Commoditizing Illicit Street Drugs

[limitles]

The War on Drugs is a huge boom to politicians and those in the justice and law enforcement systems who are opportunistic, albeit naively or cravenly, in making careers out of “fighting drug abuse”.

Other than that, it is an absolute disaster for the communities where people are more likely to abuse recreational drugs to escape the emotional toil of their circumstances, such as the poor and marginalized. The rich and politically connected who fall into drug abuse most likely can avoid the harsh criminal law consequences of a illicit drug arrest, and that’s even assuming that police are actively investigating such crimes given the political heat they would get from arresting a lot of people who can afford good attorneys.

The other insidious consequence of criminalizing drug use is that it fosters an adversarial relationship between the police and drug users who are otherwise law abiding citizens. This motivates the users to avoid the police, as well as seeking treatment and counseling for their drug use/habit, as well as motivates the police to treat people in lower income communities as likely criminals given the much lower likelihood of political fallout for routinely abusing their power in such communities.

Portugal, which decriminalized small-level drug possession in 2001, has essentially eliminated that adversarial relationship between the police and drug users, which has resulted in a dramatic decline in drug addiction, drug overdoses and drug-related crime. At a minimum, the US should follow Portugal’s lead.

Decriminalizing is slightly +Ev and doesn't really require anything. US is at a somewhat different position in that it would greatly benefit from full legalization. Proximity to cartels and street gangs makes it special case. The degree with how much US subsidizes street gangs/organized crime with drug policy is in a class of it's own. Italy is likely close in Europe and i'd assume China is most organized in Asia.

I don't have huge faith in drug companies doing the right thing about anything, but they are accountable. I don't really know anyone that would choose Mexican Cartels over drug companies. Illegals drugs are somewhere between 3-4 biggest commodity in the world. It's just too much money to hand over to organized crime families/street gangs.

The latest drug scare is that Etizolam has been discovered in some confiscated street heroin/fentanyl mix. I almost laughed out loud
when I read that. Etizolam is a knock-off of Valium. As gimmick said you would have to have a truck load fall on you to cause death.

Dealers are out to make money and that means diluting their product. Fentanyl is cheaper that heroin and is essentially the same thing so it was a marriage waiting to happen Coke is cut with just about anything but reports that Fentanyl is now the go to option are plain wrong. Not saying some customers wouldn't ask for will do for a fraction of the cost and bother.

And Gimmick is also correct in that Benzodiazepines are completely harmless mentally and physically, unless your Tiger Woods. The addiction problem is that of most medications. Once you realize that they can be your best friend