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Are people really so inept that they need the government up tell them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies? Study and publicize the risks, the res

Are people really so inept that they need the government up tell them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies? Study and publicize the risks, the rest should be left to personal decisions.

edgyquant 5y ago
I agree about the use of cannabis but if you’ve ever lived next to a meth den I don’t think you’d see that and think, “we should legalize this.” Pot heads are one thing, and they don’t usually commit crimes just because they are high, but hard drugs are a completely different ball game that are a lot more nuanced than, “what you do with your body,” meth heads kill people all the time due to the paranoia associated with the drug.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I agree about the use of cannabis but if you’ve ever lived next to a meth den I don’t think you’d see that and think, “we should legalize this.” “Meth dens”, like “crack houses”, are a thing which prohibition may punish, but does not prevent, but instead creates.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    But how would they punish it if it becomes legal to gather in your front yard and inject methamphetamine?
    - gbear605 5y ago
      The same way we already punish people who gather in places they’re not supposed to be in and drink. Legalizing a drug doesn’t mean legalizing all activities relating to it.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      How do we punish public drunkenness when alcohol is legal?
      - edgyquant 5y ago
        We don’t punish people who sit in their house or their yard and get drunk. I’m not talking about public drunkenness I’m talking about meth dens and how they lead to a serious rise in crime in the surrounding neighborhood.
- rantwasp 5y ago
  if meth was legal and readily available, would you still have this issue? slap a big warning: causes death. Have programs in place to help people with addiction and let things work themselves out
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    The thing is that there are programs in place right now for addiction but people who are hooked on meth don’t want that help. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Meth country and saw more than half of my childhood friends end up in prison or in the streets because they’re hooked on the stuff. Maybe it’s too close to home for me to be reasonable about this but I’ll never agree that meth or heroin should be decriminalized.
    - rantwasp 5y ago
      that's your opinion and it's okay to have that opinion. My opinion is that the government should not tell me what I'm allowed to do with my body (or even worst arrest me for doing stuff to my body). If I literally want to kill myself it should be my choice - How ridiculous would it be if we arrested people that attempted suicide? It's at least as ridiculos trying to end up in prison for an addiction. Also, completely tangential. But poverty is the thing that really kills people (including driving them to seeking the thrills of hard drugs). I can almost guarantee that there is a correlation between income level/standard of living and meth zones.
      - stjohnswarts 5y ago
        That's fine but that's not what the majority of us believe (that hard/extremely addictive and life destroying drugs should be banned) and you will just have to deal with that or find a libertarian paradise in some far off country. Pot isn't one of those drugs though, it's pretty harmless or at least no more destructive than alcohol.
        rantwasp 5y ago
        we're getting philosophical here. but I believe that your freedom should be YOUR freedom. Does that mean you should do stupid things and ruin your life? Probably not. But this is not about doing stupid things. It's about having the option and the option not being constrained by arbitrary things (ie who gets to decide that A is good and B is bad, A is okay, B is life destroying) also, one thing to consider: It's mostly non-controversial that pot is harmless nowadays. The more you go back in time, the more pot was painted as wrecking your life, a gateway drug, etc. So a lot of what the effect of a drug are can (and is) hearsay + fear-mongering.
foxes 5y ago
What you do with yourself does not always happen in a vacuum. Maybe if you are in the cabin in the wild growing your own pot who cares, but for the rest of society I think we should consider second order effects. Society does already dictate what you can do with your body. You can’t drink and drive. I don’t think we want a society that encourages or turns a blind eye to people to harming themselves.
- enchiridion 5y ago
  Well in many jurisdictions in the US it is only illegal to drink and drive on property the public has ready access to. If someone is driving drink on sufficiently private property, then that's a risk the people who are choosing to be there are willing to take on. Would I personally want to be involved? Definitely not, but it's not up to me to decide for others. And quite literally everything is harmful in one way or another, it's just a matter of degrees, and people should be allowed to make their own decisions.
username90 5y ago
Yes they are. There is a reason we have a law saying people can't be in a car without seatbelts and so on, it is because people are dumbasses who will hurt themselves. So it being legal for you and everyone else means a ton of people will get hurt just by using it themselves. Are you really fine sacrificing others just to get your fix?
- enchiridion 5y ago
  I wear a seatbelt because I understand what will happen if I don't, not because of a law. That's a strawman, but I'll roll with it. Yep, totally fine with it (although I have not used any illegal drugs). Mostly because there are massive amounts of people currently using prohibited drugs. Why not study and make known the risks instead of hopelessly trying to directly control everyone's actions? At a higher level, I do not believe in any authority's ability to consistently produce a net benefit over long periods of time by deciding what substances are legal. I do however think that the markets will figure it out pretty quickly.

Are people really so inept that they need the government up tell them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies? Study and publicize the risks, the rest should be left to personal decisions.

edgyquant 5y ago

I agree about the use of cannabis but if you’ve ever lived next to a meth den I don’t think you’d see that and think, “we should legalize this.” Pot heads are one thing, and they don’t usually commit crimes just because they are high, but hard drugs are a completely different ball game that are a lot more nuanced than, “what you do with your body,” meth heads kill people all the time due to the paranoia associated with the drug.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> I agree about the use of cannabis but if you’ve ever lived next to a meth den I don’t think you’d see that and think, “we should legalize this.” “Meth dens”, like “crack houses”, are a thing which prohibition may punish, but does not prevent, but instead creates.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  But how would they punish it if it becomes legal to gather in your front yard and inject methamphetamine?
  - gbear605 5y ago
    The same way we already punish people who gather in places they’re not supposed to be in and drink. Legalizing a drug doesn’t mean legalizing all activities relating to it.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    How do we punish public drunkenness when alcohol is legal?
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      We don’t punish people who sit in their house or their yard and get drunk. I’m not talking about public drunkenness I’m talking about meth dens and how they lead to a serious rise in crime in the surrounding neighborhood.
rantwasp 5y ago
if meth was legal and readily available, would you still have this issue? slap a big warning: causes death. Have programs in place to help people with addiction and let things work themselves out
- edgyquant 5y ago
  The thing is that there are programs in place right now for addiction but people who are hooked on meth don’t want that help. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Meth country and saw more than half of my childhood friends end up in prison or in the streets because they’re hooked on the stuff. Maybe it’s too close to home for me to be reasonable about this but I’ll never agree that meth or heroin should be decriminalized.
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    that's your opinion and it's okay to have that opinion. My opinion is that the government should not tell me what I'm allowed to do with my body (or even worst arrest me for doing stuff to my body). If I literally want to kill myself it should be my choice - How ridiculous would it be if we arrested people that attempted suicide? It's at least as ridiculos trying to end up in prison for an addiction. Also, completely tangential. But poverty is the thing that really kills people (including driving them to seeking the thrills of hard drugs). I can almost guarantee that there is a correlation between income level/standard of living and meth zones.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      That's fine but that's not what the majority of us believe (that hard/extremely addictive and life destroying drugs should be banned) and you will just have to deal with that or find a libertarian paradise in some far off country. Pot isn't one of those drugs though, it's pretty harmless or at least no more destructive than alcohol.
      - rantwasp 5y ago
        we're getting philosophical here. but I believe that your freedom should be YOUR freedom. Does that mean you should do stupid things and ruin your life? Probably not. But this is not about doing stupid things. It's about having the option and the option not being constrained by arbitrary things (ie who gets to decide that A is good and B is bad, A is okay, B is life destroying) also, one thing to consider: It's mostly non-controversial that pot is harmless nowadays. The more you go back in time, the more pot was painted as wrecking your life, a gateway drug, etc. So a lot of what the effect of a drug are can (and is) hearsay + fear-mongering.

foxes 5y ago

What you do with yourself does not always happen in a vacuum. Maybe if you are in the cabin in the wild growing your own pot who cares, but for the rest of society I think we should consider second order effects. Society does already dictate what you can do with your body. You can’t drink and drive. I don’t think we want a society that encourages or turns a blind eye to people to harming themselves.

enchiridion 5y ago
Well in many jurisdictions in the US it is only illegal to drink and drive on property the public has ready access to. If someone is driving drink on sufficiently private property, then that's a risk the people who are choosing to be there are willing to take on. Would I personally want to be involved? Definitely not, but it's not up to me to decide for others. And quite literally everything is harmful in one way or another, it's just a matter of degrees, and people should be allowed to make their own decisions.

username90 5y ago

Yes they are. There is a reason we have a law saying people can't be in a car without seatbelts and so on, it is because people are dumbasses who will hurt themselves. So it being legal for you and everyone else means a ton of people will get hurt just by using it themselves. Are you really fine sacrificing others just to get your fix?

enchiridion 5y ago
I wear a seatbelt because I understand what will happen if I don't, not because of a law. That's a strawman, but I'll roll with it. Yep, totally fine with it (although I have not used any illegal drugs). Mostly because there are massive amounts of people currently using prohibited drugs. Why not study and make known the risks instead of hopelessly trying to directly control everyone's actions? At a higher level, I do not believe in any authority's ability to consistently produce a net benefit over long periods of time by deciding what substances are legal. I do however think that the markets will figure it out pretty quickly.