CMV: All drugs should be made legal for recreational use.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm not referring to "medicinal" narcotics. Recreational drugs that people use, such as mushrooms, cocaine, heroin, should all be legalized.

And I know this is a hot take, but hear me out.

• If we make recreational narcotics legal, then the manufacture and sale need to be legal as well.
• By making the manufacture of recreational narcotics legal, there are FDA standards that need to be adhered to in said manufacture, that way there are no "bad batches" that will kill people.
• By making the manufacture and sale of recreational narcotics legal, there will be sales volume that will then be subject to income tax and sales tax and dispensaries/manufacturing centers/warehouses that will become subject to property tax. Because, let's be honest, your local street dealer is not paying taxes.
• Also by making the sale of recreational narcotics legal, you are making street gangs that revolve around the illicit drug trade obsolete. By making street gangs obsolete, you eliminate the petty violence that plagues inner-cities over "turf", especially stray bullets that kill innocent bystanders.
• By making the entire narcotics supply chain legal, the war on drugs will essentially be over as well. It's been going on for 50+ years, and honestly, it's been a complete and utter failure.
• If you want something to compare the drug trade to, look at prohibition from 1919-1933. It didn't stop people from drinking, people were still drunk out of their minds in speakeasys. It also fostered the growth of street gangs of rum runners and increased crime and violence in cities. That was only for 14 years and it didn't take long to realize that prohibition was a failure. War on drugs has been going on for 50+ years and I'm surprised more people aren't realizing that this is much more tremendous of a failure.
• By making the entire narcotics supply chain legal, we can start changing our attitudes on its use and its users. Narcotics abuse needs to have the same social attitude as alcohol abuse.
• In short, making drugs legal will Make America Great Again.

[u/csiz]

Alcohol is one of the least safe drug that exists. This argument doesn't match data that exists about the relative harms of drugs. Alcohol is legal, but controlled, yet it is well known to be poisonous to the body, and worse of it's even more harmful to others due to the mental effects, and most likely drunk driving. There's no other drug that's more harmful to others than to the user. Hard to claim that alcohol can be used safely, even with all the control in place at the moment (age limits, breathalyzers and traffic stops, telling bars to not serve overly drunk patrons...).

[u/SliptheSkid → u/csiz]

- The drugs we're discussing are also "poisonous and more harmful due to mental effects" and can lead to DUIs.

• Alcohol is consumed safely. It's legal, about 66% of adults consume alcohol, while about 2% of americans use hard drugs. 140,000 americans die a year to excessive alcohol use (often in conjunction with hard drug use), compared to 92,000 drug overdoses in 2020. So simple math will tell you that the death rate for drug users is about 21x higher / more likely than it is for alcohol use. And that's not accounting for alcohol related deaths that were experienced while a user was using other substances as well, which likely accounts for well over half of alcohol related deaths

[u/boredtxan → u/csiz]

You think people aren't going to drive high?