Opinions - The Right Rhetoric - How to win a Drugs Debate

[FuBai]

This is just a thread about the practicalities of wining an argument about drugs, how to manipulate debate, whether it be formal or in-formal, so that you put forward your arguments as best they can be put, and to try and circumvent arguments laid against you. The problem that this forum tends to experience is that it becomes a venting place for anti-prohibitionist views which means that often there is little real debate or argument on some matters, so that many people here perhaps find it slightly more difficult to get across the central tenets of their arguments outside these forums. The other problem is that people use this forum to 'let off steam' - steam that, if pent up, might translate itself to actual political activism, but, as it is, is released steadily with little impact upon the political environment we face today. I intend to help people get their point across and I would also encourage people to come up with their own argument mechanisms to use in debate. I suppose another reason I am doing this is to force a little more pragmatism into how people argue, especially on this emotive issue. People tend to get lost in the righteousness of their cause which often means they move away from getting the conclusion they are hoping for, using ideological turn offs like calling people "Nazis" etcetera is counter productive. Ask yourself whether you are more motivated by getting drugs legalised or getting them legalised for the reasons you believe in. Most people, I hope, will agree with me that getting the result now is better than arguing over why we should be doing it.

The Starting Post

When I get into a conversation with people not quite so intimately involved with the Drugs Debate as I am I often receive incredulous remarks and disbelieving looks. This indicates one of the basic problems with debate in this area, there already is a great deal of indoctrination. People tend, by-en-large, to know very little specifically about drugs but allot about the government rhetoric that comes with them. Already the scales are set against you, you are not persuading an unbiased, uninitiated person to rationally accept an argument, you are persuading them to abandon a pre-existing view point, which is certainly tougher. If you are doing this in a formal debate then you will tend to get a more receptive audience (and almost certainly a more intelligent one), but do not underestimate the difficulty in persuading someone to abandon a key part of their world outlook. How you overcome this initial problem is by appealing to other, more important, parts of their world outlook. This means the rhetorical material you work from should always be seeking to do something more important to them than their opinion on drugs. This is why you shouldn't go straight into the 'freedom of choice' angle - people tend to agree with that when it's an abstract ideal, but applied in this circumstance is not such a vote winner.

A great way of doing this is to go right for rhetoric that talks about "protecting our children", "Protecting society", "getting to grips with crime" etcetera. Use material from the other side - remember voters are motivated by this sort of rhetoric, whether you like it or not. So start using phrases like "It's time the government took a strong moral stance", "It's time we took an honest look at law and order in...", "It's time we did something about crime...". These sort of phrases help tip the balance back the other way, because you are essentially taking what makes people believe in the prohibitionist arguments and using for your own purposes. This can help put you on the moral high ground, it makes you look concerned about what matters to the populace at large, rather than it just being a sectional interest.

It is on the idea of "sectional interest" that I move onto now: The first thing people tend to assume is that I am a drugs user. Apart from Alcohol, Tobacco and Caffeine my psychoactive exploits are non-existent, but the problem is that I am automatically assumed to be a "junky" because the issue of legalisation is thought to be of interest only to those who use. You've got to head that one off, it's something that can seriously weaken your argument in the eyes of some - lying is something I would advise against unless you are a very talented liar as remarks can come back to haunt you, especially in highly-charged public debate, but emphasise your reasons for wanting legalisation as being a desire to attack criminality, to protect society etcetera because that draws attention away from that issue and emphasises that you don't want to legalise just so you can use. The other thing you can do is use the fact that you have used drugs against them - if you stand up, well dressed and groomed, with a decent argument and a good Queen's English pronunciation and say that you, this respectable, confident and successful have used drugs and that this is where you are today then you can combat the idea that drug use inevitably leads to criminality.

Getting to Grips with the Issues and Turning Negatives:

You want to avoid, like the plague, discussions about how harmful a substances is. It shifts the grounds of the argument to the prohibitionists side because you are allowing them to say things like "all the medical evidence isn't in yet, until then it's a pretty bum risk" and you are also shifting the terms of the debate by acknowledging that the health damage a drug does is important in whether it should be legalised or not. The Legalisationalist should stay away from that and be focusing on the fact that it's not the states business to pry into our personal lives, to tell us how to live, which plants we can smoke etcetera. Get away from discussions about how harmful the drug is and push it into the regions of personal morality. I would still avoid talking too much about "The Right To Use" because what you really want is to come across as concerned about our community, desperate to change things for the better and forge a brighter, happier future for the children of this illustrious nation.

I'll assume you know and can counter alot of the problems people raise about prohibition, the arguments against drugs causing crime etcetera abound on these forums so I won't go into them here. However one of the most common negatives you will get is that people are concerned about increased drug use, ask questions like "If heroin was legalised tomorrow would you shoot up?" etcetera to show that the majority of people wouldn't start using just because something legal. The great thing to do is compare statistics on this one - only 8% of Dutch nationals aged 16-25 have used Marijuana compared to 45% of people aged 16-25 in Britain having used an illegal drug. Because it's a spoken argument people will often find it more difficult to catch you up on poor statistical comparisons like the one above (I compared just marijuana use in the Netherlands to all drug use in Britain), it's up to you to decide whether that's a risk worth taking in relation to your intended audience. Point out that the state doesn't endorse or condone tobacco use, but accepts it as a pragmatic reality - legalisation of drugs similarly requires no endorsement of drug use.

Mechanisms and Mechanics:

The really important thing to change about the issue of drug use is it's image. Always look good, be well dressed, clean shaven for preference - that's so important in dispelling the myth that all drug users are crazy, whacked out hippies who will do anything to get high. Appearances matter, whether you like it or not, and you really want to avoid instant characterisation as an "unsavoury element". As a political movement it is paramount we are well presented, that people are singing from, if not the same hymn sheet, then at least very similar ones to overcome our natural disadvantage and the government's characterisation of us. In a similar vein do not appear anti-establishment. Whatever your views on government and the establishment don't attack them when you are discussing drugs because it pushes you into that hippy image and once people have you down as a hippy you'll find it very hard to escape it.

Think about where your argument is going, look carefully at the risks of proceeding down a certain path of argument and always try and predict negatives - you don't even have to get the counter argument in first, you just say things like "I am sure that my colleague will try to tell you...but of course, to any thinking man, this is a fallacy." People will often just take your word on these pre-emptive strikes. If you are in a more private or informal debate or argument just say "I am sure that you are probably thinking...however...", of course you have to have a real reason then because they can talk straight back and they aren't limited by the rules of formal debate.

Remember that allot of the time you win your argument not for the sake of the points that you raise but because of how you deal with opponents arguments. You can win a debate just by making your opponents look bad. In my time as a prominent member of a debating team I started to drop more and more the intellectual arguments I had formulated and simply attack the opponents. In one debate at a school in Berlin I didn't even bother thinking up my own arguments I just trashed the opposition's and went on to win. It's all about manipulating your audience rather than necessarily getting the point across that you want to. Always be flexible in what you say, put in qualifying words like "most of the time" "allot" rather than "all" so that people can't contradict you. If someone does then you say "It's the exception that proves the rule, by far and away the majority of people..."

If it's an informal personal debate then you have much more scope for inter-personal manipulation. Don't ever get angry, over-heated or irrational in any debate, formal or informal, as you will lose credibility. Always be calm, use comments like "I understand why you would think that, but it is only true superficially, if you dig a little deeper" etcetera.

Thanks For Listening

If you have got this far I would like to thank you for taking the time to read it. As a debater and someone who works in sales I am worried more and more about the perception of the legalisation movement and why it's not been particularly successful, and I think one of the main reasons is the very poor image that it has. I really want to correct that and, if people read this piece and take something away from it, I will be really pleased to have helped some people get their views across and improved the image of the movement.

Thanks again,

FuBai.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	nice work! Will be put to good use. mb
	Great post and a good idea, thanks for sharing these valuable ideas.
	Solid.
	An Excellent post, just the sort of thing to get people to actually think.
	Good info.
	good post
	helpful, good post
	excellent topic
	as good post on this sort of common-sense topic as can be
	great article, thanks for taking the time to share this- these are important points, and many people seem not to know ho...
	very helpful

[Petethemeat]

An interesting post, and in my opinion should be studied by all those desiring an end to prohibition. A prolonged debate with a prohibitionist usually resolves with the the reformer scoring a win, yet most are not prepared to invest much time and effort in such a debate. Drugs are very difficult to argue about, as many peoples knowledge extends no more than drug=bad bad= should be illegal.

They have been told this their entire life, and to be logically debated on the contrary is a deep shock to some people. It can be done, and through my knowledge of this area I have convinced several aqquaintances that prohibition must end. Keep trying and use these debating tactics as well as backing up your arguments with knowledge.

[Feelingood]

Very informative and useful post for debating with certain individuals. Unfortunately most people are completely closed-minded about illegal drugs. Logic means nothing to someone who has had the idea of drugs= bad drilled into their head by every authoritative figure in their lives.

Nonetheless a very useful post.

[MrG]

Absolulely spot on FuBai, too often people seem to completely shut off their brain when it comes to discussing certain "hot-topics" and end up looking like some clueless poster-boy for prohibition.

I have repeatedly stated the need for people to *really* think about how information is presented to them in all aspects of life, be it mainstream media or peer groups. Mainstream media is responsible for the majority of biased presentation as peer groups are often just mouthpieces for the same skewed arguments.

You have to always think "what is their motivation for taking that stance". As highlighted in the OP, tricks such as the manipulation of statistics to suit ones own agenda are found every day in everything we see, read and hear.

The debate equivalent of "mission creep" can also be a risk as one is often led to defend irrelevant aspects of the pros or cons of a particular viewpoint to the end that the discussion is over without ever covering anything of substance. A trick used often by politicians to wind up an interview without having to actually deal with any tricky issues.

This forum often shows how hearsay and conjecture can be presented as fact and, fortunately, there are usually enough thinkers to raise a flag and say "well hold on a minute, do you have anything that can support that claim".

It is all too easy to take a passionate or emotive approach to an argument and, while it makes for entertaining viewing, it usually falls far short of the mark in respect of actually accomplishing anything.

Question everything.

[Lunar Loops]

Excellent post FuBai. Something that can be very difficult to master (and certainly has been for SWIS in the past) is the need to stay calm and collected at all times, whatever the provocation. Avoid the use of sarcasm or resorting to personal slurs at all times. It can be a VERY emotive topic, but once you get caught up and swept along by that emotion, you are lost.

Unfortunately, as Feelingood suggested, there are those who will NEVER change their view no matter how good your debating skills or how logical your arguments and in such cases, you quickly come to realise that debate is futile (unless you are in a group situation whereby continuing the debate may, at the very least, plant seeds in the minds of others in the group).

[FuBai]

Originally Posted by shroomonger

Excellent post FuBai. Something that can be very difficult to master (and certainly has been for SWIS in the past) is the need to stay calm and collected at all times, whatever the provocation. Avoid the use of sarcasm or resorting to personal slurs at all times. It can be a VERY emotive topic, but once you get caught up and swept along by that emotion, you are lost.

Unfortunately, as Feelingood suggested, there are those who will NEVER change their view no matter how good your debating skills or how logical your arguments and in such cases, you quickly come to realise that debate is futile (unless you are in a group situation whereby continuing the debate may, at the very least, plant seeds in the minds of others in the group).

Firstly thanks for all the positive feed back, and yes, you are right in that there are some people who are very obstinate in their belief and can be difficult to persuade.

With people like these you have two options - first one is drop the logic and jump straight to the "Dire warnings". Try and take that home ground that the prohibition moralist usually occupies by doing things like emphasising damage to children. Also be very clear in not rejecting establishment values by not saying things like "the government is wrong" or "you are wrong", use instead phrases like "I, of course, fully understand why it would seem that way to an observer, but really the policies, although, of course, well intentioned, are misguided and need to be reformed." This works for a lot of people, and those are the tools of the private and personal debate.

If I am speaking to an audience in a formal debate I will simply trash the opposition by appealing to the intelligence of the audience - "it is easy to come to the conclusions espoused by my colleague, however any man of intelligence can see that that assessment is wholly prima facie.", or just by dropping your material and just countering his. Remeber that, more than persuading the guy you are arguing against who is, probably, a lost cause anyway, you are appealing to those who are listening. Jump on his every mistake, find his logical flaws and keep on the offence. Never directly insult him, but use phrases like "misguided" "superficial assessment" "overly simplistic" "Naive" etcetera to describe his arguments. In that situation your job isn't to put forward your own arguments it's to trash him - that doesn't mean you can leave them out completely but focus more on discrediting rather than putting your own arguments forward especially if you are seconding.

What you are trying to do is make the prohibitionists look like idiots (without ever directly calling them that - no open hostility, just derision) whilst maintain your image as an honest, reasonable man of good judgement and intelligence. Prohibitionists tend to have firmly held convictions on this matter and others and are not particularly flexible - use that to your advantage. They are defending a specific system that is extant, you are appealing for a more vague reform, so you have specifics you can attack more effectively. They will also tend to get angry - once they do get angry, you've won. Remeber Goodwin's Law - The first person to call the other a Nazi instantly looses the argument. It's the same if they start shouting, start insulting you etcetera. Never be drawn into that, smile, laugh as if it were nothing important and then systematically dismantle his argument. Remember the prohibitionist is, under it all, a totalitarian angry little man, humiliating him in public will completely crush his credibility because he can't bounce back so easily.

Reputation Comments on this post:

thanks for your valuable comments

[Lunar Loops]

Once again, good advice and SWIS agrees with your views. Of course, it is always worthwhile whilst there is an 'audience', but it can be futile if it is just one-on-one and the other is obviously not going to change their views. Some individuals with long and firmly-held beliefs will not change their view for no man (or woman).

As you say, once you have reduced the other party to shouting or abuse, you have won the debate, but at what cost if it is merely one-on-one? Is the effort worthwhile when no audience is present and despite your victory the other party is still unwilling/unable to alter their standpoint?

[FuBai]

Originally Posted by shroomonger

Once again, good advice and SWIS agrees with your views. Of course, it is always worthwhile whilst there is an 'audience', but it can be futile if it is just one-on-one and the other is obviously not going to change their views. Some individuals with long and firmly-held beliefs will not change their view for no man (or woman).

As you say, once you have reduced the other party to shouting or abuse, you have won the debate, but at what cost if it is merely one-on-one? Is the effort worthwhile when no audience is present and despite your victory the other party is still unwilling/unable to alter their standpoint?

In situations where you are faced with a one on one with someone who is logically recalcitrant and you know that he's just not going to shift then I would advise you that it's probably not worth the effort. However you do get a lot of people who get carried away and cling to their arguments out of pride rather than belief. Sometimes it's worth risking that effort because, although you may not instantly see the results, any person worth converting to the cause will go away and think on it. The number of times I have held onto arguments out of pride, gone away and slept on it, come back the next day and said "Actually, you were right." is quite astonishing. Often you won't see just how shaken they are by your arguments - remember it's a pretty fundamental belief for many, so it may take a while to prise it from their grasp.

[Lunar Loops]

Originally Posted by FuBai

In situations where you are faced with a one on one with someone who is logically recalcitrant and you know that he's just not going to shift then I would advise you that it's probably not worth the effort. However you do get a lot of people who get carried away and cling to their arguments out of pride rather than belief. Sometimes it's worth risking that effort because, although you may not instantly see the results, any person worth converting to the cause will go away and think on it. The number of times I have held onto arguments out of pride, gone away and slept on it, come back the next day and said "Actually, you were right." is quite astonishing. Often you won't see just how shaken they are by your arguments - remember it's a pretty fundamental belief for many, so it may take a while to prise it from their grasp.

Once again you are right and SWIS too has gone away to sleep on matters before now, only to rise the next day and realise the error of his ways.

The key here lies in the highlighted text. Not everyone is worth converting or attempting to convert. SWIS firmly believes (rightly or wrongly) that people are wired differently and whilst many will go away to contemplate upon what has been said there are a few who will merely go away and think that you are a twat who has made them feel stupid (even though they may not understand why or wish to). They will think no further on the content of what has been said.

Anyway, splitting hairs here really. The fact of the matter is that in the vast majority of cases reasoned debate is always worthwhile.

[Felonious Skunk]

FuBai, as always, your points are well-thought-out and completely on the mark. There's nothing I can disagree with, so I will just speculate on why it is that logic and common sense can't convince Joe Amerikan that the "drug war" is really counterproductive to his best interests.

It's funny that you said you're in sales, because I believe your profession can help explain why the "drug war" has been perpetuated so successfully even in light of its illogic and senselessness. Because a successful salesman's job is essentially to convince people that the most useless stuff in the world is really the most important thing they could ever buy.

Nobody has to sell food, water, or health care. Of course, there are markets for glamorized versions of these commodities along with their attendant salespeople, but the general idea here is that these things sell themselves because they are required for survival.

But lets start going down the stairs a little bit. The Hoover salesman comes to the door and insists that without a vacuum cleaner, Mrs. Jones will be ostracized in her neighborhood because a dirty rug is a no-no.

A few more steps down. The insurance salesman comes to the door and whips out his chart showing that crime in Mr. Jones' little piece of paradise has gone up 27% in the last 12 months. Whether it's true or not, fear is being used to sell a product, and quite possibly that fear didn't even exist until the salesman showed up. But if the salesman is successful, he will walk out with a check having left nothing in return.

These are probably bad examples, and if I had time I could probably come up with better ones that would more articulately convey what I'm trying to say. But the point really is this:

We can go into the debate room and try to sell the crowd on the illogic of drug wars, how they are contrary to human nature, how they imprison nonviolent plant-smokers and turn schools into institutions of suspicion and fear. We can show them how European countries experience falling crime rates when they decriminalize drugs and how needle exchanges work to slow the rates of AIDS infections among IV drug users and their sexual partners. This is fine--it's all logical, it makes sense, and it will make society a better place.

But all the guy at the other podium has to do is whip out a picture of a junkie in the gutter with a needle sticking out of his neck. The crowd will gasp. The next picture will be a toddler electrocuted in the bathtub of her seedy apartment by her mother's crackhead boyfriend. It will not matter that these pathetic images are almost invariably created by drug criminality and not drug use itself.

The man displaying these horrors cares not one iota for logic or common sense, in fact he may even secretly agree with you--but he's working for people whose agenda it is to keep the illogical and senseless machine running because they generate huge profits from it.

Thus, in 20 seconds this man is able to effectively deconstruct all of the carefully-formulated arguments and appeals to logic that the drug policy reformers spent two hours trying to convey.

And that's how it is with propaganda. It truly is an art form, and singularly the only way to sell people on the idea that nonviolent plant-smokers deserve 20-year prison terms, that people who eat mushrooms growing on cow-shit will rape your daughter, and that people who wear little black beanies and read the Torah are conspiring to steal everyone's money and take over the world (sorry about the quasi-Godwin, but it was apropos).

The difficulty with drug debate is that it's so much easier to make people afraid of those with drug problems than it is to make them feel good about helping them. The propaganda engine works far more efficiently on the fear inside people (of being mugged by a junkie, of a whole nation turning into junkies) than does logic and compassion on the empathetic side of us. That, combined with the greed and money aspect of the "drug war," is partly why we haven't made much progress in the last 40 years with regard to sensible policies.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Great post, thanks for adding to the discussion.

[FuBai]

I do agree with you, however I wasn't saying that we should be forwarding logical arguments per se - only that our arguments should be logically correct. Logical arguments don't appeal to the primal emotivism of man, which is why I was suggesting that we focus on those "protecting the community/children" etc. Our arguments have to make logical sense but they don't have to be the arguments that are the most logically sound or fundamental. It's our job to counter manipulate on the same level as that which we are fighting and we do have the tools to do that now.

[Felonious Skunk]

Always that, but as in the thread The Ape started a few weeks ago, we need to package logic and common sense in such a way that Joe Amerikan believes he just has to have it. A tall order...

[FuBai]

The other thing to remember is KISS don't KILL your arguments (KISS - Keep It Short and Simple, KILL - Keep It Long and Lengthy.) It can be very difficult in this context where there are so many good reasons for legalising drugs, but pick those arguments that will have the most audience impact and which best illustrate your point.

[stoneinfocus]

even in top form, you won´t be successful, as I experienced it, they just tend to say simply no, I never have and wikll try this because it´s said to ber dangerous.

Or you´ll succed in argumenting, but they still don´t believe you, though they think, you migh tbe right.

No chance, keep you drug-sanctuary, when you got it and shut the fuck up, or you´re dead, when you´re all alone.

Times have never been this bad, although information is around, all these maggets are too lazy to inverstigate the truth and are bought off, by the government for a place at the university, cigs, alc and a happy drunken weekend party til 3 o´clock and a no-stress policy with the law.

The $ won, the government won, stupidness, desolidarisation, denuntiation police-forces and apathy won and the `right´ person will get the truth and info they need, while the others willl still resist,the wrongs will take actionand already did to occupy the government and police forces for their violent agenda and they are the majority. I´m sorry, this is no place for swim to live and survive, so enjoy or hate my few last posts till swim will sink into morpheus´ dreams and darkness will warmly cover and unite him with the universe.

[augentier]

Great post and information!! I'm giving a persuasive speech in about a month in my Public Speaking class and I have been thinking of speaking about legalizing marijuana. Your post really helped, glad I read it

[FrankenChrist]

Aye there's the rub. You can't win with only rational arguments against emotion. ( as in "for the children"

[Orchid_Suspiria]

This is exactly what swim was asking about the other day.Swim guesses he will never be able to win these debates because it is common knowledge to those around him that he is most certainly a user.

[psyche]

Keeping calm is very important IMO. Ofcourse a little emotion is in place but almost always you won't need much if at all because the other part of the 'conversation' has enough fire for the whole debate. Just answer calmly and with certainty. Patience is very important, let the people have a feeling that they might change their minds, not the feeling that you're trying to change their mind.

Metaphors and examples are excellent, but you'd better make up some accurate ones. The cornerstone argument is ofcourse that there are legal, more harmful substances, but don't stick with that too tightly, be ready to respond their other arguments, since it's not really any reason to legalize another drugs that one drug causes more harm and is legal. Just for perspective. To find the best counter argument think as they think. Point out the paradox in their point of view. 'So, you are saying that (something illogigal that is a direct implication of their assumption)'

he great thing to do is compare statistics on this one - only 8% of Dutch nationals aged 16-25 have used Marijuana compared to 45% of people aged 16-25 in Britain having used an illegal drug.

Better play it perfect and not let them remark to you that marijuana doesn't equate to illegal drug. Rather point out that there is a lot more pot smokers in the USA where it's illegal. Even double the percentage of the Holland if I remember correctly. And ofcourse prohibition is a good example of the efficiacy of prohibition. Everyone knows it failed. Let them think for a minute why would it be different for illegal drugs. Their next argument is bound to be very easy to overcome since many drugs aren't as harmful as alcohol. And you have a great advantage on the knowledge about the harms of illicit drugs, though they might not take your word for it because they know nothing about them.

One trick that I've never used but had in mind is to agree with them when the issue of drugs is first brought up. Go on describing how horrible some drugs are. "There is this one drug I know, it really messes you up, makes many people violent, lose their memory, and worst of all not realize how stupid they are acting. It's also very hazardous to the health. The next day they have a horrible withdrawal and they are severely dehydraded... that's called a hangover."

Great post Fubai.

Reputation Comments on this post:

The agreeing and talking about alcohol point is good.

[bcubed]

The problem is that most people (even those wholly uninterested in drugs) have heard one variant or another of this argument thousands of times already. Thus, they're highly unlikely to change their minds the 1,001st time unless you persent it in a novel way (and even then, still doubtful).

[Incidentally, these arguments are optimized for use within the US political reality].

1. Go Agianst the Grain: If discussing cannabis, for example, consider most peoples' stereotypes: Tommy Chong-esque hippie, mixed with (if one is young enough) some hip-hop star. Thus, more effective than "It's organic, low pollution, etc" would be: "Damn it, the proper role of the Federal Gov't is to guard the coasts and tote the mail, NOT tell its citizens what they may or may not put into their bodies!" (Since there usually is a vast gulf between conservative ideology and what a "social" conservative espouses, this is akin to fish in a barrel.) Also try W/R/T "medical MJ crackdowns": "Why would you want to federalize marijuana? Shouldn't the citizens of an individual state have the right to conduct affairs within their own borders?"

2. Throw some scare tactis back. "The effect of drugs prohibition [a good, loaded word] is to increase the cost of drugs. A heroin addict might use 1gr of pure heroin a day. In the US, he'd have to come up with $XXX a day to feed his habit. In the UK hospital sysem, that same heroin costs $X(X?). Which addict do YOU think is more likely to stage a home invasion while the kids are asleep?"

3. Watch out buddy, your booze is next! "Do you really think the drug prohibitionists think 'Yes, let's get the drugs, but alcohol is cool! Let's go get loaded--YEAH!' don't you think it's more likely they're thinking 'Man, I'd like to get booze illegal, but with the voters out there, they'd roast us all! Better hold off on that one (for the time being...)'" Use the same sort of tactics the the gun lobby uses to insinuate that "It isn't just telfon bullets...the 'endgame' is to take it ALL away!" (Actually, use "endgame," because it's one of those cool "buzzwords.")

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Good suggestions.
	Well said.
	clever tactics

[EndThisDisgustingDystopia]

"If I am speaking to an audience in a formal debate I will simply trash the opposition by appealing to the intelligence of the audience - "it is easy to come to the conclusions espoused by my colleague, however any man of intelligence can see that that assessment is wholly prima facie.", or just by dropping your material and just countering his." -FuBai
I really love your intent and knowledge, but I don't think you should be promoting flattery, an obvious emotional fallacy. Stick to the facts!

[ShawnD]

Originally Posted by psyche

Keeping calm is very important IMO. Ofcourse a little emotion is in place but almost always you won't need much if at all because the other part of the 'conversation' has enough fire for the whole debate. Just answer calmly and with certainty. Patience is very important, let the people have a feeling that they might change their minds, not the feeling that you're trying to change their mind.

Absolutely critical. Being calm is the only way to win any argument. The guys screaming and shouting (protesting hippies) always look like idiots.


What I think works well is to argue in favor of people who have serious problems that need drug treatment. For example, amphetamine is prescribed for all kinds of problems. ADD? Amphetamine. Chronic fatigue? Amphetamine. Narcolepsy? Amphetamine. Depression? Amphetamine. Which drug do police focus most of their efforts on? Amphetamine. Wait, what? Why? Why do I get hassled by police for having depression? Is it against the law to be treated by a licensed doctor? That sure seemed to be the impression since doctors and pharmacists think I should take amphetamine, but the politicians who regulate doctors and pharmacists try their best to take it away.

Some people have very serious mental illness, and it doesn't do them any good to let their problems go unmedicated because a small minority of people abuse that particular medication. It's immoral to outlaw amphetamine because of a few jibbers, just as it would be immoral to outlaw fast food because a few people can't stop eating.

edit: I realize that appealing to people who have serious problems is an emotional argument, but that doesn't make it any less true. I'm not arguing for the guy who wants to be a sketchy unemployed jibber, but I am fighting for the guy who has real problems that need treatment. I'm fighting for the guy who really does need amphetamine to treat his depression. I'm fighting for the guy who has severe tooth pain and could really benefit from something like ketamine or morphine to mask unbearable pain, without having to wait in a clinic for 5 hours (my dad waited this long to get a prescription for Tylenol 4 for his tooth ache).

Originally Posted by stoneinfocus

The $ won, the government won, stupidness, desolidarisation, denuntiation police-forces and apathy won and the `right´ person will get the truth and info they need, while the others willl still resist,the wrongs will take actionand already did to occupy the government and police forces for their violent agenda and they are the majority. I´m sorry, this is no place for swim to live and survive, so enjoy or hate my few last posts till swim will sink into morpheus´ dreams and darkness will warmly cover and unite him with the universe.

Saying things like this makes you sound like a creep because Big Pharma is not your enemy. If anyone wants to sell you drugs, it's the people who make drugs. Government agencies like the DEA try incredibly hard to make ephedrine and pseudoephedrine illegal because they are used in the production of meth, but pharmaceutical companies push hard to keep those precursors legal. Lobbyists from pharma are the only reason Sudafed is still legal. Companies that make amphetamines such as Adderall or Dexedrine would love for those to be OTC, because it would mean sales go up. If heroin, cocaine, meth, ketamine, marijuana, mushrooms, and LSD were all declared to be legal OTC drugs, you know exactly which companies would be making them. Pfizer, Merck, Glaxo, etc. The biggest proponents of drug legalization are the drug companies themselves. The people opposing those drug companies are the "think of the children" group.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Interesting. But more importantly, well said.
	thanks for your valuable comments
	we´re on the same page; surprise, surprise :-))

[stoneinfocus]

Originally Posted by FrankenChrist

Aye there's the rub. You can't win with only rational arguments against emotion. ( as in "for the children"

But what´s that for a world, that lives for the children? Will we be chlidren when we´re grown up or do we have to feel small, suffer and fight each other?
Is this a world, children would be happily and joyfully growing up in, managing the step form adolescence to maturity, when the onyl luck for a grown up is profit, consuming and non-sense jobs for the latter three arguments plus: "the children" ....and war? Plus, won´t the grown ups themselves be eager, spoilded children, far from down-to-the-ground and pragmatic, experience-enriched men?

Those reasons, meaning: outlooks and perspectives of the children and adolescents to the "grown-up´s" world of beer,total devotion to something someone doesn´t even remotely seems to like, violence, great looking cars and "freedom" bought by money, seeing wars and political agendas they dont´and can´t understand (like no-one really can as they´re illogic but revealed only within extensive self-inspired research), a past and past crimes they can´t understand but are being told to undertand by their peers, are exactly why we have a drug policy, because this is the problem, children see or feel and thus fear to grow up to, thus, don´t see a perspective and fall for a drug, legal or illegal, until they find the human nature, their own nature, which is love, empathy, non-egoism. with a healthy hedonism and joy in learning and experiencing the new for more joy and therefor, unfortunately, every active substance falls into the category "experiencing and fininding a use for it, legal or not" <- I like the ambiguity of the first "legal or not" and the second argument for legal or not.

And, yes Felonious, fear, which should be fought is cultivated and misued, as it´s one of _the _most powerful instincts in our minds and too often far from useful nowadays and on the other hand lacking where all shoud be scared to shit. (not enough opiates/of the right medicine when I´ll be dying or sick? My children will be sent to the war or bought off by companies for wars? My children will be in jail for smoking a plant or using plants, humans been using the past 30 tsd. years, my child won´t get the right medicine, because of profit thooughts, my politicians and media are betraying us all for profit and influence?)

Reputation Comments on this post:

Thou bloweth mine mind