Legalizing heavy drugs

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thebestofenergy
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Legalizing heavy drugs

Post by thebestofenergy »

What are your opinions about legalizing drugs?
I'm not talking about marijuana, but about heavy drugs (e.g. heroin, cocaine).
Should those be legalized? It would decrease the amount of crime, but it would also give an easy access to very harmful substances.
I'm not sure. What do you think?
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Volenta
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Re: Legalizing heavy drugs

Post by Volenta »

The problem with the current drugs policy is that it is totally inconsistent. It's mostly based on cultural history instead of the dangers of a drug. Very dangerous drugs like alcohol and tobacco are legal, while far less dangerous drugs like LSD and marijuana aren't. This is mostly done out of distrust and the misuse of it by some people. I'm not sure whether every drug—even heroin and cocaine—should be legal, but I do know the current policy needs to be reformed. All this people that end up in prison in the USA for ownership of marijuana is just insane...

As a liberal, I prefer to make drugs legal as far as possible when it is justified. But people should be informed very well about the dangers of these drugs. I also think that the government have a protective role into preventing people from ruining their lives, so drugs like desomorphine are just to dangerous to allow. That being said, I think it's great that some countries are experimenting with the legalization of marijuana (sadly not here in the Netherlands...).
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Neptual
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Re: Legalizing heavy drugs

Post by Neptual »

I look at it as "why sould the government be able to tell us what we can and cannot but in our bodies?" And I've come to the conclusion that they shouldn't be able to. If someone wants to take cocaine knowing what the consequences are then why should I care unless they're endangering the lives of others. Such as being under the influence and driving.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Legalizing heavy drugs

Post by brimstoneSalad »

dan1073 wrote:If someone wants to take cocaine knowing what the consequences are
How do you determine that they know what the consequences are? How many people do you think would use coke the first time if they actually knew what was going to happen?
dan1073 wrote:then why should I care unless they're endangering the lives of others. Such as being under the influence and driving.
It doesn't take a vehicle to make somebody high on coke dangerous. People get coked up and do all kinds of crazy stuff- sometimes violent.

Legalization would see the price drop quite a bit, which would reduce the number of crimes committed to support coke habits (not eliminate them all together though), but it would also become very common, because once somebody tries coke, it's very hard to stop.

The question is one of balance.

Would the increased crime due to increased use of cocaine (due to wider availability, lower price, and lack of penalty for use) be larger than the decreased crime due to the end of prohibition of the drug and the lower price?

It's not entirely clear.
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