a lot of people unfortunately have died or harmed themselves because they injected fentanyl when they thought they had heroin. as a recreational drinker, i can tell you i’ve never cracked open a stella artois and found myself drinking whiskey. it’s never happened and i would bet my life it wouldn’t ever happen.
when america went through alcohol prohibition, people would try to make booze in their bathtubs and sometimes they got the chemistry wrong, because they’re not chemists, they made methanol instead of ethanol, and guess what methanol BLINDS PEOPLE. as a recreational drinker, i live with absolutely no fear that if i buy a whiskey brand i’ve never tried before, i won’t risk going BLIND because of it.
obviously cocaine is still used in places where it is illegal. if we can hire americans to produce and inspect cocaine the same way alcohol and cigarettes are regulated, you won’t risk buying a bag that is 90% filler, or who knows what’s in it. i have high faith that i’ll know what’s in a tylenol, i have low faith in a dime bag of supposed coke. and who benefits from me in that position? criminals and shady people. there should be no more reason for my bartender to water down my beers than for my coke dealer to stomp on my bag.
we’ve seen what happened with alcohol prohibition, and we saw so many of those problems completely disappear after prohibition ended. the solution to the current drug problem in the usa is the same.
legalize all drugs
decriminalize all drugs
decriminalize all drugs and legalize pot and mushrooms
keep hard drugs illegal but decriminalize pot and mushrooms
keep hard drugs illegal but legalize pot and mushrooms
I’ve changed my mind 6 times since voting, please add bastard option. I mean, I’d be all for legalization if I could have other things too like affordable healthcare, better social services, etc…
P.S. btw who the fuck are you to say i’m not allowed to enjoy cocaine without doing business with a criminal syndicate and risk imprisonment (for having fun)
if someone is so depressed that they just want to drop out of society and get high all day, then they’re sick and we should give them compassion and help them achieve their dreams, no matter how small their dreams are. socialized housing, socialized food, clothing, internet and netflix AND socialized heroin. that’s how you build a great society.
it wouldn’t be a bad idea for doctors to, if not write prescriptions, at least give health checkups for people who want to use cocaine and heroin.
hey, mr businessman, want to party with cocaine this weekend? it would be a lot better if a doc gave you a checkup first to warn you about heart attacks or stroke.
hey mr heroin junkie, your liver is at 40%, if you want to stop now i can help you with that. if you’re not ready yet, i’ll see you in a month for your refill.
it wouldn’t be perfect, but it’d be about 100x better than what we’ve got now.
Taxing the hell out of it to use for all kinds of things (health care a big one) is the only way a pathway to legalization could work. It would obviously need to have age limits like alcohol, as well. That’s a lot different than de-criminalizing drugs where there wouldn’t be any real regulation on it and does absolutely nothing about the problems that come out of prolonged drug use other than not putting people in jail.
In my opinion, legalizing is way better than de-criminalizing, because it still gets rid of jail time and it can be heavily regulated and taxed.
To take away the incentive to do it in the first place. If you make it super cheap with no or low taxes, a lot of people are going to get hooked. In the high tax scenario, you have to want to do it, and be willing to pay it to do it. Think of it like cigarettes. You don’t solve any problems by de-criminalizing it other than making jails less populated. It has to be legalized to begin to solve any of the major problems that come from drug use. Otherwise, you’re best off doing nothing.
Like Taylor Sheridan told me in relation to Sicario (not personally), nothing can change in the drug wars until people here stop using. They’re not going to stop using, so make money from it to help people when they decide they want to stop. Think about how many kids stop drinking when it becomes legal for them at 21. If it’s legal, the curiosity is gone.
if we mass produced cocaine and heroin in the usa it would be so cheap whatever tax we put on it would basically be the final price. overall i would want to give drug users a price cut compared to what they’re paying now, along with a guarantee of quality.
heroin being cheap and legal isn’t making you want to use it more. taxing it won’t make people want to use it less. it’s already stupid expensive, some people end up spending all their money on it. “all your money” is about as expensive as it gets, so i don’t think you’re gonna price anyone in or out of using heroin. so do the least harm and make it as cheap as possible. give the hopeless junkies enough money for a life outside of using.
I don’t have a strong opinion so I may just take your point, but if you make the price too high, then people who are addicted who can’t afford it will turn to or continue to do extreme things to get enough money to pay for the habit and/or gamble on cheaper alternatives in the black market.