of some of the harder and more addictive drugs.
“”It would take some more data to make me feel comfortable with that model though”
Me too:
“http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.…“”
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,…
Great story Frosty.
It’s great to see such positive results with decriminalization. I’m much more comfortable with that approach than complete legalization and regulation…at least as a starting point. Decriminalize, look at the outcomes and then figure out if legalization/regulation will make things any better. I wonder what happened to the dealers in Portugal as drug usage rates fell? Did it increase competition and drug-dealer related violence or did some drug dealers just find another job? It would be interesting if decriminalization also caused a reduction in drug-related crimes as well.
I just wanted to add, Miles, that your “decriminalization/legalization halving problems” threshold for making decriminaliation/legalization worthwhile is not quite right, in my mind.
I think we also have to consider personal responsibility and how deserving a person might be to be met with problems. Maybe we should be more concerned with a police officer being killed by others due to prohibition than we are concerned with a hard drug user being killed essentially by THEMSELVES due to drugs (OD). In your math to reduce harm as much as possible, I think the killing of officials trying to do good (or of innocent bystanders) should be weighted more heavily than the deaths of those who had a hand in their own demise.
As long as marihuana is being classified by the government as a narcotic for patients requiring this for medical reasons it will not likely be allowed as a recreational drug any more than morphine would be.
Bad Mr Frosty, the it’s-only-a-plant defense doesn’t cut it. Long recognized as drug plants are ‘magic’ mushrooms, cocaine, opium and a host of other narcotics and hallucinogenics.