At 11/4/09 01:13 PM, TheStonePilot wrote:
How many people do you think would stay inside all day snorting cocaine and popping ecstasy?
Drugs being illegal doesn't stop people from doing that. In fact, well,, see the end of the post.
But you KNOW at least a small percent of the population is going to be stupid and die, and maybe take others along with them.
What drugs are you exactly talking about here, anyway? Extacy? LSD? PCP? Coke? PCP is the closest to "flip out and hurt people", but rarely involves guns.
Let's go down to the pharmacy and buy us a nice cocktail of painkillers.
You do know that misuse of prescription medication is as common as illegal drug abuse already? So yeah, people do get cocktails of painkillers with false prescriptions etc.
Hell, let's put PCP in the water supplies; that'll be an awesome party!
Reducio ad absurdum.
Now, what would happen if drugs were legalised is purely speculation, as it's never been done... wait it has? Oh yeah, Portugal recently deccided to decriminalize all drug use and offered rehab to anyone willing to get off drugs. Overall use of drugs, drug deaths, new HIV contraction and amount of new drug users fell, while people going to rehab went up.
How this would work on a bigger scale, like US, we can't know. Sure, some people may go nuts. So? They go nuts with illegal drugs, alcohol and prescription medication. But if the trade was regulated, we could watch out for the crazies.
The current system benefits those who are willing to work outside the law. Cocaine and heroin used to be sold in pharmacies. No-one made a fortune out of it, and the number of addicts was mostly due to doctors having loose morals with the prescription book.