http://www.examiner.com/article/drug-bath-salts-may-be-banned-light-of-recent-zombie-attacks
According to pure libertarian thought, anyone taking bath salts should be allowed to do so since they're not infringing on anyone else's rights.
Thoughts?
I think you pretty much covered it.
But, what if it causes a person to be dangerous?
What if foreign policy of US makes some people dangerous to life and/or property of others? Anarcho-capitalism is just relatively better (loosely speaking) than statism not a perfect nirvana.
I don't understand. How many persons are murdered each year using kitchen knives? Yet nobody dreams of banning kitchen knives. A few weeks ago a local farmer was murdered using garden implements (of course the perpetrators remain unknown). Yet nobody is proposing a ban on hatchets, chainsaws, secateurs etc. I can walk into any shop and buy both. If I have the money to pay, no questions are asked.
But of course this is part of the neverending "War on Drugs", so leave your rationality out of the door please. Each and every drug appearing on the market is immediately advertised as the most dangerous chemical in the history of mankind. Reefer Madness is still with us. As it has been explained time and time again, the economics of prohibition are to blame. People want drugs to get high. It has always been that way. Of course they cannot buy marijuana or cocaine from a reputable supplier, so they turn to the black market. Black market doesn't care that much about offering quality products. It cannot afford to do so. The black market motto is "This is what's available right now. Either buy it or beat it. You won't find anything else". So people buy low quality products: these can be heavily laced hashish, bazuko (a form of cheap cocaine popular in South America) or bath salts. Do people really want to have their brains scrambled by such junk? Of course not. But they want to get high, and they have no alternatives to low quality products with tons of side effects.
Buzz Killington:But, what if it causes a person to be dangerous?
Assuming by "dangerous" you mean "uses or threatens to use aggressive force", then such (threatened) use of aggressive force is already opposed by libertarians. The circumstances that bring it about are irrelevant. That said, I think the aggressor should be pacified with the minimum amount of defensive force necessary.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Simply having knives doesn't impair your mental functioning and make you a threat to other people.
Ah, so what if the ban reduces these kinds of cases? From a utilitarian perspective this seems to make sense.
I'm not a utilitarian.
i think you're missing the whole point, had we never made drugs illegal in the first place they wouldn't have designed this drug..... you can blame this whole incident on the war on drugs, of course, people will just go like "see!, we need to ban all drugs to keep us safe!.... " and bam this drug becomes illegal, making it more attractive, usage goes up, more crazy people, more designer drugs are made......
i love to flip this example when people like you try to blame freedom
weedface:i think you're missing the whole point, had we never made drugs illegal in the first place they wouldn't have designed this drug..... you can blame this whole incident on the war on drugs, of course, people will just go like "see!, we need to ban all drugs to keep us safe!.... " and bam this drug becomes illegal, making it more attractive, usage goes up, more crazy people, more designer drugs are made...... i love to flip this example when people like you try to blame freedom
I'm all for legalizing drugs, just not the ones that make you go insane to the point where you start attacking people at random and chewing on their faces.
making drugs illegal only drives usage up, just being illegal plays a big part in people even doing the drugs...
why don't most people huff paint and common household cleaning items if they can get high off them?
Buzz Killington:I'm all for legalizing drugs, just not the ones that make you go insane to the point where you start attacking people at random and chewing on their faces.
Some people apparently don't need drugs to do things like that. Maybe being human is inherently dangerous, so we should ban it!
What about substitutes? If I intend to be aggressive and you ban hammers I'll just bash your head in with the bust of Bach on the mantle (or a toaster, or the ceramic dog dish, or a bowling trophy, etc...).
Preventing me and any other willing person from engaging in trade or attempting to criminalize ownership of anything by using laws based on what might be is as reasonable as using the prophecies of Nostradamus to pre-write history books for as yet unborn generations.
A person should have a choice whether or not to use the drug. And that person should also be held accountable for the results of that choice, including any ugly side effects. With freedom comes responsibility. So, if you ask this libertarian I'd say to keep the drugs legal. If someone takes the drugs and acts violently -- infringing the rights of another -- then that violence should be dealt with by force of law. The law should not prevent you from putting anything in your body that you want. But when you start hurting the body of another person (ie. eating their face), then do not be surprised if you get shot multiple times.
Alcohol, THC and/or prescription medication keeps most people high enough, I think.
Proof?
This seems to be a contradiction. First, you say you are for legalizing all drugs, then you put a condition on it. You want to ban bath salts? Something that is not a drug at all, but something to help your skin when you bath? What about mushrooms? and PCP? and LCD? Some people recreationally take those and are fine, others go crazy...where is your limit if not your own prejudice?
Your name is fitting you freedom loving party animal.
Buzz Killington:Simply having knives doesn't impair your mental functioning and make you a threat to other people.
But alcohol does. Where's your picket sign to bring back Prohibition?
Autolykos: Buzz Killington:I'm all for legalizing drugs, just not the ones that make you go insane to the point where you start attacking people at random and chewing on their faces. Some people apparently don't need drugs to do things like that. Maybe being human is inherently dangerous, so we should ban it!
If I had a cake and ate it, it can be concluded that I do not have it anymore. HHH
Frankly I don't know much about these drugs but if they frequently lead to this sort of behavior then I see no reason not to ban them.
"if they frequently lead to this sort of behavior then I see no reason not to ban them."
What do you mean by frequently? How often does a user have to attack someone for you to consider it too frequently? Is there any data that shows what percentage of users become violent? You can count on the the media to overhype the danger, so what would you even base your opinion of "too frequent" on?
If you did have the data, what would the percentage have to be for you to support outlawing bath salts? Let's say 1 out of 200 people become violent, is that enough? 1 out of 50? I am curious here because I don't see where the magic line is drawn where bath salts should be illegal but alcohol or even caffeine should not.
utils:I would like to hear a real response on this issue instead of talking points.
You don't think this, for example, constitutes a real response on this issue? Then I'm at a loss to understand what you mean by that term.
Wesker1982: What do you mean by frequently? How often does a user have to attack someone for you to consider it too frequently?
It's an arbitrary line. But recreational use of drugs like these absolutely disgusts me anyways so I'm pretty biased. I'll leave it up to the lawyers to figure out how to define "frequently."
Wesker1982: Is there any data that shows what percentage of users become violent?
I don't know. I'd be interested to see it.
Wesker1982: You can count on the the media to overhype the danger, so what would you even base your opinion of "too frequent" on?
Maybe in this case they've not overhyped the danger at all. I base my opinion on what I always base my opinions on: the information available to me at the time. People are saying these drugs are dangerous, that they lead to violent behavior, there have been a couple cases already where people have really hurt people while under the influence of these drugs. Good enough for me.
Wesker1982: If you did have the data, what would the percentage have to be for you to support outlawing bath salts? Let's say 1 out of 200 people become violent, is that enough? 1 out of 50? I am curious here because I don't see where the magic line is drawn where bath salts should be illegal but alcohol or even caffeine should not.
1 in 10,000 would be more than sufficient for me. Maybe even 1 in 50,000. There is no consistent magic line. There's an infrequent arbitrary one that could change depending on any number of factors. What disturbs me in this case is the incredible violence apparently associated with this drug. That weighs heavily on my opinion.
I do support a ban on alcohol but there will never be the political will for it. Alcohol is so commonly used that it's part of the national culture. So is caffeine. "Bath salts" are not.
No one is going to defend the usage of bath salts, it looks like it will be easy enough to show that a bad trip leads to aggressive behavior, the public will almost certainly go along with it and the drug itself will most likely be banned and stay banned. That's my prediction anyways, we'll see what happens.
If new information is presented I might change my mind.
The problem with this 'bath salts' business is that 'bath salts' is a meaningless term. It has nothing to do with actual bath salts. It's a catch-all name for a wide variety of various synthetic chemicals.
The real issue here is that it's being marketed and sold dishonestly; the people buying it have no idea what they're actually consuming. And this is a result of prohibition. Banning 'bath salts' will just be an excuse to finally prohibit all kinds of synthetic drugs they've been itching to ban for years now.
All I know is that the media has done a fucking brilliant job of seamlessly equivocating 'bath salts' with 'drug with dark sorcerous powers that turns you into satanic zombie cannibal' in the public's mind. Nevermind the prior history of the said insane face eater. Nevermind any context whatsoever. Nope, bath salts sprang out of hell like a sinister alien invader and was the sole factor that made this nutcase dine on cartilage and bone. Now people are powerless to fight it without the power of obese cops to taser it out of existence and save us from ourselves. All one has to do is utter 'bath salts' and millions of people are paralyzed in terror.
I'm fairly certain plenty of people still believe all the claims in Reefer Madness
@Bloomj31
Are you a troll?
How do you go from this:
(in response to being asked if there is any data that shows what percentage of users become violent)
To this:
Are you honestly that dumb? I don't think it's even possible to be that dumb, which is why this is utterly frustrating.
The use of bathsalts will be highly unpopular due to the zombie story. If drugs were legalized how many people do you know that would automatically start using bathsalts and killing people?
If someone was crazy enough to use bathsalt then they dont give a fuck about trespassing the law.
Infact it will benefit those who make bathsalts to keep it illegal, since the illegalization raises prices while demand stays same.
Other drugs, taken at a large enough amount will make you crazy too, should we ban those as well?
<joke>
Marriage makes people crazy, should we ban marriage?
</joke>
Fast food is horribly dangerous against your body, must we make it illegal?
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
I tried to weed through all of the bs out there and came across two articles: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/155995/the_truth_behind_the_bath_salts_22epidemic22 http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/06/05/the-straight-dope-on-what-bath-salts-do-to-your-brain-and-why-theyre-dangerous/
" If drugs were legalized how many people do you know that would automatically start using bathsalts and killing people?"
Good point, and I would add that way less current users would use bath salts if safer drugs were easier to get. From what I understand, bath salts are relatively easy to make, a lot easier than meth it sounds like. Drugs illegal = more moonshine, meth, bathsalts, etc.
Chris Hansen interviewed some law maker and he was saying bath salts are hard to ban because you can make them many different ways. It is basically impossible to ban every combination of substances that could create bath salts.