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Comment by atahanacar | Hacker News Reader

>Shouldn’t responsible, independent adults be able to make decisions for themselves about how they spend their money or use their body? This seems appealing, and there certainly are well-informed adults who gamble and use marijuana judiciously. But focusing on these ideal cases and basing our laws on them disregards millions of people who suffer because of their addictions

And what is the solution? Punishing responsible adults for the irresponsibility of the others? This is the exact same argument that was used (and still being used in some parts of the world) by anti-LGBT people.

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Society already has laws against murder, child endangerment, theft, abuse…

Making the use and possession of “druuuugggsss” illegal only further feeds the prison pipeline and is not what a nation state should be doing anyway.

What humans do in their own time to their own bodies should not be looked upon by a government as any sort of illegal at all.

Of course to “help” is the severe lack of mental health and general healthcare, a set of “spooky” marketing tactics decades long, and a for profit industry loving tired, exhausted, scared of prison (and each other) labor.

In terms of what corporations do: fuck every last one of them, regulate them to the top and put in prison the boards, shareholders, and supporters of those corporations who market to children/etc using the very same laws we already have regarding endangerment, etc.

The problem is that when convenient corporations are treated like they have morals and “good humans” behind them and when convenient they are treated like simple numbers on a spreadsheet… at fault for nothing.

I'm ok with people taking recreational drugs as long as they don't ask for a handout if they eventually ruin their own lives.

I'm kinda done with subsidizing other people rotten choices.

I can understand the sentiment but let’s be honest here: you’re more ok subsidizing a corporation’s poor choices than you are a human’s basic needs.

People are fine with walmart employees being on welfare and ridicule the human for poor choices but don’t ridicule the very same walmart for choosing stockholder ROI over proper wages to employees. You (and I) are subsidizing every corporation that profits while having any one of its wage earning labor force on government programs.

Either we should be arresting walmart, demanding more of the corporation or giving everyone security in housing, food, healthcare…

Your LGBT example is misplaced, but the real question we should be answering is: what happens when you make vices illegal. The answer is that the black market provides them, with all the relevant disasters that follow from that.

If you want to avoid having people gamble more than they would like, there is a simple way: have them set a limit (of their choosing) that they can change at any point, to take effect 1 week from now. Yes you need to coordinate the gambling across different companies, but gambling is already legally limited.

Well, one causes harm and the other doesn't, so they are different situations.

But, in the case of gambling it seems like there is some middle ground. You shouldn't permit companies to program kids to gamble through videogame mechanics for example, and companies should have some regulations bc otherwise it goes from predatory to extremely predatory, but doesn't seem like it should be illegal.

Unfortunately it's a tough thing and hard to even have a conversation about.

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