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All drugs should be legalized for recreational use

Exquisitor said:
Yes, but it obviously is not for you.
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So it's not a language thing in your posts. It's a coherent thought issue making them what they are. Got it. When your posts improve, I will try again. Until then, good luck with that and all!
 
Keridan said:
So it's not a language thing in your posts. It's a coherent thought issue making them what they are. Got it. When your posts improve, I will try again. Until then, good luck with that and all!
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You have no understanding of artistic form and cannot understand by speed-reading.
 
Binary_Digit said:
What would happen if we legalized all drugs? To answer that, why not look at what happens when we prohibit drugs?

Alcohol prohibition was such a monumental disaster that they passed a Constitutional Amendment to repeal a Constitutional Amendment. It only took 10 years to see the contrast. Most of us would've never heard of Al Capone if it weren't for prohibition. An average back-alley cutthroat was able to become one of the richest and most powerful criminals in American history, all thanks to the black market created by prohibition. And that's just one example. The lesson was clear: No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.

But for some reason we forgot that lesson and decided to prohibit all other drugs, as if somehow the results would be different. They haven't been. We just went from Al Capone to El Chapo (and Pablo Escobar).

So at the very least, legalization would remove all the negative effects caused by prohibition. That alone is a net positive.

Drug abuse and addiction are inherently medical problems, not criminal. Prohibition mischaracterizes the problem into something it's not. A properly-waged war on drugs would embrace treatment and prevention programs that are effective at combating the terrible nature of addiction and drug abuse. Instead, what we're waging today is more like a war on people. And we wonder why we aren't winning.

No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.
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Legalize, educate and regulate.
 
Binary_Digit said:
What would happen if we legalized all drugs? To answer that, why not look at what happens when we prohibit drugs?

Alcohol prohibition was such a monumental disaster that they passed a Constitutional Amendment to repeal a Constitutional Amendment. It only took 10 years to see the contrast. Most of us would've never heard of Al Capone if it weren't for prohibition. An average back-alley cutthroat was able to become one of the richest and most powerful criminals in American history, all thanks to the black market created by prohibition. And that's just one example. The lesson was clear: No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.

But for some reason we forgot that lesson and decided to prohibit all other drugs, as if somehow the results would be different. They haven't been. We just went from Al Capone to El Chapo (and Pablo Escobar).

So at the very least, legalization would remove all the negative effects caused by prohibition. That alone is a net positive.

Drug abuse and addiction are inherently medical problems, not criminal. Prohibition mischaracterizes the problem into something it's not. A properly-waged war on drugs would embrace treatment and prevention programs that are effective at combating the terrible nature of addiction and drug abuse. Instead, what we're waging today is more like a war on people. And we wonder why we aren't winning.

No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.
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During prohibition, organized crime flourished. Today, organized crime is funded largely by illegal drugs. People are going to get whatever they can to get high if they really want to do so. Legalizing them will simply put legitimate businesses in competition with organized crime. Will organized crime be forced to turn elsewhere in the face of such competition?

It is obvious that people are going to get their drugs, and the government really can't do anything about it.
 
I'm in favor of decriminalization but not legalization. The people pushing large amounts of product should still be punished but we should stop punishing users because most of them are addicts without agency.
 
Northern Light said:
I'm in favor of decriminalization but not legalization. The people pushing large amounts of product should still be punished but we should stop punishing users because most of them are addicts without agency.
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Just curious as to what you consider the differences between decriminalization and legalization?
 
Thoreau72 said:
Just curious as to what you consider the differences between decriminalization and legalization?
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Decriminalization means you can't go to prison for possessing drugs of a certain amount, but you can be fined under various circumstances. One being using drugs in public spaces, selling to a minor, etc. Decriminalization allows us to keep restrictions in place about when, where and how much is used. Legalization removes most of these strictures. Semantically, legalization is the government telling people that it's OK to do drugs and that businesses can even sell them.

I think drugs are a corrosive force on our society but I don't want to see people going to prison over it. Just so you know, I feel the same way about a lot of OTC drugs. True sobriety is a rare thing in our society. Almost everyone is on something, mostly to cope with existence.
 
Northern Light said:
Decriminalization means you can't go to prison for possessing drugs of a certain amount, but you can be fined under various circumstances. One being using drugs in public spaces, selling to a minor, etc. Decriminalization allows us to keep restrictions in place about when, where and how much is used. Legalization removes most of these strictures. Semantically, legalization is the government telling people that it's OK to do drugs and that businesses can even sell them.

I think drugs are a corrosive force on our society but I don't want to see people going to prison over it. Just so you know, I feel the same way about a lot of OTC drugs. True sobriety is a rare thing in our society. Almost everyone is on something, mostly to cope with existence.
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So decriminalization means a person can still be punished for possessing quantities above some arbitrary amount determined by law, but the punishment cannot be prison. Seems rather capricious to me.

What authority does the government have from the US Constitution to tell the citizen what he may ingest?
 
Thoreau72 said:
So decriminalization means a person can still be punished for possessing quantities above some arbitrary amount determined by law, but the punishment cannot be prison. Seems rather capricious to me.

What authority does the government have from the US Constitution to tell the citizen what he may ingest?
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It's wrong to say, you can have drugs, but nobody can supply you.

I'm for legalization based on freedom of religion.

Define these substances as sacrament.

No taxes other than sale, property and income tax.

Recreational use is medicinal use.
 
Thoreau72 said:
So decriminalization means a person can still be punished for possessing quantities above some arbitrary amount determined by law, but the punishment cannot be prison. Seems rather capricious to me.

What authority does the government have from the US Constitution to tell the citizen what he may ingest?
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There wouldn't be a rule about what a person could or couldn't ingest. It's about commerce law, and the amount isn't arbitrary. The government would have to somehow go into the business of drug sales and regulation, either through licensing or directly selling it in scalable quantities. The purpose would be to disempower the black market while controlling personal quantities, so that large amounts of substances do not enter communities.

With decriminalization, the black market loses major incentive to push large amounts into communities because the risk/benefit ratio would be a lot more disproportionate. Yet people would still be allowed to consume personal amounts. It also allows people to seek help for addiction without fear of having the cops break down their door to arrest them for small possession.

I don't agree with legalization because it essentially tells people that any kind of drug possession is OK, when it isn't. Things like opioids, cocaine, meth, etc... they provide no long-term benefit to humanity. All they do is create addicted communities. Conversely, things like psychedelics are gaining a lot of research momentum for the resolution of a wide array of mental health problems.

We need to get out of the business of enslaving our population in the prison-industrial complex because they possessed small quantities of something. We should still go after the big players though. Carte blanche legalization tells the black market that what they're doing is OK and it isn't. Drugs destroy individuals, families and communities.
 
I'm 100% for legalizing marijuana, and maybe things like psilocybin shrooms, and ketamine - things that have shown to have more of a positive effect. Plus, the economic benefits are insane.

I think there is definitely a line worth considering once you get into harder things like cocaine and heroin, etc...it's much easier to run into issues with those.
 
Binary_Digit said:
What would happen if we legalized all drugs? To answer that, why not look at what happens when we prohibit drugs?

Alcohol prohibition was such a monumental disaster that they passed a Constitutional Amendment to repeal a Constitutional Amendment. It only took 10 years to see the contrast. Most of us would've never heard of Al Capone if it weren't for prohibition. An average back-alley cutthroat was able to become one of the richest and most powerful criminals in American history, all thanks to the black market created by prohibition. And that's just one example. The lesson was clear: No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.

But for some reason we forgot that lesson and decided to prohibit all other drugs, as if somehow the results would be different. They haven't been. We just went from Al Capone to El Chapo (and Pablo Escobar).

So at the very least, legalization would remove all the negative effects caused by prohibition. That alone is a net positive.

Drug abuse and addiction are inherently medical problems, not criminal. Prohibition mischaracterizes the problem into something it's not. A properly-waged war on drugs would embrace treatment and prevention programs that are effective at combating the terrible nature of addiction and drug abuse. Instead, what we're waging today is more like a war on people. And we wonder why we aren't winning.

No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.
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Persuasive argument; I ought to agree, but ............ . What if a a result of legislation the number of those addicted to, say , crack cocaine or crystal meth increased? Could we just accept yet more ruined lives and walk on by?

( I have never partaken of any illegal drug. Not that anyone should care.)
 
Northern Light said:
There wouldn't be a rule about what a person could or couldn't ingest. It's about commerce law, and the amount isn't arbitrary. The government would have to somehow go into the business of drug sales and regulation, either through licensing or directly selling it in scalable quantities. The purpose would be to disempower the black market while controlling personal quantities, so that large amounts of substances do not enter communities.

With decriminalization, the black market loses major incentive to push large amounts into communities because the risk/benefit ratio would be a lot more disproportionate. Yet people would still be allowed to consume personal amounts. It also allows people to seek help for addiction without fear of having the cops break down their door to arrest them for small possession.

I don't agree with legalization because it essentially tells people that any kind of drug possession is OK, when it isn't. Things like opioids, cocaine, meth, etc... they provide no long-term benefit to humanity. All they do is create addicted communities. Conversely, things like psychedelics are gaining a lot of research momentum for the resolution of a wide array of mental health problems.

We need to get out of the business of enslaving our population in the prison-industrial complex because they possessed small quantities of something. We should still go after the big players though. Carte blanche legalization tells the black market that what they're doing is OK and it isn't. Drugs destroy individuals, families and communities.
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So much theory and hypothesis, so little connection to how people act and react, so little attachment to reality.

The last thing we need is the government IN the drug business. Such models for alcohol are poor examples.

It is not the government's role to determine how the citizen should leave his private life. There is no lawful authority for the government to play that role.

I could not disagree more with your model offered here. It has no lawful authority, and it is just dumb.
 
Thoreau72 said:
So much theory and hypothesis, so little connection to how people act and react, so little attachment to reality.

The last thing we need is the government IN the drug business. Such models for alcohol are poor examples.

It is not the government's role to determine how the citizen should leave his private life. There is no lawful authority for the government to play that role.

I could not disagree more with your model offered here. It has no lawful authority, and it is just dumb.
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What alternative do you propose?
 
Northern Light said:
What alternative do you propose?
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Considering that the government has no lawful authority to tell the citizen what he may or may not ingest, I propose treating "illegal drugs" as we currently treat the more popular drugs like alcohol and tobacco and OTC preparations.

Regulate as to purity and dosage in the manufacturing process, and tax retail sales at a reasonable rate.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Considering that the government has no lawful authority to tell the citizen what he may or may not ingest, I propose treating "illegal drugs" as we currently treat the more popular drugs like alcohol and tobacco and OTC preparations.

Regulate as to purity and dosage in the manufacturing process, and tax retail sales at a reasonable rate.
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Considering that we have an opioid addiction epidemic right now, that would be disastrous.
 
Northern Light said:
Considering that we have an opioid addiction epidemic right now, that would be disastrous.
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In a very real sense, that is apples and oranges logic.

In the big picture, the opioids are comparatively new to the scene. More, they were seriously misrepresented to the medical profession and the public, and as at least one current lawsuit shows, the manufacturer and distribution companies flooded the market with the product, generating a huge black market.

In a country where decency and honesty prevailed, those products would be withdrawn from the market. Hopefully the big lawsuit playing out will deliver that result.
 
Binary_Digit said:
What would happen if we legalized all drugs? To answer that, why not look at what happens when we prohibit drugs?

Alcohol prohibition was such a monumental disaster that they passed a Constitutional Amendment to repeal a Constitutional Amendment. It only took 10 years to see the contrast. Most of us would've never heard of Al Capone if it weren't for prohibition. An average back-alley cutthroat was able to become one of the richest and most powerful criminals in American history, all thanks to the black market created by prohibition. And that's just one example. The lesson was clear: No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.

But for some reason we forgot that lesson and decided to prohibit all other drugs, as if somehow the results would be different. They haven't been. We just went from Al Capone to El Chapo (and Pablo Escobar).

So at the very least, legalization would remove all the negative effects caused by prohibition. That alone is a net positive.

Drug abuse and addiction are inherently medical problems, not criminal. Prohibition mischaracterizes the problem into something it's not. A properly-waged war on drugs would embrace treatment and prevention programs that are effective at combating the terrible nature of addiction and drug abuse. Instead, what we're waging today is more like a war on people. And we wonder why we aren't winning.

No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.
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Look at what science is discovering about damage to the human brain from marijuana use.
 
marke said:
Look at what science is discovering about damage to the human brain from marijuana use.
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How about damage from trans fat and sugar? Somehow, life goes on and the planet is overpopulated.
 
Thoreau72 said:
How about damage from trans fat and sugar? Somehow, life goes on and the planet is overpopulated.
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Legalize brain-damaging drugs because trans fat and sugar do bad things to the rest of the body?
 
Thoreau72 said:
In a very real sense, that is apples and oranges logic.

In the big picture, the opioids are comparatively new to the scene. More, they were seriously misrepresented to the medical profession and the public, and as at least one current lawsuit shows, the manufacturer and distribution companies flooded the market with the product, generating a huge black market.

In a country where decency and honesty prevailed, those products would be withdrawn from the market. Hopefully the big lawsuit playing out will deliver that result.
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I agree the medical profession is to blame, but unfettered access to substances does not solve addiction epidemics. In societies with economic downturns and disparities, drug use skyrockets. The opioid epidemic is highest among communities with higher unemployment.

Legalizing all drugs with no discernment between the different types is folly. Psychedelics have a natural threshold to use, for example. A person can't do them every day because tolerance develops quickly, rendering them useless. Cocaine, opioids, and (meth)amphetamines are a different story. These destroy lives in a very real way and we should not be giving the thumbs up to their use

Decriminalization still gives a negative incentive against use while not actually putting people in jail. It also keeps the drug cartels on notice that we are after them.
 
marke said:
Legalize brain-damaging drugs because trans fat and sugar do bad things to the rest of the body?
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Brain and body damaging drugs ARE ALREADY legal.
 
Northern Light said:
I agree the medical profession is to blame, but unfettered access to substances does not solve addiction epidemics. In societies with economic downturns and disparities, drug use skyrockets. The opioid epidemic is highest among communities with higher unemployment.

Legalizing all drugs with no discernment between the different types is folly. Psychedelics have a natural threshold to use, for example. A person can't do them every day because tolerance develops quickly, rendering them useless. Cocaine, opioids, and (meth)amphetamines are a different story. These destroy lives in a very real way and we should not be giving the thumbs up to their use

Decriminalization still gives a negative incentive against use while not actually putting people in jail. It also keeps the drug cartels on notice that we are after them.
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Folly is the right word, and it perfectly describes our experience with the attempted drug prohibition brought first by The Harrison Narcotic Act a century ago, and the Controlled Substances Act in the 70's.

Prior to the prohibition of certain select drugs, a prohibition NOT based upon any drug's toxicity, we did not have children selling drugs on street corners. We did not have the drugs being sold in prisons. There was no such thing as the powerful drug cartels that virtually control many governments. We did not have our police officers stealing drugs from evidence rooms and selling them on the side. We did not have government agencies like the CIA in the drug business.

Yes, folly is most accurate a description of our irrational behavior in this regard.
 
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