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Legalize It All

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Re: Legalize It All

#211

Post by norniron »

user_0001 wrote: post #174
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.

true, but on the other hand you can get caught with 1-2 grams of any powder, less than an oz of cannabis and nothing will come of it. Anything you can argue in court is personal (which is quite a lot) and at worst you are looking at a few hours of community service in most cases.

The court sentence isn't the only consequence to be considered here. Having a criminal record could hurt future employment opportunities. Your parents will probably treat you like some drug addict and so on.

Re: Legalize It All

#212

Post by zeemonkee3 »

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…

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.

Re: Legalize It All

#213

Post by Ntrails »

polshaw wrote: post #163
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…

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 with taking responsibility for the consequences of choices - especially those taken whilst under the influence.

Re: Legalize It All

#215

Post by sebastianconcpt »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #162
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…

I totally hear you. It absolutely infuriates me that such bad policy can be so hard-headingly acted, and it's actually the biggest reason I'm libertarian leaning. I don't even consume drugs, but the drug war is so bad, so pervasive and so toxic, it affects my ability to travel, it destroys countless lives and it causes mass inequality in the US. It absolutely makes me lose faith in government as a concept.

same here

Re: Legalize It All

#216

Post by bitwize »

hyperpape wrote: post #112
gardano wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something I never understood (and admittedly never researched either). Isn't there something in the constitution about freedom of association?

Yes. However judges cannot preemptively strike down laws, even if they are blatantly unconstitutional. Someone with "standing" must bring a case, which typically(?) means that the law has been applied to them. So unconstitutional laws often stay on the books without being enforced, until either someone overreaches and tries to enforce them, or the legislature formally repeals them. I believe anti-miscegenation statue…

Y'know, in ancient Iceland there was a person called the "lawspeaker". His job was to memorize and recite the law -- all of it -- before the Althing twice a year. If he forgot any part of the law, it was no longer law.

I wish the federal government and every state had a lawspeaker -- for statute laws anyways.

Re: Legalize It All

#217

Post by talles »

harshreality wrote: post #139
talles wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Drugs: Not designed to be harmful. Can be dangerous. - Guns: Designed to be harmful. Can be safe. I'm not saying that you can't argue that drugs are so dangerous that they should be prohibited or that guns can be safely used and should be allowed. The topic is the same but the starting point is not. Your examples are of things that are dangerous, not of things that are designed to be harmful.

What does their being designed by humans to be dangerous and hurtful have to do with anything? Is it not allowable to hurt others in self defense? Is it not allowable to hurt animals for food? There are other things that are hurtful and dangerous, and whether something is designed that way by humans or not has no bearing on the utilitarian calculus. Particularly so when there's no categorical imperative against the t…

> Is it not allowable to hurt others in self defense? Is it not allowable to hurt animals for food?

I fail to see how such general and silly questions foster a debate. No one said or implied those.

> has no bearing on the utilitarian calculus

That's why we need to (wait for it) debate!

> no categorical imperative against the thing

You know what's the problem of the categorical imperative? It's very subjective.

You know how we overcome such subjectivity? (wait for it) debate!

---

My point is simply that in one the harm is direct (designed to) and the other is indirect (can be used to). Due to that the debate between those should be different.

I made no "quantifiable" comparison pal.

Re: Legalize It All

#218

Post by kagamine »

mbubb wrote: post #143

Why stop with drugs? I would include pointless war on sex workers.

The key difference is that drugs are something one does to oneself, whereas prostitution includes at least one other person. How to ensure that person is willingly participating and profiting is the question. Although I suppose legalization and licensing would help with that too.

Re: Legalize It All

#219

Post by beachy »

polshaw wrote: post #163
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…

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.

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.

Re: Legalize It All

#220

Post by kagamine »

stegosaurus wrote: post #154

The idea that the Western world (at least, my country, the UK) uses laws to criminalize groups of people seems about as old as time itself to me. We don't punish drug use because we care about people taking drugs. We punish drug use because we want to eliminate the influence of 'junkies' on society. We don't punish radical views because we disagree with them. We punish radical views because we want to eliminate their…

> that people don't actually care about the actual act of child abuse as much as they care about the... 'othering' of the perpetrator. It's the idea of a child abuser as being an animal, a strange alien, a completely non-understandable beast, that really riles us up.

I disagree, that is how the media sells papers and gets page clicks, but is that what the man-in-the-street thinks? I'm also from the UK, and to me the vilest part of it is that children have little understanding of these adult things; sex, relationships, normality, an inability to protect themselves from adults. They have a right to be a child during childhood (it is a humanitarian right in many countries 1). It isn't about demonizing a person, it is about being saddened by the loss of a child (within a child's body) and the loss of faith in humanity within myself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rights_of_th...

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