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The only way to stop our neverending war on drugs is a Constitutional amendment that guarantees every American the right to consume anything they want for any r
by beenBoutIT 6y ago
The only way to stop our neverending war on drugs is a Constitutional amendment that guarantees every American the right to consume anything they want for any reason. In the next several decades there will be un unprecedented number of elderly Americans living below the poverty line with no pension and medical issues they can't afford to fix - euthanasia will become something of a nuclear option that they'll want available as a last resort. An amendment that guarantees the right to consume any plant/drug/chemical/etc. will have a chance if it's bundled with a 'right to die with dignity', allowing elderly individuals a euthanasia option.
- genericone 6y agoWithin reason right? I'm hoping that 'the right to consume anything they want for any reason' wouldn't include those things that cause sudden violent behavior and inability to feel fear and pain. I forget which particular drug does this, but a search brought me to meth and I found this article which says people feel 'invincible' and 'paranoid' and can't be stopped with non-lethal means. https://www.cpr.org/2020/02/05/suspects-on-meth-are-hard-to-take-down-with-tasers-so-many-end-up-dead-in-colorado/ https://www.cpr.org/2020/02/05/suspects-on-meth-are-hard-to-...
- Darkphibre 6y agoPretty sure you are thinking of PCP, which was advertised as causing these behaviors in the 70s and 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phencyclidine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phencyclidine
- smokelegend 6y agoPCP, dippers(cigarettes dipped in PCP liquid solution), loveboat (powdered PCP sprinkled on a weed blunt) is still a huge issue in urban US city's. The effects vary per individual but the higher the dosage the more psychoactive effects are felt. I've seen a naked guy take on 8 DC cops....yes 8 police officers, and after being tased 3 times the guy finally went down.(first two attempts didn't take) But he was tossing grown 200-300lbs adult men like they were paper weights. The amount of force it took those officers to over come this one person on PCP was insane. Definitely not something you want to run into.
- jeffdavis 6y agoLet's start by eliminating federal drug laws, and leave it up to the states whether they want to pass laws against it. Then, have a hard conversation about what freedom means, and whether restrictions on it really lead to better outcomes. Usually not.
- berryjerry 6y agoYou need to have federal drug laws because the one thing the federal government is supposed to do is manage the borders and relationships with other countries. If you don't have federal drug laws then bringing drugs across the border stops being a crime and we could end up with the fiasco of drug lords that Mexico has where journalists get beheaded for even reporting on it.
- Reelin 6y agoMexico only has drug lords because US drug laws fuel their black market. If you are skeptical of this, there are academic papers on the topic. You could also examine the history books regarding the rise of organized crime there. (For that matter, the rise of organized crime in the US was largely fueled by the prohibition of alcohol as far as I understand it.)
- jeffdavis 6y agoI am confused about what you mean. First, the federal government clearly has authority over international commerce. Second, the price of drugs in legal markets would be much lower, which would likely reduce revenue for criminal gangs in foreign lands. Third, the U.S.-Mexico border is long and it's hard to enforce smuggling laws, anyway. And fourth, Americans are quite capable of producing drugs on their own, and even more so if they were legal.
- squiggleblaz 6y agoCigarette smuggling is a thing because regulated cigarettes are more expensive than unregulated cigarettes. Why would that be any different for other drugs?
- stickfigure 6y agoYou must be thinking of the devil weed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQlcMHhF3w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQlcMHhF3w
- femiagbabiaka 6y agoFortunately there is no drug that has any such innate effect. Care has to be taken when extrapolating meaning from crime statistics, especially when it comes to police. They lie and rely on bad science, like the idea of excited delirium: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoAs a long time on-and-off meth addict and dealer, I'll tell you one thing: Helluva drug! Not convinced I'd want society to have unrestricted access to that one.
- Reelin 6y agoMeth is used to tread ADHD under the trade name Desoxyn. Alternatives include other amphetamines which exhibit substantially similar effects. A significant portion of the population consumes amphetamines on a daily basis and manages not to go on crime sprees. Perhaps it isn't the drugs which are the problem?
- mirimir 6y agoDosage is a major factor. Smoking meth is way different from eating Desoxyn. Even lots of Desoxyn. Edit: Dosage and route both matter a lot.
- Reelin 6y agoAgreed regarding route - I didn't mean to imply that all patterns of use were equivalent. I was trying to illustrate that it isn't some bogeyman that will swallow you whole. The drug alone simply cannot explain the issues that are often attributed to it. My point here is that many drugs have been demonized to a wholly unscientific degree and I often witness otherwise well educated and thoughtful people zealously perpetuating such myths without stopping to really think them through. IMO blaming bad behavior and even addiction on drugs is an easy out which avoids addressing the much more complicated underlying issues. Overdoses, abuse, addiction, and crime seem to me to be largely to blame on other systemic societal problems. As always, correlation does not imply causality.
- mirimir 6y agoYes, I entirely agree about drugs being demonized. And I believe that people get to choose what drugs to use, and how to use them. But that also means that they're responsible for consequences. Indeed, some drugs are so demonized that many who use them do get swallowed whole. Because it's what they expect, and part of the motivation.
- on_and_off 6y agodo you want to ban alcohol ?
- dr_dshiv 6y agoSeems like you can just require a license or prescription that can be taken away
- mxcrossb 6y agoWe’ve really reached quite the low point if mind altering substances and suicide are considered the way to improve things...
- zentiggr 6y agoWould you rather be on life support, incoherent, for years, because of the lack of a right to choose... Or be able to choose what quality of life below which you prefer to pass on and not endure constant indignity?
- adrianN 6y agoThat seems to be a different problem from legalizing personal use of all drugs. Assisted suicide is a thing in countries with much stricter drug policies than "anything goes".
- squiggleblaz 6y agoThere's a world of difference between dying because your body can't sustain itself and euthanasia. Please don't unify the two.
- aoeusnth1 6y agoThe parent wasn’t advocating for the use of drugs, they were saying we shouldn’t lock people up for doing drugs. Do you think we should lock up drug addicts?
- rswail 6y agoMy body, my choice. It's not about whether or not the substances are mind altering, or whether or not I am suicidal for a legitimate reason (unbearable pain, lack of quality of existence). What needs to be done is to de criminalize these things. One of the primary causes of the expansion of police power has been the "War on Drugs". "War on Nouns" is a stupid way to run a society. Using law enforcement as your first line intervention for mental health, substance use and other such problems is a stupid way to use your resources to provide for the common welfare.
- jeffdavis 6y agoGood idea. How about: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That would keep the pesky federal government out of our personal affairs.
- nkozyra 6y agoUltimately the flaw with this clause is the flexibility and amenability of the Constitution.
- jeffdavis 6y agoFederal drug laws were upheld on the grounds that they are regulating interstate commerce ("regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"). The idea that growing plants on your own land for your own consumption would some how fall under this legislative power is ridiculous. It's not "flexibility", it's fraud. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich
- david38 6y agoSure, but then federal support of state projects gets tied to whatever the federal government wants the state to do. The state isn’t bound, but it’s political suicide to turn down money. This is a powerful weapon that can be used for both good and bad.
- jeffdavis 6y agoThis is why direct taxation (16th Amendment) was a mistake. It allows the federal government to take away the citizens' money first, and then give it back to the states, with conditions. If the federal government had to collect from the states, then there would be more oversight and power for states to say "wait a minute, why are we giving you money and then begging to get it back". In theory, the result could be the same. Congress could still pass spending bills and give the money over with conditions. But in practice I think states would be in a more powerful negotiating position.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoElderly Americans already have Medicare. This scenario doesn’t seem likely.
- rswail 6y agoHow is universal healthcare for older people somehow relevant to whether or not they are entitled to consume substances or decide that they have reached a point where they no longer wish to live?
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoI was responding to this: > In the next several decades there will be un unprecedented number of elderly Americans living below the poverty line with no pension and medical issues they can't afford to fix
- CWuestefeld 6y agoI don't understand how we don't already have this, in the form of Roe v Wade. That decision revolves around the idea that a medical treatment is a private matter between a woman and her doctor. And if that's the case, I don't understand how the government can interfere with a doctor advising a patient to use, say, marijuana, or any given drug.
- mirimir 6y agoIt's never made sense to my how the War on Drugs isn't unconstitutional. And your point about Roe v Wade is a good one. Indeed, Roe v Wade is fundamentally about the right to choose what to do with ones body.
- peterwwillis 6y ago> the right to consume anything they want for any reason How about human flesh? Nuclear waste? Bombs? Bags of dangerous quantities of hard drugs [a la drug mule]? Endangered species? Just like with free speech, "do anything you want for any reason" has the potential for abuse (both by a person to themselves and by other persons to other entities), and the majority of society is not comfortable with that. Sometimes we can be indoctrinated into tacitly accepting it after intense special interest lobbying, such as with handguns and cars. But there's probably no "greater good" aspect of being able to eat literally anything.
- ryan_lane 6y agoNearly everything you've said involves directly harming another person, for which we already have agreed upon laws forbiding. Endangered species may not harm others, but we've agreed as a people that we care about the lives of other species at least enough to stop killing them before we've made them extinct. In terms of being a drug mule, if drugs were decriminalized, drug mules wouldn't exist, and most drug cartel activity wouldn't either. People are advocating to decriminalize and allow people to harm themselves if they want, because it's their body and their choice. It's sad that people want to harm themselves, but ultimately, we do a poor job of stopping people, and by attempting to stop them, we've done considerable harm to our society (war on drugs, propping up cartels, etc.)
- peterwwillis 6y ago> Nearly everything you've said involves directly harming another person, for which we already have agreed upon laws forbiding Which would also eliminate euthanasia as an option. If the law currently forbids euthanasia, then an "eat anything you want" law would still be invalidated when it's used for euthanasia, just like it would be invalidated for the other examples. > if drugs were decriminalized, drug mules wouldn't exist Cigarettes are not inherently criminalized, yet illegally selling cigarettes in bulk across state lines continues to be a problem. Illegal gun running also exists here, even for guns that aren't outlawed in any state. If there are cigarette mules and gun mules, there will probably be drug mules.
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- quattrofan 6y agoAmen to that
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago> The only way to stop our neverending war on drugs is a Constitutional amendment that guarantees every American the right to consume anything they want for any reason. I disagree; whilst decriminalization is the way forward for the harmless / "soft" drugs, the hard drugs (e.g. heroin) are dangerous and destroy people and should not be freely accessible to anyone, anywhere. What some countries do instead is provide heroin (or methadone) to people but only in specific locations, where they're provided with a safe and clean environment and equipment to do their thing, and where they can get help with their addiction if they want. What I'm saying is that a lot of drugs are genuinely dangerous and should not become generally available.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> I disagree; whilst decriminalization is the way forward for the harmless / "soft" drugs, What harmless drugs? No drugs, not even the ones that are currently legal (well, especially not some of them, really) are harmless. Prohibition isn't a bad idea because the prohibited substances are harmless, but because prohibition isn't an efficient mechanism of mitigating the harms (in fact, it aggravates them.)
- timezone12 6y agoWhat a coincidence - on 19th September 2020 there will two referenda in New Zealand: - 2020 New Zealand cannabis referendum [1] - 2020 New Zealand euthanasia referendum [2] - [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_cannabis_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_cannabis_refe... - [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_euthanasia_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_New_Zealand_euthanasia_re...
- tripzilch 6y agoHahahahahahaha! "The constitutional right for every American to eat anything they want for any reason" Come on that's funny because of, you know, that other epidemic that'll be waiting if you come out of this one. The obesity one.
- kvetching 6y agoIf methamphetamine is widely available, obesity wouldn't be an issue.
- CryptoPunk 6y agoIf the federal government merely abided by the constitution and ended all of its activity in relation to the use and trade of drugs, that would go a long way in reducing the intensity of the War on Drugs and giving states space to legalize it. Each state can decide its own approach, which I think is the appropriate principle for governance.
- dr_dshiv 6y agoWhat do you think about the right to "Cognitive Liberty?" Freedom of thought, specifically made legal.
- DougN7 6y agoThat will also require removing seat belt and motorcycle helmet laws and probably many others meant to protect ourselves. The problem is few decisions ever affect only the one making the decision when families and society are involved.