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From: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,net.med
Subject: Re: Drug Abuse - True Problem or Media Hype?
Message-ID: <470@epimass.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Sep-86 15:06:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: epimass.470
Posted: Wed Sep 17 15:06:24 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Sep-86 23:48:19 EDT
References: <720@scc.UUCP> <20756@rochester.ARPA> <463@epimass.UUCP> <1302@trwrb.UUCP>
Reply-To: jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck)
Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 39
Xref: linus talk.politics.misc:220 net.med:4622

In article <1302@trwrb.UUCP> suhre@trwrb.UUCP (Maurice E. Suhre) writes:
>In article <463@epimass.UUCP> jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) writes:
>>You're right, Ray.  A fairer comparison would be to legal, but
>>harmful, drugs like tobacco (350,000 deaths a year) and alcohol
>>(25,000 deaths in drunk driving wrecks alone).  Can you explain
>>to me why cocaine use is worse for society than alcohol and tobacco
>>use?
>	I don't have to.  The principle is, if you have two problems
>	on your hands, should you acquire a third one if you don't
>	have to?

We already have the "third problem".  Millions use illegal drugs.
Why are we prepared to trample the Constitution in our hysteria
about it?

>	But for starters, I don't think that tobacco users have
>	to steal to support their "habit".  Similar for alcohol
>	users.

That's because tobacco and alcohol are legal.  Pharmaceutical (sp?)
cocaine is around a dollar a gram.  The high price is entirely due to
the illegality.  

Also, how many deaths are due to impurities or because the user is
getting a much stronger concentration than s/he is used to?  Answer:
almost all of them, in the case of heroin.  I have no idea for
cocaine.

Another point: when I was 14, no liquor store would sell me beer.
Yet anyone would sell me marijuana.  To get drugs away from children,
legalize and regulate them.  Making the penalties for selling
cigarettes to minors as severe as those for selling alcohol to minors
would help also (i.e. store loses license to sell tobacco).



-- 
- Joe Buck 	{hplabs,fortune}!oliveb!epimass!jbuck, nsc!csi!epimass!jbuck
  Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, California