Your position on Legalizing drugs

The way I see it, possession and use shouldn't be a crime no matter what drug is involved. Decriminalize all drugs, and only arrest people if they committ actual crimes. Most drug convictions in this country are simple, non-violent possession charges. No other crimes committed.

 

I think they should all be legal for adults, with far more severe penalties for contributing to deliquency of minors.

Best case scenario- tax the **** out of em and put all the revenue into awareness education so folks can make a fully informed decision on whether to ruin themselves or not.

And Im generally considered to lean right.

 

I'm a little bit ambivalent about it and see it as a tradeoff.
Sure, we could legalize drugs, but there are a lot of stupid people out there and then we'd probably have to start putting more controls on other things.

Perhaps there should be some type of special area where those who want to use drugs could go, far away from everyone else. Sort of like how they have prostitution in some parts of Nevada.
Also those who decide to go would give up some of their rights and be potentially subject to mandatory court orders if was determined the drug use was detrimental to their life. In extreme cases, hopeless drug addicts would be able to live out the remainder of their lives in this area, so at least their lifestyle choice would not negatively impact everyone else surrounding them.

 

I live in California
I tried medical marijuana a while after it became legal
I thought it might help with some insomnia that i had

Imo, the people i encountered in the”dispensary” were mostly not there for a legitimate medical reason. So the whole thing seemed like a bit of a sham

But, that said, it seemed much more civilized than my younger experience getting pot. There was none of the skulking around. And, more importantly, the source would ONLY SELL marijuana. There was no possiblity to get up sold to some other drug

Over all, my take on pot legalization is that i do not see a problem. I certainly would oppose recriminalization. This has made me more open to some sort of further legalization... though i do not know what drugs would be involved or how they might be sold

 

I am conflicted on this. Years ago, I was a meth junkie.(meaning I had a death wish and shot the s*it) No smoking or snorting for me. Running full speed, right out the gate.
On one hand, I question the constitutional authority. On the other hand, I have seen meth first hand. Legalizing that scourge of mankind, cant end well.

 

The place is called a saloon or a barroom. Please remember that Alcohol and tobacco are both drugs. I don't see any more people that abuse alcohol to excess would abuse Drugs. You are drawing from the same population of people for recreational drug use. People that don't drink are not going to start to do hard drugs. However, I know that they are pot smokers who do not abuse alcohol.

 

Why should they be locked up and not alcoholics? So you are ok with sending guys who commit street level drug sales to support thier habit in prison without guards or chained to a wall? Nice. We already have 1% of our population in prison.

 

I was just going to say the same thing. Great minds think alike? lol

 

Dude It was the left wing Progressives under Roosevelt that began the drug war. Libertarians have been pushing for drug legalization since the party was founded back in the seventies. Libertarians are as close to anarchists as you can get in this country currently. It's one of the reasons they seldom get more than 5% of the vote. That and their insipid view that the rest of the world doesn't matter to america's well being.

Now back to the thread topic, Marijuana yes it's going to happen anyway and we will regret it eventually if not immediately, The idea that it will take a major bite out of organized crime is largely ludicrous. There are however drugs that are just too damn dangerous, Note the opioid crisis which is largely the result of the quasi legalization of opioids.

 

The problem with Opioid addiction is not the habit itself but the ancillary result of the use. If the drug was $10 a day addicts would not commit crimes to get their fix. Most addicts are not even getting high they are just getting enough so that they don't get dopesick. The biggest problems are the crime that results from them feeding a $100 + a day habit and the switching to cheaper street drugs mixed with Fetynal.

Ex-alcholics can still work (likewise many active alcholics) Drug users are shut out of employment.

 

You drive impaired you go to jail. Marijuana keeps you impaired for a longer period time than. I no longer do either, it simply isn't worth the consequences.

As for the comparison, I can be pretty damn drunk and still picture a chess board in my mind well enough to best most people playing blind fold, stoned I can barely spell chess.

 

And well you should. But what does that have to do with decriminalizing drugs? If you drive drunk or under the influence of drugs you should be prosecuted to the extent of the law as it is now.

 

Pot users are dangerous drivers but in a totally different and less onerous way than drunk drivers.

 

But how much of that difference has to do with the fact that it is still illegal in a lot of place.

 

Weed needs to be legalized and it's sale regulated so that it can create a lucrative new taxation stream. Citizens should grow their own for personal use, but not legally permitted to sell without a license.

I would also support safe places for junkies to shoot up - rather than having them use dirty needles. I don't see this solution as enabling but, rather, a way to ensure safety for the junkies and the general public. Perhaps, with help, they can recover.

 

For whatever reason, you seem to have forgotten that the arch conservative William Buckley advocated strongly and smartly for ending the drug prohibition decades ago. So too has the Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman. Gary Becker and more. Their position, among other things, was the correct one that the government has no authority at all to tell the citizen what he may or may not ingest into his own body. The damage caused to society by prohibition is far greater than the damage caused to any individual using.

 

There are now ways to drug test - roadside - for pot. In Canada, R.I.D.E. programs are set up all over the place to catch drunk drivers and, now, they are able to catch people driving high.

 

All drugs should be legalized. Portugal is a good example of what happens when all drugs are decriminalized.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ortugal/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d8246920ad96
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-...-all-drugs-here-s-what-s-happening#.h6ctTbYjl

But it will never happen in the US because the incarceration for $profit industry heavily depends on criminalizing everything.

 

none- why would it? It is still going to be against the law to drive under the influence of pot and alcohol. If you are irresponsible enough to drive impaired your going to do so whether the drug is legal (alcohol) or illegal (pot/coke whatever.) You're stoned either way and are still dangerous.

 

Cannabis does not significantly impair driving: study

Nimbin’s Hemp Embassy is calling on police across Australia to ‘back off’ following the publication of a study that found cannabis use caused almost no impairment on driving.

The study found that the impairment that it did cause was similar to that observed under the influence of a legal alcohol limit.

Researchers at the University of Iowa’s National Advanced Driving Simulator carried out the study, sponsored by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Institute of Drug Abuse, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

https://www.echo.net.au/2018/02/cannabis-not-significantly-impair-driving-study/

 

Legalize everything. The government should have no involvement in what people put into their bodies, period.

 

I'm a teetotaler so I'm not always up on alcoholic things. Anyhow, my career has been in design engineering. I used to smell this smell on quite a few engineers. Kind of like how Catholic Priests always have that smell about them. Anyhow, one day I walked into an engineer's office and caught him with a little bottle of gin. At that point, I realized that that engineer smell was gin.

A while back I switched from engineering to art, even though my art is engineered. In the art world, marihuana use is rampant. While I could have been fired in engineering jobs, for toking, in the art world, people smoke marihuana on the job. I've even wondered if there was a way that I could write off marihuana expenses, as business expenses. After all, some of my best work has been done while high.


As to street people, there is little difference between the wet brained drunks and heroin addicts. They both wake up in the morning looking for a fix to keep them from getting sick. Neither lives long.

 

I've been smoking marihuana, on and off for 40 years, even while driving. I've never been in an auto accident. I haven't had a ticket since I was a teenager.

 

And I remember where Buckley took a boat out into international waters and smoked a joint.

I grew up watching firing line. At times I got the feeling that he was a bit liberal all along, and just pretending to be a conservative, to show how luny conservative thought can be. Kind of like a serious version of Stephen Colbert's original persona.

His shows were discussions with intellectuals, so the talk was entirely polite - without the trash talking that is so common with most right wing talkers.

Listening to those discussions, more than anything, opened my eyes to the, I don't know what you call it, the duplicity of conservative thought. On the intellectual level, conservatism doesn't seem to offer a lot. In fact it seems almost opposed to intellectual thought, which came out time and again, on Firing Line. Early on Buckley would turn to smarminess, when logic and reason would turn against him. But as he aged, his tone changed, as if all those discussions with intelligent liberals had enlightened him. It was later on, when he seemed to be more and more questioning the wisdom of Republican ideology, that he came out against marihuana prohibition.

 

Legalize them all. Control legal distribution to generate tax revenues. Institute education and rehab services paid for by those revenues. Ensure that there are appropriate laws surrounding intoxication and use - much like alcohol including minimum age, driving, machine operation, etc.

Provide drug addicts with the drugs they need to eliminate the vast amount of street crimes druggies commit to get their hit.

Change in public perception from drug use being a crime to drug use being a disease that can be treated.