I think you fail to realize that development of drugs like “krokodil” etc are a result of the drug war. If you could get good drugs legally, there would be no black market that kind of shit.
Legalizing everything makes most sense, but it also of course means that people need to take a breath and relax before reacting to that statement. Because making something legal does actually NOT mean a free for all. The situation we are in now IS a free for all, is there any major city in the US that doesn’t have access to crack and heroin pretty much 24/7? The pharmacy won’t open for you in the middle of the night, but a drug dealer will pick up the phone.
Legalize means “bring under government control and scrutiny”. It basically removes the economic incentive, meaning drug lords and gangsters will have to find something else to do. The only winners in the drug war are the drug cartels.
I think the main problem is the usual. People see someone doing something they think is wrong and then think that punishing them for doing it is the right way to go. The main problem is not that this is a brutal or inhumane approach, the main problem is that it actually makes it worse. It’s like the ancient method of letting someones blood when they were sick, not only was it gross and painful, but it actually increased the patients risk of dying by a LOT.
We don’t. Krokodil will disappear as a result of legalization. There will be no market for such a drug. If I can get Gin at the same prize as anti-freeze, I’m not going to pick he anti-freeze. People are mixing up all kinds of shit in their bathrooms and crap labs. When drugs are legalized, the market for that is going to be like the market for home-made burgers wrapped in newspaper sold out of a car trunk.
I’ll overlook the fact that “the war on drugs” or “illegal drugs” as currently defined in a plethora of laws, is a massive oversimplification of an issue in terminology itself. Having said that, I believe it is time to end all the irreconcilable conflicts (otherwise known as “wars”) our government becomes involved with during it’s regular course of meddling in affairs it has no legitimate business with.
Except that isn’t going to happen. It just isn’t. But even if it did I can imagine the treatment needed for all the people doing legal cheap heroin might cost more than the war on drugs does.
So all those folks smoking weed in Colorado, Washington, etc. are doing so for other reasons?
I’m pretty sure that the end of prohibition lowered the production and consumption of moonshine drastically, but the comparison really should be to that of the sale of anti-freeze as drink or something.
I honestly have no idea what the results are in CO and WA, but I think it would help you to consider the argument before trying to find arguments against it. I have no skin in the game, I’m not a US citizen, I’m just saying that legalization gets the sort of results we want and prohibition doesn’t. Since Portugal pretty radically did something like this 15 years ago, I think they are a good place to look. They used to have a harsh drug laws and a huge drug problem, then they mostly de-criminalized or legalized it and now they are doing better than most countries in Europe.
Same goes for Sweden. We have pretty draconian drug laws and our problems with drug abuse are much, much worse than the Netherlands who is famous for their liberal views on this.
Personally I am neither a liberal, conservative or anything else. I’m a rare breed called “pragmatist” who doesn’t care about where an idea comes from, what color it has or who supports it, I only care if it works or not. To me, ideology is a worse drug than most of the stuff being sold here. It makes people crazy and deluded, they lose touch with reality and often become violent or oppressive. And people are always trying to get them to try their ideology… I mean hey, if you want to waste your brain and inner peace on some political meme you got addicted to, that’s fine, but I’m not interested in that shit anymore. I’ve tried it, it was horrible and I finally go out.
And yet, “legalize everything” does nothing to stop the people who want to sell antifreeze as a drink to the people who are desperate enough to buy it.
I’m not for all out war but I do support containment. I was in a major chain store on the Sunday before Labor Day and they had a huge area (4 aisles) all set up with Christmas stuff on sale. Are you shitting me? I was still pissed off over Halloween displays being up before September 1st and now this? :mad:
The little atheist babies whose mamas have to pick bits of tinsel from their wounds is what breaks my heart. That and the yeshiva students blinded by bad nog. Collateral damage my ass.
There’ll always be a margin between the cracks, in which people (mostly the homeless) will buy antifreeze instead of cheap liquor to get fucked up worse quicker. Similarly, there will always be some smuggling of illegal/el cheapo drugs.
Most people do not buy antifreeze, or moonshine, or shitty homemade drugs when they can get their hands on actually safe stuff. It is beyond silly to suggest that the consumption of moonshine (or antifreeze) is a significant issue wrt:legal alcohol, just as it is silly to suggest most people would still buy biker meth cut with rat poison if controlled, USDA approved meth was readily available for at worst a couple bucks more.
Unless you’re going for that classic 'tarded/conservative argument, “it won’t be a guaranteed perfect solution therefore nothing should change !”
Do you want to discuss the issue and possibly change your mind, or are you just looking for some political blah blah around we go and in the end everyone is slightly annoyed and nobody changed their mind?
If the first, I’m totally up for it (but I’m also watching a movie and eating a pizza), if it’s he second I’m not that kind of guy, but I’m sure there are others who will oblige.
Legalization seems to work, prohibition seems to fail. Not a political statement, just what seems to be the facts. When looked at superficially it makes no sense (it’s counter intuitive to say the leas that forbidding something would increase it) but the deeper you go into the actual mechanics of it the more sense it makes. If you want to upgrade your current opinion to something better I would totally recommend it, but it’s not my job to do it for you and I’m not going to try and “force” you.
Nothing is stopping me or anyone else from going to a gas station to buy antifreeze and drink it right now, correct? Desperate people can easily buy enough solvents to get high and chemically lobotomize themselves for real cheap.
Krokodil can be treated like paint thinner, glue or antifreeze.
That something could be a harmful psychotrope used by desperate people oughtn’t be enough to make it illegal.
“Disappear” and “completely abolished” are unwise requirements. Wide-ranging policies that apply to tens or hundreds of millions of people will never stop everyone from getting hurt. Short of keeping them forever in a padded room, really messed up people will hurt themselves. It’s about optimizing.
Do you think that with legalized drugs (including krokodil & such), more or less krokodil and antifreeze would be consumed?
Or is it more about using the power of the State to forcefully be doing something to stop harmful behavior than it is about how much harmful behavior there is? I suspect that a philosophical/psychological preference for the former is what motivates much of the support for the WoD.
Then all we’re doing is moving the goalposts. “Legalize everything” becomes “legalize the stuff that I personally dig using, but not the other stuff because screw the poor”, and the end result is that the true victims of the drug trade only become further marginalized and ignored.
Then what’s the point of prohibiting any act?
In other words, perfectly legal to use under the proposed paradigm.
Why not? Does the state have a vested interest in public health or doesn’t it? If a significant percentage of the public are getting whacked out and/or dying because they’re consuming toxic chemicals being sold to them for a profit, is that or is that not of concern to a democratically-elected government?
I’ve only heard of it in relation with Russia and even then, only back in the USSR days when a) vodka was rationed and b) supplies may or may not have arrived for months on end. Oh, and in the US Army/Marines but only when they’re stationed in harshly dry places like Saudi Arabia.
I’ll grant that, here in France, quite a few people have a rural grandpa or similar who brews eau de vie in the outback over the winter, but it’s not really what you’d call moonshine - i.e. it’s typically quality stuff made out of local fruit along traditional methods, not wood shavings and potatoes with battery acid for taste. And it’s not for sale !
