Sander said:My friend, who doesn't even know what the hell this board is about, just said you were a moron. Seriously.
Hey, it's megatron. He can't help it. Born to be a spammer, raised to be a spammer, and now, as a MAN, a spammer.
Heh.
Biodiesel: Is it the answer to all our energy needs?
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Hey, it's megatron. He can't help it. Born to be a spammer, raised to be a spammer, and now, as a MAN, a spammer.
Heh.
Sander said:
I know?
/,,/ rock n roll d00d
good education=propaganda? What's the point in giving a biased opinion on something if half the stuff doesn't even happen?
And you can keep telling yourself that guns r bad
It's the same with gas? If they sold XTC OMG in chemists to people with a liscense or something then it wouldn't be too bad? And people who do turn to crime can be blown away by people with guns BAM
People will find a way to hurt each other if guns didn't exist anyway? Having a gun just saves on time and the need for muzzles.
My friend, who doesn't even know what the hell this board is about, just said you were a moron. Seriously.
hye at least I don't read message boards with friends lewwwwwl
Ancient Oldie
Still Mildly Glowing
Holy fucking shit, Batman!!!
What started off as a post on alternate means for gasoline has turned into an all out discussion on drugs and finished off with posts by some dude who's obviously on crack...
Might as well throw in my two cents. I had made a pretty lengthy post on this subject several days back but that freakin' invalid_session error popped its ugly little head up again and killed my motivation to retype a response.
On marijuana, I believe that it should be legalized as there are more benefits associated with it being legalized then just keeping illegal. It is also rather harmless. The only way that I can see it being deadly is if you suddenly become paranoid about your driving skills and crash your car (happened to me the first time I drove and blazed, though I didn't get into an accident) Is it addictive, well, anything that feels good is addictive. Take sex for example.
On the list of deadly drugs given by Ozrat, I think the stats on that might be a little bit skewed, primarily because those are drugs that are legal and therefore more commonly used. I believe that aspirin and tylenol were in the top ten of that list also.
On hard drugs, I totally agree with Kharn and Welsh in that these drugs should stay illegal. It would be foolish in believing that all these hard-drugs should be legalized. First off, these drugs don't just harm the user, but the people closest to the them, and often times the society around them. Also, keep in mind that these people are suffering from a disease (addiction) and that often times they need a more responsible authority to step in and make the right choice for them to halt the amount of damage that they would do before they realize (and that's if) they need to do something about there problem . For example, where I live, if you are arrested on a drug possession charge, you are forced to go to drug rehab, and if completed succesfully, all charges will be dropped. Mind you, these programs are free of charge also. I believe New York City also implemented a similar program, combined with a strict implementation of laws, under Guliani and the record shows that it resulted in drastically lower drug usage and crimes in general, especially violent crimes. If these drugs are made legal, you will never be able to send these people to drug rehab. It would create situations like with alcohol, where you can only be sent to a rehab center only if you are arrested while driving drunk. You can't effectively combat the hard-drug problem without making it illegal on both ends. Mind you, Canada has only made possession of small amounts of marijuana legal, not crack or heroine.
As for drug education, it has been around since I was in elementary school all the way on up to high school. I personally believe that no school program is going to do as good of a job as what parents can (and should) teach you on this subject, but at least it's something for those who don't have good parents.
Also, all dealers are punished hard in the US. If it's over a certain amount, it becomes a federal offense. The only way that you can lower or actually beat jail time for a drug dealing charge is if you begin working with the authorities and start turning over people that are also dealing drugs. Eventually, this will lead up to a bigger source and so on. Still, no matter how harsh the sentence is, if there is a buck to be made, people will do it. The only way you can honestly stop the dealing is if you eliminate the demand, and by legalizing it you are definitely not helping this situation out.
As for saying that the reason people do drugs is because it is illegal, that is ludicrous. At best, these malcontent idiots make up a very small minority of drug-users, even smaller when it comes to the subject of hard drugs. Granted I could see some rebellious little teen smoking a joint to spite their parents or for the thrill of breaking the law, but not freebase cocain or shoot up heroin.
About the Netherlands, correct me if I'm wrong, but hard drug usage has risen in that area, leading the government to re-examine their existing drug laws. However, I'm not sure about this as most of the reports I've read so far have been extremely biased on the subject, some either saying that drug use has dropped significantly (normally sites that advocate loose drug policies) and an equal number of sites state the exact opposite and that drug usage has risen (anti-drug sites). If anyone can provide a clear, unbiased and reputable source(ehrm...Welsh), I would definitely be interested in looking into it.
Another interesting fact I found while researching was that alcohol and tobacco use was higher among european teens while marijuana usage was higher among american teens. I personally think the reason for this is that american teenagers find it easier to buy marijuana illegally than it is to buy beer or cigarettes. Also, correct me if i'm wrong, but buying cigarrettes and alcohol is much easier to do in europe, and the drinking age is also lower. Do you all think this is another good reason for regulating marijuana and maybe lowering the drinking age to 18?
What started off as a post on alternate means for gasoline has turned into an all out discussion on drugs and finished off with posts by some dude who's obviously on crack...
Might as well throw in my two cents. I had made a pretty lengthy post on this subject several days back but that freakin' invalid_session error popped its ugly little head up again and killed my motivation to retype a response.
On marijuana, I believe that it should be legalized as there are more benefits associated with it being legalized then just keeping illegal. It is also rather harmless. The only way that I can see it being deadly is if you suddenly become paranoid about your driving skills and crash your car (happened to me the first time I drove and blazed, though I didn't get into an accident) Is it addictive, well, anything that feels good is addictive. Take sex for example.
On the list of deadly drugs given by Ozrat, I think the stats on that might be a little bit skewed, primarily because those are drugs that are legal and therefore more commonly used. I believe that aspirin and tylenol were in the top ten of that list also.
On hard drugs, I totally agree with Kharn and Welsh in that these drugs should stay illegal. It would be foolish in believing that all these hard-drugs should be legalized. First off, these drugs don't just harm the user, but the people closest to the them, and often times the society around them. Also, keep in mind that these people are suffering from a disease (addiction) and that often times they need a more responsible authority to step in and make the right choice for them to halt the amount of damage that they would do before they realize (and that's if) they need to do something about there problem . For example, where I live, if you are arrested on a drug possession charge, you are forced to go to drug rehab, and if completed succesfully, all charges will be dropped. Mind you, these programs are free of charge also. I believe New York City also implemented a similar program, combined with a strict implementation of laws, under Guliani and the record shows that it resulted in drastically lower drug usage and crimes in general, especially violent crimes. If these drugs are made legal, you will never be able to send these people to drug rehab. It would create situations like with alcohol, where you can only be sent to a rehab center only if you are arrested while driving drunk. You can't effectively combat the hard-drug problem without making it illegal on both ends. Mind you, Canada has only made possession of small amounts of marijuana legal, not crack or heroine.
As for drug education, it has been around since I was in elementary school all the way on up to high school. I personally believe that no school program is going to do as good of a job as what parents can (and should) teach you on this subject, but at least it's something for those who don't have good parents.
Also, all dealers are punished hard in the US. If it's over a certain amount, it becomes a federal offense. The only way that you can lower or actually beat jail time for a drug dealing charge is if you begin working with the authorities and start turning over people that are also dealing drugs. Eventually, this will lead up to a bigger source and so on. Still, no matter how harsh the sentence is, if there is a buck to be made, people will do it. The only way you can honestly stop the dealing is if you eliminate the demand, and by legalizing it you are definitely not helping this situation out.
As for saying that the reason people do drugs is because it is illegal, that is ludicrous. At best, these malcontent idiots make up a very small minority of drug-users, even smaller when it comes to the subject of hard drugs. Granted I could see some rebellious little teen smoking a joint to spite their parents or for the thrill of breaking the law, but not freebase cocain or shoot up heroin.
About the Netherlands, correct me if I'm wrong, but hard drug usage has risen in that area, leading the government to re-examine their existing drug laws. However, I'm not sure about this as most of the reports I've read so far have been extremely biased on the subject, some either saying that drug use has dropped significantly (normally sites that advocate loose drug policies) and an equal number of sites state the exact opposite and that drug usage has risen (anti-drug sites). If anyone can provide a clear, unbiased and reputable source(ehrm...Welsh), I would definitely be interested in looking into it.
Another interesting fact I found while researching was that alcohol and tobacco use was higher among european teens while marijuana usage was higher among american teens. I personally think the reason for this is that american teenagers find it easier to buy marijuana illegally than it is to buy beer or cigarettes. Also, correct me if i'm wrong, but buying cigarrettes and alcohol is much easier to do in europe, and the drinking age is also lower. Do you all think this is another good reason for regulating marijuana and maybe lowering the drinking age to 18?
NO, I never EVER said propaganda. I said that there should be good education, megatron, not that there should be biased opinions. I don't see your logic, megatron.
I don't, because I don't think that. And NO I will not discuss it.
Please, TRY to write legibly, or at least understandably. I seriously cannot understand what you're saying here. The OMG and BAM aren't heloing either.
This is not a gun thread, so turn it into one.
Besides, that was SARCASM megatron.
This does not work all the time, not everyone is a victim, and certainly not everyone WANTS to quit. Especially not the party-goers.
I don't think that FORCING people to go into rehab will work at all. Why? Because people who are forced to do something, aren't doing it because THEY want to. They're doing it because YOU want THEM to. Which will usually mean that they will just lapse back into their old habit. Mind you, this hasn't been proven, so I may be wrong. But I'm sure that offering free and available drug rehab centers will work better than forcing people to go there.
BUZZ. Wrong, at least for as far as I know. I've never heard of something of rise in drug usage, I DO know that drug smuggling is a bit of a bigger problem. BUT for as far as I know, the only ones wanting a revisitation of the drug laws, are the people who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana, and thus already wanted to change the laws anyway.
I'm mainly talking XTC here, although I am CERTAIN that there are people who DO do things just because it's illegal, because of the "thrill".
My opinion is that the drinking age should be lowered to 16 or 18(Here, it's 16 for low-alcohol drinks(<12%) and 18 for the rest), and I'm pretty happy with it. I also think that marijuana should be legalized.
Sander said:
Uh...Sex education doesn't really seem to teach anybody about SEX. Just preventing it or the dangers. Shit, they don't even mention masturbation as a way to relieve tension, just assume every will suddenly shrivel up and have diseased babys hungry for crack or something, crasy danger. If we had drug education it'd probably show 'shocking' pictures of some dumbass who OD'ed on speed or something.
good I thought we already have de-railed like a de-railed train
))))ok I'll try to helo by MAKIGBNAN BAMBAMABAMA
FAST DANGER
Ancient Oldie
Still Mildly Glowing
So I'm supposed to let crackheads run around my city, assaulting people and making my neighborhood look like shit so that a bunch of inconsiderate party people can have a good time? Fuck them, this sort of talk is what I'd expect from irresponsible asshole's who are more interested in their own self-indulgences and mental masturbations than the safety of the people around them. The reasoning behind this is no better than the gun collecters who want to keep uzi's legal so that they can have them, not giving a flying fuck that someone's child can get shot because of the criminal's who can get their hands on these deadly weapons also. All this because their are idiots out there who value their self-interests more than that of the surrounding society. WTF's next, letting all countries have nukes because their nuclear status is more important than trying to prevent a nuclear catastrophe???
Really, because that same plan seems to have worked in New York and around where I live. And I guess under that definition, family interventions are useless also because the addict is more or less forced into choosing rehab? I believe I did mention that before, but I guess your belief in drug use takes precedence over the positive facts of drug control...
coño, you could have at least included the part I said afterwards where I stated that I wasn't sure about the facts because both sides seemed to be extremely biased on this topic. At the very least, you could have helped me out on my request for an unbiased review based on facts.
Yeah, just like their are idiots who jump off of ten story buildings into pools because they confuse notoriety with popularity. These buffoons are only a tiny minority, and earlier on, you implied that these people were a major factor for drug usage because of its illegal status.
16?!? No wonder most euro teens drink more. This isn't a positive fact BTW...
IMO, I believe these facts prove that drug regulation actually works, and that if we legalize marijuana, teen usage in the US would drop significantly because we will be able to card teens effectively and only sell to adults. And just to be clear, I believe that only marijuana should be legalized.
Alright, let's start off:
1) There is no self-interest, since I'm not interested in doing (hard)drugs.
2) I just said that forcing rehab won't work all the time, I didn't say that thus people should left to commit crimes.(And no, I don't support legal hard drugs anymore, opinions change.(Quite fast as well
))3) YOu're saying that taking XTC on a party is immediatley the same as aggressively going around, assaulting people and fucking up a neighborhood. I have to say that that is really total nonsense.
I didn't say it NEVER worked , I said it didn't work ALWAYS. Sjeesj, READ what I say next time, and do NOT jump to conclusions.,
I apologize, I don't HAVE any facts ready, and I just tend to leave things out of quotes that aren't directly involved in what I was saying. Sorry.
I never said that, I said that it was a factor. YOu interpreted something that you think I meant, while I didn't want to imply it. Granted, things like that are almost inevitable, but still not good.
Agreed, but not all euro teens do that(Luckily). I do think it's better to allow drinking at 16 than driving, though.
Agreed, although in my opinion, the age should be lowered to 16. It's a principle thing, I think people should be able to use things like that at that time.
When I say I want good education, I'm not saying that things should be left out, am I?
By the way, masturbation actually IS covered(At least in the books) here.
Typos.
PS: I seem to have found the problem, megatron. I noticed you used question marks in stead of periods in places, making things look like questions instead of sentences(You'd be surpised what the difference between "Marijuana is not addictive?" and "Marijuana is not addictive." is).
Ancient Oldie said:
I don't think unbiased sources on this exist any more than unbiased sources on gun control figures exist.
As farv as I know, the import and export of hard drugs has become a real problem for the Netherlands, with the EU breathing down our neck, they like us being the port to Europe, but not for drugs.
Hard drugs usage is pretty steady in Holland. There's never a significant increase or decrease, and as far as I know the government never considered legalising the harder drugs. The government does test XTC pills to make sure only the good ones come through. I know, it's weird, but it works.
The reason the government is re-examining their stand on drugs is not because of a change in the drug usage, rather it's a change in government. Our confessional (Christian) party the CDA got back in the government after being left out for 8 years, and while Balkenende (our prime-minister) won't succeed in banning coffee shops, which he originally wanted to do, he will probably make the policies around XTC and other harder drugs stricter. Why? 'cause he's Christian, that's all.
PS: Sander, don't forget the Dutch sex ed is excellent. I'm guessing, from the way meggy talks, American sex ed is vastly inferior. Just look at their teen pregnancy rate and ours.
welsh
Junkmaster
I think what Megatron was getting at was that in the US education system, we are not taught-
(1) how to masturbate
(2) how to perform oral sex
(3) different stroke methods cloitus
Much of this discussion is left to Dr. Ruth, or other sex shows on TV.
The reason why is that sex education,like all education is a matter of state law and often local politics. So some areas might teach abstinance as birth control while others might allow a discussion of the pluses and minuses of different birth control devices (but probably not the difference between 'ribbed' or a 'french tickler.')
REmember Monty Python's Meaning of Life when the health teacher is giving sex ed and asks, "How does one stimulate the vaginal juices?" NO one will probably ever get the chance to say "by licking the clitoris" because that question never gets asked.
Bummer.
(1) how to masturbate
(2) how to perform oral sex
(3) different stroke methods cloitus
Much of this discussion is left to Dr. Ruth, or other sex shows on TV.
The reason why is that sex education,like all education is a matter of state law and often local politics. So some areas might teach abstinance as birth control while others might allow a discussion of the pluses and minuses of different birth control devices (but probably not the difference between 'ribbed' or a 'french tickler.')
REmember Monty Python's Meaning of Life when the health teacher is giving sex ed and asks, "How does one stimulate the vaginal juices?" NO one will probably ever get the chance to say "by licking the clitoris" because that question never gets asked.
Bummer.
Ancient Oldie
Still Mildly Glowing
1) There is no self-interest, since I'm not interested in doing (hard)drugs.
2) I just said that forcing rehab won't work all the time, I didn't say that thus people should left to commit crimes.(And no, I don't support legal hard drugs anymore, opinions change.(Quite fast as well
3) YOu're saying that taking XTC on a party is immediatley the same as aggressively going around, assaulting people and fucking up a neighborhood. I have to say that that is really total nonsense.
Bah!!! You should know by now that I tend to jump to conclusions.
Anyways, I thought you meant that cocaine, heroin, and the likes should be legalized because there are party people out there who use it occasionally, but that aren't addicted to them, thereby implying that the recreational use of drugs is more important than the general well-being of the surrounding society. I should have asked where you believe the line should be drawn on the issue of drugs.
I'm rather iffy about many of the psychoactive drugs like LSD and XTC. On XTC, studies have proven that it does have a rather significant impact on the users health, and I have personally known several unsavory characters who were addicted to the stuff and did shit for it that proved they were fucking fiends. I personally would keep it illegal for those reasons. LSD on the other hand, isn't addictive and, except for the occassional flashback, doesn't have any other adverse health affects as far as I know. But, it's such a powerful drug that making it legal and to top it off, available for recreational use really wouldn't make much sense. Would I have to get a prescription from my doctor so that I can purchase a hit? Doctors are only supposed to pescribe medications that will heal you, not fuck you up (in the positive way of course, but you all catch my drift).
On forcing people to go to rehab, though they may relapse again, it is wiser to do that than to just let them stay the way they are. In the long run, their are many cases that demonstrate that the overall effects of forced rehab is better for everyone than letting the addicts decide for themselves whether they should go to rehab or not.
Only reason why I wouldn't legalize it at 16 would be because of the maturity level of adolescents. I remember when I was 16, my friends and I were pretty immature and I don't think we would have made responsible choices like the ones we made when we reached 21. When I hit 18, I realized that from that moment on, I would begin to accrue a record, and that definitely prevented me from doing things that I would have probably done before... well, not always...
I believe the line should stay at 21 for both marijuana use and alcohol. At that age, it is safe to say that we begin to develop an understanding of how your foolish actions may not only hurt yourself, but others as well. As for tobacco, it should stay at 18 because you can't kill a random person immediately while under its effects.
Keep in mind that where the pregnancy rates are vastly higher, poverty and drop-out rates are much higher also. IMO, I don't believe it is a flaw in our sex-ed programs, but in the way we our trying (or not) to tackle our many poverty and inner city ghetto issues.
I think our politicians like to make a bigger hoopla on petty issues like sex-ed than to try and focus on the hard but truly important problems such as the main cause for teen pregnancies nowadays; which is being hopelessly poor and not giving a crap about your future. They do this because creating non-issues is a much easier way of garnering votes. IMO it doesn't really matter what sex-ed is being taught, whether abstinence or explicit, as long as the kids are taught about STD's and the causes of pregnancy.
Ancient Oldie said:
Hmmm, but Sander is right in one thing concerning this; alcohol usage is higher amongst groups of young people because it is illegal. And 21 is way too significant a change for a lot of countries. I you went from 16 to 21 in Holland, the kids would say "fuck this" and get their alcohol whichever way they could. Did you hear about the 9 kids dying (somewhere in Africa) for trying to make their own alcohol with methanol? The prohobition is another good example of why banning a drug like alcohol, which is way too socially accepted, is impossible, and raising the age is a bad idea.
Yeah, 'cause Holland doesn't have poverty or drop-outs
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
True, we have dropouts, but we also have a 70% collage attendance rate, so BOOYAH.
Not to mention the fact that we do not base everything on education.
Not to mention the fact that we do not base everything on education.
ConstinpatedCraprunner said:
...
...
What?
Seriously, constipated, sometimes it seems your thoughts just pick up one word from my sentence and go their own way from there
...
...
What?
Well, according to the UN, if 1,00 is the score of the country with the best education (overal, can't remember what country that was), Holland scored .99 and the USA scores .97, off the top of my head.
Well, for one thing, the rules for getting into college(University, whatever) are stricter here than in the USA for as far as I know.
If you're talking about an education after high-school, I'd have to check, but I thought it was around 80-90% of the people with HAVO or VWO high-school education went on with another education.
I loved that...
Another way too look at it, would be to say that having a low age to let people do it, will have them "Get it over with." I have no idea if this is a valid argument, though.
All I know, is that I am 16, and I'm very certain that I'm old and responsible enough to drink. And most people that are 16 I know are too.
The problem with conservative people and parties, is their rather single-minded idea of "Don't talk about it, and it wont happen." or "If we talk about it, we make it worse." which ofcourse utter bull.
Good sex education is pretty important, because by teaching people what the consequences of, for instance, oral sex,(Which is probably considered evil by conservatives and confessionals) is, even though you are bringing it to their attention, will at least prevent them from making stupid mistakes.
PS: Kharn, I think constipated missed your smilie.
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
I did (miss it).
Amen, we just buy smuggeling booze over here, wich ofcourse is dangerous or we make it ourselves.Kharn said:
My point is that we (the kids in norway) get hard booze upp to 96% if we want to, even though the legal age of booze above 20% is twenty years. And because of this we drink much more unsafe drinks, moonshine and smuggeling booze. If the age went upp we would still get it. Changing age does not matter.