This is one of those weird things about American Democracy where everyone I speak to thinks the Drug War was a terrible thing and should be stopped. And yet, our politicians never substantially do anything to change the status quo.
Cannabis legalization may recently be popular. But I’d be shocked if more than 5% of Americans supported the legalization hard drugs, and if more than 20% supported by Portuguese style decriminalization. Even soft drug prohibition, like MDMA and LSD, are supported by sizable majorities of voters.
In a "twist words, give people 4 option multiple choice and count 3 of them as support" sort of way.
The illegality of trafficking hard drugs is broadly supported and it goes down from there.
If it seems unbelievable that there could be significant support for the War on Drugs, remember how many voted for Trump the second time around.
Never say never.
I'm frankly shocked that virtually legal medical and recreational use of cannabis has become so widespread in the US in my lifetime.
For decades, other countries have had programs where heroin addicts could either use heroin with a prescription or are allowed to go shoot up in clinics where they're provided clean needles, and heroin use is effectively decriminalized.
I could see the same happening in the US, particularly in states which have taken the lead in cannabis legalization.. and after they do it and some decades pass without the sky falling and there is clear evidence that this is a much more effective way of dealing with addiction, we'll likely see other states follow suit.
The way will be smoothed by the mainstream culture's realization that they've been lied to by their government about drugs for many decades, as is becoming clear by the fact that the states which have legalized cannabis haven't turned in to real-life versions of Reefer Madness and also by the widening familiarity of members of mainstream society with drug users who are otherwise upstanding members of their societies, and by the relatively positive press about cannabis and psychedelics.
There's always a chance that the press will shift towards negative coverage, as they do love sensationalist stories and there's still psychedelic abuse which leads people to go on power trips, have delusions of grandeur, or massive paranoia, but I am cautiously optimistic that the medical use of psychedelics will win out this time around.
Finally, there's the potential for constructive psychedelic use to help the society in many positive ways, and that could lead to greater tolerance and understanding of users of other drugs, along with (eventually) there maybe less reason for people to self-medicate and try to escape their miserable lives.
Question: to what degree does this influence your overall satisfaction level with government in general (both at the object level, and abstractly) in the United States?
For the most obvious example, marijuana is legal to purchase for recreational use in dozens of states, with more coming.
If I had to choose between legal cannabis and legal heroin, I’d choose the latter on utilitarian grounds. (Although obviously I support both wholeheartedly.)
So any dispensary would have addiction specialists on hand, anyone getting heroin would have a card and a database. "Casual" and light users would pay, a known hard-case addict with limited means would get it subsidized or free.
The goal is primarily to kick the bottom out of the black market, with a close second being keeping addicts healthy and alive, where quitting heroin is the best case scenario.
Cigarettes are even more addictive, and yet we aren't freaking out and throwing cigarette smokers in jail.
One of my nieces died from heart failure last year. She had been living on the street and been a hard core drug user. I can't say that it was heroin that killed her, because like most street users, she took anything she could get her hands on. But her heroin addiction was what kept her on the street. She had been through treatment more times than I can count. None helped for very long. In the end, she's dead at 29, a life completely wasted.
Would legalized heroin with clean needles have saved her? Don't know. But our current system sure didn't.
Not all drugs are the same, we shouldn't act like they are.
I don't want there to be stiff market competition in the addictive substances market. We already did that with tobacco and still haven't fully phased that out.
If heroin addicts had an easy option to not feel sick without that was cheaper and more available than heroin, I believe many would take it, and the heroin market would shrink - leading to lesser availability and fewer future addicts.
In college, a guy I worked with lost his job because someone he was with possessed marijuana. The guy I knew didn't have anything and wasn't charged with anything, but he lost his job with the university just the same.
As of July 1, none of them would have gotten in any trouble; as of next year, they'd be able to legally buy the substance. This is a massive change.