[regularfry]

    A common reason cited is that it prevents violent crime outside of 
    the US but is that a 'good' reason to support it?

I am struggling to find any potential answer to this which doesn't boil down to "yes".

    I can't articulate it well but shouldn't we make the decision to legalize 
    it based on whether it is good for this country?

Why not both? The national harms done by prohibition are very, very real.

    I'm unfortunate that it created a lot of bad side effects elsewhere but that won't ever stop.

Legalisation will cut off a major funding source for those "bad side effects." It might not stop them completely, but it ought to make a dent.

[Inebas]

What I'm saying is that the same people who creates those violent crimes selling marijuana is going to create violent crimes selling other more dangerous drugs. Should we then legalize that as well so that those people will stop making those drugs and focus on another more dangerous drug?

[Nursie]

1) Yes, we should carefully consider every aspect of prohibition and analyse how we can set policy to bring levels of harm down to an absolute minimum. If this includes decrim of everything, we shouldn't balk at it but follow best available evidence.

This is not easy. For example, is it acceptable to decriminalise and prescribe heroin for addicts if the results are (hypothetically): - increase in the number of heroin addicts by 50% due to easier availability - decrease in 95% of deaths due to heroin and heroin-related HIV due to clean needles, known doses, no impurities etc - eliminate 95% of the acquisitive crime by these addicts as nobody steals for a fix any more

I would say yes. But it's a hard sell at the political level, particularly when western society seems to regard addiction as a moral failure and a sin in need of punishment. I find it particularly perverse that when you explain to people that providing a fix and (hopefully) a slow, easy, managed detox program for these people is not only more humane but likely to save insane amounts of tax money AND cut violent crime, some folks are still against it because 'they broke the law!'

2) If the popular and less harmful drugs (weed, E/X , probably a few others like LSD) are legalised and made available then the available customer base and cash for the criminal gangs shrinks massively. Nobody expects them to go home to mommy and start an honest career but if you cut the cashflow, you cut the ability of the gangs to function, and you cut the number of people coming in because it's less attractive.

Surely you can't think that cutting off a lucrative revenue stream from the cartels is a bad thing?

3) Drugs really aren't as dangerous as you've been told. Read a real book on them sometime. I recommend 'Drugs: Without the hot air' by Professor David Nutt, one of the UK's foremost scientists in this area.

[ytNumbers]

> Drugs really aren't as dangerous as you've been told.

I guess no one here watches the TV show "Intervention". Pity. That TV show is a better education on the real impact of hardcore drugs than any book you might read. This Colorado vote is a relatively minor issue, really. But, it does indicate that we're heading down a slippery slope. Since those running the meth clinics say that only one person in 50 can stay clean for a year, there might come a day when half of society are hardcore drug addicts. But, we will never face that kind of zombie apocalypse because the life expectancy for a meth addict is only seven years from the moment they get hooked. Let the down-voting commence!

[Nursie]

Yeah, that's right kids, a tv reality show gives you a better view of what's happening than anything those stoopid scientists might have to say.

/facepalm

[Symmetry]

Drug abuse is a serious problem, but it's not limited to those drugs that are illegal. Meth is one of the very few drugs in widespread use that are actually more destructive than alcohol. By contrast, pot abuse can screw up your life but it's still far, far less dangerous to the person and to society at large than alcohol abuse. I'd like to think that marijuana legalization would end up putting us on the slippery slope towards legalizing or banning drugs based on how dangerous they actually are.

[Nursie]

I'd also like to know how you think prohibition is helping these people.

[Scramblejams]

The connection you're looking for is probably that generally where prohibition has been lifted, consumption has increased.

[Nursie]

Like in Portugal?

Where decriminalisation has been a harm-reducing success?

[base698]

Anecdotal really. The questions that have to be asked are how many casual users become addicts 1 in 10? 1 in 100? Of those addicts how many have life ruining consequences? Is there a way to be functional?

If you start from the worst, something like: "OMG every time you walk in a room with an illegal drug you'll be turning tricks on the street inside of a week", then yeah it seems pretty awful. But if only a minority of people have a problem and accept the risk of being an addict who's to stop them? Being an adult means responsibility.

[darkarmani]

> But, it does indicate that we're heading down a slippery slope.

Where is your evidence to support this? Do you have access to polling that indicates people are really to support legalizing hard drugs?

[Daniel_Newby]

> ... the life expectancy for a meth addict is only seven years from the moment they get hooked.

Due to sleep deprivation, because methamphetamine has a very long half-life in the human body. The government noticed that people were enjoying short-acting stimulants with only moderate harm, so it restricted everything but methamphetamine to increase the harm to punish sin. The meth "epidemic" is a planned social cleansing program. (The government is very much not doing this by accident. They know they won the Battle of Britain because our boys used Dexedrine and could get their eight (hours of sleep) after each mission. The Germans used methamphetamine to the extent they used anything, and we know how that turned out.)

This is a repeat of the mass murder and maiming campaign conducted during alcohol Prohibition. Then the government quietly added methanol to industrial ethanol. Methanol was chosen because it selectively damages certain nerves, leaving drinkers blind, gruesomely brain damaged, or dead if they were lucky. Thousands of Americans had their health destroyed and the central planners considered it a great success.

[drivebyacct2]

> Since those running the meth clinics say that only one person in 50 can stay clean for a year, there might come a day when half of society are hardcore drug addicts

It would take me 10 minutes to get a bag of meth, yet I'm not addicted to meth. I have smoked weed every day for 3 years while maintaining a high GPA, getting three internships and a full time job.

Intervention is hardly much more "real" than any other reality TV, though I do enjoy watching it.

And I don't know what to tell you if you think prohibition is keeping half the populace off meth. As far as I'm concerned, that can go in the pile with "atheists must be evil since they don't fear God".

If you can't stay away from meth without prohibition, you're not going to stay away from meth with prohibition. If you can't behave properly without a scary Bible, you probably won't behave all that well with it either.

[darkarmani]

> the same people who creates those violent crimes selling marijuana is going to create violent crimes selling other more dangerous drugs.

non sequitur. These people are going to be committing crime where ever it is profitable, but you haven't made the argument that more dangerous drugs are highly profitable. the number of customers / demand is much higher for marijuana than any other drugs.