Should drugs...

We had this discussion pretty deeply in "the drug culture thread"

 

Yes, the government should have no right to tell us what we can or cannot do to our bodies.

 

In an ideal world, people should be able to do what they want with their bodies and should have their own digression of what to do with their lives. In reality though... that's a different story. People are corrupt... and there are many instances where people are given freedoms and they take too much advantage of them and end up abusing them.

Conceptual theories and reality are two different things. "People deserve these rights and freedoms" is a concept... but if people get those "rights" and "freedoms" and they end up destroying their lives and others' lives... that's a different story! Concepts and theory are models of reality, and if their realistic results are failures, then the conceptual models cannot be clung onto.

Um... that make sense? I'm uh... kind of... uh... I slipped some whiskey into the coffee tonight.

 

You have to balance the freedom of the individual to the costs of society. When it comes to drugs there can be considerable costs to society, such as loss of productivity, abuse or neglect to children, strains to health care services, etc. Then you have to ask yourself whether those societal costs are worth that particular individual freedom.

 

Those things exist anyway, theyre not caused by drugs.

 

Drugs are fun and I enjoy ingesting [most of] them.

Out of the goodness of my heart, I will tell you all which drugs are not worth your time:
Ambien - If you have to sleep, either masturbate or smoke some pot. Ambien is not good at helping you sleep.
Cocaine - too much money for too little fun
Heroin - I wasn't going to put this in here, but heroin is cheap and strong. That is a VERY bad combo for something as awesome as an opiate. If you like opiates (and if you have good taste, you do), heroin is an addiction waiting to happen.
Lunesta - all the fun (/amnesia) of ambien but with a twangy RUSTY METAL taste that doesn't go away for hours (I'm not kidding)
Meth - I've never done it but look what it does to teeth!
Oxymorphone (intranasal) - It's the nodding of oxycodone without any of the good times. It definitely helps me sleep, though. I've heard oxymorphone is the shit if you IV it, but I don't fuck with needles.
Xanax - A bunch of people really like this for some reason. My friends take it a LOT and then tell me how fun it wasn't. My best friend OD'ed from mixing this with methadone. Don't do Xanax unless it's prescribed to you, and even then, only if you and your doctor think it helps.

Disclaimer: I have never embezzled, robbed, or cheated anyone for drugs. Well, I did steal Percocet from my mom, but she's allergic to codeine so she can't take them, anyway. I cheated one or two people for drugs but they did it to me, first, so I think it was justified. So basically I have never embezzled money.

To those who have never tried drugs: stick with weed. Alcohol is okay but pot is better. You might see a sketchy person or two dealing with weed, but start buying pills or anything "harder" and the sketch factor goes up exponentially.

I hope someone can learn from my mistakes.

Edit: I said a lot without answering the original question. My answer is yes, but...

 

What does it cost society to keep 4% of the population in jail?

 

I don't know given that the incarceration rate is less than .008%.

Where the hell did you get 4% of the population? If that were the case there would be over 12 million people in prison instead of the less that 3 million that there actually are.

 

Not surprising that you don't know, since you also seem to not know much about said statistics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html

1/100 < .008% ?

Doesn't quite sound right...

That article, by the way, is only including adults, and is over two years old
So the real number is probably even less conservative.

 

Hm...so you went from 1 in every 25 people in the country being behind bars (4% of the population) to 1 in every 100 adults (230 million of the total 300 million people in the country) being behind bars. Let's do the math there to find out how that translates across the entire population like you initially said....1.6 million people behind bars in a country of 300 million = .005%.

Frankly, if you are going to argue statistics, make sure you use them right.

 

The 4% statistic was one that came up in a conversation with a friend.
It took me 7.6 seconds of research to find out that even that was an under-estimate.

I'll concede that I should have said the "adult population" specifically.

Bottom line, I win.

 

I forgot to times by a 100, but even still...

Let us try this one more time...

Total population of the United States...300 million.
Number of people behind bars....1.6 million.

1.6 million/300 million = .005

.005 X 100 = .5%

.5% < 4%

1 in 100 adults is considerably less that 1 in 25 people in the United States. Even saying "adult population" would not save your ass in this regards.

Ooooooook.

If your argument is that less than 1% of the population is behind bars then I guess you do.

 

Another 2 seconds of research...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

 

I agree to some extent.. What you described is of course when a line is crossed and has reached a point where it is very maladaptive and detrimental. Although, I think it is everyone's given right to have the choice of deciding for themselves. So then it is also everyone's own responsibility to make sure that they don't cross the line.

 

3.2 % of all adults is not the same as 4% of the entire population.

If you continue to act in this manner, then I will be reporting you and requesting mediation.

 

As demonstrated here I already stated that I should have been more precise in my wording regarding total population vs. adult population.
Was I unclear?

 

Well to put the topic back on track...

You were asking me how much it costs to lock up less than 1% of the total population or about 3.2% of the adult population.

My answer is I'm not sure how that is a relevant question as not all 3.2% of the adults who are behind bars are there for drug offenses.

 

Who gets to decide the line?

Society has drawn the line at using drugs period.