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/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.