[mindslight]

The fundamental problem is that the misguided attempt to criminalize drugs destroyed respect for the law for generations. Once you're at risk of being locked in a cage for decades for engaging in behavior that would otherwise just be called running a small business, then robbery isn't a huge leap. Especially after your industry ends up creating its own parallel justice system because the usual courts have been made unavailable.

So yes, while drugs should be deillegalized and those crimes expunged, this is only but a first step on a long road to repairing the severe damage that was done to actual law and order by the very people fallaciously rallying behind "law and order" in the 80's and 90's.

[flextheruler]

I don’t have a problem with some drugs being state regulated and I know it would reduce violence but the harder drugs should never be state sold we already have huge issues with alcohol which is a very hard drug. Acting as if lone actors serving narcotics or prostitutes are regular small business owner is an insult to legitimate entrepreneurs

[mindslight]

There are other ways to handle abuse and addiction besides trying to prohibit a widely-desired substance. You rightfully point out that some people have huge problems with alcohol. The solution isn't just to blanket make it illegal (with the ensuing chaos that would/did cause), but rather directly address the acute harm caused by the people with the problems.

Ultimately the reason we consider some things natural rights isn't to create some prescriptive model that we imagine as the shape an enlightened society will take. Rather it's due to the inevitable ugliness when government attempts to legislate into individual autonomy, and people react en masse. And the results of the "drug war" have most certainly been quite ugly!

[cdogl]

Aside from the legality, what’s different between a liquor store owner and a weed dealer? You may disagree with their breaking the law, but commerce is commerce, and this is victimless except with regard to the rule of law.

[Tyrek]

Yeah, locking up Elizabeth Holmes and SBF for running a small business will destroy respect for the law for generations. How dare we?!