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How many of those are without a weapon? Is intent to distribute fentanyl a non violent possession? If so could you ever make a case it’s non violent dealing? I

by graphe 3y ago

How many of those are without a weapon? Is intent to distribute fentanyl a non violent possession? If so could you ever make a case it’s non violent dealing? If you don’t see it as non violent dealing, a store advertising date rape drugs should be allowed to sell all their legal products.

pdonis 3y ago
> How many of those are without a weapon? Whatever the current fraction is, it's in a world with a war on drugs, so it can't tell you anything useful about what a world without a war on drugs would be like. > Is intent to distribute fentanyl a non violent possession? As long as the distribution is done by voluntary transactions, sure. > a store advertising date rape drugs should be allowed to sell all their legal products. Date rape is not the only use for fentanyl. One might as well say that liquor stores should be closed down because liquor can be used for date rape. The premise of the war on drugs is that if we make drugs illegal, people will stop using them, or at least use will be drastically curtailed. We already knew that was false because Prohibition did not stop people from using alcoholic beverages, or drastically curtail their use; it just created a lucrative black market in alcohol, plus an incentive to violence for the people who ran that market--since they were criminals already, adding violence to the mix wasn't a big step. The war on drugs has worked out the same way. The only way to drastically reduce drug use is for people to stop wanting to use drugs. Unfortunately nobody has a really good way to do that. But we know that criminalizing their use and creating a lucrative and violent black market for them does not work.
- graphe 3y ago
  Singapore indicates strict prohibition and punishing laws can and do work. The problem wasn’t that prohibition didn’t work, it was the lack of enforcement. I don’t have any philosophy towards the idea of drugs. I don’t think the world would be worst off all fentanyl sellers were all dead. I don’t see a point to say we should treat heroin like weed and cocaine like Xanax.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > Singapore indicates strict prohibition and punishing laws can and do work. For a city-state with a reasonably homogeneous population, perhaps. But that's very different from a large country. > The problem wasn’t that prohibition didn’t work, it was the lack of enforcement. That's because the amount of enforcement it would have taken to actually prohibit all use of liquor would have been (a) way, way too costly, and (b) inconsistent with having a free country. At least our country realized that for liquor and repeated Prohibition. > I don’t have any philosophy towards the idea of drugs. It sure seems like you do from your statements that immediately follow this one.

by graphe 3y ago

pdonis 3y ago

> How many of those are without a weapon? Whatever the current fraction is, it's in a world with a war on drugs, so it can't tell you anything useful about what a world without a war on drugs would be like. > Is intent to distribute fentanyl a non violent possession? As long as the distribution is done by voluntary transactions, sure. > a store advertising date rape drugs should be allowed to sell all their legal products. Date rape is not the only use for fentanyl. One might as well say that liquor stores should be closed down because liquor can be used for date rape. The premise of the war on drugs is that if we make drugs illegal, people will stop using them, or at least use will be drastically curtailed. We already knew that was false because Prohibition did not stop people from using alcoholic beverages, or drastically curtail their use; it just created a lucrative black market in alcohol, plus an incentive to violence for the people who ran that market--since they were criminals already, adding violence to the mix wasn't a big step. The war on drugs has worked out the same way. The only way to drastically reduce drug use is for people to stop wanting to use drugs. Unfortunately nobody has a really good way to do that. But we know that criminalizing their use and creating a lucrative and violent black market for them does not work.

graphe 3y ago
Singapore indicates strict prohibition and punishing laws can and do work. The problem wasn’t that prohibition didn’t work, it was the lack of enforcement. I don’t have any philosophy towards the idea of drugs. I don’t think the world would be worst off all fentanyl sellers were all dead. I don’t see a point to say we should treat heroin like weed and cocaine like Xanax.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > Singapore indicates strict prohibition and punishing laws can and do work. For a city-state with a reasonably homogeneous population, perhaps. But that's very different from a large country. > The problem wasn’t that prohibition didn’t work, it was the lack of enforcement. That's because the amount of enforcement it would have taken to actually prohibit all use of liquor would have been (a) way, way too costly, and (b) inconsistent with having a free country. At least our country realized that for liquor and repeated Prohibition. > I don’t have any philosophy towards the idea of drugs. It sure seems like you do from your statements that immediately follow this one.