> I look forward for the US to decriminalize all drugs.
Is there evidence to prove that legal cocaine/meth/heroin being readily available for citizens would be good for society?
Is there evidence to prove that legal cocaine/meth/heroin being readily available for citizens would be good for society?
Making an accidental error on your taxes is illegal, but it is not a crime. You're given the chance to fix it, or assessed a small fine.
Setting up a lemonade stand without a license is illegal, but it is not a crime. You're told to shut down, or assessed a small fine (or more likely, not bothered by the authorities at all).
This is why people advocate for decriminalization, not legalization. Keep it against the rules, but make it a slap-on-the-wrist civil offense, not a crime you can be thrown in jail for.
This is how illicit drugs were treated before the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 added production, possession, sale, and use to the criminal code.
I fact I am pretty sure that since the alcohol prohibition era there's evidence that turning markets with a lot of demand into illegal markets is worse for society .
Look at Portugal. They treated drugs as a social issue and are making great progress.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalizatio...
As it stands, the prohibition on drugs has created a business that many find worth resorting to violence over, and it impacts people in Mexico who would never have chosen to get involved.
There's no good answer here, but letting addicts drop out of society and damage their health with legal drugs seems more moral than banning drugs and having bystanders suffer.
The fact that researchers can barely study schedule 1 drugs to determine if they should BE scheduled 1 drugs is a big red flag.
The disproportionate response, the people sent to jail for minor offenses, the....well, all the points in the post you are replying to that you didnt address.
How can you stick to your claims of morality if you don't consider ALL the impacts?
tl;dr Legalization makes sense, because even though more people end up negatively impacted, they are generally only hurting themselves.
Now imagine if we took all the money we dump into stopping people from getting high, and put it into helping people with addiction issues. Not saying it would work, but it seems like a good thing to try given that the current approach is a failure
I mean look at the opioid crisis. There is no insurance policy for addiction, plus, you are labeled as a dedbeat by the society. And only because doctor prescribed you something they should not have.
Without criminalization of addiction the opioid crisis would have been much easier to deal with.
You can use that as a template for other things as well.
Besides, I would much prefer people got addicted to mushrooms and cannabis rather than alcohol. The damage alcohol does to an addict is total and eventually lethal and irreversible.
Can't you argue that by making it illegal, you make it less available, therefore ending up with less people addicted?
If you can't even keep them out of prisons, how effective do you think making them illegal has been on availability?
Now addicts are 'taken care' by the justice system which is less effective and more expensive than social and healthcare programs would be if applied to the same population.