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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

The poor Mexican person isn't getting their face cut off because of some person doing drugs. They're getting their face cut off because of the government's failure to accept that it can't win the war on drugs, and it's too proud to sue for peace in the form of legalization.

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Can't both be true at the same time? Just because there are ill-advised legislations in effect doesn't mean that your responsibility as a consumer goes out the window.

That individual consumer stopping won't actually fix the problem though, it'll just remove from them any moral obligation to do anything to actually fix things under your framework.

You mean the same way that vegans never act against animal cruelty?

If you want to work against drug trafficking empires (by decriminalizing or otherwise) I'd say it makes perfect sense to also not give them your money.

Hmm, I think there's some confusion about my comment here. I'll use your reference to veganism as an example. Individual vegans can choose a diet which, for themselves, minimizes the harm caused by their choices. But at a larger-than-individual scale there are those who recognize that reducing meat consumption means addressing the reasons people eat meat, and that in turn means things like (but not limited to) developing meat alternative products that satiate people's cravings for meat. So, while veganism may be a good enough choice for yourself, it's unrealistic to not recognize the reasons why people don't choose it and to not keep those reasons in consideration when coming up with a strategy.

I'm all for that.

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