Somebody Is Paying The Medical Bill

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 3:46 am

I think this all above is true, but I think it's over analyzing the issue. Deciphering each of the causes and effects isn't really necessary. The Chinese could not have gotten hooked on opium had the Brits not provided it, just as people today can't get hooked on drugs unless criminals provide it.

The first half of the pro-drug argument is obviously wrong. The second half is as well. It's surely true that criminals make money on drugs, but if we were to make them legal, they'd move right on to the next illegal thing to make their money on. Legalize pot and they'll just start growing more coca leaf, khat or perhaps even opium poppies. You can't injure crime significantly by legalizing drugs, because criminals will always be there to grow, transport and sell what reasonable people know is bad for society.

choff · Post by **choff** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 6:49 am

Another data source to compare would be Tobacco addiction from first introduction to Europeans by the Indians to the point where at one time 35% of the modern population were smokers.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 1:08 pm

hanelyp wrote:I'll accept on face value that the government of China may have opposed the importation of opium. But I very much doubt importation would have continued and expanded if there was not an expanding market. If Chinese people had to be forced at gun point to buy, why not just take their money at gun point and dispense with the opium?

why that would have been theft, and the British are oh so moral people!

Please note that MSimon's contention is that TWO things must be present, FIRST, genetics; what percent of the populous in China is susceptible? For that question, I have no answer but it would suraprise me if it were lower than here. SECOND, PTSD of some sort; what percentage of the populous was subject to trauma in their lives. Given their almost abject slave status, and the abuse heaped on them by the foreiners, I'd suspect about ALL of them. Given those two points, the addiction rate in China may have been much higher than it would be here.

Except our oh so beneficial government, with its war on drugs and war on this and war on that may be changing that last condition as we speak.

D, etc. not only do you support the continued easy availability of the substances, but you seem to be supporting the creation of the NEED for them too.

Well done! . . . . .NOT!

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:04 pm

TDPerk wrote:"I argue that the normal course of drug addiction is an exponential. Without any interference, it would look like this."

Your argument is already contradicted by the known fact of our own history.

What fact? Put it on the table so that we can all see it.

TDPerk wrote: A small fraction of the population is subject to addiction, and greater availability does not enlarge that fraction. Those who want drugs get them right now, by criminal means which feed criminal organizations.

Prohibition is a cost in sum without countervailing benefit.

Apparently you are unwilling to comprehend the significance of this chart.

Chests of Opium Imported into China.

Is this worth even discussing?

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:08 pm

TDPerk wrote:"Chests of Opium imported into China"

should read

"Unloaded at cannonpoint from British ships onto Chinese docks"

The lie being saying they were imported implies both that it was all both demanded and consumed, something not in evidence.

I talk to people that believe in Crackpot theories from time to time. I put this response in THAT category.

Demand is what boosts supply.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:18 pm

TDPerk wrote:I love it when a pompous person shows their ignorance.

I don't. I get d@mned sick and disgusted that CRAP theories keep getting spread by ignorant people who have a cockamamie belief they wish to promulgate. (That Drugs are harmless and won't spread.)

TDPerk wrote: Britain imported a lot from China, and didn't want to pay in specie. They forced the opium onto China's shores and claimed the debt was paid.

We all know WHY England turned to drug dealing. That has nothing to do with Addiction increasing exponentially. England simply took advantage of the natural force of addiction.

If they could have enslaved them by selling them Water, they would have done that too. (Mayan/Aztec Empire.) As Abraham Lincoln said:

"Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form.

"Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world.

"You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it.

"Turn it whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent." -- Abraham Lincoln. Speech at Chicago, Illinois | July 10, 1858

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:20 pm

hanelyp wrote:I'll accept on face value that the government of China may have opposed the importation of opium. But I very much doubt importation would have continued and expanded if there was not an expanding market. If Chinese people had to be forced at gun point to buy, why not just take their money at gun point and dispense with the opium?

Amen. Common sense in a nutshell.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 6:49 pm

Diogenes wrote:
"Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form.

"Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world.

"You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it.

"Turn it whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent." -- Abraham Lincoln. Speech at Chicago, Illinois | July 10, 1858

Wow, you even hypersize the very part that you want to violate. You and your drug war are the very "king-craft" he warned against. They aren't able to think for themselves, its for their own good. You want to "indulge in, ratify, confirm and endorse all the slave-making BS. Teach it in schools, THEY aren't able, THEIR own good... The new target ain't the nigger, its the user.

Hypocrite.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 7:31 pm

KitemanSA wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
"Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form.

"Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world.

"You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it.

"Turn it whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent." -- Abraham Lincoln. Speech at Chicago, Illinois | July 10, 1858
Wow, you even hypersize the very part that you want to violate. You and your drug war are the very "king-craft" he warned against. They aren't able to think for themselves, its for their own good. You want to "indulge in, ratify, confirm and endorse all the slave-making BS. Teach it in schools, THEY aren't able, THEIR own good... The new target ain't the nigger, its the user.

Hypocrite.

You have a cognitive disconnect on this concept. It is YOUR belief that preventing people from loosing a scourge upon the rest of us is somehow the equivalent of depriving them of their freedom.

People have a right to burn firewood, but starting a forest fire is not an exercise of freedom. It is an exercise of Destructive indulgence to no good end.

Stop applying YOUR stupid philosophy to my perspective. I reject your false equivalence that spreading a pox equals "freedom."

You are not a slave because you can't play with drugs. You are just a whinny little child that has had it's hand slapped and want to talk potty mouth back at the adults who slapped it.

Grow up.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:24 pm

Diogenes wrote: Stop applying YOUR stupid philosophy to my perspective. I reject your false equivalence that spreading a pox equals "freedom." .

But all evidence demonstrates that YOUR brutality and jack-booted thuggary is what spreads the pox. You are supporting the current equivalent to China's "British importers" but today they are called the Cartel.

Your process gets people killed in drive-by shootings. Your process gets kids introduced to drugs almost as freeely as water. Your laws create a pusher in every school yard.

Wise up.

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:37 pm

KitemanSA wrote:Your laws create a pusher in every school yard.

Wise up.

That's ridiculous. Just as there are drug dealers in every schoolyard, there are kids getting legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco for their classmates. You need to take your head out of the sand and recognize that people of all ages want to get high, and very often they have no common sense about how to do it. There always has been and ever will be a demand for drugs to get high. Decriminalizing it will not change this and we KNOW from experience, that making drugs available opens the flood gates for their abuse.

There's really no getting around the fact that most people here in the US have never used illegal drugs, but most certainly would have used the same drugs if they were legal. People who use illegal drugs often forget, they are still in vast minority. That's not true of people who drink alcohol. Prohibition does work, at least when there are reasonable measures in place for people to meet their need to get high. It's BECAUSE alcohol is legal, that most people don't smoke pot.

You criminals out there, who use drugs illegally, you need to get it straight--you are responsible for the 58k drug related murders in Mexico alone the last ten years, you are responsible for supporting organized crime and you are the vast minority, the rest of us want purged from our culture.

ladajo · Post by **ladajo** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 8:41 pm

But all evidence demonstrates that YOUR brutality and jack-booted thuggary is what spreads the pox. You are supporting the current equivalent to China's "British importers" but today they are called the Cartel.

Your process gets people killed in drive-by shootings. Your process gets kids introduced to drugs almost as freeely as water. Your laws create a pusher in every school yard.

Kite, that is borderline hysterical.

What would you have? Complete deregulation ala MSimon? Would you have it that all drugs are completely uncontrolled?

If not, then I would say to you that ANY control, be it 'license', age access, whatever, WILL breed folks that want to beat the controls. There will always be 'crime' where there is 'control', no matter how limited or friendly you think it may be.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 4:22 am

There are no "perfect" systems. Utopia is not an option. Shangrila is more Shagriladida. The best system is that one that does the least harm.

I go with Jefferson on this, "That government is best which governs least."

A century or so ago it was legal for kids to go into any corner chemist/drug store/ whatever they were called at the time and buy morphine. No laws prevented it, but the community sure had something to say about it.

You CANNOT keep kids from trying stuff. All you can do is minimize the attraction and the social damage as best you can. Creating cartels that maximize drug flow and social damage is NOT the way to do it.

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 5:51 am

Well Kite, as always, I have to agree with the libertarian position, right up until reality intrudes. Libertarianism makes perfect sense and more than perfect rhetoric, until one has to look at the realities of life on Earth.

Anyone, with any spec of common sense knows that things like Opium should never be available to the masses. Given this obvious fact of life, the Libertarians need to grapple with the fact that there does indeed need to be restraint made by legal authority concerning human behavior.

Where to draw the line is the question. Pretending there should be no line, is the dictate of ideological insanity.

Betruger · Post by **Betruger** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:03 pm

This argument misses the problem at the root of the whole issue. This problem is a cultural problem. Not a political one. Hence why a governmentaly minimalistic approach, like libertarianism, "smells" very right. Smells, meaning gut feeling as means of judging/assessing, because just like with guns (American vs European policies and practical realities), no two nations will yield exactly the same practical results -- you can't (seriously) just say that Europe would turn out the same as the USA if the EU adopted American gun laws overnight.

I personally don't expect libertarian drug rules would play out arguably near the better side of 50% good, IE well enough, the way self-professed Libertarians usually argue. The problem and solution though, is accurately prognosticated by Libertarian POV: the root of these problems isn't paired to a GOVT solution. Just like if you wanna have peace, you just have peace (as Buddhist profs'll tell ya) rather than complicate things and make war to find peace, the problem to drugs and the rest of problems usually addressed by Govt, drugs'll be easily legalizable if people simply were informed and wise, IE naturally disciplined.

And at this point you have govt lovers like Diogenes & co point out that that's pie in the sky and, the salient difference between them and mere pragmatists like e.g. Ladajo, that "Govt is the solution" IE people must be MADE to act correctly. Which is a good way to wrap up the argument -- if that were true, if Man was so incapable of wising up, we'd still be in caves etc. Govt ain't "the" way forward from today.

The only small but critical bit I'd add is that the future will IMHO only get more divergent. Gene therapy etc will only get more and more cheap and easy. Today you've got hair dye as mundane but the body mod scene is still fringe, while almost near-future stuff like chips in people's skulls is freaky to most. But the majority of those arbitrary taboos'll dissolve with future generations and sooner or later people will do stuff that's totally nuts by today's "standards". Stuff that's not just crazy by x-dimensional measures of today, but crazy right off the bat cause there won't be only x dimensions to play with anymore.

Talk-Polywell.org

Somebody Is Paying The Medical Bill

Re: and one of your graphs is titled with a lie