I would like to hear a real response on this issue instead of talking points.
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.
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.
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.”
I don’t know. I’d be interested to see it.
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.
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
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?
Marriage makes people crazy, should we ban marriage?
Fast food is horribly dangerous against your body, must we make it illegal?
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
" 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.