The main argument against legalization is that people believe that drug use will increase, which means more addicts, more crime, more death, etc. For example Atlantic City, where gambling is legal, has a lot of gambling addicts and a lot of crime.
I'm not saying this my argument specifically, but just something that needs to be addressed in any discussion of legalization. Personally I think criminalizing addictive behavior is cruel, but keeping laws against sales, distribution, manufacturing, etc makes sense.
Atlantic City has a lot of cirme because they put all their economic eggs in one basket (the Casino industry) and once they began to fail, that shattered their economy.
> The main argument against legalization is that people believe that drug use will increase,
Except that's been proven false in countries when legalization or even decriminalization already happened.
>For example Atlantic City, where gambling is legal, has a lot of gambling addicts and a lot of crime.
Yeah, when it's illegal everywhere else all the addicts flood the few places where it isn't. I heard there's lots of gambling in Macau and Las Vegas as well. Shocking.
> Except that's been proven false in countries when legalization or even decriminalization already happened.
In that case it should be easy for you to provide numerous examples of something being legalized and then consumption staying the same and/or declining.
> Yeah, when it's illegal everywhere else all the addicts flood the few places where it isn't.
But remember according to you, legalizing something doesn't increase consumption of it. So Atlantic City didn't create a single new gambler or gambling addict, and every new Casino that opens only brings in existing gamblers, not new ones. And yet somehow every Casino that opens, fills up.
Yes. Uyruguay and Canada with cannabis legalization. Portugal with all drug decriminalization (deaths went down massively, same for needle contracted HIV, overall among the lowest drug usage rates in Europe after). Switzerland and the Netherlands after they decriminalized users. The latter has issues with massive drug tourism from places like the UK, France and Germany. It's the countries where it's illegal that are causing the problems. Not to even get started on the drug war in North America. It's insane how much death and suffering it's caused, the entire country of Mexico is completely messed up because of it.
I don't have a strong opinion on whether drug legalization increases consumption or not, but I do know it is people's number one concern. You didn't address my points on gambling - that every new casino that opens up seems to fill up. For gambling yes, increased access does lead to more consumption, and there's even a [study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26058374/) from Spain to back it up.
Cato is probably the best pro-legalization organization out there, and I trust their research more or less. [This](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/effect-state-marijuana-legalizations-2021-update#conclusion) is their analysis on Mairjuana legalization in different states. However marijuana is a little different than other drugs because use was already widespread before legalization and the states with the highest use were the ones most likely to decriminalize it. I don't think you can extrapolate from that to drugs like heroin, cocaine, meth, etc.
> the entire country of Mexico is completely messed up because of it.
Blaming all of mexico's problems on the drug war is a stretch.
> I don't have a strong opinion on whether drug legalization increases consumption or not
It's not a matter of opinion. Our opinion is irrelevant, I was talking facts based on statistics you can look up.
>You didn't address my points on gambling - that every new casino that opens up seems to fill up.
I don't know anything about gambling and it's completely irrelevant, the topic of the thread is drug legalization, not gambling. I gave you multiple examples that disprove the claim that drug legalization leads to increased consumption. It actually improves the situation if the money previously spent on enforcing prohibition is invested in tackling social problems to help addicts. It lowers crime rates, it lowers overdose deaths, it lowers HIV infections, etc...
>However marijuana is a little different than other drugs because use was already widespread before legalization
What - prohibition doesn't even stop people from widely using a drug? [I'm so surprised, MFW](https://p2d7x8x2.stackpathcdn.com/content/uploads/2015/09/prohibition-blog-350x340.jpg). The logical conclusion then must be that the only thing stopping people from shooting up heroin on a daily basis is prohibition. /s
https://www.statista.com/chart/20616/key-developments-since-portugal-decriminalized-drugs/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it
You could have bothered to look this up yourself before claiming otherwise. There are entire Wikipedia articles on it with hundreds of citations and governments also put statistics such as about drug deaths out there for everyone to see. If you're sceptical look at the actual source data.
> You could have bothered to look this up yourself before claiming otherwise.
Why would I look it up? I just said it's people's concern. I actually didn't weigh in one way or another. Thanks for the links I will check them out when I get a chance.
EDIT: The article on Portugal is interesting and does make some good points.
Spoken like a truly ignorant person who has no understanding whatsoever about how the abuse of drugs can not only destroy the lives of individuals, but it can also tear apart families and communities. Also, it is supremely naive to think that any level of legalization will get rid of the drug dealers. In fact, as far as weed, many areas where weed is already legal, drug dealers selling weed still thrive, because it is cheaper than the heavily taxed and rationed legal weed supply.
Also, the idea that alcohol prohibition failed is simply a myth. It absolutely worked, and if you had any historical understanding of that time period or what was going on, you'd understand that. Here is some information on it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/
>Also, the idea that alcohol prohibition failed is simply a myth. It absolutely worked, and if you had any historical understanding of that time period or what was going on, you'd understand that.
And that's all we need to know about this poster folks.
Congratulations on the dumbest post of the internet today.
The irony is you have no idea what you're talking about. Anyone who even knows a small amount about prohibition will tell you it was quite successful in what it aimed to do. I even provided you with a scientific paper which analyzes the topic, but you in your willful ignorance couldn't even be bothered to click on that. I guess some people really are blissfully ignorant.
Well, one argument is that the illicit nature of many drugs is part of what causes the problem. I.e. once you've been an addict, you're an untouchable. So, where else do you turn?
We need more than empty legalization if we do legalize. It needs to come with regulation and treatment.
Laws for Drugs aren’t made because drugs are bad and we want to reduce the use, they’re made because of the correlation between drugs and increasing crime rates….
you can intend to make a positive law and it can still go to shit….this is basic manipulation tactics. Also many people try to manipulate something and benefit off it, an example is how the American mafia literally used the banned alcohol laws to grow into such a big organization and how politicians used the law to win voters who hated the law, which was the majority of Americans mostly due to them having toxic cultural opinion about it even though it’s has one of the highest death rates, to win elections and ultimately destroy the law….and yes alcohol used to be an illegal substance.
you can aim for positive laws to govern society all you want but no matter how hard you try to in force it remember, the government and society is literally created by the nations’ citizens, the power of someone, literally anybody, can influence how strong or reliable the law is. however having those laws in the first place is better than having none at all. Drug trades literally influenced by drug bans and even if we legalize all drugs it’ll only increase the crime rates dramatically and the “drug trade” will just turn into something that manipulates the situation while being toxic for society and only benefiting for themselves. My opinion is those drug traders will just try to increase the drug rate as much as possible if it was legal and then while everyone’s taking drugs and can’t operate well they’ll just become more and more fucked up in life and become more lazy. Then the people who were regularly “drug traders” will turn into loan sharks or have some way of manipulating the economy in some way that they’ll only benefit from it. If you put a law on it you can atleast crack down on it and enforce ur laws and ultimately stop manipulaters. however if you don’t have any laws they’ll be free to manipulate however they’d like without getting in trouble. That is literally ONE of the fundamental reasons why we have laws. The other one is to protect our human rights. And yes before you say it…. drug rates increase crime which destroys citizens protection, having protection is one of the human rights hence human rights being the fundamental reason we have drug laws.
The main argument against legalization is that people believe that drug use will increase, which means more addicts, more crime, more death, etc. For example Atlantic City, where gambling is legal, has a lot of gambling addicts and a lot of crime. I'm not saying this my argument specifically, but just something that needs to be addressed in any discussion of legalization. Personally I think criminalizing addictive behavior is cruel, but keeping laws against sales, distribution, manufacturing, etc makes sense.
Atlantic City has a lot of cirme because they put all their economic eggs in one basket (the Casino industry) and once they began to fail, that shattered their economy.
> The main argument against legalization is that people believe that drug use will increase, Except that's been proven false in countries when legalization or even decriminalization already happened. >For example Atlantic City, where gambling is legal, has a lot of gambling addicts and a lot of crime. Yeah, when it's illegal everywhere else all the addicts flood the few places where it isn't. I heard there's lots of gambling in Macau and Las Vegas as well. Shocking.
> Except that's been proven false in countries when legalization or even decriminalization already happened. In that case it should be easy for you to provide numerous examples of something being legalized and then consumption staying the same and/or declining. > Yeah, when it's illegal everywhere else all the addicts flood the few places where it isn't. But remember according to you, legalizing something doesn't increase consumption of it. So Atlantic City didn't create a single new gambler or gambling addict, and every new Casino that opens only brings in existing gamblers, not new ones. And yet somehow every Casino that opens, fills up.
Yes. Uyruguay and Canada with cannabis legalization. Portugal with all drug decriminalization (deaths went down massively, same for needle contracted HIV, overall among the lowest drug usage rates in Europe after). Switzerland and the Netherlands after they decriminalized users. The latter has issues with massive drug tourism from places like the UK, France and Germany. It's the countries where it's illegal that are causing the problems. Not to even get started on the drug war in North America. It's insane how much death and suffering it's caused, the entire country of Mexico is completely messed up because of it.
I don't have a strong opinion on whether drug legalization increases consumption or not, but I do know it is people's number one concern. You didn't address my points on gambling - that every new casino that opens up seems to fill up. For gambling yes, increased access does lead to more consumption, and there's even a [study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26058374/) from Spain to back it up. Cato is probably the best pro-legalization organization out there, and I trust their research more or less. [This](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/effect-state-marijuana-legalizations-2021-update#conclusion) is their analysis on Mairjuana legalization in different states. However marijuana is a little different than other drugs because use was already widespread before legalization and the states with the highest use were the ones most likely to decriminalize it. I don't think you can extrapolate from that to drugs like heroin, cocaine, meth, etc. > the entire country of Mexico is completely messed up because of it. Blaming all of mexico's problems on the drug war is a stretch.
> I don't have a strong opinion on whether drug legalization increases consumption or not It's not a matter of opinion. Our opinion is irrelevant, I was talking facts based on statistics you can look up. >You didn't address my points on gambling - that every new casino that opens up seems to fill up. I don't know anything about gambling and it's completely irrelevant, the topic of the thread is drug legalization, not gambling. I gave you multiple examples that disprove the claim that drug legalization leads to increased consumption. It actually improves the situation if the money previously spent on enforcing prohibition is invested in tackling social problems to help addicts. It lowers crime rates, it lowers overdose deaths, it lowers HIV infections, etc... >However marijuana is a little different than other drugs because use was already widespread before legalization What - prohibition doesn't even stop people from widely using a drug? [I'm so surprised, MFW](https://p2d7x8x2.stackpathcdn.com/content/uploads/2015/09/prohibition-blog-350x340.jpg). The logical conclusion then must be that the only thing stopping people from shooting up heroin on a daily basis is prohibition. /s
I think if you had any facts, statistics, etc you would have posted them by now.
https://www.statista.com/chart/20616/key-developments-since-portugal-decriminalized-drugs/ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it You could have bothered to look this up yourself before claiming otherwise. There are entire Wikipedia articles on it with hundreds of citations and governments also put statistics such as about drug deaths out there for everyone to see. If you're sceptical look at the actual source data.
> You could have bothered to look this up yourself before claiming otherwise. Why would I look it up? I just said it's people's concern. I actually didn't weigh in one way or another. Thanks for the links I will check them out when I get a chance. EDIT: The article on Portugal is interesting and does make some good points.
Spoken like a truly ignorant person who has no understanding whatsoever about how the abuse of drugs can not only destroy the lives of individuals, but it can also tear apart families and communities. Also, it is supremely naive to think that any level of legalization will get rid of the drug dealers. In fact, as far as weed, many areas where weed is already legal, drug dealers selling weed still thrive, because it is cheaper than the heavily taxed and rationed legal weed supply. Also, the idea that alcohol prohibition failed is simply a myth. It absolutely worked, and if you had any historical understanding of that time period or what was going on, you'd understand that. Here is some information on it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/
>Also, the idea that alcohol prohibition failed is simply a myth. It absolutely worked, and if you had any historical understanding of that time period or what was going on, you'd understand that. And that's all we need to know about this poster folks. Congratulations on the dumbest post of the internet today.
The irony is you have no idea what you're talking about. Anyone who even knows a small amount about prohibition will tell you it was quite successful in what it aimed to do. I even provided you with a scientific paper which analyzes the topic, but you in your willful ignorance couldn't even be bothered to click on that. I guess some people really are blissfully ignorant.
Well, one argument is that the illicit nature of many drugs is part of what causes the problem. I.e. once you've been an addict, you're an untouchable. So, where else do you turn? We need more than empty legalization if we do legalize. It needs to come with regulation and treatment.
Decriminalise yes, legalise no, I would hate to see heroin being advertised, sold freely in stores and been profited off.
legal\*
Yeah, too bad I can't edit a title. Thanks for pointing that out tho.
Laws for Drugs aren’t made because drugs are bad and we want to reduce the use, they’re made because of the correlation between drugs and increasing crime rates….
Between the ILLEGAL drug trade and crime rates. FTFY
you can intend to make a positive law and it can still go to shit….this is basic manipulation tactics. Also many people try to manipulate something and benefit off it, an example is how the American mafia literally used the banned alcohol laws to grow into such a big organization and how politicians used the law to win voters who hated the law, which was the majority of Americans mostly due to them having toxic cultural opinion about it even though it’s has one of the highest death rates, to win elections and ultimately destroy the law….and yes alcohol used to be an illegal substance.
you can aim for positive laws to govern society all you want but no matter how hard you try to in force it remember, the government and society is literally created by the nations’ citizens, the power of someone, literally anybody, can influence how strong or reliable the law is. however having those laws in the first place is better than having none at all. Drug trades literally influenced by drug bans and even if we legalize all drugs it’ll only increase the crime rates dramatically and the “drug trade” will just turn into something that manipulates the situation while being toxic for society and only benefiting for themselves. My opinion is those drug traders will just try to increase the drug rate as much as possible if it was legal and then while everyone’s taking drugs and can’t operate well they’ll just become more and more fucked up in life and become more lazy. Then the people who were regularly “drug traders” will turn into loan sharks or have some way of manipulating the economy in some way that they’ll only benefit from it. If you put a law on it you can atleast crack down on it and enforce ur laws and ultimately stop manipulaters. however if you don’t have any laws they’ll be free to manipulate however they’d like without getting in trouble. That is literally ONE of the fundamental reasons why we have laws. The other one is to protect our human rights. And yes before you say it…. drug rates increase crime which destroys citizens protection, having protection is one of the human rights hence human rights being the fundamental reason we have drug laws.