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From: cliff@unmvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: New Reason to overhaul drug laws
Message-ID: <637@unmvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Feb-85 16:32:11 EST
Article-I.D.: unmvax.637
Posted: Tue Feb  5 16:32:11 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 05:32:24 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Lines: 33

The March issue of Science 85 has an interesting article starting on page 60:
"Designer Drugs."  It is about the synthesis of legal drugs that have some
effects of particular illegal drugs (primarily Heroin).  These drugs are legal
because every substance starts out legal (sort of innocent until proven guilty)
until for one reason or another it is outlawed.  The article claims that "in
late 1984, Congress gave the DEA a new weapon to combat designer drugs--emerg-
ency schedulin powers" ... "The new powers allow the DEA to ban designer drugs
with the strokef of a pen and a year to justify the action."

Why don't they come right out and say it:  "Any substance that makes you feel
different when introduced to your body is automatically illegal (with the ex-
ception of alchohol, tobacco and caffeine)"  Stop pretending that reasons of
health have anything to do with it; the organic derivatives (when purified in
a clean lab in a legal setting) are many times more safe than the new designed
drugs that are produced by home chemists on the run from the law.

Although it is not explicitly stated, certain parts of the article suggest
that when the legal versions of heroin were sold, they were sold as illegal
drugs (i.e. people were checking into heroin clinics, though urinalysis found
no trace of heroin).  People laugh when I mention that there are quite a few
people profitting in illegal drug manufacture/sale that would be quite unhappy
with laws that would legalize their jobs.  When people are legally
manufacturing chemicals and selling them at outrageous profits ( $500 invest-
ment yields a product worth $2,000,000 on the black market ), is it surprising
to believe that these drug millionairess might not be part of the lobby to
keep drugs illegal?

So I ask you, the netreader, do you think drugs should remain outlawed and why?

	--Cliff [Matthews]
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