United States: Should we end the war on Drugs?

[Scoobes]

Nautilus said:

DivinePaladin said:

That's a big strawman. As somebody who is essentially straight edge - I don't follow liberally, for example I drink very infrequently, so I don't classify myself as this personally - stabbing yourself and leaving heavy wounds is not something comparable to using drugs of any kind. That's the exact argument made for alcohol during the Prohibition era, that alcohol was poison and that allowing it in our country was encouraging suicide essentially. 

 

Moreover, how many people have died in drug wars in the US? It surely rivals the amount of pure overdoses. If we weren't a hugely conservative country, pushing through safe havens for drug users where they can use clean product in a contained environment would only help matters. Let's be real, the war on drugs started chiefly because of gang violence, and gangs chiefly rose up because of the drug trade. Without product to sell, gangs become essentially non factors in society until they find a way to provide a good that is addicting that the government can't regulate as quickly. 

 

And as an aside, more people per capita used specifically heroin in the Netherlands at the time of this policy opening than do in the US now, at the height of the US epidemic. And as the article notes, there are almost no users under 40, because there's no market for heroin, and as such there's no way for impressionable young adults to be influenced by it. You're correct on one front, that the Netherlands is much more advanced societally than the US is, but the writing is on the wall. We're just much too much a Christian nation, and we'd make it a moral issue of how the government is supplying drugs, and we would demonize anybody who tried to push this concept. I mean the media is destroying or ignoring Sanders for suggesting that we regulate more to improve quality of life and the lower and middle classes, and he's not even saying anything NEW to American politics. 

 

I'm by no means advocating heroin, obviously. Again, I don't use. But if regulating and giving away a dangerous drug for free to users helps limit the number of users, that should be a path looked into, not brushed off because it's immoral. 

The example I gave was in reference to strong drugs, like cocain and heroin, not alcohol or Tabacco, otherwise it would be a silly example.I mean sure, it is an extreme example, but its not far-fetched.Depending on how you use it, you coukld die on 1 or 2 years, or at least have serious damages on the body, most likely permanent.Not to mention the severe social implications that using those drugs could have.Losing friends, wifes/husbands, even family members because you could have a destructive nature(read:burn the money, be agrressive, and so on).

And while yes, I would agree that, in a world that all drugs were allowed, that would creat a myriad of other problems, some even as serious as the old ones.People could lose all their money just to satisfy the addiction(that would be especially true for drugs that are highly addictive), be indebted because of that.It would cause accidents, be it with cars and whatnot, in a similar fashion that Alcohol cause them.Depending on the drug, people would be incapacitated to do any kind of work during the influence of the drug, again ina similar fashion when you are drunk(maybe even worse).And many more reasons.To be quite honest, there will be many implications that we can only predict once it happens, since Humankind can be really creative when it wants to be.

And in my opinion, and thats strictly speculation, you wouldnt decrease the number of users.I mean, you are legalizing it!What it would decrease is the crimes related to drug traffic and such, that would go down.As stated above, its not a matter of being moral or immoral(even though I do think it is immoral), its more of a matter that it would cause much more harm than good, making legal every single drug, or even making legal dangerous drugs.

A lot of the problems you've written about are directly related to the fact the drugs are illegal and therefore completely unregulated. By regulating drug use and having properly controlled dosage to help prevent OD, long-term biological damage and addiction you could greatly reduce the number of users who would suffer ill-effects. And as you've already stated, drug-related crimes which have increased greatly since the war on drugs would actually go down. 

As for reducing the number of users, the only way to do so is through education as has been seen in the use of tobacco in the developed world.