In Reply To #14
If the dose were measured and it weren't as addictive, people would have less of a chance of ODing and they probably wouldn't do it as much. Part of the harm of heroin is the toll it takes on one's body because of years of repeated addictive use. That, and people know they aren't doing themselves any favors when they do drugs like that. They know what they're getting into. Like I said, we can't and shouldn't protect everyone from themselves.
If you're walking thru your school hall smelling marijuana smoke, your school has a problem. Just thought you should know that. Just as you aren't allowed to drink alcohol on a school campus, I'm not saying you should be allowed to smoke weed either.
Were drugs to be legalized, there wouldn't BE any blocks or schools locked down for searches (which are illegal in many cases). I'm NOT advocating rampant unchecked public drug use, I'm saying, we treat it the same way we do alcohol.
As for your friend, my heart goes out to her, but she's an exception rather than the rule. That, and as I said before, if there were less of a stigma attached to drug use, I bet her mother would have gotten the help she needed. Her mother is a fool, but just because she's a fool, that means everyone else, who CAN get their priorities straight has to be criminalized?
Alcohol has negative side effects. Cigarettes have negative side effects. A lot of foods have negative side effects. Yet, these are all legal. Your point?
IF we're ever going to begin to fix the problems that drugs create in this country, we're going to have to get past these Puritanical ideas we have of them first.