I would like to assert that nobody producing, distributing, using, or simply possessing drugs should be given a felony, nor should there be a mandatory sentencing on drug possession. Every drug charge should be a misdemeanors at the very most, and mandatory sentencing should not exist for drug charges. There are far more drug charges against regular people for simple possession than there are for intent to sell. Even more so most of those intent to sell charges are often not large scale cartel operations, we majority of the time don’t hit the guys who mass manufacture or mass distribute or smuggle in. We always hit our own people, US citizens, who are funding these cartels by consuming the drugs. Instead of mass criminalizing our own people for petty drug charges, we should be focused on stopping the issue from the core. A) cut off the profits, legalize all drugs. B) produce at home and kill the central/south american imports. I believe the main reason we have so many people charged for drugs is because it’s an easy crime to get marks for, and it was a method to disenfranchise black and minority voters after they were given the right to vote, and since then it’s continued to spiral out of control. The police get more funding for charging more people, poorer people of color are less likely to fight their charges, the private prisons get more money for having more people, more funding means anyone invested in these private prisons collect larger dividends. Ontop of this the people who actually create and pass the laws and policies, are typically republicans who will have tougher elections if more blacks / minorities vote. So they do shit like the war on drugs to suppress their votes, and likely make a profit off their investments in private prison stocks.
In conclusion, charging people felonies for drugs is the result of people wanting to make a profit, and stay in power. It directly hurts us, US citizens, while the big bad drug manufactures and large scale distributors rack in millions off, just like the courts, prisons, and police rack in money off the citizens they charge. I would go as far as to say there is a profit motivation to keep drugs coming into the US, and not doing anything about it so we can put more people in prison.
I think if it was legalized, and therefor regulated, you could diminish the risks of manufacturing meth. You could for example, only give licenses to a handful of companies to manufacture and distribute meth, which would be safer, cleaner, and controlled potency than home made meth, so your average meth head goes an buys some crystal from these businesses than trying to make their own. There will certainly be some people still manufacturing meth, if it’s a problem we can just make the manufacturing of meth illegal unless you have a license to do so.
Never the less, your neighbor cooking meth shouldn’t be given a felony for making meth (unless he blew his house up and hurt or killed others). If we did legalize meth, and regulate the production of it, then we should make that guy have to get a license to do so. The same should apply to moonshine as well.
Yes amateur meth making could be the new hobby like brewing beer in your basement. I think felonies for certain things involving drugs, depending on type and scale are a good thing.
Making it a felony to manufacture meth doesn’t stop people from manufacturing meth. Making it harder to get the ingredients to create meth is helps prevent it.
Regardless most people who make meth, intend to smoke it, not sell it. Therefor if you have a regulated manufacture with oversight, you can produce higher quality, cleaner, and a regulated potency. This makes consumption safer, diminishes blackmarket profits, and decreases the need to manufacture ur own meth at home.
A misdemeanor for manufacturing meth is just fine. When you drive reckless you don’t get a felony off the bat. Although you could possibly harm others, until you actually do you aren’t charged for it. Everything here goes for moonshine as well. Since both moonshine and meth are privately manufactured, with high potency, and can possibly harm others if manufactured wrong. Hence why both should be legal, and you should require a license to manufacture, and where you manufacture at should be regulated as well.
Your premise is that by making manufacturing meth a misdemeanor, more people will start manufacturing it. In states where marjiuana is legalized, and people can grow their own, majority of people still purchase their weed instead of growing it. Why? It takes time and effort and on a small scale you don’t get enough yield to make up for that time and effort. Only a handful of people will grow their own pot, and even then there is a concern about the quality and if you grew the pot good.
Meth is the same way, same with moonshine. If we had legalized moonshine (like 160-200 proof, typically cut with water), do you think most people are going to build moonshine stills to create moonshine themselves? No, most are going to buy moonshine from the store. Further more, by making people have to get a license to do so, odds are that one weirdo who wants to create his own meth and moonshine, will go get the license so he can legally do so, and get his hands on the ingredients and tools used to manufacture.
The problem with comparing home grown pot with home meth labs is that a spun-out idiot can blow up and set fire to a neighborhood extremely easy. Or just poison the neighborhood with toxic fumes. A stupid stoner is likely to just waste water and power.
“It shouldn’t be a felony” and “it should be legalised” are two completely different positions. I think you should probably pick one position and stick to it.
That’s not the point of the comparison… the point is even with growing pot legal yet only a small amount of people actually grow pot. (relative to the entire weed smoking population)
But if you want to go that route… distilling alcohol in the same method of moonshine is legal. You need a license to distill it though, and it’s made the same way you’d get normal moonshine. It’s even sold in stores. Does the legalization of licensed “moonshining” make more people moonshine? No, why? It’s hard to get a license to distill alcohol for commercial use. I would say make it easier for private individuals to obtain that license for personal consumption, then another license for commercial. But never the less your premise is faulty. Owning semi-automatic rifles is legal(with few exceptions), does everyone have an AR15 sitting in their bedroom? No. I’d be willing to guess most people don’t, even in the most lax of states.
If your premise was correct, then somewhere like Switzerland which had an heroin epidemic, would have had an even worse epidemic after they basically legalized heroin… they start manufacturing clean, controlled heroin then would give addicts a dosage in a controlled environment and would be monitored while high then released once it wears off. What they ended up doing was pull a bunch of heroin addicts off heroin(they also virtually eliminated prostitution as well). Instead of people looking to abuse the legal heroin, they used it to get off the stuff since the body needs some kind of opioid to release symptoms of withdraw, and alternative medicines aren’t nearly as effective.
I stick to both. In my opinion all drugs should be legalized. In reality centrists and right wingers won’t allow that because they aim to make a profit off other peoples suffering while putting on a moral facade of wanting to prevent drug dependency. However, the point of this thread is mainly that there are no circumstances you should be given a felony for a drug charge alone. In the case of something like meth or moonshine you could certainly harm others with manufacturing, which is why I propose legalization and regulation. It’s a solution to the concerns about people no longer being deterred.
Once you accept that drug dependency can cause suffering, I don’t see any basis for assuming that those who favour legal restrictions do so because they hope to profit rather than because they hope to minimise suffering. I think you have to acknowledge at least the latter possibility.
I also think your position is not quite coherent. “Under no circumstances should anyone be given a felony for drugs”, but the production and distribution of drugs should be regulated. So what happens to people who produce/distribute in breatch of the regulations? Surely they must “get a felony for drugs”? If the regulatory regime is not enforced, what is the point of having it?
I think the issue here is not whether the drug economy should be legally restricted, but exactly how it should be legally restricted. And if you restate your position in less extreme and more realistic (and, I think, accurate) terms, it might attract more support.
I don’t personally have an issue with marijuana legalization or at least tolerance for its use, even though I’ve never personally enjoyed it the few times I’ve used it. Drugs like meth, coke, heroin don’t really have any net positive benefits for society and are quite deleterious in their effects on mental, physical, and social well-being.
I don’t support extreme punishment of individual users of drugs possessing small amounts for personal use but I also don’t think it’s in the best interest to let major drug manufacturers or dealers get off with essentially a slap on the wrist. This point if probably moot anyway as most of those higher up drug dealers are engaged in a litany of crimes beyond just distributing and manufacturing drugs.
If you are a first time offender and didn’t engage in violence, then I can have compassion for someone that was selling large amounts of drugs, they don’t deserve 20 years in prison, they have a real chance to change and be a better person.
That said, in a country with staggering healthcare costs, not much of a social safety net, increasing government deficits, numerous deaths due to car wrecks, suicide, guns, and an increasingly bleak outlook for the poor and middle class, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of society to have more people abusing drugs out there binging, driving, going to work high, I think we have more than enough problems in this country than we can handle at the moment.
I am fine with that in theory. Working out the practicalities will obviously be a project.
OTOH I am OK with policing quality. Though of course regulating something inherently a bit dangerous for safety is tricky, but at least people will know exactly what they are getting
You’re right in that most people don’t bother building stills, and the vast majority of those who do are tinkerers/hobbyists.
But there are STILL moonshiners and illicit alcohol production operations in the US, despite all that. In particular, they target minorities and low income inner city residents- unlicensed and untaxed alcohol being sold from unlicensed places is both cheaper to the end user and very lucrative. (essentially a lot of that tax money is going to the moonshiner’s pocket).
I think the fundamental difference here is that most anti-moonshining efforts are centered mostly around making sure the government(s) gets paid, rather than as a public safety/pure liquor type effort.
Most anti-drug legislation is more concerned with the societal effects, and most of those center around the idea that they’re more easily addictive and that their addicts are more societally damaging than say… alcohol.
That said, there’s a set of drugs that are pretty much NOT in that category of harmfulness or addictive potential, but for whatever reason are lumped in- weed and ecstasy/molly come to mind. These ought to be legalized, IMO.
But if a government legalizes some drugs, they’re going to tax them, and you’ve just shifted your policing needs from prohibition to enforcement of licensing and purity.
Now beyond all that, there’s a pretty big and vocal segment of the US population who tends to view ANY pharmacological alteration of one’s mental state as unacceptable- they don’t drink, for example. They’re going to be even more against legal crack or legal heroin, and no amount of rational argument is going to change that. I’d wager that there are some of them lobbying the Federal government to go crack down on Colorado’s legal weed as we speak, for the mere reason that they don’t like it.