Let's talk about drugs

[Banjo]

American.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You're a republican?

It depends on how you mean the term.  In the American sense, no.

Boru

Then no, I'm not a republican.  But the Gracchi were stupid and underestimate the impact their reforms would have on the Senate.  As I said, they got what they deserved.

Boru

[abaris]

Now, all that being said, I believe that hard drugs shouldn't be legalized; just because some horrible substances are legal doesn't mean we should make more of them legal. I think we should only decriminalize them; I wouldn't really want to see stores selling meth.

You know, not everyone would suddenly inject themselves with unknown substances if they were legal. Cocain was legal not so long ago. In fact, CocaCola when it first hit the market was laced with cocain.

In my opinion, the positives outweigh the negatives. If drugs were controlled the dangerous stuff wouldn't be on the market or at least much less of it. You can take clean and good heroin for all of your life and live on as normal. Keith Richards is living proof ot that, going by his own admission that he always bought the best stuff available. Doctors say the same. Unless you overdose, but that can happen with what is legal already.

International racketeering would go down. Same as with the end of the prohibition. And so would procurement criminality.

All in all I mainly see positive aspects. Not everyone would suddenly run around stoned. Only the ones that do anyway would be on the save side. From the law as well as bad batches.

[Banjo]

It depends on how you mean the term.  In the American sense, no.

Boru

Then no, I'm not a republican.  But the Gracchi were stupid and underestimate the impact their reforms would have on the Senate.  As I said, they got what they deserved.

Boru

Fighting for the poor deserves death?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Then no, I'm not a republican.  But the Gracchi were stupid and underestimate the impact their reforms would have on the Senate.  As I said, they got what they deserved.

Boru

Fighting for the poor deserves death?

No, but being such an utter bonehead that you think you can take land away from an entrenched ruling class and give it to plebians simply because you've bought their support makes you too stupid to live. And - for the record - the Gracchi weren't 'fighting for the poor'. They were fighting for the Gracchi.

Boru

[Banjo]

Fighting for the poor deserves death?

No, but being such an utter bonehead that you think you can take land away from an entrenched ruling class and give it to plebians simply because you've bought their support makes you too stupid to live.  And - for the record - the Gracchi weren't 'fighting for the poor'.  They were fighting for the Gracchi.

Boru

Well we can disagree and that is okay. All we have is written histories by Patricians.

[Regina]

I agree with the OP's "decriminalize but don't outright legalize" mentality.

We're too austere with drugs. It's unjust that you can give someone a life sentence in jail just for taking or selling drugs, especially while (simultaneously) you've got rapists getting off the hook with 3 month jail sentences. The "war on drugs" is utter bullshit.

The best thing to do is create an open dialogue about drugs. Stop making it such a taboo, talk about the risks, the effects, the addictiveness, give users more access to rehab and other support services. Maybe then we'll stop seeing so many people getting out of control with drug problems while also making it less of a stigma to take drugs.