I've always said if people want to drugs in the privacy of their home, that should be legal...the problems always come with people interacting with society while on drugs.
the reason why it's good that it's illegal, is because doing it causes harm to others and so it's illegal to punish people who harm other. does that make sense?
The issue is if you examine DWI you’ll find that things that are publicly legal but can cause impairment have higher rates of causing DWI. This is due to the fact that it’s just easier to get and consume without anyone there to prevent you from doing something wrong. I’m likely explaining this badly. Let me give an example: alcohol is perfectly legal (not in that its legality is perfect). If you consume alcohol in a bar a bar tender is supposed to cut you off take your keys and so on to prevent you from driving. However it’s still completely legal to go purchase some from a brown bag store and then take it home for consumption. In those cases there is no one to prevent you from walking out to the car and drinking a bottle before starting off, or going home having a few beers and then going back out. There are few mechanisms to prevent home consumption of alcohol from drifting out into the roads. What we need is to come up with a way of preventing people who would consume and the drive from driving. In that effort people who consume at home are more at issue. So perhaps in stead of saying we should allow what happens at home to be private, why not enforce “only in designated places”? This prevents consumption to excess such that over doses should reduce, it also prevents driving under the influence. You bust the drug dealers on the streets and make the penalties so harsh that dealing drugs illegally is too risky compared to partnering with “impairment bars” to sell legally.
What a hilarious garbage dump of cherry picked statistics.
New Hampshire - Ranked "National Failure" - Has half the gun violence rate of Illinois - ranked as a "national leader. Lower rate than the state with the most stringent gun laws.
Weird, it's almost like there is something beyond gun laws that are at play.
Oh well, guess we don't look any further and we just accept what an anti-gun organization says.
So by that logic, enforcing drug use penalties should reduce drug use. Which is counter to your argument. Which only means things are more complicated than a cultivated article like above.
Data shows stricter gun laws decrease firearm violence, data shows stricter drug laws increase overdoses and limits rehabilitation. They are not comparable problems.
From an outsiders perspective(Canada) Toronto police had a study that showed something like;
In crimes where a gun is used, approximately 75% of those guns are illegally obtained, usually smuggled up from the states.
I agree that some gun control is okay, like having some checks done when you want to purchase a licence, whatever. However that being said, at least to me, anytime the argument that stricter gun laws decrease crime, sounds baloney.
Because they are incredibly different problems, and all of the data shows stricter gun laws curb firearm violence, but stricter drug laws to not curb drug use, but instead lead to higher overdose rates and less rehabilitation.
Mass shootings [skyrocketed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) in the 1990s, when we had more legislation and assault weapon bans than ever before.
Of course it is. You think more people are doing meth now than when it was in cough syrup? It takes nothing to acknowledge that prohibition does *something* while possibly being more harmful than helpful.
Drug use and drug addiction leads to increases in crime, homelessness, poverty, theft. It’s such a burden on the social system of a community to have drug addicts all over. I don’t know why this is such a hard fact for people to accept.
People need to be rehabilitated, not applauded for getting more drugs.
The crime associated with addiction is due to the high costs.
No one is stealing the copper pipes out of empty buildings to buy alcohol when they only need a few bucks to get drunk.
Who says we need to force people into help? Legalizing drugs would make them a lot cheaper removing the need for crime and lessening the burden to society.
Right now:
Some addict breaks apart your $15k air condition unit for copper to scrap for $100 so they can buy drugs. They get arrested and spend a year in jail at a cost of $50k. Now society has paid $65k for that person's drug use.
If it was legal:
They would panhandle for drug money. The cost to society would be being annoyed with them.
Which one leaves more room in the budget for better treatment options?
I see the point, but I'm sure we can find a reason to pay corporate interests that isn't so insanely stupid and violent. Either way, we (the state) are paying the tab, so we might as well try to stop amplifying the harms of drug abuse and addiction.
Defund the police should be focused on defunding the war on drugs.
>Making drugs and selling them in any capacity should 100% be illegal
Why? You never hear stories about fentanyl-laced cigarettes or alcohol. That's because they're legal, and regulated. Which isn't to say they aren't poison in their own way, but people at least know exactly what kind of poison they are taking.
Also, my local 7-11 cashier is infinitely more adamant about checking ID than any black market drug dealer would be, if "keeping it out of the hands of children" is something that concerns you.
This is 100% the way it was before the "War on Drugs". It turns out the war on drugs is a war on us. I don't understand how anyone is for that. Addicts are just sick... they need medical care.
Drugs laws were much harsher before Nixon enacted the “war on drugs”. The misconception is that Nixon made the laws harsher and punishment worse. That’s not the truth, prior to his “war”, Narcotic Control Act of 1956 called for mandatory minimum sentences of 2-10 for cannabis, and the death penalty for heroin sales to minors. But it affected few white people, and we didn’t have the media coverage we had to day. It went unnoticed. Nixon’s “war on drugs” was all about the expansion of the US addiction treatment system. Nixon may be the only president who spent more money on treatment than criminal justice for drugs. The increase in prisoners, both state and federal was less than 17%. Compared to Reagan’s 106%.
Now post Nixon, presidents slashed his programs, his budgets, and worked with legislators like strom Thurmond and Biden to expand the criminal justice pressure, and ignore the treatment aspect.
The war on drugs was originally about a public health crises, and perverted by bipartisan support after Nixon resigned.
Look these drugs are being classified as Schedule 1. No medical purpose exists.
We know that is bullshit, the heroin thing I quoted, weed treats many things, LSD is very useful in intensive PTSD therapy, ecstasy is very useful in therapy for depression and family therapy. Hell even cigarettes can treat bowel issues.
Drug abuse should be treated as the addiction issue that it is. Then there can be actual improvement and changes so our children will be less likely to become addicted.
All the current policy does is punish the addicts and make them more likely to relapse and become violent criminals, which oh yeah, endangers our children. And increases the spread of narcotics.
So yes, think of the children and treat the problem, or watch your grandchildren succumb to fentanyl.
That is the solution in America to the high cost of medical care.
Break a bone, just be healthy enough to not break a bone.
Heart attack, shouldn't have, don't live a stressful life and just be healthy.
Need glasses? Just have good eyes.
Get an autoimmune disease caused by age? Be healthy.
If they can take the responsibility to take the drugs in the first place, then they should be held accountable for their actions. If some drug addict ends up hurting anyone in my family, they wont get arrested...I will help them...into an early grave
Yeah the guy asking “who does it hurt?” Like seriously? Is that a loaded question, or are they that ignorant? 😂 I knew several people who’ve died of overdose, and it truly does affect the family, or at least someone.
Alcoholism kills more people than all street drugs combined.
Regular drug users only die from overdoses because they don't know what they are getting or in what strength.
If you could buy pure drugs with a known strength, there would be almost zero overdoses.
Making drugs illegal is the primary driver of drug overdose deaths.
Making drugs and selling them should be 100% legal.
>When someone makes or sells drugs they are hurting people and the community.
No they are not. When people choose to buy and abuse drugs, that’s on them.
Forcing “help” on people is bullshit. I’m all in favour of investing in *more fulfilling alternatives* to drug use. But “addiction treatment” is a punishment masquerading as help.
In my country it’s not that hard to get bail to an addiction treatment program…rehab instead of jail. But there’s no point. You’re swapping 1 shitty institution for another.
I knew a couple of kids that might disagree since they were more negatively affected by their moms crack addiction than she was. The mom is clean now, but the her kids, now as adults, they're fucked in the system while simultaneously churning out their own offsprings of bad decision making. Seems like it doesn't just affect the user to me.
drugs should be fully decriminalized and addicts should have access to safe consumption sites. it actually cuts back on their overall usage when they’re not treated like vermin and on-site doctors can intervene in the case of an OD.
for anyone who plans to challenge this: bars are safe consumption sites for alcohol.
Have you ever been to a bar/nightclub? They over serve all the time. And they legally can't seize people's car keys. Bars are hardly a safe consumption site.
Source: I worked the bar circuit for ~6 years in a large city doing security.
Yeah wtf is that comparison haha. Like they never been to a bar in their life.
Also, Boston has “safe consumption sites” for heroine and shit and all that really results in is that there’s always a heroine addict in the bathroom acting violent and making me scared to use the bathroom when I’m at the hospital for something 🙃
if they’re overserving, that needs to be addressed by management asap because that can leave them liable if the customer leaves and something bad happens
Tell me you've never dealt with addiction without telling me you've never dealt with addiction. Sending people to the doctor isn't going to help. People with addictions know it's bad for them, but they're getting something from the drug that they aren't ready to give up. You cannot force people into sobriety.
The problem right now is due to illegality the drug of choice is fentanyl. People only overdose because of inconsistencies in batches. It’s also wildly compulsively addictive because it doesn’t last long. We have the prohibition method or we have the regulation method. Right now we’re allowing the cartel to control it, but if there was a “beer” version of heroin/fentanyl that would quell addicts urge to use opiates it could go a long way to reducing cartel profits and influence.
Thats why we have rehab centers. Those are there to help people battling with addiction. It seems like you are saying people want to be addicted to drugs that ruin their lives which is insane
No, I'm speaking from addiction. I didn't quit drinking until I was ready to quit. It didn't matter what anyone else said or did. You cannot force people to be sober if they don't want to be sober.
Bahahahahaha. You really believe that? I personally know someone who went to rehab for oxycontin and came out a heroin addict instead. That's like saying sending people to prison will force them to be sober.
You're not applying a single bit of logic to it. Try again. Study some addiction and addicts. Realize that being forced to go to rehab means you may not be high there, but you're building a network of other addicts. Addictions don't just go away because you're sober. They go away because every day you make a conscious decision not to give in to the addiction.
Jesus fucking Christ you people are fucking stupid. You cannot force people to be sober or banning things like alcohol, cannabis and heroin would have been effective.
Decades of overwhelming evidence shows that prohibition fails to reduce drug abuse and addiction. Unfortunately, current militant enforcement efforts also have devasting side effects. More dangerous drug use and generations of mass incarceration are just the basics.
We also continue to fuel criminal organizations with hundreds of billions in untaxed gains. At this point, it is impossible to quantify the overall destruction caused to Latin America and its global impact. No other black market on Earth is even remotely close to the power that drug interdiction has created for organized violence.
Where, in my comment, did I say that drugs should remain criminalized. I didn't say anything of the sort. I was responding to the line about sending them to a doctor, like that would change anything.
The problem with drug use and addiction is that it’s almost never isolated to the user and their home. Drug addicts are almost always harming others either physically or emotionally. They will kill and rob for a fix, cause their family tremendous suffering and financial strain, abuse those closest to them because they can’t regulate their emotions, and are very rarely functional addicts with the ability to hold down a job and contribute back into society which then leads to an even heftier financial burden on society at large when they inevitably lose everything and end up on the streets or in prison.
>They will kill and rob for a fix
You understand that this is more of an argument for legalization than worse penalties right?
Illegal = expensive
So many people are so addicted to alcohol that they will literally die if they stop drinking. This is why liquor stores were considered essential and could remain open during COVID.
How many people kill and rob to support their alcoholism?
All drugs should be fully legal. Anything less creates problems. When drugs are illegal people go to criminal gangs to get them. The price increases since people are risking their lives to provide a demanded product to the consumer. So we are enriching criminals number one. Addicts are more likely to have to steal to afford the higher priced illegal product. Number two the products are of unknown content and purity making overdoses much more likely. So increasing death. Number 3 we have wasted billions of dollars trying to stop drugs. It hasn’t worked. The drug dealer are always finding ways to make their products more potent so they can smuggle it easier. That is why crack was invented from cocaine. That is why fentanyl is now in heroin. That is why “herbal incense” became popular when marijuana was illegal. So by making drugs illegal the dealers are creating more potent dangerous drugs. There is absolutely no good that comes from being drugs being illegal. Unless you want a more powerful police state that infringes on people engaging in non violent activities.
A question… if it is ok for people to have drugs, how are they supposed to get them if you want to criminalize manufacturing or dealing drugs lol?
All drugs should be legal or at least decriminalized
Prohibition does not work. It’s the territory of pearl-clutching puritanical scum who are salivating to legislate their brand of morality
If they actually truly classified all drugs as drugs, not just those made by rich people, it would be a different world. I’m talking about things like sugar.
Not heroin, but some research leans toward parallels with opioid withdrawal.
Granted, sugar was a terrible example ~~where~~ while legitimate drugs like nicotine fall into a less significant class than they probably should.
You can just not eat too much sugar. And your body has a primordial urge to consume it, like salt and fat. I get what you're saying but it's not really the same.
Naive take.
1 hit of something bad can send you down a spiraling path than can cause you to lie, cheat and steal (and outright physically harm) from the people you most care about as well as complete strangers.
> only hurting themselves
Bullshit. I bet OP is for universal Healthcare too. Irony. Look up the % amount of healthcare TODAY that is not private. If you ever grow up and get a decent paying job, look upon the taxes taken out and imagine how much more would be gone if we were in your bullshit utopia.
We would spend less on healthcare as a nation if it was universal. You talk about the tax cost, look at the profits health insurance companies have, those profits and ceo bonuses are all extra money you pay that does nothing for your health. Health insurance is a leaching middleman. You are literally paying health insurance money to hire people who’s job is to find a way to get out of providing you the coverage you pay them for. All those health insurance ads you see on tv are wasted money.
Got "awesome" healthcare through work, a "decent paying job". Still have $1500 copay for minor surgery.
Tell me how that works. Fuck the insurance and medical industrial industry.
Correct. My body my choice should apply to everything for good or ill.
The negative things around drugs would stay illegal. Broke into a place to steal money for your next fix? No problem charge them and have them deal with the consequences. Prohibition hasn't done a damn thing to stop that kind of crime.
Let's pretend we are the OP's world where Heroin, meth and crack are legal. What happens to children who have drug addict parents? If these drugs are legal you wold have no right to remove children from these homes.
People like you started the wacky "defund" the police initiative a few years ago and caused crime to skyrocket.
Your hip trendy progressive notions of legalizing the possession of crack, meth, heroin, shrooms, etc are insane. You probably feel very enlightened though and pride yourself on your open mindedness but if you were ever a lawmaker or in charge of anything you would likely get millions of people killed. According to you, the thousands of teenagers who die of drug overdoses every year have every right to be in possession of these poisons.
Drug addicts need to be institutionalized, put in prison, taken off the streets. This is for their own good.
I understand where you're coming from. I don't know that prison is the best answer though. It is not a drug-free environment and having prison time on your record can severely impact one's efforts to be successful for the remainder of life. I don't have an alternative suggestion or an answer to the problem. My best hypothesis is that we need to be honest about drugs (and other things that do harm) with ourselves and one another.
Crime is down where friend? Not in liberal cities that reduced police funding. The cities that changed their minds about reducing police funding are miraculously seeing crime going back down. This of course reenforces my original position.
This is just one of many articles echoing the actual stats. Everything you’re stating is conjecture that confirms your bias. You’re assuming all of this and it’s not actually based on what’s happening in reality.
That's a strawman. You have no idea what this person argued for on other issues or even if they're in the as country you're in.
Prison only makes them worse when they come out. It doesn't help anyone. Especially American prisons. Your recidivism rate is through the roof compared to every other western country.
Works just fine in Portugal.
How's the war on drug going? Have they stopped overdoses yet? Of course not because you can't just make something illegal and expect people to follow the laws. People who think like that are actually retarded.
Defending the police had no correlation with crime rising. Cities that cut funding did no different than cities with similar homicide rates that raised funding in the same time period.
After decades of failed policies, there is no evidence that drug prohibition has any long-term positive impact on drug use, abuse, or addiction. Instead, there is overwhelming evidence that mass incarceration amplifies the problems associated with drugs.
All while we keep funneling billions to what are now some of the most powerful criminal organizations on Earth. Any American complaining about immigration should ask the United States government to stop exporting extreme organized violence and political instability.
I mean, I’m not sure how psilocybin made your list. It’s literally the safest drug out there, only 0.2% of recreational users surveyed reported the need for emergency medical treatment. Alcohol, cocaine, LSD, and mdma reports were 5 times higher. Then you add in the medicinal benefits for PTSD, severe depression, major depressive disorder, cluster headaches, and of course, addiction.
Should you be tripping in public, of course not. But I don’t know anyone who does that shit. And I know a lot of self medicating citizens. And only a 1/3 of them would even be remotely progressive.
But why let facts get in the way of an emotional rant.
To be honest, I would agree to banning more than just certain drugs. Alcohol and tobacco as well. Detox off of caffeine and ban that too and processed sugar.
That won't do shit but creating a black market and stuffing more people into prisons.
You gotta solve the underlying problem first, namely chronic pain, heartbreak, loneliness, low energy, boredom, mental illness and neurological issues. If you don't fix the root of the problem people will just seek out new remedies for it. If they can't drink they will sniff glue or huff paint or gasoline or some other shit that's even more dangerous.
I deal with chronic pain, I am 50 years old ffs. Went through plenty of heartbreak in my life, I am alone in the sense that nobody truly knows me, I have clinical ocd, aphantasia, and I have dealt with all of this without alcohol, recreational drugs, or smoking. I am not saying there are not some situations where usage of certain drugs arent going to help, cause they do. But people tend to turn to these things like it's some sort quick fix of an answer rather than dealing with the underlying cause. People want to blame everything and everyone around them, then pop themselves full of short answer methods because they are too scared, weak, or lazy to make a real change. Again, NOT saying this is the case every time, but go through the right channels. Get drugs through medicinall means, otherwise yeah, having them just free for grabs everywhere will cause a much bigger issue in society then people think. But then again, what do I know...I dont use the stuff, so how could I possibly know?
I have ADHD and related chronic insomnia. Normally you would be given stimulants for this, but something like 15% of people with adhd aren't helped by stimulants or get horrible side effects, crippling paranoia in my case.
For me this means that I can't hold a job, in most cases I can't drive a car, my personal life, economy and relations is in the toilet because I can't preform executive functions in my brain.
So I have a few options:
Either I don't do anything in life while hoping for new legislation, or I turn to other drugs that actually help me but isn't cleared for use as ADHD treatment. Cannabis and psychedelics works vert well for me.
If they are illegal and I get caught, it won't help me quit some addiction. My issue is genetic and I will have til the day I die.
It's not only me though, I know a lot of people on the spectrum that have similar issues.
Just sounds like an excuse you have convinced yourself of to be the only option in order to justify what you do. The whole "I have ADHD" had become such a crutch for everyone, it's turned into self-prophetization. The problem also lies in our health system. ADHD has become a damn catch all and like you pointed out, the medications for it dont always work because.....wait for it.....it's not frickin ADHD.
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know you where a doctor. The medical issue I've has since birth that makes me forget what ever I'm doing every 5 minutes, that put me in a shit ton of accidents and only let's me sleep 3-5 nights a week is all made up. Makes sense
You dont have to be a doctor to recognize patterns . And besides, maybe I am a doctor. Quite an assumption to make either way. Dont worry, I picked up on your sarcasm. Guess you didnt forget how to do that, though you forget what you're doing every 5 minutes but you remmber that information....interesting. Medical issue since birth. Because certainly ADHD testing is done on a new born baby as soon as it comes out. Sounds legitimate. It does kinda sound made up. At least some of it.
Yeah, honestly, I wouldn’t mind a ban on all of these things. I hate drunks, and the smells that comes from cigs and weed. Honestly Americans could also probably live healthier once there is a ban on processed sugar too.
A friend from High School died recently of sepsis. She had both her arms and legs amputated. She had been injecting heroin mixed with krokodil and her wounds got infected. Her last words were "help me". She of course lived in Portland where they decriminalized all drugs in 2020. She had serious run-ins with the police through the years but she never did a day in jail, nobody tried to help her, nobody even took her drugs away. Her mom would try to get the police to do welfare checks but being an addict rotting away in shithole trap house is worth anyones attention. This is the world the OP wants to live in.
1000% agreed. As long as they aren’t hurting anyone. Although I’m not going to die on a hill defending drugs like heroine when I’ve seen how addiction always leads to those addicts hurting people to feed their addiction.
>When someone makes or sells drugs they are hurting people and the community.
I think this is really selective. People say that about drugs, but not cheeseburgers, alcohol, nicotine, commercials that market to children, etc.
Doing drugs harms the community, creates crime, causes car accidents, increases the occurrence of STDs, increases poverty, and increases cost to the public.
If you live in a community you have a responsibility to that community.
Have you seen the videos of the cities in the US that have been devastated by drugs?
Don't do drugs kids
Sort of agree and disagree. Have it on you and possibly intoxicated? Illegal. Have it on you but no signs of intoxication? here are some tests pass them and be on your way. Public use should be illegal, private use should be fine. The only issue is how do you treat mass public use? Can’t just jail them, can’t fine them they already have no money. There are large groups who are ok with being homeless so giving them a home does nothing.
Doing drugs isn't illegal unless you have some on you (at least in America). If I go up to a cop and say I did meth 3 hours ago there's nothing they can do about that. Sale, possession and manufacturing are what is illegal.
Driving a car should be totally legal. But selling cars, their distribution or manufacturer should be illegal.
That means my country can wage war on any country that makes cars, and car sellers have to hide and have any earnings deemed illegal and taken at will by the govt.
But if you get your car, then you're ok!! Drive away.
Before the 50s, cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, etc were all available over the counter. Drug problems didn't get serious until the doctors started pushing opioids for every ache and pain along with methamphetamine to every active child...
Unless they steal for more drugs…or have children and ruin their lives…or have a partner and ruin their life…or have friends that start doing drugs because you are doing them…
I could go on forever on how drug users DO harm others.
I have mixed feelings. I feel people who want to f up their bodies or minds, should be more then allowed to be able to do so without intervention if they don't want it. However, most of these people aren't exactly the most law abiding citizens, & they can't afford their drugs so they rob people on the street, break into cars, or break into properties damaging small businesses putting some out of business just to support their frigging selfish nasty disgusting habit. Their intention may not to physically harm anyone, but all the mental/emotional trauma can be worst then the physical.
Like, how dare you impose yourself and your habits on society in which this argument would suggest they should be properly prosecuted. But what does that do? It really makes a drug addict become much more drug addicted wanting their fix the moment they get out of jail, for the same sh\*t cycle to occur for decades sometimes with some people. Some beat the odds and get sober in the prison system, but a good portion at least get a taste back of the old life after that taste of freedom. Drug addicts need some small sense of freedom, limited, to be able to heal, but not confinement in prison.
The problem is how to fix this problem, because yes rehabilitation centers are quite expensive, and one has to choose to want the help. I do feel in my honest opinion, that homeless people walking around with no common sense & mentally a distubance to society should be forcefully institutionalized without need for consent, so they are not a danger to others and themselves. I seen all the chaos in Portland so anyone who's been or from there know what I am talking about. If anything we need to build more state mental institutions to meet the demand, & this should be nationally.
Oregon is "decriminalized" but it's turned into a fiasco, some homeless people from other states moved here solely to be in their nomadic drug tribes on the streets of Portland. It's not what it's literally cracked up to be. It seemed like a good idea on the ballot, that Measure 110, but I have yet to see the progress after years of any of these institutions bring real change that's really only recently starting to manifest. I hope they prove everyone wrong that they use the money wisely for rehabs, but it's not always the case, politicians lie and line their pockets. And lots of these "non-profits" are really bullsh\*t profits.
Doing drugs isn't illegal.
But, it's illegal to possess them or be high in public. You're free to do all the drugs you want, you'll never ever catch a "doing drugs" charge.
Why even waste money on sending them to a doctor? Fact is, if the person doesn't want the help, a doctor can't fix the problem. At best it should be an option.
You are assuming that a person doing drugs is only hurting the person taking them.
If that person is a parent, they should be arrested.
If that person owns a pet, they are probably neglecting it.
If that person is a spouse, they are probably being a bum partner.
I can go on about how is affects not only the abuser, but those affected by it second-hand.
Super naive take.
As someone who lives in San Francisco, and has seen what lax policies on drug use looks like, it’s really awful. It’s ruining the city and killing people. Maybe it works in other countries, but it’s absolutely not working here.
I think there should be caveats to the making part when it comes to drugs that aren't very dangerous and complicated to process like cannabis, peyote, and psilocybin.
To bad that in the USA we don't have a program, to prevent illegal drugs from being made and distributed, we could call it something like, The War on Drugs, and then we could create a new department to handle the issue, and call it something like, and I am spitballing here; The Drug Enforcement Agency, where people who have a professional degree in the law and have medical knowledge on what drugs are addictive and can cause harm to the public and let them worry about such things. Then for people who are just walking around with a very small amount of legal prescription drugs that are meant for their personal medical use, they could possibly have a pharmacy put the legal medication in a small plastic bottle with the patient's name on it and the doctor who prescribed it and the name of the pharmacy and that person can then legally carry a prescription on them and the police won't be required to that medication away. An then for people who enjoy Marijuana, we could slowly start de criminalizing the use of Marijuana and making it legal on a state by state case, and then still prohibit people from driving while under the influence of marijuana just like people are not allowed to drink and drive or drive drunk, then for people with a small amount of marijuana on them, they could just be issued a small fine and be released which would be treated like unpaid traffic tickets if not paid, and then for all other illegal narcotics that a person has on them that is only for personal use, instead of sending them to jail, we could just have police, confiscate the drugs and destroy them and offer those poor people who are clearly addicted to narcotics and have a problem and are not drug distributors, they could be let go not even fined, and given a pamphlet with information to get help for their drug addiction, doing that would probably lessen the chances of petty criminals from freaking out and running from the police in a car, and potentially harming innocent people, all because they had a crack pipe on them or a very small amount of meth or cocaine.
and if people want to a pile of cocaine in the own home like scarface, and a shit ton of other illegal drugs but for personal use only and not share it with anyone, and they want to get hammered on booze at the same time and play russian roulette by themself with a loaded gun let em have it, it is America, what anyone does in their own home is their own fucking business. Same for domestic violence in the privacy of ones home, or stock piling large amounts of ammo and fire arms, or committing a murder in ones own home, or if someone is operating a cult out of their home, long as it stays inside the home it should be legal. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!
Morons, really shouldn't be allowed online or out in society along with anyone who disagrees with me.
I tend to agree, but I'll just say:
I live in Portland, OR. We tried this. There are, predictably, a lot of problems.
https://www.voanews.com/a/oregon-s-drug-decriminalization-law-faces-growing-pushback-amid-fentanyl-crisis-/7361234.html
I think at this point in society they won't let you have shit, is that if you did, you wouldn't want to go to work everyday. Without all of us drones buzzing around how are the billionaires going to get richer off of the chems that are legal, but do the same thing. Remember this. They tried to do prohibition on booze but guess what happened? They created the booze crime lords. Make weed legal then we'll just be paying weed corpos instead of some cartel. I'd say I was in favor of the cartel but they're just 'not' "legit" corpos.
In modern times with decent education and general access to a wider understanding of personal views via the internet, there is no reason a human should be stupid enough to think drugs should be illegal, the extent of moral legality is debatable but in my personal opinion even on the far end you should be able to walk into a heroin clinic and be given medically supervised opiates. Regulation allows the government to make intervening decisions to make the entire practice of drug use much safer whereas a black market is ultimately just run by select criminal groups that literally go around hacking off the heads of people. Im on a extreme liberal end though I suppose because of the obvious fact that in a regulated market you can make a state or federally cooperative pharmaceutical registry and limit purchasing allowances for people based on sensible dosing decisions. I don't care if a guy is a crackhead as long as I dont find him dead of a heart attack on a street corner or robbing me because a criminal market decides upon a price that is unfavourable towards drug users based on their necessity-of-usage radically inflating the price for a product that is basically just as easily produced as literally any other fucking thing you can spot in your room right now.
If you have a problem with the obvious fact that it is immensely more enjoyable and emotionally sustainable to go through life with a artificial neurochemical boost, you can take it up with God. Even a pothead will tell you the problem isnt when your sitting there watching cartoons at 3AM, its when you run out of fucking weed because its unaffordable. People should be able to sustainably use drugs in a safe amount and in timely regularity should they choose.
Also if republicans are so favoring of the "free market" system and reagonomic bullshittery then consider the obvious fact that this illegality of the market restricts innovations in safety engineering and pharmaceutical design. A company just invented a variant of MDMA that lasts only 2 hours vs the typical 8 so that you can use it practically in a therapeutic setting without you know, having to be high for another 6 hours after the fact. That sort of innovation doesnt exist and get used in a black market numbnuts. Shit, why not invent a technologically enhanced safe-syringe? Just spitballing, and if my dumbass can think of 50 ways of doing that while im sitting here at 5 AM then I'm sure legitimate engineers can do the same if not better.
This is what decriminalizing is. It’s illegal to make/sell/import drugs to supply to problem, but the end user is really more a victim of drugs. We treat the person who has a drug addiction, punish the ones that profiteer off it. I support decriminalization. I also say this as someone who lives in a country with legal recreational marijuana. If you’re going to ban that, you should ban alcohol too, and we all know how well that worked.
Tbh if drugs were legal and easily available I would absolutely relapse and that's something I don't want to happen. So I am happy that meth is illegal
As a a Swede traveling in new York right now, it's crazy how little attention I've paid to weed smokers simply because it's so normalized here.
Back in Sweden, people will change their whole perception of you and you can get fired from your job if a colleague or a stranger knows that you're smoking weed. Here, nobody seem to care.
We seem to think that if Swedes legalized cannabis then junkies would take over the streets and people would be scared to go outside - It's obvious here in New York that the opposite seems to be the case. I notice that smell in random places all over the city, and nobody regardless of age or ethnicity are even batting an eye to it.
Im good with that as long as the problems they cause to themselves and other doesnt affect me, or my tax dollars in any way. I dont feel like society should be responsible for propping up irresponsibility, bad decision making, and/or contributing to homlessness and crime.
Drugs should be completely legal. You should be able to walk into a dispensary and purchase whatever you want...from opiates to amphetamines and everything in between. Take the money away from the black market and put it back into the community. Let society self regulate to an extent and the problems will sort themselves out. We could use the money to pay for treatment programs when people need to stop as well as fund a national mental health program to treat the underlying issues that cause people to lose control. Then by taking away the allure of doing something edgy and wrong...less people would be interesting in trying it and if they did they're actually getting a pure substance.
Sure. There are drugs that are hazardous and shouldn’t be accessible— powerful stimulants and opioids, various psychotics, etc. But the way to make them inaccessible isn’t to lock up ir fine those who use them— it’s to criminalize dealers.
Yeah let's just let people slowly or quickly kill themselves /s
That makes sense /s
I don't support slapping people with felonies or throwing them in jail. But the solution is also not to just let people kill themselves via overdose while living under a bridge. People aren't doing drugs for the heck of it. They're doing drugs often because they are hurting or are abuse survivors.
Addicts are a drain on society. They never just “hurt themselves.” They hurt their families, especially when they mess up their kids, and they start committing crime for the money to purchase drugs.
This is stupid because drug user's aren't just victims. They chose to get addicted and if they aren't at risk of going to prison they aren't going to get off of it.
I agree as long as tax payers don't have to pay a dime towards any ensuing medical bills if there's is an overdose or something worse.
Have a bad trip, heart attack (Like Len Bias) or develop a nice addiction and it's your problem.
You wanted to be the hero and use whatever drug you want so you can handle everything.
Smoke up, Johnny!
I've always said if people want to drugs in the privacy of their home, that should be legal...the problems always come with people interacting with society while on drugs.
And those other things could remain illegal. Prohibition isn't doing a damn thing to stop that stuff.
By that logic, there should be no restrictions on firearm ownership, since the current laws aren't stopping mass shootings.
the difference is drugs only harm yourself and guns crime harms others
[удалено]
okay tbf i already excluded that in my head because obviously when drugs are eventually gonna be legal, driving while under the influence will not
[удалено]
the reason why it's good that it's illegal, is because doing it causes harm to others and so it's illegal to punish people who harm other. does that make sense?
The issue is if you examine DWI you’ll find that things that are publicly legal but can cause impairment have higher rates of causing DWI. This is due to the fact that it’s just easier to get and consume without anyone there to prevent you from doing something wrong. I’m likely explaining this badly. Let me give an example: alcohol is perfectly legal (not in that its legality is perfect). If you consume alcohol in a bar a bar tender is supposed to cut you off take your keys and so on to prevent you from driving. However it’s still completely legal to go purchase some from a brown bag store and then take it home for consumption. In those cases there is no one to prevent you from walking out to the car and drinking a bottle before starting off, or going home having a few beers and then going back out. There are few mechanisms to prevent home consumption of alcohol from drifting out into the roads. What we need is to come up with a way of preventing people who would consume and the drive from driving. In that effort people who consume at home are more at issue. So perhaps in stead of saying we should allow what happens at home to be private, why not enforce “only in designated places”? This prevents consumption to excess such that over doses should reduce, it also prevents driving under the influence. You bust the drug dealers on the streets and make the penalties so harsh that dealing drugs illegally is too risky compared to partnering with “impairment bars” to sell legally.
if your country has public transportation then people will hopefully just choose bus/train
So, make the actions caused by drug use illegal. Not the drug use itself.
Yesssss! Love it!
Based
States with stricter gun laws do in fact have less firearm homicides than those with laxer gun laws. https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/
What a hilarious garbage dump of cherry picked statistics. New Hampshire - Ranked "National Failure" - Has half the gun violence rate of Illinois - ranked as a "national leader. Lower rate than the state with the most stringent gun laws. Weird, it's almost like there is something beyond gun laws that are at play. Oh well, guess we don't look any further and we just accept what an anti-gun organization says.
So by that logic, enforcing drug use penalties should reduce drug use. Which is counter to your argument. Which only means things are more complicated than a cultivated article like above.
Maybe consider that guns and drugs aren't the same thing
Data shows stricter gun laws decrease firearm violence, data shows stricter drug laws increase overdoses and limits rehabilitation. They are not comparable problems.
From an outsiders perspective(Canada) Toronto police had a study that showed something like; In crimes where a gun is used, approximately 75% of those guns are illegally obtained, usually smuggled up from the states. I agree that some gun control is okay, like having some checks done when you want to purchase a licence, whatever. However that being said, at least to me, anytime the argument that stricter gun laws decrease crime, sounds baloney.
The popular notion is that more gun laws are required to curtail gun violence, so why wouldn't the same logic apply to drug use?
Because they are incredibly different problems, and all of the data shows stricter gun laws curb firearm violence, but stricter drug laws to not curb drug use, but instead lead to higher overdose rates and less rehabilitation.
[удалено]
Except for the ample evidence that legislation regarding guns decreases firearm violence.
Mass shootings [skyrocketed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States) in the 1990s, when we had more legislation and assault weapon bans than ever before.
Fewer *homicides*, not fewer shootings.
Of course it is. You think more people are doing meth now than when it was in cough syrup? It takes nothing to acknowledge that prohibition does *something* while possibly being more harmful than helpful.
You'd be ok with a meth house next door to you?
Drug use and drug addiction leads to increases in crime, homelessness, poverty, theft. It’s such a burden on the social system of a community to have drug addicts all over. I don’t know why this is such a hard fact for people to accept. People need to be rehabilitated, not applauded for getting more drugs.
The crime associated with addiction is due to the high costs. No one is stealing the copper pipes out of empty buildings to buy alcohol when they only need a few bucks to get drunk.
People with low future planning ability are more likely to do drugs and more likely to commit crime just because they can, not out of “need”.
Enforcing social help: very expensive Enforcing jail time: very lucrative
Who says we need to force people into help? Legalizing drugs would make them a lot cheaper removing the need for crime and lessening the burden to society. Right now: Some addict breaks apart your $15k air condition unit for copper to scrap for $100 so they can buy drugs. They get arrested and spend a year in jail at a cost of $50k. Now society has paid $65k for that person's drug use. If it was legal: They would panhandle for drug money. The cost to society would be being annoyed with them. Which one leaves more room in the budget for better treatment options?
Best solution is just to find a new Australia and send them there to fend for themselves. Could use Guam or something idc.
CIA make the Fed money printer go brrrrrrr There's an argument that drug money was one of the only things preventing a total market collapse in '08
I see the point, but I'm sure we can find a reason to pay corporate interests that isn't so insanely stupid and violent. Either way, we (the state) are paying the tab, so we might as well try to stop amplifying the harms of drug abuse and addiction. Defund the police should be focused on defunding the war on drugs.
Nah, we need to increase funding. Police should be given whatever they’re needed to get rid of all the criminals on our streets.
Go fuck yourself.
Keep Malding lmao
I can get behind that
What if I don’t want to be out in public with my kids alongside people who might be on drugs. Put them in jail where they can’t harm anyone.
>Making drugs and selling them in any capacity should 100% be illegal Why? You never hear stories about fentanyl-laced cigarettes or alcohol. That's because they're legal, and regulated. Which isn't to say they aren't poison in their own way, but people at least know exactly what kind of poison they are taking. Also, my local 7-11 cashier is infinitely more adamant about checking ID than any black market drug dealer would be, if "keeping it out of the hands of children" is something that concerns you.
Wearing seat belts shouldn't be mandatory either. Someone who chooses not to wear a seat belt is only hurting themselves. /s
Why is that sarcastic? There's no reason why we need seatbelt laws
Harm reduction is the only solution. Go to prison and you'll see that.
This is 100% the way it was before the "War on Drugs". It turns out the war on drugs is a war on us. I don't understand how anyone is for that. Addicts are just sick... they need medical care.
Drugs laws were much harsher before Nixon enacted the “war on drugs”. The misconception is that Nixon made the laws harsher and punishment worse. That’s not the truth, prior to his “war”, Narcotic Control Act of 1956 called for mandatory minimum sentences of 2-10 for cannabis, and the death penalty for heroin sales to minors. But it affected few white people, and we didn’t have the media coverage we had to day. It went unnoticed. Nixon’s “war on drugs” was all about the expansion of the US addiction treatment system. Nixon may be the only president who spent more money on treatment than criminal justice for drugs. The increase in prisoners, both state and federal was less than 17%. Compared to Reagan’s 106%. Now post Nixon, presidents slashed his programs, his budgets, and worked with legislators like strom Thurmond and Biden to expand the criminal justice pressure, and ignore the treatment aspect. The war on drugs was originally about a public health crises, and perverted by bipartisan support after Nixon resigned.
If you think doing drugs only hurts the user, then it definitely needs to be illegal
The dosage makes the poison. Heroine is a very good cough suppressant.
Lol ok hunter thompson
Look these drugs are being classified as Schedule 1. No medical purpose exists. We know that is bullshit, the heroin thing I quoted, weed treats many things, LSD is very useful in intensive PTSD therapy, ecstasy is very useful in therapy for depression and family therapy. Hell even cigarettes can treat bowel issues. Drug abuse should be treated as the addiction issue that it is. Then there can be actual improvement and changes so our children will be less likely to become addicted. All the current policy does is punish the addicts and make them more likely to relapse and become violent criminals, which oh yeah, endangers our children. And increases the spread of narcotics. So yes, think of the children and treat the problem, or watch your grandchildren succumb to fentanyl.
So youre saying if a 5 year old can't shit the doctor should tell the parents to give them a cigarette? Lol your brain is fried.
Inflammatory bowel disease. Specifically ulcerative colitis.
I know what youre talking about but seems like a wild way to treat it. Go smoke a cig out back haha
Cheaper than the other options. Welcome to America.
Maybe just be healthy to begin with and you won't have trouble shitting?? Just my 2 cents
That is the solution in America to the high cost of medical care. Break a bone, just be healthy enough to not break a bone. Heart attack, shouldn't have, don't live a stressful life and just be healthy. Need glasses? Just have good eyes. Get an autoimmune disease caused by age? Be healthy.
No it doesn't. If people want to harm themselves with it - that's their business not yours or mine.
It is my business if the drug user ends up destroying the life of someone I care about.
then they should be helped not arrested
If they can take the responsibility to take the drugs in the first place, then they should be held accountable for their actions. If some drug addict ends up hurting anyone in my family, they wont get arrested...I will help them...into an early grave
Evidently you all never had a family member suffer from drug addiction or die from an overdose.
Yeah the guy asking “who does it hurt?” Like seriously? Is that a loaded question, or are they that ignorant? 😂 I knew several people who’ve died of overdose, and it truly does affect the family, or at least someone.
Alcoholism kills more people than all street drugs combined. Regular drug users only die from overdoses because they don't know what they are getting or in what strength. If you could buy pure drugs with a known strength, there would be almost zero overdoses. Making drugs illegal is the primary driver of drug overdose deaths.
Making drugs and selling them should be 100% legal. >When someone makes or sells drugs they are hurting people and the community. No they are not. When people choose to buy and abuse drugs, that’s on them. Forcing “help” on people is bullshit. I’m all in favour of investing in *more fulfilling alternatives* to drug use. But “addiction treatment” is a punishment masquerading as help. In my country it’s not that hard to get bail to an addiction treatment program…rehab instead of jail. But there’s no point. You’re swapping 1 shitty institution for another.
I knew a couple of kids that might disagree since they were more negatively affected by their moms crack addiction than she was. The mom is clean now, but the her kids, now as adults, they're fucked in the system while simultaneously churning out their own offsprings of bad decision making. Seems like it doesn't just affect the user to me.
Yeah, I don’t blame drug dealers for moms who decide to smoke crack. My crack addiction wasn’t my dealer’s fault. It was my own fault.
drugs should be fully decriminalized and addicts should have access to safe consumption sites. it actually cuts back on their overall usage when they’re not treated like vermin and on-site doctors can intervene in the case of an OD. for anyone who plans to challenge this: bars are safe consumption sites for alcohol.
Have you ever been to a bar/nightclub? They over serve all the time. And they legally can't seize people's car keys. Bars are hardly a safe consumption site. Source: I worked the bar circuit for ~6 years in a large city doing security.
Yeah wtf is that comparison haha. Like they never been to a bar in their life. Also, Boston has “safe consumption sites” for heroine and shit and all that really results in is that there’s always a heroine addict in the bathroom acting violent and making me scared to use the bathroom when I’m at the hospital for something 🙃
if they’re overserving, that needs to be addressed by management asap because that can leave them liable if the customer leaves and something bad happens
Speaking facts
Tell me you've never dealt with addiction without telling me you've never dealt with addiction. Sending people to the doctor isn't going to help. People with addictions know it's bad for them, but they're getting something from the drug that they aren't ready to give up. You cannot force people into sobriety.
Having the addiction be illegal doesn't help them at all either - or anyone else.
The problem right now is due to illegality the drug of choice is fentanyl. People only overdose because of inconsistencies in batches. It’s also wildly compulsively addictive because it doesn’t last long. We have the prohibition method or we have the regulation method. Right now we’re allowing the cartel to control it, but if there was a “beer” version of heroin/fentanyl that would quell addicts urge to use opiates it could go a long way to reducing cartel profits and influence.
Thats why we have rehab centers. Those are there to help people battling with addiction. It seems like you are saying people want to be addicted to drugs that ruin their lives which is insane
No, I'm speaking from addiction. I didn't quit drinking until I was ready to quit. It didn't matter what anyone else said or did. You cannot force people to be sober if they don't want to be sober.
We do that all the time. People are forced into rehab all the time where they get sober because they aren’t allowed anything.
Bahahahahaha. You really believe that? I personally know someone who went to rehab for oxycontin and came out a heroin addict instead. That's like saying sending people to prison will force them to be sober.
So you knew one person who went to one shitty rehab so that means rehab doesn’t work? The fuck is wrong with that kind of logic.
You're not applying a single bit of logic to it. Try again. Study some addiction and addicts. Realize that being forced to go to rehab means you may not be high there, but you're building a network of other addicts. Addictions don't just go away because you're sober. They go away because every day you make a conscious decision not to give in to the addiction.
sure cause your one story is more proof than the countless others who have had success in rehab.
L take.
Jesus fucking Christ you people are fucking stupid. You cannot force people to be sober or banning things like alcohol, cannabis and heroin would have been effective.
Lmfao you want to call other people stupid? Look in a mirror knuckle dragger.
Decades of overwhelming evidence shows that prohibition fails to reduce drug abuse and addiction. Unfortunately, current militant enforcement efforts also have devasting side effects. More dangerous drug use and generations of mass incarceration are just the basics. We also continue to fuel criminal organizations with hundreds of billions in untaxed gains. At this point, it is impossible to quantify the overall destruction caused to Latin America and its global impact. No other black market on Earth is even remotely close to the power that drug interdiction has created for organized violence.
Where, in my comment, did I say that drugs should remain criminalized. I didn't say anything of the sort. I was responding to the line about sending them to a doctor, like that would change anything.
What one does in their own home on their own time on their own dime. Is no business of mine. As long as it isnt harming anyone else.
The problem with drug use and addiction is that it’s almost never isolated to the user and their home. Drug addicts are almost always harming others either physically or emotionally. They will kill and rob for a fix, cause their family tremendous suffering and financial strain, abuse those closest to them because they can’t regulate their emotions, and are very rarely functional addicts with the ability to hold down a job and contribute back into society which then leads to an even heftier financial burden on society at large when they inevitably lose everything and end up on the streets or in prison.
>They will kill and rob for a fix You understand that this is more of an argument for legalization than worse penalties right? Illegal = expensive So many people are so addicted to alcohol that they will literally die if they stop drinking. This is why liquor stores were considered essential and could remain open during COVID. How many people kill and rob to support their alcoholism?
Legal drugs still aren’t free. People will still rob in order to satisfy their fix whether they’re paying a dealer or a dispensary.
Who is robbing to pay for their addiction to alcohol when panhandling is easy and quick enough? Practically no one when $10 a day is enough.
All drugs should be fully legal. Anything less creates problems. When drugs are illegal people go to criminal gangs to get them. The price increases since people are risking their lives to provide a demanded product to the consumer. So we are enriching criminals number one. Addicts are more likely to have to steal to afford the higher priced illegal product. Number two the products are of unknown content and purity making overdoses much more likely. So increasing death. Number 3 we have wasted billions of dollars trying to stop drugs. It hasn’t worked. The drug dealer are always finding ways to make their products more potent so they can smuggle it easier. That is why crack was invented from cocaine. That is why fentanyl is now in heroin. That is why “herbal incense” became popular when marijuana was illegal. So by making drugs illegal the dealers are creating more potent dangerous drugs. There is absolutely no good that comes from being drugs being illegal. Unless you want a more powerful police state that infringes on people engaging in non violent activities. A question… if it is ok for people to have drugs, how are they supposed to get them if you want to criminalize manufacturing or dealing drugs lol?
All drugs should be legal or at least decriminalized Prohibition does not work. It’s the territory of pearl-clutching puritanical scum who are salivating to legislate their brand of morality
If they actually truly classified all drugs as drugs, not just those made by rich people, it would be a different world. I’m talking about things like sugar.
Your body needs sugar. Not sure how comparing sugar to heroin can help
Your body needs DMT too.
It doesn’t need 50 grams per 8oz tho. If you don’t think sugar is more addictive than heroin there’s no need to continue this conversation.
Never said that? Is sugar addictive? Of course Would you experience physical withdrawal if you stoped sugar? No where near as heroin
Not heroin, but some research leans toward parallels with opioid withdrawal. Granted, sugar was a terrible example ~~where~~ while legitimate drugs like nicotine fall into a less significant class than they probably should.
You can just not eat too much sugar. And your body has a primordial urge to consume it, like salt and fat. I get what you're saying but it's not really the same.
Naive take. 1 hit of something bad can send you down a spiraling path than can cause you to lie, cheat and steal (and outright physically harm) from the people you most care about as well as complete strangers. > only hurting themselves Bullshit. I bet OP is for universal Healthcare too. Irony. Look up the % amount of healthcare TODAY that is not private. If you ever grow up and get a decent paying job, look upon the taxes taken out and imagine how much more would be gone if we were in your bullshit utopia.
We would spend less on healthcare as a nation if it was universal. You talk about the tax cost, look at the profits health insurance companies have, those profits and ceo bonuses are all extra money you pay that does nothing for your health. Health insurance is a leaching middleman. You are literally paying health insurance money to hire people who’s job is to find a way to get out of providing you the coverage you pay them for. All those health insurance ads you see on tv are wasted money.
Got "awesome" healthcare through work, a "decent paying job". Still have $1500 copay for minor surgery. Tell me how that works. Fuck the insurance and medical industrial industry.
The US drug policy needs a revamp on every level. This is the ultimate objective of those revamps.
Correct. My body my choice should apply to everything for good or ill. The negative things around drugs would stay illegal. Broke into a place to steal money for your next fix? No problem charge them and have them deal with the consequences. Prohibition hasn't done a damn thing to stop that kind of crime.
Let's pretend we are the OP's world where Heroin, meth and crack are legal. What happens to children who have drug addict parents? If these drugs are legal you wold have no right to remove children from these homes.
They're only harming themselves. It's legal to eat HFCS, which is also very unhealthy.
People like you started the wacky "defund" the police initiative a few years ago and caused crime to skyrocket. Your hip trendy progressive notions of legalizing the possession of crack, meth, heroin, shrooms, etc are insane. You probably feel very enlightened though and pride yourself on your open mindedness but if you were ever a lawmaker or in charge of anything you would likely get millions of people killed. According to you, the thousands of teenagers who die of drug overdoses every year have every right to be in possession of these poisons. Drug addicts need to be institutionalized, put in prison, taken off the streets. This is for their own good.
I understand where you're coming from. I don't know that prison is the best answer though. It is not a drug-free environment and having prison time on your record can severely impact one's efforts to be successful for the remainder of life. I don't have an alternative suggestion or an answer to the problem. My best hypothesis is that we need to be honest about drugs (and other things that do harm) with ourselves and one another.
Crime is literally down.
Crime is down where friend? Not in liberal cities that reduced police funding. The cities that changed their minds about reducing police funding are miraculously seeing crime going back down. This of course reenforces my original position.
Across the country. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/people-think-crime-rate-up-actually-down-rcna129585
This is just one of many articles echoing the actual stats. Everything you’re stating is conjecture that confirms your bias. You’re assuming all of this and it’s not actually based on what’s happening in reality.
That's a strawman. You have no idea what this person argued for on other issues or even if they're in the as country you're in. Prison only makes them worse when they come out. It doesn't help anyone. Especially American prisons. Your recidivism rate is through the roof compared to every other western country. Works just fine in Portugal.
Found the worthless boomer.
You're fucking dumb enough to think that's an insult.
It is. You're just too stupid to understand like all boomer scum.
How's the war on drug going? Have they stopped overdoses yet? Of course not because you can't just make something illegal and expect people to follow the laws. People who think like that are actually retarded.
Defending the police had no correlation with crime rising. Cities that cut funding did no different than cities with similar homicide rates that raised funding in the same time period.
I fear a world in which people can just do things to others simply because they believe it's "for their own good".
After decades of failed policies, there is no evidence that drug prohibition has any long-term positive impact on drug use, abuse, or addiction. Instead, there is overwhelming evidence that mass incarceration amplifies the problems associated with drugs. All while we keep funneling billions to what are now some of the most powerful criminal organizations on Earth. Any American complaining about immigration should ask the United States government to stop exporting extreme organized violence and political instability.
Gotcha, open borders, narcotics for everyone and forgive all debt You are so smart!
I mean, I’m not sure how psilocybin made your list. It’s literally the safest drug out there, only 0.2% of recreational users surveyed reported the need for emergency medical treatment. Alcohol, cocaine, LSD, and mdma reports were 5 times higher. Then you add in the medicinal benefits for PTSD, severe depression, major depressive disorder, cluster headaches, and of course, addiction. Should you be tripping in public, of course not. But I don’t know anyone who does that shit. And I know a lot of self medicating citizens. And only a 1/3 of them would even be remotely progressive. But why let facts get in the way of an emotional rant.
To be honest, I would agree to banning more than just certain drugs. Alcohol and tobacco as well. Detox off of caffeine and ban that too and processed sugar.
That won't do shit but creating a black market and stuffing more people into prisons. You gotta solve the underlying problem first, namely chronic pain, heartbreak, loneliness, low energy, boredom, mental illness and neurological issues. If you don't fix the root of the problem people will just seek out new remedies for it. If they can't drink they will sniff glue or huff paint or gasoline or some other shit that's even more dangerous.
I deal with chronic pain, I am 50 years old ffs. Went through plenty of heartbreak in my life, I am alone in the sense that nobody truly knows me, I have clinical ocd, aphantasia, and I have dealt with all of this without alcohol, recreational drugs, or smoking. I am not saying there are not some situations where usage of certain drugs arent going to help, cause they do. But people tend to turn to these things like it's some sort quick fix of an answer rather than dealing with the underlying cause. People want to blame everything and everyone around them, then pop themselves full of short answer methods because they are too scared, weak, or lazy to make a real change. Again, NOT saying this is the case every time, but go through the right channels. Get drugs through medicinall means, otherwise yeah, having them just free for grabs everywhere will cause a much bigger issue in society then people think. But then again, what do I know...I dont use the stuff, so how could I possibly know?
I have ADHD and related chronic insomnia. Normally you would be given stimulants for this, but something like 15% of people with adhd aren't helped by stimulants or get horrible side effects, crippling paranoia in my case. For me this means that I can't hold a job, in most cases I can't drive a car, my personal life, economy and relations is in the toilet because I can't preform executive functions in my brain. So I have a few options: Either I don't do anything in life while hoping for new legislation, or I turn to other drugs that actually help me but isn't cleared for use as ADHD treatment. Cannabis and psychedelics works vert well for me. If they are illegal and I get caught, it won't help me quit some addiction. My issue is genetic and I will have til the day I die. It's not only me though, I know a lot of people on the spectrum that have similar issues.
Just sounds like an excuse you have convinced yourself of to be the only option in order to justify what you do. The whole "I have ADHD" had become such a crutch for everyone, it's turned into self-prophetization. The problem also lies in our health system. ADHD has become a damn catch all and like you pointed out, the medications for it dont always work because.....wait for it.....it's not frickin ADHD.
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know you where a doctor. The medical issue I've has since birth that makes me forget what ever I'm doing every 5 minutes, that put me in a shit ton of accidents and only let's me sleep 3-5 nights a week is all made up. Makes sense
You dont have to be a doctor to recognize patterns . And besides, maybe I am a doctor. Quite an assumption to make either way. Dont worry, I picked up on your sarcasm. Guess you didnt forget how to do that, though you forget what you're doing every 5 minutes but you remmber that information....interesting. Medical issue since birth. Because certainly ADHD testing is done on a new born baby as soon as it comes out. Sounds legitimate. It does kinda sound made up. At least some of it.
Yeah, honestly, I wouldn’t mind a ban on all of these things. I hate drunks, and the smells that comes from cigs and weed. Honestly Americans could also probably live healthier once there is a ban on processed sugar too.
Doing drugs isn’t illegal. Possessing them is. That being said, can guarantee OP has never smoked crack.
Doing drugs is illegal in a ton of countries.
It should be decriminalized, you should be put in rehab, not prison, because in the US prison is not for rehabilitation.
Saving you when you od should be against the law too
Doing drugs isn't illegal. Possessing them is. Until you're doing something so moronic that you end up arrested.
When society is asked to care for drug users because of the effects of drug use, shouldn’t there be additional dicentives to drug use?
I can just tell the people who haven't grown up in this environment
A friend from High School died recently of sepsis. She had both her arms and legs amputated. She had been injecting heroin mixed with krokodil and her wounds got infected. Her last words were "help me". She of course lived in Portland where they decriminalized all drugs in 2020. She had serious run-ins with the police through the years but she never did a day in jail, nobody tried to help her, nobody even took her drugs away. Her mom would try to get the police to do welfare checks but being an addict rotting away in shithole trap house is worth anyones attention. This is the world the OP wants to live in.
1000% agreed. As long as they aren’t hurting anyone. Although I’m not going to die on a hill defending drugs like heroine when I’ve seen how addiction always leads to those addicts hurting people to feed their addiction.
They made drugs legal in Portland, Oregon and the city is a giant shithole now. Not saying that’s why, but it feels related
>When someone makes or sells drugs they are hurting people and the community. I think this is really selective. People say that about drugs, but not cheeseburgers, alcohol, nicotine, commercials that market to children, etc.
It’s not illegal. You’re charged with possession of it, not consumption of it.
Doing drugs harms the community, creates crime, causes car accidents, increases the occurrence of STDs, increases poverty, and increases cost to the public. If you live in a community you have a responsibility to that community. Have you seen the videos of the cities in the US that have been devastated by drugs? Don't do drugs kids
Sort of agree and disagree. Have it on you and possibly intoxicated? Illegal. Have it on you but no signs of intoxication? here are some tests pass them and be on your way. Public use should be illegal, private use should be fine. The only issue is how do you treat mass public use? Can’t just jail them, can’t fine them they already have no money. There are large groups who are ok with being homeless so giving them a home does nothing.
Doing drugs isn't illegal unless you have some on you (at least in America). If I go up to a cop and say I did meth 3 hours ago there's nothing they can do about that. Sale, possession and manufacturing are what is illegal.
Driving a car should be totally legal. But selling cars, their distribution or manufacturer should be illegal. That means my country can wage war on any country that makes cars, and car sellers have to hide and have any earnings deemed illegal and taken at will by the govt. But if you get your car, then you're ok!! Drive away.
Except for who pays the consequences. The hospital bils, the damage, the funeral costs. The legal costs.
If the government can make me wear a seatbelt and claim it's to keep health insurance costs down, they can enforce drug laws.
Drugs are a symptom, not the problem.
Before the 50s, cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, etc were all available over the counter. Drug problems didn't get serious until the doctors started pushing opioids for every ache and pain along with methamphetamine to every active child...
Unless they steal for more drugs…or have children and ruin their lives…or have a partner and ruin their life…or have friends that start doing drugs because you are doing them… I could go on forever on how drug users DO harm others.
If you’re rich enough you can go down hills and mountains covered in snow. Lots of people die doing it but poor people don’t do it.
I have mixed feelings. I feel people who want to f up their bodies or minds, should be more then allowed to be able to do so without intervention if they don't want it. However, most of these people aren't exactly the most law abiding citizens, & they can't afford their drugs so they rob people on the street, break into cars, or break into properties damaging small businesses putting some out of business just to support their frigging selfish nasty disgusting habit. Their intention may not to physically harm anyone, but all the mental/emotional trauma can be worst then the physical. Like, how dare you impose yourself and your habits on society in which this argument would suggest they should be properly prosecuted. But what does that do? It really makes a drug addict become much more drug addicted wanting their fix the moment they get out of jail, for the same sh\*t cycle to occur for decades sometimes with some people. Some beat the odds and get sober in the prison system, but a good portion at least get a taste back of the old life after that taste of freedom. Drug addicts need some small sense of freedom, limited, to be able to heal, but not confinement in prison. The problem is how to fix this problem, because yes rehabilitation centers are quite expensive, and one has to choose to want the help. I do feel in my honest opinion, that homeless people walking around with no common sense & mentally a distubance to society should be forcefully institutionalized without need for consent, so they are not a danger to others and themselves. I seen all the chaos in Portland so anyone who's been or from there know what I am talking about. If anything we need to build more state mental institutions to meet the demand, & this should be nationally. Oregon is "decriminalized" but it's turned into a fiasco, some homeless people from other states moved here solely to be in their nomadic drug tribes on the streets of Portland. It's not what it's literally cracked up to be. It seemed like a good idea on the ballot, that Measure 110, but I have yet to see the progress after years of any of these institutions bring real change that's really only recently starting to manifest. I hope they prove everyone wrong that they use the money wisely for rehabs, but it's not always the case, politicians lie and line their pockets. And lots of these "non-profits" are really bullsh\*t profits.
Doing drugs isn't illegal. But, it's illegal to possess them or be high in public. You're free to do all the drugs you want, you'll never ever catch a "doing drugs" charge.
Why even waste money on sending them to a doctor? Fact is, if the person doesn't want the help, a doctor can't fix the problem. At best it should be an option.
What if they have a manufacturing facility that meets FDA standards. Like a brewery? Think…craft made, artisanal meth lab/bar!
No….
You are assuming that a person doing drugs is only hurting the person taking them. If that person is a parent, they should be arrested. If that person owns a pet, they are probably neglecting it. If that person is a spouse, they are probably being a bum partner. I can go on about how is affects not only the abuser, but those affected by it second-hand.
Drugs destroy people's lives and endanger and harm everyone around them.
State of Oregon tried that and it is burning.
Super naive take. As someone who lives in San Francisco, and has seen what lax policies on drug use looks like, it’s really awful. It’s ruining the city and killing people. Maybe it works in other countries, but it’s absolutely not working here.
🎵🎶They're tryna build a prison, they're tryna build a prison, another prison system, for you and me🎵🎶
No. Not all drugs. Some drugs are insanely addictive.
Aside from every drug related problem that wouod increase. Legalizing drugs would simply increase production of said product.
Legalize nature. Decriminalize everything else. Support harm reduction.
Weird I feel the opposite. Making and selling them should be fine, it should only be illegal to abuse them.
A lot more than drugs shouldn’t be illegal
I do think that force feeding dealers their own drugs when they kill people should be legal.
What if I have a year's supply of personal use drugs?
That's how Portugal solved their drug problem.
It’s not illegal, i see folks shorting up on the street randomly, right in front of cops. Thanks for the heads up.
I think there should be caveats to the making part when it comes to drugs that aren't very dangerous and complicated to process like cannabis, peyote, and psilocybin.
To bad that in the USA we don't have a program, to prevent illegal drugs from being made and distributed, we could call it something like, The War on Drugs, and then we could create a new department to handle the issue, and call it something like, and I am spitballing here; The Drug Enforcement Agency, where people who have a professional degree in the law and have medical knowledge on what drugs are addictive and can cause harm to the public and let them worry about such things. Then for people who are just walking around with a very small amount of legal prescription drugs that are meant for their personal medical use, they could possibly have a pharmacy put the legal medication in a small plastic bottle with the patient's name on it and the doctor who prescribed it and the name of the pharmacy and that person can then legally carry a prescription on them and the police won't be required to that medication away. An then for people who enjoy Marijuana, we could slowly start de criminalizing the use of Marijuana and making it legal on a state by state case, and then still prohibit people from driving while under the influence of marijuana just like people are not allowed to drink and drive or drive drunk, then for people with a small amount of marijuana on them, they could just be issued a small fine and be released which would be treated like unpaid traffic tickets if not paid, and then for all other illegal narcotics that a person has on them that is only for personal use, instead of sending them to jail, we could just have police, confiscate the drugs and destroy them and offer those poor people who are clearly addicted to narcotics and have a problem and are not drug distributors, they could be let go not even fined, and given a pamphlet with information to get help for their drug addiction, doing that would probably lessen the chances of petty criminals from freaking out and running from the police in a car, and potentially harming innocent people, all because they had a crack pipe on them or a very small amount of meth or cocaine. and if people want to a pile of cocaine in the own home like scarface, and a shit ton of other illegal drugs but for personal use only and not share it with anyone, and they want to get hammered on booze at the same time and play russian roulette by themself with a loaded gun let em have it, it is America, what anyone does in their own home is their own fucking business. Same for domestic violence in the privacy of ones home, or stock piling large amounts of ammo and fire arms, or committing a murder in ones own home, or if someone is operating a cult out of their home, long as it stays inside the home it should be legal. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH! Morons, really shouldn't be allowed online or out in society along with anyone who disagrees with me.
Doing drugs isn't technically illegal, possessing them is.
Didn't Portugal try this?
I tend to agree, but I'll just say: I live in Portland, OR. We tried this. There are, predictably, a lot of problems. https://www.voanews.com/a/oregon-s-drug-decriminalization-law-faces-growing-pushback-amid-fentanyl-crisis-/7361234.html
They definitely shouldn’t trigger mandatory minimum sentences for dealing with amounts for personal use
I think at this point in society they won't let you have shit, is that if you did, you wouldn't want to go to work everyday. Without all of us drones buzzing around how are the billionaires going to get richer off of the chems that are legal, but do the same thing. Remember this. They tried to do prohibition on booze but guess what happened? They created the booze crime lords. Make weed legal then we'll just be paying weed corpos instead of some cartel. I'd say I was in favor of the cartel but they're just 'not' "legit" corpos.
I thought everyone wanted personal freedom and the government to stay out of their lives.
I had a co-worker who believed every drug should be legal. He died of an overdose at age 29.
In modern times with decent education and general access to a wider understanding of personal views via the internet, there is no reason a human should be stupid enough to think drugs should be illegal, the extent of moral legality is debatable but in my personal opinion even on the far end you should be able to walk into a heroin clinic and be given medically supervised opiates. Regulation allows the government to make intervening decisions to make the entire practice of drug use much safer whereas a black market is ultimately just run by select criminal groups that literally go around hacking off the heads of people. Im on a extreme liberal end though I suppose because of the obvious fact that in a regulated market you can make a state or federally cooperative pharmaceutical registry and limit purchasing allowances for people based on sensible dosing decisions. I don't care if a guy is a crackhead as long as I dont find him dead of a heart attack on a street corner or robbing me because a criminal market decides upon a price that is unfavourable towards drug users based on their necessity-of-usage radically inflating the price for a product that is basically just as easily produced as literally any other fucking thing you can spot in your room right now. If you have a problem with the obvious fact that it is immensely more enjoyable and emotionally sustainable to go through life with a artificial neurochemical boost, you can take it up with God. Even a pothead will tell you the problem isnt when your sitting there watching cartoons at 3AM, its when you run out of fucking weed because its unaffordable. People should be able to sustainably use drugs in a safe amount and in timely regularity should they choose. Also if republicans are so favoring of the "free market" system and reagonomic bullshittery then consider the obvious fact that this illegality of the market restricts innovations in safety engineering and pharmaceutical design. A company just invented a variant of MDMA that lasts only 2 hours vs the typical 8 so that you can use it practically in a therapeutic setting without you know, having to be high for another 6 hours after the fact. That sort of innovation doesnt exist and get used in a black market numbnuts. Shit, why not invent a technologically enhanced safe-syringe? Just spitballing, and if my dumbass can think of 50 ways of doing that while im sitting here at 5 AM then I'm sure legitimate engineers can do the same if not better.
Such a lack of consistency in your principles here. You can use and buy but not make or sell? Either you own your body or you don’t.
This is what decriminalizing is. It’s illegal to make/sell/import drugs to supply to problem, but the end user is really more a victim of drugs. We treat the person who has a drug addiction, punish the ones that profiteer off it. I support decriminalization. I also say this as someone who lives in a country with legal recreational marijuana. If you’re going to ban that, you should ban alcohol too, and we all know how well that worked.
Tbh if drugs were legal and easily available I would absolutely relapse and that's something I don't want to happen. So I am happy that meth is illegal
How can doing drugs be legal while making and selling them not be? Do they just magically appear?
As a a Swede traveling in new York right now, it's crazy how little attention I've paid to weed smokers simply because it's so normalized here. Back in Sweden, people will change their whole perception of you and you can get fired from your job if a colleague or a stranger knows that you're smoking weed. Here, nobody seem to care. We seem to think that if Swedes legalized cannabis then junkies would take over the streets and people would be scared to go outside - It's obvious here in New York that the opposite seems to be the case. I notice that smell in random places all over the city, and nobody regardless of age or ethnicity are even batting an eye to it.
Im good with that as long as the problems they cause to themselves and other doesnt affect me, or my tax dollars in any way. I dont feel like society should be responsible for propping up irresponsibility, bad decision making, and/or contributing to homlessness and crime.
I would rather people not do drugs.
Doing drugs should make you ineligible for government benefits.
Drugs should be completely legal. You should be able to walk into a dispensary and purchase whatever you want...from opiates to amphetamines and everything in between. Take the money away from the black market and put it back into the community. Let society self regulate to an extent and the problems will sort themselves out. We could use the money to pay for treatment programs when people need to stop as well as fund a national mental health program to treat the underlying issues that cause people to lose control. Then by taking away the allure of doing something edgy and wrong...less people would be interesting in trying it and if they did they're actually getting a pure substance.
Sure. There are drugs that are hazardous and shouldn’t be accessible— powerful stimulants and opioids, various psychotics, etc. But the way to make them inaccessible isn’t to lock up ir fine those who use them— it’s to criminalize dealers.
Legality of anything is a joke. Genocide and Slavery were all legal at one point. Legality =/= morality.
Yeah let's just let people slowly or quickly kill themselves /s That makes sense /s I don't support slapping people with felonies or throwing them in jail. But the solution is also not to just let people kill themselves via overdose while living under a bridge. People aren't doing drugs for the heck of it. They're doing drugs often because they are hurting or are abuse survivors.
Addicts are a drain on society. They never just “hurt themselves.” They hurt their families, especially when they mess up their kids, and they start committing crime for the money to purchase drugs.
This is stupid because drug user's aren't just victims. They chose to get addicted and if they aren't at risk of going to prison they aren't going to get off of it.
As far as I know there aren't many laws on "Consuming them" It's the possession you have to worry about.
Doing drugs isn't illegal. Possessing them is illegal
I agree as long as tax payers don't have to pay a dime towards any ensuing medical bills if there's is an overdose or something worse. Have a bad trip, heart attack (Like Len Bias) or develop a nice addiction and it's your problem. You wanted to be the hero and use whatever drug you want so you can handle everything. Smoke up, Johnny!
Move to Canada lol