Clarino

I think it's important to point out the difference between drinking socially/responsibly and taking drugs recreationally. When one takes drugs one does so for the feeling that the drugs give you, the "high" if you will. When I drink I am not drinking to enjoy the sensation of the alcohol intoxication (and I certainly never drink with the goal of getting drunk[well, hardly ever]), I am drinking because I enjoy the taste of that particular drink. If I could get the same flavour from non-alcoholic beer/wine/whiskey, I would never consume alcohol.

Say what you like about weed, no-one I ever met smokes it because they like the taste of the smoke.

I think 40cal hit the nail on the head here, there simply aren't enough guys like you Dave who would use the drugs only when you need them. Therefore they need to be controlled to reduce the number of irresponsible people that get their hands on them and ruin their own or other's lives.

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"...you have the perfect C Major chord, with blazing trumpets and inaudible strings." - Daniel Barenboim.

40cal

When you think of some laws, think lowest common denominator. Let me tell you, the lowest common denominator when dealing w/the people in general can be VERY low.

A vast majority of people are responsible, and would not have problems with having something like Lortab available over the counter. The small minority of people f'it up for everyone else.

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“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day so that my child may have peace.”

Thomas Paine 1737-1809

“That’s all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd

Skip

Besides the fact that has already been mentioned that narcotics can be & are abused, just imagine if all drugs were OTC:

People walk into their local pharmacy with an ache, pain, cough, sneeze, vomiting, diarrhea, difficulty breathing, etc., etc., etc. sign or symptom, and with their self diagnosis, proceed to pick up drug A that is for an atrial heart problem, when in reality they have a ventricular heart problem, or no heart problem at all. Well, they get worse or die as a result of the wrong medicine for the wrong problem. Who's at fault?

You say, well, I'll go to the Dr. to find out what's wrong, he writes the script, & I pick it up OTC. Sounds good, but first of all, not everyone will do that, not all are honest, people will still continue to self diagnose (they already do, it's just that the most potentially harmful drugs aren't OTC),second, what about kids stealing them & taking or doing whatever with them, etc. Can you imagine someone with cancer trying to pick up the right chemo drug or combination and using/administering them appropriately, monitoring & dealing with the side effects. Or someone trying to regulate themselves with diabetes, Addison's disease, Cushings, seizures, etc. It won't work.

There is a reason these drugs are controlled medically.

But true, that the drug companies have us by the short ones, true that a lot of money is spent by them for research & developement on new & better drugs, yet true that they are making a profit, often times huge. The larger & fewer that they become (buying up smaller companies, becoming larger conglomerates) the greater the potential for greed & corruption to skyrocket. Greed & corruption is not limited to pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, politicians, or any other faction of society, but the larger they become, the greater the chance for greed & coruption to become more pervasive. The drug companies were more altruistic & less greedy (still making a profit) when there were more of them & they were smaller. As the monopoly continues, so will the cost of drugs, unless society as a whole steps up & insists on more humanity.

Liad Bar-EL

"Let me tell you, the lowest common denominator when dealing w/the people in general can be VERY low."

It is hoped and prayed that this "VERY low"……"lowest common denominator when dealing w/the people in general" will cease to exist. I believe that one day it will and still have hope even today regardless of all the low denominators in the world.

Liad Bar-EL

cornetguy

It is the case here in Minnesota. They broke up a $hitload of meth-labs here in the past year, so the thinking was to cut off the supply. It is a pain in the a$$ for those of us with allergies that just want the psudephed sinus, and I don't think realistically it does a damn thing for reducing the meth trade. Maybe one of our law-enforcement friends can tell us if it has done anything positive or negative in that direction.

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Per aspera ad astra

bandman

I never knew that Meth could be made from cold medication, of course I really don't know what Meth is.

I understand what you guys are saying. I've been to the doctor so much that 99% of the time I can tell you what will be prescribed before he prescribes it. I'm just tired of having to pay a $30 co-pay to get a $4 prescription.

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tpter1

Crystal Meth is an amphetamine made from various ingredients, some of which are in OTC allergy medications. It is a highly dangerous procedure to make, from what I understand. Which makes meth labs a real hazard to the neighborhoods they are in.

You can only buy certain allergy meds in limited quantity, and in some states it is only available from behind the counter so you have to ask for it.

__________________
-Glenn
"Roses have thorns; shining waters mud. Clouds and eclipses stain the moon and the sun; and history reeks of the wrongs we have done. After today, after today, consider me gone."- Sting

40cal

Meth is a HUGE problem. You can search the internet and find directions on how to make it. It can be made w/items that are relatively easy to get.

The big tipoff, if you get stopped and have 8 garbage bags full of empty boxes of Sudafed, you are probably making meth, as the cooks need the ephedrine, or psuedoephedrine to make the stuff.

Another problem is a lot of the labs here in the states, at least in the more populated areas are mobile labs. They will fit in to the trunk of a car. Some of the items they carry can be extremely toxic, acid, anhydrous ammonia etc... Think that hotel room you are staying in is safe? A lot of the meth coming in to the country is from Mexico right now. They have "super labs" down there pumping the stuff out like it is going out of style. They smuggle the stuff in vehicles, on people etc...

I know someone mentioned Ecstasy. Methalyndioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) or MDA (switch the meth, w/amphetamine). (pls excuse my spelling) LOTS of that stuff coming in to the country. Last I heard they can produce a dose for 5 bucks. The stuff sells anywhere from 20-40 bucks a pop depending on where you are in the country. Last Feb I stopped a Dodge Durango, they had 30,000 doses in the vehicle. Those guys pled guilty to trafficking in federal court, the DEA said they expected them to get a whopping 12 yrs in the pokey.

Meth has an effect on everyone, whether you like it or not. I can't tell you how many tweakers we find breaking in to houses, running from the cops, commiting robberies, fraud, forgery, assault, murder, rape etc.... to fuel their meth addiction. If it were legal and cheap, would it reduce crime? Maybe for a small period of time. Until they could not even afford the cheap stuff. Not to mention while on the juice, they do weird (by normal people's standards) stuff.

If everyone were responsible we would not need the police or laws. Unfortunately the few screw it up for the many. A majority of the crimes being commited are being commited by a minority of the people.

Bandman, if everyone were as responsible as you are, there would be no problems. Yeah, sometimes it sucks, but we have our fellow man to thank for that.

__________________


“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day so that my child may have peace.”

Thomas Paine 1737-1809

“That’s all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd

B15M

I guess the thinking is that anything that alters the mind should be illegal.

This stuff was invented because people wanted coke and couldn't afford it. If coke were legal and accessible at a reasonable cost meth wouldn't exist. A large part of the problem goes back to freedom. Have you ever heard, "As soon as it was against the law more people did it"

We could tax the drugs and balance the budget. We could empty the jails. Why do I have to pay because some looser wants to do drugs and has to be locked up?

There has to be some kind of connection between the people that make the laws and the drug money. If they made it legal, would the law makers would loose their money?

I know some one is going to ask:
I don't do drugs and I don't condone their use. I just want to face reality.

40cal

Well why not then make murder, rape, robbery, burglary, assault, fraud etc... legal? The reason you want (or you should want) your tax dollars to keep some of these clowns in jail is so they are not commiting the above listed crimes against you, your family, your friends or the rest of society for that matter.

__________________


“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day so that my child may have peace.”

Thomas Paine 1737-1809

“That’s all the bullets we had, or we would have shot him more,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd