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Comment by isaacremuant | Hacker News Reader

So it's about the cartels now, huh? And you're really concerned by wellbeing and "life satisfaction" that you want to put people in jail because they consume a substance you don't. Prohibition style thinking.

Arguably, The most dangerous criminal organizations in the world are probably the security agencies and forces which cause untold damage around the world and, incidentally, have ties with druglords like in Afghanistan.

But I'm sure you'd support those over the individual's choice of what to do with their body regardless of what your Religious like belief that's you should get to decide what fulfills someone's life. Maybe reading certain books is something we don't need, right?

The insult at the end just exposes you further. Drug cartels exist due to those things being illegal, not the other way around, but stay classy.

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> you want to put people in jail because they consume a substance you don't.

No, I'm not a priori against illegal substances, and I'm open to discuss legalizing them.

But if the only people asking for their legalization are idiots who keep considering their consumption innocent, while funding the author of heinous crimes, then I don't expect a very interesting discussion.

On the other side, when a doctor proposes marijuana to help their patients, well, that may be worth changing our laws to accommodate.

How about you stop insulting? You're making it very tempting to just call you whateve you call others. You're not about an interesting discussion but a disingenuous strawman.

And your strawman is absolutely annoying, seeking some sort of ridiculous purity. I don't consume any drugs (but I'm not saying I won't ever, just that I'm not interested at this point) but I'm still for this so there you go. You even got your pure example.

Google Glenn greenwald debates bush drug Czar on war on drugs. It addresses your strawmen.

In any case, you've shown to not have arguments but strawmen and ad Homs and the only thing you consider is what is already legal.

Worst of all is your righteousness. You don't care about cartels or people or you wouldn't focus on "idiots who take drugs".

In any case. GG covers it all pretty nicely.

Quick Edit: let's not even talk about the way politicians and powerful people can use drugs without the same consequences as normal or poorer people.

> How about you stop insulting?

I'd like to point out a very important detail: I'm not insulting people for wanting to enjoy themselves. No, not at all!

But people are idiots when they don't see the connection between the dollars they pay for their fix and the monstrosities that are committed with those same dollars.

And, if they do see the connection and do not care, that they are criminals.

I do understand and justify, though, those people who use marijuana for medical conditions (physical and/or mental pain) and cannot find it legally.

Now do US taxes

> But if the only people asking for their legalization are idiots who keep considering their consumption innocent, while funding the author of heinous crimes, then I don't expect a very interesting discussion.

They are only incidentally supporting organized crime because the market has been pushed underground by draconian legislation. The current legal status of various substances is an extremely recent invention, it might as well been yesterday in terms of human history of drug use.

Users of these substances are temporarily routing around a roadblock during a brief period of human history where the nanny state is interfering with these personal choices. Claiming that they're willfully funding organized crime is disingenuous at best.

> draconian legislation

When it does not infringe a human right, and most people can follow it, a law cannot be considered draconian.

You just invented your own definition of draconian.

> excessively harsh and severe

It's about severity, which you can debate. It's not about human rights or being followed.

@isaacremuant

There is no excessive severity in a law that most people can follow while leaving a full life.

Please define "a full life" and explain why you believe that everyone else should live their lives according to your definition.

That's your, rather vaguely stated, opinion.

We don't share it.

> Drug cartels exist due to those things being illegal

Drug cartels exist due to those things being illegal AND people keeping giving money to them.

Because you force their hand to not have another choice.

You removed the choice.

I love how authortiarians think that they'll get exactly their way. Suddenly laws of supply and demand disappear and they can shape the world at their pleasure.

> I love how authortiarians

Authoritarians? I'm talking about democracies!

Where most people want marijuana, it gets legal. Where it doesn't, it's because people at large don't want it. That's it!

People can protest, and we can and must discuss, but pouring money in organized crime for a non-need is not justifiable.

> Where it doesn't, it's because people at large don't want it. That's it!

"People at large don't want", after the government spent decades brainwashing the population about the supposed dangers of drugs with sustained propaganda? By that standard North Korea and Russia are fully democratic countries, too, the population just happens to support things that their governments are doing!

> after the government spent decades brainwashing ...

Please, not that rhetoric again! Do you even know what a democracy is?

>Where most people want marijuana, it gets legal. Where it doesn't, it's because people at large don't want it. That's it!

Or in a free society, people that want it, get it. People that don't, choose not to get it. Authoritarian is saying "I don't like it, so I will force you not to have it". The right to control one's body is a pretty fundamental freedom. You aren't supposed to be able to vote to take away the freedom of others. In an extreme example, you can't vote to make slavery legal. Laws can be immoral and unethical, and breaking those laws does not automatically make the law breaker unjustified.

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