Why not legalize all drugs?

[Dexter]

The War on Drugs is a failure. That is an almost universally accepted truth. Opiate and methamphetamine use is on the rise despite all of our many harsh drug laws. Despite the fact that we spend 80 billion dollars a year fighting drugs. Why keep fighting it? Didn't we learn from prohibition? Our drug war is a boon to organized crime; without it their world falls apart. How will drug lords make a living without illegal drugs? How will dangerous gangs continue to thrive without the illegal drugs they sell? We need to accept that people that want to do drugs are going to do them regardless of the law. After accepting that we need to collectively realize that the most logical option is to stop wasting so many resources fighting them. Instead we should be profiting from them. If we ended the drug war and legalized/taxed drugs we would generate/save a huge amount of money.


"If drugs are legal more kids will use them."

Marijuana use among teenagers has gone down in states that have legalized. Most high school students will tell you it's harder to get a 6 pack than it is to get drugs. Why? Because drugs dealers don't care who they are selling to. A business is going to have to follow laws that won't allow them to sell to minors. Yes, there are loopholes and some minors will still get drugs, but it's a hurdle that doesn't currently exist.

"If drugs are legal our society will be nothing but a bunch of burnouts"

I don't know about any of you, but my decision not to use heroin, meth or some equally bad drug has absolutely nothing to do with the legal status. I don't use them because using them is stupid, and I very much believe most of society chooses not to use those drugs for the same reason. They should be legalized, but like cigarettes we should teach kids about how horrible they are and what they can do to your life. People need to make decisions on their own. It's not the government's place to decide for us what is or isn't an acceptable habit.

[Wingnut]

I'm for it.  We need to find a way to decrease the excess population.  Problem is...  the liberals would spend 1000 times (or More) the money to "cure" and care for the addicts from what they made legal years before than they would have  to enforce the laws against drug usage.. 

[A-Lert]

I've advocated that for years. The quickest, cheapest and cleanest way of improving the gene pool.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

... all drugs?

I've heard from some former addicts that ending up in jail was the only thing that got them to sober up.

I'm certainly in favor of ending the war on drugs per se, just not comfortable with making cocaine and heroine legal.

Certainly pot and less harder drugs.

Maybe a solution where it's distributed by the state? I don't know.

[Frank Cannon]

Yes. Legalize everything. Open hard drug use on the streets will really be great.

[Bigun]

In the year 1900 you could walk in to any apothecary shop in America and buy all the cocaine, heroin, or anything else you had the funds to pay for. Wish it had stayed that way but it didn't. The advent of government welfare and the resultant erosion of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY makes returning to that a VERY problematic notion IMHO!

[Dexter]

Yes. Legalize everything. Open hard drug use on the streets will really be great.

You'll wake up in a jail cell if you get hammered in public. Same should apply to drugs. People already do drugs all the time all over the place.

[Frank Cannon]

You'll wake up in a jail cell if you get hammered in public. Same should apply to drugs. People already do drugs all the time all over the place.

Nobody gets picked up on public drunkeness anymore because police depts are stretched thin. Same policy will happen to the heroin/crack/nitrous users. Most cities you can walk around in public with a lit joint now and the police don't care.

This is going to be the side effect of making bad behavior legal.

[Dexter]

Nobody gets picked up on public drunkeness anymore because police depts are stretched thin.

Yeah, because half of their resources are being spent on arresting kids for smoking pot.

Same policy will happen to the heroin/crack/nitrous users. Most cities you can walk around in public with a lit joint now and the police don't care.

This is going to be the side effect of making bad behavior legal.

They'll care if they have time to care. No more illegal drugs frees up a lot of police resources. Hell, that'd probably improve their response rate to all other crimes now that I think about it.

[oldmomster]

Nobody gets picked up on public drunkeness anymore because police depts are stretched thin. Same policy will happen to the heroin/crack/nitrous users. Most cities you can walk around in public with a lit joint now and the police don't care.

This is going to be the side effect of making bad behavior legal.

New York has decriminalized public urination

I remember when it was illegal to spit on the sidewalk.

[oldmomster]

... all drugs?

I've heard from some former addicts that ending up in jail was the only thing that got them to sober up.

Maybe if we concentrated on the users instead of the producers.

collect welfare? drug test. medicare/medicaid/disability/social security?  drug test.  public housing, public unions, city jobs, federal jobs, unemployment.

drug test them all.  throw their butts in jail for 90 days.  the first time.  full year the second.  move them to work camps along the borders and put them to work.  any guard/agent/govt rep caught smuggling drugs/people gets mandatory life.

we'd have that wall built in a month!

[Dexter]

Maybe if we concentrated on the users instead of the producers.

collect welfare? drug test. medicare/medicaid/disability/social security?  drug test.  public housing, public unions, city jobs, federal jobs, unemployment.

drug test them all.  throw their butts in jail for 90 days.  the first time.  full year the second.  move them to work camps along the borders and put them to work.  any guard/agent/govt rep caught smuggling drugs/people gets mandatory life.

we'd have that wall built in a month!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure drug testing welfare recipients ends up costing more money than it saves.

[oldmomster]

maybe....maybe not.

the actual cost of the random tests and administering them - making people go in for their checks or coming in for their test before cash loaded on their cards - would certainly be job producing, even though they may be govt jobs.  keep it private, might actually break out even with all the benefits you WONT have to pay.

the costs upfront probably will be high.  kinda like deporting illegals.  but in the end, how much does it cost to maintain all the children of these drug culture non-parents in education and health care when they've been neglected, paying their non-participating parents money that does NOT get spent on the kids.

worth it in the long run I think to stop the influx at the least. 

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Maybe if we concentrated on the users instead of the producers.

collect welfare? drug test. medicare/medicaid/disability/social security?  drug test.  public housing, public unions, city jobs, federal jobs, unemployment.

drug test them all.  throw their butts in jail for 90 days.  the first time.  full year the second.  move them to work camps along the borders and put them to work.  any guard/agent/govt rep caught smuggling drugs/people gets mandatory life.

we'd have that wall built in a month!

We already have enough people in jail, IMO. We need less non-violent people in jail and more violent people in jail.

[oldmomster]

well, maybe we could use all the white collar criminals to do the drug testing program - kinda like work release. 

Until ALL children are raised by a better class of parent, there is NO hope of stopping the drug epidemic.  the work ethic is dead, but there are no jobs anyway. 

want to go the other way, legalize ALL drugs?  OK, so the jails will be filled with the druggies who committed violent crimes before they got locked up.  you end up with a whole lotta victims first, then the jail time. 

I'd prefer to go the testing route.  Take away the goodies.

Think you've moved away from the problem?  Rude awakenings for alot of people when they found drug labs in the pretty picturesque towns where everyone trimmed their lawns with a nail clipper on the weekends.

Maybe there are no fixes.  Maybe the cities will become like scenes from "Escape from New York" where there are so many criminals that they just close the tunnels and bridges and keep them all there.  cheaper than flying them off to a penal colony, anyway!

[LMAO]

This is going to be the side effect of making bad behavior legal.

There are two unavoidable facts when it comes to drugs and if we legalize them
1)The Drug War was and remains a costly failure

2) The law of unintended consequences will rear it's ugly head if we legalize them all

I have a fairly libertarian mindset when it comes to the thinking of "I don't care what consenting, legal adults do as long as it doesn't infringe on me" but as we have seen with alot of other issues, many times it does end up infringing on others and I believe that blanket legalization of all drugs will do just that

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

The "drug war" cannot be won, it can only be managed. That is my opinion.

[EasyAce]

The "drug war" cannot be won, it can only be managed. That is my opinion.

It can't even be managed. That's been so for long enough.

The War on Drugs is over. We lost.

[TomSea]

The other alternative is do like Singapore and treat any users and sellers harsh, harsh penalties. Maybe that would work but I don't think the public would go along with that.

[Frank Cannon]

The other alternative is do like Singapore and treat any users and sellers harsh, harsh penalties. Maybe that would work but I don't think the public would go along with that.

Great idea.....but you are right.

[A-Lert]

Great idea.....but you are right.

That is exactly the reason a right wing conservative won't win an election in the foreseeable future.

[Wingnut]

That is exactly the reason a right wing conservative won't win an election in the foreseeable future.

Well well well...The Click of the A-Lert High Heeled boy is back in town.