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Comment by anonygler | Hacker News Reader

Hard disagree. Decriminalizing drugs has skyrocketed schizophrenia and homelessness. Drugs should only be legalized in specific, medically necessary situations. Recreational use should be stigmatized and dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated.

The crime of the War on Drugs was that we had double standards, not that we had a War on Drugs.

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This sounds like you're advocating a stance where anyone who shows up to a music festival with a bag of weed for their friends should be shot. That's a rather extreme position that seems much worse than the potential harms from the drug itself. Can you go into more detail?

Your argument is a strawman because the people on the streets are not there because they are addicted to weed. China has learnt this the hard way when opium almost destroyed their nation and lead to a century of humiliation, I don't see why the US wants or should repeat the same mistake.

>dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated

Some quotes from him:

>Hitler massacred 3 million Jews ... there's 3 million drug addicts. There are. I'd be happy to slaughter them

>Just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you're a son of a bitch

Do you apply this logic to alcohol?

(And if no to alcohol, then what about marijuana?)

> Recreational use should be stigmatized and dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated.

Are you arguing that no recreational or unsanctioned use of any banned substance should be tolerated?

For context:

- MDMA shows promise treating PTSD. Currently Schedule 1 - total ban

- Psilocybin and other psychedelics reportedly beneficial for end-of-life care, notably in the case of cancer patients. Currently Schedule 1 - total ban

- Marijuana is also still Schedule 1 at the federal level

Schedule 1 is normally also a ban on research but luckily we've seen some improvement in this area. Why? Because the illegal market still exists, and people __do__ discover genuine medical uses for currently banned substances

Homelessness skyrocketed in line with rents.

That could just be a coincidence though - that increasing the price of homes caused people to stop being able to afford them.

The specific correlation is that homelessness goes up with the local rent:income ratio.

"Decriminalizing drugs caused the increase in homelessness" seems like a really strong assertion to make considering all the other things that have happened in this same time period.

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