I like your post, except for your use of the term "users". Addicts are abusers.

Arguably the biggest lie to sustain the WoD is the equation of drug use and drug abuse, interchanging the words "use" and "abuse", and "users" and "abusers" to meet one's propaganda.

The clear distinction between use and abuse is critical towards properly ending the WoD, because abusive behavior is what's causing the harm (justifying the WoD in the minds of the voting majority).

Drug abuse (including legal substances like alcohol and tobacco), as we know, is a real problem that society needs to address.

If we want to end the WoD, we should be doing all we can to improve the current system of abuse prevention and treatment, as such a system is critical towards supporting full legalization.

It's time to stop muddying the waters between use and abuse.

Once you have crossed the threshold into harm, you abuse, not use.

Please spread the word.

I don't completely understand the semantics used to determine how abuse and use differ. Is a person who uses a designated driver to get home after drinking enough to become inebriated, and abuser or a user? The differentiation of the two seems to not be so black and white. Right now, if it is"illegal" use of controlled drugs, it is abuse. If obtained with a prescription, it is use.

If we are talking alcohol, then when does one determine what is abuse. It is obviously the most abused drug in the country! But, still perfectly legal, as long as you do not do anything else, that is. (like driving drunk, violent behavior against others, etc.) That is why the drugs need to be stressed less, and the disease of addiction, more. An addict, no matter whether alcohol or drugs, has a problem that needs addressed, medically. I feel drunk driving can be a violent act, so the imprisonment of those people makes more sense that non-violent drug users.

I’ve always had problems employing the word “abuse” when discussing drugs. For one, it sounds as if someone has taken a big stick and is using it to whack a chemical. For another, the term replaces the word “misuse”, a term that assumes a priori that there is a proper and improper way to use a drug.

“Misuse” is not used by drug warriors to describe marijuana use, because the drug warriors claim marijuana has no legitimate use from the outset, which they place on Schedule I of the controlled substances index. Employing “abuse” within the context of illegal drugs seems to connote a shortened form of the phrase “aberrant use”. Marijuana smokers do not normally consider their use of the drug to be aberrant, whereas prohibitionists do.

There are logical difficulties involving the use of “abuse”. For example, at what point does marijuana use become aberrant? What about people who chip heroin on weekends? Does use become abuse only when heroin users become addicted as a result of overuse? If a guy takes Viagra and doesn’t have sex, is that drug abuse?

Ultimately, abuse is the word of choice among drug warriors to describe any and all imbibing of any illicit drug or improper use of a prescription drug. The term excludes the possibility of legitimate or benign use of an illicit substance, and forces people to think along a narrower path, which is precisely what the drug warriors hope for. I find the simple word “use” to be sufficient when discussing drug issues in any context; it precludes the attendant logical difficulties that accrue from “abuse”.

Giordano

What I would like to know is, when did it become the obligation of the government OR society to protect me from myself? Use or abuse, recreation, medication or addiction, the use of drugs is a personal choice, which every adult SHOULD be free to make. Legislators DO have an obligation to regulate and control the quality and purity of the drugs we use; by refusing to do so, they KNOWINGLY endanger the lives of millions of Americans. By arming police with weapons of war, and turning a blind eye to the extremely violent nature of drug raids, they endanger millions more.

I believe that something is abused once harm is done as a result.

In the Controlled Substances Act, a Schedule I substance is defined by three properties, two of them medical in nature. The remaining one is "has a high potential for abuse". The recreational use of a Schedule I substance is illegal due to that one remaining property.

"Abuse" and "harm", two words wielded constantly to attack freedom, are impossible to define in a one-size-fits-all (e.g. WoD) manner, because every individual is unique. One's use can be another's abuse. One's normal wear-and-tear degree of harm can be another's detriment to society degree of harm. The threshold for abuse is therefore determined accurately only on a case-to-case basis.

Prohibitionists have not provided conclusive, irrefutable evidence proving an instance of substance use causes any reasonable harm at all (for most, if not all, illegal substances). Key words are "conclusive" and "irrefutable". If one is to attack freedom in the U.S. (the land of "Let freedom reign!"), they better have very solid evidence supporting that effort. The only thing prohibitionists can solidly prove, by revealing lives clearly destroyed by substance abuse, is that substance abuse is harmful.

The real horror for me has been discovering that something has been successfully banned solely on abuse potential. Why? Because anything in life can be abused! If you do too much of something to a degree neglecting responsibilities, or do something the wrong way, those are two forms of abusive behavior that apply to anything one can do.

To defend freedom (without freedom, there is no happiness), society should look to resolve abusive behavior (which is naturally at the core of all human created problems), instead of banning the various things abused.

The effort to combat substance abuse is a legitimate effort. Even if illegal substance abusers represent only 1.3 percent of the U.S. population, that equals 1,300,000 people roughly. Add to that whatever the percentage is abusing alcohol and tobacco, and the loved ones and other victims impacted, expanding the scope to an international level, and you have a real problem worth solving.

If we focus on separating use and abuse, working hard now to strengthen the current system of abuse prevention and treatment, we position ourselves in a way that full legalization makes the best sense, because we would have eliminated the logical speculation that legaliztion would increase the abuse problem, which is arguably the greatest obstacle we face, and we look good doing it, because we're helping to oppose the abuse problem while supporting freedom, making society better.

This approach facilitates stopping the drug war in the court of public opinion (where use and abuse are currently one), which is where victory awaits. Congress won't give a crap (as they have shown) until the majority of voters do.

We need omni-partisan voter support to end the WoD. We have a better shot at that if we acknowledge and help fix the abuse problem.

We need to improve our public relations.

Unless my math is still bad (which can't be ruled out), 1.3 percent of 300,000,000 (rough U.S. population) is 3,900,000, not 1,300,000.

So the substance abuse problem is even greater than I mentioned in the last post.

I don't think it's at all clear that the drug czar doesn't want to kill people. The drug czar is an extremely horrible person.

And he must know it. He, and his cohort, killed my stepson as surely as if they had shot him to death -- I don't know what made my stepson an addict, but I sure as hell know what made him a criminal. Unless the drug czar is a complete idiot, he must surely know that the policies of the federal government will result in the death of some people. However, those enforcing the insane War on (some) Drugs accept those deaths as less important than the goal of suppressing drug use. This is pure evil. The drug czar, and his gang, should be tried, convicted and, if we must execute anyone let it be them!

If I, a private citizen, gave somebody a gun, knowing that he intended to use it to harm other human beings, and looked the other way while he did just that, I would be judged as guilty as he for the damage done.

If I were the drug czar, I would blame the gun and imprison the vicitms.

HIV and AIDS retard economic growth by destroying human capital.Without proper nutrition, health care and medicine that is available in drug rehab centers in developed countries, large numbers of people are falling victim to AIDS.