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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

> It’s very hard to fight the war on drugs (from a personal liberty standpoint) one drug at a time.

I think it’s really easy to have a different stance based upon the actual drug.

I have no issues with marijuana and at no point in my life have feared of being robbed by someone trying to score money for a joint. But change that to heroin or meth and it’s a whole different situation.

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If heroin and meth were "legal" in the sense of they being freely dispensed in special places and surely taken under supervision, you'd see a lot less violence caused by its users. That could be the starting point to get people off drugs, the same places could have get off drugs programs. The problem is that nobody really cares and the war on drugs causes more problems than it creates.

This has been tried with safe injection sites to mixed results. There seems to be a reduction in overdoses but also a rise in crime in the areas. Given the choice, it’s rationale that non-users in the area wouldn’t want that bargain.

Safe injection sites don't decriminalize the purchasing, so the price structure stays prohibitively high and the social cost stays high.

Heroin is already cheap. Unless you’re going to literally give it away you’ll always have people committing crimes to subsidize a fix.

https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/heroin-addiction/how-much...

There is no legal justification for criminalizing the use of any substance. We can put people in jail for armed robbery, why should a non-violent drug user be put in jail?

It’s deterrent. All else being equal people will do less of an act if there’s a consequence.

Why does it even have to be armed? Why not jail petty theft that furthers a drug habit?

I thought that Freedom was the most important tenet of the USA? If something doesn't harm anyone, should it be deterred just because it has associated behaviors that do? Should going to the shooting range be illegal because it makes people better marksmen therefore increasing fatalities in mass shootings?

> I thought that Freedom was the most important tenet of the USA?

Freedom being a core tenet of rights in the USA does not me individual freedom above all else. It’s a balancing act where individual freedoms need a justification for restriction. Not that it cannot be done.

I see it like freedom of speech allowing you to speak your mind but society deciding that yelling “Fire!” in a theater is not allowed.

> If something doesn't harm anyone, should it be deterred just because it has associated behaviors that do?

Of course it can. That’s what society and laws are for, namely guiding overall behavior in complex systems. The what and how matter though.

> Should going to the shooting range be illegal because it makes people better marksmen therefore increasing fatalities in mass shootings?

The vast majority of people going a firing range for target practice are law abiding people, not criminals planning a mass shooting. Infringing their rights would not, IMHO, be a fair or constitutional trade off.

This is a good example of where the specifics matter. The vast majority of marijuana users do not commit crimes to buy marijuana.

No honest debate on this subject could say the same about heroin or meth. Both of those drugs do nothing but destroy people’s lives and drive them to a life of dependence and crime.

The negative social side effects of these drugs have more do to with becoming a member of a stigmatized social group than the drug itself

Wouldn’t heroin/meth be significantly cheaper if it was legal?

Yes, it would be. But it wouldn't be a good idea to let it be freely available on the streets. Being easily accessible and taken under supervision in special places it would be a start.

What’s wrong with letting people take it in their homes?

overdose, possibly unsanitary conditions, no control over the preparation/application

They wouldn't be handing out powders and expecting you to measure out dosages yourself if they were legal.

It would be akin to visiting your pharmacy.

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