RE: I Started Selling Crack At 12 - Part 3
When it comes to weed, LSD, mushrooms, ecstasy I can agree about the need to lift the prohibition, however I don't agree that there is a place for legal heroin, crack and meth.
While it might eliminate some of the street level violence, there will always be an underground market and as the market shrinks the corners become more valuable, so this might actually increase the violence in the poorer communities where they could not afford to purchase legally.
Certain drugs absolutely lead to no where but a physical dependence and addiction, the user loses sight of everything except getting their fix, eventually when they can no longer hold a job and they turn to robbery and theft to get the money for the next hit.
I have only met a couple of recreational crackheads and responsible junkies in my life. Lives are lost to more than just the gun.
For certain.
Now, that said, what if drugs cost what they actually cost instead of what they end up costing under prohibition, and were pure?
People would die because of drugs, I get that, but people die because of drugs every day, today. And every day, today, far more people die because of alcohol than because of illegal drugs. I'm not debating that "certain drugs absolutely lead to no where but a physical dependence and addiction," though I am debating the second part of that statement.
Legalization wouldn't just make the corners less valuable; it'd more or less obliterate their value, and the prison-industrial-complex that goes along with them. Now, every study that's been done, including the real-world national level actual legalization of all drugs in Portugal shows that usage rates decline in such a scenario.
But let's say that usage rates went up. Just, hypothetically. So, drugs are legal and you can buy them in stores similar to today's head shops and they're pure. Usage rates go up by 10% nationally. Deaths due to drug use decline anyway, because drug users know what they're using.
Oh, then there's philosophy: Look all we've really got in the end is our bodies, and maybe our minds. The man can't control what you think, but tries really hard to control how you think it. To me that's not alright.
"The police state" in the United States is a direct descendant of our failed drug policies. All that's needed now is to admit failure and move on.
And you're right: There's not going to be many responsible crackheads, weather drugs are illegal or legal, and there surely will still be crackheads in either case, as well, so I choose legalization, the course that I think harms society the least.