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Legalize It All

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Re: Legalize It All

#231

Post by TelmoMenezes »

Ntrails wrote: post #213
polshaw wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try being in the UK right now. The government have even given up the pretence that it has anything to do with harm-- every unapproved psychoactive substance on earth is about to be banned from sale/import. Be thankful at least you are dealing with a blacklist and not a (very short) whitelist! The whitelist being; tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco/nicotine, in addition to prescription medication.

It would be easier for politicians not to take action if morons could stop getting themselves killed by getting drunk and then combining ecstasy and some random powders... Oh look some lovely headlines coming in now. How could anyone have known that there was a risk in that action??? The poor little teenager... As someone who has zero skin in the game, I'm for full legalisation - but at the same time it has to come w…

We don't "behave" so that the government will grant us some freedom, as if the government was our parents and we were little kids. That is fascism.

The government is put in place by the people, to serve the people.

Adults are responsible for their actions by default. All modern societies already have laws in place that criminalize harming others in most relevant ways. There is not need for any further discussion or "taking responsibility". It is only necessary to apply the laws that are already in place and respect the individual freedom of other adults. People who want nannies should hire their own and leave the rest of us alone.

Re: Legalize It All

#232

Post by beedogs »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #224
pjc50 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they're entitled to structure their society as they see fit. Not to the extent of abrogating other people's fundamental liberties. A large part of the US white community would quite like an apartheit society, which they are absolutely not allowed to have any more.

How large?

Considering 20% of Trump voters think freeing the slaves was a bad idea[0], I'd say "a lot".

[0] http://time.com/4236640/donald-trump-racist-supporters/

Re: Legalize It All

#233

Post by msandford »

rayiner wrote: post #230
MawNicker wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failure to obtain a college education has an external impact on the families, friends, employers, and coworkers of those failing to be college graduates. Failure to be a college graduate affects the ability to abide by social norms imposed upon everyone. In a developed nation with a safety net, failure to be a college graduate might even implicate society's need to rescue those who can't work or injure themselves…

We require people to get a high school education for precisely the reasons you state.

Why stop there, though? Why not college, and a PhD? I mean, we mandate that everyone in the US buy health insurance because if you're not paying into the system you're part of the problem. What limit is there to this power?

Can we force women to be on birth control until they're married and/or have "enough" money and/or fulfill some other arbitrary criteria for having kids? Society -- statistically speaking -- has to pick up the tab for kids born to lower income single moms through WIC, food stamps, etc. That's clearly something that society has an interest in and thus a right to control/regulate right?

If you disagree with the above statement please address it as a matter of far-reaching prinicple rather than as a matter of pragmatics. Our society is ostensibly, largely built on principle; it's illegal to murder because nobody wants to be murdered. This is very straightforward. If we concede that society has an interest in how people interact, truly what is off limits?

Re: Legalize It All

#234

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ewzimm wrote: post #39
dangerlibrary wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00002194... https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000021754&c... Their revenue is less than 1% of Apple's, but their lobbying budget is 25%-75% of Apple's year to year.

Those statistics are really interesting. And that's compounded by the fact that investors don't really care about the total value of a company. They're concerned about the growth potential of companies like Apple while the private prison industry is showing impressive and reliable growth. This creates a powerful incentive to bolster the industry. There's something obscene about people's retirement funds depending on…

Could a fine for private prisons every time an ex-offender is convicted help to rebalance their priorities?

Are prisoners put to tender like school meals are [in the UK]?

Re: Legalize It All

#235

Post by mirimir »

> The risks are tremendous. Deaths from heroin overdose in the United States rose 500 percent from 2001 to 2014, a staggering increase, and deaths from prescription drugs — which are already legal and regulated — shot up almost 300 percent, proving that where opioids are concerned, we seem to be inept not only when we prohibit but also when we regulate.

For heroin, the major risk is variation in potency. Heroin is highly cut at consumer level, for the most part. But occasionally, some relatively pure shit hits the street. And then there's the risk of boosting by Fentanyl and other high-potency opiates.

Also, it's pretty clear that the increasing popularity of heroin has been driven by decreasing availability of prescription opiates. New heroin users tend to be clueless about risk management. So they tend to overdose.

I'm curious about increasing deaths from prescription drugs. I wonder how much of that is driven by acetaminophen toxicity, as oxycodone etc have become harder to get than mixtures of acetaminophen with codeine and hydrocodone. I'm also wondering whether these figures include deaths for prescription drugs obtained informally.

Re: Legalize It All

#236

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #224
pjc50 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they're entitled to structure their society as they see fit. Not to the extent of abrogating other people's fundamental liberties. A large part of the US white community would quite like an apartheit society, which they are absolutely not allowed to have any more.

How large?

According to Gallup, 16% of white Americans disapproved of interracial marriage in 2013 [1], which is probably the closest you're going to get to a major poll asking about apartheid.

[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/163697/approve-marriage-blacks-wh...

Re: Legalize It All

#237

Post by pbhjpbhj »

charonn0 wrote: post #100
jessaustin wrote: post #26

After telling the BBC in December that “if you fight a war for forty years and don’t win, you have to sit down and think about other things to do that might be more effective,” Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos legalized medical marijuana by decree. In November, the Mexican Supreme Court elevated the debate to a new plane by ruling that the prohibition of marijuana consumption violated the Mexican Constitution b…

As a counterpoint, compulsory free education for all children is a public good that couldn't be accomplished or sustained for decades without the state intruding upon the personal autonomy of the child and the parent (and childless taxpayers.)

Compelling whom?

Compelling the government/state/local authority is right but whilst parents should be compelled provide educational opportunity for their children I find it an imposition to require schooling per se.

Schooling is a very narrow segment of possible educational methods and one that doesn't suit all children.

Re: Legalize It All

#238

Post by hutzlibu »

zeemonkee3 wrote: post #212
rayiner wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to "modulate [your] . . . mind" is why so many people (80-90% when it comes to drugs besides marijuana), oppose drug legalization. Human society has barely learned to cope with the range of neurological behavior naturally present in the population. It's not unreasonable to be afraid of what might happen when you throw new chemicals into the mix. It's important to remember that most people think the opposi…

Is this the same human society that's perfectly OK with Valium and Adderall and Oxycontin? Democracy fails when irrational prejudice trumps common sense and tolerance. Prohibition was a mass democratic movement that pulled together Christian teetotalers, American nativists, socialists and sufferagettes; it was a complete disaster on all fronts.

Democracy fails when the demos fails. If you have a lot of stupid people, then you have a lot of stupid laws. So I don't see the problem with democracy, just with stupid people.

Re: Legalize It All

#239

Post by alanwatts »

krylon wrote: post #3

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course…

Gary Webb, Oliver North, "Freeway" Rick Ross, Oscar Danilo Blandón. Don't read into these names unless you've got your tin foil at the ready.

Re: Legalize It All

#240

Post by zeemonkee3 »

hutzlibu wrote: post #238
zeemonkee3 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the same human society that's perfectly OK with Valium and Adderall and Oxycontin? Democracy fails when irrational prejudice trumps common sense and tolerance. Prohibition was a mass democratic movement that pulled together Christian teetotalers, American nativists, socialists and sufferagettes; it was a complete disaster on all fronts.

Democracy fails when the demos fails. If you have a lot of stupid people, then you have a lot of stupid laws. So I don't see the problem with democracy, just with stupid people.

Intelligent, well-educated people are capable of appalling stupidity and herd-mentality. Or as Agent K said in Men in Black, "A person is smart. People are stupid."
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