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by nickthemagicman 1837 days ago
Your entire post is pure speculation and fear mongering

All drugs are decriminalized in Portugal, Uruguay, etc. with less addiction and better addiction outcomes than the U.S.

They treat addiction like a disease like diabetes instead of a crime.

https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/18/524380027/...

1 comments

I didn't get the sense that GP was necessarily agreeing with those positions, more illustrating the high-level political hurdles (right or wrong) that legalization fundamentally faces.

It's similar in my mind to self-driving cars. The first post-large-scale-rollout deaths will likely cause a political backlash, even if statisticians and scientists are able to show that the proposed regulatory response would cause more harm than good.

I don't agree that the successful implementation of such a regulatory response is a foregone conclusion in either case, but we will need to be prepared to deal with the reality of some people dying due to self-driving software issues and/or consumption of non-FDA-approved substances.

"Inevitably, lots of people would become addicted and there would be many deaths."

Outright wrong, baseless, and fear-mongering.