Is this topic over-debated? Sure. Does that mean we shouldn’t give it a try?
Should all recreational drugs be legal for an adult to buy and take?
Some starter arguments for:
- Removing criminal market, which is notoriously violent and resilliant
- Prohibition is futile
- Allows regulation, improving safety
- Encourages rehabilitaiton
- Encourages scientific study on substances of beneficial interest (e.g. cannabis, ketamine)
Some starter arguments against:
- Vulnerable people need to be protected against potentially harmful/addictive substances
- The current economic system encourages sellers to foster addiction (e.g. tobacco, alcohol)
- People affected by ‘harder’ drugs are inevitably antisocial and dangerous
- Illegality is an effective deterrent
- Legality normalizes drug use, which should be discouraged outside of medical purposes
spoiler
My intuition is that Lemmy attracts a lot of both USA-libertarian and progressive socialist demographics which both tend to have more permissive views on this topic. Because of this, I chose a more extreme topic than merely ‘safer’ drugs.
Legalizing inevitably requires increase in rehabilitation and intervention, meaning increased short-term public spending. Long term this tends to even out, or even save money, as income from legal and taxed drugs kicks in and improved preventative and early intervention care means less serious outcomes.
As with alcohol, the dangers are known and can be prepared for.
The “war on drugs” doesn’t work and has never worked. Decriminalization and legalization in Europe seems to work.
As for alcohol; it’s an increasing trend in Finland (and probably other places) that young people drink less and are less prone to alcoholism. I’d think the same would happen with other recreational drugs.
Caveat; I assume that you are proposing that by default an adult can buy ‘recreational’ drugs without any special permission (similar to alcohol in most of the USA).
Answer: Yes, but I think a higher priority should be given to prescription drugs. Many people use recreational drugs to self-medicate, and there are better drugs that currently require a prescription (e.g. Xanax is probably better for anxiety than marijuana). In addition, the need for prescriptions puts an unnecessary barrier on access to a lot of drugs with low potential for abuse (such as contraceptive pill).
That’s an insightful point to make about (if I may paraphrase) recreational drugs being abused to cope with problems prescription-only drugs are more effective for. I agree.
Seeing how poorly the “war on drugs” in America has gone, It’s not hard for an alternative to be better =/
Although I recognize that drugs are dangerous and bad, I can sort of see an argument for saying that if you’re not hurting anyone it’s not really anyone else’s business. On the other hand, if you do go out and hurt someone, I don’t think that there should be any chance of getting away from the consequences for the things that.
On the other hand, if you do go out and hurt somebody I think that there should be dire consequences for going out and whatever you’ve done.
I guess a third thing to consider is the fact that opiates are legal. And opiates being legal has caused a massive pandemic of opiates in the US and around the world, and so there’s definitely an argument that that trend would continue.
On the other other hand, perhaps you can take some of the resources that you’re using to lock people up and educate the masses on the potential dangers of these things, in a way that’s actually going to be beneficial. Part of the problem with legalizing something is that it’s considered to be an endorsement. Getting people into the mindset that just cuz something is legal doesn’t mean it’s a good idea is something that would take a lot.
