Topic: VOTE Should the U.S. Legalize Opium to Smoke? (Read 1091 times)

Same old topic, and when I start to read what people wrote I start to laugh and cry in the same time. When we will see better days for all the people here on earth? Never!!! Because people are stupid! Legalization of natural herb, how the hell someone banned a plant?! How that happened? You put a seed in a ground and with little water, sun and air plant will grow, how can that be heavy drug and criminal act?
I never tried opium, but I would like to try it, opium has been used before Christ, and I like everything that comes from nature more then something that comes from people. Drugs do not exist, some people use that word to earn money on that, and to control others. In my opinion opium is not a drug, but go in any drug store and there you can find drugs, "doctors" made special mic for all of you ignorant people.

I do believe that everything that is here on earth, man made or not has a use. There is always an advantage and disadvantages of anything. Now back to the topic, for me, it is OK to legalize it but must be regulated and for medical use only.

Fair enough.

In my opinion, consumption of food, alcohol, drugs.etc is a personal choice. If someone above the legal age want to consume any of these items, then he must be allowed to do so. The state should stay out of individual liberty.

The U.S. should repeal most of its laws. It certainly should not make any laws one way or another about smoking opium.

Government should do the things that it was designed for:
1. Protect from foreign invasion;
2. Help the States put down any uprisings by the people;
3. Work with States on finding solutions to disagreements between States;
4. Tax national import/export;
5. Tax trade between the States (not Mom and Pop trade);
6. And leave the people and the States alone in everything else.

The States can handle everything local... in their State.

If you are against drugs then don't use them.

You that in Holland do not have enough legal drugs? You already have such a thing as legal drugs, why do you still opium. Your post confirms that it is not necessary to legalize any drugs. Let people marijuana they want opium, then LSD and so on to infinity. I'm against it.

So because alcohol is more dangerous than opium, we should allow opium too?

That means even more deaths... GG your logic

Please legalize it in the U.S.! If they are legalized in the U.S., it might also be legalized here in the Netherlands!

Alcohol is more habitually abused than opium by most people. It causes harm, I don't encourage it, but neither I nor anybody else has the right to tell somebody they can or can't consume this or that.

Opium was freely available in most places, including America, for a long time. Thomas Jefferson grew it and a lot of people, including him, consumed it. It didn't start destroying the country until it was made illegal and replaced with commercial substitutes.

Smoking in my opinion is better but that's just my opinion. The smoke of opium is extremely sweet and pleasant, almost everybody is attracted to the smell. However it is very bitter to eat, the taste is not sweet. Also smoking is seldom or never fatal by itself. A person smokes too much then they sleep. The difference with nodding off on heroin is that when you smoke you know exactly how strong it is quickly and are not going to overdose. Eating it obviously would be fatal if you took a lot, just as many food additives and household chemicals are lethal. Again, I don't support abusing anything, including a person's right to do as they like as long as they don't intrude on others.

I was really puzzled with the OP's views. Opium is way, way more addictive than marijuana. I don't buy the smoking than eating poppies is way healthier. The reason it became more of a problem in China than in any other place where opium was also available was exactly because they smoked it.

Anyone who would love for opium to be legal only need to look at what happened to China. It basically ruined the country in every possible way imaginable. The emperor himself is addicted but he saw what's happening to his country that he moved to ban it (I suppose he planned to exempt himself).

Well guess what happened... "Let's bomb them to free trade!"

Yes, it is very harmful for the body and it can not be legalized if we want to see our children and grandchildren healthy. Legalization will not lead to anything good.

I just read a well informed article on the effects of opium and i think it shouldn't be legalized, Prolong use of opium causes renal failure, as well as various lung disease and lung cancer as well. Its a very dangerous drug for anyone o consume.

I am against any drugs, because they have absolutely no benefit. It's just an illusion that they can be of some use.

I have to agree with your post. The drug ban is only helping the criminals, by allowing them to rake profits from contraband sales. If the drugs are legalized, then this underground business will stop and the government will be able to earn increased tax receipts.

Education about opium is difficult in the United States.

In the U.S. there are basically two kinds of opium according to the government.

1) Natural opium from the poppy. This is what Thomas Jefferson grew at his home, and the plants still grew there up until 30 years ago when some nutheads in a dark bureaucracy threatened them. What were they going to do? Arrest Thomas Jefferson?

http://www.alternet.org/story/145872/how_the_dea_scrubbed_thomas_jefferson%27s_monticello_poppy_garden_from_public_memory

This opium is considered dangerous and is illegal. It is usually smoked, and is addictive but causes very few, if any, fatalities amongst smokers. It grows easily, is cheap, and does not lead to criminal behavior unless its users are criminalized.

2) Pharmaceutical and synthetic opiates. This is legal in the United States, a multi billion dollar a year business. These must be obtained from doctors http://www.nydailynews.com/newswires/new-york/manhattan-doctor-arrested-oxycodone-prescription-case-article-1.3223474 or bought at very high prices on the street, resulting in a lot of crime from addicts stealing to get money. Also the number one cause of death in people under age 50.

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Despite vast amounts of evidence that jail does not cure addiction, it is still the cure of choice in the U.S.

Jailing addicts discourages people from looking for common sense treatments, but it does sustain the number one public housing project in the United States, private prisons, as somebody said in a previous post.

All drugs should be legalized.

It's obvious that controlling recreational drugs does not lead to less people dying - just look at the opioid overdose epidemic in the USA right now. If you make drugs illegal then a black market will prop up around it and more people will end up dying due to impure and unregulated product. eg. heroin cut with fentanyl.

Countries should at least adopt a decriminalising system as Portugal has done, by decriminalising drugs you treat drug addiction as a health issue rather than a legal issue, helping addicts of drugs like opiates and methamphetamine, rather than throwing them in jail.

Not to mention, in the USA especially, the fact that drug users are put in jail fuels the private prison system. It is easy to see that the whole social movement of drug use has been turned into a business, with private prison companies profiteering from the unfortunate circumstances of many individuals.

At least the USA is leading the cause for marijuana legalisation...

That's right the world is full of drug addicts. So why should criminals make all the money off them and not us instead? Taxed and regulated is what we need for all narcotics. If someone wants to get high then by all means go ahead, but we should be collecting the taxes and fees that go along with the entire industry.

1) What rigged poll? Are you electing somebody? Ask the kgb for help. You have unlimited space to expound. I am not junkie, wannabe nor dealer. In the last 30 years I have probably smoked marijuana less than 10 times, been drunk less than 10 times and used any other substance aside from tobacco less than 5 times. This poll is much freer than the consumer market for pain relief medicine. I will not jail you for disagreeing, nor use any force to push my opinion, nor have goons do it.

2) Opium is not 'heavily toxic'. It is a very mellow 'drug', as long as you don't overdo it. Farmed red meat is toxic. Racing automobiles just to burn gas is toxic. Why do so many people need to make health choices for strangers? How about you eat and smoke what you want and let others do the same?

3) http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/05/china-opium-wars-battling-addiction-beijing-160516141819379.html


It's very nice to have theoretical ideas of everything but something either works or it doesn't. If you want to build perpetual motion machines, or cure cancer with almond pits or solve addiction by beating it out of people, treat yourself and let others be.

Dtto, the OP is an obvious junkie. So obvious in fact, that in progation of his agenda he basically forfeited in semblance of disscussion on the subject. When you cant say "no", then you dont have any choice at all.


1. If you are neither junkie nor wanna be dealer, than why did you post rigged polls?

2. Why do you relativize effects of heavily toxic (yes toxic) drugs in relations to everything else? Should kids just decide for themselves, if they want AK-47 for X-mas? Or a truck for that matter. It is liberty like any other afterall.

3. Good example with China. Do you know why Opium was banned China? For years private subjects saturated pre-communist China with drugs, devastating local population morally, economically and health wise. They did it on purpose too, to weaken the country from within. When the government finally reacted to this criminally evil plot where drugs were the tools - China was invaded by would be colonizers. You are defending evil agenda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

Fake opioids made by drug companies for profit are now the number 1 cause of death in the U.S. in people under 50.

Smoking opium is non fatal and most people will use it like alcohol, occasionally.

Swallowing bits of opium can be fatal, but most people will smoke bit not eat it. The smoke of opium is very sweet and pleasant but eating it is not pleasant, it is extremely bitter. I tried to give a fatally injured dog some opium once and it would not eat it, but the smoke is appealing to all creatures.

I personally, like most people, do not support addiction nor using drugs recreationally, but I was a kid once and do know the appeal it has. Most kids try a lot of stuff, mountain biking, surfing, soldiering, swimming, eating red meat, driving fast on lone roads, etc. All of those things can be fatal and may kill some people if things don't work out well. A person should be limited from imposing death on others, but when a person tests it him or herself they learn or burn, and that is good for the species. You can argue that red meat causes arteriosclerosis that raises health care costs, or swimming causes having to hire lifeguards to patrol beaches, but should the purpose of things be to learn or to maximize profits for companies? Should liberties be given to people, and the price paid by those people, or should it all be given to corporate entities like government?

China banned opium, they have banned a lot of things. So has the U.S. Look at the people on this bulletin noard, a crypto board. Some people you won't see for a lit of reasons, from Alan Turing to Aaron Swartz, because the government did not want to let them exist harmlessly and figure out for themselves what is right and wrong.