Has America changed that much?

[Deleted]

I was reading an article in a local U.S. newspaper and came across this sentence about a legal issue:

District Attorney Tony Lawrence was granted a temporary order Friday that allowed local, state and federal authorities to temporarily shut down a convenience store, where personnel were allegedly selling crack cocaine and marijuana over the counter to customers.

Back when I lived in the United States, those items were sold under the counter only. New FDA rules, I suppose...

[traveler63]

K2:

No, America hasn't changed that much. It's still illegal!!!!

[bixaorellana]

Well, it was a convenience store, and all that under-the-counter business is soooo inconvenient.

[distantshores]

America is being eaten alive by the drug problem. Between the Mexican Mafia bringing drugs in here by the truckloads, meth usage is growing at an alarming rate! In 1964 there were 246 meth raids in the US. Ten years later, 1974, raids totaled was over 17,000. Who knows how many police raids there are anymore. Imagine what it does to our healthcare system costs when someone has an overdose and it taken to the emergency room and then into intensive care! Meth reduces the bodies ability to make saliva which destroys much of the bacteria in the mouth. Sadly the teeth literally rot away in short order and causes what they call meth mouth. How sad!

[imec]

ds, what you have described is a public health problem. America (and Canada) doesn't get it - you don't wage war on people to solve their public health problems. The 40 odd year exercise in futility HAS to end.

[ninchursanga]

What imec said. Drug addicts should not be treated as criminals but as ill people cause drug addiction is an illness. Counties like the Netherlands and Switzerland where the policiy is less restrictive are much more successfull in treating their drug addicts.

I moved to Reno, NV three months ago and apparantley they have quite a meth problem there amongst teenagers and young adults. Now that doesn't surprise me cause there is nothing to do for youngsters of that age group.

[lagatta]

I guess that is what a young woman down the street has. I knew she was quite a druggie - bizarrely, her parents seem to be enablers, but I can't know the whole story, and want to stay as far as possible away from it. Once she was begging and all her teeth were utterly rotten - this young woman is not much more than 20, if that. Sadly, she has a small child.

I agree that the war on drugs and criminalisation are not effective at all, moreover they abet organised crime. Though it is certainly not because use of such destructive drugs is something I'd want to encourage.

I feel very different about marijuana. While I haven't smoked it in perhaps 15 or 20 years (and was never a heavy or regular user even in my hippie days), I see no reason for any more restrictions on it than on beer or wine.

[bixaorellana]

I want someone to convince me that the governments -- local, state, provincial, national -- of the US and Canada are not somehow involved in the importation of drugs into those two countries. That's a massive amount of product to be making it across two countries' boundaries without some kind of winking by law control. Criminal activity on that scale could not exist without inside help.

As far as drug addicts being treated as criminals. Yes, the ones that steal to support their habits will be arrested and treated as criminals.

[imec]

Jun 14, 2009 15:23:21 GMT bixaorellana said:

the ones that steal to support their habits will be arrested and treated as criminals.

I have no problem with a war on theft. Unfortunately, the war on drugs creates a situation that encourages it.