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I can partially understand that point of view for marijuana (though I think it’s important for a functional society to obey laws, and get them changed if they a

I can partially understand that point of view for marijuana (though I think it’s important for a functional society to obey laws, and get them changed if they aren’t working instead of just breaking them based on personal preference). But the guy had been selling methamphetamine too, which is life destroying poison. Our government provides costly services for people who are incapable of taking care of themselves, and that drug creates a bigger burden on those programs. Unless you also advocate for the removal of social safety nets I don’t see how you can justify thinking that the government shouldn’t try to limit drug use.

greenduck 6y ago
Sure, but purely from the side of pragmatism, throwing people in jail isn't effective either. Treating them compassionately and giving them help for their problem works much better.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Also imagine saying the US has social safety nets.
  - aristophenes 6y ago
    The US has social safety nets.
darkmoney007 6y ago
"Unless you also advocate for the removal of social safety nets" Trump is actively defunding Social Security and other programs.
non-entity 6y ago
> But the guy had been selling methamphetamine too, which is life destroying poison. Time to arrest the liquor store owners?
- jh86 6y ago
  And don’t forget bartenders!
aaomidi 6y ago
Civil disobedience is the strongest way of bringing change. We've used it as a tactic for decades and it's been the only reliable force for change. There is no reason for your representative to listen to you in America unless you throw a wrench in the gears.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  Good luck getting generation smartphone to do something. Like BLM protests proved, you will just get ex-felons robbing honest people and burning down buildings.
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    Thanks for your contribution. Just in case you don't know, there have been about 110 nights of continual protests in nearly every metro area in the US. You may want to ask yourself why you're not joining in with them to influence the movement instead of complaining about it here.
tchaffee 6y ago
Prohibition doesn't work for meth or heroin either. Making them freely available under doctor supervision is what works. Switzerland did it and an out of control heroin problem went away and especially important, usage among young people plummeted. Yes it costs money to treat a medical problem. It costs way more money to treat medical problems as something else. Let's go with the most effective solution even if "free and legal heroin" upsets some people's morals. Also consider that methamphetamine is not "life destroying poison". Addiction is the medical condition that destroys lives. Methamphetamine and similar drugs are also prescribed for medical conditions where they help people. Focusing on the substance is just more drug war propaganda.
- lixtra 6y ago
  > Switzerland did it and an out of control heroin problem went away and especially important, usage among young people plummeted. You still go to prison in Switzerland for selling heroine on the street. Also there still is a heroine problem though arguably smaller than it used to be.
  - tchaffee 6y ago
    > You still go to prison in Switzerland for selling heroine on the street. And yet it was widely available on the streets back when it was illegal, and now it's hard to find on the streets and it's still illegal. So what changed? Clearly it was not the law that fixed things, right? > Also there still is a heroine problem though arguably smaller than it used to be. A tiny fraction of what it used to be. Since I would consider that success, I don't get your point? I very much doubt anyone is expecting addiction to disappear? The point is that it costs tax payers far less when you fix the actual problem instead of trying to treat medical problems as if they are a legal problem.
  - alex_young 6y ago
    In Switzerland there are legal injection sites where addicts medicate with medical supervision and controlled dose. Very few people are incarcerated for dealing because people with this problem have better and safer alternatives than street scores.
bunfunton 6y ago
Meth isn’t life destroying poison sorry to inform you. I take 10mg for ADHD a day and it’s saved my life when all other alternatives have failed. I would argue the bad cases you’ve seen are from people with no self control. Why should the government be able to tell you what you can and cannot put into your own body? Better, let people do what they want as long as they don’t hurt anybody else and educate them.
- jonquest 6y ago
  I challenge to do a google image search for faces of meth and come back and say that again with a straight face. That stuff is a poison that destroys both mind and body. If you think self control is enough to keep that stuff from rotting your face, making your hair fall out and keep yourself from going crazy you are foolish. Comparing it to ADHD medications is plain and simple stupid. If you think meth is the drug you need to focus you already need professional help because there are lots of stimulants out there, even illegal, that have nowhere near the side effects and consequences of meth.
  - leadingthenet 6y ago
    Stop it with the hyperbole, as you clearly have no clue what you’re talking about. Methamphetamine is routinely prescribed for the treatment ADHD (also obesity and narcolepsy, amongst other off-label uses), and is sold under the brand name of Desoxyn (in the US). Meth IS medication! On that note, maybe don’t believe everything you read about drugs online.
    - pitay 6y ago
      I may need to clear up a misconception of mine, so here goes. Isn't it Dexamphetamine that is the routine treatment for ADHD? As far as I understood, methamphetamine has much stronger effects than dexamphetamine, also meth been prone to cause more adverse effects and have more neurotoxicity than the dex counterpart? Maybe I'm completely off base here.
      - 6y ago
jokethrowaway 6y ago
I think it would be great to remove social safety nets and a war on drugs. Social safety nets are just forcefully taking money from people creating value in society, taking a fee to keep alive government bureaucrats, and give the rest to people who don't produce value. It's an incentive to not create value and a disincentive to do so. If you want to donate to people in need, feel free to do it, just don't force the entire of society to do it. The concept of controlled substances is ridiculous and I don't think it needs to be justified, unless you're a government shill who benefits from it or some authoritarian person who feel like they need to impose their values on everyone else.
- kingkawn 6y ago
  Your position is fascism.
  - seibelj 6y ago
    You may disagree with parent’s viewpoint but I would say eliminating the government is about as far from fascism as you can go. It’s anarchism.
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    No, it's the opposite of fascism. It's voluntarism or anarchy. Fascism is a totalitarian authoritarian political doctrine where the state is strong. I want a weak (or, even better, non existent) state and a society based on voluntary transactions and not on taxes taken under the threat of violence.
    - ubercow13 6y ago
      What's to stop a mafia appearing who takes taxes under threat of violence, if there is no state to stop them? Anarchism always seems like utopic nonsense to me. Something like, 'I don't like being told what to do, so we should get rid of the state and as long as everyone promises not to tell each other what to do, it will be great'. If there is no state, there is a power vacuum. There is a reason why power vacuums are quickly filled.
bnralt 6y ago
Soda creates a much bigger burden on those programs as well. Much of the food industry does, as well as the alcohol industry and the entertainment industry (encouraging sedentary lifestyles). These things have a much bigger impact than a guy selling meth on the darknet. I think as a society it is worth talking about limiting activities that are a net drain on society (and not just on health - also credit cards, advertising, the lottery, and much more). We don't do that, though. Instead we crack down extremely harshly on a small subsection, and completely ignore the rest.
nicoffeine 6y ago
First, legality does not presuppose morality. America is the result of breaking laws based on personal preference, and taking up arms against the current government to get it done. Second, other life destroying poisons include: alcohol, nicotine, sugar, fast food, dopamine hits from social media feedback/gambling/gaming... are you ready for the government to decide your intake for those? The only thing prohibition does is fund organized crime, and increase the costs of policing by pretending that the "war on drugs" can be won. Taking drugs are part of human culture. It may as well be a war on human behavior. When you subtract the dangers of dealing with cartels and policing, drug use is another form of escapism. As with any form of escapism, it can reach the point of abuse. We should absolutely have a social safety net for addicts of every sort, and it would be much cheaper than the costs of imprisonment and the war on drugs. Added bonus: actual liberty, instead of slogans on a bumper sticker. I say this coming from a long line of addicts/alcoholics, including myself. If our drug of choice had been available from the local pharmacist: - the drugs would have been cheaper and free of more dangerous cutting agents - gangs/cartels would not make a dime - we would've spent less time finding them - some of us would have gone to rehab instead of prison In a nutshell, even though we are poor, we would have had the same opportunities to get our act together as wealthy addicts. And no, this isn't a crazy idea. This is how things worked before prohibition. https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/kicking-habit-opioid-crisis-americas-addiction-prohibition#introduction https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/kicking-ha...
- pitaj 6y ago
  > Second, other life destroying poisons include: alcohol, nicotine, sugar, fast food, dopamine hits from social media feedback/gambling/gaming... are you ready for the government to decide your intake for those? The government does regulate alcohol ad nicotine directly. The federal gov subsidizes sugar, various localities tax it. Various politicians have made it clear they want to regulate or ban social media. Gambling is banned, monopolized, or regulated by every state government. Ever heard "video games cause violence"? My point is that the government has its hands in everything. People should be free to do all of the above activities. I fully support legalization of everything mentioned. But unfortunately it's not outlandish for the government to control them.
Regenschirm 6y ago
Thats just not how it works and never will. Our society should prevent stupid things / unknown things. Like lead paint. And for everything else it should make sure people from themselvs are aware of the risks and should have options which are more favoriable then drugs.
sneak 6y ago
> But the guy had been selling methamphetamine too, which is life destroying poison. Indeed, and if you feel this way, perhaps you should seek penalties against those who actually wrought the destruction: the people who put that methamphetamine into human bodies, where it does the harm. I think you'll find that those people who hold the ultimate responsibility for this destructive act were destroying property that entirely belonged to them (to preserve or destroy as they please). If we don't have the right to own and control our own bodies, the only thing in the world that totally unambiguously belongs to us, we have no meaningful rights to own or control anything. At such a point (which is where we seem to be), they're not rights that are being respected, simply privileges temporarily afforded by the state to be revoked arbitrarily.
- bunfunton 6y ago
  This is really an excellent argument. Thank you, am using this.
minot 6y ago
I think you're falling in the same trap I fell in when I was watching jackass thinking: how is it fair that someone willingly puts their body in danger and we have to pick up the tab when they get injured and hospitalized. News flash: we already pay for these things because emergency rooms can't ask for payment before delivering life preserving treatment. Also, we already pay for a lack of social safety net by paying for the cost to put so many people behind bars not to mention an unhinged law enforcement that refers to the population as civilians and has a motto like "protect and serve" while going to the supreme Court to get a ruling that the police has no duty to protect. Of course, the government should try to limit drug distribution and sales. For example, we will still need strict labeling requirements. Unlabeled, improperly labeled, and unsafe storage conditions should be against the law. But it helps nobody to put anyone in prison for personal drug possession* or drug use. *Assuming they are not selling/distributing improperly labeled controlled substances.
BTCOG 6y ago
I understand it will seem that I am playing devil's advocate here, but the dose makes the poison. How are you to know that the folks buying the methamphetamine are not in fact experienced microdosers who are taking functional 5-10mg doses for productivity or ADD? While I have known methamphetamine users to take things too far, I've known far more heavy alcoholics who ruin their lives and their families lives dealing with them drinking each and every day. Aside from that, the government has no right to tell another man what type of substance he puts in his body unless he is doing harm to others.
1_person 6y ago
> (though I think it’s important for a functional society to obey laws, and get them changed if they aren’t working instead of just breaking them based on personal preference) This is an unbelievably privileged position to take. Are you not aware that the country itself was established in the finest tradition of civil disobedience? The declaration of independence was an act of civil disobedience. The end of colonial empires was an act of civil disobedience. Slavery and segregation were resisted by civil disobedience. Oskar Schindler is the only member of the Nazi party to have been buried in Jerusalem in recognition of his civil disobedience. Are you really suggesting that all of these acts in defiance of unjust laws were morally wrong, and that everyone should have just waited for the law or regime to change?
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  You always hear calls for "civil disobedience" or "non-violence" when it concerns systems that the speaker may not want outright support, but is highly sympathetic to. You never hear anyone say that US should have pursued a path of non-violence during the Cold War, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, or during the War On Terror. In those instances, violence is assuredly the order of the day. But when the villain is the West, civil disobedience is the max discomfort they can stomach.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    The majority of people on Earth and in the US itself would tell you that non-violence would have been preferable to the "War On Terror". All of millions of people who have felt the brunt of the US Cold War would tell you the same - be they peasants in virtually all of South America or Vietnam; or US soldiers sent to die in Vietnam. Perhaps WWII is an exception to this, but it is absolutely in the minority. Wars of aggression (Cold War, War on Drugs, War on Terrorism) have never improved any part of the world in any way - they cause misery and poverty for the majority for untold generations, no matter what high-minded rhetoric is used to justify them.
  - 1_person 6y ago
    I believe every person should act according to their own subjective morality and understanding of the social consequences of their behavior. In fact, that is exactly what they will do, regardless of what is written or spoken to them. If their acts agree with expectations it is only due to a coincidental alignment of beliefs. I find it incredibly doubtful that I would elect to place myself in harms way to further any of the campaigns you've listed. I do not believe it is my place to judge others for doing so, however.
hourislate 6y ago
>Our government provides costly services for people who are incapable of taking care of themselves, and that drug creates a bigger burden on those programs. Maybe the Gov should go after Coca Cola and Pepsi or McDonald's and Burger King. The fast food industry has caused more health issues peddling their poison than all the drug dealers in the country. An epidemic of obesity and related illnesses from type II diabetes, HBP, Heart Disease, etc have destroyed more families than all the marijuana use could ever.
redisman 6y ago
The war on drugs (officially) started in the 70s. What do we have to show for it 50 years later? Are there more drugs or less drugs today? How many lives destroyed by the drugs vs the enforcement and violence caused by their legal status?
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  While I whole-heartedly agree with you, it's easy to frame this situation in a misleading light: "we've been fighting drugs for 50 years, and we still barely have them under control. Imagine how much worse the situation would have been if we hadn't fought them! Now give us more money and let us be even harsher!" Of course, this is pure sophistry, but it will appeal to many people. The better line of argument I believe is about the extreme positive impact that decriminalization/legalization have had in every single country that have tried. That is much harder to dispute and twist.
adrusi 6y ago
It is absolutely possible to be a functional methamphetamine user. Methamphetamine is prescribed for ADHD under the brand name Desoxyn. Not as often as amphetamine, largely because of the tighter legal restrictions on methamphetamine, but there are still plenty of people who take that drug daily without fitting the stereotype of a meth addict (not to mention all of the functional illegal meth users who you wouldn't hear about because why would they want other people to know about their illegal habits?) Meth does not make you incapable of holding down a job. It will probably make you incapable while you're in your chasing-the-high phase where you're constantly upping the dose to outrun your tolerance. But in the climate of prohibition, everyone either stops doing that at some point or reaches an equilibrium where they can't afford higher doses so they settle into a maintenance dose where they would be totally capable of holding down a job if they hadn't spent the last n months making themselves unemployable. And why do they become unemployable? Because the word getting out that they use meth in itself makes them unemployable, and then because the price of meth is inflated due to prohibition[1], they turn to crime to make enough money to pay for their addiction. Legalizing meth would certainly lead some people who wouldn't have otherwise tried it to try it, and some fraction of them would become addicted and suffer the health consequences[2], and many of those who got addicted would in fact become burdens of the state. But life would be better for anyone who did find themselves addicted, life would be better for people who didn't choose to try the drug on account of lower crime[3]. Some people who would try meth under prohibition would be less interested in it because if it were legal it would fail to signal their disregard for authority, and it's possible that the different personality types of new addicts under legalization would lead to different outcome, but it's probably not worth speculating about what differences there would be. Legalization trivially reduces crime by denying an income stream to organized crime. If public policy under legalization were not entirely incompetent, and we were able to either help a significant number of addicts hold onto a legitimate income, or help a significant number settle into an affordable maintenance dose (which would be easier than it sounds since their drug would likely be much cheaper), then the criminal activity of drug users would likewise plummet. These cost savings surely offset the increased burden on the social safety net. [1] This is generally the case with illegal drugs. Generic Desoxyn is actually extraordinarily expensive, at 1 USD/mg in the US. which is higher than the street price in some parts of the US per https://havocscope.com/black-market-prices/meth-prices/ https://havocscope.com/black-market-prices/meth-prices/. It's possible that this has to due with the cost of achieving pharmaceutical-grade purity, but I'm skeptical of that. I think it's more likely that the price of the pharmaceutical drugs reflects one of the many market failures of the US healthcare system, or the costs of DEA licensing for its production and distribution. But it's worth acknowledging that a quick google search doesn't back up my claims about price inflation. [2] The health consequences of meth are also exaggerated by prohibition. Meth is somewhat neurotoxic for chronic high-dose users, and definitely caridotoxic. The skin issues associate with meth addicts are caused by the meth itself combined with obsessive picking at the face, but while meth can cause some dental problems as a result of clenching the jaw and gnashing one's teeth, it's likely that most of the dental issues associated with meth addicts are actually cause by impurities in the drug that's available to them, a result of prohibition. [3] This is critical: the consequences of drug use would be redirected from people who made no choice whatsoever to involve themselves in drugs to people who at least made some choice, even if they somehow didn't fully comprehend the consequences of that choice. And even for the latter group, the consequences wouldn't be as bad as they are under prohibition, though that group would probably be larger.
aristophenes 6y ago
Not that anyone will read this now, but I am disappointed how all these replies ignored the equation. If you want freedom to choose what goes in your body, you need to absolve society from a responsibility to take care of you if you screw up. It’s totally ok to want freedom for what you put in your body, you just have to be consistent and get the government out of the business of providing for you. Everyone saying let us take whatever drugs we think we should, no one saying they want the government to stop other services.

greenduck 6y ago

Sure, but purely from the side of pragmatism, throwing people in jail isn't effective either. Treating them compassionately and giving them help for their problem works much better.

aaomidi 6y ago
Also imagine saying the US has social safety nets.
- aristophenes 6y ago
  The US has social safety nets.

darkmoney007 6y ago

"Unless you also advocate for the removal of social safety nets" Trump is actively defunding Social Security and other programs.

non-entity 6y ago

> But the guy had been selling methamphetamine too, which is life destroying poison. Time to arrest the liquor store owners?

jh86 6y ago
And don’t forget bartenders!

aaomidi 6y ago

Civil disobedience is the strongest way of bringing change. We've used it as a tactic for decades and it's been the only reliable force for change. There is no reason for your representative to listen to you in America unless you throw a wrench in the gears.

jokethrowaway 6y ago
Good luck getting generation smartphone to do something. Like BLM protests proved, you will just get ex-felons robbing honest people and burning down buildings.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Thanks for your contribution. Just in case you don't know, there have been about 110 nights of continual protests in nearly every metro area in the US. You may want to ask yourself why you're not joining in with them to influence the movement instead of complaining about it here.

tchaffee 6y ago

Prohibition doesn't work for meth or heroin either. Making them freely available under doctor supervision is what works. Switzerland did it and an out of control heroin problem went away and especially important, usage among young people plummeted. Yes it costs money to treat a medical problem. It costs way more money to treat medical problems as something else. Let's go with the most effective solution even if "free and legal heroin" upsets some people's morals. Also consider that methamphetamine is not "life destroying poison". Addiction is the medical condition that destroys lives. Methamphetamine and similar drugs are also prescribed for medical conditions where they help people. Focusing on the substance is just more drug war propaganda.

lixtra 6y ago
> Switzerland did it and an out of control heroin problem went away and especially important, usage among young people plummeted. You still go to prison in Switzerland for selling heroine on the street. Also there still is a heroine problem though arguably smaller than it used to be.
- tchaffee 6y ago
  > You still go to prison in Switzerland for selling heroine on the street. And yet it was widely available on the streets back when it was illegal, and now it's hard to find on the streets and it's still illegal. So what changed? Clearly it was not the law that fixed things, right? > Also there still is a heroine problem though arguably smaller than it used to be. A tiny fraction of what it used to be. Since I would consider that success, I don't get your point? I very much doubt anyone is expecting addiction to disappear? The point is that it costs tax payers far less when you fix the actual problem instead of trying to treat medical problems as if they are a legal problem.
- alex_young 6y ago
  In Switzerland there are legal injection sites where addicts medicate with medical supervision and controlled dose. Very few people are incarcerated for dealing because people with this problem have better and safer alternatives than street scores.

bunfunton 6y ago

Meth isn’t life destroying poison sorry to inform you. I take 10mg for ADHD a day and it’s saved my life when all other alternatives have failed. I would argue the bad cases you’ve seen are from people with no self control. Why should the government be able to tell you what you can and cannot put into your own body? Better, let people do what they want as long as they don’t hurt anybody else and educate them.

jonquest 6y ago
I challenge to do a google image search for faces of meth and come back and say that again with a straight face. That stuff is a poison that destroys both mind and body. If you think self control is enough to keep that stuff from rotting your face, making your hair fall out and keep yourself from going crazy you are foolish. Comparing it to ADHD medications is plain and simple stupid. If you think meth is the drug you need to focus you already need professional help because there are lots of stimulants out there, even illegal, that have nowhere near the side effects and consequences of meth.
- leadingthenet 6y ago
  Stop it with the hyperbole, as you clearly have no clue what you’re talking about. Methamphetamine is routinely prescribed for the treatment ADHD (also obesity and narcolepsy, amongst other off-label uses), and is sold under the brand name of Desoxyn (in the US). Meth IS medication! On that note, maybe don’t believe everything you read about drugs online.
  - pitay 6y ago
    I may need to clear up a misconception of mine, so here goes. Isn't it Dexamphetamine that is the routine treatment for ADHD? As far as I understood, methamphetamine has much stronger effects than dexamphetamine, also meth been prone to cause more adverse effects and have more neurotoxicity than the dex counterpart? Maybe I'm completely off base here.
    - 6y ago

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I think it would be great to remove social safety nets and a war on drugs. Social safety nets are just forcefully taking money from people creating value in society, taking a fee to keep alive government bureaucrats, and give the rest to people who don't produce value. It's an incentive to not create value and a disincentive to do so. If you want to donate to people in need, feel free to do it, just don't force the entire of society to do it. The concept of controlled substances is ridiculous and I don't think it needs to be justified, unless you're a government shill who benefits from it or some authoritarian person who feel like they need to impose their values on everyone else.

kingkawn 6y ago
Your position is fascism.
- seibelj 6y ago
  You may disagree with parent’s viewpoint but I would say eliminating the government is about as far from fascism as you can go. It’s anarchism.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  No, it's the opposite of fascism. It's voluntarism or anarchy. Fascism is a totalitarian authoritarian political doctrine where the state is strong. I want a weak (or, even better, non existent) state and a society based on voluntary transactions and not on taxes taken under the threat of violence.
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    What's to stop a mafia appearing who takes taxes under threat of violence, if there is no state to stop them? Anarchism always seems like utopic nonsense to me. Something like, 'I don't like being told what to do, so we should get rid of the state and as long as everyone promises not to tell each other what to do, it will be great'. If there is no state, there is a power vacuum. There is a reason why power vacuums are quickly filled.

bnralt 6y ago

Soda creates a much bigger burden on those programs as well. Much of the food industry does, as well as the alcohol industry and the entertainment industry (encouraging sedentary lifestyles). These things have a much bigger impact than a guy selling meth on the darknet. I think as a society it is worth talking about limiting activities that are a net drain on society (and not just on health - also credit cards, advertising, the lottery, and much more). We don't do that, though. Instead we crack down extremely harshly on a small subsection, and completely ignore the rest.

nicoffeine 6y ago

First, legality does not presuppose morality. America is the result of breaking laws based on personal preference, and taking up arms against the current government to get it done. Second, other life destroying poisons include: alcohol, nicotine, sugar, fast food, dopamine hits from social media feedback/gambling/gaming... are you ready for the government to decide your intake for those? The only thing prohibition does is fund organized crime, and increase the costs of policing by pretending that the "war on drugs" can be won. Taking drugs are part of human culture. It may as well be a war on human behavior. When you subtract the dangers of dealing with cartels and policing, drug use is another form of escapism. As with any form of escapism, it can reach the point of abuse. We should absolutely have a social safety net for addicts of every sort, and it would be much cheaper than the costs of imprisonment and the war on drugs. Added bonus: actual liberty, instead of slogans on a bumper sticker. I say this coming from a long line of addicts/alcoholics, including myself. If our drug of choice had been available from the local pharmacist: - the drugs would have been cheaper and free of more dangerous cutting agents - gangs/cartels would not make a dime - we would've spent less time finding them - some of us would have gone to rehab instead of prison In a nutshell, even though we are poor, we would have had the same opportunities to get our act together as wealthy addicts. And no, this isn't a crazy idea. This is how things worked before prohibition. https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/kicking-habit-opioid-crisis-americas-addiction-prohibition#introduction https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/kicking-ha...

pitaj 6y ago
> Second, other life destroying poisons include: alcohol, nicotine, sugar, fast food, dopamine hits from social media feedback/gambling/gaming... are you ready for the government to decide your intake for those? The government does regulate alcohol ad nicotine directly. The federal gov subsidizes sugar, various localities tax it. Various politicians have made it clear they want to regulate or ban social media. Gambling is banned, monopolized, or regulated by every state government. Ever heard "video games cause violence"? My point is that the government has its hands in everything. People should be free to do all of the above activities. I fully support legalization of everything mentioned. But unfortunately it's not outlandish for the government to control them.

Regenschirm 6y ago

Thats just not how it works and never will. Our society should prevent stupid things / unknown things. Like lead paint. And for everything else it should make sure people from themselvs are aware of the risks and should have options which are more favoriable then drugs.

sneak 6y ago

> But the guy had been selling methamphetamine too, which is life destroying poison. Indeed, and if you feel this way, perhaps you should seek penalties against those who actually wrought the destruction: the people who put that methamphetamine into human bodies, where it does the harm. I think you'll find that those people who hold the ultimate responsibility for this destructive act were destroying property that entirely belonged to them (to preserve or destroy as they please). If we don't have the right to own and control our own bodies, the only thing in the world that totally unambiguously belongs to us, we have no meaningful rights to own or control anything. At such a point (which is where we seem to be), they're not rights that are being respected, simply privileges temporarily afforded by the state to be revoked arbitrarily.

bunfunton 6y ago
This is really an excellent argument. Thank you, am using this.

minot 6y ago

I think you're falling in the same trap I fell in when I was watching jackass thinking: how is it fair that someone willingly puts their body in danger and we have to pick up the tab when they get injured and hospitalized. News flash: we already pay for these things because emergency rooms can't ask for payment before delivering life preserving treatment. Also, we already pay for a lack of social safety net by paying for the cost to put so many people behind bars not to mention an unhinged law enforcement that refers to the population as civilians and has a motto like "protect and serve" while going to the supreme Court to get a ruling that the police has no duty to protect. Of course, the government should try to limit drug distribution and sales. For example, we will still need strict labeling requirements. Unlabeled, improperly labeled, and unsafe storage conditions should be against the law. But it helps nobody to put anyone in prison for personal drug possession* or drug use. *Assuming they are not selling/distributing improperly labeled controlled substances.

BTCOG 6y ago

I understand it will seem that I am playing devil's advocate here, but the dose makes the poison. How are you to know that the folks buying the methamphetamine are not in fact experienced microdosers who are taking functional 5-10mg doses for productivity or ADD? While I have known methamphetamine users to take things too far, I've known far more heavy alcoholics who ruin their lives and their families lives dealing with them drinking each and every day. Aside from that, the government has no right to tell another man what type of substance he puts in his body unless he is doing harm to others.

1_person 6y ago

> (though I think it’s important for a functional society to obey laws, and get them changed if they aren’t working instead of just breaking them based on personal preference) This is an unbelievably privileged position to take. Are you not aware that the country itself was established in the finest tradition of civil disobedience? The declaration of independence was an act of civil disobedience. The end of colonial empires was an act of civil disobedience. Slavery and segregation were resisted by civil disobedience. Oskar Schindler is the only member of the Nazi party to have been buried in Jerusalem in recognition of his civil disobedience. Are you really suggesting that all of these acts in defiance of unjust laws were morally wrong, and that everyone should have just waited for the law or regime to change?

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
You always hear calls for "civil disobedience" or "non-violence" when it concerns systems that the speaker may not want outright support, but is highly sympathetic to. You never hear anyone say that US should have pursued a path of non-violence during the Cold War, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, or during the War On Terror. In those instances, violence is assuredly the order of the day. But when the villain is the West, civil disobedience is the max discomfort they can stomach.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  The majority of people on Earth and in the US itself would tell you that non-violence would have been preferable to the "War On Terror". All of millions of people who have felt the brunt of the US Cold War would tell you the same - be they peasants in virtually all of South America or Vietnam; or US soldiers sent to die in Vietnam. Perhaps WWII is an exception to this, but it is absolutely in the minority. Wars of aggression (Cold War, War on Drugs, War on Terrorism) have never improved any part of the world in any way - they cause misery and poverty for the majority for untold generations, no matter what high-minded rhetoric is used to justify them.
- 1_person 6y ago
  I believe every person should act according to their own subjective morality and understanding of the social consequences of their behavior. In fact, that is exactly what they will do, regardless of what is written or spoken to them. If their acts agree with expectations it is only due to a coincidental alignment of beliefs. I find it incredibly doubtful that I would elect to place myself in harms way to further any of the campaigns you've listed. I do not believe it is my place to judge others for doing so, however.

hourislate 6y ago

>Our government provides costly services for people who are incapable of taking care of themselves, and that drug creates a bigger burden on those programs. Maybe the Gov should go after Coca Cola and Pepsi or McDonald's and Burger King. The fast food industry has caused more health issues peddling their poison than all the drug dealers in the country. An epidemic of obesity and related illnesses from type II diabetes, HBP, Heart Disease, etc have destroyed more families than all the marijuana use could ever.

redisman 6y ago

The war on drugs (officially) started in the 70s. What do we have to show for it 50 years later? Are there more drugs or less drugs today? How many lives destroyed by the drugs vs the enforcement and violence caused by their legal status?

tsimionescu 6y ago
While I whole-heartedly agree with you, it's easy to frame this situation in a misleading light: "we've been fighting drugs for 50 years, and we still barely have them under control. Imagine how much worse the situation would have been if we hadn't fought them! Now give us more money and let us be even harsher!" Of course, this is pure sophistry, but it will appeal to many people. The better line of argument I believe is about the extreme positive impact that decriminalization/legalization have had in every single country that have tried. That is much harder to dispute and twist.

adrusi 6y ago

It is absolutely possible to be a functional methamphetamine user. Methamphetamine is prescribed for ADHD under the brand name Desoxyn. Not as often as amphetamine, largely because of the tighter legal restrictions on methamphetamine, but there are still plenty of people who take that drug daily without fitting the stereotype of a meth addict (not to mention all of the functional illegal meth users who you wouldn't hear about because why would they want other people to know about their illegal habits?) Meth does not make you incapable of holding down a job. It will probably make you incapable while you're in your chasing-the-high phase where you're constantly upping the dose to outrun your tolerance. But in the climate of prohibition, everyone either stops doing that at some point or reaches an equilibrium where they can't afford higher doses so they settle into a maintenance dose where they would be totally capable of holding down a job if they hadn't spent the last n months making themselves unemployable. And why do they become unemployable? Because the word getting out that they use meth in itself makes them unemployable, and then because the price of meth is inflated due to prohibition[1], they turn to crime to make enough money to pay for their addiction. Legalizing meth would certainly lead some people who wouldn't have otherwise tried it to try it, and some fraction of them would become addicted and suffer the health consequences[2], and many of those who got addicted would in fact become burdens of the state. But life would be better for anyone who did find themselves addicted, life would be better for people who didn't choose to try the drug on account of lower crime[3]. Some people who would try meth under prohibition would be less interested in it because if it were legal it would fail to signal their disregard for authority, and it's possible that the different personality types of new addicts under legalization would lead to different outcome, but it's probably not worth speculating about what differences there would be. Legalization trivially reduces crime by denying an income stream to organized crime. If public policy under legalization were not entirely incompetent, and we were able to either help a significant number of addicts hold onto a legitimate income, or help a significant number settle into an affordable maintenance dose (which would be easier than it sounds since their drug would likely be much cheaper), then the criminal activity of drug users would likewise plummet. These cost savings surely offset the increased burden on the social safety net. [1] This is generally the case with illegal drugs. Generic Desoxyn is actually extraordinarily expensive, at 1 USD/mg in the US. which is higher than the street price in some parts of the US per https://havocscope.com/black-market-prices/meth-prices/ https://havocscope.com/black-market-prices/meth-prices/. It's possible that this has to due with the cost of achieving pharmaceutical-grade purity, but I'm skeptical of that. I think it's more likely that the price of the pharmaceutical drugs reflects one of the many market failures of the US healthcare system, or the costs of DEA licensing for its production and distribution. But it's worth acknowledging that a quick google search doesn't back up my claims about price inflation. [2] The health consequences of meth are also exaggerated by prohibition. Meth is somewhat neurotoxic for chronic high-dose users, and definitely caridotoxic. The skin issues associate with meth addicts are caused by the meth itself combined with obsessive picking at the face, but while meth can cause some dental problems as a result of clenching the jaw and gnashing one's teeth, it's likely that most of the dental issues associated with meth addicts are actually cause by impurities in the drug that's available to them, a result of prohibition. [3] This is critical: the consequences of drug use would be redirected from people who made no choice whatsoever to involve themselves in drugs to people who at least made some choice, even if they somehow didn't fully comprehend the consequences of that choice. And even for the latter group, the consequences wouldn't be as bad as they are under prohibition, though that group would probably be larger.

aristophenes 6y ago

Not that anyone will read this now, but I am disappointed how all these replies ignored the equation. If you want freedom to choose what goes in your body, you need to absolve society from a responsibility to take care of you if you screw up. It’s totally ok to want freedom for what you put in your body, you just have to be consistent and get the government out of the business of providing for you. Everyone saying let us take whatever drugs we think we should, no one saying they want the government to stop other services.