7 ms·

If life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn't include willingly and responsibly putting whatever you want in your own mouth for whatever reason you want

by ipnon 6y ago

If life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn't include willingly and responsibly putting whatever you want in your own mouth for whatever reason you want then I don't even want a country.

thereare5lights 6y ago
The drug laws in this country are mostly a vestige of racist policies. For example, opium wasn't illegal until people started fearmongering about race mixing in opium dens with Chinese immigrants.
- iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
  I'd say more generally, it's about control and having something police / government can hold over almost anyone, or any demographic, if convenient for whatever reason. That is the danger of these kinds of laws, they are a shortcut around other rules that are supposed to keep police power in check. And as pointed out elsewhere, local decriminalization doesn't really change this. It's a step in the right direction, but what it really needed is an explicit relinquishing of the power over people that these laws afford (in the US, perhaps an amendment even?) Until that happens, drug laws will still serve their purpose
  - wxnx 6y ago
    This, in my opinion, is closest to the truth - not to discount the issues of race that have historically propagated downward through the system and continue to affect people today. From John Ehrlichman, a Nixon associate: > You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. Note: the veracity of this particular quote has been contested, but the story it purports to tell is compelling in my opinion regardless.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      So wrong. Marijuana and heroin were both illegal long before Nixon took office, largely due to laws passed by Democrats. Now that drug laws have become unpopular, there's an effort to rewrite history and blame it all on the Republicans, especially Nixon. It's surprising that this effort is so successful when the correct history is so easy to find: Opium, coca, and their derivatives (including heroin) were made controlled substances by the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1915 [1], a law sponsored by a Democrat and signed by Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat). Marijuana was made a controlled substance by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 [2], likewise introduced in Congress by a Democrat and signed by Roosevelt, another Democrat. Roosevelt also publicly urged the states to legislate against "the narcotic drug evil." [3] The Boggs Act of 1951 [4] introduced mandatory sentences for possession or distribution of both drugs. It was, you guessed it, also sponsored by (and named for) a Democrat in Congress, and was signed by Truman (D). And even the relevant legislation passed during Nixon's term in office, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 [5], was again introduced by a Democrat and passed a Democrat controlled Congress with bipartisan support. This law merely continued the prohibitions introduced by the previous laws after they were successfully challenged in Leary v. United States in 1969 [6]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937 3: http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/History/e1930/rooseveltasks.htm http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/History/e1930/roosevelta... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggs_Act_of_1951 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggs_Act_of_1951 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Drug_Abuse_Prevention_and_Control_Act_of_1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Drug_Abuse_Preve... 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States
      - wxnx 6y ago
        Well, you've successfully constructed a hell of a strawman! My comment was to express my support for the following statement: > I'd say more generally, it's about control and having something police / government can hold over almost anyone, or any demographic, if convenient for whatever reason. I didn't say anything about Democrats or Republicans. I happened to use a quote that touched on Nixon in support of my claim. I would also note, for people not well-versed in American history, that up until around the 1960s, the concept of a Southern Democrat still existed - people mostly identified with opposing desegregation in the American south. Some of these politicians, including Strom Thurmond, who voted against civil rights and for the Controlled Substances Act, later became Republican figureheads. Party ideals shift over time. With that said, I don't think the current state of drug laws in the US are an issue of party. It's a lack of evidence-based policy, and it's extremely problematic. One might not blame politicians for looking at the effects of narcotics and their relation to organized crime in the mid-20th century in America and say: "we need to legislate this, because the problem is ballooning and we don't have any other tools at our disposal." Addiction science didn't exist yet. One might even forgive the Controlled Substances Act as an extension of this reaction, were it not for the fact that through the subsequent creation of the DEA and the scheduling system, the effects of drugs and addiction became significantly more difficult to research in the US. This happened under Nixon, and I think that's why he receives a significant portion of the blame for the current state of affairs (rightly or wrongly). The DEA has also simply failed in its remit. They've shown themselves to be completely incapable of assessing the medical utility and controlling the abuse potential of drugs (marijuana on the one hand, prescription opioids on the other). This, combined with the fact that the CSA and the DEA's existence prevent us as a country from evaluating other approaches to the drug problem, make for a lose-lose situation.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    One benefit of drugs for law enforcement is that it's possible to plant evidence.
  - thereare5lights 6y ago
    > I'd say more generally, it's about control and having something police / government can hold over almost anyone, or any demographic, if convenient for whatever reason. That statement glosses over the fact that such restrictive policies frequently come about as a result of trying to control minorities and never the dominant race. After all, if you do that, you'll get voted out of office. For example, in California, gun control was brought about as a result of Black people carrying guns in public. When white people did it, it was totally fine, but once Black people started utilizing their 2nd amendment rights, the state government curtailed it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Opium (as well as many other addictive drugs) are illegal in nearly every country on the planet, so I have a very difficult time pinning this policy decision on racism.
  - thereare5lights 6y ago
    Opium wasn't illegal until it was associated with Chinese immigrants back in the 1800s.
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      Again, all hard addictive drugs (opium, heroin, cocaine) are illegal in pretty much every country on the planet (save the recent notable exception of Portugal). Many of these countries have never had a sizable Chinese immigrant community. Is your rationale that they were all somehow biased against the Chinese? Of course, opium is still quite illegal in China today.
      - thereare5lights 6y ago
        Your line of reasoning ignores the fact that opium became illegal because of fearmongering about Chinese immigrants.
mlwinner 6y ago
Ok, fair enough, then while you put whatever you want in your own mouth please don't force me to pay for medical, psychiatric, mental and any other social service you may require as caused by your new freedom. For example, it is illegal to drive a motorcycle without a helmet in CA for similar arguments.
username90 6y ago
The main problem with drugs is when companies in pursuit of wealth and power sells highly addictive drugs to kids ruining their lives. Imagine if instead of putting sugar in everything they put addictive drugs in everything, that is what full legalization would result in. Harsh punishments for personal use are nonsense, USA are just insane on that, but I don't think making everything legal is reasonable.
- valec 6y ago
  > Imagine if instead of putting sugar in everything they put addictive drugs in everything who is arguing making them legal for a food additive, and even more still who is advocating them to be legal for kids?
  - username90 6y ago
    A substance legal for adults will be used by most kids. Every kid knows how to get alcohol or cigarettes, just ask some random homeless dude to get it for you in the nearest store for a dollar and there, done.
    - chronofar 6y ago
      Grade A fear mongering, go for the kids. High schools are full of all kinds of illicit drugs. Regulating them and creating outreach would actually get a better handle of that. The additive argument is utterly absurd. Again legalization means regulation, which would prevent such a thing.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Imagine if we created family-friendly policies and parents actually cared about their children, spent time with them and raised them well and taught the kids the value of saying 'Oh, up yours!' to most of the world, knowing full well most of the world doesn't care about you and isn't doing what it is doing to make your life better. Children are vulnerable when there are no adults actually looking out for their welfare in earnest. When there are adults looking out for them, children aren't anywhere near as vulnerable as we routinely paint them.

by ipnon 6y ago

If life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn't include willingly and responsibly putting whatever you want in your own mouth for whatever reason you want then I don't even want a country.

thereare5lights 6y ago

The drug laws in this country are mostly a vestige of racist policies. For example, opium wasn't illegal until people started fearmongering about race mixing in opium dens with Chinese immigrants.

iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
I'd say more generally, it's about control and having something police / government can hold over almost anyone, or any demographic, if convenient for whatever reason. That is the danger of these kinds of laws, they are a shortcut around other rules that are supposed to keep police power in check. And as pointed out elsewhere, local decriminalization doesn't really change this. It's a step in the right direction, but what it really needed is an explicit relinquishing of the power over people that these laws afford (in the US, perhaps an amendment even?) Until that happens, drug laws will still serve their purpose
- wxnx 6y ago
  This, in my opinion, is closest to the truth - not to discount the issues of race that have historically propagated downward through the system and continue to affect people today. From John Ehrlichman, a Nixon associate: > You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. Note: the veracity of this particular quote has been contested, but the story it purports to tell is compelling in my opinion regardless.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    So wrong. Marijuana and heroin were both illegal long before Nixon took office, largely due to laws passed by Democrats. Now that drug laws have become unpopular, there's an effort to rewrite history and blame it all on the Republicans, especially Nixon. It's surprising that this effort is so successful when the correct history is so easy to find: Opium, coca, and their derivatives (including heroin) were made controlled substances by the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1915 [1], a law sponsored by a Democrat and signed by Woodrow Wilson (a Democrat). Marijuana was made a controlled substance by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 [2], likewise introduced in Congress by a Democrat and signed by Roosevelt, another Democrat. Roosevelt also publicly urged the states to legislate against "the narcotic drug evil." [3] The Boggs Act of 1951 [4] introduced mandatory sentences for possession or distribution of both drugs. It was, you guessed it, also sponsored by (and named for) a Democrat in Congress, and was signed by Truman (D). And even the relevant legislation passed during Nixon's term in office, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 [5], was again introduced by a Democrat and passed a Democrat controlled Congress with bipartisan support. This law merely continued the prohibitions introduced by the previous laws after they were successfully challenged in Leary v. United States in 1969 [6]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937 3: http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/History/e1930/rooseveltasks.htm http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/History/e1930/roosevelta... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggs_Act_of_1951 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggs_Act_of_1951 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Drug_Abuse_Prevention_and_Control_Act_of_1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Drug_Abuse_Preve... 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leary_v._United_States
    - wxnx 6y ago
      Well, you've successfully constructed a hell of a strawman! My comment was to express my support for the following statement: > I'd say more generally, it's about control and having something police / government can hold over almost anyone, or any demographic, if convenient for whatever reason. I didn't say anything about Democrats or Republicans. I happened to use a quote that touched on Nixon in support of my claim. I would also note, for people not well-versed in American history, that up until around the 1960s, the concept of a Southern Democrat still existed - people mostly identified with opposing desegregation in the American south. Some of these politicians, including Strom Thurmond, who voted against civil rights and for the Controlled Substances Act, later became Republican figureheads. Party ideals shift over time. With that said, I don't think the current state of drug laws in the US are an issue of party. It's a lack of evidence-based policy, and it's extremely problematic. One might not blame politicians for looking at the effects of narcotics and their relation to organized crime in the mid-20th century in America and say: "we need to legislate this, because the problem is ballooning and we don't have any other tools at our disposal." Addiction science didn't exist yet. One might even forgive the Controlled Substances Act as an extension of this reaction, were it not for the fact that through the subsequent creation of the DEA and the scheduling system, the effects of drugs and addiction became significantly more difficult to research in the US. This happened under Nixon, and I think that's why he receives a significant portion of the blame for the current state of affairs (rightly or wrongly). The DEA has also simply failed in its remit. They've shown themselves to be completely incapable of assessing the medical utility and controlling the abuse potential of drugs (marijuana on the one hand, prescription opioids on the other). This, combined with the fact that the CSA and the DEA's existence prevent us as a country from evaluating other approaches to the drug problem, make for a lose-lose situation.
- imtringued 6y ago
  One benefit of drugs for law enforcement is that it's possible to plant evidence.
- thereare5lights 6y ago
  > I'd say more generally, it's about control and having something police / government can hold over almost anyone, or any demographic, if convenient for whatever reason. That statement glosses over the fact that such restrictive policies frequently come about as a result of trying to control minorities and never the dominant race. After all, if you do that, you'll get voted out of office. For example, in California, gun control was brought about as a result of Black people carrying guns in public. When white people did it, it was totally fine, but once Black people started utilizing their 2nd amendment rights, the state government curtailed it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Opium (as well as many other addictive drugs) are illegal in nearly every country on the planet, so I have a very difficult time pinning this policy decision on racism.
- thereare5lights 6y ago
  Opium wasn't illegal until it was associated with Chinese immigrants back in the 1800s.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    Again, all hard addictive drugs (opium, heroin, cocaine) are illegal in pretty much every country on the planet (save the recent notable exception of Portugal). Many of these countries have never had a sizable Chinese immigrant community. Is your rationale that they were all somehow biased against the Chinese? Of course, opium is still quite illegal in China today.
    - thereare5lights 6y ago
      Your line of reasoning ignores the fact that opium became illegal because of fearmongering about Chinese immigrants.

mlwinner 6y ago

Ok, fair enough, then while you put whatever you want in your own mouth please don't force me to pay for medical, psychiatric, mental and any other social service you may require as caused by your new freedom. For example, it is illegal to drive a motorcycle without a helmet in CA for similar arguments.

username90 6y ago

The main problem with drugs is when companies in pursuit of wealth and power sells highly addictive drugs to kids ruining their lives. Imagine if instead of putting sugar in everything they put addictive drugs in everything, that is what full legalization would result in. Harsh punishments for personal use are nonsense, USA are just insane on that, but I don't think making everything legal is reasonable.

valec 6y ago
> Imagine if instead of putting sugar in everything they put addictive drugs in everything who is arguing making them legal for a food additive, and even more still who is advocating them to be legal for kids?
- username90 6y ago
  A substance legal for adults will be used by most kids. Every kid knows how to get alcohol or cigarettes, just ask some random homeless dude to get it for you in the nearest store for a dollar and there, done.
  - chronofar 6y ago
    Grade A fear mongering, go for the kids. High schools are full of all kinds of illicit drugs. Regulating them and creating outreach would actually get a better handle of that. The additive argument is utterly absurd. Again legalization means regulation, which would prevent such a thing.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
Imagine if we created family-friendly policies and parents actually cared about their children, spent time with them and raised them well and taught the kids the value of saying 'Oh, up yours!' to most of the world, knowing full well most of the world doesn't care about you and isn't doing what it is doing to make your life better. Children are vulnerable when there are no adults actually looking out for their welfare in earnest. When there are adults looking out for them, children aren't anywhere near as vulnerable as we routinely paint them.