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Ideologically I agree with you, I don't like the idea of the state deciding what I can and cannot do to myself. However, I think you are trivializing it. The f

Ideologically I agree with you, I don't like the idea of the state deciding what I can and cannot do to myself. However, I think you are trivializing it. The fact that some people do something that is illegal doesn't mean that the law has no effect. Alcohol is practically the only recreational drug I use and the same applies to a large group of my friends. I am sure that if other categories had been legal, they would have been more common as well. My parents would have had a harder time convincing me not to take something if you could buy it in a safe location with knowledge that the production was controlled etc. Now I'm not necessarily saying that this would have been worse, but you're suggesting that the only thing that would happen from legalizing everything would be that people would keep consuming like they do today (because people who want something can get it anyway), and drug lords would be replaced by taxable corporations. Which I think is hardly the case.

Shamanmuni 13y ago
Well, history teaches us that it probably is the case. During the alcohol prohibition in the USA, the situation was more or less equal than before it. There aren't hard numbers of consumption during the prohibition (obviously) but statistics of alcohol related deaths and arrests seem to show that there was a serious decrease just before the prohibition, and after a few years it returns to its previous state, and was worse in some aspects. http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm Also, in the Netherlands the marijuana consumption rate is less than in the USA, despite it being almost legal. So, don't worry, things won't change much, except for those people who won't have to be worried about being arrested for smoking a plant.
- vasilipupkin 13y ago
  Cross country comparisons are difficult. Just because Dutch consume less marijuana than U.S. it doesn't mean that U.S. will not consume more when it's legalized.
  - Shamanmuni 13y ago
    That's true, but the statistics tend to show that consumption rate is unrelated to its legal status. As far as I know, there aren't any records of a boom in consumption just because a drug was legalized. And I'm not talking about marijuana only, but drugs in general, alcohol included. Considering that, we can say that the fear of people going mad about a drug just because it was legalized is another myth of the "war on drugs".

Shamanmuni 13y ago

Well, history teaches us that it probably is the case. During the alcohol prohibition in the USA, the situation was more or less equal than before it. There aren't hard numbers of consumption during the prohibition (obviously) but statistics of alcohol related deaths and arrests seem to show that there was a serious decrease just before the prohibition, and after a few years it returns to its previous state, and was worse in some aspects. http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm Also, in the Netherlands the marijuana consumption rate is less than in the USA, despite it being almost legal. So, don't worry, things won't change much, except for those people who won't have to be worried about being arrested for smoking a plant.

vasilipupkin 13y ago
Cross country comparisons are difficult. Just because Dutch consume less marijuana than U.S. it doesn't mean that U.S. will not consume more when it's legalized.
- Shamanmuni 13y ago
  That's true, but the statistics tend to show that consumption rate is unrelated to its legal status. As far as I know, there aren't any records of a boom in consumption just because a drug was legalized. And I'm not talking about marijuana only, but drugs in general, alcohol included. Considering that, we can say that the fear of people going mad about a drug just because it was legalized is another myth of the "war on drugs".