Decriminalize *all * drugs now

The drug laws were first used as tools to manage classes of people (Blacks, latinos and asians). The racist and classist origins of these laws are undeniable.

The prison industrial complex is built of this mish-mash of drug laws that weren't created to deal with drugs at all. Now public prisons are crowded and expensive and more likely to turn non violent drug offenders into violent criminals down the road and as created a private, for profit system that treats inmates as tradable commodities.

This overly costly system is used in lieu in of less costly intervention and rehabilitation.

It has created a system of winners and losers, with jurisdictions going primarily after the low hanging fruit of the poor and minorities and all but ignoring more affluent drug users. Other winners are the pharmaceutical corporations that are supplying society with large quantities of dangerous narcotics, without any legal liability at all, as well as lawyers and politicians who make their bones on the powerless in our courts.

Prohibition created an underground society which makes the people who are drawn into it susceptible to violent crime and the possible dangerous effects of some of the more poisonous of substances, like meth. Also, it has sustained an underground economy, which has the far ranging effect of funding other violent drug wars at home and abroad.

The Drug War is the fuel of a pervasive fascist police state and a coercive kleptocracy through the use of seizure laws.

Decriminalization, would reduce the incidence of police state tactics and policies and reduce the expense of running our police forces, courts and prisons. It would help reduce the demand for drugs with the promotion of intervention and rehabilitation and by making it less glamourous.

It would undercut an underground criminal class and allow the law enforcement and judicial system to apply their resources towards violent crime and white collar crime.

It would also allow jurisdictions to reclassify various types of narcotics in a more common sense manner and promote more effective and equitable responses to wide spread drug use.

I've never used any kind of illegal narcotic or misused legal narcotics ever. I don't even smoke and rarely drink. If all drugs disappeared from the face of the Earth right now, it wouldn't affect me personally at all.

However, I do recognize that the Drug War has much more detrimental effects on society and the lives or ordinary people than beneficial ones.

Decriminalization is the right thing to do.

Without legalizing and controlling the manufacturing and distribution of illegal substances, you are ignore the vast majority of problems related to drugs (which isn't the actual drug use). Decriminalization simply allows users to partake, while keeping the keys to the industry in the hands of the black market.

There is a large difference between the two actions, and their impact on the market. There is a documentary that explains this decently called "The Union" (about Canada and marijuana).

As I said before, it would allow for more common sense approaches to be applied down the road.

But Im more concerned about the impact of the black market than actual drug use. I don't fancy anything that leaves them in charge, and may give them more power.

With legal controlled drugs, harm reduction & education is much easier to administrate, and it addresses the actual drug use.

If harm reduction is the goal, legalization is the best method to achieve it.

Look, I've seen the horrendous things that meth does to people. To say that outlawing it's sale is more harmful than the complete and total degradation and destruction of a human life indicates a very different value system.

Such drugs as heroin and meth should be controlled to some extent, because they are so damaging to human life and society. The system we have now doesn't work. We need to find another system that limits the damage to the adult humans stupid enough to use heroin, Meth, or other destructive substance. Most likely, they will set up meth and heroin bars in areas of deep poverty in order to kill as many of the poor as possible. That tends to be the way these things work.

A lot. I spent 13 years as a Corrections psychologist in the rural Meth capital of Wisconsin.

I understand and sympathize with all the arguments about the evils of this particular drug. Nevertheless, I favor legalization of all drugs.

I have two reasons for this position.

The first one is that attempts to control meth with laws & cops & prisons is that it hasn't worked and it's not going to work; meanwhile, our liberties and wealth continue to evaporate into the Drug War.

Second, most of the time people start using meth because they can't get their drug of choice. Legalization would make other drugs more available & would reduce the demand for meth.

Let me add that the people who turn to meth generally do so because they have "snakes in their heads" from very bad histories of neglect, failures of attachment, and outright abuse of all kinds. They do not respond particularly well to the sort of group treatment that they generally get. This doesn't mean that the group treatment is bad or useless; However, the offered treatment doesn't go fare enough in treating the origins of the "snakes," and until those origins are dealt with, the addicts will continue to seek ways to anesthetize the snakes, and that means drug seeking. Or if not seeking, then certainly craving.

No, we don't. There is no reason to think we would treat methamphetamine more laxly.

If you look at the number of teenagers killing themselves while drunk, not wo well. How many dead children do we see as acceptable? Is is tood if we kill a thousand a year, five thousand.

I agree that our current system of controls on drugs do not work. But simply kicking open the doors and saying, "If it feels good do it." Is the wrong answer.

Simply legalizing these drugs isn't an answer.

WTF?! That's quite a leap from legalizing drugs.

Educate people to the actual effects of these drugs, then let adults decide what they want to partake in. Humans have been altering their perception with various substances for ages.

The idiotic drug laws are based on years of propaganda disseminated by the government. They are still telling us that pot is as dangerous as heroin.

When I first tried pot, I knew instantly that everything I had been told was total bullshit. I couldn't wait to try heroin. I figured they were probably lying about that as well. In that sense, I guess pot is a gateway drug. If the government told the truth about drugs, maybe the "gateway" effect would be diminished.

Harm reduction means that we put the black market out of business, and stop locking people up for crimes with no victim (with the possible exception of the user). Of course there should be a minimum age for buying the legalized version of these substances. I would suggest 16 years old for pot, and 18 for everything else. I would hate to see teen stoners have to wait till they're 18 to get pot, or risk arrest. Either way, they'll figure out how to get it, just like they do alcohol.

Alchohol on one of the single largest causes of death in teenagers. They go through years of being taught that it is bad.

Education isn't enough.

Harm reduction does not mean that nobody will ever do anything stupid, ever again. It means just what it says.

Moderate use of alcohol is no big deal. Should it be prohibited again because some people choose to abuse it?

Prohibition is a simple-minded solution, and it doesn't work. It creates lucrative black markets, which naturally lead to violence.

The laws are worse than the drugs.

that alcohol is bad.

It is NOT bad in and of itself. Too much is bad. Too often is bad. Driving under the influence is bad. Drinking a beer after cutting the grass is NOT bad. A glass of wine with dinner is NOT bad. A shot of brandy when you come in from the cold is NOT bad.

Kids KNOW they're being lied to. They've SEEN people drink responsibly. No wonder the "education" isn't effective. Why should they believe anything you say? Try telling them the truth for a change.

Do they work in every case? No. Does prohibition work better? Not likely

Why does this conversation ALWAYS have to involve someone pulling out the old, tired, "It's for the CHILDREN!" crap.

I can't support legal meth, sorry. It's worse than poison.

Manufactured by Abbott Laboratories. Used for narcolepsy, as a diet aid, and a few other things.

There is a middle ground between prohibition and a totally free market. We could do meth by prescription, we could go to a system of recreational drug pharmacists who dispense but also monitor, we could require users to be licensed...

How much out on a limb would that be? There are too many people in jail for either small amounts and personal use.

What did Portugal recently do? How do other countries deal with drugs? Damn, do we need to re-invent the wheel for every problem?

as a means to diminish and disenfranchise the American People from their government and livelihoods.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, MrScorpio.

Without getting the distinction between decrim and legalization...

would mean that you wouldn't go to jail for drug use but they wouldn't be legal. (one assumes drug manufacturing and distribution would still be illegal but drug use would result in at worst a fine or more likely counseling/therapy).

Drug legalization would be, drugs are legal, you can get it if you want it, with I assume at least some restrictions akin to alcohol in that you'd probably need a license to sell drugs, it would be illegal to give to under 18, etc.

The problem with the latter is that like alcohol and cigarettes, minors would get their hands on the other drugs. I don't like the idea of kids using coke, or meth, or heroin in greater numbers than they do now. I can't support legalization but have no problem decriminalizing use of any drugs.

Those hooked should be given help to get off the drugs, not prison time. Manufacturers and distributors should still be prosecuted and the sentences for large scales of both should be even more severe.

"The problem with the latter is that like alcohol and cigarettes, minors would get their hands on the other drugs"

It is more likely that by decriminalizing drugs, which allows violent cartels to remain in control of manufacturing and distribution, that more minors will be able to get their hands on these drugs. Why? Well, where they are sold there is no ID check, the seller is already doing something illegal to make money, and the seller themselves doesn't have to be licensed and follow any rules--IOW, they are there to make money illegally no matter what.

By legalizing, you can regulate who gets it, how much they get (to prevent resale), and where they can get it from (to make sure rules are being followed). Will this work 100% of the time? No...look at Oxycodone. But it will eliminate illegal vulture cartels preying upon anyone with money, including children (and sometimes they give free samples of addictive substances).

I think I may have left out the word, "into." The distinction isn't important to me so much as the overarching solution to quit kicking in people's doors and shooting their dogs.

I see that what I said was, in fact, quite foolish.

And, I credit you with taking a patient, explanatory tone in your reply. You're one of those that makes DU a great place!

Thanks.

The drug war propaganda has seeped into the American psyche right to the very core, it will never be rooted out now. Even here on DU there are plenty that don't want to see the drug war end.

If the world was the Edgar Bergen radio show, America would be Mortimer Snerd.

People are so used to hearing law enforcement misuse the word (as a pejorative) that even non LE people misuse it.

Regardless, it's a good post and an important one.