271–280 of 545 posts
I'd like to see drug use legalized (not "decriminalized") in the US, and I'd also like to see distribution handled by regulated retailers, so potency and quality are uniform.
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According to Wikipedia's "Firearm-related death rate per 100,000 population per year" America is at 10.54, compared to countries like Finland and Switzerland which are at 3.5-ish, it is very high. You can however see America's cause of the gun problem clearly, but you're not allowed to say it out loud; https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Reeves-... You could call it "culture" which the other countrie…
See you're doing it again. You're only looking at firearm related deaths and not total homicides.
This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of p…
>there's a bunch of people that say it's going to cause the corruption of society Well, just look at the US. Political correctness is getting totally out of hand and the same is happening more and more in European countries. Changing traditions causes a lot of entitlement in people who also feel that they should get a special treatment and it seems that there's no end to it. In a democratic society, entitlement from…
I think the biggest sign that this isnt actually true is that marriage exists in countries across many different religions. That to me indicates that although religion has practices for marriage, marriage itself does not belong to religion. Its almost like a super/subset thing.
In regards to why it hasn't been copied, I have heard that part of the problem is that the UN officially supports the War on Drugs. European countries are reluctant to break ranks with the UN in this matter, while progress at the UN itself is held up by conservative countries such as Iran.
Saying progress in the UN is held up by Iran and such sounds nonsense to me. The US is also pretty conservative and has way more influence and power inside their buildings.
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> less handguns = less deaths. This does not follow. Take Brazil for example. 60k homicides per year, and guns are pretty much forbidden. Of course, criminals don’t seem to care.
Brazil has a homicide rate of 26.74 per 100,000, of which 19.99 are from firearms. The USA has a homicide rate of 4.88 per 100,000. of which 3.60 are from firearms. It's also interesting to note that the USA has the highest homicide rate of all "first world" nations, trailing close behind wonderful places like Kyrgyzstan and Somalia. The next highest "first world" nation, Canada, is 1.68 (1/3 of the USA), of which 0.…
This scenario doesn't just happen with drug policy, but with practically any divisive policy discussion. People will debate something that is done elsewhere, and ignore completely that it's done elsewhere. Gay marriage is a prime example, as it's something that has been legalised in a lot of countries now. Every time a country goes through the process of debating whether to legalise gay marriage, there's a bunch of p…
Well, the US legalizes gay marriage and now they have Trump. Rebuttal?
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>most problems could be solved by experts Implicit here is that when you say "experts", you mean people who share your terminal values and general way of thinking. Your post makes it seem like you're having trouble stepping out of your value system to consider opposing views. Consider your quote here: "certain topics concern taboos that are still strong even in secularized societies. To these belong anything concerni…
Technocracy implies the people in power are experts. That has never and likely will never happen. People gain power by being good at politics and or inheriting it. Neither of those measures technical skill. At most you can look at countries who listen to relevant experts, which very much includes the United States. Though again on a sliding scale and always secondary to maintaining power for the in groups. Really if…
On top of that, pure and legitimate technocrats frequently are so deep in their fields they don't notice side effects to other fields. Politics are about making the whole system work, not about advancing one single field.
It's easy to optimise a society for a specific task (e.g. war economy). But the disbalance it brings may not be worth it in the long run. E.g. today's western societies are not self-sustainable due to huge welfare and too low birth rate. I wonder wether we'll revert to family-based societies next or invent smth new.
>Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government – including conservative leaders who would have preferred to return to the US-style war on drugs – could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift, and a change in how the country viewed drugs, addiction – and itself. In many ways, the law was merely a reflection of transformations that were already…
That wasn't the question, though. Why has no other country copied it—for example, a social-welfare state like Sweden, or a technocracy like Singapore?
Portugal’s policy is deeply flawed because it does not legalize the sale of all drugs, only the consumption. When selling is legal is when organized crime leaves the picture, taxes can be collected, product is clean and measured and of quality. Both sides of the equation are important to legalize, doing one without the other means huge problems remain.
The Portuguese doctor Goulão who leads most of the drug panels does want to legalise all drugs. He makes the argument that all drugs should be legalised not just baby steps of cannabis, so he definitely agrees with you.
What Portugal has achieved is amazing because they also had very conservative governments and yet still got as far as decriminalisation.