19 ms·

When I see a number like $21 billion, I can't help but think of all the economic and social good from drugs being regulated, like Cannabis, Tobacco and Prostitu

• jahnu 5y ago
  I hear you, but... we can't even properly tax major corps selling coffee yet :(
  • lapetitejort 5y ago
    Perfect is the enemy of the good. Let's just crack open those revenue streams a bit.
  • BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    We do tax them with VAT, which brings a LOT of money. We could, and should tax them more on earnings too, despite loop holes and tax heavens. But even if you could just get VAT on drugs and prostitution, that would be HUGE. Not to mention profits would go to legal businesses, which would stimulate the economy, instead of going into criminals pockets, which hurts society.
• cgh 5y ago
  Very difficult to legalize and tax meth, which is what this guy mostly sold. It’s hugely addictive and harmful, and you can make it in a home lab. I was shocked to read in the article that one in seven Australians have tried it. Is that true? That’s a real crisis if so.
  • gremloni 5y ago
    I agree but possession must never be a crime.
    • YeBanKo 5y ago
      Why not?
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • gremloni 5y ago
        Because that’s low hanging fruit that lets cops run amok and it really makes no difference in the end. Go after the big guys and invest in rehab for the end user.
  • lindseymysse 5y ago
    Err, aren't you on a programming website? Half of the people here are hopped up on meth their doctors gave them. We're as methed up as Germany in the 30's and 40's.
    • lindseymysse 5y ago
      downvotes provided by the local meth heads, lol
  • ixacto 5y ago
    Alcohol and tobacco are also hugely addictive and harmful. This has been obvious for many years, yet the $$$ from these industries still keeps them afloat. Why should the government be allowed to tell me what I can and can't do with my body? If you want to meth yourself to death that's not hurting anyone else.
    • bawolff 5y ago
      > If you want to meth yourself to death that's not hurting anyone else. Desperate addicted people do desperate things that often do hurt others. That includes acoholics.
    • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      alcohol and tobacco have increased sales taxes.
  • trhway 5y ago
    The meth is ADHD medicine. Nobody is going to make it at home if it is made easy available. If society develops a reasonable culture of it's consumption we probably would see a boost of productivity and creativity instead of the growth of the wasteful prison industrial complex. >These radical criminal businessmen began as Communist partisans and Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and were sent to Guangdong province in southeast China for re-education in the 1960s and ’70s. Must be something in the communist Kool aid. Disproportionate share of the Russian businessmen of 199x with all it's ruthlessness, illegallity and violent crimes, raiding and takeovers came straight from the Young Communist organization bureaucracy.
    • cgh 5y ago
      My guess is supply would be constrained because of how addictive it is. You’d still end up with street-level dealers selling it. I could be wrong but it’s hard to see how cheap, legal, easily-available meth can lead to anything but an addiction crisis.
      • hellbannedguy 5y ago
        I'm ok with low level drug dealers still selling. Opening up a weed store is far from a sure thing. I know a few guys who smoke and they use dealers because of cost. Fine the drug dealers civil court. Get then where it hurts. Go after the dealers living in the nice home, driving the Mercedes Station Wagon. We are always going to find a reason to not legalize drugs. With the exception of antibiotics; Let's leagalize them all, including all those psychiatric drugs we need to pay $450 a session to get. Put a sticker on the bottle, "Want to have a few nights of fun, and many nights of misery open this bottle. And I know you the level headed guy who is strong willed and thinks you are the exception. Why take the risk. We have a poor social support system, and most rehabs are a joke." Make the tax reasonable, and put that money towards our homeless problem.
      • pas 5y ago
        It's already that. It's already unimaginably bad thanks to it being shunned into the shadows where most users are hidden, left behind to be eaten alive by their worst impulses. https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-the-least-of-us/ https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-t...
  • vermilingua 5y ago
    7%, not one in 7, still an unthinkable number of people.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • cgh 5y ago
      Ugh, you are right, I misread. Thanks.
    • baldeagle 5y ago
      Thats 1 in 14. Still seems high (like apparently 1 in 14 people). I suspect it is very clumpy, especially if you put a time period restriction on it (which would likely lower the percentage)
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • BelenusMordred 5y ago
        I think many on this site really don't understand how prevalent drugs are in Australian society. As an Aussie that number doesn't seem big at all and is probably an underestimation.
        • kpennell 5y ago
          In somewhere like San Francisco, you really wouldn't meet that many middle/upper class people doing meth whereas it seems like somewhere like Melbourne, you would (it's called ice I think)
  • version_five 5y ago
    I think drugs should be legal (or decriminalized) but probably with at least two categories, which no doubt causes it's own set of problems: 1. Recreational, like marijuana and alcohol and many hallucinogens, where regulating and taxing is the best solution, to deter organized crime and make sure people are getting the product they want to get 2. Harmful (and the definition is tough here) like meth and heroin, where the goal is something closer to medically supervised use, and breaking the habit where appropriate, but also making sure people are getting real drugs and not resorting to more dangerous alternatives or those of unknown origin. The point isn't that drugs are good, it's that people will do them anyway, so how do you remove the criminal element and keep people safer under the circumstances. I agree that they shouldn't sell meth at convenience stores, but someone addicted should be able to talk to a doctor and get it, and not have to buy some dangerous unknown thing off the street. I imagine if this happened, the next fight would be social control advocate groups pushing for currently legal drugs (alcohol) to me moved to my category 2. People's own puritan values and a hatred of the idea that someone else may be enjoying themselves in a way they don't endorse are a (the) main root cause of all the societal problems with drugs imo
    • rectang 5y ago
      The main question is not about the freedom of users, but about the freedom of the sort of entrepreneurs who read Hacker News to market legal drugs to heavy users as aggressively as possible. Addicts are where the money is. If you want to make bank on drugs, it's all about speeding up the downward spiral of addiction and extracting maximum value from addicts while they're spiraling.
    • cgh 5y ago
      Yeah, I agree on all points (I’m a proponent of legalization and live in a country with legal pot). I’ve witnessed first-hand the effects of prolonged meth addiction and it is not pretty. Your point of making it available by prescription is the good and obvious path. But will still be available as a party drug via illegal means of production and distribution.
      • pas 5y ago
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • stickfigure 5y ago
    You are massively overstating the addictiveness of methamphetamine. You just said it yourself; one in seven Australians have tried it, and yet are not addicts. That's not a crisis, that's good news. I'm not a fan of meth, but I recognize propaganda when I see it. Meth has gotten (and still gets) the Reefer Madness treatment. From what I've observed, this narrative is so exaggerated as to be more or less false.
    • rp1 5y ago
      What evidence is there of meth not being super addictive and life destroying? The person you're replying to misread the statistic, which was actually 7% (not one-in-seven).
      • dylan604 5y ago
        Okay, but of that 7% how many of them suffered addiction and life destroying behaviors? I'm guess a large percentage of those users.
        • rp1 5y ago
          This study claims that there are 7.3 heavy meth users per 1000 15-49 year olds in Australia. Meaning 1 in 10 people who try meth become a heavy user. That seems like a lot to me, given the lifestyle heavy-users live. https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/estimating-number-regular-and-dependent-methamphetamine-users-australia https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/estimating-number-reg...
          • 55555 5y ago
            10% of drinkers are problem drinkers.
            • rp1 5y ago
              According to this study, only 10% of heavy drinkers are alcoholics. Obviously heavy drinkers are a small portion of total drinkers, so your 10% number is way off base. Even if it was correct, two wrongs don’t make a right. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN0J428D20141120 https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...
  • strken 5y ago
    The stats I can find[0] give 6% lifetime usage of any amphetamine, where their definition includes Ritalin and pseudoephredrine without a prescription. Can't work out what percentage of lifetime use is meth without digging into the underlying whitepaper, although it looks like meth is about 50% of 12-month use. [0] https://nadk.flinders.edu.au/kb/methamphetamines/use-patterns https://nadk.flinders.edu.au/kb/methamphetamines/use-pattern...
  • The_rationalist 5y ago
    Meth is legal see desoxyn
  • dylan604 5y ago
    Somebody making $21B in meth didn't make it in a home lab.
  • newsclues 5y ago
    https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm Legal meth
  • arcticbull 5y ago
    Meth is already taxed in much of the United States via this convoluted drug tax stamp program. There's this whole fascinating process where their goal is to obviously get you on tax evasion, like Capone. But to make it legal, they have to make it possible for you to pay your taxes, without getting caught. So there's this whole anonymous no questions asked process where you can drop sacks of cash for your mandatory narcotics tax stamps. Some of the designs are truly amazing. [1] All drugs were decriminalized in Portugal in 2001 and saw Portugal saw their usage remain roughly constant. Their negative health and societal effects, however, plummeted - from among the worst in the EU to among the best in the EU. [2] I think legalization is a pretty obvious next step. Anybody who wants smack now can get smack, right now. Being illegal isn't making it any less accessible. I strongly believe that if it were legal, there wouldn't exactly be a flood of new drug users lining up at the dispensary to give crystal meth and black tar heroin a go. However not making them available is causing crime, sickness, violence and fueling a drug war that's hurting everyone. [1] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/why-do-states-tax-illegal-drugs https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/why-do-states-tax-ill... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
    • gjs278 5y ago
      nobody pays the meth tax stamp, stop wasting space on the board by posting irrelevant shit
  • ipnon 5y ago
    Wouldn't 7% having tried it, and the country being relatively safe and prosperous, suggest that meth and civil society are somewhat compatible? Interestingly, China appears to have more meth users per capita than Western countries like the US, with 0.5% or 13 million total Chinese users.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • pmoriarty 5y ago
    As long as we continue to discriminate between drugs we like or approve of, and those we're willing to put people in jail for, the drug war will never end. Those of us who are in favor of legalizing drugs on the principle of cognitive liberty -- that every adult should be free to do what they will with their own minds -- should support the legalization of all drugs, not just their favored drugs. We should also move away from blaming substances or their users for addiction, and look at what's missing in people's lives, at how the world is broken and lacking and how this dysfunction is leading people to seek solace in doing things that make them feel good, even to their own detriment. The war on drugs has plainly failed to solve addiction, and will continue to fail, because it does not get at the root of the problem, which lies not in the substances, nor in their users, nor their suppliers.
    • pugets 5y ago
      > We should also move away from blaming substances or their users for addiction, and look at what's missing in people's lives, at how the world is broken and lacking and how this dysfunction is leading people to seek solace in doing things that make them feel good, even to their own detriment. I think this is the right spirit, yet inconsistent with humanity. People are silly. They won't always (or even most of the time) do the rational thing for themselves, even when they know what it is. Some people start using drugs to fill a void, while others do it simply because they met the wrong person, or they wanted to see what it was like, or they wanted to impress their peer group, or any other silly reason. For examples of this, look no further than the rampant use of drugs in the entertainment industry. These actresses and rock stars can afford anything they want in life (especially counseling), yet so many still chase highs.
      • pmoriarty 5y ago
        "look no further than the rampant use of drugs in the entertainment industry. These actresses and rock stars can afford anything they want in life (especially counseling), yet so many still chase highs" They can afford things that money can buy, but they may be missing much of what money can't buy.
  • vmception 5y ago
    A lot of people use meth thinking it is something else A lot of cocaine is meth, which maybe is used across more socioeconomic classes (all) than intentional meth there is probably a population that has only had meth but thought it was coke
    • ehvatum 5y ago
      > A lot of cocaine is meth Even adding lidocaine to meth is insufficient to disguise it as cocaine. The bite when tasting or snorting meth is immediate and distinct.
      • vmception 5y ago
        its just what nurses tell me they see but even there I’m sure there is a lot of misinformation I wish the state would just control the supply chain and be done with it
  • qwerty456127 5y ago
    If so much people tried it yet most of them didn't become addicts this sounds like fantastic news to me. I used to be a "legalize everything, people should choose for themselves" guy until I tried meth once. I had absolutely no problem with it because I am lucky to be exceptionally addiction-proof but the way I felt during and after immediately led me to conclude "no, this can't be legalized, 95% of people will fail to resist". What you wrote, however, suggests people are way stronger than I expected.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • gwbas1c 5y ago
    > I was shocked to read in the article that one in seven Australians have tried it That's not very shocking when you consider how many children are exposed to ADHD medication. Adderall is indistinguishable from methamphetamine, Ritalin is a mirror image molecule of methamphetamine, and sometimes methamphetamine is prescribed for ADHD. Some times doctors will test a child for ADHD by prescribing medication and seeing if it improves or harms their behavior.
  • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    Almost anybody who took MDMA that they bought at a rave or club or whatever in the 90s or early 2000s probably had one with methamphetamine in it, knowingly or unknowingly.
    • bongoman37 5y ago
      The MA part of MDMA is methamphetamine. They are pretty close structurally.
  • Nursie 5y ago
    > I was shocked to read in the article that one in seven Australians have tried it. Is that true? That’s a real crisis if so. Is it a crisis? Or does it show things in a different light - if 1 in 7 Australians has tried it, and the sky hasn't fallen in yet, maybe that means it's not quite as awful as we've been led to believe by the tone of reportage around this drug? That's not to say it's good, and clearly there are massive negative consequences, but I see meth painted as a boogie-man, where the reality is likely more nuanced. This is an addictive, destructive drug, but there's more to a life spiraling out of control than just the substance at hand.
  • satronaut 5y ago
    I think it's 1 in 70 who've tried it, not 1 in 7. While 1/70 is still substantial; ~1.3%, way less concerning than ~14% of the population
  • octodog 5y ago
    Meth, when consumed in powdered form (speed), is a popular party drug in Australia, so I wouldn't be surprised. Most MDMA pills seem to have speed in them as well.
  • raducu 5y ago
    I tried 2-fma, which is less recreational than pure meth. The dosage and means of administration make all the difference. Meth/desoxyn is the best rated drug for ADHD and I can see why.
  • mschuster91 5y ago
    > Very difficult to legalize and tax meth, which is what this guy mostly sold. It’s hugely addictive and harmful, and you can make it in a home lab. Sell the hard stuff in apothecaries or specialized drug treatment centers at a price point competitive to street dealers and offer people a safe space to consume said drugs. That should at least get fatal overdoses and contamination issues under control, and the consumers are in a place where they can be reached out to by social services (housing assistance, mental health).
  • Ginden 5y ago
    > you can make it in a home lab. Even if drugs can be made in home lab, almost no one is willing to do this. Even for metamphetamine (it's very easy to produce in home), 80% of meth in USA is imported from Mexico. Producing alcohol is so easy that you can do it accidentally - yet, majority of alcohol abusers just buy it.
  • rm_-rf_slash 5y ago
    Couple of my in-laws are cops in rural New York and they’ve been saying for years that cooks have switched to bottles cause you can make it all in one then throw it out the window on the highway so you’re not otherwise caught with a lab in your trunk.
  • krispyfi 5y ago
    A non-profit in the UK has put out a very detailed and convincing guide for how to regulate and tax meth. I personally think that there is no perfect solution, and regulation with taxation is the least of all evils. https://transformdrugs.org/publications/how-to-regulate-stimulants-a-practical-guide https://transformdrugs.org/publications/how-to-regulate-stim...
• otras 5y ago
  One of the more interesting points from The Atlantic's recent article on meth [0] that was new to me was the economics of producers moving from marijuana to meth and how marijuana legalization may have encouraged the shift towards meth: Pot was part of this story too. As some American states legalized marijuana, Mexican pot revenue faltered. Many producers switched to making meth and found it liberating. Marijuana took months to grow, was bulky, and could rot. “But with crystal meth,” the member of the Sinaloan drug world told me, “in 10 days you’ve made it. It’s not as bulky as pot, so in two weeks you’re crossing the border with it. Within two or three months, you’re big.” [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• jollybean 5y ago
  I think this might be mostly upside down. The cartels are not making money off of weed, or even relatively non-addictive psychedelics for which there is limited demand. The kinds of drugs they distribute, especially since the boom in synthetics are very harmful. We have an opioid epidemic that is growing rapidly, not unrelated to basic prescription use. This is happening even in places like Canada, where prescriptions are more tightly controlled. While some highly conscientious slice of the population can handle some recreational use (i.e. a few burning man friends), even among them there are those that will fall (a highly-paid, professional colleague died of an OD), and among the general population large swaths will be immediately consumed by addiction were drugs to be easily available. Decriminalization may have some positive effect, but if there are any restrictions at all, the Black market will still be enormous, with the 'legal' activity driving demeand for the illegal - probably the worst outcome. The amount gained in 'taxes' would be a pittance next to the massive public health crisis, or even the lost wages and productivity. I suggest some material % of the population, say 4-10% would be tied up in this activity at least to some extent, with a large cohort of that group being very adversely effected, and many simply deal. The social costs of widespread opioids/fentanyl, crack and meth would be disastrous. In the long run I think it would be worse than COVID, while it might entail fewer acute casualties, it would be a severe plague on civility that would be very difficult to unroot. If we increased addiction 20x via legalization, and then had to roll back legalization in order to deal with the crises, the 'cartels' that would appear would have 20x the market. Especially since the advent of much more powerful synthetics which addicts seem to prefer and demand, there's little doubt we have no choice but to keep these things out of the hands of people. It's a game of Supply and Demand and controlling access points, if we really wanted to do it, I think we could.
  • Nursie 5y ago
    > Especially since the advent of much more powerful synthetics which addicts seem to prefer and demand Do we know this? Certainly the driver for the ever more powerful opiods seems to be the ease of smuggling smaller amounts, with users preferring the 'safer' opiates. (FWIW I don't think full, unrestricted legalisation of all drugs is a great plan, but there are various kinds of middle ground which may be better than either the status quo or a free for all)
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• yuuu 5y ago
  Here's an idea: how about we don't tax things that people should be free to do anyway?
• umvi 5y ago
  If the taxes are too high or the regulations too onerous, black markets will still spring up. Tobacco black markets are everywhere in NYC to avoid the super high state tax. Also, only so much good can come from "sin taxes". Take lotto (another "sin tax" of sorts). On paper it seems really good for society because all that money can be used for schools and all sorts of social good. But it also has the negative consequence of putting additional financial strain on the people who already have the most financial strain and it's hard to tell if the added funding to schools cancels out the additional financial strain placed on the lower classes.
  • throw_this_one 5y ago
    They're prob gonna join local gambling underground circles though. So that money goes to those peeps instead of being concentrated and hopefully the gov uses it for a better net on society
    • umvi 5y ago
      Doubt it. Just like adding extra clicks or login modals reduces the amount of people visiting your website, so increasing friction to do things in real life reduces the number of people doing it. Only the most motivated gamblers would be willing to seek out and participate in "gambling underground circles". Your average convenience store lotto player probably wouldn't bother.
    • kshacker 5y ago
      I go to a gas station, I can buy lotto. I go to a super market, I can buy lotto. And sometimes at whim, I have done that. Remove these and I am unlikely to look for dungeons selling lotto tickets. Ease of access is the problem.
      • Retric 5y ago
        It’s scratch off tickets that are the equivalents of illegal gambling not multi million dollar lotteries because the feedback is instant and the same personalities get addicted to both.
• varispeed 5y ago
  The most likely answer is that politicians who maintain the prohibition profit from it directly or indirectly. There is no other answer to that. Unfortunately drug prohibition is also in the law enforcement interest so they won't investigate politicians' links to drug trade.
  • f7f8rurjfi 5y ago
    Since HN apparently hates actual dialogue about racial issues (what a shock from a primarily white userbase) I'll reply to bellyfullofbac here: I wasn't aware I had to explain that there is a history of racist oppression in many countries that has left minority groups, particularly people of African decent, at a disproportionate handicap when it comes to both inherited wealth and social mobility. Similarly, regressive taxation is so simple I'll save you the trouble of figuring out the keyword and sinply say that I chose "regressive" for a reason. I'm glad I could give you the opportunity to be glib since you seem to be orgasming from the opportunity to be racist without consequence however. I wouldn't want to make you feel guilty when I point out that minority groups typically suffer from classicism the most due to the aforementioned history.
• naveen99 5y ago
  I am surprised we don’t see economic arguments to rationalize the status quo of societal norms against cannabis and prostitution on hackernews. Maximum employment and productivity are the highest economic policy goals. Cannabis and recreational drugs reduce time, energy, and interest available towards employment. Prostitution lowers the price of sex with women. One of the biggest motivators of employment and productivity among men is the high price of marriage, monogamous sex with women.
  • b0tzzzzzzman 5y ago
    >Maximum employment and productivity are the highest economic policy goals. I am so sick of this simplistic MBA style of thought. It ignores literally, figuratively, and morally the needs of humans who are under the rule of politicians, managers, and investors that simplify things into statments like this. Most people are so detatched from the actual needs. Do you think if people that drink could socially use meth would be better off while they have paid sex with a legal prostitute high on meth and go back to with the next day to pay their morgage ? Maybe if we were noy over taxes and living in precarious times .. People would beli3ve they have a future from their effort.
    • Rastonbury 5y ago
      That assertion is absurd. Policy making is so much more nuanced than maximising economic growth and productivity, look as subsidies and protection of interest groups at economic cost. Tobacco and alcohol are both legal A lawmaker is not looking at prostitution from an economic lens, they are looking at how their constituents will react with horror at how the representative is enabling what they perceive as vice
      • hoseja 5y ago
        And why are they perceiving it as a vice? Try looking at religion/morality as a social engineering framework and it's obvious.
        • 5y ago
• xvilka 5y ago
  If anything, I think Tobacco should be banned worldwide. It makes even more harm than anything else.
  • fleddr 5y ago
    I'd say this needlessly increases the scope of the discussion, which is not "anything that is harmful". If that's the measuring stick, you should also be willing to discuss the banning of several food items. Smoking is a poor lifestyle choice. Deeply addictive with negative effects to your health in the long term, that much is clear. Heroin and meth can destroy you in less than a year. Physically and economically. It will bankrupt you and turn you into a zombie, after which you will do anything at all for the next fix, crime included. Smoking does none of these things. It doesn't even alter your state of mind nor do you get high. Smoking doesn't fuel violence in a way alcohol can, nor does it make you delirious in a way strong weed can.
• ornornor 5y ago
  When enforcement or the news (being very generous here to qualify torontolife.com as news) come up with these numbers, they often use the retail value of drugs. For instance, the big players sell drugs in kilos or dozen of kilos but enforcement calculates the value at the street price of an ounce. It makes for bigger and more impressive numbers but isn’t the reality. When we value a mining company for instance, we’re talking about bulk ore value, not finished retail products made out of that ore value. 21B is a lot of money, but it’s probably not very close to the actual amount.
  • moonchrome 5y ago
    That doesn't really change his point, even if that 20B isn't captured by the syndicate it's the street value of the goods they provides to consumers. I would say that the kind of value captured by illigal activity is usually from pathological market cases and you really don't want this value captured (we already had a period where cocaine was added to soft drinks, I'm sure if you launch that you would create massive "value". Doubt this is a society most here would want to live in.
  • adminscoffee 5y ago
    actually, eventually that kilo will be broken down and sold to smaller dealers who will then bring up the price to street value. so even if the value is sold slightly above cost, there's a lot of people buying from that wholesaler and reselling it to smaller dealers who then step on it more. so the number could vary depending on market forces
  • hef19898 5y ago
    That is one of the core messages from Narconomics, one of the reasons I love the book. Drugs are a business, and Narconomics has a point when recommending that we look at the drug problem from a business perspective. Obviously we don't, but we should.
• devoutsalsa 5y ago
  I think it’s interesting that one of the biggest drugs imported into the USA is tobacco. There’s a large market for cheap cigarettes that didn’t get properly taxed.
• ry66tvkkj 5y ago
  The types of taxes you're advocating are regressive in nature because they fall disproportionately on lower income groups. By extension, your suggested taxes are also racist not that I imagine many on a predominantly white platform will care. But congrats on being open minded by a 90s definition of the term I guess.
  • bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    Huh, how are they racist? Seems to me you're the racist one assuming those "trades" are done by non-whites. But well I guess I won't get any answers from a throwaway account made presumably to come from "Taxes bad!" and associate them with racism... Society failing minority groups is a different topic of discussion, but legalising those trades would at least mean less of them end up entering the world of crime.
• Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  I live in a country where those are TECHNICALLY legal, but they are all discouraged. You can buy weed, but only at so-called coffeeshops, which are often shady looking places with a security guard asking for ID. In some areas, the local authorities have made them members-only clubs because of drug tourism, so you need to sign up for them first. And of course, while you can buy it if you really want to, you can't legally grow it. Although there's trials for growing them legally at the moment, because all the growing was done by crime networks in dodgy and unsafe circumstances (think power theft, fire risk, etc). Tobacco is legal, but over the years they have added more and more measures to discourage them; in rough chronological order, they banned advertising, they added bold text warning people of the security risks, then graphic images of cancers and damaged lungs. Over time they bumped up the extra taxes so that a pack of cigarettes is now over €10. They banned custom packaging, so everything now looks bland. And last year they forbade the products being on display, so they have to be behind a door or in a drawer now. This led to more 'illegal' tobacco imports from abroad. Prostitution is technically legal, but local counties have clamped down on the locations where it can be practiced, trying to turn the red light districts into gentrified fashion stores. And last year, prostitution was banned entirely as part of corona measures. I mean it's sorta back now, but the amount of from-home and illegal brothels has exploded since then - with human trafficking and slavery to go with it, because there is not enough oversight anymore.