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by klodolph 57 days ago
> guess how that turned out?

My guess is that significantly fewer people use drugs than would have used drugs if they were not banned.

> "The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated that 8.7% of people aged 16 to 59 years (around 2.9 million people) reported using any drug in the last 12 months for the year ending (YE) March 2025; there was no statistically significant change compared with YE March 2024"

Are there some significant changes to policy during that time period? I don’t see how this factoid is related to whatever argument you are trying to make.
1 comments
amiga386 57 days ago
They're pointing out that 2.9 millon people take drugs (extrapolating from the people surveyed), and law says that should be zero.

This law will attempt to ban cigarettes. Estimate how many people will buy them and smoke them illegally. The number will not be zero.

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thrance 57 days ago
Yeah, murder is illegal too, but still the number of murders is non-zero. Maybe we should just legalize it?

Sarcasm aside, if the goal is to reduce consumption, criminalization does work. Repression, though, does come with its own can of worm (an euphemism, yes). It's up to the citizenry and its representatives to decide if the trade-off is worth it.

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KetoManx64 56 days ago
At the cost of how many people's lives that get jailed for doing drugs/smoking and not hurting anyone? Telling people what they cannot do in the privacy of their own homes is a massive invasion of pri... Ohh, well England is par for the course when it comes to that at this point.
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vially 57 days ago
The number does not have to be zero for this to still have a net positive effect on society.
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KetoManx64 56 days ago
How many people's lives have been ruined due to them getting caught with drugs? Your "net positive" just focuses on using force to make people not have self agency to what they do to their bodies.

You know what would really solve crime and drug abuse issues? If we just gave people lobotomies at the age of 16. They will all be nice and complacent and due what they're told by the state.

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orev 57 days ago
False Dilemma fallacy
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