Drug users, to me!

[viper37]

How is the latter group sillier than the group that you "understand"?

Because you are in control?  And you know what's going to happen, what you face.  But using drugs when you are never sure of what you will get, that's just silly.  I could maybe be persuaded that there is logic in using heroin if you have, say, over 95% chances of getting pure heroin. You know the buzz, you know what you will get, it gives you pleasure, you do it.

But drugs like PCP, this new speed thing (I say new, 'cause in my time, speed was a simple drug to keep you awake, not the kind of thing that makes you want to kill everyone around you) and other shit, I just don't get it.  Apparently it's the cheap price.  You can stay high for 2 days with about 80$ while you need a couple 1000k$ to do it with coke.  Still...

Ah, anyway.  Never understood the part where you get to have some great fun but don't remember why there's a tiger in your bathroom...

[Malthus]

It isn't very rational, but it's understandable.  It makes you feel good.  Really good.  It has some long-term health impacts, but how often does that stop people (fast food industry is still doing well).  The risk of contaminated drugs are there, but honestly fairly remote.

Until you reach the point where you're addicted, and it becomes really, really hard to stop.

It's just that at some point, you try some shit, you try to kill everyone you love 'cause you're on some kind of buzz, you end up in psychiatric emergency, and the day after, you do it again.

I don't get the "feel good" part.

Um, that doesn't actually happen very often, any more than any person who ever drinks a beer or a glass of wine is likely, at some point, to go on a drunken rampage and kill people.   

[Barrister]

It isn't very rational, but it's understandable.  It makes you feel good.  Really good.  It has some long-term health impacts, but how often does that stop people (fast food industry is still doing well).  The risk of contaminated drugs are there, but honestly fairly remote.

Until you reach the point where you're addicted, and it becomes really, really hard to stop.

It's just that at some point, you try some shit, you try to kill everyone you love 'cause you're on some kind of buzz, you end up in psychiatric emergency, and the day after, you do it again.

I don't get the "feel good" part.

Um, that doesn't actually happen very often, any more than any person who ever drinks a beer or a glass of wine is likely, at some point, to go on a drunken rampage and kill people.   

That happens more than you'd think...

[Martinus]

Lets say, for the sake of argument, that there is a drug that results in a perfectly sane person acting in a psychotic manner.

Lets also assume, for the sake af argument, that the person in question had no reasonable reason to believe that taking said drug would cause such a reaction. Assume that the person simply thought they would be on some kind of standard "trip" normally associated with shrooms or something like that.

So the person takes the drug, has some kind of psychotic episode, and beats someone up, murders someone, etc., etc.

Can he make a legal argument that has any weight that he was not responsible for his actions?

Can he make a moral argument that has any weight that he was not responsibly for his actions?

I cannot answer the first question, but I think I could see a moral argument for the second. If there really was not any reason to believe that taking the drug could result in such a episode, and one can show that one would not normally act in such a manner, then I cannot see how I could hold them responsible for their actions - beyond the basic responsibility people have for engaging in illegal activities like illicit drug use.

The way Polish law handles this is that you are liable for actions carried out while under self-induced influence of a substanceunless you can show that you could not reasonably predict the influence it would take on you (a sort of "twinkie defense").

[Martinus]

Well I imagine that is something you'd get to argue in court about.

A spiked drink is clearly not self-induced intoxication.  Taking crack that is laced with PCP however?

And Malthus, that is hardly the only problem in these kinds of cases...

I would say this is up to a standard of due diligence in such circumstances - to what extent should one predict being given a wrong drug.

[Malthus]

That happens more than you'd think...

Yeah, but prosecutors exiled to the frozen north have *reason* for booze-fueled rampages. 

[Oexmelin]

Which makes it funny you'd post about the one US state that doesn't follow the common law...

Louisiana's criminal law is pure common law.

Huh.  Didn't know that.

Same situation as in Quebec. The Napoleon Code / Civil Code is, as its name suggests, only applicable in «civil» matters.

[Barrister]

Which makes it funny you'd post about the one US state that doesn't follow the common law...

Louisiana's criminal law is pure common law.

Huh.  Didn't know that.

Same situation as in Quebec. The Napoleon Code / Civil Code is, as its name suggests, only applicable in «civil» matters.

That I knew, but it is because the criminal law is the domain of the federal government.

In the US, criminal law is controlled by the states, so I was surprised that the state of Louisiana would adopt the common law for criminal matters.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

This strikes me as a strange response.

I understand why people would want to ski off the trail in some mountain, I get that.
I get base jumping, shark diving, all that stuff.

But drug uses always seemed totally irrational, in the sense that you never know what you get.  Smoke pot?  It's been dipped in PCP, but you didn't know.  It contains dried dog shit, but you don't know that either.  Want some cocaine?  Yeah, sure... pure cocaine will make your nose bleed, so they cut the coke with crushed glass to make sure your nose really bleed.

Seems silly to me.

Don't buy your drugs from sketchy dudes by the bus station, then.

You know how much work it is to make drugs? almost nobody "spikes" their drugs unless they want to themselves. If you sell people weed laced with PCP (and they live) they will come find you and kick your ass, or worse tell everyome you sell evil shit like that, and you will have no customers.

the whole "spiking" phenomenon is largely an urban myth, at least in terms of malicious intent.

[garbon]

Social networks, ftw!

[DisturbedPervert]

Buying drugs at the bus station often results in buying no drugs at all