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Yahko
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Apr 12, 2005 4:27 pm
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 7:38 pm 
 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32193992

A quick summary - an article about two Australian citizens that were detained in Indonesia back in 2005 for planing to smuggle 8KG of heroin into Australia. They are a part of 9 people, part of which had strapped heroin to their bodies in order to smuggle it into Australia. They were doing the planing but never got caught with the drugs in their possession. The other members who got caught ratted them out.

Now the question is - is it right for Indonesia to execute them to make a point that drug trafficking is a serious offense. Would you defend 2 citizens of your own country if they were caught trying to smuggle drugs from one country into your own.
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bassistneededlolnot
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Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2010 7:08 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 7:43 pm 
 

Human trafficking? Yes. Drug trafficking? No.

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CF_Mono
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:21 pm
Posts: 1793
PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:23 pm 
 

Didn't read article but I assumed based on the short title that this happened without due process... I guess this isn't the case now? Well that's a shitty situation to be in regardless. I agree with bassistneededlolnot to some degree but at the same time laws are laws. Although I don't think most people smuggling drugs are particularly worried about the consequences of getting caught.
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Yahko
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:38 pm 
 

This is where I ask myself if a few people got caught trying to smuggle cocaine from Mexico to Canada and got caught and will be presented with the death penalty. I dont necessarily feel bad for them, its a chance you take and you pay the price. Is if the most humane reaction to that type of problem? - Absolutely not, but maybe a message that should be sent.
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Diamhea
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Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:46 pm
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Location: At the Heat of Winter
PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:39 pm 
 

And I thought our drug laws were ridiculous.
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StainedClass95
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Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:14 am
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 8:51 pm 
 

For 8kg of Heroin, the death penalty seems ridiculous. While you can easily listen to music without supporting the message, I do find my mental image of their President in a Napalm Death t-shirt clashing pretty strongly with his decision on this. It's not hypocrisy, but the juxtaposition is still pretty strong.

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schizoid
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Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:35 am
Posts: 1602
Location: New Zealand
PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 10:47 pm 
 

I'm not going to say I agree with the death penalty. I just want to point out that Indonesia's punishment for drug trafficking has been common knowledge for long enough, especially to Australians. After the whole Schapelle Corby circus, I can understand the Indonesian government wanting to put some weight behind the threat.
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Subrick
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Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2010 7:27 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 10:53 pm 
 

The death penalty is an absurd thing anyway, but in this case it's especially stupid. Yes, they should be punished for their crime, but killing them for it goes much too far beyond the bounds of reason.
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Derigin
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Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2006 6:25 am
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 11:07 pm 
 

Maybe the punishment seems harsh to us, but perhaps they shouldn't have been trying to smuggle drugs out of a country that has such punishments for that crime?

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CardsOfWar
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Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:33 am
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Location: Australia
PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 11:55 pm 
 

But was their 'crime' even really that heinous in the first place? I mean, drug trafficking doesn't really have any external consequences for anyone except for the people involved with it. I mean, it's not any government's place to interfere with the judicial process of another government, but from a broader perspective, I think that anti-drug laws do a lot more harm than the actual drugs themselves.
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MonumentalBlackArt
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Joined: Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:04 am
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:02 am 
 

That's not exactly true. Drug dependency has been been found to be a significant cause of crime, and the target is most often family/friend of the addict. Death might be a unnecessarily harsh punishment, but it certainly sends the message, no?

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Diamhea
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:26 am 
 

MonumentalBlackArt wrote:
Drug dependency has been been found to be a significant cause of crime


You do realize that our current, antiquated drug laws play a huge role in that abstraction, right? Forcing recreational drug users to the fringes of society and treating them like vermin stirs a pot that's already pretty frothy. I'm not saying legalizing drugs would result in a perfect world, and the government is of course profiting far too much from the entire thing for that to become reality, but the bottom line is that people are going to use the shit no matter what barriers you put in place. What do we do, just kill them all? You'd be surprised how many ignorant Americans whose only exposure to hard drug use is shit like Requiem for a Dream actually support that notion. Pure insanity.
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CardsOfWar
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:26 am 
 

MonumentalBlackArt wrote:
That's not exactly true. Drug dependency has been been found to be a significant cause of crime, and the target is most often family/friend of the addict. Death might be a unnecessarily harsh punishment, but it certainly sends the message, no?


Well, yeah, death 'sends the message,' but my issue is with whether it's a reasonable message for governments to be sending in the first place. Surely people should be able to make their own decision about whether drug use is a good idea for them, rather than having the government step in and punish people for a victimless crime. Also, it seems to me like legalisation of drug use would make the issues surrounding it a lot more inconsequential. If heroin was sold over the counter at pharmacies, (extreme example) doses would be standardised, so overdoses would be much less regular, the drug would only be sold to people who are above the legal age, (drug dealers, who are already doing something illegal, do not check for ID.) and in the unlikely event that an overdose did happen, it cold be dealt with in a hospital rather than a criminal court. Lastly, a correlation between illicit drug use and crime doesn't necessarily imply a causal link. It's perfectly likely that subcultural groups that are associated with drug-taking are also more prone to committing crimes, rather than that the drugs cause crime. (Alcohol is associated with a lot of crime as well, and it's perfectly legal, so I don't really even see what the issue is here)

Huh... For some reason I had an image in my head that this forum was generally pretty pro drug liberalisation...
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Woolie_Wool
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Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:56 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:42 am 
 

Yahko wrote:
Now the question is - is it right for Indonesia to execute them to make a point that drug trafficking is a serious offense. Would you defend 2 citizens of your own country if they were caught trying to smuggle drugs from one country into your own.


Sovereignty is a bitch like that--Indonesia has the right to enforce its justice system on foreigners who commit crimes in Indonesia. If the punishment under Indonesian law is something that Australians find repugnant, so be it. The alternative is every country trying to get special snowflake extraterritoriality treatment whenever one of their citizens gets arrested in a foreign country. That won't work.

Any reasonable person who commits a crime in another country should realize that their homeland will not necessarily bail them out if they get caught, and they have no reason to expect that a foreign jurisdiction will give them the same rights and the same conditions as their home. This reminds me of certain Americans who get all in a tizzy when an American gets locked up committing a crime in Mexico. They broke Mexican laws, they get Mexican prison. Don't like it? ¡Jodete! Go break laws in America then!
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caspian
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:49 am 
 

It is harsh, and I hate the death penalty.

Buuuut my heart isn't overflowing with sympathy. Everyone in Oz knows that trafficking drugs into south east asia is a stupid thing to do, and there's been enough high profile cases over the years so it's not like you could claim ignorance. Plus, they did it for $10,000, which is just mind bogglingly dumb. That will buy you a pretty decent second hand car in australia, nothing more.

What's funny is seeing the racist bogans being all "YEAH IM NEVER HOLIDAYING IN BALI AGAIN". Oh no! I'm sure the country will be devastated by you not going over and buying a bunch of fake unit shirts and drinking bintang.
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chaossphere
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Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2002 11:49 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:52 am 
 

What gets me is that people seem to care more about 9 stupid assholes than they do about this shit

Also, Jokowi being into metal has fuck all to do with anything. He's a puppet of hardline Islamic interests.
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Turner
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Location: Australia
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 5:14 am 
 

it's an ironic shame the death penalty is so ultimately terminal, yet turns all bar the worst criminals into reformed, upstanding citizens. there's no more effective punishment, that's for sure.

i honestly have no clue what to think on the "should they die?" issue - i'm not qualified by any means to answer that. 99.99999% of us aren't. "oh but it's inhumane!" is an empty argument without having a background in law, criminology, sociology, psychology... any of those, or all of them. i don't know. neither does anyone else, but it doesn't seem to be stopping everyone injecting their $0.02. makes us all look like idiots, imo. australia is a fucking shame in general on the world stage. uneducated, bigoted, ignorant idiots.

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somefella
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Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 5:19 am 
 

Jokowi being into metal does have fuck all to do with anything. These laws were in place long before his election into office. What Tony Iommi and Napalm Death don't understand is that if he were to extend a presidential pardon (I don't even know if these things exist there) to these foreign criminals after some foreigners wrote a few letters to him, how would it look to the Indonesian people? That foreigners are above the law because of a few letters to their president? Not gonna happen no matter what.

Also, there's some issue of cultural relativism to take into account here before decrying their use of the death penalty. Ontological backgrounds colour your perspectives more than you think and as much as you think it's too harsh, most of the people there will think it's totally just, and it's difficult to just throw on a blanket measure of morality into it, especially a measure that most of the parties in question had no say in when it was formulated.

Personally, while I do think it's too harsh, I also think that they knew the risks and Indonesia has the right to carry out those punishments on foreigners who committed those crimes in their own country. They COULD be lenient but it's within their right not to be. Also, there have been so many high profile cases about South East Asian drug laws, no person with half a brain could claim ignorance when pulling a stunt like that.
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capeda
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Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2002 8:48 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:16 am 
 

...drugs don't cause crime. Laws against drugs do. By outlawing the sales of drugs, you're greatly decreasing the supply. Demand stays the same. Result? Black market and violent crime. Basic economics.

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Ina_Dingir_Xul
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Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 8:44 am
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Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 10:40 am 
 

I don't find the death penalty for drugs too harsh, I personally support it completely. I only wish the judicial process would be faster because keeping people on death row isn't nice for the psyche of a person knowing they will eventually face a noose/gun barrel/thiopental-pancuronium-KCl cocktail. It is also a drain on state resources (would a country want to harbour people in jail indefinitely, knowing the person will be executed anyway?). People talk about a quick death, let's extend it to the being caught to being killed part too. Leave some time for the final farewell, but get it done. I would say closure is better than waiting for the inevitable (less kindly phrased: Just get it over with).

Yes, I'm from Singapore where they hang people for 15 g of heroin without exception. Yes, Singapore is where cases like Van Tuong Nguyen raised a shitstorm over human rights. Yes, I find the laws reasonable.

Calling laws reasonable or unreasonable, just or unjust, logical or cruel, is all a matter of perspective. I grew up believing that harsh punishment sends a good strong message of deterrence, and if that message fails, then that is one less person smuggling drugs into the country. Many people will disagree with me on all counts, citing human rights, reformed prisoners, social circumstances, and of course the fact that it's the mules and not the drug lords that are being executed. I've been called inhumane and cruel in my university class (in Australia) by locals here because I have stated my support for a mandatory death penalty.

On the topic of conscious choice, however, I was involved with a presentation on when people should have the right to choose what they want vs. when an authoritative figure like the government can force a "choice" on them. I believe that the right to choose applies so long as 1. It involves ONLY the person choosing and 2. The person remains rational THROUGHOUT. Getting dependant onto shit like heroin and ecstasy is fine if you can acquire good supply and if the withdrawal hits you, ride it out shivering in your bedroom. But those addicted (dependence vs addiction: dependence is physical, addiction is psychological) will go stab someone just to get $10 for another hit when their money runs out. They will go to hospitals and we waste healthcare dollars on buprenorphine to manage their dependence. Or they will overdose and lose their rationality, go into respiratory depression, go apeshit all over the place and maybe harm others. Then more healthcare dollars are wasted on jabbing stuff like naloxone into them to treat the overdose, they come off the high pissed off that their money was wasted, swear at (or worse, take a swing at) the healthcare team and then go out to OD again. Obviously neither of the 2 above mentioned conditions apply. I know I mentioned exclusively on heroin treatment but I don't know medical treatment for others.

I only wish the 2 Australian guys did not have to go through such a long tedious legal process while on death row the whole time; the sentence should have been quickly done and the families would not have to hash out inordinate sums for legal fees fighting the inevitable.

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waiguoren
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:01 am 
 

Ina_Dingir_Xul wrote:
On the topic of conscious choice, however, I was involved with a presentation on when people should have the right to choose what they want vs. when an authoritative figure like the government can force a "choice" on them. I believe that the right to choose applies so long as 1. It involves ONLY the person choosing and 2. The person remains rational THROUGHOUT. Getting dependant onto shit like heroin and ecstasy is fine if you can acquire good supply and if the withdrawal hits you, ride it out shivering in your bedroom. But those addicted (dependence vs addiction: dependence is physical, addiction is psychological) will go stab someone just to get $10 for another hit when their money runs out. They will go to hospitals and we waste healthcare dollars on buprenorphine to manage their dependence. Or they will overdose and lose their rationality, go into respiratory depression, go apeshit all over the place and maybe harm others. Then more healthcare dollars are wasted on jabbing stuff like naloxone into them to treat the overdose, they come off the high pissed off that their money was wasted, swear at (or worse, take a swing at) the healthcare team and then go out to OD again. Obviously neither of the 2 above mentioned conditions apply. I know I mentioned exclusively on heroin treatment but I don't know medical treatment for others.


And here we have the perfect example of how anyone can get into university these days, thus lessening the value of university degrees even further.
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Ina_Dingir_Xul
Metalhead

Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 8:44 am
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Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:16 am 
 

waiguoren wrote:
Ina_Dingir_Xul wrote:
Post on conscious choice


And here we have the perfect example of how anyone can get into university these days, thus lessening the value of university degrees even further.


Perhaps you'd like to elaborate? I don't see any greater intellect in your statement. If anything, it shows an attack on my person rather than my argument.

All of what I stated is my OPINION, conceived of my upbringing and some experience. I don't see how opinions reflect intellect. Ignorance perhaps, but unless you would care to enlighten me with your esoteric wisdom I would remain in the belief that I am, at least, decently informed on an acceptable number of matters.

If going for my argument is too intellectually challenging (see the ad hominem?) then here's an argument that fits yours for you to attack:
"Here is a wonderful specimen of a disgruntled individual that has joined the cattle of uninspired 9-to-5 workers that believe in their entitlement of luxury based on a university degree, perhaps a postgraduate one in addition. Having failed to obtain such luxury and lacking introspective capacity, such people have reasoned that their circumstance was borne by the "devaluation" of degrees due to the increase in such certificates being awarded to presumably less deserving youth. Field of study nonwithstanding, all degress from sociology to medicine are now easier to get and hence the training rigour must be lessened. They bemoan the human race for becoming less intelligent, of course never seeing that they are spearheading the degeneration."


Last edited by Ina_Dingir_Xul on Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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CardsOfWar
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:33 am
Posts: 856
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:08 pm 
 

Quote:
I don't find the death penalty for drugs too harsh, I personally support it completely. I only wish the judicial process would be faster because keeping people on death row isn't nice for the psyche of a person knowing they will eventually face a noose/gun barrel/thiopental-pancuronium-KCl cocktail. It is also a drain on state resources (would a country want to harbour people in jail indefinitely, knowing the person will be executed anyway?). People talk about a quick death, let's extend it to the being caught to being killed part too. Leave some time for the final farewell, but get it done. I would say closure is better than waiting for the inevitable (less kindly phrased: Just get it over with).


EVEN IF we accept that drug trafficking (or any crime, for that matter) warrants the death penalty, proving something in a court of law is a lot more difficult that merely saying "Eh, it seems like they did it, let's kill 'em," particularly in cases where the death penalty is being administered. The ultimate aim of any court should be to arrive at the truth, and the way to do that is to make sure the judicial process is as methodical as possible.

Quote:
Calling laws reasonable or unreasonable, just or unjust, logical or cruel, is all a matter of perspective. I grew up believing that harsh punishment sends a good strong message of deterrence, and if that message fails, then that is one less person smuggling drugs into the country. Many people will disagree with me on all counts, citing human rights, reformed prisoners, social circumstances, and of course the fact that it's the mules and not the drug lords that are being executed. I've been called inhumane and cruel in my university class (in Australia) by locals here because I have stated my support for a mandatory death penalty.


No it's certainly not a matter of perspective. Some laws, (i.e. the ones that result in people being killed, and the ones that arbitrarily and ineffectually interfere in people's lives) are functionally useless. Sure, you can say "It's just my opinion," as if that somehow justifies having a stupid opinion, but that's a kind of anti-intellectual way of conducting yourself.

As for the idea of the death penalty as a deterrent, it just doesn't work. (source Again, that's even if we accept that the crime of drug trafficking is worth deterring in the first place.

Quote:
On the topic of conscious choice, however, I was involved with a presentation on when people should have the right to choose what they want vs. when an authoritative figure like the government can force a "choice" on them. I believe that the right to choose applies so long as 1. It involves ONLY the person choosing and 2. The person remains rational THROUGHOUT.


Hold on, let me get this straight, you'd rather have the government step in and execute people for what you deem to be the wrong choice than have any particular drug user or dealer deal with the non-arbitrary consequences of their crime? Surely being executed is a more ultimately negative outcome for any particular drug user than the possible side-effects of their drug... I agree that there's an extent to which disassociated passersby should not have to deal with the consequences of drug use, but that doesn't mean that drug use can be blamed for any particular crime committed by a drug user. Let's say someone commits a murder while under the effects of heroin: It's entirely superficial to blame the drug for the crime. Even while inebriated, that person is still a person, and still should be dealt with as a functional being. This imaginary person is a murderer, sure, and should be punished accordingly, but pretending that the crime is entirely the fault of the drug -- punishing the use and sale of the drug rather than punishing the few people who commit crimes while under the effects of drugs -- is not only cruel, but a fundamentally ineffectual way to deal with serious, non-victimless crimes. (property crime, murder .etc.)

Quote:
. But those addicted (dependence vs addiction: dependence is physical, addiction is psychological) will go stab someone just to get $10 for another hit when their money runs out. They will go to hospitals and we waste healthcare dollars on buprenorphine to manage their dependence.Or they will overdose and lose their rationality, go into respiratory depression, go apeshit all over the place and maybe harm others. Then more healthcare dollars are wasted on jabbing stuff like naloxone into them to treat the overdose, they come off the high pissed off that their money was wasted, swear at (or worse, take a swing at) the healthcare team and then go out to OD again. Obviously neither of the 2 above mentioned conditions apply. I know I mentioned exclusively on heroin treatment but I don't know medical treatment for others.


That whole passage, particularly the "stab someone for another $10" bit, is an entirely baseless strawman. Do you have any actual evidence to back up your claim that all (or even a majority, or even a statistically significant percentage) drug addicts behave in the way that you described? Furthermore, those problems would be dampened, if not largely eradicated, by drug liberalisation. If drugs were no longer illegal, "maintaining a steady supply," as you put it earlier, would be a lot more of an easy thing to do.
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Ina_Dingir_Xul
Metalhead

Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 8:44 am
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Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 12:38 pm 
 

Quote:
EVEN IF we accept that drug trafficking (or any crime, for that matter) warrants the death penalty, proving something in a court of law is a lot more difficult that merely saying "Eh, it seems like they did it, let's kill 'em," particularly in cases where the death penalty is being administered. The ultimate aim of any court should be to arrive at the truth, and the way to do that is to make sure the judicial process is as methodical as possible.


I agree that proof MUST be sufficient and confirmed to lay down a sentence. I suppose I neglected a few premises in my statement, but I was on the assumption that the condemned were already proven guilty and were basically awaiting to die. The stays of execution would be on a, "Hey, hold on. In Chapter Y Section Z of [law] it says ..." basis. Essentially, "He's guilty, but we shouldn't kill him even if the law already says kill him". I lack familiarity with Indonesian laws, so I am not sure if they have the same mandatory death penalty beyond a certain drug weight like Singapore does.

Quote:
No it's certainly not a matter of perspective. Some laws, (i.e. the ones that result in people being killed, and the ones that arbitrarily and ineffectually interfere in people's lives) are functionally useless. Sure, you can say "It's just my opinion," as if that somehow justifies having a stupid opinion, but that's a kind of anti-intellectual way of conducting yourself.


I understand if the law said, "If you wear a hat in the rain you should be jailed" people calling it useless. I wouldn't go as far to say the death penalty is functionally useless. It perhaps interferes (arguably so but debatable) with human rights and isn't a pleasant thing to carry out, but at the very least it saves a jail slot that could have been taken up for 20 years. That is perhaps a weak excuse, but I do not have statistics to back up other things I would prefer to say like cost savings (30 years of jailing a person, food, judicial process, "lodging" etc are more expensive than, say, 3 live rounds and 5 blank ones in a firing squad) or the fact it's simply 1 less person carrying the stuff into the country.

Quote:
Hold on, let me get this straight, you'd rather have the government step in and execute people for what you deem to be the wrong choice than have any particular drug user or dealer deal with the non-arbitrary consequences of their crime? Surely being executed is a more ultimately negative outcome for any particular drug user than the possible side-effects of their drug... I agree that there's an extent to which disassociated passersby should not have to deal with the consequences of drug use, but that doesn't mean that drug use can be blamed for any particular crime committed by a drug user. Let's say someone commits a murder while under the effects of heroin: It's entirely superficial to blame the drug for the crime. Even while inebriated, that person is still a person, and still should be dealt with as a functional being. This imaginary person is a murderer, sure, and should be punished accordingly, but pretending that the crime is entirely the fault of the drug -- punishing the use and sale of the drug rather than punishing the few people who commit crimes while under the effects of drugs -- is not only cruel, but a fundamentally ineffectual way to deal with serious, non-victimless crimes. (property crime, murder .etc.)


The criminal did choose to commit the crime, but I would like to ask: Would they have done it outside of the drug influence? The drug didn't cause the crime, that much is true. But the drug facilitated the committing of crime by making it so much easier to choose the criminal option.

Punishing the people who commit crime while on drugs I support. Punishing the use and sale of the drugs that make it easier to commit crimes, I support just as much. The sale of drugs is not done by our hypothetical druggie who committed a crime, it is done by another person who probably knows that his customer could run someone over in his car or stab another person, yet doesn't care about the consequences if he could earn the $50 from drug sales. By proxy, he is essentially facilitating the crime.

Quote:
That whole passage, particularly the "stab someone for another $10" bit, is an entirely baseless strawman. Do you have any actual evidence to back up your claim that all (or even a majority, or even a statistically significant percentage) drug addicts behave in the way that you described? Furthermore, those problems would be dampened, if not largely eradicated, by drug liberalisation. If drugs were no longer illegal, "maintaining a steady supply," as you put it earlier, would be a lot more of an easy thing to do.


Perhaps the stab for $10 was a bit extrapolated. But crimes committed by drug addicts for money (maybe petty theft, maybe violent assault) do exist.

Furthermore, problems do not need to involve a majority to be problems. I could be accused of a red herring here but it makes my point slightly easier to explain. There are many medical conditions in the world, some common (flu, fractures, gastroenteritis) and some very, very rare (Krabbe's disease, acinic cell carcinoma of the lung). Many of these rare conditions cause major problems for the patient. Do we decide to ignore all patients with these rare conditions since a doctor might only see them once in his entire career, or do we at least attempt to help?

Back to the main point: Even if the majority of drug users get high and chill in front of the TV without hurting anyone, there are some that will do these crazy things. And we shouldn't have to deal with these things at all.

Finally on drug legalisations: Yes, it would help maintain a steady supply. Until money runs out.

If we enter the realm of prescribing the addictive drug on health insurance, then why even let the person start taking the drug to begin with, if they are going to end up in such a situation?

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 1:51 pm 
 

I'm personally againt death penality, i think humans should live and learn from their mistakes. As i am not aware about the law of Australia if Australian authorities knew that these people would've been executed, they shouldn't detained them because its against human rights.


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severzhavnost
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:29 pm 
 

Woolie_Wool wrote:
Any reasonable person who commits a crime in another country should realize that their homeland will not necessarily bail them out if they get caught, and they have no reason to expect that a foreign jurisdiction will give them the same rights and the same conditions as their home.


This! Do I agree with the death penalty for drug smuggling? No. Does it matter? No! Your expectation of rights and reasonable legal process end at the edge of your homeland's territory.
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chaossphere
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:29 pm 
 

Basically it boils down to this: if you choose to fuck a pig in the arse, don't complain when you end up with pig-shit on your dick.
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~Guest 214846
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 8:07 pm 
 

I don't have much to say on this specific issue, but those of you saying that the legalization of drugs like heroin will decrease drug-related violent crimes are either very naive or very sheltered. I live in an area where heroin is very popular, and the legality of it is not the issue. This isn't weed or some other small-time shit.

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Diamhea
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 8:31 pm 
 

Numerator_41 wrote:
I don't have much to say on this specific issue, but those of you saying that the legalization of drugs like heroin will decrease drug-related violent crimes are either very naive or very sheltered.

Can't speak for Cards, but I am neither naive or sheltered, and have a lot of experience being surrounded by hard drugs every day. I've lost two acquaintances to overdose-suicides and I still think that the laws are patently ludicrous, because those same laws are what forced these people to hit a low point they would have never reached if they were just allowed to recreationally do as they please. Getting caught with one vicodin pill is a felony, the fuck is that shit?

Numerator_41 wrote:
I live in an area where heroin is very popular

Where at? I live in Detroit.

Numerator_41 wrote:
and the legality of it is not the issue.

Says... who? You? Okay I'll give you that I guess.

Numerator_41 wrote:
This isn't weed or some other small-time shit.

You're right here as well, it isn't. But how much of that is to blame on the stringent drug laws? Surely some of it.
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mjollnir
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 8:59 pm 
 

^^Good response Diamhea. I also want to point out that all the money that goes into law enforcement to fight a futile war on drugs could be better spent on treatment programs...especially at the local level. I, also, lived most of my life in an inner city (Baltimore) and had a nephew who died young due to complications from years of heroine addiction. I was also a correctional officer for 16 years in Maryland. The war on drugs is not working, has not worked, and will never work. We had liquor prohibition in this country and that was an abysmal failure. Drugs addicts will be drugs addicts, whether the drugs are legal or not. Laws to save us from ourselves are useless.

Edit to get back on topic: There's a great way to avoid something like this happening....if you go to a foreign country, don't break their laws. If the penalty for jaywalking was hanging, you bet yer ass I wouldn't jaywalk!! :lol:
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Woolie_Wool
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:04 pm 
 

I'm personally against the death penalty, but I think that if it must be done, lethal injection is really one of the more disgusting ways to go about it. The typical three-drug cocktail can be excruciatingly painful from the combination of the paralytic and the potassium drip (the sedative often wears off or fails altogether), and certainly less humane than just dumping a whole shitload of barbiturates into someone and letting him go on a one-way ride to La La Land. But I also find it abhorrent because of the way it medicalizes killing people. If I had to be executed I'd rather be shot or hanged. Better to die upright like a man than to be put down like an animal.

mjollnir wrote:
Drugs addicts will be drugs addicts, whether the drugs are legal or not. Laws to save us from ourselves are useless.

Often drug addicts use drugs to fill something missing in their lives and relieve some sort of suffering (funny how Karl Marx understood drug addicts more than most modern people when he formulated the "opiate of the masses" metaphor). Generally whatever shitty situation they're in comes first and the drugs come in to help them cope with it or forget about it. Often removing the terrible circumstances will cause drug habits to wither away as the addict no longer needs to numb himself to his own life.
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mjollnir
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:08 pm 
 

Woolie_Wool wrote:
Often drug addicts use drugs to fill something missing in their lives and relieve some sort of suffering (funny how Karl Marx understood drug addicts more than most modern people when he formulated the "opiate of the masses" metaphor). Generally whatever shitty situation they're in comes first and the drugs come in to help them cope with it or forget about it. Often removing the terrible circumstances will cause drug habits to wither away as the addict no longer needs to numb himself to his own life.


Very true. That's one reason why I'm so against the AA/NA model. They pound it in your head that you are flawed and diseased. Then they try to replace your drug addiction to an addiction to god. It doesn't get to the root of the problem and confront the trauma that led to addictive behavior in the first place.
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Ina_Dingir_Xul
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Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 8:44 am
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:23 pm 
 

mjollnir wrote:
Woolie_Wool wrote:
Often drug addicts use drugs to fill something missing in their lives and relieve some sort of suffering (funny how Karl Marx understood drug addicts more than most modern people when he formulated the "opiate of the masses" metaphor). Generally whatever shitty situation they're in comes first and the drugs come in to help them cope with it or forget about it. Often removing the terrible circumstances will cause drug habits to wither away as the addict no longer needs to numb himself to his own life.


Very true. That's one reason why I'm so against the AA/NA model. They pound it in your head that you are flawed and diseased. Then they try to replace your drug addiction to an addiction to god. It doesn't get to the root of the problem and confront the trauma that led to addictive behavior in the first place.


I would agree somewhat with you guys that drug addicts often aren't necessarily in the mental state to decide, "Hold up, these drugs are addictive and can kill me eventually." In the case of relief they just want to get over the shitty situation they are in, albeit temporarily. Opium was a big thing in China and I think SE Asia ages ago (like 1800s and 1900s) perhaps because 1. It relieved pain and 2. The British forced them to buy it in exchange for tea.

But the death penalty applies more to the traffickers i.e. those that are making money off the people in a horrible situation and that will go for whatever as long as it helps just that little bit. Pretty dick move to knowingly bring heroin to a person already at that low point, especially knowing it will bring them lower.

I don't know about alcoholics anonymous or rehab organisations, so I can't comment.

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mjollnir
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 11:32 pm 
 

Ina_Dingir_Xul wrote:
But the death penalty applies more to the traffickers i.e. those that are making money off the people in a horrible situation and that will go for whatever as long as it helps just that little bit. Pretty dick move to knowingly bring heroin to a person already at that low point, especially knowing it will bring them lower.


A quote from a song by Steppenwolf.....
Quote:
You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he's not a natural man
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somefella
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 1:02 am 
 

Ina_Dingir_Xul wrote:
On the topic of conscious choice, however, I was involved with a presentation on when people should have the right to choose what they want vs. when an authoritative figure like the government can force a "choice" on them. I believe that the right to choose applies so long as 1. It involves ONLY the person choosing and 2. The person remains rational THROUGHOUT. Getting dependant onto shit like heroin and ecstasy is fine if you can acquire good supply and if the withdrawal hits you, ride it out shivering in your bedroom. But those addicted (dependence vs addiction: dependence is physical, addiction is psychological) will go stab someone just to get $10 for another hit when their money runs out. They will go to hospitals and we waste healthcare dollars on buprenorphine to manage their dependence. Or they will overdose and lose their rationality, go into respiratory depression, go apeshit all over the place and maybe harm others. Then more healthcare dollars are wasted on jabbing stuff like naloxone into them to treat the overdose, they come off the high pissed off that their money was wasted, swear at (or worse, take a swing at) the healthcare team and then go out to OD again. Obviously neither of the 2 above mentioned conditions apply. I know I mentioned exclusively on heroin treatment but I don't know medical treatment for others.



Talk about slippery slope and strawman fallacies. No statistical evidence to prove any sort of correlation, let alone causal relationship. This is just rhetoric attempting to hide a lack of real content.

This topic is about a specific context, but if you are talking about whether all drug smugglers in general deserve the death penalty, that sounds mighty ignorant especially when you try to back it up with babble instead of some kind of actual argument. I'm not surprised waiguoren took a swing at your intellect when you say things like that. These are generally the arguments of younger persons who grow out of it as they learn more about things, without the need for others to go out of their way to correct them.

EDIT: Study a bit more about bounded rationality and the lack of perfect information (and many more things) and you will realise that no one is ever properly rational all the time, let alone THROUGHOUT. If you use perfect rationality (which isn't even objective) as a basis for freedom of choice, no one will ever get to choose anything, not even you.
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CardsOfWar
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 3:29 am 
 

Quote:
I agree that proof MUST be sufficient and confirmed to lay down a sentence. I suppose I neglected a few premises in my statement, but I was on the assumption that the condemned were already proven guilty and were basically awaiting to die. The stays of execution would be on a, "Hey, hold on. In Chapter Y Section Z of [law] it says ..." basis. Essentially, "He's guilty, but we shouldn't kill him even if the law already says kill him". I lack familiarity with Indonesian laws, so I am not sure if they have the same mandatory death penalty beyond a certain drug weight like Singapore does.


Eh, I guess we're in agreement here. I don't think they (or anyone, for that matter) should be executed, but if it's essentially already been decided that they will be executed, then there's no use psychologically torturing them about it.

Quote:
I understand if the law said, "If you wear a hat in the rain you should be jailed" people calling it useless. I wouldn't go as far to say the death penalty is functionally useless. It perhaps interferes (arguably so but debatable) with human rights and isn't a pleasant thing to carry out, but at the very least it saves a jail slot that could have been taken up for 20 years. That is perhaps a weak excuse, but I do not have statistics to back up other things I would prefer to say like cost savings (30 years of jailing a person, food, judicial process, "lodging" etc are more expensive than, say, 3 live rounds and 5 blank ones in a firing squad) or the fact it's simply 1 less person carrying the stuff into the country.


Except that the administration and judicial process of the death penalty is actually a lot more expensive than housing a prisoner.(Source) Using up one less jail cell is an incredibly petty reason to execute someone, especially since the execution costs more anyway. Also, you seem to ignore that, necessarily, as a part of any judicial system, some mistakes will be made. Is it really worth risking the execution of innocents just to make sure that every drug dealer gets murdered?

Quote:
The criminal did choose to commit the crime, but I would like to ask: Would they have done it outside of the drug influence? The drug didn't cause the crime, that much is true. But the drug facilitated the committing of crime by making it so much easier to choose the criminal option.


It's impossible to know. People have to take responsibility for their own actions, and should be punished accordingly if those actions result in the harm of others, but punishing someone for distributing or possessing a substance which MAY (Again, that's an unsourced claim from you) inadvertently encourage them to commit a crime is just absurd. If someone commits a crime while they're under the effects of coffee, (Coffee is something that changes its user's brain chemistry and behavior, just like heroin is) then the person is blamed, rather than the substance they happened to be influenced by. It's completely unfair, both to non-violent drug users, and victims of violent, drug-related crime, to blame the drug use for the crime rather than the individual. People, whether they're on drugs or not, have to be able to keep themselves from committing violent crimes, and should be punished at an individual level if they can't, rather than arbitrarily waging war on everyone who is involved with the same substance as them. Just as we shouldn't punish all black people if an individual black person does a crime, we shouldn't punish all drug users/dealers because individuals among them commit crimes.

Quote:
Punishing the people who commit crime while on drugs I support. Punishing the use and sale of the drugs that make it easier to commit crimes, I support just as much. The sale of drugs is not done by our hypothetical druggie who committed a crime, it is done by another person who probably knows that his customer could run someone over in his car or stab another person, yet doesn't care about the consequences if he could earn the $50 from drug sales. By proxy, he is essentially facilitating the crime.


People consistently commit more crime while under the effects of alcohol. Does that mean we should blame everyone who owns a liquor store for facilitating crime? Again, it's completely ridiculous and arbitrary to punish a whole social group (i.e. drug users) because there are criminals among them.

Quote:
Furthermore, problems do not need to involve a majority to be problems. I could be accused of a red herring here but it makes my point slightly easier to explain. There are many medical conditions in the world, some common (flu, fractures, gastroenteritis) and some very, very rare (Krabbe's disease, acinic cell carcinoma of the lung). Many of these rare conditions cause major problems for the patient. Do we decide to ignore all patients with these rare conditions since a doctor might only see them once in his entire career, or do we at least attempt to help?


Heh. Your approach to dealing with drug-related crime is akin treating everyone with long hair for Krabbe's disease because a few people with long hair happen to have Krabbe's disease.

Quote:
Back to the main point: Even if the majority of drug users get high and chill in front of the TV without hurting anyone, there are some that will do these crazy things. And we shouldn't have to deal with these things at all.


Again, this sort of reasoning could just as easily be applied to any social, ethnic, or economic group. "Just because the majority of vegans just live their lives perfectly normally, there are some that will do crazy things. And we shouldn't have to deal with these things at all. So let's just lock up/execute all vegans just to be safe." Also, this is a sidenote, but plenty of seriously creatively inspired musicians have been heavy drug users. It's completely asinine to imply that their music would exist in the same form if not for their drug use.

Quote:
If we enter the realm of prescribing the addictive drug on health insurance, then why even let the person start taking the drug to begin with, if they are going to end up in such a situation?


Because they're doing it anyway. It's been pretty comprehensively proven at this point that legally prohibiting any substance is no way to stop people from accessing and consuming it. It's safer, cheaper, more ethically sound, and more efficient, to have the consumption of a drug be legally facilitated.

I would recommend this essay to anybody seriously interested in drug law. He essentially argues that drugs should be legal as a sold product, but that all products should be taxed proportionately to their health risks. This would mean that drug users as a whole inadvertently pay for the increased medical costs that spawn as a result of their habit.
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CF_Mono
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Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:21 pm
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:40 am 
 

The funny thing about crime is that no matter where it is, it's always illegal.

Yet consider every point in history of any country where crime has been rampant. Crime can easily persist despite the harshness of laws because crime exists to break them. That's what makes it crime. AFAIK penalties have very little to do with impacting crime, enforcement has everything to do with it. That's why I say the death penalty is harsh. (But as someone earlier already said, they are foreign drug smugglers, so there isn't much arguing here, they're getting it handed to them either way.)

But that's also why I say legalizing drugs is a little naive and won't necessarily be the best option for preventing drug related crimes (in the US anyway) because enforcement is generally regarded to be a failure, and we don't know how much of an impact changing our system of enforcement will have as opposed to changing the penalties which has done nothing.
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Expedience
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 6:33 am 
 

CardsOfWar wrote:
MonumentalBlackArt wrote:
That's not exactly true. Drug dependency has been been found to be a significant cause of crime, and the target is most often family/friend of the addict. Death might be a unnecessarily harsh punishment, but it certainly sends the message, no?


Well, yeah, death 'sends the message,' but my issue is with whether it's a reasonable message for governments to be sending in the first place. Surely people should be able to make their own decision about whether drug use is a good idea for them, rather than having the government step in and punish people for a victimless crime. Also, it seems to me like legalisation of drug use would make the issues surrounding it a lot more inconsequential. If heroin was sold over the counter at pharmacies, (extreme example) doses would be standardised, so overdoses would be much less regular, the drug would only be sold to people who are above the legal age, (drug dealers, who are already doing something illegal, do not check for ID.) and in the unlikely event that an overdose did happen, it cold be dealt with in a hospital rather than a criminal court. Lastly, a correlation between illicit drug use and crime doesn't necessarily imply a causal link. It's perfectly likely that subcultural groups that are associated with drug-taking are also more prone to committing crimes, rather than that the drugs cause crime. (Alcohol is associated with a lot of crime as well, and it's perfectly legal, so I don't really even see what the issue is here)

Huh... For some reason I had an image in my head that this forum was generally pretty pro drug liberalisation...


Heroin isn't just a drug. It's horrific stuff. And really 'drugs' as an umbrella term is an absurd categorization. There's drugs and then there's heroin. I've never even touched the stuff but I've been on strong opiates for medical conditions and the withdrawal is absolutely horrid. I have little doubt that it could drive you to commit crimes in extreme cases. I'm okay with liberalising harmless recreational drugs but heroin is another thing. You simply can't take any chances with it because one use will most likely get you hooked. When I was young and stupid had I been able to get it over the counter I probably would have, and knowing what I know about opiates now I would blame the government for not stopping me.

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chaossphere
Metal Lunatic

Joined: Sun Nov 10, 2002 11:49 pm
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:08 am 
 

CardsOfWar wrote:
. It's safer, cheaper, more ethically sound, and more efficient, to have the consumption of a drug be legally facilitated.

I would recommend this essay to anybody seriously interested in drug law. He essentially argues that drugs should be legal as a sold product, but that all products should be taxed proportionately to their health risks. This would mean that drug users as a whole inadvertently pay for the increased medical costs that spawn as a result of their habit.


In that case, alcohol would have to be more expensive than 95% of currently illegal drugs.
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Ina_Dingir_Xul
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Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 8:44 am
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 10:10 am 
 

somefella wrote:
Talk about slippery slope and strawman fallacies. No statistical evidence to prove any sort of correlation, let alone causal relationship. This is just rhetoric attempting to hide a lack of real content.


No slippery slope at all. Buprenorphine is indicated for the treatment of heroin withdrawal (you might have heard of it as Subutex instead, but Singapore doesn't use it because apparently people were getting off the withdrawal...and hooked onto Subutex). And it has been documented scientifically that opiates cause respi depression, any pharmacology textbook will mention it as a side effect. Medically or illicitly, these are not postulates, they are existing conditions.

Going apeshit and harming others isn't related to the opiate use, but I attempted to throw in as many effects of various drugs as I could consider.

The part on naloxone for heroin OD was anecdotal from a friend on a shift in the emergency department. I know enough about opiate drugs and antagonists to believe that he wasn't making anything up.

The 2 situations are separate and they don't link to each other. But both have concrete origins in drug use.

CardsOfWar wrote:
Cost of death penalty and possible wrongful execution


I cannot really comment, even after reading the article you linked. The article does say that much of the extra costs are due to 1. Legal fees 2. Death row costs, at least if I did read correctly. My understanding of law is poor, but I would still, in the case of drug trafficking at least, go with the notion of a mandatory death penalty once a certain amount of drugs is found on a person (i.e. assume that >x dose = intend to traffic). Granted that the proving guilty part will have costs, but I wouldn't believe that it will take 10 years keeping a person on death row to prove the drugs found on his person were on his person. The article generalizes the death penalty but I am keeping my arguments confined to capital punishment for drug trafficking.

Mistakes exist but it is up to the legal system and science (which of course needs to keep going forward) to eliminate mistakes involving life-and-death situations. Context applies here, of course, be it murder/rape/drugs.

CardsOfWar wrote:
It's impossible to know. People have to take responsibility for their own actions, and should be punished accordingly if those actions result in the harm of others, but punishing someone for distributing or possessing a substance which MAY (Again, that's an unsourced claim from you) inadvertently encourage them to commit a crime is just absurd. If someone commits a crime while they're under the effects of coffee, (Coffee is something that changes its user's brain chemistry and behavior, just like heroin is) then the person is blamed, rather than the substance they happened to be influenced by. It's completely unfair, both to non-violent drug users, and victims of violent, drug-related crime, to blame the drug use for the crime rather than the individual. People, whether they're on drugs or not, have to be able to keep themselves from committing violent crimes, and should be punished at an individual level if they can't, rather than arbitrarily waging war on everyone who is involved with the same substance as them. Just as we shouldn't punish all black people if an individual black person does a crime, we shouldn't punish all drug users/dealers because individuals among them commit crimes.


As previously mentioned, I support punishing the person that committed the crime and also the person that provided the drug that may facilitate the crime.

To use coffee is a poor example; its effects on brain chemistry vs. that of heroin are well documented and it is known to be safe. Injecting water into a person's veins causes a myriad of problems, should we ban water from hospitals because someone might pour it into a solution bag?

I would deem the non-violent drug users "collateral damage" of sorts, were I to use your context of waging war on everyone involved in the same substance because some of said users are criminals. But my arguments is based on the premise that the drugs can facilitate the committing of crime, be it through lowering inhibition, desperate addiction or psychosis. In such case, I consider the collateral damage worth it. The example of black people doesn't work simply because being black doesn't predispose you to crime, just like being above 150 cm in height doesn't predispose you to being overweight.

CardsOfWar wrote:
Part on alcohol

Alcohol could be seen as a grey area for some. Alcohol addiction is real and documented, otherwise organisations like Alcoholics Anonymous wouldn't get big. Then there's the problem of drink driving which can kill the bystander. I don't have an actual solution to this, my postulate is that there is a much easier way to consume alcohol safely as compared to say, crack or heroin. I'm open to any argument here.

CardsOfWar wrote:
Heh. Your approach to dealing with drug-related crime is akin treating everyone with long hair for Krabbe's disease because a few people with long hair happen to have Krabbe's disease.


Erroneous interpretation. Long hair is neither a sign nor risk factor for Krabbe's. Drugs are a necessary condition for drug-related crime.

On vegans: Perhaps there are some loose screws, but they aren't taking a brain-modifying substance to become vegans (unless meat is addictive). You can argue that some vegans are so outraged at meat eaters they beat them up, but veganism is not the cause of being outraged.

I care little if the music produced by musicians on drugs does not exist should those drugs magically vanish at that time.

Legally prohibiting a substance doesn't stop people getting it, but it makes it harder. Some people would not have gotten the drug. And the enhanced safety of legally providing drugs to addicts and ethical issues are less of an absolute, but my opinion is that they got themselves into the situation of taking adulterated chemicals (i.e. not pure drug substances) and it should not be the role of any governing or healthcare body to help them take banned substances.

And payment only works as far as money exists. The rich will hold up, but the poor won't. I won't talk about equity here, but drugs are an expensive thing to maintain.

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