7 ms·

Freedom for me, but not for thee Thou art a common idiot, see? Though I've tasted the fruit And seen that it's good I fear it won't suit you like prison wo

Freedom for me, but not for thee Thou art a common idiot, see? Though I've tasted the fruit And seen that it's good I fear it won't suit you like prison would.

AYBABTME 3y ago
That's a nice poem! Although I disagree. Therapeutic use: yes. These should be controlled substances.
- mptest 3y ago
  Seriously, people on a technical forum arguing for prohibition with the wealth of evidence showing it's a well intended failure at best, a farcical show to placate and win votes from ignorant sanctimonious puritans at worst? Tragic. At this point It's a way to funnel money that could go to addiction treatment to the DEA, money going to an unwinnable war to control adults who are going to do what they want. 5% of the global economy in the black market we could take from criminals and turn it towards the social good. Instead of violent cartels that will serve the need no matter what we could have taxed businesses with daily limits. "But ppl will do bad things". Tell me how that's worth the cost of the war on drugs? Shocking position. Please explain it to me how what cartels do is worth your desire to be sanctimonious?? The only thing we have to do to get huge financial and social benefits is give up your frankly childish notion that we should control uncontrollable substances and police adults in something that in most cases harms no one. Police adults who commit crimes on substances extra. Let adults make their own choices otherwise. The war on drugs and anyone still supporting it as a way of doing anything but throwing money in a fire pit are a joke.
  - onetimeusename 3y ago
    Do you really feel that way? How about prohibition of possessing and manufacturing radioactive materials? Think of all the research consenting adults could be doing and all the medical uses but a bunch of anti-science puritans are keeping them from doing it.(sarcasm) I am assuming there is hardly anyone on the planet who thinks the public is able to make its own informed decisions about radioactive materials. So it's odd how instead of arguing the merits and costs of criminalization/decriminalization there is this argument that anyone who wants to limit drug use is an ignorant, corrupt puritan and that restriction has been generally a failure. There is a nuclear black market too and the spread of nuclear weapons has still happened. Does anyone think we should shut down IAEA because of its failures?
    - superb_dev 3y ago
      That is a huge false equivalency. Radioactive material has no use to the average person and has immensely more safety issues than psychedelics
      - AYBABTME 3y ago
        I personally more easily envision personal uses of radioactive materials than psychedelics. Self powered devices, vs some psychedelic trip?
        callalex 3y ago
        Explain how a person who makes a mistake with mushrooms can render a neighborhood uninhabitable for generations?
        AYBABTME 3y ago
        You got a point, I didn't look at it this way.
    - doktrin 3y ago
      I agree more with you than the GP, but reaching for the nuclear comparison is ineffective here. You might as well cite weaponised smallpox and the infinity gauntlet while you’re at it.
    - mptest 3y ago
      >Do you really feel that way Do I really think international 12 digit valued drug cartels are a worse outcome for society than allowing adults to buy the substances at a taxed store where the money goes to pay for addict treatment and rehabilitation??? You can't be serious. Don't you? If you don't I'll call you a blind man and useful idiot. People here do not read my comment because I advocate for something that hurts their little sanctimonious puritanical brains. Would swear you lot are Mr mackey. Nothing more material than "drugs r bad mkay. Addicts bad mkay." Stick to STEM i guess. Sociology isn't for you. >How about prohibition of possessing and manufacturing radioactive materials? Yeah, radioactivity that harms everyone around the material is def the same as me getting high in my house after work and playing a video game. Definitely arguing in good faith innit. The drug discussion makes people like you so damn silly and childish it's crazy
  - rendall 3y ago
    I believe it is an inalienable right that individuals use or abuse any drug according to their own inclinations. When I become Benevolent World Dictator, this will be explicitly stated in the Constitution. That said, in aggregate, unconstrained drug abuse and addiction can and does have devastating effects on societies as we see today and historically. I don't know how to resolve this conundrum. I would fear the effect of anyone being able to casually go to a bar and order magic mushroom tea or LSD ice cream or PCP punch as one might order a Mai Tai. While psychoactives aren't known to be addictive, they can lead to deranged, erratic or even destructive behavior. I suspect the key is to create healthy social norms and conventions around each drug and make sure those are communicated to consumers. On the other hand, if one is not free to be wrong, then one is not actually free. So, I still dunno.
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      I think the US got it right on tobacco. You can still purchase tobacco if you really want to, but we have gotten consumption down to a much more manageable level than most other rich countries, and without any sort of particular egregious rights violations. The key point, is that at no point when I was being educated about tobacco did I feel like I was being lied to and I had to check it out for myself, which is very different from how marijuana is treated in health education in the US. Reefer madness and whatnot.
    - tfourb 3y ago
      There is a wide spectrum between completely illegal and absolute free access and while I would Position most drugs on the liberal side of the spectrum, there are good reasons to manage access in some ways, I.e. age limits, legal settings for consumption, etc. and of course I think a low cost/free and universal health system is a prerequisite to manage the fallout of drug consumption, no matter of legal or illegal.
    - glimshe 3y ago
      It's tempting to argue in favor of personal freedom here, but two special characteristics of certain drugs make them different from pretty much anything else: 1) users often heavily affect people around them, and 2) these drugs change people's brain chemistry in such drastic ways that the people who exercise their freedom to start consuming end up losing their freedom to stop consuming. Tobacco and Alcohol have similar issues, but we don't have to make the addictive substance problem even worse than it is today. Drugs like Heroin have supersized versions of Alcohol and Tobacco's problem traits. In other words, I think I'll be there to participate in the revolution against this Benevolent Dictator! :)
  - AYBABTME 3y ago
    Opium didn't do much good to China. Opioids aren't doing much goods to the US. An individual's freedoms can lead to macro phenomenons that negatively impact everyone's freedoms and outcomes. Individualism shouldn't be the only lens we look through when considering these problems. I think debilitating substances that are potentially addictive and don't have social acclimatation (unlike alcohol) are a very high risk. I don't think they should be banned outright if they have useful properties, but I don't think they should just be allowed in society without proper care. Just looking at it from a "I do what I want to my adult body" completely ignores the condition some of these adults will find themselves in, and the risk they will impose on others as a result. And it also completely ignores how we are all interdependent on each other in a modern economy. We all require a village of people to function and thrive and defend our rights. Something that potentially harms a large percentage of this village will also harm those in the village who don't partake. And then when your village is helpless, a belligerent neighbouring one comes knocking. Maybe you think that's an exaggeration, but it's literally what brought down China in the 1800s. It turned from one of the oldest and most grandiose powers on earth into an incapacitated corpse pillaged by western powers. So you know, being careful with these substances seems just a bit prudent.
    - datadeft 3y ago
      Ok, lets not unban heroin. Can we get DMT, THC, MDMA, Psilocybin, LSD unbanned though? There is a good reason why I am asking these. I would say anything under nicotine / alcohol line should be legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependence-small.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependenc...
    - otherme123 3y ago
      Last time I checked, opioids were illegal in the US. Why are you talking like opiates are legal, so the current situation is evidence that legalization is bad? If anything, the current situation with opiates in the US shows ilegalization is not doing much good to the US. Also, the situation in China (if you are talking about the Opium Wars) are not that straight forward "legal opium bad". In fact, opium was legally consumed for centuries all around the globe. China emperors worried about "opium addiction is bad" so they illegalized it multiple times in 1729, 1799, 1814 and 1831. Opium wars started in 1839, but opium smuggling into China due to the prohibition was already rampant since 1729. It will be like saying that all the problems that arised around the Alcohol Prohibition was actually caused by alcohol and absolutely not caused by the prohibition. It looks that drug problems are always linked and worsened to some form of prohibition than to drug usage itself, but somehow it is the only logical and obvious solution to drug problems. Alcohol is worse than heroin (and by definition, way worse than opium) in almost every study (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects). Actually, "harm to others" category (i.e. affects society) is specially bad in alcohol. "Social acclimatation" is not a property of alcohol, any substance can be socially accepted (look at these cocaine ads in the 70's https://www.higherperspectives.com/these-cocaine-ads-from-the-1970s-show-how-much-our-world-has-changed-1429983023.html https://www.higherperspectives.com/these-cocaine-ads-from-th...), even opium or heroin.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  Unless “decriminalize” means something different in California, decriminalizing a drug exactly means that it’s a controlled substance, it’s still illegal to sell. It just means you are not throwing people in jail for personal possession. Whatever you think about mushrooms, jail is certainly more harmful than the mushrooms themselves.
  - _blk 3y ago
    Looking at all the tranq zombies in CA, I strongly disagree with that last statement no matter the drug. Unfortunately, I'll have to concede that jail is likely not the right place either. I think we can all agree that those people need hope and something to live for long-term. Drugs have proven not to be that solution to everyone except those in their bondage. In that sense, I fail to see how decriminalization of possession is going to send anything but wrong signals. Kids don't do drugs, just keep them in your pockets. How's that sound if it was your kid?
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      The real root problem is that we refuse to pay to treat any of the actual root causes of any of this, whether that is on the street or in a jail cell. The health system has a shortage of mental health and drug treatment spaces and practitioners, and what exists often isn't affordable to those who need it. At the same time, we don't pay for those things in prison either, and it's also expensive to have a bunch of disruptive, unhinged prisoners constantly needing to be contained after damaging stuff when they have an episode or whatever. Bail and sentencing reform was often kicked off by conservatives initially, because a low-tax state cannot afford the very expensive cost of locking up every single drug user. California has been sued multiple times over the fact that its prison system is chronically overcrowded, and lost at the Supreme Court level: https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/crim/overcrowding_080511.aspx https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/crim/overcrowding_080511.asp.... But there is no appetite to pay more to open new prisons, which are nearly impossible to site even if there was funding (do you want to live next to a prison?)

Freedom for me, but not for thee Thou art a common idiot, see? Though I've tasted the fruit And seen that it's good I fear it won't suit you like prison would.

AYBABTME 3y ago

That's a nice poem! Although I disagree. Therapeutic use: yes. These should be controlled substances.

mptest 3y ago
Seriously, people on a technical forum arguing for prohibition with the wealth of evidence showing it's a well intended failure at best, a farcical show to placate and win votes from ignorant sanctimonious puritans at worst? Tragic. At this point It's a way to funnel money that could go to addiction treatment to the DEA, money going to an unwinnable war to control adults who are going to do what they want. 5% of the global economy in the black market we could take from criminals and turn it towards the social good. Instead of violent cartels that will serve the need no matter what we could have taxed businesses with daily limits. "But ppl will do bad things". Tell me how that's worth the cost of the war on drugs? Shocking position. Please explain it to me how what cartels do is worth your desire to be sanctimonious?? The only thing we have to do to get huge financial and social benefits is give up your frankly childish notion that we should control uncontrollable substances and police adults in something that in most cases harms no one. Police adults who commit crimes on substances extra. Let adults make their own choices otherwise. The war on drugs and anyone still supporting it as a way of doing anything but throwing money in a fire pit are a joke.
- onetimeusename 3y ago
  Do you really feel that way? How about prohibition of possessing and manufacturing radioactive materials? Think of all the research consenting adults could be doing and all the medical uses but a bunch of anti-science puritans are keeping them from doing it.(sarcasm) I am assuming there is hardly anyone on the planet who thinks the public is able to make its own informed decisions about radioactive materials. So it's odd how instead of arguing the merits and costs of criminalization/decriminalization there is this argument that anyone who wants to limit drug use is an ignorant, corrupt puritan and that restriction has been generally a failure. There is a nuclear black market too and the spread of nuclear weapons has still happened. Does anyone think we should shut down IAEA because of its failures?
  - superb_dev 3y ago
    That is a huge false equivalency. Radioactive material has no use to the average person and has immensely more safety issues than psychedelics
    - AYBABTME 3y ago
      I personally more easily envision personal uses of radioactive materials than psychedelics. Self powered devices, vs some psychedelic trip?
      - callalex 3y ago
        Explain how a person who makes a mistake with mushrooms can render a neighborhood uninhabitable for generations?
        AYBABTME 3y ago
        You got a point, I didn't look at it this way.
  - doktrin 3y ago
    I agree more with you than the GP, but reaching for the nuclear comparison is ineffective here. You might as well cite weaponised smallpox and the infinity gauntlet while you’re at it.
  - mptest 3y ago
    >Do you really feel that way Do I really think international 12 digit valued drug cartels are a worse outcome for society than allowing adults to buy the substances at a taxed store where the money goes to pay for addict treatment and rehabilitation??? You can't be serious. Don't you? If you don't I'll call you a blind man and useful idiot. People here do not read my comment because I advocate for something that hurts their little sanctimonious puritanical brains. Would swear you lot are Mr mackey. Nothing more material than "drugs r bad mkay. Addicts bad mkay." Stick to STEM i guess. Sociology isn't for you. >How about prohibition of possessing and manufacturing radioactive materials? Yeah, radioactivity that harms everyone around the material is def the same as me getting high in my house after work and playing a video game. Definitely arguing in good faith innit. The drug discussion makes people like you so damn silly and childish it's crazy
- rendall 3y ago
  I believe it is an inalienable right that individuals use or abuse any drug according to their own inclinations. When I become Benevolent World Dictator, this will be explicitly stated in the Constitution. That said, in aggregate, unconstrained drug abuse and addiction can and does have devastating effects on societies as we see today and historically. I don't know how to resolve this conundrum. I would fear the effect of anyone being able to casually go to a bar and order magic mushroom tea or LSD ice cream or PCP punch as one might order a Mai Tai. While psychoactives aren't known to be addictive, they can lead to deranged, erratic or even destructive behavior. I suspect the key is to create healthy social norms and conventions around each drug and make sure those are communicated to consumers. On the other hand, if one is not free to be wrong, then one is not actually free. So, I still dunno.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    I think the US got it right on tobacco. You can still purchase tobacco if you really want to, but we have gotten consumption down to a much more manageable level than most other rich countries, and without any sort of particular egregious rights violations. The key point, is that at no point when I was being educated about tobacco did I feel like I was being lied to and I had to check it out for myself, which is very different from how marijuana is treated in health education in the US. Reefer madness and whatnot.
  - tfourb 3y ago
    There is a wide spectrum between completely illegal and absolute free access and while I would Position most drugs on the liberal side of the spectrum, there are good reasons to manage access in some ways, I.e. age limits, legal settings for consumption, etc. and of course I think a low cost/free and universal health system is a prerequisite to manage the fallout of drug consumption, no matter of legal or illegal.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    It's tempting to argue in favor of personal freedom here, but two special characteristics of certain drugs make them different from pretty much anything else: 1) users often heavily affect people around them, and 2) these drugs change people's brain chemistry in such drastic ways that the people who exercise their freedom to start consuming end up losing their freedom to stop consuming. Tobacco and Alcohol have similar issues, but we don't have to make the addictive substance problem even worse than it is today. Drugs like Heroin have supersized versions of Alcohol and Tobacco's problem traits. In other words, I think I'll be there to participate in the revolution against this Benevolent Dictator! :)
- AYBABTME 3y ago
  Opium didn't do much good to China. Opioids aren't doing much goods to the US. An individual's freedoms can lead to macro phenomenons that negatively impact everyone's freedoms and outcomes. Individualism shouldn't be the only lens we look through when considering these problems. I think debilitating substances that are potentially addictive and don't have social acclimatation (unlike alcohol) are a very high risk. I don't think they should be banned outright if they have useful properties, but I don't think they should just be allowed in society without proper care. Just looking at it from a "I do what I want to my adult body" completely ignores the condition some of these adults will find themselves in, and the risk they will impose on others as a result. And it also completely ignores how we are all interdependent on each other in a modern economy. We all require a village of people to function and thrive and defend our rights. Something that potentially harms a large percentage of this village will also harm those in the village who don't partake. And then when your village is helpless, a belligerent neighbouring one comes knocking. Maybe you think that's an exaggeration, but it's literally what brought down China in the 1800s. It turned from one of the oldest and most grandiose powers on earth into an incapacitated corpse pillaged by western powers. So you know, being careful with these substances seems just a bit prudent.
  - datadeft 3y ago
    Ok, lets not unban heroin. Can we get DMT, THC, MDMA, Psilocybin, LSD unbanned though? There is a good reason why I am asking these. I would say anything under nicotine / alcohol line should be legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependence-small.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependenc...
  - otherme123 3y ago
    Last time I checked, opioids were illegal in the US. Why are you talking like opiates are legal, so the current situation is evidence that legalization is bad? If anything, the current situation with opiates in the US shows ilegalization is not doing much good to the US. Also, the situation in China (if you are talking about the Opium Wars) are not that straight forward "legal opium bad". In fact, opium was legally consumed for centuries all around the globe. China emperors worried about "opium addiction is bad" so they illegalized it multiple times in 1729, 1799, 1814 and 1831. Opium wars started in 1839, but opium smuggling into China due to the prohibition was already rampant since 1729. It will be like saying that all the problems that arised around the Alcohol Prohibition was actually caused by alcohol and absolutely not caused by the prohibition. It looks that drug problems are always linked and worsened to some form of prohibition than to drug usage itself, but somehow it is the only logical and obvious solution to drug problems. Alcohol is worse than heroin (and by definition, way worse than opium) in almost every study (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#Adverse_effects). Actually, "harm to others" category (i.e. affects society) is specially bad in alcohol. "Social acclimatation" is not a property of alcohol, any substance can be socially accepted (look at these cocaine ads in the 70's https://www.higherperspectives.com/these-cocaine-ads-from-the-1970s-show-how-much-our-world-has-changed-1429983023.html https://www.higherperspectives.com/these-cocaine-ads-from-th...), even opium or heroin.
zarzavat 3y ago
Unless “decriminalize” means something different in California, decriminalizing a drug exactly means that it’s a controlled substance, it’s still illegal to sell. It just means you are not throwing people in jail for personal possession. Whatever you think about mushrooms, jail is certainly more harmful than the mushrooms themselves.
- _blk 3y ago
  Looking at all the tranq zombies in CA, I strongly disagree with that last statement no matter the drug. Unfortunately, I'll have to concede that jail is likely not the right place either. I think we can all agree that those people need hope and something to live for long-term. Drugs have proven not to be that solution to everyone except those in their bondage. In that sense, I fail to see how decriminalization of possession is going to send anything but wrong signals. Kids don't do drugs, just keep them in your pockets. How's that sound if it was your kid?
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    The real root problem is that we refuse to pay to treat any of the actual root causes of any of this, whether that is on the street or in a jail cell. The health system has a shortage of mental health and drug treatment spaces and practitioners, and what exists often isn't affordable to those who need it. At the same time, we don't pay for those things in prison either, and it's also expensive to have a bunch of disruptive, unhinged prisoners constantly needing to be contained after damaging stuff when they have an episode or whatever. Bail and sentencing reform was often kicked off by conservatives initially, because a low-tax state cannot afford the very expensive cost of locking up every single drug user. California has been sued multiple times over the fact that its prison system is chronically overcrowded, and lost at the Supreme Court level: https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/crim/overcrowding_080511.aspx https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/crim/overcrowding_080511.asp.... But there is no appetite to pay more to open new prisons, which are nearly impossible to site even if there was funding (do you want to live next to a prison?)