Legalizing Vices

The only drugs that should be dirt cheap are the drugs we need to remain healthy and treat medical conditions. Anything else is recreational and thus a luxury and they can tax that to high heaven for all I care. People don't need heroine anymore than they need cigarettes. And hey, the working class can afford those.

If they want the drugs that bad, then they can damn well earn that money by actually fucking working instead of getting high all day every day.

And that's like the third or fourth time you've not addressed my point about allocating all court officials presiding over drug cases to non drug cases in an effort to cut down on case backlogs and ensure people's rights to a speedy trial.

EDIT: BWAHAHAHAHAH Oh my God, that's how you think junkies are going to be able to feed their families? They'll just spend more money for more drugs. Junkies don't give a fuck about their responsibilities, that's a large part of the problem.

edited 18th Jan '12 1:44:12 AM by AceofSpades

I'd agree with that. You don't have to have drugs. And anyway, drugs are waste of time and money as it is. I don't see the point in them — if you're taking them because of how life is, then get out of the hole you're in!

Knowing Savage, he'd probably want to abolish the Courts completely and replace them with Conviction By Public Opinion.

edited 18th Jan '12 1:55:14 AM by Greenmantle

If the price of "recreational" drugs are reduced. An addict will be high all the time and starts the download spiral sooner, without any jobs, the addict wont be able to buy drugs no matter how cheap it is.

This thread isn't about an person or his opinions. Please do not speculate about other tropers' opinions.

edited 18th Jan '12 5:18:30 AM by FastEddie

Better for an addict that hits rock bottom to panhandle for a few bucks to get his dose than to have to steal or hustle to pay for it. All in all, a harmless nuisance is better than a threat.

@Ace of Spades: As for relocating the cops and judges and prosecutors, thanks but no thanks. We need to reduce government power over people's lives... And that means ruthlessly downsizing the judicial system and law enforcement.

We need to get rid of the the law is the law mentality: A mass sacking and de-pensioning of anyone making a career outta Prohibition could make the point clear for generations to come: If a law is overtly authoritarian, you enforce it at your own peril.

Vastly reduced law enforcement capabilities would also make clear that not everything is enforceable, and that politicians can't reliably impose their will on the public anymore. There's no downside in just pulling the plug on those folks.

edited 18th Jan '12 2:39:03 AM by SavageHeathen

We have being focusing a lot on the dangers of street drugs, what about all those addicts out there hooked on pretty legal prescription pills?

edited 18th Jan '12 3:41:33 AM by joeyjojo

As if the pan-handling market is not crowded enough as it is. What makes you think they wont resort to crime if drugs are cheaper? It would take less time to make money, and leave them more time to get high. If they have that self control they would not be in the mess in the first place.

Let'em have'em. People's ownership over their own minds is absolute: If someone wants to use chemicals to alter his perception of life (and thus make it bearable) he's fully within his rights and any intrusion is an aggression.

At any rate, criminalization is unjust and oppressive: People's lives are their own, and which substances people choose to use ain't none of the government's business.

edited 18th Jan '12 5:58:46 AM by SavageHeathen

Until they steal your car on PCP.

I'd much rather run the risk of being robbed by drug-crazed freaks (a risk I take anyway, considering that the jackbooted thugs can't really stop'em) than accept the monstrous injustice of people losing their rights and liberty because the morons in power don't like their vices.

If people are on a downward spiral, then their choice of poison really doesn't matter at all. Besides, simply saying what amounts to "but look at those junkies" is kinda dehumanizing. Plus, it's not like they'd get off scotch-free. If people want to ruin their lives, then that's their business.

And most of all - not all drug users are completely unfunctional addicts!

I see really no reason besides really absolutely archaic moralism to ban gambling, either. There are some valid concerns regarding prostitution, but IMO not enough to not have it legal.

So, since the government has been unable to completely stop drug use and the crime it generates, we should just open the floodgates and let it all happen without any interference?

It's early in the morning and I haven't had my coffee yet, so I'm having trouble following the logic behind how that's going to help anything or anyone.

edited 18th Jan '12 6:54:25 AM by drunkscriblerian

Drugs and crime are only connected because drugs are illegal. I mean - there are cigarette smuggling rings, but they're ridiculously small-time and usually very non-violent. If drugs were legal, people would use legal means of purchasing them. This would dry up the crime associated with drugs.

@Octo: not all crime is committed by dealers. A good portion of it is committed by addicts looking to get more drugs. This will happen whether or not drugs are legal.

edited 18th Jan '12 7:00:07 AM by drunkscriblerian

It creates an illegal milieu in which crime becomes accepted and permissible. I mean we do have at least two legal drugs - nicotine and alcohol. So we can simply look at them for how it would turn out. Alcoholics are known to fail at life, but not so much for criminality.

Not all drugs are created equal, Octo. Have you ever known a meth addict, for example? Doesn't take long before they'll shank their own sister for another hit. *

True, but there are several drugs softer than alcohol that are forbidden. And I don't just mean marihuana/hashish. The effects of several drugs have for decades been overstated. Remember those techno scene drugs that everybody in the 90s became hysteric about, Ecstasy? Turns out, yeah, they're bad, but not as bad as alcohol.

I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but I don't think that's true.

Anyhow, I still don't think that "make it all legal" is the answer, any more than "make it all illegal" is. Can we have an approach between "off" and "high"?

Regulation and taxation, with the taxes benefiting local law enforcement to crack down on people that break the law.

Just like they do with alcohol and tobacco.

I must admit I can't cite literature, but here, have a handy graph◊

Heroin and Cocaine are always the outliers, not just on that chart, and I certainly wouldn't legalize them and their derivatives, but if Alcohol is legal, well, then so should a whole lot of other drugs.

Well actually, the vast majority of the sin taxes related to tobacco here barely cover the healthcare costs and the drain they put on that system.

A lot of the sin taxes on alcohol on the other hand, being a less damaging substance than most, is partially used to cover provincial activities such as road building, healthcare and so on.

The cost of the anti-smoking campaigns have largely paid for themselves in the massive healthcare cost drop. A combination of advertisement ban, "no plain sight" rules, strict enforcement of age restriction, anti-smoking education throughout the public education system has basically cut the smoking rate in Ontario down to (I think, wiki is down, fffff SOPA!) the 10-15% range.

The sin taxes that would be gained from soft drugs would likely be used toward the same goal as smoking. We can legalise it and for very soft drugs, private production and sale is okay but only via licenced dealers (such as anywhere you'd buy smokes right now).

Hard drugs I would put a production ban on, but I wouldn't criminalise users. Bans *do* statistically lower the amount that the drug is used. The question is how much money you want to spend to enforce it. For the large part, because of the already low number of hard drug users, policing it is not a big drain on police resources (of course I'm ignoring the rotten inner cities of America as I make this statement and thinking of Canada and Europe). Making hard drugs isn't easy and it's not simple. I don't just go to my backyard full and harvest a bunch of cocaine. Nor do I go to my basement chemist lab and cook up some designer drugs. It takes a lot of effort and dedication to make this sort of stuff and so a ban is quite useful.

But, the main problem with hard drugs compared to everything else is the much more highly addictive nature. People, reasonable people with normal emotional attachments with others, do not simply give up on family or friends addicted to hard drugs. Addicts ruin their lives, are unable to perform in steady jobs and lose their income to these substances. Making it cheap doesn't make it better. That would be akin to thinking that when we flooded the native americans with cheap alcohol to ruin their society, that the low price of the alcohol would make it okay. Pretty soon, once you have this imbalance of power between dealers and addicts, the price skyrockets as demand becomes inelastic to price.

In most cases you are correct...however, I again cite meth as an example. It is ridiculously easy to cook up. According to what I've read, if you can bake cookies, you can make meth.

Anyhow, most of what you said makes sense. Just wanted to point that one thing out.

^ I do agree, I mean, if you know chemistry you can cook meth. Or apparently if you know baking. However, that's why I added the 'effort and dedication' part in addition to whatever knowledge and equipment you need. Very few people who can, will.

Yes, we should let it all happen. It's people's own lives and lifestyles, the State has no business there. If government intrudes inside that sphere, it needs to be kicked until it gets the fuck out.

edited 18th Jan '12 7:37:15 AM by SavageHeathen

People don't live alone, people live in societies. If an individual habit brings detriment to the society, said individual must stop. If the society wants the government to do it for them, then so be it.