I think drug legalization in the West would reduce Cartel violence in South America very quickly.

#libertarian #politics #philosophy

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in reduce in would #politics Cartel drug the America very I think #philosophy West legalization violence South quickly.

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Drug legalization only brings civilizations on their knees. When you have a cheap hyperspace where everything is ok even if your life choices are a mess, people relax and do the mess and we can see that around

Simultaneously you'd have incredibly vast amount of lands, cities, buildings, neighborhoods, that would be free of crime and ready to be worked with.

Drug legalization would make South America one of the most attractive investment places on earth.

Drug usage is as old as humanity itself. Shamans have been using drugs to rewire the brain since forever.

The problem is the incentives as always. If you have the right incentives you have the right behaviour.

I would just go El Salvador style. European experiments with free drug didn't bring good results

Which experiments?

🇵🇹 Portugal: Decriminalized all drugs (2001). Possession = no jail, just fines/treatment. Big drop in deaths & HIV.

🇳🇱 Netherlands: Tolerates cannabis in coffeeshops. Hard drugs illegal. One of EU’s lowest cannabis use rates.

🇨🇭 Switzerland: Offers heroin-assisted treatment in clinics. Reduced HIV, overdoses, and street crime.

🇩🇪 Germany: Decriminalized small cannabis possession. 2024 law allows cannabis clubs & home growing.

🇨🇿 Czech Republic: Small amounts of most drugs decriminalized since 2009. Still illegal to sell.

🇪🇸 Spain: Private cannabis use allowed. Cannabis clubs operate in legal gray zone. Public use banned.

Would you come and check in person how is the quality of life there or you still believe the news like great GDP.. come and see with your eyes.

I'm from Portugal, one of the countries that decriminalized drugs, was also raised in a drug infested neighborhood, have/had family members and very close neighbors with that issue.

It's all about philosophy, incentives, and very little about the drugs themselves.

Drugs are irrelevant. It's all in the mind and culture.

I agree. Infact I teach my kids to avoid stuff that will degrade their health. At the same time many children do not have a nice family and get exposed to what is allowed. We limit them to drive cars, use money and have a bank account, they cannot buy chemicals that are dangerous. Why should we let them exposed to life changing drugs when they are in that period of life when peer pressure is so bad? Adolescents would do everything to keep friends. We have seen that with alcohol and cigarettes, I don't think is a good idea to let this happen with cocaine and heroin. And if the government would really stop it it would have been stopped

Because they'll find a way to have drugs whether we want them or not.

What we need is to show them the way, why and how to use or not use drugs.

Drugs are not to the problem, the problem is the mind. Thinking drugs are the problem is an incredibly narrowminded way of looking at the world and it will never work.

Buddhism explains all of this. If drugs are an escape (or done with a bad intention), we can't let people not escape, we need to understand what they're escaping from and lead them in a better way.

You are thinking of poverty not drugs.

Drugs are not good or bad.

People who are living in poverty use drugs as an escape, that is called an unhealthy coping mechanism and a symptom of poverty.

Give people access to the resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty and they will.

Look at all the drunken violence and everything bad that comes with alcohol abuse, now compare that to the organised crime and gang violence during prohibition and the fact that when alcohol was illegal everyone was still using it(just that the people making the alcohol couldn't be sued when they made a bad batch full of methanol that poisoned people etc.)

I know people from rich families that destroy their life with drugs more than poors. This idea that behaviour derives from money is false.

IMHO, drugs of dependence are suicide, but with extra steps. And with a non-trivial chance of being saved, but with a lot more harm inflicted on third parties.

I never met anyone who tried heroin / fentanyl without going through suicidal thoughts first. I'm sure such people exist, but I've not met one.

If hard drugs were legal, people would still kill themselves with them, but there'd be less adulteration, and no need to commit crimes of addiction (pharmaceutical-grade heroin in a thing for terminal cancer patients, and less than $1 a hit. Fentanyl is even cheaper to manufacture.)

We're not saving anyone by keeping them illegal, anyone who wants to find will. But by keeping them illegal we greatly empower the prison-industrial complex, the secret police services, and police informers aka organised crime bosses.

My personal proposal would be that people that use drugs should never be punished but people that push and induce others to do so should be severely punished.

Hollywood-style "pushers" aren't real, but we could and should enforce a seller's "Duty of Care". This should also be a thing for alcohol, of course. The so-called "Good Publican", but with actual liability for harm.

The point is that most drugs are a one way tunnel and while people should be free to decide there are some people that do not understand the consequences of their action and some years in everybody life when we are quite stupid. Ok with reversible wrong choices but not irreversible

Truth, but what about alcohol, motorbikes, skydiving, unsafe sex, horse-riding, mountain-biking and rollerblading?

(I've only come to serious harm from the last two).

If people are warned of the dangers by the supplier and choose to continue... they're making a choice. A choice we should not make for them.

Yes but admit. At 18 when you speed with a car you do not realize what is an accident. I went into a tree at 100mph. I am a survivor. I would never do that now and I am happy I didn't have to pay all my life for a stupid stunt. People are free to decide when they can really understand the consequences.

Truth, and I'm glad you're okay, but IRL I know people in their forties and fifties still doing stupid stuff.

At some point, "you're an adult and responsible for your choices" has to start...

But how would the CIA fund their Black Ops budget if drugs were legal?

Exactly.

There's a lot of vested interests in maintaining drugs illegal. This is absolutely not a trivial aspect of the problem.

On the other hand I would also say that its our role as the future inheritors of this earth to break this system apart.

We have the tools and we can do more? We're uncensorably connected currently. That's a great tool already.

I'm gonna disagree because in the west every city has fentynal zombies, meth heads and tweakers and all supported with facilities to enable them. Sidewalks are slammed up tent cities with feces and businesses are closing up shop.

But is that because of the drugs themselves or an absolute lack of systems and incentives that facilitate and promote agency, ownership and integration?

The system is absolutely broken in many ways. It has to be a multifaceted approach. Drug legalization is a piece of it. With drug legalization, millions of opportunities for more ownership would be created.

Because the real problem is ownership/agency. It's very hard to own anything, ownership has never been so expensive. You can't own anything, the rich/State have it all basically.

My point is if land was suddenly free in south America a lot of more stability and prosperity would be created. This would eventually generate better families, more opportunities, stability and peace and thus create less trauma that leads someone to despair like that in the streets of LA.

I believe more economic opportunities elsewhere mean we all benefit through competition. A lot of Americans would instantly move to South America and capitalize many places with capital, knowledge, etc, etc.

Drugs are escapism. Remove people from an environment where they feel a constant need to escape but can't and many will just quit on their own. Look at the studies on Vietnam veterans heroin use in theater and how many of them quit with no help when they got home.

TDLR, force can't make anyone sober up. You have to build a world where sober happiness is possible for them.

Exactly. The incentives are all wrong.

If there was a clear path forward people would walk it. And it's not easy at all for most people to see it.