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Legalize It All

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Re: Legalize It All

#251

Post by debacle »

dcposch wrote: post #201
WalterBright wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laying it all on Nixon does not explain "Reefer Madness" (1936) nor every other country that criminalizes drugs with zeal.

Nor does it explain the original Prohibition, a single paragraph of law that created an explosion of organized crime, reclassified a tremendous percentage of American adults as lawbreakers, and filled prisons. Prohibition is a timeless, recurring issue. I think it comes from something even more timeless: moral authoritarianism. The urge felt by many people to force their neighbor to do things the Right Way. The purit…

> The urge felt by many people to force their neighbor to do things the Right Way.

This is an innate aspect of society. See: murder, sexual assault, etc. Morality is a human construct.

The real question is where to draw the line, and the answer isn't immediately clear, even in a court of law.

I do agree with you though that moral conservatism needs to move on from the 1950s.

Re: Legalize It All

#252

Post by Freaky »

rayiner wrote: post #150
md224 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone else get almost irrationally angry about this? I HATE that the freedom to modulate our own minds was taken away from us by these awful politicians for such terrible reasons. Not only has the War on Drugs ruined countless lives through incarceration and overdosing, but so many potentially helpful chemicals have been hidden away from society. It isn't just about getting "high"... it's about unleashing our f…

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…

> It's not unreasonable to be afraid of what might happen when you throw new chemicals into the mix.

... "new" chemicals are already in the mix. Criminalization is ineffective in reducing usage, it's especially ineffective in reducing harm, and on top of that it creates substantial additional harms.

Re: Legalize It All

#253

Post by logfromblammo »

Freaky wrote: post #252
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…

> It's not unreasonable to be afraid of what might happen when you throw new chemicals into the mix. ... "new" chemicals are already in the mix. Criminalization is ineffective in reducing usage, it's especially ineffective in reducing harm, and on top of that it creates substantial additional harms.

Furthermore, some of those "new" chemicals have been used in religious rituals for literally thousands of years.

Re: Legalize It All

#254

Post by tptacek »

snsr wrote: post #249
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…

> Human society has barely learned to cope with the range of neurological behavior naturally present in the population. Bullshit. > It's not unreasonable to be afraid of what might happen when you throw new chemicals into the mix. It is absolutely unreasonable. Moreover, it's really not your concern. > It's important to remember that most people think the opposite way as those on HN. They do not assume that new thing…

It is not appropriate for him to use "I" instead of "they" in an purely descriptive, non-normative, objectively-verifiable statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

Re: Legalize It All

#255

Post by golergka »

auntienomen wrote: post #225
beachy wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened in New Zealand a couple of years ago. It was the only way to close the Pandora's box of synthetic cannabis. Every time a substance was banned, a process taking months, a new, slightly altered one was on the shelves within literally days. If your intent is to ban psychoactive drugs, a whitelist is the only way it seems.

Legalizing regular cannabis would also close the Pandora's box, by making the production and distribution of synthetics uneconomical.

Synthetic cannabis, or "spice", is a pretty different beast from weed. I don't think that people addicted to it would be satisfied with weed.

Re: Legalize It All

#256

Post by random_upvoter »

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.

Oxycontin is a prescription drug. I suppose it's illegal to acquire this drug without the permission of a doctor. I'm curious how many of people are in favor of making opioid painkillers -- which already kill 16,000 Americans/year -- an over the counter drug for recreational use.

Re: Legalize It All

#257

Post by SpaceCadetJones »

md224 wrote: post #132
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…

Does anyone else get almost irrationally angry about this? I HATE that the freedom to modulate our own minds was taken away from us by these awful politicians for such terrible reasons. Not only has the War on Drugs ruined countless lives through incarceration and overdosing, but so many potentially helpful chemicals have been hidden away from society. It isn't just about getting "high"... it's about unleashing our f…

Let's also not forget about the decades of research we've missed out on.

The brain is an incredibly complex system, and a great way to gain insight into a complex system is to tinker with its mechanics and watch what happens.

We've also been missing out on new therapeutic medicines. With the research around ketamine we finally have something new to target depression besides selective reuptake inhibitors, which are a bit of a joke IMO. As someone with ADHD I'm also particularly interested in researching effects of cannabinoids. There's something in cannabis that does a wonderful job to help stimulate my attention, motivation, and awareness, but unfortunately also wrecks my working memory.

Re: Legalize It All

#258

Post by rayiner »

msandford wrote: post #233
rayiner wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Principle bends to pragmatism. It's illegal to kill other humans, except when it isn't (accidents, self-defense, military action, abortion). There's nothing straightforward about the lines we draw between when it's okay versus not okay to kill people. People are entitled to trade their labor freely, except when they aren't (minimum wage, child labor).

Humans are social creatures; they are interdependent cogs in a machine. So as an overarching principle, society is entitled to regulate to interactions between people. To make that bearable, we recognize certain "fundamental rights" that society cannot infringe. Procreation is a deeply-held one, which is why society cannot force women to be on birth control. Taking drugs is not one of those rights.

Re: Legalize It All

#259

Post by tryitnow »

What I like most about this article is that it's most definitely not a libertarian take on the issue. The author describes several benefits of a government involvement in legal drug commerce.

A non-libertarian perspective on drug legalization is important because everyone knows libertarians want to legalize everything. And most informed people know the libertarian arguments as well. And they've been known for many decades now. Clearly, the libertarian approach isn't swaying a whole lot of people.

However, when people who are not ideologically committed to small government start supporting drug legalization it becomes a more serious possibility because it means a broader coalition can be built to support legalization.

tldr: libertarians alone will never make legalization a reality, but libertarians united with progressives can be a force for change.

Re: Legalize It All

#260

Post by samstave »

dang wrote: post #206
samstave wrote: post #191

I'm literally convinced you're a paid government shill. Edit: this is with at least three years of input from user rayiner, there is literally no fucking way that you cannot read this comment history from the time the account was created to now and not see that this is a shill for the narrative that the government wants you to hear.

> I'm literally convinced you're a paid government shill. Sam! You can't do this here! Please don't do it here anymore! All: Insinuations of astroturfing or shillage without evidence are not ok on HN. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11333552 and marked it off-topic.

How would you prefer that I make my opinion known of Rayiner and the narrative that person has maintained over the years we have both been on HN? I've literally been in discussions with Rayiner for years and at odds with their position, why am I not free to disagree with the message she puts forth?
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