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tweet by Johann Hari: The core of addiction is not wanting to be present in life, because pour life is too painful a place to be. This is why imposing more pain or punishment on a person with an addiction problem actually makes their addiction worse.
I’m not really sold on that. Drug addicts are victims and shouldn’t be penalized but drug dealers definitely deserve jail.
In most of the world people who sell weed are “drug dealers”; are you including them as well?
If it’s illegal in that country, yes.
It should be legal everywhere, but if you’re selling it where it isn’t you’re still breaking the law. Iirc most countries that have it legal also have a lot of regulations on it so selling it in a random back alley without certification would still be a crime.
So what, I’m a victim of an evil drug dealer if I buy weed in Texas but I’m just a satisfied customer if I buy weed in Washington?
You’re engaging in the circular logic of thinking illegal things are bad because they’re illegal and they need to stay illegal because they’re bad. You need to understand the laws have no inherent moral value, and nothing is bad simply because it’s illegal.
They don’t need to stay illegal, I explicitly said they shouldn’t.
But if you’re buying it in Texas you’re likely doing it from a backalley random anonymous guy who takes no accountability and might give you who-knows-what mixed with it. I’d say in those circumstances even selling apples should be illegal.
It’s like comparing prescription Xanax to smuggled benzos from India.
I never met a junkie that didn’t also sell at least a bit to help pay for the habit. I get what you mean, some dealers/orgs are obviously bad people and often these aren’t even addicts at all to their own product, but where do you draw the line.
That’s why I think it’s a difficult thing to handle.
My opinion would be something like this (though it’s probably very flawed as I just thought of it on the spot and I’m not extremely knowledgeable on the subject):
Are you positive to a drug test? Are you willing to cooperate on where did you get them?
Yes-Yes: Confiscation and advice to go to a rehab center
Yes-No: Confiscation and advice to go to a rehab center unless it’s a repeat offense, in that case I’d force the rehab center
No-Yes: Just confiscation
No-No: I’m assuming you’re the dealer, jail
How about fuck all that, and just leave people alone?
If they aren’t harming anyone, leave them the fuck alone unless they ask for help.
They are harming people by selling hard drugs to them.
that’s your view, there’s very different types of drugs, and not all hard drugs are harmful. Putting people doing harmless ‘crimes’ in jail, that is what is harmful to society.
What would you consider a “hard drug” that isn’t harmful? Isn’t its very definition a way to distinguish them from soft drugs which are less harmful?
Afaik only cannabis and alcohol are considered soft drugs. Cannabis actually has quite a few people addicted to it. Alcohol does an incredible amount of harm to health and society. Take a look at shrooms, which are usually considered hard-drugs: no-one is addicted to it, it’s not bad for your health, it’s actually a very healing experience and is being considered more and more as a proper treatment for psychological problems. Shrooms are usually consumed very responsibly, there are of course always some idiots who don’t know what they are doing. Still they’re considered hard drugs and conservative minded people often don’t want to hear about legalization, without any rational argument.
Shrooms are a valid argument, I’ve seen them categorized as both. I was more talking about stuff that is pretty much universally deemed a “hard drug”, like cocaine, heroin, ecstasy or meth.
I just found these drugs on you, which you are obviously using. How’d you like to pee in a cup while a creepy, uniformed man watches your dingdong intensely?
If you don’t want to be watched by a creepy uniformed man you can come to the police station and do it in the toilet.
Or just, not do stuff that’s illegal. If people nowadays still do it knowing they risk jail, risking a brief uneasy situation seems way less threatening.