[iridium_core]

Just legalise all drugs and let the free market decide. We could create innovative new substances which are safer and less socially damaging, compared to the plants and fermented liquids we happen to have stumbled upon millenia ago.

[MajorBee]

Well, cigarettes used to be all "free market" right from marketing to technology for quite some time, and we all know how that particular industry ended up.

There are certain things that just seem to be a net-loss to society, no matter how much it may clash on an individual's right to destroy themselves. Cigarettes, hard drugs (and possibly even alcohol) seem to be among them.

[3131s]

You will not stop people from taking drugs. They will bring them over whatever distance, border, or other obstacle you put in place and the harder you try, the more money they'll make and the more havoc that will be wrought on your society and neighboring countries. How's it working out currently?

Criminalizing drug use and distribution creates a condition far worse than a legal and appropriately regulated market for marijuana, cocaine, heroin, mushrooms, opium, and more where users can buy standardized, well-labelled, individually packaged doses from a normal store (not a criminal empire).

Amongst all this crying about some idiots raiding the capitol and wanting to ban everyone for bad opinions, all these replies are hard to take seriously.

[SubuSS]

What do you think should be the government's role in protecting the gullible and easily seduced?

Most of these drug laws are about this in essence: We are fast approaching a world where low level labor becomes more and more superflous. This is going to mean that there will be a growing portion of humanity on welfare in essence. How do you see that working out for humanity in a world with fully legal free access drugs?

[leetcrew]

> What do you think should be the government's role in protecting the gullible and easily seduced?

it could start by being a trustworthy source of information.

> Most of these drug laws are about this in essence: We are fast approaching a world where low level labor becomes more and more superflous. This is going to mean that there will be a growing portion of humanity on welfare in essence. How do you see that working out for humanity in a world with fully legal free access drugs?

this strikes me as a particularly odd argument. if they weren't doing anything productive to begin with, why care if they get high?

[princevegeta]

I think the least bad option is to let allow people to make mistakes and learn from them. How would you feel about sending people to prison for eating junk food, smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, wasting time on social media/watching netflix? And afaik countries that have decriminalized drugs and focused on harm reduction actually end up with less drug addicts. Its also worth noting that most cases of overdoses are caused by the drug either being cut with something stronger or the user just taking too much due to high inconsitinsies in purity with each purchase

[specialist]

How would Freedom Drugs™ address addiction, safety, abuse? If at all.

[drran]

Just plant two electrodes directly into the brain.

[greedo]

Larry Niven's Ringworld series has a protagonist named Louis Wu who is addicted to a "tasp" that is pretty much a direct connection to the brain that provides stimulus. I fear that we'll end up with that as VR/AR get better and better. Combine that with Musk's neural stuff...

[greatgirl]

I am for legalising drugs if the evidence suggests it works. I'm not for legalising drugs because of some free market ideology.

[cousin_it]

Right now people spend hours every day joylessly scrolling their phones because the free market has found a way to profit from that. I want fewer addictive industries, not more.

[Ericson2314]

This is true. I don't think parent poster means it should still illegal. Just try to remove the "profit part".

[3131s]

The blood is on your hands then.

Edit: The poster I'm replying to should be deplatformed immediately for inciting violence, specifically for perpetuating black markets that have devastated entire countries, for supporting raids of homes at gunpoint over possession of substances that are bought and sold without coercion, for the inconsistent doses and impurities and stigmatization that will continue to kill addicts, and for widespread incarceration which is targeted toward already disadvantaged minorities.

[Chris2048]

Did they change their comment? "I want fewer addictive industries, not more" doesn't sound like what you describe..

[jansan]

So you say the Opoid Epidemic in the US was a good thing? Because that is what you will get if you let the free markets decide, but with more marketing and even more addictive stuff.