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Why?

1. we spend billions world-wide "fighting" this shit, yet the drug flow to America has remained the same or increased since DEA was created. not only that, violence has increased.

2. 1/3 of American prisoners are held by drug related offences. it costs an average of $20108 per year to keep EACH of these prisoners in jail.

3. it would allow hospitals to actually treat these people instead of keeping them in prisons, which actually cost MORE. drug addiction is a medical sickness and people should be treated, not arrested, for being addicts.

4. after legalizing narcotic use(in small regulated doses), and increasing treatment options to addicts, portugal and the netherlands have actually seen a DECREASE in "hard" drug use.

5. look at the violence caused cartels, gangs, and other organized crime. its all because drugs are illegal. so many lives could be changed for the better if we legalized. people wouldn't have to turn to the cartels and gangs to feed their addictions.

my conclusions: yes, drugs are bad (addiction/dependence, HIV from needle sharing). keeping them illegal only makes it worse. arresting these people is not a solution, you need to give sick people treatment, not arrest them.



Discuss!

The one's in prison are usually the dealers, not the addicts.

somehow get rid of drugs, problem solved!

Yeah, sure. Why not. Go nuts. Every Wednesday is coke tub party night.

Stupid idea, if you ask me. If it's costing too much to keep them in jail, kill them, they are there for a reason; they are a danger to not only themselves, but to others as well.

I for one wouldn't want crack heads running free and about, putting my own safety on the line (addicts will do anything to keep getting their dose, this includes taking anothers life).

I live in a country that see's these assholes rob and steal from innocent people. Getting stabbed for not giving them your phone, or a dollars worth cash; taking from anyone and everyone... me and my friends actually got jumped with tear gas by what seemed like a bunch of 15 year olds, they didn't even get anything from us.

Why let them roam free? If they decided to consume in the first place, then let them now face the consequences, it's not like they didn't know unprescripted drugs were a bad thing.

Yes, the world is messed up and I think your head is messed up to. It is that way because there are people who fight it. If no one fight it the world would be in chaos.

Do you want your children to be addicted and smoke drugs all days? No.

It's not about fighting the drugs that cause the problem but it's the drug itself. How about burn all (bad) drug and kill all bad people? It will resolve the problem. That's what the law is for, to try to keep the balance and peace in the world.

No law that stop people? World gone wild, people turn into animal.

@_Clitrix_: nice avatar, marry me.

the point is these people are sick, addicted to these drugs. would you rather kill a sick person than treat him? there are proven ways to get off drug addictions and treat them. they wouldn't have to kill, to rob and steal for their addictions if someone would help them. this treatment is NOT available to them by keeping them in prisons. it costs less to treat then to keep in prisons, so why not?

Legalize drug and treating people are 2 different stories. There is no connection betweens them.

Threating people is good.
Legalizing drug is bad.

Discuss in term of cause=>effect:
if there is no drug => there is no addiction => there is no sickness
in order to have no drug => police have to fight it => to fight it, first thing is to illegalized it since you can't fight what's legal coz that's hypocrite

Legalize and educate. Yes.

I'm gonna have to say no to the hard drugs, and im not sure for pot etc. The hard drugs, no amount of education will make a crackhead not want to hurt someone/ get his/her fix. Education is great and all (even though it fails MISERABLY for alcohol + pot) but it's not realistic for the harder drugs.

Well Illegalize (i know not a word ;p) and educate doesnt seem to work so..what would be the difference here..lol

@OP; isnt that what Portugal tried and it worked very well for them? I think in the US it would be hard/take much longer since the population is much larger..

Very true lol. If people still do it with consequences & education, what's stopping them with 0 consequences lmao?

Nothing, so stop wasting resources trying to stop it.

Instead of just giving up on them (which would lead to in fact more people doing drugs which leads to more people dieing in crimes and from the drug effects, which I hope outweighs costs) how about we actually bump up policies instead?

gosh, we'd be the best couple.

Perhaps I'm too liberal when it comes to personal freedoms.

what? stupidest idea I've ever heard.

Should we legalize killing as well? cuz we need less population to save our planet?

More death = more income to the undertaker + tax.
come on.

It will only increase the crime rate even more.
You really don't know what drug addiction is really capable that's why they keep them in prison or rehab.

+1^

Legalize it.

Nowadays drugs are as easy to get as groceries. The government can't stop the trading of drugs, they tried in all possible ways and failed. In order to gain somewhat of control they should legalize it. They should register all the users of drugs, this way they know exactly who are using drugs and they can help them to stop using. Another big adventage is the crushing effect on criminality. The biggest income of all big criminals is the sell of drugs. Nowadays even terrorists are being sponsored with drugsmoney (alqaida+opium). By legalizing the sell of drugz, you also legalize the growing of drugs. This should be done by government owned shops and only the government is allowed to grow drugs. This should generate quite a bit of money for the state treasure. Since the growth will be done by the government, the quality and safety of the drugs will be guaranteed. This will solve the problem of bad and fake drugs killing thousands of people. This being said, the biggest advantage ofcourse is still the registration of all users. This really gives the government a tool to help drug addicts effictively. All the other advantages are a nice bonus.

tl;dr: by legalizing drugs the government gets a better control of the drugproblem by getting all drug users to be registrated, it will have a crushing effect on crime, it will generate extra income for the state treasure and you take out all the dangerous bad/fake drugs.

Yes I do. My parents divorced because of drugs.

The legality of said drugs had no effect on them still abusing them. Their ignorance of their effects did.

I rest my case.

heroo. are you seriously displaying this much of a minimal knowledge of public policy? You think that when it's legal they will [the gov't] be able to keep track of everyone doing it, when they fail to do it now spending billions on policing? if legalized, millions more will do it, and generally try to evade the tax so they could buy from friends etc. it's a retarded reality you imagine if you think that when legalized the government would be able to know when/where drugs are at all times. This just lowers deterrence and allows for more rampant problems, if we cant keep track of guns, how will we keep track of drugs?
Also to the argument about state generated revenue, looking to empirics this isn't true. Although I concede we would save money if we halt the "war on drugs" in the US, the state generated revenue is negligible (look to Prohibition and the repeal of it, the taxed revenue from liquor that the government needed in the 20s and 30s was very minimal). Also you assume that as soon as we legalize we could find everyone doing drugs etc. and now that it's not illegal, really do nothing about it. In essence you are assuming a perfect world when you legalize, however looking to empirics and the status quo, it's truly impossible to achieve your side of the debate, we have to leave it criminalized (for lack of better terms) because it's the only deterrent available (one of the many reasons). Legal or not legal, people will do it, but when it's legal, plenty more will. That's a disadvantage of decriminalization.

@ Evga, I get your point, but they are from a different time. Whether or not they are legal shouldn't matter to you, as a personal experience shouldn't have anything to do with a theoretical policy debate. If what we are talking about is serious, you have to realize that education isn't really viable right now, and we would have to have visible improvements first, then worry about eradicating the deterrents (which is really most of the defense we have now against drugs), because education alone won't stop someone from doing drugs, and hurting someone in the process.

My goal with education would not be to stop people from using drugs. It would simply be to present the facts and let them choose for themselves. I don't have anything against people using. It's their choice, not mine, not anyone's.

I don't see any viable options for stopping the use of drugs nor do I want there to be. However, I think an educated populace would lead to less abuse. Throwing people in jail obviously doesn't work.

Edit: Typo's...

yes i think that. they can spend hundreds of billions if they want, as long as users are not registered they'll never know who's using it. you're wrong about millions of people who'll start using, because they're not using now. and that's not because they can't get it or because it's illegal, but it's because they know what drugs are capable of and don't want to use it. anyone who wants to do drugs will do it anyway. i bet any person on this forum who's 16/17 or older can get drugs if he wants, but that doesn't mean everyone is getting it. and to make sure resell is not profitable, you could allow users to only buy once a day and set a maximum for the amount you can buy at a day. this way it won't be profitable for people to buy and resell.

Not throwing them in jail would be worse. I had this graph that I must have deleted that showed the amount of deaths per year caused by certain drugs (caused onto others) via crime under the influence or in order to get drugs. The numbers are quite shocking. I wouldn't mind it AS much if it didn't affect anyone else, however some drugs are that dangerous, and they really need to be deterred. If jail + education fails, how would just education work. Logically, it wouldn't, which is why an educated populace is too idealistic to be a pragmatic policy. Presenting the facts won't stop a crack addict from killing someone, or a drunk driver...

Heroo that's incorrect. Drug laws do deter, I've posted the stat on this very forum a few times. Something like 29% of people in australia said they would smoke if it were legal or something like that. Now that's a pretty hefty number. Also the fact that you said the government could spend hundreds of billions on this new system just exemplifies your lack of knowledge on the topic of public policy, but that's a whole 'nother story. Basically your argument is that when it's illegalized (and even a felony) and people still do it, it's inferior to it being legalized, with no deterrent value, (more) people still doing drugs, killing/hurting other people yet with actually zero consequences, but the government would have the ability to stop crack addicts from over using crack etc. which doesn't make much sense truth be told. It's not like that doesn't sound all good in theory with an "all powerful" government, but pragmatically your idea just fails miserably. I like the idea of a strong government also, but you have to be realistic in a policy debate

This I disagree with, at least partially. I could care less what other people do with their life as long as it doesn't effect the lives of others. Sadly, as people get addicted to "hard drugs", oftentimes violence, theft, etc. are a result.

Imo, the whole mindset towards drugs is completely off with some people. I agree that jails don't do much against the problem, so I vote keep the ban and increase education and improve rehab programs and make it more available.

~ Aventuris

couldn't agree more, people at high schools etc, either do weed, or would do weed, or already are in consecutive use of drugs, i being australian, have met my fair share of drug users. as i read somewhere, it is not illegal to do drugs, it is illegal to be dealing them, or something along those lines, i.e ben cousins (famous footballer) was caught on video taking drugs, he was not sent to jail, just suspended from football, however, if he were dealing them, it would have been a sentence for at least 3 years, just my understanding, i might be wrong.

I'm not sure our drug education system is that good... as a matter of fact, I didn't know anything about hard drugs after leaving high school. Besides what I heard from my equally ignorant friends.

You're not going to stop people from abusing, but I think with proper education you could reduce the number who abuse. Idealistic? Maybe. I don't see any other options.

Intoxication while driving or in public would still be illegal and enforced, just as it is now.

nice stat, but if you look at the reality here in Holland, that stat isn't worth anything. when weed was legalized here it didn't cause a huge rise of people using weed. in fact, Holland is one of the countries in Europe with the lowest amount of people using drugs (taking the drugusers as part of the total population).



you should read my arguements better, but that's also a whole 'nother story.

and you're missing my point. it's not whether or not people are allowed to take drugs, because they will anyway. it's about the get a picture of the people that are using it and to help them in all possible ways to get rid of it.

drugs kill, they cause damage they are illegal for a good reason only drug i think should be made legal is weed and i dont even smoke it but if its legal the hype you get from taking an illegal drug is gone, but the others are pretty nasty and should remain illegal

Why not legalize murder and terrorism while we're at it..?


Why do you think so many people drink alcohol?