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But that's just being narrowly pedantic. You're asking if we can; I'm asking if we should. To be really ugly about it, suicide is a 100% effective way to prev
by beat 7y ago
But that's just being narrowly pedantic.
You're asking if we can; I'm asking if we should.
To be really ugly about it, suicide is a 100% effective way to prevent cancer. Doesn't mean it's a solution, because cancer isn't the real problem - early death is the problem. Likewise, the problem of opioids isn't addiction... it's harm to society. And it's completely obvious that the very existence of prohibition causes harm - a black market that handles business by violence and corruption, a police state that keeps further encroaching our rights in the name of "war on drugs", and innocent victims caught in the crossfire. Worse, user-level prohibition keeps otherwise peaceable citizens from seeking treatment for addiction, pinning them in the arms of both the addiction and the criminal enterprise that provides their fix.
Being "narrow in scope" is not only ignoring the external costs, it's ignoring the actual problem at hand.
- Misdicorl 7y agoNo, its not pedantic. There are real people who will have real and negative health outcomes if drugs are legalized. Ignoring this in the conversation about legalization is to our (society's) detriment. The post which began this chain wasn't only ignoring this outcome, it was asserting that it is not a possibility. Yes, there are more people who are more negatively affected by the current state of affairs. The law should change. But we should also be cognizant of the consequences of that change.