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Rubbish. Folks made the exact same arguments about alcohol and marijuana. Specifically with alcohol, anyone can walk into a treatment center without fear that

Rubbish. Folks made the exact same arguments about alcohol and marijuana. Specifically with alcohol, anyone can walk into a treatment center without fear that they'll be arrested for the mere _use_ of a substance. (Marijuana has very low risk and rates of addiction, physical or psychological.) If "hard" drugs are legalized, then they will likely be treated the same as alcohol and pot and tobacco: highly regulated, sold only to adults in very limited stores, and folks can enter treatment without fear of arrest. The big mistake California (and other Leftist faux-topias) made was decriminalizing THEFT, ASSAULT, smoking and shooting on BART, smoking and shooting in public parks, smoking and shooting on sidewalks in front of residences -- and taxing the legal pot industry so highly that it was miles cheaper to buy stuff illegally no the corner.

darth_avocado 3y ago
I generally agree with the sentiment that drugs should be treated like we treat other addictions like alcohol. Drugs should be decriminalized, anti social criminal behavior should stay criminalized. If I’m drunk and pee in public or assault someone, I’ll go to jail. That is what should happen if I do it under the influence of drugs. The one difference though between alcohol and some of the drugs is potency and how quickly one can be addicted to it. Therefore, treatment should be much more easily be available and it should be much easier to have an intervention.
- toomim 3y ago
  Driving drunk is illegal because you're likely to kill someone, and then it'll be too late to say "let's just prosecute the crime of manslaughter, and not prevent future manslaughters by prosecuting drunkenness in the car." In the same way, we should make it illegal to do drugs in situations where you are likely to cause irreparable harm. If we legalize drugs, let's create safe situations to do so. Many drugs are being legalized under the supervision of a doctor. We could also allow drug use within a safe space where you can't OD, and where you won't leave needles on the ground for kids to step on.
  - darth_avocado 3y ago
    Legalization and decriminalization are two different things. I am all for decriminalizing. From a personal viewpoint, I don’t think drugs should be legalized. And as far as the legal administration etc., that already exists in SF and it has had a poor track record of helping people.
    - JoeJonathan 3y ago
      Decriminalizing drugs doesn’t fix the supply problem, which makes drug use such a budensome expense that there are all kinds of knock on effects (theft, poverty, etc). Someone commented on how rich people don’t see drug use, but sure they do. Aside from the fact that most everyone here is pretty rich and complaining about addicts, I come from an upper middle class suburb with a ton of addicts. Lots of people I went to school with died of overdosed. But it’s not immediately visible because people’s families reluctantly take them in, they generally have enough money for drugs, etc. Not arguing for outright legalization—while I once did, I now think it’s naive. And I’m not sure we could pull off a Portugal style system in the US. But descriminalizariam doesn’t seem to be working that well.
      - darth_avocado 3y ago
        Which is why I argue: > Therefore, treatment should be much more easily be available and it should be much easier to have an intervention. If drugs become burdensome enough that you have to commit crimes to feed your habit, then maybe the society should be able to intervene and help? If I have a drinking problem that I need to steal money for, the solution shouldn’t be cheaper alcohol, but a way for me to stop drinking. Same applies for drugs. Part of the reason why families support (reluctantly) drug habits is because getting help is often not easy or cheap.
      - deleted 3y ago
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    - whiddershins 3y ago
      Legalization addresses the 100,000 overdose deaths a year. Legalization bankrupts criminal organizations. Legalization creates tax revenue. Refusing to prosecute antisocial behavior is the problem.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > The one difference though between alcohol and some of the drugs is potency and how quickly one can be addicted to it. This is a good point. If I go to the liquor store, I can buy bottles that are 90% alcohol or bottles as low as 3% alcohol. If we legalize "hard" drugs like opiates, meth, etc. then we'll get a similar differentiation along with the benefit that the drugs will be checked by Trusted Sources (both government and industry) to effectively eliminate certain adulterants. And for the folks who become addicts (physically or psychologically), there's no legal risk in telling their doctor or therapist or anyone, and they can better enter treatment. There are folks who drink 750ml (~24oz) of 40% liquor every day. It's rare but they have an addiction. They can also get treatment, while the rest of us enjoy 5% beers and 13% wines more moderately.
  - monkpit 3y ago
    > there's no legal risk in telling their doctor or therapist Maybe no LEGAL risks, but if you live in the USA and want to have insurance and/or life insurance, you wouldn’t want to disclose this info since they’ll either deny you or charge you extra.
    - brightlancer 3y ago
      That's an interesting argument -- I don't know if/ how much it's true, but that was certainly the norm for decades for gay men. On that basis, I think it's better if we remove the legal risk even if there are still societal or economic risks.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > I can buy bottles that are 90% alcohol or bottles as low as 3% alcohol Depends on the state. Some states banned 90%+ hard liquors (eg. Everclear) while other states allow it. Some other states have banned selling hard liquors and wines unless it's from a state run liquor store. Other states just allow open sale at any store. It's all state dependent as the US is federal.
- bandrami 3y ago
  One big problem is that while the US has finally wrapped its brain around the fact that incarceration doesn't fix drug addiction, we have mistakenly fallen into the belief that treatment does. But even the absolute gold-standard treatment program (residential group and individual therapy with chemical assistance where appropriate) has about a 25% success rate (meaning still clean after 5 years). Literally no matter what we do we are going to have a large number of people who have drugged their way out of society and will not be able to come back. And we need to figure out what to do about that.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  I often like to bring up a thought-experiment involving a drug (or brain-parasite) where one dose makes the person willing to commit any crime or violence in order to secure another hit, even selling their kids into slavery and cutting off their own leg. Also multiple doses kills the person, and it has no medical value whatsoever. IMO this helps highlight the spectrum we're dealing with, where one point is "taking that is a bad choice but I support your freedom of choice and autonomy", and another might be "holy shit this doom-substance so irredeemably anti-freedom that banning it is obviously the best practical choice." Even if you look at such a drug as a roundabout form of suicide, it's one where the person must be blocked from harming others on their way out.
mcphage 3y ago
> The big mistake California (and other Leftist faux-topias) made was decriminalizing THEFT, ASSAULT, smoking and shooting on BART, smoking and shooting in public parks, smoking and shooting on sidewalks in front of residences Not being from California—when/how did they do that?
- Volundr 3y ago
  Also not from California; my understanding is some municipalities either don't enforce these laws, or don't do it to the extent people would like.
- stcroixx 3y ago
  It was this way when I first came to the Bay Area around 2008. Police simply ignore all of these criminal behaviors. They know the DA is not interested in prosecuting. It’s shocking at first. I came from a city where none of that is tolerated.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    > They know the DA is not interested in prosecuting. I think this was the biggest issue. Cops have done (and will do) some abusive stuff, but IME the west coast was more driven by DAs refusing the prosecute.
- svnt 3y ago
  They didn’t, but the police force stopped enforcing those laws, generally in response to defunding or threats of defunding. The police forces in these cities are in the majority comprised of individuals who live outside of the city and commute to perform enforcement in an area they don’t want to live in. This is the difference that never translated between the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter/Thin Blue Line groups: in one, in the majority the enforcers are not and have never been part of the community. In the other, the deputy’s kids go to your elementary school and they volunteer at the pancake breakfast.
  - ars 3y ago
etc-hosts 3y ago
> taxing the legal pot industry so highly that it was miles cheaper to buy stuff illegally no the corner the legal pot industry's problem is it's impossible for it to turn a profit. they can't deduct operating expenses from their tax liability like other businesses can, because of federal law. items like rent, payroll. they also can't use the same systems of credit management and bank accounts, because of federal law. state taxes are a very minor part of the story.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  The legal pot industry’s problem is that it’s a legal no-man’s-land because pot is actually illegal at a federal level but states just ignore it and the government ignores them ignoring it. It should be legalized at a federal level because that’s already true de facto Incidentally, the second that happens Altria/BAT/whoever will swoop in and make it a consumer product. This will probably have a serious impact on mom and pop guys, but also cartels
  - deleted 3y ago
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- chaosharmonic 3y ago
  The bank accounts thing also makes them bigger targets for theft, because of all the extra cash that stores end up handling when they can't use standard payment methods.
  - chaosharmonic 3y ago
    Just anecdotally, to append to this a bit, actually the last time I went on vacation I went to a dispensary, only for the same spot to pop up in the trip's group chat a week or two later because the same spot had gotten hit with an armed robbery. (Or at least attempted? I forget. Anyway...)
- bhewes 3y ago
  As someone who runs four stores in the legal pot industry in Oklahoma and turns a profit yeah not true. You can make plenty of money playing by State rules. If a company has expansion plans that rely on the interstate commerce clause then yes the feds are your problem.
dmode 3y ago
But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ? And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl. To get to a comparable state with alcohol, you would have to drink copious amount, but then you are more likely to be passed out than exhibit violent behavior. I agree with your other point though - permissiveness of use shouldn't come with ignoring all societal norms, just because you are a vulnerable drug user. In fact, permissiveness of use should be paired with stricter enforcement of quality of life laws
- deleted 3y ago
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- mattnewton 3y ago
  > Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination Sounds like acute ethanol withdrawal aka delirium tremens https://g.co/kgs/BHB6p9 https://g.co/kgs/BHB6p9 > and make you violent ? People getting violent with alcohol doesn’t need a citation I trust? These are basically all the arguments for prohibition. Temperance movements work but legal prohibition doesn’t seem to.
- WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
  > But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ? Every one of them does. Except triggering schizophrenia maybe, which is barely comforting. > And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl. But you're replying to a comment about pot, thereby shifting some goalposts.
- stouset 3y ago
  Are we just ignoring the whole thing about violent drunks right now? Alcohol and violence are highly correlated.
  - theGeatZhopa 3y ago
    I thinking to stop drinking, but I still sway
paiute 3y ago
I think another big mistake was prescription painkillers and that whole story. Get everyone hooked on cheap low grade painkillers, it definitely caused problems but they were manageable if they got more pills. Then there was a huge crackdown on them, and the price shot up ending with fentanyl being the cheap and accessible option.
danielovichdk 3y ago
I think you should contribute a valid source for the subjective claim of this statement. "Marijuana has very low risk and rates of addiction, physical or psychological." I would, and that is not based on subjective opinion, call your statement - rubbish. I will even throw you a bone. https://www.amazon.com/Marijuana-Madness-Deepak-Cyril-DSouza/dp/1009305433 https://www.amazon.com/Marijuana-Madness-Deepak-Cyril-DSouza...
- deleted 3y ago
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- gochi 3y ago
  You did the exact same they did, but linked an inaccessible amazon book. Surely you can do better.
VerminOctopus1 3y ago
It’s amazing you can log onto this website and spout utter bullshit like “assault and theft have been decriminalized in California”. It’s a totally laughable thing to say and I don’t know why no one else has called this poster out for this blatant lie.
- culopatin 3y ago
  But you can’t ignore the struggle to enforce in the Bay Area. Just moved here and I feel like an idiot paying for the Bart when most people just jump the gates in and out. Take your dick out and just pee while you walk. No worries. Cross the street naked throwing stuff around, normal. Dogs in parks? Leash optional, right under the sign that says “dogs must be on a leash”. Break into cars, no one cares. Steal a Kia, doubt you’ll get caught. Yet there are rules like no eating in the Bart. What? $250 fine if you drink something in the train? Who comes up with that crap? I come from a red state and I can tell you that the conservatives out there don’t want “th government telling them what to do” but they are more tightly controlled than the people in the bay. People in the bay experience real freedom, almost to the point of anarchy by far. Red state: Back into your driveway? Tag can’t be seen from the street = ticket. Look aggressive in the street or take your dick out? Arrested, if not shot. Break into a car in a public space? I wanna see that one go as smoothly as in the bay.
  - quesera 3y ago
    > Red state: Back into your driveway? Tag can’t be seen from the street = ticket That's seriously a law?? That's more ridiculous than anything I've seen in a liberal democracy.
    - benji-york 3y ago
      I've never heard of such a thing.
- tjalfi 3y ago
  I'm not sure about assault, but Proposition 47[0] in 2014 substantially reduced the penalties for shoplifting, grand theft, forgery, fraud, and other crimes. Stealing under $950 is a misdemeanor regardless of how often someone does it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47
xienze 3y ago
> Specifically with alcohol, anyone can walk into a treatment center without fear that they'll be arrested for the mere _use_ of a substance. Are you under the impression that cities like SF, Portland, Seattle etc. were arresting drug users who went to treatment centers at any point in the last 20 years or so? Ever heard of methadone clinics?
pyuser583 3y ago
Legalizing pot didn’t eliminate illegal markets. They’re still going strong. Same with tobacco, but that’s because of taxes.
- deleted 3y ago
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fnord77 3y ago
> The big mistake California (and other Leftist faux-topias) made was decriminalizing THEFT, ASSAULT, smoking and shooting on BART This is exactly it. The problem is letting the drug use impact other people's quality of life, access to common resources like parks, etc.
mech765 3y ago
Let's take fentanyl for example. It kills so many people that there isn't any good reason for it to be a legal drug off prescription. The difference between fentanyl and other drugs is a matter of degree.
- hathchip 3y ago
  But the only reason fentanyl is a prevalent recreational drug is prohibition. Heavy users vastly prefer heroin, casual users much prefer oxy or similar. Fentanyl is just cheaper to obtain and easier to traffick. Furthermore a lot of fentanyl deaths are caused by mislabeling and misidentification of the drugs which would not happen without prohibition. Fake painkiller pills with fent in them, fentanyl poorly mixed into heroin or filter, etc.
dumpsterdiver 3y ago
To be fair though, you don't really hear much about people selling their bodies (or other similar behavior, I.e. stealing from friends and family, etc) in order to obtain marijuana or alcohol. This kind of behavior is primarily encountered when hard drugs are part of the equation.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  I live in a country with a lot of alcohol abuse, and there are many many cases of huge damages due to alcohol. And yes, that includes stealing. And stealing usually comes after all the money is used up, and there's none left to pay the bills or food, even for a spouse and possibly kids. There are a lot of secondary costs too (traffic fines for drunk driving, especially if they cause an accident, stuff destroyed while drunk, etc.) But yeah, our national anthem is a part of a drinking song... so yeah.
  - dumpsterdiver 3y ago
    I'm certainly not trying to minimize the damage that alcohol does - it absolutely ruins lives. I do want to clarify my comment about stealing though. I have known people to steal in order to obtain marijuana and alcohol, but it was (I'm having trouble finding a less offensive way of saying this, so I'll just say it)... much less desperate. The instances I've encountered where people steal in order to obtain marijuana or alcohol usually consist of people stealing the actual marijuana or alcohol. Edit: Edited the preceding paragraph because I originally presented this type of stealing as less impactful than the one I talk about next, which was not only a poor position for me to take in the first place, but also completely aside from my point. Contrast this with blankets spread out on the sidewalks of San Francisco containing random household items for sale such as phone chargers, or kitchen utensils. It's pretty clear that one group is willing to go to greater lengths to obtain their fix than the other. Edit: I want to acknowledge again that alcohol can and does ruin lives, and there are probably kids going hungry because their parents spent the last of their money on alcohol instead of food. My main point was to contrast this behavior with the behavior of people who steal in order to obtain hard drugs. While both are bad, they're still different in important ways. Namely, you typically aren't going to find the alcoholics peddling stolen wares on the streets.
bottled_poe 3y ago
The government must never, in good conscience, open up the use of extremely physically addictive substances. Decriminalisation for users, I can support, but legalising and selling is a terrible idea. Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana are not in the same league as heroin and other opiates. It’s extremely dangerous to equate all drugs in this debate.
- 4RealFreedom 3y ago
  Alcohol is physically addictive - ever heard of DTs? Decriminalization enables the black market. Legalization would lower prices, too. The black market should be enemy number one.
  - cloverich 3y ago
    Thats dependency, not addictivenes. Alcohol is among the most dependent substances, but its not nearly as addictive as hard drugs or nicotine for that matter. Some people will find themselves strongly addicted to alcohol, but most wont. Heroine by comparison will result in nearly everyone becoming strongly addicted. Its not nearly the same. It has no place in society.
    - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
      I don't understand your line between dependency and addictivenes. How are those different/how do we rank differences in terms of dependency and addictivenes? The genie is out of the bottle with Heroin and you can't put it back so what do we do? If addiction is such a problem, shouldn't we make it as cheap and as safe as possible? The only way to do that is legalization. Saying it has no place in society doesn't make any more sense than saying cancer doesn't have a place in society - we have to confront realities.
      - cloverich 3y ago
        > how do we rank differences in terms of dependency and addictiveness They are somewhat confusing terms, but important to understand if you want to have a critical conversation about the subject. Dependency relates to the physical symptoms of withdrawal; i.e. whether it is safe to stop and how to manage it. Many medications need to be tapered down before stopped to not harm someone, despite the person not being addicted to them, i.e. not craving more when they stop. If drugs merely caused dependency and not addictiveness, detox might be required but people would be able to stop anytime they wanted. Addiction is more how hard it is to stop, once you want to. Some people become addicted to alcohol, but most don't. Comparatively, few if any people can avoid addiction to heroine once begun. > If addiction is such a problem, shouldn't we make it as cheap and as safe as possible? Cheaper, more available highly addictive drugs is the source of the current crisis. I am pro legalization given the right framework of supportive services around it, but it has to be realistic (especially cost wise). Oregon's current plan is very far from realistic; its creating a destination for the countries addicts, without enough services to support their current ones. They are going to exhaust people's goodwill and likely backpedal having caused more harm than benefit.
HAL3000 3y ago
In 1970 and 1971, in New York City, more adolescents died of heroin-related incidents than any other cause. Watch what you wish for. Hard drugs are not pot or alcohol; anyone who has used all of them at least a few times will tell you that. As someone who had heroin addicts in the family, and as someone who did a lot of alcohol, pot, ecstasy, cocaine, amphetamine, etc., in his 20s, I'm strongly against legalizing hard drugs. You need to experience it firsthand to understand what it's like.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  Thank you to share this personal story. What are your thoughts on trying to reduce harm? You sound like someone who will have valuable opinions about this important matter.
- trobertson 3y ago
  > Hard drugs are not pot or alcohol In point of fact, alcohol causes more deaths per year than all other drugs combined: CDC [0]: Alcohol causes over 140,000 deaths per year according to data between 2015 and 2019 CDC [1]: All other drugs caused 100,000 deaths in the twelve month ending in April 2021 There's a lot of arguments to be made as to why (different legal status, different cultural norms around use, etc.) but the fact is that, currently, alcohol use is more lethal than all other drug use combined. --- [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-deaths.html https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-death... [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/...
  - max51 3y ago
    The number of people dying from jumping off the empire state building is orders of magnitude less than the ones you quoted... that doesn't mean you have good odds of surviving the jump or that it's a good idea to build a jumping ramp.
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Manuel_D 3y ago
> If "hard" drugs are legalized, then they will likely be treated the same as alcohol and pot and tobacco: highly regulated, sold only to adults in very limited stores, and folks can enter treatment without fear of arrest. I can tell you firsthand that minors have no problem acquiring alcohol and tobacco.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  I can tell you firsthand that, when I was a minor, it was far easier to obtain fully illegal marijuana than it was regulated substances like alcohol and tobacco.
NotSuspicious 3y ago
> Folks made the exact same arguments about alcohol and marijuana. Maybe those people were right? Prohibition decreased the amount of people addicted to alcohol and the number of people who beat their wives. If we had a more hard-line response to alcohol instead of the half-in/half-out wishy-washy nonsense that was Prohibition enforcement maybe less people would have their lives ruined by alcohol to this day. Singapore famously goes hard even against cannabis and they are a vastly more functional society crime-wise than Oregon. I know from personal experience that when cannabis was decriminalized where I am the drivers in my area became much worse. I don't use Uber anymore here because almost every time I enter a car now it's too often clear that the driver is high. I wonder if Americans are ever going to realize their incessant penchant for 'freedoms' with regards to drugs/guns/speech/ certain corporate policies / etc are harmful to the only goals that matter to a society: the flourishing of the population. I wonder if America will ever have an adult in the room.
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  Pre-prohibition society dealt with alcohol in an extremely dysfunctional way, and the problems that prohibition addressed are now invisible. This sucks because it makes prohibition seem like a comically stupid policy, when really it was a great step forward and an overreaction to a serious problem. A lot of this is detailed in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which remains an entertaining and educational book to this day. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/upton-sinclair/the-jungle https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/upton-sinclair/the-jungle Post prohibition we were left with the states being able to control liquor sales, and license liquor establishments. We were able to set a drinking age, establish three tier systems to separate the production, wholesale, and retail of alcohol, and alcohol was regulated and taxed nationally too. These changes helped curb many of the most predatory abuses of the alcohol industry, and stopped other predatory industries from using alcohol as a way to immiserate their workers.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  every time I enter a car now it's too often clear that the driver is high Do you report this to Uber? Also, you should also your local police department how to handle that kind of situation.
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dang 3y ago
You broke the site guidelines more than once here, including: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3." "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity." If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. (We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36961993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36961993.)

darth_avocado 3y ago

I generally agree with the sentiment that drugs should be treated like we treat other addictions like alcohol. Drugs should be decriminalized, anti social criminal behavior should stay criminalized. If I’m drunk and pee in public or assault someone, I’ll go to jail. That is what should happen if I do it under the influence of drugs. The one difference though between alcohol and some of the drugs is potency and how quickly one can be addicted to it. Therefore, treatment should be much more easily be available and it should be much easier to have an intervention.

toomim 3y ago
Driving drunk is illegal because you're likely to kill someone, and then it'll be too late to say "let's just prosecute the crime of manslaughter, and not prevent future manslaughters by prosecuting drunkenness in the car." In the same way, we should make it illegal to do drugs in situations where you are likely to cause irreparable harm. If we legalize drugs, let's create safe situations to do so. Many drugs are being legalized under the supervision of a doctor. We could also allow drug use within a safe space where you can't OD, and where you won't leave needles on the ground for kids to step on.
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  Legalization and decriminalization are two different things. I am all for decriminalizing. From a personal viewpoint, I don’t think drugs should be legalized. And as far as the legal administration etc., that already exists in SF and it has had a poor track record of helping people.
  - JoeJonathan 3y ago
    Decriminalizing drugs doesn’t fix the supply problem, which makes drug use such a budensome expense that there are all kinds of knock on effects (theft, poverty, etc). Someone commented on how rich people don’t see drug use, but sure they do. Aside from the fact that most everyone here is pretty rich and complaining about addicts, I come from an upper middle class suburb with a ton of addicts. Lots of people I went to school with died of overdosed. But it’s not immediately visible because people’s families reluctantly take them in, they generally have enough money for drugs, etc. Not arguing for outright legalization—while I once did, I now think it’s naive. And I’m not sure we could pull off a Portugal style system in the US. But descriminalizariam doesn’t seem to be working that well.
    - darth_avocado 3y ago
      Which is why I argue: > Therefore, treatment should be much more easily be available and it should be much easier to have an intervention. If drugs become burdensome enough that you have to commit crimes to feed your habit, then maybe the society should be able to intervene and help? If I have a drinking problem that I need to steal money for, the solution shouldn’t be cheaper alcohol, but a way for me to stop drinking. Same applies for drugs. Part of the reason why families support (reluctantly) drug habits is because getting help is often not easy or cheap.
    - deleted 3y ago
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  - whiddershins 3y ago
    Legalization addresses the 100,000 overdose deaths a year. Legalization bankrupts criminal organizations. Legalization creates tax revenue. Refusing to prosecute antisocial behavior is the problem.
brightlancer 3y ago
> The one difference though between alcohol and some of the drugs is potency and how quickly one can be addicted to it. This is a good point. If I go to the liquor store, I can buy bottles that are 90% alcohol or bottles as low as 3% alcohol. If we legalize "hard" drugs like opiates, meth, etc. then we'll get a similar differentiation along with the benefit that the drugs will be checked by Trusted Sources (both government and industry) to effectively eliminate certain adulterants. And for the folks who become addicts (physically or psychologically), there's no legal risk in telling their doctor or therapist or anyone, and they can better enter treatment. There are folks who drink 750ml (~24oz) of 40% liquor every day. It's rare but they have an addiction. They can also get treatment, while the rest of us enjoy 5% beers and 13% wines more moderately.
- monkpit 3y ago
  > there's no legal risk in telling their doctor or therapist Maybe no LEGAL risks, but if you live in the USA and want to have insurance and/or life insurance, you wouldn’t want to disclose this info since they’ll either deny you or charge you extra.
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    That's an interesting argument -- I don't know if/ how much it's true, but that was certainly the norm for decades for gay men. On that basis, I think it's better if we remove the legal risk even if there are still societal or economic risks.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > I can buy bottles that are 90% alcohol or bottles as low as 3% alcohol Depends on the state. Some states banned 90%+ hard liquors (eg. Everclear) while other states allow it. Some other states have banned selling hard liquors and wines unless it's from a state run liquor store. Other states just allow open sale at any store. It's all state dependent as the US is federal.
bandrami 3y ago
One big problem is that while the US has finally wrapped its brain around the fact that incarceration doesn't fix drug addiction, we have mistakenly fallen into the belief that treatment does. But even the absolute gold-standard treatment program (residential group and individual therapy with chemical assistance where appropriate) has about a 25% success rate (meaning still clean after 5 years). Literally no matter what we do we are going to have a large number of people who have drugged their way out of society and will not be able to come back. And we need to figure out what to do about that.
Terr_ 3y ago
I often like to bring up a thought-experiment involving a drug (or brain-parasite) where one dose makes the person willing to commit any crime or violence in order to secure another hit, even selling their kids into slavery and cutting off their own leg. Also multiple doses kills the person, and it has no medical value whatsoever. IMO this helps highlight the spectrum we're dealing with, where one point is "taking that is a bad choice but I support your freedom of choice and autonomy", and another might be "holy shit this doom-substance so irredeemably anti-freedom that banning it is obviously the best practical choice." Even if you look at such a drug as a roundabout form of suicide, it's one where the person must be blocked from harming others on their way out.

mcphage 3y ago

> The big mistake California (and other Leftist faux-topias) made was decriminalizing THEFT, ASSAULT, smoking and shooting on BART, smoking and shooting in public parks, smoking and shooting on sidewalks in front of residences Not being from California—when/how did they do that?

Volundr 3y ago
Also not from California; my understanding is some municipalities either don't enforce these laws, or don't do it to the extent people would like.
stcroixx 3y ago
It was this way when I first came to the Bay Area around 2008. Police simply ignore all of these criminal behaviors. They know the DA is not interested in prosecuting. It’s shocking at first. I came from a city where none of that is tolerated.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > They know the DA is not interested in prosecuting. I think this was the biggest issue. Cops have done (and will do) some abusive stuff, but IME the west coast was more driven by DAs refusing the prosecute.
svnt 3y ago
They didn’t, but the police force stopped enforcing those laws, generally in response to defunding or threats of defunding. The police forces in these cities are in the majority comprised of individuals who live outside of the city and commute to perform enforcement in an area they don’t want to live in. This is the difference that never translated between the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter/Thin Blue Line groups: in one, in the majority the enforcers are not and have never been part of the community. In the other, the deputy’s kids go to your elementary school and they volunteer at the pancake breakfast.
- ars 3y ago

etc-hosts 3y ago

> taxing the legal pot industry so highly that it was miles cheaper to buy stuff illegally no the corner the legal pot industry's problem is it's impossible for it to turn a profit. they can't deduct operating expenses from their tax liability like other businesses can, because of federal law. items like rent, payroll. they also can't use the same systems of credit management and bank accounts, because of federal law. state taxes are a very minor part of the story.

FormerBandmate 3y ago
The legal pot industry’s problem is that it’s a legal no-man’s-land because pot is actually illegal at a federal level but states just ignore it and the government ignores them ignoring it. It should be legalized at a federal level because that’s already true de facto Incidentally, the second that happens Altria/BAT/whoever will swoop in and make it a consumer product. This will probably have a serious impact on mom and pop guys, but also cartels
- deleted 3y ago
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chaosharmonic 3y ago
The bank accounts thing also makes them bigger targets for theft, because of all the extra cash that stores end up handling when they can't use standard payment methods.
- chaosharmonic 3y ago
  Just anecdotally, to append to this a bit, actually the last time I went on vacation I went to a dispensary, only for the same spot to pop up in the trip's group chat a week or two later because the same spot had gotten hit with an armed robbery. (Or at least attempted? I forget. Anyway...)
bhewes 3y ago
As someone who runs four stores in the legal pot industry in Oklahoma and turns a profit yeah not true. You can make plenty of money playing by State rules. If a company has expansion plans that rely on the interstate commerce clause then yes the feds are your problem.

dmode 3y ago

But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ? And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl. To get to a comparable state with alcohol, you would have to drink copious amount, but then you are more likely to be passed out than exhibit violent behavior. I agree with your other point though - permissiveness of use shouldn't come with ignoring all societal norms, just because you are a vulnerable drug user. In fact, permissiveness of use should be paired with stricter enforcement of quality of life laws

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mattnewton 3y ago
> Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination Sounds like acute ethanol withdrawal aka delirium tremens https://g.co/kgs/BHB6p9 https://g.co/kgs/BHB6p9 > and make you violent ? People getting violent with alcohol doesn’t need a citation I trust? These are basically all the arguments for prohibition. Temperance movements work but legal prohibition doesn’t seem to.
WesolyKubeczek 3y ago
> But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ? Every one of them does. Except triggering schizophrenia maybe, which is barely comforting. > And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl. But you're replying to a comment about pot, thereby shifting some goalposts.
stouset 3y ago
Are we just ignoring the whole thing about violent drunks right now? Alcohol and violence are highly correlated.
- theGeatZhopa 3y ago
  I thinking to stop drinking, but I still sway

paiute 3y ago

I think another big mistake was prescription painkillers and that whole story. Get everyone hooked on cheap low grade painkillers, it definitely caused problems but they were manageable if they got more pills. Then there was a huge crackdown on them, and the price shot up ending with fentanyl being the cheap and accessible option.

danielovichdk 3y ago

I think you should contribute a valid source for the subjective claim of this statement. "Marijuana has very low risk and rates of addiction, physical or psychological." I would, and that is not based on subjective opinion, call your statement - rubbish. I will even throw you a bone. https://www.amazon.com/Marijuana-Madness-Deepak-Cyril-DSouza/dp/1009305433 https://www.amazon.com/Marijuana-Madness-Deepak-Cyril-DSouza...

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gochi 3y ago
You did the exact same they did, but linked an inaccessible amazon book. Surely you can do better.

VerminOctopus1 3y ago

It’s amazing you can log onto this website and spout utter bullshit like “assault and theft have been decriminalized in California”. It’s a totally laughable thing to say and I don’t know why no one else has called this poster out for this blatant lie.

culopatin 3y ago
But you can’t ignore the struggle to enforce in the Bay Area. Just moved here and I feel like an idiot paying for the Bart when most people just jump the gates in and out. Take your dick out and just pee while you walk. No worries. Cross the street naked throwing stuff around, normal. Dogs in parks? Leash optional, right under the sign that says “dogs must be on a leash”. Break into cars, no one cares. Steal a Kia, doubt you’ll get caught. Yet there are rules like no eating in the Bart. What? $250 fine if you drink something in the train? Who comes up with that crap? I come from a red state and I can tell you that the conservatives out there don’t want “th government telling them what to do” but they are more tightly controlled than the people in the bay. People in the bay experience real freedom, almost to the point of anarchy by far. Red state: Back into your driveway? Tag can’t be seen from the street = ticket. Look aggressive in the street or take your dick out? Arrested, if not shot. Break into a car in a public space? I wanna see that one go as smoothly as in the bay.
- quesera 3y ago
  > Red state: Back into your driveway? Tag can’t be seen from the street = ticket That's seriously a law?? That's more ridiculous than anything I've seen in a liberal democracy.
  - benji-york 3y ago
    I've never heard of such a thing.
tjalfi 3y ago
I'm not sure about assault, but Proposition 47[0] in 2014 substantially reduced the penalties for shoplifting, grand theft, forgery, fraud, and other crimes. Stealing under $950 is a misdemeanor regardless of how often someone does it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47

xienze 3y ago

> Specifically with alcohol, anyone can walk into a treatment center without fear that they'll be arrested for the mere _use_ of a substance. Are you under the impression that cities like SF, Portland, Seattle etc. were arresting drug users who went to treatment centers at any point in the last 20 years or so? Ever heard of methadone clinics?

pyuser583 3y ago

Legalizing pot didn’t eliminate illegal markets. They’re still going strong. Same with tobacco, but that’s because of taxes.

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fnord77 3y ago

> The big mistake California (and other Leftist faux-topias) made was decriminalizing THEFT, ASSAULT, smoking and shooting on BART This is exactly it. The problem is letting the drug use impact other people's quality of life, access to common resources like parks, etc.

mech765 3y ago

Let's take fentanyl for example. It kills so many people that there isn't any good reason for it to be a legal drug off prescription. The difference between fentanyl and other drugs is a matter of degree.

hathchip 3y ago
But the only reason fentanyl is a prevalent recreational drug is prohibition. Heavy users vastly prefer heroin, casual users much prefer oxy or similar. Fentanyl is just cheaper to obtain and easier to traffick. Furthermore a lot of fentanyl deaths are caused by mislabeling and misidentification of the drugs which would not happen without prohibition. Fake painkiller pills with fent in them, fentanyl poorly mixed into heroin or filter, etc.

dumpsterdiver 3y ago

To be fair though, you don't really hear much about people selling their bodies (or other similar behavior, I.e. stealing from friends and family, etc) in order to obtain marijuana or alcohol. This kind of behavior is primarily encountered when hard drugs are part of the equation.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
I live in a country with a lot of alcohol abuse, and there are many many cases of huge damages due to alcohol. And yes, that includes stealing. And stealing usually comes after all the money is used up, and there's none left to pay the bills or food, even for a spouse and possibly kids. There are a lot of secondary costs too (traffic fines for drunk driving, especially if they cause an accident, stuff destroyed while drunk, etc.) But yeah, our national anthem is a part of a drinking song... so yeah.
- dumpsterdiver 3y ago
  I'm certainly not trying to minimize the damage that alcohol does - it absolutely ruins lives. I do want to clarify my comment about stealing though. I have known people to steal in order to obtain marijuana and alcohol, but it was (I'm having trouble finding a less offensive way of saying this, so I'll just say it)... much less desperate. The instances I've encountered where people steal in order to obtain marijuana or alcohol usually consist of people stealing the actual marijuana or alcohol. Edit: Edited the preceding paragraph because I originally presented this type of stealing as less impactful than the one I talk about next, which was not only a poor position for me to take in the first place, but also completely aside from my point. Contrast this with blankets spread out on the sidewalks of San Francisco containing random household items for sale such as phone chargers, or kitchen utensils. It's pretty clear that one group is willing to go to greater lengths to obtain their fix than the other. Edit: I want to acknowledge again that alcohol can and does ruin lives, and there are probably kids going hungry because their parents spent the last of their money on alcohol instead of food. My main point was to contrast this behavior with the behavior of people who steal in order to obtain hard drugs. While both are bad, they're still different in important ways. Namely, you typically aren't going to find the alcoholics peddling stolen wares on the streets.

bottled_poe 3y ago

The government must never, in good conscience, open up the use of extremely physically addictive substances. Decriminalisation for users, I can support, but legalising and selling is a terrible idea. Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana are not in the same league as heroin and other opiates. It’s extremely dangerous to equate all drugs in this debate.

4RealFreedom 3y ago
Alcohol is physically addictive - ever heard of DTs? Decriminalization enables the black market. Legalization would lower prices, too. The black market should be enemy number one.
- cloverich 3y ago
  Thats dependency, not addictivenes. Alcohol is among the most dependent substances, but its not nearly as addictive as hard drugs or nicotine for that matter. Some people will find themselves strongly addicted to alcohol, but most wont. Heroine by comparison will result in nearly everyone becoming strongly addicted. Its not nearly the same. It has no place in society.
  - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
    I don't understand your line between dependency and addictivenes. How are those different/how do we rank differences in terms of dependency and addictivenes? The genie is out of the bottle with Heroin and you can't put it back so what do we do? If addiction is such a problem, shouldn't we make it as cheap and as safe as possible? The only way to do that is legalization. Saying it has no place in society doesn't make any more sense than saying cancer doesn't have a place in society - we have to confront realities.
    - cloverich 3y ago
      > how do we rank differences in terms of dependency and addictiveness They are somewhat confusing terms, but important to understand if you want to have a critical conversation about the subject. Dependency relates to the physical symptoms of withdrawal; i.e. whether it is safe to stop and how to manage it. Many medications need to be tapered down before stopped to not harm someone, despite the person not being addicted to them, i.e. not craving more when they stop. If drugs merely caused dependency and not addictiveness, detox might be required but people would be able to stop anytime they wanted. Addiction is more how hard it is to stop, once you want to. Some people become addicted to alcohol, but most don't. Comparatively, few if any people can avoid addiction to heroine once begun. > If addiction is such a problem, shouldn't we make it as cheap and as safe as possible? Cheaper, more available highly addictive drugs is the source of the current crisis. I am pro legalization given the right framework of supportive services around it, but it has to be realistic (especially cost wise). Oregon's current plan is very far from realistic; its creating a destination for the countries addicts, without enough services to support their current ones. They are going to exhaust people's goodwill and likely backpedal having caused more harm than benefit.

HAL3000 3y ago

In 1970 and 1971, in New York City, more adolescents died of heroin-related incidents than any other cause. Watch what you wish for. Hard drugs are not pot or alcohol; anyone who has used all of them at least a few times will tell you that. As someone who had heroin addicts in the family, and as someone who did a lot of alcohol, pot, ecstasy, cocaine, amphetamine, etc., in his 20s, I'm strongly against legalizing hard drugs. You need to experience it firsthand to understand what it's like.

throwaway2037 3y ago
Thank you to share this personal story. What are your thoughts on trying to reduce harm? You sound like someone who will have valuable opinions about this important matter.
trobertson 3y ago
> Hard drugs are not pot or alcohol In point of fact, alcohol causes more deaths per year than all other drugs combined: CDC [0]: Alcohol causes over 140,000 deaths per year according to data between 2015 and 2019 CDC [1]: All other drugs caused 100,000 deaths in the twelve month ending in April 2021 There's a lot of arguments to be made as to why (different legal status, different cultural norms around use, etc.) but the fact is that, currently, alcohol use is more lethal than all other drug use combined. --- [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-deaths.html https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-death... [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/...
- max51 3y ago
  The number of people dying from jumping off the empire state building is orders of magnitude less than the ones you quoted... that doesn't mean you have good odds of surviving the jump or that it's a good idea to build a jumping ramp.

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Manuel_D 3y ago

> If "hard" drugs are legalized, then they will likely be treated the same as alcohol and pot and tobacco: highly regulated, sold only to adults in very limited stores, and folks can enter treatment without fear of arrest. I can tell you firsthand that minors have no problem acquiring alcohol and tobacco.

seattle_spring 3y ago
I can tell you firsthand that, when I was a minor, it was far easier to obtain fully illegal marijuana than it was regulated substances like alcohol and tobacco.

NotSuspicious 3y ago

> Folks made the exact same arguments about alcohol and marijuana. Maybe those people were right? Prohibition decreased the amount of people addicted to alcohol and the number of people who beat their wives. If we had a more hard-line response to alcohol instead of the half-in/half-out wishy-washy nonsense that was Prohibition enforcement maybe less people would have their lives ruined by alcohol to this day. Singapore famously goes hard even against cannabis and they are a vastly more functional society crime-wise than Oregon. I know from personal experience that when cannabis was decriminalized where I am the drivers in my area became much worse. I don't use Uber anymore here because almost every time I enter a car now it's too often clear that the driver is high. I wonder if Americans are ever going to realize their incessant penchant for 'freedoms' with regards to drugs/guns/speech/ certain corporate policies / etc are harmful to the only goals that matter to a society: the flourishing of the population. I wonder if America will ever have an adult in the room.

droopyEyelids 3y ago
Pre-prohibition society dealt with alcohol in an extremely dysfunctional way, and the problems that prohibition addressed are now invisible. This sucks because it makes prohibition seem like a comically stupid policy, when really it was a great step forward and an overreaction to a serious problem. A lot of this is detailed in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which remains an entertaining and educational book to this day. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/upton-sinclair/the-jungle https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/upton-sinclair/the-jungle Post prohibition we were left with the states being able to control liquor sales, and license liquor establishments. We were able to set a drinking age, establish three tier systems to separate the production, wholesale, and retail of alcohol, and alcohol was regulated and taxed nationally too. These changes helped curb many of the most predatory abuses of the alcohol industry, and stopped other predatory industries from using alcohol as a way to immiserate their workers.
throwaway2037 3y ago
every time I enter a car now it's too often clear that the driver is high Do you report this to Uber? Also, you should also your local police department how to handle that kind of situation.

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dang 3y ago

You broke the site guidelines more than once here, including: "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3." "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity." If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. (We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36961993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36961993.)