Legalization: The Least Bad Solution

[Sedrox]

From The Economist.

More than 200m people, or almost 5% of the world’s adult population, still take illegal drugs—roughly the same proportion as a decade ago.

...

The production of cocaine and opium is probably about the same as it was a decade ago; that of cannabis is higher. Consumption of cocaine has declined gradually in the United States from its peak in the early 1980s, but the path is uneven (it remains higher than in the mid-1990s), and it is rising in many places, including Europe.

...

The United States alone spends some $40 billion each year on trying to eliminate the supply of drugs. It arrests 1.5m of its citizens each year for drug offences, locking up half a million of them; tougher drug laws are the main reason why one in five black American men spend some time behind bars.

...

According to the UN’s perhaps inflated estimate, the illegal drug industry is worth some $320 billion a year.

The Drug War has failed. 100% failed. It costs us a tremendous amount of time and energy, and it gets us nowhere. Our prison system is bloated, inefficient, and bursting at the seams with repeat offenders, and the criminalization of drugs is only augmenting this problem. We need a solution now.

Legalisation would not only drive away the gangsters; it would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public-health problem, which is how they ought to be treated. Governments would tax and regulate the drug trade, and use the funds raised (and the billions saved on law-enforcement) to educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addiction. The sale of drugs to minors should remain banned.

...

There are two main reasons for arguing that prohibition should be scrapped all the same. The first is one of liberal principle. Although some illegal drugs are extremely dangerous to some people, most are not especially harmful. (Tobacco is more addictive than virtually all of them.) Most consumers of illegal drugs, including cocaine and even heroin, take them only occasionally. They do so because they derive enjoyment from them (as they do from whisky or a Marlboro Light). It is not the state’s job to stop them from doing so.

The "least bad" solution - as the article puts it - would be to legalize drugs and regulate them heavily. Obviously their would be age laws put in place, and all revenue from taxation could pay for education on the effects of hard drugs.

Often times the issue of drugs is overlooked as petty or unimportant. Should it be the top issue for BHO or congress? No. Of course not. But it is something that must be addressed. At this point, the most economic and socially beneficial option would be to legalize and regulate the sale and consumption of drugs.

 

[jamesrage]

From The Economist.



The Drug War has failed. 100% failed. It costs us a tremendous amount of time and energy, and it gets us nowhere. Our prison system is bloated, inefficient, and bursting at the seams with repeat offenders, and the criminalization of drugs is only augmenting this problem. We need a solution now.

Considering the fact we have a billion extra people on this planet than we did ten years it sounds like the war on drugs is a success.Perhaps in ten years those junkies will have offed themselves and the number will be less.

World population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[marduc]

Considering the fact we have a billion extra people on this planet than we did ten years it sounds like the war on drugs is a success.Perhaps in ten years those junkies will have offed themselves and the number will be less.

World population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now that is a good argument. If we are to have population control via culling the herd of drug abusers, would it mot be more effective to target concentrated populations? I think a bit of helicopter hunting would be effective. We should snipe people as they came out of bars at closing time.

In fact why not make opium dens and hashish houses so we can get them all herded into one area too.

Or we could legalize it all and then poison the supply.. wouldn't that be a riot!

 

[UtahBill]

The drug war is being fought incorrectly. Casual users of soft drugs like weed should be fined, or ticketed, like traffic offenders, if done in public.


But consumption of the really hard drugs that are addictive should carry harsher penalties.

However, if you can do it without impacting society, drain its resources, etc. and can do it behind closed doors THAT YOU OWN, then I don't care if you destroy YOUR OWN LIFE.

All commercial manufacture and/or distribution of any drugs should carry harsh penalties. You provide the means of misery for others, you pay the price doing hard time.

 

[First Thought]

Yay! Another legalization thread. I love these. I get to point out why legalization makes sense and I get to watch the Truth Detectors and Akyrons of the board squirm and make emotional arguments.

 

[Jerry]

From The Economist.

I oppose additional regulation and taxation of any kind by default (see cigarette taxes).

I oppose the social legitimization which would result from said legalization.

You haven't given me any new information, nothing I haven't seen before and discussed at length, which would encourage me to change my mind.

I will continue to oppose the legalization of recreational drugs. I hope that one day we can focus on *why* people turn to drugs instead of rather those drugs should be legal.

 

[Sedrox]

But consumption of the really hard drugs that are addictive should carry harsher penalties.

we tried that in the eighties with crack cocaine. and we ended up throwing millions of black americans in jail and causing huge amounts of inner city poverty.

let's try it again. :roll:

 

[Sedrox]

I oppose additional regulation and taxation of any kind by default (see cigarette taxes).

i kind of agree here. i mean obviously it would be regulated just like alcohol, in fact probably much stricter. as far as taxation goes, i'm not sure. i'm really just for legalization in general; whether or not we have taxes on drug consumption is something we should consider afterward.

I oppose the social legitimization which would result from said legalization.

meh. i mean first of all the fact that (non-addicted) drug users are looked down upon is pretty silly; i'd like to see that go away.

second of all i don't think drugs would really be legitimized. i mean health class would still teach you that heroin is bad and that it could destroy your life; except now we wouldn't be throwing people in jail for using it - we would be rehabilitating them.

You haven't given me any new information, nothing I haven't seen before and discussed at length, which would encourage me to change my mind.

okay.

I hope that one day we can focus on *why* people turn to drugs instead of rather those drugs should be legal.

i agree with that being the key question. however enforcing strict punishments on drug use does not answer that question or ameliorate the problem.

 

[UtahBill]

we tried that in the eighties with crack cocaine. and we ended up throwing millions of black americans in jail and causing huge amounts of inner city poverty.

let's try it again. :roll:

why not, but this time put users in for a year first time they get caught.. make that year one of education the first time, teach them a trade.
second time, 2 years hard labor in a tend city/chain gang situation...
dealers go in for life.....

 

[Sedrox]

why not, but this time put users in for a year first time they get caught.. make that year one of education the first time, teach them a trade.
second time, 2 years hard labor in a tend city/chain gang situation...

or maybe they just go to rehab.

dealers go in for life.....

horrible, horrible idea.

 

[UtahBill]

or maybe they just go to rehab.



horrible, horrible idea.

rehab the hard way, by going to prison for a year they get to go cold turkey....
If you don't want dealers in prison for life, how about a halfway house, YOURS....

 

[First Thought]

rehab the hard way, by going to prison for a year they get to go cold turkey....
If you don't want dealers in prison for life, how about a halfway house, YOURS....

I would prefer that no one goes to jail. Let the people dumb enough to ingest heroine and meth get as much as they would like. Natural selection at it's finest. Plus, if drugs were legalized, it would be much easier for me to find some solid LSD.

 

[UtahBill]

I would prefer that no one goes to jail. Let the people dumb enough to ingest heroine and meth get as much as they would like. Natural selection at it's finest. Plus, if drugs were legalized, it would be much easier for me to find some solid LSD.

you can get high with least significant digits? :2razz:

 

[First Thought]

you can get high with least significant digits? :2razz:

I have no idea what this means...

 

[Sedrox]

rehab the hard way, by going to prison for a year they get to go cold turkey....

this is what the war on drugs has been preaching for, what, 30 years?

it doesn't work.

 

[UtahBill]

this is what the war on drugs has been preaching for, what, 30 years?

it doesn't work.

what does?

 

[UtahBill]

I have no idea what this means...

least significant digit, L.S.D., it is a math term.....only geeks can get high on math...

 

[Ethereal]

Legalization arguments are fruitless because you're dealing with two types of people; hypocrites and the emotional, or some combination thereof.

The hypocrites are the "conservatives" who rail against government at every possible opportunity. "Keep the government out of my life" they screech, but this aversion to government mysteriously disappears when it comes to drugs and prostitution. The fact that they are hypocrites means they are impervious to logical arguments and will employ a vast array of emotionally-based arguments in order to rationalize their self-contradiction.

The emotional are those people who simply hate drugs and people who use drugs. It's unlikely that they've ever used drugs themselves (unless they drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, those are perfectly acceptable for some reason) so their understanding of drug use is usually derived from government propaganda which shows little girls being run over by stoned teenagers or a boy taking advantage of an inebriated girl at a party.

This elicits a reflexive feeling of disgust for drugs and drug users, although the real question is why a little girl would be riding her bike unsupervised down a busy road in the first place or why this frisky boy and unwitting girl were able to do drugs unsupervised in someone's home.

Mmmmmm, seems more like a parenting problem than a drug problem to me, but nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear that drug problems are really a failure of parenting and community. Nobody wants to hear that the family unit, the most basic and essential form of government, is crumbling beneath the weight of our collective apathy and self-centeredness because...

If your child spends more than two hours in front of a television set per day, you're failing them. If you don't know where your child is right now, you're failing them. If you don't know the names of at least four of your child's closet friends or the names of all their teachers, you're failing them. If you're more worried about being liked by your kids than instilling them with good values and building character, you're failing them.

But what do I know? I'm just a lowly drug-user.

 

[Wessexman]

Illegal drugs is a broad category. I support legalisation of weed and soft, natural substances but not substances like heroine or crack cocaine.

One reason for objecting to legalisation of artificial, hard drugs is it would allow more develop by massive, corporations and gov'ts. I don't fancy them having such power to develop addictive, narcotic substances.

 

[marduc]

Legalization arguments are fruitless because you're dealing with two types of people; hypocrites and the emotional, or some combination thereof...

...But what do I know? I'm just a lowly drug-user.

:applaud

Very well put.

 

[Wessexman]

The hypocrites are the "conservatives" who rail against government at every possible opportunity. "Keep the government out of my life" they screech, but this aversion to government mysteriously disappears when it comes to drugs and prostitution. The fact that they are hypocrites means they are impervious to logical arguments and will employ a vast array of emotionally-based arguments in order to rationalize their self-contradiction.

I don't know who these people you are referring to are but it is worth pointing out a conservative, at least in the meaningful Burkean variety, is not an individualist.

He certainly does not want the state to be too powerful but he is very defensive of traditional society and its intermediate associations like the family, community and church and their authority and autonomy both against the state and sometimes, yes, the claims of individuals(he feels in many ways that atomistic individualism accompanies statism.).

And if he feels drugs would endanger these institutions he is certainly not hypocritical in wanting to see them prohibited. Although he'd have to be cautious about how this is done.

I'm quite open to drug legalisation, I'm just showing how some prohibition is within the realms of consistent conservatism.

 

[Sedrox]

what does?

drug education and rehabilitation.

trying to determine the initial causes of drug addiction would be helpful as well.

 

[UtahBill]

drug education and rehabilitation.

trying to determine the initial causes of drug addiction would be helpful as well.

not so....drug education, like alcohol and tobacco education, stops some, but not all.
Rehab is turnstyle treatment for many, if not most.
causes of addiction are already known, for the most part.
People like it, so they do it.


None of the above will stop all. Even in countries where selling dope can get you the death penalty, there are still a few who take the risks...

It is obvious to me that the penalties in the USA are not harsh enough, especially for the suppliers and sellers..

 

[Dav]

Why is it always framed as a choice between the war on drugs and legalization?

Can't we just have neither?

 

[Ethereal]

I don't know who these people you are referring to are but it is worth pointing out a conservative, at least in the meaningful Burkean variety, is not an individualist.

Whenever someone uses the term conservative at DP you should assume it is a Constitutional conservative, not a Burkean conservative.

He certainly does not want the state to be too powerful but he is very defensive of traditional society and its intermediate associations like the family, community and church and their authority and autonomy both against the state and sometimes, yes, the claims of individuals(he feels in many ways that atomistic individualism accompanies statism.).

Authoritarianism is not a valid means to secure traditional institutions. I have rights and your interest in maintaining the integrity of traditional intermediaries is not a sufficient rationale to infringe upon those rights.

And if he feels drugs would endanger these institutions he is certainly not hypocritical in wanting to see them prohibited.

Perhaps a Burkean conservative can hold these positions while maintaining philosophical continuity, but a Constitutional conservative cannot.

I'm quite open to drug legalisation, I'm just showing how some prohibition is within the realms of consistent conservatism.

Anyone who champions the Constitution whilst they decry the government cannot consistently advocate prohibition.