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by block_dagger 895 days ago
Drugs and gambling do not hurt others. Throwing “crimes” in makes your reasoning weak. Where are you getting your data on the first two? I’m not sure you’re correct.
3 comments

> Drugs and gambling do not hurt others.

Please spend like 30 seconds of analytical thinking trying to poke holes in this. It's remarkably easy to disprove. The challenge is what if anything we choose to do about the harms that they can cause.

Neither drugs nor gambling, in and of itself, harms anyone but the individual doing it.

However, said individual could harm others in the persuit of drugs and gambling when their own income or savings are unable to satisfy their own cravings. But how is that any different from any other forms of harm from crime conducted for other reasons?

> Drugs and gambling do not hurt others.

They ruin families, neighborhoods, cities.

If you ever need an example of how drugs genuinely ruin things on a large scale read absolutely anything about the opium wars.

I do contend that "ruining families" is not a thing we should base policy on because it implies both a crazy amount of government intrusion into individual lives and because it imposes rules on everyone to make the nuclear family work.

> Drugs and gambling do not hurt others.

The bad things people do to other people to get money for drugs and gambling are included in the blanket statement “drugs and gambling”.