Mexico set to legalize marijuana, becoming world’s largest market
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
That explains why this move isn't a sign that the cartels have lost control of the state. I wonder if they accept the minor loss in profits or see it as more of a gateway to their other products.
https://www.amazon.com/Legalize-This-Decriminalizing-Practic...
He argues that since putting someone into prison is the among the worst things society does to people, we need a good reason to do it. When it comes to using drugs, no such reason (has been, or) can be given. Alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and sugar are all drugs. Skiing is dangerous to one's health. Any reason given against drugs should not outlaw things we already think should be legal. He concludes that all drugs should be decriminalized.
A historic note: the prohibition of 1920's would be a good approximation of decriminalization the book argues for -- back then the consumers of alcohol were not criminals, only the distributors. Legalization (allowing for sale of drugs) requires a different argument than the book provides.
That's what I was referring to. I think legalising drugs would do alot of good even without the "public medical infrastructure"
The book focuses on arguing for one thing: decriminalization. I think it succeeds hands down.
Similarly, the tobacco in cigarettes isn't the main driver of health problems, it's the additives that cause most of the problems.
> It is also prohibited because addicts turn to petty crime...
This is just bad logic though. The best thing to do would be to just arrest people for the actual crimes when they happen instead of trying preempt it.
Otherwise we'd have to make illegal all the things that cause people turn to crime like bad parenting, being a sociopath, being in debt and oh...having spent time in prison. As soon as you get out of prison, they'd have to turn you right around and put you back in again.
(No offense meant to you - I'm not sure if you're stating the logic that has been given to you or expressing your own. Either way, I 100% agree that decriminalization alone is a bad idea.)
Some people that play violent video games also end up committing violent crime. And yet, not once has such an argument come anywhere close to banning violent video games.
And mind you, you don't even need a free supply of drugs to prevent said crime. Drugs ain't that expensive on the street; if people are resorting to crime to pay for e.g. heroin, chances are they're already pretty close to needing to resort to petty crime to pay for food and shelter. The focus should therefore be on their economic well-being; UBI would benefit them and non-addicts, and would go a lot further (not to mention that financial stress is already something that drives people to self-medicate said stress in the first place).
Fiscal policy is actually a necessary part of speeding up the recovery of the economy. A UBI that gets abolished as soon as the economy picks up again is fruitless because it fails to keep its promise.
UBI is quite literally as simple as it gets:
revenue = collect_taxes() # LVT, other wealth taxes, etc.
ubi_pool = revenue - cover_expenses() # infrastructure, etc.
for c in citizens:
c.send_check(ubi_pool / citizens.count)
No less a "funding nightmare" (because God forbid the ownership class pays its fair share) than artificially creating jobs for the sake of working. Would be a lot simpler to just... give citizens money. On that note...
> Government jobs and infrastructure investments are the tried and true method for times when economic activity is below the expected/desired levels.
Infrastructure improvements are necessary regardless of whether or not the economy is healthy; bridges and roads don't care about whether society is rich or poor when they decide to collapse. And government jobs beyond said improvements just shuffle around the symptoms of economic problems without actually fixing anything.
That is: these are "tried", sure, but they solve different problems than what UBI and other forms of welfare solve.
> A UBI that gets abolished as soon as the economy picks up again
Why in the heck would we want to do that? The whole point of UBI is to be a permanent safety net, not some stop-gap solution. And with that permanent solution, economic downturns and crises become significantly less harmful to the working class. UBI is a preventative measure, not a reactive one.
I was about to write a rebuttal but once I read the rest of your comment you are spot on.
Decriminialization is not enough. You also need to help people get out of the vicious chemical dependency cycle in a way that doesn't break their bank account.
The high cost of drugs drives secondary criminal activity because people have to finance their drugs somehow and that usually means theft and involuntary prostitution.
Not all drugs are the same.
This is not relevant to whether or not they should be legal.
The prohibition on drug use is a moral issue. If we aren't free to cause deliberate harm to our own bodies, the one thing to which we can be sure we have a clear and unambiguous title, what else can we possibly own or control in life?
Sawing off my own hand with a circular saw is legal. Why isn't poisoning my own brain?
What about the evidence that it has done the opposite, by artifically inflating the price of drugs thereby enriching criminals, gangs, and cartels?
In Mexico, we have seen how this can lead to the cartels becoming more powerful than the government.
What makes you feel this way?
As a society we have to control all negative behaviours - including drug addicts that are willing to harm innocents in order to get their next fix.
We already have laws that criminalize violence and theft, and those apply just fine to drug users who engage in violence or theft.
The only possible use for drug laws that apply to all drug users, including ones that do not engage in the (again, already illegal) violence and theft is to criminalize nonviolent drug use.
That's morally unjustifiable.
If it was incredibly addictive and loved ones were dying (literally) to saw off their hands, then I'd want to make it illegal.
No, I don’t think tobacco and alcohol should be illegal. I do think addictively sawing off your hand should be illegal.
Why should addictively amputating your hand be illegal, but addictively killing yourself by destroying your lungs, heart, or liver not be illegal?
Alcohol kills about twice as many people as opioids.
So yeah, definitely a whole different ballpark.
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...
https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/features/excessive-alcohol-death...
Tobacco smoke is highly toxic to every tissue in your body.
So to be logically consistent, I'm sure you also think alcohol and tobacco should be illegal, right?
I won't disagree with that, but making drugs illegal doesn't curb use. The cost of getting arrested is less than the cost of breaking the addiction. So in essence, you get all that you described, plus a criminal record, legal costs, etc, which lead to no future, which leads to more drug use.
The fallacy is making something illegal actually prevents that thing, or even reduces it.
Vyvanse is basically amphetamine hooked to a protein that has to be metabolized before it has psychological effects, so lowers its abuse potential. I'm 100% in favor of amphetamine legalization, but we've got to be smart about it and not allow toxic forms of it to be available. Pure meth should not be legal, nor should pure fentanyl or cocaine(methylphenidate would be a good alternative with a better safety profile)