Should we end the war on drugs?
BigBlindMax
Banned
Why not legalize drugs?
This has been a thought in the back of my head for years, but recently, as I've started interacting more with local homeless shelters and non-profits, I've been thinking about it more and more.
It's becoming ever more obvious that the war on drugs is an utter failure. Hell, even President Obama owed up to that much. It's a war that's cost billions and billions of dollars and given criminal enterprises a great way to make money. Worse yet, the American government has forced its draconian drug policies on other countries, like Colombia and Mexico (you can see how well that worked out for them).
Generally, it just seems to me like a backwards system: instead of tackling the root of America's drug problem, we've created a system that keeps people hooked and makes it very profitable to flood the streets with narcotics. Not to mention, the whole endeavor has lead to America's prisons being packed to the gills with non-violent drug offenders, often for ridiculously long sentences.
If we ever want to break free of this cycle, the first step is decriminalizing drugs completely and the second step is completely overhauling drug treatment and mental health practices.
What's your stance on the Drug War? Should drugs be legalized / decriminalized? Why or why not? Do you or a loved one have a first-hand experience with the drug war?
P.S. For those who are interested, there's an excellent book on the subject called Chasing The Scream by Johann Hari. It completely changed the way I view the nature of addiction and also provides a thorough history of the drug war through gripping interviews and stories.
Comments
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What a thorough and articulate response! Thank you for contributing.
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Hell no.
Drugs are killing people.
Do you really think we're saving lives by throwing addicts in overcrowded prisons, denying them housing and treating them like subhuman scum? Heck no! Society is doubling down on the misery and isolation that gets people hooked in the first place.
Also, what about the drugs that aren't killing people? Marijuana, magic mushrooms, etc?
Well as a smoker myself i think we should make weed legal and here is why.
When weed is illegal people will still smoke it but not pay taxes
And i have also noticed because weed is so expensive it's actually cheaper to buy LSD for a longer trip
But if weed was legal you could just buy a bigger amount at once
And putting people in jail for smoking literally a plant is a bit stupid tbh
All drugs should be deciminalized. The war on drugs has failed, and shouldn't have been attempted in the first place.
No, I get your reasoning but no. Just because people keep doing what you're trying to stop them from doing doesn't mean you should stop trying top stop them.
No, clearly some dude who smoked a joint and ate cheetoes on his couch deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail including solitary confinement where he will only be allowed outside for 1 hour per day. /s.
Not to mention they probably shot his dog during the raid.
But here's the thing.
A lot of people are still doing it because of the current drug policy, not in spite of it.
"I had to shoot it, it was going to drool on me!"
Honestly it's lost. We could get dealers off the streets and make a lucrative profit for pharmacies everywhere.
People's talk of 'staying the course' baffles me. The course was no good to begin with. It's insanity to continue a failed policy and expect a different result.
Agreed, but I think any prescription narcotics should be strictly regulated and have their prices kept artificially low. Otherwise drug manufactures would just become the new criminal syndicates: charging huge sums to customers who (literally) can't get enough.
People can make a case for crack and heroin being illegal, but there is absolutely NO reason marijuana should be illegal. Fully legalizing marijuana would put a huge dent in the profits of Mexican cartels and allow responsible growers to take their place.
it will never be ceased. too much money in it. its a big business for everyone involved.
Never heard of magic mushrooms .
And marijuana kills brain cells . That's just as bad. Legalizing these harmful drugs will only make things worse .
If you want to stop them, decriminalize it. This is what all empirical evidence supports. If you'd like malignant drug use to continue, than the War on Drugs is about the best way to keep that going.
Yeah i totally agree on crack being illegal because it's so addicting and it destroys you,
Of course people say that you get addicted to weed but i smoked 6 months everyday and then just stopped one day and felt nothing mean while i'm trying to quit smoking and it's 200 times harder,
And we have to remember that cheese burgers kill more people per year than weed has done since the beginning of humanity ^^
I think they should legalise lesser things however at the same time whats the limit? I feel addicts will just start to blame the vender or use it as an excuse, (no personal responsibility) . Its just like obese people blaming fast food. Also im not sure the illegal trade would dry up.
I feel the three strike thing is a bit pointless however it is a crime and I also feel lumping every drugs offender in prison is also stupid. Very few are there for a bit of pot, anyone with a serious sentence has repeatedly done something bad.
Yes. It's caused more problems than resolved. If we want to resolve most drug problems, drugs like Marijuana need to be legalized and treated like cigarettes and alcohol. More dangerous drugs like heroin, meth, and cocaine get devalued and destroyed. And there needs to be extended teachings to the public about the dangers of drugs so everyone becomes more health conscious and reject drugs entirely. Then there should be little to no problems with drugs anymore.
But they've done decriminalization, even with heroine, and the same thing always happens.
http://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decriminalized-all-drugs-here-s-what-s-happening
It's not perfect, but anyone who thinks all drug use will disappear under any circumstances is completely naive. This is consistently shown to be the best policy and approach, and it's much cheaper. Prevention is less expensive and much more effective than punishment. Forever and always.
Even if this was true, so what? Let people lose their brain cells if they like. Their lives, their consequences. It's not the state's job to play morality police.
Because what we have now is just so good, right? I guarantee you, if drugs were decriminalized, the rate of overdoses and HIV/Hep C would plummet.
While it probably won't hurt, this is only a small part of the equation. Recent scientific studies suggest that physical dependency plays a much smaller role in drug addiction than was previously thought. Instead, there seems to be a very strong connection between childhood trauma and drug addiction. Isolation and poor living conditions also play a much bigger contributing role than we previously thought. Why not start there?
Depends on the drug in my opinion.
What's the basis, which drugs should be prohibited?
I can't say I'm too educated to make that choice, I would have to do more research.
Einstein's insanity, as true as ever.
Apart from Heroine and Cocaine go ahead lets make them tax dollars and offer more support for addicts.
As for argument hurdur can't sell stuff bad for you well they make a profit off alcohol and Cigarettes :P
I'd recommend a trail period for a month of legalizing drugs to see how much money it brings in and how many people they can help.
Then have a public vote after that month to see whether to make drugs legal or not after that period
Even if it fails and they make drugs illegal again you still made a bucket load of tax payers cash so why not
Little irrelevant thing annoying me why I'm the only one who thumbed this awesome thread it asks an awesome question and created a quality debate :P
Meth is even worse than Heroin. It's effects become evident much more fast and is overall more deadly to use. Cocaine on the other hand while dangerous has proven to have some positive purposes as models regularly use it for weight loss (it actually works better than you might think)
I've watched drugs tear apart my family (As in, not my mother and father, but my relatives), other peoples families, and lead to the (failed) attempted suicide of my cousin. So, I kinda take a Bull-headed stance on this. The question: Should Drugs be illegal? The answer: No. Just no. We are after all a nation founded on freedom, you want to wreck yourself, that's your thing. Drug can benefit the user thought, they can be used to reduce pain or relieve stress. A holocaust victim with PTSD was treated with LSD, and it worked he was able to function without the effects of PTSD bearing down on him. But...But, I cannot stress this enough, drugs like PCP, LSD, heroin, and designer drugs should be illegal with just cause. Such drugs are dangerous, and way to addictive. I believe there is no harm in smoking some marijuana or something like that. But then again, I've never done any drugs so what the hell do I know? Not that my opinion matters anyways.
Why not cocaine? Cocaine is awesome.
Anecdotes don't stand to statistics. Decriminalization is the overall better option (in contrast to punishment).
Contradiction?
Ok but only Viva is allowed to do Cocaine no one else, his part of the trail for everyday of the month VIva is getting cocaine for breakfast, lunch and dinner we shall research and analysis the results.
If he lives we double the price of cocaine, If it kills him we will then make cocaine half price for now on because we don't want to scare away customers with those sweet cash dollars for us
Meth definitely cocaine no because a famous Irish model died from cocaine I remember it all over the news I'm no expert on drugs though idk
I am completely down for this trial!
I said I was opinionated. And is it a contradiction? Probably, I really just put down what I think at the time, making sense doesn't matter to me at the time.
Cocaine carries its share of risks, it's quite hard on your heart and sinuses. Still, it's nowhere near as dangerous as crack or meth. Regardless, I think it should all be decriminalized, though maybe not fully sanctioned.
Yeah. Poverty and child abuse are the biggest factors. Those issues got to be fixed too.