and how are legal drugs to kept out the hands of minors? how are you going to prevent the blackmarket from undercutting the price? legalization will result in an increase in drug addicts who will need medical care and support. So, there goes your taxpayer dollars you're spending on the drug dealers into caring for these people. i'm not necessarily in favor of imprisoning addicts, but legalizing would only end up harming more people than it helps. legalizing harder drugs is never going to happen here; it doesn't really change much.
it's kinda like abortion - certain people are going to do it regardless of whether it's legal or not and others never do it at all. i think it's naive an shortsighted to think that taking away drug dealers' business through legalization. drug dealers will get into money laundering, guns, human trafficking, identity theft, numbers, contract killings..list is absolutely endless. every society contains a sizable proportion whose members refuse to make an honest living under any circumstances.
drug use (not just the trade) has big social costs in the form of crime, homelessness, and an increase in demand for taxpayer-funded services. extra drug use would increase these.
which particular drugs should be legalized can be debated, and I havent decided, but doing so to get rid of the criminals in drug trade is unlikely to work. also; a lot of criminals are incarcerated for doing crimes WHILST UNDER THE INFLUENCE. therefore, crime would probably not change much as lots of crimes would occur, therefore just as much taxpayers money goes into criminals.
i do see your side of the point - drug users are punished considerably hard.
i do not agree with the extent of the 'drug war' it is truly ridiculous. i would easily support decriminalization for a personal usage. but not totally legalization - i could not bear to see that happen. i have been an addict for 6.5 yrs and i can easily say it has destroyed my mental and physical health, i have done nothing with my life other than abuse meth. a whole generation like me? i would be scared as fuck to see that.
just to add: i do not know everything. i do not KNOW this would happen but it is my opinion, not a fact and i cannot be sure of this, but we cannot be sure of either side of the fencee.
ok say if u had to be 21 to buy drugs, kids say all the time nowadays that its easier for them to get weed or something else rather than trying to get alcohol or cigarettes. of course, this would not be perfect, there would be some ppl that get older ppl to buy it for them or get fake id's,etc.. but it would control the age limit for the most part.
about the black market undercutting the prices, right now ppl selling drugs are loving it cause they can buy something for said prices and sell it for 10 to 20 times as much, now if drugs were the same price as alcohol, they would be very cheap, now if they were desperate enough to try to stay in business after drugs are legal, fine, but they would be lucky to get a small profit at all b/c of the much cheaper price. like i said before, this won't get rid of the black market completely, just like for example, there are still ppl making illegal alcohol, moonshine, even nowadays. but the black market would be greatly attacked by this legalization of drugs. lots of drug dealers say all the time that they don't want drug to be legal b/c why would they when they can make all this money?
ok yes i believe at first, drug usage/addiction would go up some b/c of this huge change, but most ppl are not stupid, the main ppl that would be doing drugs are the same ones doing them now. no straight-edge person is suddenly gonna decide he wants to shoot up heroin or drop LSD. when alcohol prohibition ended, ppl didn't suddenly run out and do all the alcohol they could just b/c it was legal again, there might have been some, but very few overall. this would be the same for drugs, after a few years, drug usage would be the same as now, if not less. drugs would be cheaper causing less homeless ppl, needles could be got easily, causing less ppl to share needles and get HIV, the purity and dosage would be known, causing less overdoses and nasty infections b/c of the cuts, ppl wouldn't be looked down upon b/c of the stigma near as much, and a big part, ppl would not be arrested for non-violent drug crimes, such as possession, therefore they might actually be able to get a job afterwards. now with all this taxpayer money going to different places instead of putting nonviolent ppl in jail, they could spend this money on harm reduction techniques, such drug education courses, rehabilitation money, needles, clean, sterile equipment, etc...
ok i understand what your saying about drug dealers finding new ways of doing stuff, but they are gonna do that anyways, so let them do what they want, you think drugs should stay legal so they can continue selling drugs and not go into those other forms of illicit activity?? i think thats a bad reason to keep drugs illegal.
and lastly, the main reason you seem to have to keeping drugs illegal is that drug usage would increase, causing these other problems. i think that is a small problem on the big outlook of things, i mean wouldnt you rather have drug violence deaths, drug arrests, HIV spreading, etc... greatly reduced rather than drug usage increasing a little??
