What Do You Think of the Legal Status of Alcohol and Tobacco?
Question by Jefferson: What do you think of the legal status of alcohol and tobacco?
If you don’t know, the DEA regulates substances by placing them into “schedules” based upon various attributes of a certain substance. Schedule I is the most restrictive Schedule and includes things like LSD and MDMA (ecstasy). Schedule I substances must:
-Have a high potential for abuse
-No currently accepted medical use for treatment in the United States
-Have a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms regulates alcohol and tobacco sales rather than the DEA, but according to the Controlled Substance Act, don’t alcohol and tobacco meet the requirements for a Schedule I substance? Alcohol and tobacco both have high potential for abuse, neither of them are used medically in the treatment of any illness, and there are no accepted safety standards. That brings me to marijuana. I myself don’t like marijuana. Makes me feel gross. However, there are accepted medical uses for marijuana. Many states allow it to be used medically. It may have a high potential for abuse, but so does methamphetamine, which is available by prescription as Desoxyn for the treatment of obesity and ADHD and is Scheduled II (high potential for abuse, but accepted medical use and proven standards of safety under medical supervision).
Alcohol and tobacco meet all the requirements for Schedule I substances, and could reasonably be made completely illegal to buy, sell, produce, or possess, yet our government uses a system of controlled distribution for those substances. Why should marijuana not be distributed in the same controlled manner, when it is proven to be less harmful (people drink too much and die of simple alcohol toxicity. Nobody dies from a marijuana overdose)?
This brings me to MDMA, or as it is called on the recreational market, Ecstasy. This is another Schedule I substance. There are currently FDA approved clinical trials testing the efficacy of MDMA as an adjunct to psychotherapy to assist in the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder among other things. So far, the results have proven very promising. MDMA has several self limiting factors that prevent addiction. Frequent use leads to reduced effects, and increasing the dosage does not negate this effect, unlike alcohol. Deaths from simple MDMA toxicity are rare. Ecstasy deaths are usually the result of irresponsible use, or users who consume a tablet sold as ecstasy but actually containing another substance altogether. MDMA is Schedule I, but does not meet the criteria for such scheduling. It is showing to have medical value and is proven to be safe under medical supervision.
What are your thoughts on current drug policy? Do you feel that we are winning the war on drugs, or do you feel our current policy is doing more harm than good? If alcohol and tobacco are distributed under a controlled system, should other drugs be available in the same way? I am not an advocate for complete legalization of all drugs, but I don’t think the current no tolerance policies are working, especially if we allow alcohol and tobacco to be available, as that sends a mixed message. What do you guys think? Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating the legalization of all drugs, I am just curious as to what other people think about the state of drug control in our country, which is clearly not working.
Best answer:
Answer by Violet
I don’t know much about drug policies, but everything you said sounds very logical.
Answer by GW Campbell
your are right they should ban ALL drugs ,not long ago it appear on the news that a mother had an car accident that killed her children while she was intoxicated with marijuana and alcohol.