Why would you want to cut the supply or demand? If people want to take drugs, that's their right. Therefore someone has to supply them.
you enable a large percent of gangs, criminal activity and the mafia to flourish with prohibition on any drug. the mafia would've never existed if drugs were not made illegal. MS 13 likely would not flourish. i brought this up to my friends last night and most of them were too dumb to realize this. gangs don't just pop up over "territory", no those are the gangs you see on mtv where everyone tries to be cute and attract the audience of pregnant 15 year old girls in urban california.
How exactly is it detrimental? If they effect society in a bad way 'hurt someone, steal' etc they should be held accountable for that act, not 'using drugs' Even if one could stop all current drugs, others will pop up. You have kids using spray paint to get high for christs sake! Even more deadly that the 'illegal' drugs that are out there.
Exactly Grim! Drug use itself is not detrimental to society, although certain drug users ARE detrimental to society with their actions; the punishment should not affect both the law abiding citizens and the criminals. The problem with law enforcement today is we try to attack things that lead to crimes, instead of focusing on the criminal behavior. When somebody is a harm to society, punish them. But when they are making a choice about what goes into their body and their actions don't infringe on the rights and well-being of others? Let them do as they choose. This is one of the basic tenets of libertarianism, freedom, and a lot of Paul's views; give people more freedom and responsibility to live their lives, rather than try to fix problems that can't be fixed.
Philosophically, Dr. Paul's argument goes even deeper. 1. You cannot legislate virtue. No number of laws will make people good. 2. When you restrain freedom, you establish the precedent for restraining your own freedoms when they become unpopular, or are actively lobbied against. 3. Limiting the ability of people to make free choices with drugs, can easily bleed into limitations on choices of food. Beverage. Medicine. If you remember the movie, Demolition Man, it took a sarcastic look at a future like this, where sex was virtual, babies are conceived in labs, and Taco Bell serves pills that represent foods. Bad language was punishable by fine, and everyone was conditioned to be so nice, they had lost the instinct for self defense and survival.
Actually, cannabis, lsd, shrooms... those are about the only ones illegal. You can get the hard stuff at a hospital.
theres always that one asshole that fuckes it up for everyone else, some guy kills like 10 people while on acid or something and the country goes nuts and tries to keep it off the street. It doesn't work, it never will, more people die from drunk driving accidents than any drug that i know of and alcohol is legal!
You mean like when 19 terrorists flew planes into buildings, and that started a 6 year war in two countries, that has cost an additional 4000+ American lives, hundreds of billions of dollars and dead Iraqis and Afghanis numbering in the 10's of thousands (low estimate for the critics of credible sourcing). The problem is a government that looks for opportunities to expand, and lapses in it's duty to protect personal and economic liberty.
I am all for the legalization of all drugs with absolutely zero government interference. Everything from aspirin to viagra to crystal meth. Will people will die? Yes. Will anyone die who would not have died otherwise? No. We're all going to die, no matter how little fun we have before we go. I can imagine that anyone believes it's a good idea to waster taxpayer dollars on this silliness. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."
We promote other drugs, nicotine and alcohol. I say let people decide what they want to put in their bodies. We can use to extra money to educate on them, but let people make their minds on whether they want to do them or not.
I'm fine with individuals promoting whatever they want. It's when we allow the government to do so that things go haywire.
here is my opinion: The goverment will never legalize drugs because it is them making the underhanded profit from these black markets, so why would they stop themselves from profiting? Just like child slavery and prostitution will never stop. Its the same as wars, the more wars you fight, the more reason you have to tax people for wars and develope more killing weapons. Its all a big trap. As for 'should' drugs be legalized? Yes, the goverment should allow us to share substances with one another, they already do actually. Alchohol, tobacco, and coffee are extremely addictive substances, and they're more then happy to push those at us all day long. Also, all the supplies needed to create the most deadly drug of all is right there in the medicine aisle at your local grocery store: METH. This is all very calculated, I am sure. The only drugs they truly attempt to repress are entheogens, if you don't know that word, think mushrooms, marijuana, ayahuasca, etc. All of these plants are none to have ANTI addictive properties, and many personal reports vow that these plants/substances have brought on a very enlightening spiritual experience... For instance, DMT, a chemical produced naturally by our brain, is a schedule one drug in USA, meaning its considered one of the greatest evils on their list... yet everytime people consume it they experience 'angels' and communion with god of some sort... Look up DMT: spirit molecule, great book explains it all. ALSO the mckenna brothers did a experiment with heroin addicts using ibogaine, a african root that induces a trip to the other side that can last over 24 hours, in which people claim they commune with their ancestors and other spirit beings, and after using this plant the addicts never used heroin again because the trip made them feel what was going on. This plant is proven to cure addictions... yet our goverment has it too on the list of 'greatest evils' schedule 1. ForEVER human tribes would turn to the shamans, the entheogen plant eaters, to help them cure their diseases. The church murdered millions of 'witches', in other words, they killed all the herbalists and healers... why? because they know these plants have been used to free our minds for a long long time, and they want us to be slaves. plain and simple.
Most americans are not drug users but there are plenty that drink alcohol. I could dig up all the car wrecks that are caused by alcohol. Am I suggesting that we ban alcohol again? No. The reason it didn't work is because there were so many people that had easy access to it for many years. You can't just take something from someone if that is already a part of their lifestyle. Most American's now look at drugs as a poor decision, that they have no real value, and that the side effects of drugs are primarily negative. From my point of view there really would only be more overdoses, more car wrecks due to being under an influence of another substunce, and more innocent people dying as a result. To make drug use legal would be a pretty poor decision in my mind.