5 ms·

alcohol is perfectly legal, yet it's illegal to walk down a public street with an open can of beer. This all seems to work out fine. Why didnt this work with

• HEmanZ 3y ago
  In many places it’s perfectly legal to walk down the street with an open containers of alcohol, and there are not the kinds of problems we see with other drugs. Opiates and amphetamines are entirely different animals than drugs like alcohol and weed. You can’t really treat them as the same kind of thing.
  • alistairSH 3y ago
    You've never seen a gaggle of drunks in Vegas or New Orleans? Drinking in public absolutely can be a problem, similar to using opiates or whatever else. I'm not implying the laws should be exactly the same, only that public alcohol consumption also has problems that are visible to non-drinkers/locals.
• lancesells 3y ago
  Alcohol has bars to go to? Bars have bartenders to cut you off? Drug use doesn't provide a social place. Also, certain drugs are an order of magnitude way worse than having a moderate amount of alcohol. Legalizing public drug use, outside of marijuana, seems idiotic to me.
  • zzzeek 3y ago
    I guess I dont understand what the actual problem was. People were doing drugs on public street corners? this is my question. It's not hard for people to drink alcohol in places other than street corners, even on days that the bars are all closed.
    • thomastjeffery 3y ago
      It's not hart to drink alcohol on the street, but it is easy to drink it indoors. To contrast, people addicted to heroin or meth are much more vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness, etc.; which pushes them into public spaces, and incentivizes them to commit petty and violent crime.
      • zzzeek 3y ago
        thanks, that's an answer that makes sense but also contradicts the original parent that had me going: "Decriminalization of drugs creates better health outcomes for drug users.". but we're saying, the recriminalization is preventing them from doing drugs, falling into homelessness, and then doing drugs on street corners. like why wasnt "treatment is available" doing that. (I mean I know why, it's because coercive force helps coerce drug users to change where they otherwise would have less reason to. halfway houses are like conduits between prison cells and the outside world).
        • thomastjeffery 3y ago
          Decriminalization at least stops police from exasperating the situation by punishing drug users with expensive citations, and taking them away from work opportunities because they have to show up at court instead.
  • slowmovintarget 3y ago
    Agreed. The difference is in the outcomes we're aiming for. First, in the case of drugs like methamphetamine, heroine, cocaine, fentanyl, and so on, we're looking to eliminate use of these compounds outside of medical applications. Having a lovely entertainment venue for blowing off steam is not what we're going for. We want to help people avoid or conquer addictions to dangerous drugs. A program aimed at this goal that has worked elsewhere includes a system of policies and spending that work together to achieve that aim. The system includes a number of aspects: - Spending on rehabilitation and treatment - Eliminating criminal penalties for drug use and instead requiring treatment programs - Jobs programs (it turns out a lot of addiction is about purpose, or lack thereof) To do this is hard to pull off, because you have to have a number of groups of people all pulling together for the same goal of helping people resolve their addictions. If you don't do it altogether, and just label it "decriminalization" and only do that part of it, it is guaranteed to fail. It is idiotic. There's also a name for it: Cargo Cult. We're bewildered that the problem just doesn't go away (the planes don't land and bring cargo) when we go through the superficial motions (wave sticks at the sky near the landing strip) of "decriminalization."
• thomastjeffery 3y ago
  We all (hopefully) know what happened when alcohol was criminalized. People using a drug is only part of the overall system that affects society. Alcohol is also more trivial to illegally produce than most recreational drugs. Hell, you can make it on accident by just keeping fruit too long. Decriminalization isn't enough to resolve the societal problems caused by a system of prohibition. The greater societal problems - like poverty, homelessness, petty crime, and violence - are tied more closely to production and distribution than possession and use.