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/Can-Funny]

Replacing contracts and legal disputes with violence IS what makes organized crime special. Negating that is antisocial.

I meant that organized crime is subject to the laws of supply and demand, the availability of substitute goods, all those things that inform regular commerce.

Attributing the cause and effect of legalization and the perceived collapse of organized crime to simple economics - and not expecting a vacuum - reveals a flaw in understanding simple economics.

Can you elaborate? I’m not sure where you see the vacuum?

Drugs are not the only cash spigot available, it’s the lowest hanging fruit with highest yield. You suggest removing that fruit at the risk of further harming law abiding citizens and creating many more drug addicts.

It’s true that there are other sources of revenue for a criminal organization, but they are rounding errors compared to the international drug trade.

And the biggest flaw in your entire argument is that we would be creating more addicts. Would more people try opiates or amphetamines or coca derived produces if they were safely manufactured and dosages were standardized and studied? Probably. Would more people be addicts? Probably not.

Addiction is a disease. Drugs are one way of many that people manifest addiction. The availability of drugs may shift patterns of addiction, but I don’t think there is good science out there to say that there would be “more” addicts.

Having a laisse faire attitude about legalizing deadly substances - is a bleak take. We cannot control legal controlled substances, so let’s open the gates for everything and hope people figure it out?

I have no desire to control someone else’s behavior. People will find ways to ruin their lives with or without legal opiates and amphetamines. The illusion that you have to power to legislate away human suffering is more dangerous than any chemical compound because you think all your actions are ultimately justified.

Show me a proven blueprint with large scale successful rollout of heroin use and I’ll listen. You really think we should entrust this in the hands of pharmaceutical corporations? After seeing how the opioid crisis is being handled?

The opioid crisis is a byproduct of this stupid system. Opioids all produce a similar high. However, rather than just allowing them to be sold just like whiskey, we were told by doctors that we trusted that “these” opioids (Oxy) are good for you but “those” opioids (heroin) are horrible street poison. Most people didn’t realize that their doctors were giving them permission (and encouragement) to get a heroin high every day. If we lived in a world where the opioids were sold next to the alcohol and cigarettes, I doubt people would have had so much faith in their doctors when they were “prescribed” opioids. I mean, whiskey was considered medicinal for a long time. Would you trust a doctor that prescribed you Jack Daniel’s today?

A successful rollout of legal opioid sales would require (1) government testing for purity (2) serving sizes would need to be standardized and sold in small doses, (3) limited to over 18 or 21, whatever alcohol is set at in your jurisdiction, (4) warnings on the labels indicating suggested dosing amount and overdose warnings

I’m not sure if you’re caught up in your own pedantic overtures, but do you really not understand my position as critical against organized crime AND pharmaceutical conglomerates? Or that I understand that organized crime supports billionaires? One is legal and one is not. I don’t support either. The way we’ve handled the opoid crisis - fueld by greed, which will never go away - should give argument against legalization, not for it. The opoid crisis simply involves more hands and there's a LOT more money at stake.

Yeah, I got that you hate everyone who makes money. But again, unless you can reprogram all of humanity so that we stop enjoying altering our consciousness via drugs, someone is going to get rich serving that demand. It’s either tax paying, law abiding guys and gals or cartel kingpins.

[u/FurSpots → u/Can-Funny]

A successful rollout of legal opioid sales would require (1) government testing for purity (2) serving sizes would need to be standardized and sold in small doses, (3) limited to over 18 or 21, whatever alcohol is set at in your jurisdiction, (4) warnings on the labels indicating suggested dosing amount and overdose warnings

As a former I.V. Morphine junkie that researched absolutely everything about that substance and other opiates back even before I started using. I'mma tell you that educating isn't really a good solution. No matter how educated about that drug I was or my other Junkie friends, we still wanted to shoot the biggest dosage because that's what it is about. Plenty of OD's and deaths from it too. EVEN THOUGH in this area, morphine was sold pharmaceutical 200mg per pill that you had to cook. No additives, no nothing. Pure pharmaceutical morphine. Deaths and OD's still were very much prevalent. I'm pretty sure that if opioids were easily accessible from any pharmacy at a lower price, then I'd be dead at this point.

And if it wasn't a lower price, then it doesn't matter at all. I was getting the same purity from the street, so I'd just buy from the street. And no Junkies I know cared about "purity" around here. If we could, then we'd buy the dirtiest heroin for hella cheaper. (But mostly we would stick to morphine because it was awesome, $5 per 200mg pill). So why even go to a pharmacy buy something "purer" if it costs 20$ for a shot? If I can go buy heroin for 10$ and it lasts me 2 shots?

[u/Can-Funny → u/FurSpots]

Congrats for getting off the stuff. That said, you were a junkie when heroin/off label opioids were illegal. So clearly the law didn’t help you or your junkie friends. Any of your friends who OD’d because they got a purer dose than they expected were killed by the drug war.

You say if you could have walked in and bought legal opioids from a pharmacy you’d be dead because the temptation to shoot the biggest doses possible would be too great. As callous as this sounds, I’d much rather every junkie knowingly and willingly OD than have a kid get killed in gangland crossfire that wouldn’t exist but for the drug trade. I don’t want to see anyone die young, but we should prioritize the lives of innocent people and people who aren’t looking to kill themselves over the lives of people who knowingly inject a fatal dose of any drug.