Maybe Legalizing Drugs Is Not Such A Good Idea?

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, How to be wise said:

A LOT MORE people would become addicted to cocaine. If you think there’s an addiction problem now, wait till you see half the country addicted to it. The entire country will come to a standstill. 

The addiction rates for cocaine are not that much worse than marijuana, certainly not alcohol.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Yimpa]

6 hours ago, OBEler said:

@Hardkill @Hardkill not really I think.  Addiction is a symptom of mental ill ess. The problem with abusing drugs have mostly mental ill people. So the most people will not use it anyway, they are not even interested in trying even once

By the way, many mental ill right now abuse alcohol, one of the most destoying drug. 

And yet not all people will mental illness abuse drugs. I am very responsible when it comes to drugs, despite having several mental illnesses.

Even legal drugs that can be highly addictive I’ve tried and never got hooked on or took in excess frequency, such as phenibut. And once I found that it no longer was useful to me, I got off it on my own accord without any issues.

If anything, one of the most challenging “drugs” to get off of was excess sugary foods, which is found plentiful in society. I’ll admit that fast food is still a big issue for me, though.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Yimpa

[sholomar]

Given the way the brain's dopamine system works, I'm half inclined to think we should do it like the Philippines... execute drug dealers on the spot, and throw users in prison. I used to believe in decriminalization, but I'm not really sure about that anymore. Lax enforcement of the laws is the reason more and more bad behavior is spreading in society.

Tough choices need to be made, and we don't want to make them because we are no longer a society that simply disappears the homeless, mentally ill, drug users, etc. like we used too.

Bottom line... there's no easy answer to this problem and any solution you or I might think would work is merely speculation. Natural law (evolution, natural selection) doesn't care about human compassion or coddling people. Nature is cruel. Evolution is cruel. It's survival of the fittest. It's something progressives will never really accept, acknowledge, or internalize, in their quest to be infinitely compassionate incarnating in a matrix where the rules baked into the system don't really support infinite compassion.

If that Lion doesn't kill his Zebra, he starves, dies, his species goes extinct. Period.

Edited August 21, 2023 by sholomar

[Leo Gura]

Addiction is largely a function of an improperly lived life and bad environment. The real solution to addiction is to improve people's environments so they have no motivation to escape it via drugs.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Hardkill said:

If all drugs became legalized, then wouldn't a lot more people in our country be encouraged to take heroine, cocaine, fentanyl, and many other harmful drugs?

Fentanyl would not be sold. No one will want fentanyl if they can get pure heroin or coke. Fentanyl is an inferior substitute.

But yes, more people would try drugs, however the drugs would be safer and there wouldn't be a stigma around it.

Yes, there is a cost to legalization. It's not 100% upside. But the biggest win is ending the drug war permanently. This ends a lot of crime.

Weed legalization is a good case study. We already did it in Vegas. Now more people use weed but the system makes more sense, it's more humane. Of course weed addiction is still a problem but ultimately people have to take responsibility for their consumption habits. That's how freedom works.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Recursoinominado]

39 minutes ago, sholomar said:

Given the way the brain's dopamine system works, I'm half inclined to think we should do it like the Philippines... execute drug dealers on the spot, and throw users in prison. I used to believe in decriminalization, but I'm not really sure about that anymore. Lax enforcement of the laws is the reason more and more bad behavior is spreading in society.

We aren't in 1970 anymore, this shit never worked.

[Yimpa]

56 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Addiction is largely a function of an improperly lived life and bad environment. The real solution to addiction is to improve people's environments so they have no motivation to escape it via drugs.

Set and setting, as they say. That’s why psychedelic rehab centers, I believe, are the future. How long it’ll take to make it widespread and a standard practice is still unknown territory.

A few psychedelic trips, and they’ll also encourage you to get out of the rehab asap.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Yimpa

[OBEler]

 childen at school needs to be educated on different classes of drugs. There must be subjects to 5 meo or weed or lsd and alcohol. Especially they should know what alcohol does to their bodies. Such important things needs to be learned in school. 

And there needs to be Harry Potter like howard schools where you learn about magic, Out of body experiences and psychedelic usage for science. We need to talk and research openly like in this forum about this stuff. 

Edited August 21, 2023 by OBEler

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura 

The assertion that the drug war has been a failure is not accurate. The goal of this effort is not the wholesale eradication of drug use, an aim that is unattainable. Instead, the focus is on containment, moderation, and regulation. Evidence supports that these objectives have been largely achieved, as the usage rates of the most dangerous and addictive substances have been kept at manageable levels. Consider what would likely transpire if these drugs were suddenly made legal and readily available to the general public. A historical example that illustrates the potential peril of this approach can be found in China during the 19th century. At that time, the British trade in opium had catastrophic consequences for Chinese society. Addiction became so rampant that it wreaked havoc on the economy, with vast sums of money squandered on the drug. This addiction crisis led to two actual opium wars, where the Chinese fought desperately to compel the British to halt the opium trade within their borders. Ironically, while opium was being traded so freely in China, it was illegal and punishable by death in Britain itself.

The aftermath of this period was devastating; it took a full century for China to recover from the mass addiction and rebuild its shattered economy. This episode serves as a sobering testament to the importance of maintaining a strong stance against addictive drugs. Therefore, while it may be tempting to label the modern drug war as a failure, it is essential to weigh the potential risks of a more permissive approach. The lessons of history serve as a powerful warning, guiding us towards the continued necessity of keeping addictive drugs illegal. By doing so, we may avoid repeating the tragic mistakes of the past.

[Leo Gura]

@How to be wise How do you explain the good results Portugal has been having with their policy?

[Recursoinominado]

56 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

A historical example that illustrates the potential peril of this approach can be found in China during the 19th century.

19th century China? The poorest country in the world 150 years ago?

Can you even compare it with anything we have today?

We already have plenty of successful examples today.

At this point is just fundamentalism or pure ignorance.

[Hello from Russia]

It's ridiculous that people suffer from severe addictions (getting fucked by chemicals) and then instead of getting help they also get fucked by prosecution system and get jailed

With legalization they will at least get fucked by less things

Edited August 22, 2023 by Hello from Russia

[How to be wise]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@How to be wise How do you explain the good results Portugal has been having with their policy?

Portugal doesn’t sell cocaine at the pharmacy.

[Recursoinominado]

2 hours ago, How to be wise said:

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

Portugal doesn’t sell cocaine at the pharmacy

They should.

[Israfil]

23 hours ago, sholomar said:

Given the way the brain's dopamine system works, I'm half inclined to think we should do it like the Philippines... execute drug dealers on the spot, and throw users in prison. I used to believe in decriminalization, but I'm not really sure about that anymore. Lax enforcement of the laws is the reason more and more bad behavior is spreading in society.

Tough choices need to be made, and we don't want to make them because we are no longer a society that simply disappears the homeless, mentally ill, drug users, etc. like we used too.

Bottom line... there's no easy answer to this problem and any solution you or I might think would work is merely speculation. Natural law (evolution, natural selection) doesn't care about human compassion or coddling people. Nature is cruel. Evolution is cruel. It's survival of the fittest. It's something progressives will never really accept, acknowledge, or internalize, in their quest to be infinitely compassionate incarnating in a matrix where the rules baked into the system don't really support infinite compassion.

If that Lion doesn't kill his Zebra, he starves, dies, his species goes extinct. Period.

There is no difference between the state you described and barbarism. The whole problem we are stating here is that the rules proposed to theoretically increase the survival rate of people (what we call society) became corrupt and now we are having the opposite effect to the benefit of few people, and to the detriment of 99% of people, especially the people you cited in paragraph 2. 

What progressives see, that conservatives don't is that as technical progress comes about, moral progress fails to entail it. We have never had more abundance and knowledge available, but we are not utilizing it, because of the limited scope of concern of people who control most of these resources. You talk about "natural selection", but the reality is that we are artificially selecting. Many capable people are prevented to improve their condition because the system does not select the best but selects the ones that promote the homeostasis of those already in power. The population at large is so far apart from the mechanisms of acquiring power that the checks and balances of corruption are rarer and rarer. Just see what the average politics and business world have been in the last 20 years you'll see how your position comes from a lack of a more holistic perspective on the matter.

[Israfil]

13 hours ago, How to be wise said:

The assertion that the drug war has been a failure is not accurate. The goal of this effort is not the wholesale eradication of drug use, an aim that is unattainable. Instead, the focus is on containment, moderation, and regulation. Evidence supports that these objectives have been largely achieved, as the usage rates of the most dangerous and addictive substances have been kept at manageable levels. Consider what would likely transpire if these drugs were suddenly made legal and readily available to the general public. A historical example that illustrates the potential peril of this approach can be found in China during the 19th century. At that time, the British trade in opium had catastrophic consequences for Chinese society. Addiction became so rampant that it wreaked havoc on the economy, with vast sums of money squandered on the drug. This addiction crisis led to two actual opium wars, where the Chinese fought desperately to compel the British to halt the opium trade within their borders. Ironically, while opium was being traded so freely in China, it was illegal and punishable by death in Britain itself.

Are you talking about that time in history when the British Empire couldn't sell their trash industrialized products to the Chinese, therefore creating a deficit due to their constant purchase of silk, porcelain, and tea from the Chinese, so they started to push their India-produced opium into the country to addict the Chinese people and recoup their losses? 

The control of drug trafficking by governments and empires is as old as walking forward. The drug war just ensures that no one else profits from it besides the corrupt part of the state.   

[zurew]

4 hours ago, How to be wise said:

Portugal doesn’t sell cocaine at the pharmacy.

Your answer is tangential to Leo's question. You are not just against legalization, you are also against decriminalization.

According to your logic and theory Portugal's results should be much worse ,so what is your explanation?

13 hours ago, How to be wise said:

Evidence supports that these objectives have been largely achieved, as the usage rates of the most dangerous and addictive substances have been kept at manageable levels.

Where is the evidence that demonstrates a casual relationship between the drug war and the maintained levels?

13 hours ago, How to be wise said:

Instead, the focus is on containment, moderation, and regulation

How can you contain, moderate or regulate, when you give all the power to the black market? - and thanks to that its much harder to track who buys what kind of drugs in what quality and in what quantity and from whom.

Edited August 22, 2023 by zurew

[Leo Gura]

I have been contemplating this issue some more and wanted to say that it's unclear what the net effect of selling cocaine and heroin at the pharmacy would be. It might be a net negative. This would need to be trialed and tested to measure its impact on communities. This is a complex issue with no easy answers.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Scholar]

On 20.8.2023 at 8:28 PM, Leo Gura said:

The fentanyl problem cannot be solved in any way other than by allowing affordable legal sales of drugs like heroin and cocaine.

Decriminalization was never suposed to solve the fentanyl problem. Why would it?

Of course decriminalization will not reduce addiction rates.

To really solve the drug problem requires eliminating the black market by selling all the worst drugs in pure form at affordable prices at the pharmacy. Which is way too radical for most politicians to enact.

Decrminalization is good, but it's merely a half-measure. It won't solve the larger drug problem. The real solution is to eliminate the black market through pharmacy sales. And then you gotta invest the drug war resources into rehab clinics and mental health.

Do we really want to give big pharma license to sell cocaine and heroine? They are already bad as is, and obviously they will have incentive to capture as many individuals in an addictive loop as possible.

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Do we really want to give big pharma license to sell cocaine and heroine? They are already bad as is, and obviously they will have incentive to capture as many individuals in an addictive loop as possible.

I think that issue can be solved by prohibiting any marketing of these chemicals.

It could also be solved by having government manufacture it as a cheap generic.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Leo Gura