4 ms·

Just make it legal for people do to do whatever they want to themselves. It's simple and easy. Don't add any regulations they just create criminals out of no

Just make it legal for people do to do whatever they want to themselves. It's simple and easy. Don't add any regulations they just create criminals out of non criminal behavior.

sliverstorm 17y ago
Yeah! While you're at it, remove all the regulations from alcohol, including regulation on BAC while driving a car. I mean, really, you can do whatever you want to yourself! If driving on public roads at a BAC of 0.35 is criminal, I don't want to be law-abiding!
- stingraycharles 17y ago
  If you were the only person using the public roads, I wouldn't see a problem with it; the problem is that other people are using the roads too, and at that point, you're putting those people at risk.
  - sliverstorm 17y ago
    Exactly. No surprise there. That's my point. I'm sorry if I take a bit of a negative attitude towards it all, I just get tired of people who completely overlook the impacts their own actions may have on other people.
    - metamemetics 17y ago
      Right. Everytime I light up a joint, God causes a drunk driver to hit someone.
      - sliverstorm 17y ago
        You think using mj has no impact or risk on other people? How about driving baked? It's probably not as bad as driving drunk, but when you're on the same road as me piloting a 2-ton missile around me, 'not as bad as wasted' isn't quite good enough. This is exactly the kind of attitude I'm talking about.
        metamemetics 17y ago
        I don't drive when high. And if I did, it would still be a DUI even if marijuana was legal. DUI laws are not whats under debate. You're confounding the issue. And on a side note, I agree it's less harmful than driving drunk and alcohol is legal to possess.
        sliverstorm 17y ago
        i'm not. the parent i first replied to suggested we should remove all regulations, and DUI laws are a regulation.
    - dantheman 17y ago
      If you break the law or cause damage while under the influence you should be held accountable for your actions. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.
      - yters 17y ago
        We have that law currently and it doesn't stop drunk driving. Until people become rational actors (which they manifestly are not), we cannot just stop at prohibiting outcomes, but also must prohibit means to some degree.
        orangecat 17y ago
        So people will ignore laws against drunk driving, but will obey laws against drinking in the first place. Interesting theory, if only we had some historical evidence to see if that would be likely to work...
        sliverstorm 17y ago
        He's saying they don't anticipate the damages they will cause driving drunk, so there are laws against drunk driving (the 'means') I don't think anyone is arguing mj should be outlawed because of driving, or that alcohol should be either, the point is there are careful considerations that must be made and you can't just remove all regulations and expect things to go swimmingly
- hga 17y ago
  Note that the laws in this area aren't limited to BAC; if any substance including prescription medicines makes you incompetent behind the wheel that's enough. We just focus on BAC because it's easy to measure and we're pretty damned sure alcohol to excess is the biggest current problem.
mkramlich 17y ago
Imagine you have a wife and children, and you live in the world where anybody can do whatever they want "to themselves." So in that world, the people in the houses on either side of you start doing cocoaine, heroin, meth, etc. You revel in their freedom, taking great pride in your liberarian country. Then one night they break in to your house crazed and murder your family. Yeah for freedom! Yeah for letting people do whatever they want! Oh wait...
- dantheman 17y ago
  yeah, because that happens now when people do drugs all over the place... How about instead of made up bogeymen, why don't you look at the horrors the prohibition of drugs has created. 1. Militarization of police 2. Attack on civil liberties 3. Funding illegal organizations, and causing gang crime 4. A gigantic waste of money 5. Ruining countless numbers of lives through incarceration Or perhaps you might want to look at Portugal: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-dr... Or perhaps you'd like to take a look at the hell in mexico that drug prohibition has caused: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/mexico-drug-wars-cartels http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/mexico-drug-wars... So I have the cause of freedom on my side, as well as all the 2nd and 3rd order effects. Perhaps you should change your position.
  - mkramlich 17y ago
    Actually yes it's happening right now, there's a very high correlation right now with people who do certain kinds of drugs (cocaine, meth, heroin, that sort of thing) and crazy, violent, self-destructive and community-destructive behavior. I for one don't want more of that going on than already is going on. I don't want to live in a world where that's more widespread. 1. The police in my area don't seem militarized. Where in the US are the police militarized? Are you seriously referring to things like tanks, jets, battleships, mortars, or what? In my town, and it appears in most of the rest of Colorado, we have police and they mostly do old fashioned police sorts of things. 2. Attack is a strong word. That also sounds like you're suggesting it's something pervasive. I bet if we did a poll of people, at least here in Colorado, for example, I bet we'd find that at most a very small fraction of 1% of the population will say they feel they have experienced an "attack on [their] civil liberties". Another point I'd add to this is one could make a very strong argument for the position that there is no such thing as some inherent "right" to anything. People do what they can get away with, and it's been happening like that for millions of years, I suspect. Heck, I'd love to have the "right" to do anything I wanted. But in practice, that's not going to happen. And there's that notion of one person's rights end where another's begin. Your right to walk down the street firing a gun ends where my right to walk down the street and not be shot by some idiot, begins. 3. the folks who buy a thing are the ones funding it, I would argue. If you buy illegal drugs, YOU are funding the organization which provided it to you. The government did not. That's a physical fact. Yes, if it was legal, then you might be buying it from a different source, and then YOU still would be the one funding it. 4. "gigantic waste of money" -- I cannot refute this point, merely say it's a question of whether one thinks that the benefits of the situation outweigh the disadvantages. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? Are their better ways of achieving the same goal, for less cost? Perhaps, I don't now. But if your position is that nothing positive has come from it, I think that's a harder case to make. 5. again I think this is a case of individuals making poor choices and ruining their OWN lives -- through their OWN actions. The government did not come along and ruin their life, against their will. It's also not clear to me that in every case where an individual buys or sells an illegal drug, and gets busted for it, that when they are processed by the legal system their lives are all automatically ruined -- that's a pretty extreme statement. However, in the other direction, I'd argue that when people CHOOSE to use/consume/inhale/inject those hard, illegal drugs they very often do ruin their own lives, or set them on the road to ruin. They also make the world worse for their families, friends, and communities. There's a lot of evidence to support that position. Hey, if I could live in a world where all the hard, "bad" drugs were legal and easily available AND also live in a world that has not turned into a violent, anarchic, ghetto-like hellhole (due to bad drug behavior & culture) I would like that. On your Mexico point... counter-point: there are other countries where the same drugs are also prohibited, and they don't have the serious violent drug gang/war problem as Mexico. And as you pointed out, there are also countries that have looser drug laws, and they have less problems (apparently, in some dimensions) than Mexico or the US. So perhaps the stronger correlation is with the type of culture, and the type of people, and the types of lifestyles, choices, intellect, etc. that exist in those different areas. All I know for sure is that there's a high correlation between hard drug use and with behavior that is destructive to self and community, and so I don't want to live in a world where there's a larger percentage of people doing that. This is not an academic argument, it's a practical one, based on seeing and experiencing and knowing real people in my life and community that have went down the path of hard drugs -- even if those drugs were legal, it wouldn't change their effects on mind and body. Freedom is just one dimension. There are other dimensions I think most folks care about as well. Health, safety, happiness, wealth, efficiency, quality, fairness, etc. On one extreme end of the freedom spectrum you basically have pure anarchy -- and I bet it's a state with much more violence and fear and rape, etc. and a lot less health, safety, justice, etc. Almost all modern societies have intentionally dialed down on the freedom dimension in order to raise one or more of those other dimensions we also desire. I like freedom, it's those other dimensions I won't want to lose. This is not a radical position, it's pretty mainstream actually.

Just make it legal for people do to do whatever they want to themselves. It's simple and easy. Don't add any regulations they just create criminals out of non criminal behavior.

sliverstorm 17y ago

Yeah! While you're at it, remove all the regulations from alcohol, including regulation on BAC while driving a car. I mean, really, you can do whatever you want to yourself! If driving on public roads at a BAC of 0.35 is criminal, I don't want to be law-abiding!

stingraycharles 17y ago
If you were the only person using the public roads, I wouldn't see a problem with it; the problem is that other people are using the roads too, and at that point, you're putting those people at risk.
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  Exactly. No surprise there. That's my point. I'm sorry if I take a bit of a negative attitude towards it all, I just get tired of people who completely overlook the impacts their own actions may have on other people.
  - metamemetics 17y ago
    Right. Everytime I light up a joint, God causes a drunk driver to hit someone.
    - sliverstorm 17y ago
      You think using mj has no impact or risk on other people? How about driving baked? It's probably not as bad as driving drunk, but when you're on the same road as me piloting a 2-ton missile around me, 'not as bad as wasted' isn't quite good enough. This is exactly the kind of attitude I'm talking about.
      - metamemetics 17y ago
        I don't drive when high. And if I did, it would still be a DUI even if marijuana was legal. DUI laws are not whats under debate. You're confounding the issue. And on a side note, I agree it's less harmful than driving drunk and alcohol is legal to possess.
        sliverstorm 17y ago
        i'm not. the parent i first replied to suggested we should remove all regulations, and DUI laws are a regulation.
  - dantheman 17y ago
    If you break the law or cause damage while under the influence you should be held accountable for your actions. I don't think anyone is arguing against that.
    - yters 17y ago
      We have that law currently and it doesn't stop drunk driving. Until people become rational actors (which they manifestly are not), we cannot just stop at prohibiting outcomes, but also must prohibit means to some degree.
      - orangecat 17y ago
        So people will ignore laws against drunk driving, but will obey laws against drinking in the first place. Interesting theory, if only we had some historical evidence to see if that would be likely to work...
        sliverstorm 17y ago
        He's saying they don't anticipate the damages they will cause driving drunk, so there are laws against drunk driving (the 'means') I don't think anyone is arguing mj should be outlawed because of driving, or that alcohol should be either, the point is there are careful considerations that must be made and you can't just remove all regulations and expect things to go swimmingly
hga 17y ago
Note that the laws in this area aren't limited to BAC; if any substance including prescription medicines makes you incompetent behind the wheel that's enough. We just focus on BAC because it's easy to measure and we're pretty damned sure alcohol to excess is the biggest current problem.

mkramlich 17y ago

Imagine you have a wife and children, and you live in the world where anybody can do whatever they want "to themselves." So in that world, the people in the houses on either side of you start doing cocoaine, heroin, meth, etc. You revel in their freedom, taking great pride in your liberarian country. Then one night they break in to your house crazed and murder your family. Yeah for freedom! Yeah for letting people do whatever they want! Oh wait...

dantheman 17y ago
yeah, because that happens now when people do drugs all over the place... How about instead of made up bogeymen, why don't you look at the horrors the prohibition of drugs has created. 1. Militarization of police 2. Attack on civil liberties 3. Funding illegal organizations, and causing gang crime 4. A gigantic waste of money 5. Ruining countless numbers of lives through incarceration Or perhaps you might want to look at Portugal: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-dr... Or perhaps you'd like to take a look at the hell in mexico that drug prohibition has caused: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/mexico-drug-wars-cartels http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/23/mexico-drug-wars... So I have the cause of freedom on my side, as well as all the 2nd and 3rd order effects. Perhaps you should change your position.
- mkramlich 17y ago
  Actually yes it's happening right now, there's a very high correlation right now with people who do certain kinds of drugs (cocaine, meth, heroin, that sort of thing) and crazy, violent, self-destructive and community-destructive behavior. I for one don't want more of that going on than already is going on. I don't want to live in a world where that's more widespread. 1. The police in my area don't seem militarized. Where in the US are the police militarized? Are you seriously referring to things like tanks, jets, battleships, mortars, or what? In my town, and it appears in most of the rest of Colorado, we have police and they mostly do old fashioned police sorts of things. 2. Attack is a strong word. That also sounds like you're suggesting it's something pervasive. I bet if we did a poll of people, at least here in Colorado, for example, I bet we'd find that at most a very small fraction of 1% of the population will say they feel they have experienced an "attack on [their] civil liberties". Another point I'd add to this is one could make a very strong argument for the position that there is no such thing as some inherent "right" to anything. People do what they can get away with, and it's been happening like that for millions of years, I suspect. Heck, I'd love to have the "right" to do anything I wanted. But in practice, that's not going to happen. And there's that notion of one person's rights end where another's begin. Your right to walk down the street firing a gun ends where my right to walk down the street and not be shot by some idiot, begins. 3. the folks who buy a thing are the ones funding it, I would argue. If you buy illegal drugs, YOU are funding the organization which provided it to you. The government did not. That's a physical fact. Yes, if it was legal, then you might be buying it from a different source, and then YOU still would be the one funding it. 4. "gigantic waste of money" -- I cannot refute this point, merely say it's a question of whether one thinks that the benefits of the situation outweigh the disadvantages. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? Are their better ways of achieving the same goal, for less cost? Perhaps, I don't now. But if your position is that nothing positive has come from it, I think that's a harder case to make. 5. again I think this is a case of individuals making poor choices and ruining their OWN lives -- through their OWN actions. The government did not come along and ruin their life, against their will. It's also not clear to me that in every case where an individual buys or sells an illegal drug, and gets busted for it, that when they are processed by the legal system their lives are all automatically ruined -- that's a pretty extreme statement. However, in the other direction, I'd argue that when people CHOOSE to use/consume/inhale/inject those hard, illegal drugs they very often do ruin their own lives, or set them on the road to ruin. They also make the world worse for their families, friends, and communities. There's a lot of evidence to support that position. Hey, if I could live in a world where all the hard, "bad" drugs were legal and easily available AND also live in a world that has not turned into a violent, anarchic, ghetto-like hellhole (due to bad drug behavior & culture) I would like that. On your Mexico point... counter-point: there are other countries where the same drugs are also prohibited, and they don't have the serious violent drug gang/war problem as Mexico. And as you pointed out, there are also countries that have looser drug laws, and they have less problems (apparently, in some dimensions) than Mexico or the US. So perhaps the stronger correlation is with the type of culture, and the type of people, and the types of lifestyles, choices, intellect, etc. that exist in those different areas. All I know for sure is that there's a high correlation between hard drug use and with behavior that is destructive to self and community, and so I don't want to live in a world where there's a larger percentage of people doing that. This is not an academic argument, it's a practical one, based on seeing and experiencing and knowing real people in my life and community that have went down the path of hard drugs -- even if those drugs were legal, it wouldn't change their effects on mind and body. Freedom is just one dimension. There are other dimensions I think most folks care about as well. Health, safety, happiness, wealth, efficiency, quality, fairness, etc. On one extreme end of the freedom spectrum you basically have pure anarchy -- and I bet it's a state with much more violence and fear and rape, etc. and a lot less health, safety, justice, etc. Almost all modern societies have intentionally dialed down on the freedom dimension in order to raise one or more of those other dimensions we also desire. I like freedom, it's those other dimensions I won't want to lose. This is not a radical position, it's pretty mainstream actually.