Mayor Snorkum
Banned
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2011
- Messages
- 1,631
- Reaction score
- 317
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian
No. Marginalizing and trying to "starve out" addicts just creates more crime and poverty. Half the problem is that we have so few resources for addicts as it is, and the drug war culture makes people afraid to admit they have a problem, on top of the difficulty of dealing with it.
As offensive as it is to the mentality of people who would rather punish people for the audacity to be human, the exact opposite works much better: harm reduction programs. It increases the rates at which addicts go to rehab, and lowers crime.
I am not concerned with whether it serves some people's desire for vengeance. I'm only concerned with what works best.
In addition, a casual pot smoker is not any more an addict or inhibited from functioning than a casual drinker. There is absolutely no reason to discriminate against this sort of drug use (which is already perfectly acceptable in society as long as the drug has some totally arbitrary stamp of government approval). Marijuana lingers in your urine for up to a month, sometimes even longer if you're overweight. It lingers in hair for much longer, unless you shave it. Should someone who smoked a joint last month at their birthday party be thrown off benefit? Seriously?
Well, then.
The solution is that since the Constitution does not allow the Congress to subsidize poverty, the Congress should stop taking money from people who earned it to buy votes from people who haven't earned the money in any other way.