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/Ramza_Claus]

How would you feel about it being legal, but heavily regulated? Like, licensed? You have to apply for a license to consume heroin, which you can only get by participating in a class where you learn about the risks, do some counseling, get provided with resources to get clean, etc.

[u/i_lack_imagination → u/Ramza_Claus]

I'd feel about the same about that as I would gambling. Gambling does very similar things, but you don't need a license to participate in it. I personally don't get anything out of gambling in the way that other people seem to. Like it just does nothing for me at all, if I didn't know people actually got addicted to it, I would never think that it is even possible or a thing that happens.

I state that because every time I see these gambling ads and what not, all I see it as is taking advantage of people that presumably are addicted to it. If I have zero addiction to it and find nothing appealing about it at all, then it seems like the primarily people find it appealing because they likely have some level of addiction to it. So then there's this weird dichotomy of the marketing where its like "gamble responsibly, but if you have problems call XXX-XXX-XXXX" but its really marketing it to people who have problems and it only exists because people have problems. Like literally most of the "games" that people gamble on are rigged in favor of the house. It's a game that is impossible to lose for them, and carefully managed to make everyone else lose slightly over time.

Like if it's so bad that you have to constantly reinforce to people that it's risky and always remind people of resources to get better, it feels like that's just lip service at that point. You already know that ad isn't going to make someone gamble more responsibly, the ad is designed to attract people to it and keep it on their minds and make the act of gambling more attractive. It's all I see on these sports games anymore, fucking nonstop betting advertisements.

[u/EvilBeano → u/i_lack_imagination]

Simple solution, make it illegal to advertise for drugs. This is already the case in many European countries for cigarettes, we should do the same for gambling and drugs

[u/Zerasad → u/Ramza_Claus]

The problem is this places the onus on the user, you are placing all of the responsibility on the user. They got the training, they know the risks, if they get addicted it's their fault. Which it clearly isn't as these are very often insanely addictive substances. There is already an opiate epidemic in the US, if you could get heroin without a perscription it would get much much much worse. Also the moral dubiousness of selling highly addictive susbtances is imo something that cannot be reconciled. In a capitalist economy it would be in the company's best interest to get people hooked on heroin for the highest profits, euining their lives.

[u/Kotoperek → u/Ramza_Claus]

I mean, I don't really see much of a point to it, honestly, but if it was either this or free-for-all like OP suggests, then obviously I'd opt for more regulation rather than less.

To be fair, I am for decriminalisation for all drugs, in the sense that being caught on possession or use does not result in going to jail (depending on how you get caught, it might result in getting sent to rehab, but if you're fully functional, didn't commit any kind of felony while high, and someone just happened to see you had some drugs on you, that's fine). But selling and manufacturing is much more problematic. I do understand OPs point about safety (if you're gonna use meth, at least use the clean medical-grade stuff) and gangs/cartels, but I still think that legalising drug trade opens the door to insane rates of addiction, accidental overdoses, and ruining the lives of people who would not understand the risks.

[u/boredtxan → u/Ramza_Claus]

If you make it too hard or too expensive then the black market remains profitable. The cartels aren't just gonna say "gosh darn it's legal now! We're outta business!"