6 ms·

It's 2020 and if you are still against legalization, or at least decriminalization, you are the enemy. It's no longer incumbent on anyone else to explain to yo

by 3131s 6y ago

It's 2020 and if you are still against legalization, or at least decriminalization, you are the enemy. It's no longer incumbent on anyone else to explain to you why the drug war is immoral, prejudiced, and stupid. Violence is exploding all over the country and homicide clearance rates are at an all time low. The irony of what these fat, beer-swilling thugs at the "Department of Justice" and DEA are doing will not be lost on history.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
KMag 6y ago
I'm all for legalization and harm reduction, but declaring people enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Shutting down the conversation locks in the status quo.
- adventured 6y ago
  It's the with us or against us, ally or enemy, model that is so popular with the faux-woke crowd that is presently ripping the US apart culturally. It's the furthest you can go with virtue signaling, to act militant, aggressive, threatening and to draw up literal enemy lists (those that must be destroyed). This strain/style of virtue signaling is pretty much everywhere on social media now. It also means our current woke party nationally has jumped the shark and is about to run into its first serious cultural pushback (which has already begun, people are overwhelmingly sick of it at a mainstream level).
  - moksly 6y ago
    I’m not sure you can point the blame in just one direction. You see it in any form of radicalisation, once you go too far away from the middle, you start to see others as “the enemy“. I do think that in the terms of the War on Drugs it’s more of a “you support a trillion dollar criminal enterprise” type them vs the rest of society rather than a left vs right issue. If changing political regimes can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, and you see more and more devastation to society and more and more money in the hands of organised crime, then there really isn’t a way around legalisation that isn’t sticking your head in the ground. I get that there is a lot of money, and therefore political incentive, to keep spending money on the parts of organised society that combat drugs, but at some point you gotta ask yourself how much money you want to burn on an enterprise that has never once succeeded in its mission, even if you’re the most tough on crime person out there.
- akiselev 6y ago
  > I'm all for ending slavery, but declaring plantation owners enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Thanks to the 13th Amendment, this is not an exaggeration. Thanks to the war on drugs, hundreds of thousands are slaves that wouldn't be otherwise. Manufacturing your license plates, freezing your Big Macs, and picking up your litter by the side of the highway. At some point, history has to pick a side.
  - KMag 6y ago
    It's only by the political campaigning of abolitionists that there was enough support for the Civil War in the North. There were plenty of non-slave owners who needed to be convinced of the evils of slavery. Dr. King was so much more effective than Malcolm X because he didn't declare those yet-to-be-convinced to be his enemies. Once you declare everyone who doesn't agree with you an enemy, they stop listening to you, and you've given up on campaigning. This only makes sense if you've given up on convincing people who aren't already convinced. If you think the time for convincing is over and dialogue has failed, then you seem to be out of non-violent options. Are you raising an armed militia to raid prisons and free non-violent drug offenders? If dialogue has been dismissed, and you're not advocating violence, what options are there beyond impotently yelling into the echo chamber? Edit: also, there's a difference between picking a side and declaring enemies. Edit 2: The great-grand-sibling by cgriswald put it much more eloquently.
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago
      At the same time, I find it difficult to parse this with the knowledge that Dr King also repeatedly stated disappointment with white moderates and also later in life fame to support and understand violence against property in response to police brutality. But these are generally ignored when contrasting him with Malcom X. I’ve even heard theories that King could not be effective without the threat represented by Malcom X.
cgriswald 6y ago
You both reject any responsibility for swaying others to your way of thinking and put up road blocks for anyone who might otherwise have a change of heart and join your cause. You show no compassion or empathy to those who disagree with you so your compassion towards those suffering due to the war on drugs rings false. I’m pro-legalization and have been for decades; but I’d prefer to live in a world where we don’t build guillotines and dare each other to use them.
- KMag 6y ago
  > I’d prefer to live in a world where we don’t build guillotines and dare each other to use them. Beautifully put. I regret I have but one upvote to give. DuckDuckGo can't find other uses of this sentence. Is it original? May I quote you?
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Thanks. Yes to both questions.
m0zg 6y ago
Legalization of what though? Opioids? The drug that kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year, which is almost immediately and very strongly addictive, and with which it is extremely easy to overdose? No thanks. That'd be extremely damaging to society, and it'd inevitably kill a bunch of people and affect an order of magnitude more through network effects.
- AniseAbyss 6y ago
  Look at the reason why people use drugs. I am convinced happy people with fulfilling lives don't get addicted. Large scale substance abuse is IMO an indication something went very wrong in society.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    Irrespective of the reason, I argue there is a qualitative difference between e.g. marijuana (which should absolutely be legal), and e.g. fentanyl. To suggest otherwise is to be disingenuous and willfully obtuse.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I am convinced happy people with fulfilling lives don't get addicted. Even if that were true, it would still be possible that it was true because the same innate features which incline toward addiction work against having a happy fulfilled life in the same external conditions that someone without those features would have a happy, fulfilled life.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Modern opioid addiction is a mostly manufactured problem, mainly by pharma companies and physicians In other countries, where the answer to pain isn't "throw strong opioids at every chance" the issue is much less severe.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    Citation needed. Here's mine: 31K people per year die of fentanyl overdose in the United States alone. Data: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/over... This is fentanyl, drug that is very rarely prescribed. According to Wikipedia only 4% of fentanyl overdoses result from fentanyl obtained by prescription. I maintain that it is ludicrous to suggest that we should legalize _all_ drugs. We could, however, and IMO should, replace punishment for addictive drug use with drug rehab and a cool-off period, seeing how this shit is almost inevitably deadly in the longer term and is no good for the addict or those around them, at all.

by 3131s 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

KMag 6y ago

I'm all for legalization and harm reduction, but declaring people enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Shutting down the conversation locks in the status quo.

adventured 6y ago
It's the with us or against us, ally or enemy, model that is so popular with the faux-woke crowd that is presently ripping the US apart culturally. It's the furthest you can go with virtue signaling, to act militant, aggressive, threatening and to draw up literal enemy lists (those that must be destroyed). This strain/style of virtue signaling is pretty much everywhere on social media now. It also means our current woke party nationally has jumped the shark and is about to run into its first serious cultural pushback (which has already begun, people are overwhelmingly sick of it at a mainstream level).
- moksly 6y ago
  I’m not sure you can point the blame in just one direction. You see it in any form of radicalisation, once you go too far away from the middle, you start to see others as “the enemy“. I do think that in the terms of the War on Drugs it’s more of a “you support a trillion dollar criminal enterprise” type them vs the rest of society rather than a left vs right issue. If changing political regimes can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, and you see more and more devastation to society and more and more money in the hands of organised crime, then there really isn’t a way around legalisation that isn’t sticking your head in the ground. I get that there is a lot of money, and therefore political incentive, to keep spending money on the parts of organised society that combat drugs, but at some point you gotta ask yourself how much money you want to burn on an enterprise that has never once succeeded in its mission, even if you’re the most tough on crime person out there.
akiselev 6y ago
> I'm all for ending slavery, but declaring plantation owners enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Thanks to the 13th Amendment, this is not an exaggeration. Thanks to the war on drugs, hundreds of thousands are slaves that wouldn't be otherwise. Manufacturing your license plates, freezing your Big Macs, and picking up your litter by the side of the highway. At some point, history has to pick a side.
- KMag 6y ago
  It's only by the political campaigning of abolitionists that there was enough support for the Civil War in the North. There were plenty of non-slave owners who needed to be convinced of the evils of slavery. Dr. King was so much more effective than Malcolm X because he didn't declare those yet-to-be-convinced to be his enemies. Once you declare everyone who doesn't agree with you an enemy, they stop listening to you, and you've given up on campaigning. This only makes sense if you've given up on convincing people who aren't already convinced. If you think the time for convincing is over and dialogue has failed, then you seem to be out of non-violent options. Are you raising an armed militia to raid prisons and free non-violent drug offenders? If dialogue has been dismissed, and you're not advocating violence, what options are there beyond impotently yelling into the echo chamber? Edit: also, there's a difference between picking a side and declaring enemies. Edit 2: The great-grand-sibling by cgriswald put it much more eloquently.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    At the same time, I find it difficult to parse this with the knowledge that Dr King also repeatedly stated disappointment with white moderates and also later in life fame to support and understand violence against property in response to police brutality. But these are generally ignored when contrasting him with Malcom X. I’ve even heard theories that King could not be effective without the threat represented by Malcom X.

cgriswald 6y ago

You both reject any responsibility for swaying others to your way of thinking and put up road blocks for anyone who might otherwise have a change of heart and join your cause. You show no compassion or empathy to those who disagree with you so your compassion towards those suffering due to the war on drugs rings false. I’m pro-legalization and have been for decades; but I’d prefer to live in a world where we don’t build guillotines and dare each other to use them.

KMag 6y ago
> I’d prefer to live in a world where we don’t build guillotines and dare each other to use them. Beautifully put. I regret I have but one upvote to give. DuckDuckGo can't find other uses of this sentence. Is it original? May I quote you?
- cgriswald 6y ago
  Thanks. Yes to both questions.

m0zg 6y ago

Legalization of what though? Opioids? The drug that kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year, which is almost immediately and very strongly addictive, and with which it is extremely easy to overdose? No thanks. That'd be extremely damaging to society, and it'd inevitably kill a bunch of people and affect an order of magnitude more through network effects.

AniseAbyss 6y ago
Look at the reason why people use drugs. I am convinced happy people with fulfilling lives don't get addicted. Large scale substance abuse is IMO an indication something went very wrong in society.
- m0zg 6y ago
  Irrespective of the reason, I argue there is a qualitative difference between e.g. marijuana (which should absolutely be legal), and e.g. fentanyl. To suggest otherwise is to be disingenuous and willfully obtuse.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I am convinced happy people with fulfilling lives don't get addicted. Even if that were true, it would still be possible that it was true because the same innate features which incline toward addiction work against having a happy fulfilled life in the same external conditions that someone without those features would have a happy, fulfilled life.
raverbashing 6y ago
Modern opioid addiction is a mostly manufactured problem, mainly by pharma companies and physicians In other countries, where the answer to pain isn't "throw strong opioids at every chance" the issue is much less severe.
- m0zg 6y ago
  Citation needed. Here's mine: 31K people per year die of fentanyl overdose in the United States alone. Data: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/over... This is fentanyl, drug that is very rarely prescribed. According to Wikipedia only 4% of fentanyl overdoses result from fentanyl obtained by prescription. I maintain that it is ludicrous to suggest that we should legalize _all_ drugs. We could, however, and IMO should, replace punishment for addictive drug use with drug rehab and a cool-off period, seeing how this shit is almost inevitably deadly in the longer term and is no good for the addict or those around them, at all.