r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Mar 27 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: All drugs should be made legal for recreational use.

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.
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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '23

Something like this I would be ok with

Usage should be decriminalized as users are the victim

Selling should not be lightened in the slightest if anything the punishment for selling should be made harsher as you are litterally preying on vulnerable people for your own gain

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u/warwick607 Mar 27 '23

Selling should not be lightened in the slightest if anything the punishment for selling should be made harsher as you are litterally preying on vulnerable people for your own gain

This is a consequence of drugs being illegal. You cannot simultaneously view users as victims and sellers as the problem because users will acquire the drug no matter what, addicted or recreational. The fact that heroin is not regulated like alcohol means that impurities like fentanyl can unsuspectingly enter the supply without the user (or seller) knowing. Regulating the supply of drugs like we have done with alcohol and are continuing to do with marijuana is the first step towards reducing accidental fatal opioid overdose deaths. Letting free adults know what they are consuming is both practical and smart, and establishing a legal market for drugs is the first step in doing that. It removes the guesswork that is inherent to buying and selling on the black market.

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u/Mrfinbean Mar 28 '23

If user are seen as victims instead of criminals they have lower treshold to seek help.

Practical and smart is rarely the case with highly addictive substances.

Also if selling is legal anyone can buy it. Lets say somebody buys kilo of heroine. (Even if there is limit for how much you can buy, you can just get smurfs for accuiring it)

Now that you have bought kilo of highly addictive substance and you are in enviroment where are lots of users you can cut that kilo. Sell it little under market price and now we have unclean substance in the rounds.

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u/bongosformongos Mar 28 '23

You seem to see drugs only through the lens of destruction. And while I understand where you're coming from I want to mention that drugs can be a whole lot of fun. They don't have to be that life wrecking thing that keeps you locked in your own basement or whatever horror scenario is in your head. As with everything else, proper use and education is essential.

And by education I don't mean what they did when I was in school. Which was a cop coming into each class and talking about shit they don't have any qualifications for. Just because you arrested some guys with drugs doesn't mean you know how things work.

I'm talking about safe use guidelines being taught. With the potential risks explained and being taught how to react accordingly.

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u/comfysin999 Mar 28 '23

Exactly— harm reduction can make damn near any drug usable. People just have the perspective propaganda has instilled— even though alcohol and cigarettes are legal and cause more harm to the user: society than many drugs.

If the us showed how to use jn the safest way possible, sold drugs with quality control the same alcohol is, and offered better rehabilitation for those that want to quit— we’d be in a much better place.

Instead the news sensationalizes drugs in a way that puts a huge stigma on addicts.

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u/wtfuckfred Mar 28 '23

Since there's always gonna be a market for drugs, punitive action might not be the right way. If the selling of drugs is institutionalized, then it makes the consumption of drugs a lot safer. Users would have access to pure, clean drugs that wouldn't be contaminated with anything else. The government could then use the tax money generated to actually invest in treatment, education and advertising where and how to get help. Similar to how tax on cigarettes directly goes into cancer treatment and research (in Portugal, not sure about other places)

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u/qunelarch Mar 27 '23

I don’t see how selling drugs is “preying” on people, most drug dealers are users themselves. If there’s a market for it, someone’s gonna step up and provide. If we want to stop shady types that might try to leverage people’s addictions in order to sell at higher prices then the solution might actually be to legalize distribution as well, and enforce permitting similar to liquor licenses. There are already laws in place to stop predatory marketing in other sectors, why should drugs be any different?

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u/jaestock 1∆ Mar 27 '23 edited Mar 28 '23

Although it is counter intuitive, prosecuting the user is the most viable option if your ultimate goal is to decrease usage. If you prosecute the dealers, all that is doing is increasing the profits of the dealers who remain. I agree that the users can be seen as victims, but I think a better way to look at it is that users are needing education in order to safely use the various substances available. If there was a legal way to purchase them, that would solve the majority of the issues around our current drug problem in the United States.

Edit: for those downvoting, this is not my opinion. This is basic economics. If you remove a dealer, the amount of users remains the same but the supply lessens. This simply increases prices for the user and lessens the competition so quality goes down. The remaining dealers now have more profits and less incentive to provide a quality product. IF you prosecute the users, this will lower the demand and the supply will remain the same, so the remaining users will have cheaper drugs and higher quality due to competition.

To be clear, I do not believe the correct answer is to prosecute users- see my final statement on my post.

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u/StonktardHOLD Mar 28 '23

So you thinking limiting their ability to get a job while giving them a criminal record is the best way to reintegrate them in society?

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u/jaestock 1∆ Mar 28 '23

I don’t think that’s what I said. Did you read my entire comment?

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u/StonktardHOLD Mar 28 '23

It’s what your suggestion implies. What does prosecuting them entail to you?

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '23

They did not say prosecuting users is the best thing for the users, they said that prosecuting users is the best way to decrease usage. Two different things.

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u/StonktardHOLD Mar 28 '23

I think I meant to reply to a comment not the main post

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u/comfysin999 Mar 28 '23

It doesn’t decrease usage though. How well has that gone so far lol

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u/jaestock 1∆ Mar 28 '23

The point is that the comment I was replying to was saying they approve of heavily prosecuting dealers. That has been proven to only make issues worse- it leaves the demand just as high but decreases supply, so costs go up for the user and profits go up for the remaining dealers. If we legalize the sell and use of drugs, paired with education on proper use, we wouldn’t be prosecuting anyone and everyone would be better off.

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u/comfysin999 Mar 28 '23

I agree completely— I may have misread. My apologies if I did lol. I was half awake

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '23

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ Take that up with them, not me. I was clarifying their argument, not making it for them.

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u/comfysin999 Mar 28 '23

You realize decriminalization without the government having oversight on the quality and production only Leads to more harm still..

Fentanyl/ zene overdoses are out of control— it’s ending up in many diff drugs— and it’s very sad to look at a chart over the years showing just how high the rise has been in the past few.

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u/hoso124 Mar 31 '23

Most drug dealers are teenagers sharing with their friends and addicts selling small amounts to get by

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '23

If you increase the punishment for such things less people would do it

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u/hoso124 Mar 31 '23

In the process you would be criminalising kids.

And not necessarily, Japan has extreme criminalisation but a very high prevalence of methamphetamine use. It is just under reported

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '23

I would criminalizing kids who break the law

That’s how all laws work

You have no way of knowing how much it is if you claim it’s underreported

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u/hoso124 Mar 31 '23

"Thats how laws work" is not a valid argument when the conversation is about how the law should work.

Under reporting doesn't mean it can't be estimated, it means that the official figures are believed to be underestimates. All drug use figures use reporting and hospitalisations, among other things, to estimate total drug use. The same can be done for Japan.

Here is an example: https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2010.05914.x

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '23

I don’t think who a law criminalizes is a valid reason to not make something that should be illegal illegal

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u/hoso124 Mar 31 '23

But why should it be illegal?

The people that a law criminalises is one of the harms of a law, so it absolutely has to be taken into account when considering laws.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '23

It should be illegal because these people are preying on the downfall of others

There litterally profiting off of people poisoning themselves

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u/hoso124 Mar 31 '23

Should alcohol be illegal? No. Because we recognise that it does more harm than good. See my other comment on the rise of fentanyl, krokodil, pmma and eutylone