31–40 of 68 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ability to potentially obtain a product of better quality, and to not have to deal with such shady people to get their dose.
Opium is highly addictive regardless of who you get it from.
I wouldn't be so quick to label Opium legalization as 'progressive'. The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. The nature of opiates is that they are very addictive addicted. Drug addiction is incredibly difficult to shake once it has taken hold. The way to deal with opiates is to never allow someone to become addicted in the first place. It's time for us to real…
> The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. To play devil's advocate, China had loads of Opium pumped in by the British to pay for their tea debts. The British countered any attempt to regulate it, so they could keep their markets open. Opium is a dangerous substance, but I'd be interested to see what a well regulated opium market looks like. Unrefined opium is i…
Which is not a good thing! Alcohol is pretty terrible dependency wise, outclassing many drugs by far. If we lived in a parallel universe where alcohol had just been discovered, very strong regulation for it would be very logical.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. To play devil's advocate, China had loads of Opium pumped in by the British to pay for their tea debts. The British countered any attempt to regulate it, so they could keep their markets open. Opium is a dangerous substance, but I'd be interested to see what a well regulated opium market looks like. Unrefined opium is i…
How does regulation decrease the addictiveness though? Every one of my friends who has become addicted to opiates got started with legal, regulated prescription drugs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ability to potentially obtain a product of better quality, and to not have to deal with such shady people to get their dose.
So let's make it easier for people to perpetuate their addiction? No, we should be making it much harder for them to do so.
It's all the crap it gets cut with by shady dealers that kill people.
I wouldn't be so quick to label Opium legalization as 'progressive'. The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. The nature of opiates is that they are very addictive addicted. Drug addiction is incredibly difficult to shake once it has taken hold. The way to deal with opiates is to never allow someone to become addicted in the first place. It's time for us to real…
yeah, legalizing opium is an odd choice. I don't understand it. Its addictive. It would make more sense to significantly decriminalize it, but keep it illegal, so that addicts can get treatment without fear of legal repercussion. I don't understand what would be gained by legalizing it wholesale though.
So are caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine (in increasing order of how addictive.)
> It would make more sense to significantly decriminalize it, but keep it illegal, so that addicts can get treatment without fear of legal repercussion
Legalizing it does that, too; “significant decriminalization” without legalization is mostly an incoherent approach that serves no policy end particularly well.
> I don't understand what would be gained by legalizing it wholesale though.
Greater harm reduction than mere decriminalization because of oversight and accountability for quality; greater diversion of funds out of organized crime, rogue states, and terrorist organizations and into the legal domestic economy. Greater tax revenues. Decreased demand for US foreign intervention, covert and military, to cut off the illegal supply at the source when, as consistently happens domestic law enforcement fails to adequately combat the illegal trade.
I wouldn't be so quick to label Opium legalization as 'progressive'. The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. The nature of opiates is that they are very addictive addicted. Drug addiction is incredibly difficult to shake once it has taken hold. The way to deal with opiates is to never allow someone to become addicted in the first place. It's time for us to real…
Opium was explicitly used as a tool of war by the British in order to colonize China. You can't look at what happened in the 1800s in China with opium without looking at the entire context in which it happened, how it was spread throughout society, how it was promoted, how it was sold, and how it was weaponized.
Legalizing opium in modern-day society (especially given the current patterns of use) is a very different proposition from what happened during the Opium Wars.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ability to potentially obtain a product of better quality, and to not have to deal with such shady people to get their dose.
So let's make it easier for people to perpetuate their addiction? No, we should be making it much harder for them to do so.
Opium may be addictive, but given its low potential for overdose it is highly preferable for addicts to use opium as opposed to oxycodone, heroin, fentanyl, carfentanyl, etc.
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So let's make it easier for people to perpetuate their addiction? No, we should be making it much harder for them to do so.
Pure opium is fairly benign, as hard drugs go. It's all the crap it gets cut with by shady dealers that kill people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Chinese experience with Opium in the 1800's was terrible and very damaging to their society. To play devil's advocate, China had loads of Opium pumped in by the British to pay for their tea debts. The British countered any attempt to regulate it, so they could keep their markets open. Opium is a dangerous substance, but I'd be interested to see what a well regulated opium market looks like. Unrefined opium is i…
> Unrefined opium is in the same ballpark as alcohol for addicitiveness. Which is not a good thing! Alcohol is pretty terrible dependency wise, outclassing many drugs by far. If we lived in a parallel universe where alcohol had just been discovered, very strong regulation for it would be very logical.