Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I have a problem with a lot of the legal structure and incentives. If you measure in number of arrests you aren't solving the problems. I'm not sure there's any good metric to measure that. To take an analogy I'll mention the drug war. The main target was always low level drug dealers and users. They're easy to arrest and easy to say you're doing something. But they are fairly inconsequential to the busin…
I mean, the problem with the War on Drugs is that the drugs were only ever a symptom—while it's true that some small percentage of people would try, and get addicted to, drugs otherwise, the vast majority of addicts were people trying to fill a major hole in their lives. Treating addiction as a disease instead of a moral failing or a crime, legalizing drugs, and making sure that people who want to quit have resources…
No argument here, and it should be unsurprising I agree, since I'm arguing to not go after users. But also remember we can say the same about internet fraud. I'm all for addressing the roots of the problem. Big fan of ensuring there's a floor to living standards. But admittedly that's not the whole problem and fixing these things is incredibly complex. But I would say treating the addiction is a different side since that's downstream of production. Though complex because we do need to produce some drugs but we shouldn't need to spill blood to do so.