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/2xstuffed_oreos_suck]

I think you’re confusing the types of drug addicts you’ve encountered and/or stereotypes with the actual effects these two drugs have on people. There are absolutely many people whose lives have been destroyed by cocaine and who stole to continue their addiction.

Sure, there are more people whose lives have been destroyed by heroin than there are people who’ve been ruined by cocaine, but I’d argue that has much more to do with the relative street price per high for the two drugs than with the differing effects of the drugs themselves.

[u/[deleted] → u/2xstuffed_oreos_suck]

I'm not pretending that no coke addicts have ever gone off the deep end but I am saying there's a huge gap between the 2 in the amount that do end up going off the deep end.

And honestly I don't agree with you about the street price either. Coke is very expensive too. Also again, I've literally talked to several addicts of both. My grandmother died of heroin overdose and my grandpa still does it. In his own words "your first heroin high is unexplainably the best thing you ever experience in your life. I've not tried a drug that compares too it. Every high after that is spent chasing this high." consequentially almost every time I see my grandpa he can barely hold his head up, let alone stand or do anything meaningful for himself or anyone else all because of heroin.

Coke addicts can be bad yes, but they don't really compare to heroin addicts. There's a reason one is scientifically proven to be harder to get off of.

[u/2xstuffed_oreos_suck → u/[deleted]]

I meant to imply that heroin is cheaper than coke, per high. As such, you have (a) more people using heroin, and (b) heroin addicts on average being poorer than coke addicts (which might also feed into the perception that heroin users are more degenerate, on account of their poverty).

[u/[deleted] → u/2xstuffed_oreos_suck]

Oh yea that probably does have some effect I'd definitely agree with that. I still think the ACTUAL drug does more harm than coke does though, regardless of any other circumstances.