"WASHINGTON -- Drug legalization is an "entirely legitimate topic for debate," President Barack Obama said Thursday during his online YouTube town hall, in response to a question from a former deputy sheriff who has turned sour on the drug war."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/obama-drug-legalization-debate_n_815074.html
How does this relate to punishment?
How does this relate to the ABCs of behavior?
How does this relate to what V Fox the ex Mexico president had to say about legalizing drugs?
(http://www.psychologicalscience.com/bmod/2011/01/mexicos-ex-president-vicente-fox-legalize-drugs.html)
What do you think would happen if we stopped punishing drug use?
In terms of punishment, the government is currently trying to reduce the use of illegal drugs using punishment. A majority of people incarcerated are done so because of a drug offense. This not only makes our jailhouses overpopulated but is also incredibly costly. So not only are the laws in place punishing the offender but also punishing the public.
While this is suppose to be scaring people and reducing any behavior involving drugs it does not seem to be working.
How does this work with the ABCs of behavior. That I am not quite sure. I guess it would depend at what part of the story you are looking at or how you preceive the information provided. I could say that a antecedent of many people voting for the president to answer this specific drug question, elicited that the president say it is worth debating(to satisfy his audience), and the consequence could be that people hold him to this and demand more attention be brought to the issue. Or we could say, that the need for drug law reform has the potential to elicit the proposal and passing of new laws and the consequence could be....many things....the reduction of drug incarcerations, or the ability to carry pot on one's person.
What do I think would happen if we stopped punishing drug use? Well, that depends. What is the target behavior? Are we stopping the punishment of smoking weed, or are we stopping the punishing of shooting heroine. Because the drug matters. Perhaps if we try and heal people by using schedules of reinforcements we will be more successful in reducing the use of illegal drugs.
I totally agree that the drug punishment happening is punishing the public. We spend so much of our money to support those people who are in bars, when instead we could be using the money towards education and books.
Well as of now the government is against the use of illegal drugs. So anyone who uses these drugs is being punished by being sentenced to jail or prison. This has lead to a massive over population of the prison system and a huge amount of illegal drug trafficking. Something has to change and I think the president is right about starting up talks about illegal drugs.
One way this could relate to the ABC's of behavior are..
A- Drugs are legalized.
B- People no longer have to worry about getting caught with them so they do them at peace.
C- Illegal Drug trafficking is gone, Gang violence subsides, possibly less deaths, easier for people to acquire drugs so they don't have to kill or steal to get them, it would also free up prison space which is greatly needed.
There are both positives and negatives with legalizing them and no one will truely know the outcome of legalizing drugs until it happens.
I personally think if we stopped punishing drug use, that this country would destroy itself. Drugs can completely take over a person and alter who they really are. So imagine if drugs are legal and everyone is doing them, what would happen to normal life? I think everything would just go to hell. It's impossible to live a normal life while on drugs so I refuse to believe making them legal would help the country.
People who use drugs are not concerned about their extrinsic value. To most users, the intrinsic value reinforced every time they use.
A-Drugs are available from a street dealer
B-Buy and take drugs
C-Relief of pain (physiological or psychological)
When someone wants to relieve pain, they will do just about anything to achieve that negative reinforcement. I think there needs to be some discussion on the benefits of legalizing drugs. There are many benefits of following V. Fox's idea.
1. The jobs lost in drug enforcement fields would be replaced with production, safety, inspection and distribution jobs.
2. Each substance could be controlled for purity, preventing unintentional overdoses (which cost about $2000 each time, a bill picked up by the state).
3. When we can produce drugs at cost and guarantee their purity, there is no need for street dealers, drug cartels, and smuggling operations.
4. The production would be put back into the hands of local people. Currently in Bolivia, it makes no sense for a farmer to grow coffee for a profit of $2 (legally) a bushel when they can grow cocaine for $12 (illegally).
5. The drug war is not one we can EVER win. Americans spent 99 billion dollars on cocaine and heroin in one year. The US War on drugs had a budget of 47 billion for the same year. It is a war in which we are facing an enemy with no budget limit, no laws to follow, and a quickly replaceable army.
Fighting a based on the extrinsic values of our nations is just dumb. I understand it is necessary at thing point in time, but we need to figure out how to more appropriately address the real issue: There is a need for alternatives to drugs for users that reinforces sobriety and mature coping.
All this info can be found in a book called Hooked by Lonny Shalveson. He debates the pros and cons in the treatment world of two philosophies: Zero tolerance vs. harm reduction.
I agree about the whole relieving pain idea. It's very true in many addictions and heartbreaking that people suffer with these troubles.
I guess the whole thing kind of confuses me. I understand how it would create jobs, and if people are going to smoke marijuana you might as well tax it to make the economy money, but how would you secure all the marijuana? People that grow it illegally now, will probably continue to do so. Therefore it would still be illegal. I am also confused on Obama's consensus. He is clearly against it but then why is it worthy of debate? If it would not help the economy but yet he still wants to consider it, its all very contradicting. If anyone is reading this and thinks they can explain it more, I would appreciate it. Thanks!!!
I think that one of the reasons that the growing/making/etc and sale of drugs would reduce has to do with convenience and quality. I mean, people still make their own alcohol. However, it's easier to buy it from a store, and is generally of much higher value because it's FDA regulated. We're all capable of growing our own tomatoes, but out of all the people who regularly eat tomatoes, not so many grow their own. It takes awhile, and the quality could be compromised if it's not done right. The same, i think, would apply to drugs. Home made heroin could have impurities in it, be of questionable quality/affectiveness/etc, but if it's FDA regulated then it'll probably come with some sort of content claim (like the % alcohol listed on bottles/cans) so people could take some of the guesswork out of "will this be a good trip?".
That's my take on it, at least. Hope it helps
I have a question about this topic as well. For previously-reinforced behaviors, there is an extinction burst when the reinforcement stops. Is there a similar type of reaction when a previously-punished behavior stops? If there are no longer aversive consequences for drug use, would there be a dramatic change in the behavior due to the cessation of the punishment? If that' the case, I would expect to see a sudden, exponential increase in drug use, purchase, and abuse before it settled down to a higher-than-current level and stayed as such. I guess one would have to be familiar with the behaviors and reinforcements tied to illegal drug use in a mental, physical, and social sense to be able to make an educated, accurate assessment of what would happen on the level of the individual?
I think that, if punishment for drug use ceases, there should still be some sort of reinforcement for not partaking in drugs. Just to avoid the possibility of a ridiculous surge of drug use that rises unchecked.
I believe that the ABCs associated to this article are;
A-legalization of drugs
B-purchase of drugs
C-people can relieve their pains and people don't have to worry about getting booked for purchasing drugs
I'm still very torn over this debate, I understand that legalizing drugs can create so many jobs and could possible reduce illegal activity due to legalization. However then again I don't feel that this will solve all problems. I just feel that this legalizing the drugs could cause more problems. So this is a topic and debate that I feel needs to be really thought about and talked about very thoroughly before a decision takes place.
I'm encouraged to hear the president taking the legalization issue seriously. Although I'm not sure how I feel about legalizing harder drugs, I see no problem with legalizing marijuana. Because pharmaceutical companies could produce it more efficiently, they could drive the mobs out of business.
Traditional forms of punishment for marijuana possession are clearly ineffective judging from the amount of offenders who are incarcerated (sometimes more than once) for this relatively minor offense. The increase in incarcerations in the past thirty years or so comes from the "law and order" politics of the 70s and 80s. Unfortunately the politicians of the time were more concerned with retribution than with learning, and so punishment in the form of incarceration has increasingly become the norm.
The antecedent for the president's change in opinion may be a desire to tap into a new voting block, or a sincere belief that this issue deserves to be discussed. The behavior is talking about the legalization issue, and time (and public opinion polls) will tell whether the consequences of the president's behavior will be reinforced.
While it's obvious that President Obama has not (yet?) come to the same conclusions as former President Fox, it's reassuring to a legalization advocate to hear that he is considering the issue more seriously.
Let's start with the legalization of marijuana first and foremost... The government has put a negative label on marijuana for a long time with their prohibition. They have spent billions of dollars to fight the "war on drugs", in this time of poor economic stablility across the nation the last thing we need to focus our time and money on is making sure people don't smoke pot. As for punishment... in the early 80's the incarceration rates sky rocketed with the crack down on drugs... As a country we can't afford to spend tax dollars on incarerating petty drug users. (the majority of the incarcerated were in possession of drugs, not drug dealers or trafficers.
There is so much money to be made off of marijuana, its the number one cash crop in our country... it's stupid to prohibit the use of this "drug" we need to take our heads out of our butts and get serious here... alcohol prohibition cost billions of dollars to fight and the government LOST the fight... I think its about time to give up on this fight as well! We live in a free country... let us make our own choices... legalizing marijuana will eliminate the criminal aspect, making it safer to purchase, safer to use, and the government will benefit greatly!!! If only I were president...
I encourage everyone to visit www.norml.com for more information on the fight to reform marijuana laws!!!
This relates to punishment in that the government is taking away some of your freedoms if you are caught with an illegal substance. I'm sure, for many first time offenders, the charges and possible jail time you receive is enough to decrease the likelihood of drug usage. But in the cases of heavy drug users, it's a tad more difficult than that. It's not just that they are using illegal substances, they are addicted to them.
A- legalization of drugs
B- legal purchasing of drugs
C- decrease in drug related violence and crime
This is quite similar to what Mexico said. So many people are killing each other, fighting for drugs, drug trafficking, etc in Mexico. All of these things also happen here in the US because of the possible difficulty to find the substance, addiction, and need for money.
I'm not sure what our economy would do if drugs became legalized. I think marijuana would be the easiest drug to legalize, but when it comes to meth, heroine, etc, I don't know how I would feel about that. I mean, I'm sure that the violence towards getting the drug would decrease because it would be available, but the thought of that being even more open to the public scares the shit out of me. There's also the fact that marijuana is a gateway drug. If this becomes legalized, it could potentially increase the chances of people wanting to experiment with harder drugs, if they have access. I'm very torn by the whole idea because I can see both sides of the argument. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.