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Societies should stop criminalizing drugs and drug users. It's not just about being a poor way to govern a society. There are a lot of good folks across the w

Societies should stop criminalizing drugs and drug users. It's not just about being a poor way to govern a society. There are a lot of good folks across the world who live in dangerous communities because others have a predilection for legislating morality and controlling others' bodies.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
"because others have a predilection for legislating morality and controlling others' bodies." Are you sure people who want to keep heroin, meth and coke illegal are doing it because they want to legislate morality and control others bodies? Or is it because they don't want to have to deal with the negative effects that these drugs have on their community. Criminalizing them hasn't been the solution, but decriminalizing them will not make things that much better either...
- rjbwork 3y ago
  Decriminalizing is not enough. Legal, cheap, and with huge amounts of education and medical assistance at dispensation outlets is the only path towards dealing with the problem, IMO. From my perspective, most of the bad effects of those drugs occur due to their illegality. Meth, heroin, cocaine, etc. is pretty fucking dirt cheap to produce. The impurities and high costs and unknown doses and burdens to the carceral system are what impose the bulk of the costs to society.
  - localplume 3y ago
    [dead]
adolph 3y ago
As an individual there is an ethical choice to abstain that is outside of criminalization and societal morality. It is similar choice to not eating meat because factory farms lead to poor treatment of other beings. It is similar to riding a bike instead of driving a car.
- rjbwork 3y ago
  Abstention from drug consumption is absolutely not an ethical imperative. In fact, if anything, given what we know about the immense quality of life improvements from various psychoactive substances for a broad range of humans, both of nominal neurological makeup and those of neurodivergence, it may be a moral imperative to modulate our cognitive function. Regardless, it is absolutely not immoral or unethical to consume drugs. What is immoral, is imposing the negative consequences of prohibition upon society because of your particular moral code. You want to lock people in a cage at the end of a gun because you disagree with the choices they make for their own bodies. It is authoritarian shite of the highest degree.
- vhlhvjcov 3y ago
  This is false dichotomy. In both meat eating and driving those activities have inherent harm, eating meat will cause animals harm, driving a car will cause pollution and release of GHG. The harm of the drugs trade (on a societal level) is _due to its illegality_ I.e. it is run by criminals.

JimtheCoder 3y ago

"because others have a predilection for legislating morality and controlling others' bodies." Are you sure people who want to keep heroin, meth and coke illegal are doing it because they want to legislate morality and control others bodies? Or is it because they don't want to have to deal with the negative effects that these drugs have on their community. Criminalizing them hasn't been the solution, but decriminalizing them will not make things that much better either...

rjbwork 3y ago
Decriminalizing is not enough. Legal, cheap, and with huge amounts of education and medical assistance at dispensation outlets is the only path towards dealing with the problem, IMO. From my perspective, most of the bad effects of those drugs occur due to their illegality. Meth, heroin, cocaine, etc. is pretty fucking dirt cheap to produce. The impurities and high costs and unknown doses and burdens to the carceral system are what impose the bulk of the costs to society.
- localplume 3y ago
  [dead]

adolph 3y ago

As an individual there is an ethical choice to abstain that is outside of criminalization and societal morality. It is similar choice to not eating meat because factory farms lead to poor treatment of other beings. It is similar to riding a bike instead of driving a car.

rjbwork 3y ago
Abstention from drug consumption is absolutely not an ethical imperative. In fact, if anything, given what we know about the immense quality of life improvements from various psychoactive substances for a broad range of humans, both of nominal neurological makeup and those of neurodivergence, it may be a moral imperative to modulate our cognitive function. Regardless, it is absolutely not immoral or unethical to consume drugs. What is immoral, is imposing the negative consequences of prohibition upon society because of your particular moral code. You want to lock people in a cage at the end of a gun because you disagree with the choices they make for their own bodies. It is authoritarian shite of the highest degree.
vhlhvjcov 3y ago
This is false dichotomy. In both meat eating and driving those activities have inherent harm, eating meat will cause animals harm, driving a car will cause pollution and release of GHG. The harm of the drugs trade (on a societal level) is _due to its illegality_ I.e. it is run by criminals.