Agreed. I do not agree with decriminalising the trade in drugs, but criminalising their possession for personal use is a really important practical step in fighting the trade in hard drugs and reducing addiction rates for many reasons.
It decouples the interests of drug traffickers from those of users making users more likely to cooperate with law enforcement, frees up social workers and medical professionals from the risk of criminal liability for associating with drug users in possession of or using drugs. It also makes it easier to address incidental associated health issue such as infections from dirty needles. Treating it as a health issue destigmatises it making it easier for users to talk about it and seek help.
This is not theoretical, this is from actual findings from countries like Portugal the Netherlands and Norway where trading in hard drugs is still illegal but possession and use are treated as public health issues. This is a policy that works.
> I do not agree with decriminalising the trade in drugs.
Why not? Do you support criminal cartels making lots of money off of them or do you think that the War on Drugs will actually get rid of that criminal element which profits from them at some point?
I don't see a problem with anyone putting anything they want into their own body. Arrest them when they commit an actual victim-ful crime like stealing but not before that.
To that end, I say sell them with regulation just like Alcohol. Keeping sales illegal means questionable sources, questionable quality and enormous profits for criminal gangs.
criminalization should be reserved to actions which cause harm to another person who didn't agree to the respective interaction.
If an adult decides to take a drug - fine.
If another adult sells a drug to another adult - where's the problem?
OTOH I'd like to see the concept of mitigating circumstances removed in criminal justice. If somebody takes a drug and commits a crime - full responsibility.
In an ideal world theres no problem but the reality is murkier. Im thinking of crime against vulnerable people, especially that these drugs impair one’s senses. I’d like drug trading to be legal but heavily regulated and the enforcement taken seriously.
It would also do a very good thing to educate people about the risks of addiction, the simptoms of it and where to ask for help for it.
I am sympathetic to the libertarian argument, I agree that alcohol is also a dangerous drug and is the cause of a considerable amount of crime so why is it different?
On the one hand there is a considerable culture around alcohol that is difficult or impossible to expunge. Banning it simply isn't practical in a democracy where alcohol is popular across all sections of society. Hard drugs like cocaine and heroine simply don't have the cultural and social context that alcohol has, there isn't a consensus that it's acceptable.
Arguing that, well alcohol is dangerous too is a bad argument. We do this bad thing so therefore we should also be allowed to do this other bad thing doesn't follow at all. Ideally we shouldn't do either bad thing. Both alcohol and hard drug use impose considerable costs on society. If society has chosen to accept those costs in one case but not the other (while fighting to limit them) well, making such decisions is what democracy is for.
Ultimately I think the libertarian argument works for decriminalising uses, but fails at decriminalising the trade. There's no inherent right to make a profit whatever the cost to others or society.
Because heroin is a poison, and the whole "i do what i want with my body" hides the fact that young adult often will just try random stuff just because its available and / or their friends do it. Its not 100% rational free will.
I think heroin has much higher dangers and usually the accidenal deaths are very swift and come from nowhere. Alcohol on the other hand kills a lot more people but because it does so slowly they have higher chance to pick themselves up, go to detox, AA, etc
This is an absolutetly 100% valid reason, if not the best reason, to make a substance illegal. 90% who try get addicted, so better keep people, especially young ones, far from it.
Fully agree with you, I just want to point out that Norway has a very strict stance against all drugs, so much so that you can lose your drivers license for having cannabis metabolites in your blood due too a lack of "soberness". It's mental.
I think it's really important to dissociate supporting decriminalisation of possession and use from being "pro drugs". They are very much not the same thing.
Not everyone who consumes drugs, "hard" or otherwise has an addiction issue or needs to seek help, though of course imprisonment is especially cruel when it targets those who do.
You're right, some people simply enjoy occasionally consuming drugs. It's not much different to people consuming alcohol really, the only real differences are alcohol is generally more socially accepted, and that alcohol is generally considered to be more harmful to society.
If there was a guaranteed safe supply chain for recreational drugs that are currently illegal, things would be a lot safer too.
> It's not much different to people consuming alcohol really, the only real differences are alcohol is generally more socially accepted, and that alcohol is generally considered to be more harmful to society
I would amend your analogy: "people comsuming alcohol to get drunk". Lots of people enjoy a glass of wine or a beer or sipping whiskey or whatever, not because it makes them drunk, but because they enjoy the flavor (e.g., wine pairings, etc). I'm pretty sure almost everyone who does drugs does so to get high. Note that I'm not arguing that alcohol is better than drugs, only that I think this distinction is important.
But everyone who's drinking alcohol is doing it at least in part for the effect. Non-alcoholic beer is a thing and there are plenty of wine replacements and mocktails, but they're nowhere near as popular as the real thing. Obviously there's a difference in a glass of wine with dinner and being roaring drunk, but that's true of any drug. You can micro-dose LSD, or you can take it until you're seeing pink elephants on the ceiling.
So if I don’t bring my own non-alcoholic beverage to the party (or restaurant), does that mean I must secretly be drinking for the effect? Of course not! It just means that I can avoid the effect without going out of my way to buy alcohol-free. Also, “not drinking for the effect” also encompasses people who are okay with getting buzzed or drunk, but that’s not what they’re setting out to do. For example, I don’t drink to get drunk or buzzed (I don’t have anything against it; I just don’t enjoy the sensation), but I’ve had a strong drink on an empty stomach. That doesn’t mean I was setting out to get buzzed (again, I wasn’t), only that I’m not going out of my way to avoid it.
As a sample size of 1, I do not drink alcohol for the effect. I don't like the disoriented feeling. But I do like the flavor of a good beer, wine, or single-malt Scotch.
You can spin it also that ie weed makes tastes go to overdrive, so you can do quality sweet/salty 'food pairing' with same intentions and results as wine pairing - things taste better. In fact, ridiculously way better.
Munchies ritual became part of my trips when I used to smoke, since such an experience in regard of taste can't be provided by any michelin star restaurant, no matter how hard they try (although they do provide great experience in other forms). Its unhealthy, its practically impossible to just nibble, rather devour a metric ton and some more.
Let's stop pretending people do drugs for anything but drug's effect on them. Wine is no different, plenty of folks who are alcoholics run purely on wine, albeit on different quantities than small glass of red. Try drinking half a liter of red wine every days for few years though, where it will lead you.
You’re missing the point about the “taste” bit—the point isn’t that they’re doing it for the taste, but that they’re not doing it for the psychological effect. In your example, changes to taste are the psychological effect of weed. Again, this isn’t a moral argument, just observing a distinction.
> I'm pretty sure almost everyone who does drugs does so to get high.
This is not the case. I know people who use them to manage chronic pain. It's not all that different from getting a Vicodin prescription, but without shifting most of the cost to society.
> and that alcohol is generally considered to be more harmful to society.
Alcohol is definitely not more harmful to society than most prescription opioids, tobacco, meth, heroin, PCP, etc. The harm of each drug needs to be assessed on a per capita by user basis.
There have been studies showing that it is the most harmful drug to society, including Professor Nutt's rather famous 2010 Lancet paper.
The fact that alcohol is legal and generally socially acceptable of course means that it's also the most consumed recreational drug by far, which no doubt contributes - but it can't be denied that alcohol is addictive, and alcoholism is a huge problem.
Its incredibly dangerous because of its social acceptance. I don't see a difference between heroin and alcohol addicts, they are both desperate souls and mere shadows of their potential. Countless families are destroyed because of alcohol. Family violence. Drunk driving.
Per capita, back home, and in many many places like russia, it is by far the deadliest substance. Because its legal and +-accepted.
There are certain drugs that simply should not be encouraged by legality. Heroin and meth, for example. Incredibly toxic, highly and immediately addictive, and easy to overdose.
There are drugs that, if you use them, you should be encouraged not to.
Incredibly toxic? Hardly--it actually has a quite good safety profile when used as intended.
Highly and immediately addictive? About 5 weeks ago I had a close chemical cousin of heroin. 3 times in fact. Addicted? I never felt the slightest desire for it once the cause of the pain was gone and I certainly didn't like what it did to my digestive system. (Morphine, given by a doctor for a kidney stone. Heroin is basically two morphine molecules stuck together.)
Easy to overdose? The extremely limited medical use of heroin means we don't have good data, so lets look at morphine instead as it should be similar. The therapeutic index is 70. (This is the ratio between the proper dose and the dose that might kill, the higher the number the better.) For comparison, the therapeutic index for acetaminophen is 3--and yet it's over the counter!
Heroin overdoses are common because of two issues:
1) Unknown purity. Users deliberately go close to the limits to get the biggest high, if they get heroin with a higher purity than they expect they can go over the edge. In a world where you bought your heroin from a pharmacy rather than the street such deaths would pretty much not happen.
2) Jail. Someone has been in jail for a while and not using, they get out, they take what they're used to taking--but now they aren't habituated. Now the dose is lethal. This one could certainly be reduced by having a required class for all druggies about to be released from jail--explain the problem and warn them that their usual dose is probably now a lethal dose.
Another common way to die is to take heroin and benzos at the same time (both are respiratory depressants). This happens with the similar prescription painkillers as well.
There are some other combinations that can cause similar trouble too (alcohol plus benzos, alcohol plus opiods).
Accidental overdose can also happen after relapse, most easily if avoiding the substance rather than receiving medical addiction treatment. Or if taking combinations of drugs that combine to impair judgement.
Don't forget about the huge ramp up in overdoses over the last few years due to street heroin being cut with fentanyl. I lost my best friend two years ago from this. If he could have been getting a known pharmaceutical quantity from a medically supplied source this wouldn't have been an issue.
There are drugs (crack cocaine, bath salts, maybe meth) where I think dealing should have severe penalties, but most of the people who are using these drugs are doing so because they are already struggling with life issues. Putting them in prison is almost certain to cost taxpayers a ton of money and utterly destroy that person's life.
I think you can legalize things and still discourage the use of. Look at tobacco as an example. Or even alcohol. I'd argue that it's actually easier to discourage with legalization that without, but this is debatable. My position is that if it's legal that makes it easier to seek treatment. Seeking out treatment isn't going to get you fired or put in jail while you're trying to turn your life around.
Depends on the person. Crack wasn't interesting for me. Never used H but a proportion of people who can use it safely, like I would have a drink and know when to stop is ~50% (figure from memory from a letter in newscientist which I've been unable to find).
> and easy to overdose
What's the safe range? I think you are saying something I and many ohters could agree with but they need backing up.
Well, that's your opinion - but reality would like to have a word with you. Doctors in the US are giving out Adderall (similar to meth) and Fentanyl (even more addictive and dangerous than Heroin) like candy.
Baseless Anecdote: I once met a man that claimed he took acid more often than that in the 70s. He said he would get intravenous B vitamin supplements to trip more often. not really arguing anything, I just found his story fascinating.
I don't understand why this is being downvoted. Addiction is a disease and shouldn't be criminalized. Part of the reason the opioid epidemic is so bad is that people don't seek help or call emergency services for fear of criminal punishment.
One of the sad realities of American politics is that jailing people, and jailing people under inhumaine circumstances remains very popular. For any given behavior that is socially undesirable it’s easy to find a large enough constituency that says “lock them up and throw away the key”, even if as a society we all agree that our criminal justice system is ineffective and out of control.
> under inhumane circumstances remains very popular.
I recently read an article about the popularity of '/r/justiceserved' type forums (the original tagline of this subreddit was "Now with 40% more police brutality" but was changed as it became more popular). I can't for the life of me find the article, but it was a fairly ambivalent account of how this kind of forum taps into a deeply innate arousal from visceral punishment. Something that the author decides, sadly, appears to be in all of us.
Part of the issue is that nobody ever got elected to local law-enforcement/judicial positions (sheriffs, state atty generals, judges) by saying "I'm definitely going to arrest fewer people in your town".
Yeah, this is a big problem. A few years back there was white heroin being sold as cocaine in Amsterdam. So the Amsterdam government put up signs and issued warnings to call an ambulance immediatly if someone became unwell after using 'cocaine'.
Soon after it was discovered that a lot of American and British tourists were not doing this out of fear for getting arrested.
The Amsterdam government had to add a specific part to the signs (in English) saying you wouldn't be arrested if you called for help.
The intent expressed is likely laudable, and the helpful approach overall preferred by the HN crowd -- however, the context, specifically associating drug consumption with addiction might not be popular among people who use psychoactive substances occasionally and no see themselves as addicts.
This isn’t an actual problem though, addiction is. If some people who do acid sometimes get their feelings hurt over something people aren’t even really accusing them of, I’d say that’s acceptable collateral
> Good. Putting people with addiction issues in jail was the wrong approach.
A big problem is that addictions are expensive and people are willing to commit crimes to feed addictions when they run out of money. Anecdata of 1, but one of my friends in high school got addicted to heroin, and he ended up in jail not because of possession of heroin, but because he started stealing so he could come up with the money to buy more... so in that sense decriminalization won't necessarily help, but I agree that possession of drugs for personal use should not necessarily result in jail time.
Yeah, but who's giving handys under the bridge for a carton of cigarettes?
If you are already committing crimes every day buying and possessing something, then committing crimes to feed the habit isn't a big jump. Conversely, if you haven't done anything illegal yet, most people will pay a hefty premium to avoid having to do anything illegal.
Alcoholism isn't expensive. There are russian vodkas that are cheap and yet triple filtered. I personally help and know a few homeless by the train so they've shown me these things.
These guys drink the whole day, the very definition of alcoholics. And they still have plenty of spending money. I don't know what evidence you have, but it sounds like it's pretty much just a "tell that."
Are you referring to delirium tremens being fatal, or the symptoms of DT and the onset of other factors being responsible for death? A critical distinction, I think that deserves being called out
These guys start shaking if they don't get alcohol. I've had to give them some of my valium script because the liquor store was closed one night and we visited one of their friends in the hospital. Again, where is the evidence for your claims? Have you ever befriended any homeless people?
A lot more people would die of heroin if it was "cheap" and available. It's very easy to OD with it. Not to mention it turns anyone into a junkie in the span of a few weeks, and it's _very_ difficult to get off it.
There seems to be this false equivalence in the minds of some folks between hard drugs and e.g. pot. This has no basis in reality. Pot won't fuck you up. Meth most definitely will.
Many/most overdoses happen because the illegal supply has very uneven strength. If the new batch is twice as potent as the previous one, you won't know until you wake up dead.
When you get your Heroin at Walgreens, this never happens.
> Many/most overdoses happen because the illegal supply has very uneven strength.
this is true, but opioids in general have a low therapeutic index (ie, the ratio between an effective dose and LD50 is rather low). even with a known dose, the risk of OD is among the highest of commonly abused drugs. in fairness, I should note that the therapeutic index for most opioids is close to that of alcohol. people die of alcohol poisoning every year (though far fewer than OD on opioids) despite the proof being printed clearly on the bottle.
Not to mention acetaminophen/paracetamol. Alcohol is something like 10:1, tylenol may be as low as 3:1. Morphine is much safer, 70:1 or so - not sure about heroin.
I do think inconsistent supply is a larger contribution to OD risk than the relatively tight TI, but this is hard to study properly partially because of criminalization.
I was going off this table: https://web.cgu.edu/faculty/gabler/toxicity%20Addiction%20of... (page 689), which does not include morphine. it's surprising that the margin is so much larger for morphine, since heroin is essentially a prodrug for morphine. the figures I found for morphine all seem to assume an oral ROA for morphine, but IV for heroin. perhaps that explains some of the difference? it could also be that the definition of "effective dose" is different in an abuse context vs. a medical one. also now that I go back and look more closely, it seems the TI of opioids is a fairly wide range, so my comment is not entirely correct as written.
I'm glad you brought up paracetamol as well. I find that people often overestimate how dangerous illicit drugs are, while at the same time being totally blase when it comes to stuff you can buy off the shelf at any pharmacy. frankly, I find tylenol kind of scary and try to use it only when absolutely necessary.
Except of course it's pretty difficult to consume 10x the amount of alcohol without puking, and people develop tolerance to morphine, which shrinks the safety margin, and makes it dangerous if a formerly "normal" dose is injected after a relapse.
Pot will definitely fuck you up if you're on the wrong end of the response curve.
That said, criminalising drugs has absolutely made the situations around and with them worse for more people. Those with the greatest gain in the current situation are the warlords in South America, the commercial jails and politicians stoking fear of drug use.
A great number of people can and have used a wide range of drugs successfully, peacefully, creatively, introspectively and with joy for 1000s of years. The current predominant legislation doesn't seem to reflect the will of a huge number of people. I don't have stats to say "a majority", but it wouldn't surprise me, especially if you include alcohol.
The problems exist. Better methods need to be sought to deal with them than criminalisation.
And a great number of people have died because of this use. I mean, are you really going to argue that it is possible to have a "normal" life and take heroin or meth at the same time? I'm not saying taking heroin should be a felony, but selling it definitely should.
I had a relatively normal life, working a job in tech and keeping up a stable relationship with my girlfriend while also using heroin every day. Of course I would rather have not been going down to the Mission every morning to procure the stuff. The lifestyle that accompanied the illicit use was ultimately the problem for me, not the use of the substance itself.
Thousands of people are high functioning and doctor-prescribed amphetamine users (Adderall) in this country and we don't bat an eye. As soon as you call it "meth" people get weird about it.
I agree, those two in particular seem to fuck people up. We need to do something about that.
But I am going to argue that a VAST number of people take caffeine, alcohol, cocaine, MDMA, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, sugar, 2CB, DMT, ayahuasca, amphetamine and many others in a wide variety of settings with largely positive results. As such, the general trend of legislation around the world against (most) of these chemicals seems grossly at odds with on-the-ground opinion and practice.
I'm in full agreement with you there. I see no reason to jail people for taking non-addictive psychoactive substances. I voted to legalize pot in my state (measure did pass), even though I'm not a user myself. IMO, pot, for example, is strictly better than alcohol from both health and addiction standpoint. I think that not only should we allow pot, we should allow people to grow it for their own consumption. As to other non-addictive drugs, I'll defer to those who have studied them. LSD, for example, is known to sometimes fuck people up in its own ways, and it is generally not safe to take without supervision.
It's a weasel statistic. 75% of people try it once or twice and "don't get addicted". Those who partake with some regularity are almost guaranteed to get addicted. We're losing tens of thousands of people in this country to opioids per year, but if you mention that opioids are dangerous, there will always be a HN "statistician" "quickly googling" things.
In that specific case decriminalization would indeed help, those caught stealing to feed an addiction that end up with a criminal record then face the difficult reality of trying to find employment with a that record. On top of that doing jail time often means soliciting with other criminals, making contacts and building the wrong kinds of networks.
Decriminalization in combination with rehab and community service programs sets those people up for a far better chance of overcoming addiction.
Correct me if I'm wrong, decriminalization just means you won't be charged with a crime if you are in possession of drugs, but you will still be charged with stealing if you steal. Stealing for the purpose of buying drugs does not get a free pass under drug decriminalization afaik.
Yeah this does make sense and my comment didn't really take that in to account. I guess I imagined more leniency when a drug addict is no longer seen as a criminal.
Incarceration is what triggered a family member to finally have success fighting their addiction. Loss of job and family wasn't rock bottom for them. Incarceration was. And they've since rebuilt their life and their family. Incarceration was the trigger that made that possible.
I'm sympathetic to your point and to all who are subject to any drug or alcohol addiction. But I feel compelled to comment that incarceration is not always the inhumane dead-end that it's painted as. It's one of many tools that can be used to rehabilitate those in need.
When we can't deal with issues openly, especially mental health issues, we often see the "tough" route promoted.
That would be "rock bottom" in your anecdote.
Consider how PTSD used to be treated back when it was "shell shock" and considered a personal moral failure. People were told there was nothing wrong. Many of those people "recovered," too. But was that the right way to treat people facing real problems?
I'm SURE that there are MANY people for whom incarceration "worked" (i.e., didn't get back in jail, broke their addiction), but on the whole, there's a lot of evidence that incarceration is simply not the most effective (expensive/doesn't work well for many) strategy for reducing drug usage and drug-related health and social ills.
Thousands of people have had their lives ruined by being incarcerated for possession of cannabis. Hundreds of thousands maybe. Most of them weren't addicts, or committing other crimes, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time with a bag of weed in their pockets or whatever.
It's good that your family member finally had success fighting their addiction, but at what price?
I wonder what the proportion of people is for who incarceration is the start of recovery vs people for who incarceration is the start of a downward spiral.
My guess is that incarceration for non violent drug offenders has way more negative outcomes vs positive outcomes. I used to work out at a boxing gym and there were quite a few people whose possibility of finding an ok job was almost zero because a marijuana or cocaine conviction had put a negative mark on their background checks. This is especially true for poor neighborhoods where families don’t have the financial ability to support other family members who have problems.
If incarceration was a common rock bottom that addicts could build up from, I might agree with you, but knowing what we know about recidivism among addicts, it is likelier to be an aggregate negative even if a few people find a way to recover during their sentence.
> But I feel compelled to comment that incarceration is not always the inhumane dead-end that it's painted as. It's one of many tools that can be used to rehabilitate those in need.
Most of Europe has compulsory treatment options instead of incarceration, but due to abuses in the past it's a non-starter in the US.
I agree with the general sentiment of that, however the nuanced reality is far more complex than that. For many people the only treatment that actually worked is precisely prison. The reality of the rehabilitation industry across the board is not exactly a shining example of success, while prison does seem to show significant advantages. The question we have to ask ourselves these is essentially this one; what is better, someone that goes to prison for 5 years and gets treatment and comes out with a higher likelihood of recovery, or someone that spends 5 years in and out of treatment and living in drug addiction misery of exploitation and abuse and with a notably lower likelihood of permanent recovery?
Of the two examples the former is obviously better, even though a third, hybrid option that no one talks about is likely the best; a kind of reform complex/community akin to boot camp of the past broken people are broken down and rebuilt into new, functioning adults. For anyone who knows anything about the military, especially of the past, will know that in treatment of people, the bootcamp model is the very best option. It builds character, it shatters bad habits and compulsions, it builds support structures and deep bonds, it creates a pathway to hope, success, and achievement, it uses sticks and carrots to set people on a graduated path. It's literally everything that drug addicts need if one actually cares about them getting the devil off their back, and is not just interested in trying to feel good about themselves.
At the same time I would have serious concerns about public safety for certain drugs. While I agree jail isn't the answer, I think house arrest or curfews would be a good middle ground for drug abusers to maintain public safety while they engage in rehabilitation programs at the same time.
There have been attempts to categorize and measure the social harms caused by heavy users of various drugs, and the actual measurable impacts don’t really line up with what people worry about. The study I saw put alcohol at the top of the list, due to the social cost of drunken fights, spousal abuse, and DUIs.
I’m sure there are some public safety issues that we should deal with for the various “hard” drugs decriminalized here, but I also find it fascinating how much social desirability affects which drugs we decide are a problem that require special treatment, since I’ve never seen anyone recommend house arrest or curfews for alcoholics.
So criminalize alcohol abuse as well. Not jail-criminalize it, that's too expensive for taxpayers. But I sure would love if the streets are clear of drunk, violent people fighting. Impose curfews and cameras in their homes.
> Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.
> I want to criminalize alcohol abuse, not alcohol.
As leetcrew we already have laws in re: most of that, including "disturbing the peace".
> Because I watched cops do absolutely nothing...
If they're not enforcing the law in the first place, how does adding another law help?
My point about Prohibition is that this thing is cultural: Alcohol and tobacco are "in", pot and oxy and the others are "out". If you live in an area that tolerates drunken hooliganism you're gonna have a bad time with drunken hooligans.
I agree something could be done about alcohol abuse. But your last sentence is madness. Unless you mean it sarcastically, which is the only way I can understand it.
I don't understand why it is madness. Care to explain?
I see violent people on the street. They are a danger to me. I want safe streets. House arrest costs taxpayers very little.
If there was an angry bear on the streets threatening people it would probably be relocated, tagged, and confined to the forests as well. Not much different.
Exactly my point. We want to reduce the taxpayer burden of prison, but still keep the streets safe. House arrest is a way to build a cheaper AND more humane prison, and one that is also much better for rehabilitation and access to education and employment.
The cameras would come off once their house arrest term is over.
how about we just make the specific thing we don't want illegal, as opposed to banning the myriad ways that a person could end up doing the thing? some poor soul sitting alone at home drinking cheap vodka all day doesn't actually hurt me. we already have laws against DUI, assault, public intoxication, etc.
I added public intox to the list just to show how many ways we already have of going after intoxicated people that are behaving badly. I think it's actually another example of an unjust law. the simple act of being drunk in public doesn't hurt anyone either.
> some dude getting drunk and roaming the streets waving around a steel bar threatening to hit people
this is already clear cut assault. why do we need yet another charge to pile on?
> this is already clear cut assault. why do we need yet another charge to pile on?
Because I watched cops do absolutely nothing, because although it was pretty goddamn dangerous with mothers with children around and whatnot.
At the very least, then, make hate speech and threats on strangers ground for arrest. Make wielding any object as a weapon ground for arrest. If they make threats while drunk, they don't necessarily need to be jailed, I'm happy if they're just escorted home and required to stay home for the day.
maybe not hate speech, but threats on strangers and wielding an object as a weapon are already grounds for arrest if an officer feels like doing anything about it.
I feel like we almost agree? the issue is not that we don't have enough laws already, but rather that perfectly good laws are not actually enforced.
I thought it was obvious. Young kids are easily influenced. If you create an environment where there are no restrictions on drug usage, kids get exposure to it.
I agree that was not the right approach. I'm not sure this is the right approach either.
Keeping it criminalized, but as a summary offense with the punishment being an educational presentation/course on rehab options might provide some better outcomes. There are some tangentially related things to consider here too, like drug convictions preventing addicts from buying weapons.
How would a summary offense with a punishment of education on rehab options create more crime?
How is it necessarily a health issue? Not all drug users are addicts.
Edit: And perhaps the most obvious support for it being a criminal issue is that the first time someone does the drug it would only be a criminal issue and could not be a health issue since they had no prior exposure to become addicted.
>How is it necessarily a health issue? Not all drug users are addicts.
1. If you are a drug user, not even necessarily an addict (in which your need to consume the drug gets in the way of other life functions), then society is already accepting. Cocaine use, for example, is far less stigmatized in the US and UK.
2. If you step back from your biases and view addiction as a "sickness", then throwing addicts in prison makes as much sense as throwing someone in prison for a broken leg. Sure sometimes it might work, but it's clearly not the most optimal solution. Other countries that have taken this approach have far fewer recidivism rates - which is the metric that should be judged.
Finally to answer your point "summary offense with a punishment of education on rehab options create more crime" is not at all what happens in the US today. Drug use & possession carries prision term, in which cutting cold turkey (or, likely more commonly sneaking drugs into prison) is the only option. After which, you are likely to lose your job and turn to more crime to make a living once released from prison. A more realistic counter to your point however is that the current American criminal justice system has little flexibility for nuance, and without major police reform, leaving this issue to police simply does not produce the intended results.
Did you read the first sentence of my original comment? I'm agreeing that the existing system doesn't work. I acknowledge addiction as a sickness and see how the current process fails to address it.
I'm saying that decriminalization isn't the the best option in my opinion either - essentially you have a system ignoring people's drug use rather than offering help. My suggestion was to have a low level summary offense which only punishes the person with education on rehab options. This would require users to recieve information on treatment options that they might otherwise not be aware of. It would also track the offense so that if an addict resorts to crime to pay for their habit, they would not be legally allowed to buy a weapon.
>My suggestion was to have a low level summary offense which only punishes the person with education on rehab options.
What I'm saying is you have to consider who would be responsible for such a system? Decriminalization isn't about ignoring the issue, it's about getting these people out of the criminal justice system. What you are advocating for, to be implemented successfully, would require a reform of the entire police force to treat these people as patients instead of criminals. (I'm focusing on America here, in your country the police may be less hostile, especially to drug users.)
The eventual path that is being set, for which decriminalization would be a first step would then to have hospitals/health care provide save alternatives to buying hard drugs/needles on the street, which you can then check them into and begin the rehab process there. Essentially forcing people to rehab under threat of punishment isn't successful, and the American police force has spent the last 40 years treating drug users as criminals. Depending on the justice system isn't likely to work.
Why would the police need to treat them as patients? When you get a ticket for a traffic violation, they typically (the good ones anyways) educate you on what you did that was unsafe. This is usually just a summary offense with a fine. I'm saying that drug users should get a similar treatment but even without the fine.
> How would a summary offense with a punishment of education on rehab options create more crime?
I'm not sure if I'm mis-understanding you or if you aren't familiar with the legislation in question. What you suggest here seems an awful lot like a marginally more sever version of what this law does.
It does seem very similar. It's a little different. The new law imposes a fine of $100 and appears to be a civil citation. I was suggesting it be a summary offense with no fine and education of the rehab option available. The main difference is in secondary impacts. The civil citation may not show up on a background check, which may not prevent the person from purchasing weapons. Any criminal conviction (even just a summary offense) related to drugs would prevent the purchase of weapons.
Anything you get sited for would be on your record similar to the way your traffic tickets are. If they are going to revise gun legislation to limit sales of guns to specific types of violations, there are a lot of other violations I think should be higher up on the list.
Not against the idea of this, but IMO any decisions about fire-arms ownership limits should be a separate issue, not part of how they legislate drug possession.
The issue is that if you challenge a civil matter in court, the jury doesn't have to be unanimous in the decision of your guilt, and you generally don't have the same protections/procedures in place at a civil trial. The the drug conviction restriction is already a federal restriction. So you could have people "convicted" of a civil offense by a split jury who would end up losing their rights. That's assuming the the feds consider a civil judgement the same as a criminal conviction on this matter. Even without the conviction, I believe the federal form requires a purchaser to attest to not using a controlled substance, which the civil judgement would indicate one has used.
I think criminal background checks only show criminal citations. Civil actions generally shouldn't show. Traffic citations are generally treated as criminal offenses (summary offense), but maybe some states are different.
I'm surprised they don’t just waive low balances, like many banks do [0]
How is it economical for AWS to charge a credit card for a penny? I wonder what Amazon’s agreements with interchange networks must be like...
[0]: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/small-balance-waiver-a-k-a-lo...