5 ms·

No offense, but your thoughts are ridiculous. Do you really want to see the country enter a shit hole? Ask those folks in Michigan on the other side of the 8

No offense, but your thoughts are ridiculous. Do you really want to see the country enter a shit hole? Ask those folks in Michigan on the other side of the 8 Mile if they feel drugs need to be legalized. If they feel that drugs didn't destroy their town and community. Look at your history and check your ideas. While I will defend the fact that you have ideas, you are grossly wrong.

adventured 13y ago
The country already entered a giant shit hole, decades ago, thanks to the war on drugs. Only Stalin's gulags held more in prison than the US has under the war on drugs. It's easily arguable that over the span of the program, we've outdone Stalin. Poverty, crime, cartels, destroyed families, destroyed lives, millions in prison: hundreds of billions of dollars spent without solving a single thing, without fixing anything, without ever reducing addiction or stopping drug use. America's cities became war zones when the war on drugs began. Tell Mexico's tens of thousands of innocent victims that have been slaughtered by our war, that it's all working out just swell.
- thenmar 13y ago
  He's not supporting the drug war. He's saying that "legalize everything" is not a solution to what is a complicated problem that involves intersectionality.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Ending prohibition is not "the solution", it is an essential part of the solution.
thenmar 13y ago
As unpopular as this comment is, it needs to be said. Privileged, white, upper class libertarians simply don't care how drugs affect poor communities. The free market will sort everything out.
- nate_meurer 13y ago
  And other folks don't appear to care how criminal records for minor non-violent drug offenses (like simple possession) affect poor communities.
  - thenmar 13y ago
    Selective enforcement of drug laws is only one of many ways that poor and minority communities are abused by the "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to quote bell hooks. Legalizing drugs won't magically change anything except for rich white kids whose parents would otherwise have to pay a fine when they get arrested.
    - nate_meurer 13y ago
      Wait, so "selective enforcement of drugs laws" is abusive to poor communities, but reforming those laws won't change anything? Why do I suddenly have the feeling that I'm being trolled?
      - thenmar 13y ago
        You're missing the forrest for the trees. Reforming drug laws won't solve racism, classism, or sexism. Anyway, everyone here is in favor of reforming drug laws - this thread of discussion is within the context of talking about the relatively radical position of legalizing all drugs without any supportive educational or healthcare programs.
        nate_meurer 13y ago
        Ah, silly me. I hadn't realized that I reject "any supportive educational or healthcare programs". I thought I supported stuff like that, but you've educated me. Now I'm pretty sure that you're either playing me, or you really are one of those "folks" I mentioned above.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
veemjeem 13y ago
I don't see how legalizing drugs would cause the country to enter a shit hole? The people who buy drugs now can already do it via SR or other marketplaces, but legalizing it would significantly reduce crime. There are other countries that have legalization that don't have our crime problems.
nate_meurer 13y ago
Right, because prohibition has worked out so well hasn't it? We're really helping people by giving them criminal records for non-violent drug-related offenses. Tell you what, why don't you go ask the "folks in Michigan" if we need to bring back alcohol prohibition as well, since alcohol continues to be the most destructive by far.
abrichr 13y ago
Ask those folks in Michigan on the other side of the 8 Mile if they feel drugs need to be legalized. If they feel that drugs didn't destroy their town and community. I don't have any sources at the moment, but from what I've read, the problems associated with drugs are actually due to poverty and the fact that drugs are illegal, making those who use and sell them criminals. There is an important distinction between harm due to the criminalization of drugs, and harm due to drugs per se. There are a few real world examples of states that have decriminalized all drugs, such as Portugal: The resulting effect: a drastic reduction in addicts, with Portuguese officials and reports highlighting that this number, at 100,000 before the new policy was enacted, has been halved in the following ten years. Portugal's drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states, according to the same report. One more outcome: a lot less sick people. Drug related diseases including STDs and overdoses have been reduced even more than usage rates, which experts believe is the result of the government offering treatment with no threat of legal ramifications to addicts. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy-decriminalization-works-2012-7#ixzz2n8gCGG4U http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy-decrimin...
andyl 13y ago
I lived in Michigan and saw what free-flowing drugs will do to a town. I saw friends and family killed by drugs and alcohol - communities torn apart. You legalizers who cite theories and internet sources make me laugh. So passionate for your weed, as if its the most important thing there is.
- nate_meurer 13y ago
  So you must naturally support a return to alcohol prohibition, right? Perhaps you can provide us with your own "theories and internet references" that might change our minds? Like, I don't know, maybe some evidence that throwing people in prison for minor drug offenses (a necessary consequence of making drugs illegal) has helped those people, their children, and their communities in any way. Statistically speaking, that is. No wait I have a better idea! How about you convince me that the addicts in my own family would be better served by criminal records than by treatment. Now that's a real appeal to emotion!
  - andyl 13y ago
    So passionate for your weed, as if its the most important thing there is. And yes I am in favor of more restrictions on both drugs and alcohol. I'm opposed to the notion that drugs and alcohol are consequence-free substances. In the wrong hands, they kill and they destroy lives.
    - suby 13y ago
      In the wrong hands, a vehicle can kill and destroy lives. I don't see how
    - Nursie 13y ago
      >> So passionate for your weed, as if its the most important thing there is. If it's so unimportant, why should we spend billions combatting it, and give people prison time and criminal records for using it? >> And yes I am in favor of more restrictions on both drugs and alcohol. I'm opposed to the notion that drugs and alcohol are consequence-free substances. In the wrong hands, they kill and they destroy lives. And prohibition does nothing to keep it out of those hands.
andyhmltn 13y ago
It's just that drugs are illegal there. Why not ask portugal about how their drug use is faring after decriminalization?
atlantic 13y ago
I live in Portugal. Decriminalization of drugs for personal use happened over ten years ago. Nothing dramatic happened. Life went on as before. Except that we have less people in prison, and more in rehab. And if anything, crime went down and overall drug use decreased.
- fizzbar 13y ago
  Thank you. Some (most?) North Americans seem to be culturally incapable of looking further than their country's borders to see how other nations deal with the same problem... Prohibitionists are usually dumbstruck when i raise the Portugal example, as if i must be just flat-out lying about a country that actually tried something different, and saw positive results.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Same here. I'm also from Portugal, and I lived with someone with heroin addiction. The fact that he didn't have to fear getting locked up for using was essential in getting him to get help. He's not the perfect citizen now, but he has been clean for years.

adventured 13y ago

The country already entered a giant shit hole, decades ago, thanks to the war on drugs. Only Stalin's gulags held more in prison than the US has under the war on drugs. It's easily arguable that over the span of the program, we've outdone Stalin. Poverty, crime, cartels, destroyed families, destroyed lives, millions in prison: hundreds of billions of dollars spent without solving a single thing, without fixing anything, without ever reducing addiction or stopping drug use. America's cities became war zones when the war on drugs began. Tell Mexico's tens of thousands of innocent victims that have been slaughtered by our war, that it's all working out just swell.

thenmar 13y ago
He's not supporting the drug war. He's saying that "legalize everything" is not a solution to what is a complicated problem that involves intersectionality.
- Crito 13y ago
  Ending prohibition is not "the solution", it is an essential part of the solution.

thenmar 13y ago

As unpopular as this comment is, it needs to be said. Privileged, white, upper class libertarians simply don't care how drugs affect poor communities. The free market will sort everything out.

nate_meurer 13y ago
And other folks don't appear to care how criminal records for minor non-violent drug offenses (like simple possession) affect poor communities.
- thenmar 13y ago
  Selective enforcement of drug laws is only one of many ways that poor and minority communities are abused by the "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to quote bell hooks. Legalizing drugs won't magically change anything except for rich white kids whose parents would otherwise have to pay a fine when they get arrested.
  - nate_meurer 13y ago
    Wait, so "selective enforcement of drugs laws" is abusive to poor communities, but reforming those laws won't change anything? Why do I suddenly have the feeling that I'm being trolled?
    - thenmar 13y ago
      You're missing the forrest for the trees. Reforming drug laws won't solve racism, classism, or sexism. Anyway, everyone here is in favor of reforming drug laws - this thread of discussion is within the context of talking about the relatively radical position of legalizing all drugs without any supportive educational or healthcare programs.
      - nate_meurer 13y ago
        Ah, silly me. I hadn't realized that I reject "any supportive educational or healthcare programs". I thought I supported stuff like that, but you've educated me. Now I'm pretty sure that you're either playing me, or you really are one of those "folks" I mentioned above.
yetanotherphd 13y ago

veemjeem 13y ago

I don't see how legalizing drugs would cause the country to enter a shit hole? The people who buy drugs now can already do it via SR or other marketplaces, but legalizing it would significantly reduce crime. There are other countries that have legalization that don't have our crime problems.

nate_meurer 13y ago

Right, because prohibition has worked out so well hasn't it? We're really helping people by giving them criminal records for non-violent drug-related offenses. Tell you what, why don't you go ask the "folks in Michigan" if we need to bring back alcohol prohibition as well, since alcohol continues to be the most destructive by far.

abrichr 13y ago

Ask those folks in Michigan on the other side of the 8 Mile if they feel drugs need to be legalized. If they feel that drugs didn't destroy their town and community. I don't have any sources at the moment, but from what I've read, the problems associated with drugs are actually due to poverty and the fact that drugs are illegal, making those who use and sell them criminals. There is an important distinction between harm due to the criminalization of drugs, and harm due to drugs per se. There are a few real world examples of states that have decriminalized all drugs, such as Portugal: The resulting effect: a drastic reduction in addicts, with Portuguese officials and reports highlighting that this number, at 100,000 before the new policy was enacted, has been halved in the following ten years. Portugal's drug usage rates are now among the lowest of EU member states, according to the same report. One more outcome: a lot less sick people. Drug related diseases including STDs and overdoses have been reduced even more than usage rates, which experts believe is the result of the government offering treatment with no threat of legal ramifications to addicts. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy-decriminalization-works-2012-7#ixzz2n8gCGG4U http://www.businessinsider.com/portugal-drug-policy-decrimin...

andyl 13y ago

I lived in Michigan and saw what free-flowing drugs will do to a town. I saw friends and family killed by drugs and alcohol - communities torn apart. You legalizers who cite theories and internet sources make me laugh. So passionate for your weed, as if its the most important thing there is.

nate_meurer 13y ago
So you must naturally support a return to alcohol prohibition, right? Perhaps you can provide us with your own "theories and internet references" that might change our minds? Like, I don't know, maybe some evidence that throwing people in prison for minor drug offenses (a necessary consequence of making drugs illegal) has helped those people, their children, and their communities in any way. Statistically speaking, that is. No wait I have a better idea! How about you convince me that the addicts in my own family would be better served by criminal records than by treatment. Now that's a real appeal to emotion!
- andyl 13y ago
  So passionate for your weed, as if its the most important thing there is. And yes I am in favor of more restrictions on both drugs and alcohol. I'm opposed to the notion that drugs and alcohol are consequence-free substances. In the wrong hands, they kill and they destroy lives.
  - suby 13y ago
    In the wrong hands, a vehicle can kill and destroy lives. I don't see how
  - Nursie 13y ago
    >> So passionate for your weed, as if its the most important thing there is. If it's so unimportant, why should we spend billions combatting it, and give people prison time and criminal records for using it? >> And yes I am in favor of more restrictions on both drugs and alcohol. I'm opposed to the notion that drugs and alcohol are consequence-free substances. In the wrong hands, they kill and they destroy lives. And prohibition does nothing to keep it out of those hands.

andyhmltn 13y ago

It's just that drugs are illegal there. Why not ask portugal about how their drug use is faring after decriminalization?

atlantic 13y ago

I live in Portugal. Decriminalization of drugs for personal use happened over ten years ago. Nothing dramatic happened. Life went on as before. Except that we have less people in prison, and more in rehab. And if anything, crime went down and overall drug use decreased.

fizzbar 13y ago
Thank you. Some (most?) North Americans seem to be culturally incapable of looking further than their country's borders to see how other nations deal with the same problem... Prohibitionists are usually dumbstruck when i raise the Portugal example, as if i must be just flat-out lying about a country that actually tried something different, and saw positive results.
icebraining 13y ago
Same here. I'm also from Portugal, and I lived with someone with heroin addiction. The fact that he didn't have to fear getting locked up for using was essential in getting him to get help. He's not the perfect citizen now, but he has been clean for years.