How would it change your behavior if they totally legalized all drugs where you live?

It wouldn’t alter my behavior in any way, but I’d be happy that the ridiculous and wasteful drug war was over, at least in my area.

My life wouldn’t be altered in anyway.

Not at all.

I would board up the windows of my house and purchase several hand guns…yep.

Instead of a Glock 40 for home protection, I would purchase a submachine gun with plenty of ammo and fit all my family members with protetive vests.

Give a drug addict a mile and they will take advantage of it, like home invasions.

It wouldn’t change my behaivor.

Now that I think about it RPG’s would be more effective.

I would not change my behavior at all now. Back in my pre-sober days, I would have used the same amount (or the same cost amount, if it was cheaper) I would just do it in public.

@john65pennington

Do you think that decriminalizing addictive drugs would lead to an explosion of addicts? Even if this were the case, do you think it would lead to an increase in violent behavior on the part of addicts? Why?

I like the feeling of being in control so if my province changed the laws it wouldn’t impact me at all.

I’d probably do mushrooms again. I dont like English mushrooms really and now it’s illegal to import mushrooms from elsewhere.

No impact. If they legalized antibiotics to be doled out without prescription that would change my life.

No change.

@tranquilsea

You are not, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be in control.

None. I’ve outgrown my drug days (except for the occasional drink or two). I’d be more worried about my kids when they get older.

Hobbes, yes. For those people that have never tried illegal drugs, the temptation might be too great not sample cocaine. All it takes is one time to snort cocaine and you are hooked.

It wouldn’t change my behaviour at all. I have no desire to try drugs in the same way I have no desire to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes (both of which are already legal).

I would finally not have to go to so much trouble just to score a little weed.

@john65pennington . . . Your know better than that. You should amend that to read, All it takes is one time to snort cocaine and you are hooked, IF you are and addictive personality.

i thought shit like that died out with the reagan administration

I’m not into drugs, so it wouldn’t change my behavior at all (though I do believe that what people put into their bodies is their own business, as long as they’re not driving or putting others in danger).

But I would be pleased to see the crime rate drop exponentially.

I would probably start carrying a firearm.

@john65pennington That is wrong, I used cocaine a long time ago, but was never addicted to it. I know quite few people that used it on occasion that were never addicted to it.

Crack has a very high and almost immediate addiction rate, as does crank, but not powder cocaine.

I’d be a terrified driver. No, drugs being legal or not legal makes no difference to me in no longer wanting to take any. I like not being a screw up, embarassment and let down to people who care about me.

I wouldn’t hate crack heads any less.

I’d be a little less secretive about things I suppose. I wouldn’t be trying anything I wouldn’t use normally, and I wouldn’t be using in public or whilst driving. I’d be the same normal and safe person I’ve always been.

I’d enjoy the drop in crime that this would create though. One less way for the bike gangs to make money.

It wouldn’t. I don’t druggies around me now. What’s to change?

I would vote for a political party which makes anti-drug campaigns and good education of young people a top priority.

Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, @Blackberry, @marinelife, @Seaofclouds, zenvelo, @Leanne1986, @tranquilsea, @Blondesjon, @HungryGuy, @Neizvestnaya, @Soupy & @MollyMcGuire Thanks for confirming it wouldn’t change what you are doing now. I really think that is the take-home message the asnwers to this question highlight. It is interesting how many people said this, and how those who saw a big change coming in legalization envisioned a world run amok.

@glenjamin You survived it. Prepare them correctly and they probably will survive it just as you did.

@HungryGuy Yes, the crime rate dropped when we ended prohibition as well.

@Neizvestnaya It makes sense to be a defensive driver anyway. There are plenty of drivers today who ate fueled by ethanol (legal) or screwed up on who knows what (illegal, but still widely available).

@john65pennington, @Keep_on_running & @digitalimpression I am amazed that you think people free to do as they choose would be far more violent than the drug cartels and domestic narco-terrorists. Seems to me the current situation is the one you’d want to arm yourself against. I am as puzzled by that reaction as @Hobbes was.

@zenvelo I second that. I tried snorting coke a long time ago as well. I did it for a while. THen the guy who was selling it to me and his girld friend both had to get operations for deviated septums. That taught me to leave the stuff alone. I had snorted FAR more tha a single line. Yet I was most definitely not addicted. @john65pennington may have been told that coke is as addictive as meth, and may have believed it. But it simply isn’t true. I would note that crack cocaine is much more addictive than the natural product.

@woodcutter It might be more appropriate to pity them.

@Soupy Just as with ending prohibition, we could look for a drop in violent crime.

@mattbrowne Legislation to educate the public on what;‘s dangerous, and how to use the less dangerous substances safely; education like we;ve had before, which teaches baloney as if it were fact,; or re-criminalization?

@ETpro I should have also said that I don’t care whether (currently) illegal drugs are made legal.

Ah…pity, the great enabler

@Leanne1986 Copy that. I suppose I’d have to say I do, but not enough to derail legalization. I’d just direct some of the money saved by cutting the prohibition styled enforcement and the tax revenues generated from legal production and distribution into education that tells the truth instead of BS propaganda that young people quickly see through, and into treatment for those who won’t listen in class.

@woodcutter I was thinking last night as I drifted off to sleep, crack is a perfect example of how man messes up natural substances. The South American Indians knew that chewing the leaves of the coca plant would give you the energy to climb steep mountain trails, and manage the pain such a climb generated. They never became addicted.

We “developed” humans, with our chemistry, figured out how to extract the main psychoactive from the coca leaf and purify it into powder. Lots of people got addicted to that. But never ones to leave bad enough alone, we further refined it into crack, and just about everybody that imbibes that gets addicted, often with tragic consequences.

Well, legalizing crack isn’t going to do much to change how bad the stuff is. The cat’s out of the bag a long time ago and all who imbibe for the first time know all too well what the outcome of their lives is likely to be right before they hit the pipe. There is no such thing as a person who is surprised to learn they are addicts. They all saw that one coming and yet… they do it anyway. Most if not all crackheads are unemployed. Even if it were to become legal and the free market competition drives down retail cost, it still will cost money to get. And a crackhead with no job is still gonna beat the crap out of someone for a couple dollars to get their fix even at rock bottom prices. No pun intended.

@woodcutter Agreed. But keeping it criminalized isn’t stoipping it being available. Instead, it is fueling a huge crime cartel and costing us hundreds of billions in enforcement.

There may be assumption by lawmakers (and the general public),that the productive citizens will fall into the trap of obligation. Obligation if these dangerous substances were decriminalized the people who then proceed to destroy their lives with now legal drugs will then be entitled to a lifetime of disability payments because they are unable to support themselves. Trust… an average attorny will feel they have a case to fight for SDI, or SSDI, competing with the dwindling funds that should rightly go to people who earned it, the real working folk. Life is hard. Nobody realizes that as well as I do doing the kind of work I do and it beats the crap out of a man, or woman. I don’t want to compete or split what I have earned with a person who chose to say “fuck it” and hit the pipe during their productive years partying their asses off and get what I have. It’s not right.

@ETpro – I read that engaging kids in volunteer work and seeing them as valuable members of our communities can reduce drug abuses significantly.

No change at all. I suspect that the Mexican drug gangs will kick up a fuss for awhile but that should taper off when they run out of money. Legal drug users can be monitored for dangerous behaviour and if they die, they die. It’s just Darwin at work.

@woodcutter That argument would stand for alcohol and legal perscription drgs as well. Yet we know society is better served by legalizing those than by prohibition. Since it all seems to be about you keeping more of your money, you might be well advised to give thought to the costs of enforcement, incarceratin and drug-cartel crime. You are paying for all those as it is.

@mattbrowne Excellent suggestion. Thanks.

@Ron_C The drug cartels would find themselves in the strange position of having to use some of their boatloads of money to hire K=Street lobbyists to fight legalization.

@ETpro that is just exchanging one evil for another. In terms of damage I expect that drug dealers do less widespread damage than K street lobbyists.

That reminds me of a story. One of my daughters was a military linguist and analyst. She told me that she was being recruited by the CIA. I promised that I would do everything in my power to ruin her security clearance. I would rather she became a lawyer or hooker than a CIA operative. I feel the same way about lobbyists.

@Ron_C I am certain you are right about the drug lords vs. lobbyist, and their overall negative impact on liberty and democracy. I like CIA operatives far more than lobbyists. The CIA guys do a dirty job, but arguably, someone has to do it. Nobody needs to do what corporate lobbyists do. They are totally about subverting the power of democracy, and empowering large corporations, billionaires and special interest groups with bottomless pockets to the exclusion of we the people. Lobbyists exist only to destroy democracy.

@ETpro I have mixed feelings about the CIA but from my experience they are mostly negative. It is just not something I would want my daughter to do.

@Ron_C I can understand that. My guess is that a lot of the parents who do encourage their kids to pursue a career in the CIA are not the greatest of character types themselves, and that may be why so many in the agency are bullies full of hate for any otherness.

@Ron_C you would rather your daughter be a hooker? Sure she would live to hear you saying that

@RareDenver My daughter heard that the day she called and told us about being recruited. She’s an ex-Army Sargent and ran a power plant for Proctor and Gamble, I’m sure she’s heard worse.

Not much honor in being disabled because of a lifetime of weakness that contributed to a drug induced disability that was by choice. Prescription drugs aren’t much better but docs are careful not to allow their abuse. It doesn’t stop addicts from seeking. But with crack, meth, you name it… the medical professionals are out of the loop. I would resent someone getting a check every month for being unproductive and stupid during their productive years after I worked my ass off and screwed myself up to the point of having to ask for help. I don’t like having to do it but dopers who do it can go to hell.

@woodcutter Wow. There is the true essence of the “conservative” movement of today. It isn’t just. “I’ve got mine, sscrew you.” It is really, “As long as I’ve got mine, screw you; and if perchance I don’t have mine, I need help but you don’t deserve help ever.”

@woodcutter and @ETpro I don’t like the idea of giving disability payments to a person that is disabled because of recreational drug use but better wasting help on him that risking denying help to many others.

People, these days, spend too much time worrying about what others do rather than taking care of their families and personal life.

I don’t care if that welfare guy never worked a day in his life but gets housing and a check. I definitely care if a woman and her children are living on the streets because a “problem with paperwork”.

@Ron_C Excellent way of framing the issue. Thanks.

@ETpro again with the labels, that all you got?

@Woodcutter labels have validity at times. Those perscription drugs you mention—they all have labels. They would be useless and even dangerous without them. There is no inherent fallacy in labeling something. The fallacy comes when you deliberately or accidentally mislabel. In this instance, I do not think that is the case.

@ETpro People who find themselves falling on hard times can’t complain about being “screwed” by the system, if the reason they are in those hard times was something they did voluntarily to themselves. SSDI is for those who have paid into the system from being productive in their lives. Not a terribly difficult thing to do if any kind of effort is applied. There are no tricks to it at all. Right now if a person decides to apply and it is discovered that the reason for their ills was- is, chronic illegal recreational substance use, they are going to be disappointed. It’s no easy job getting benefits even if the applicant is on the up and up, but the dopers are going to have to find some other way to sustain themselves. Trust me, I’m in the middle of an appeals process right now and I’m on of those on the up and up. It can take years to be approved. So it isn’t as simple as ideology you subscribe to, with right vs left and i got mine screw you mentality. Sorry but thats not the way it goes. This falls upon the “individual responsibility life clause” that sometimes drives liberals crazy. People who try harder should get the better deal. It’s not mean spirited at all

If you insure your home with fire insurance and burn the damn place down yourself to get insurance money, you get squat. If you fuck yourself up through a lifetime of drugging up, and the usual consequential lack of employment thus equal lack of contributions , you get squat there too..

However if all the damaging dope (the really bad shit) suddenly becomes legal, which in some circles will be tantamount to saying they are now actually good for you,fucking lawyers, the floodgates will blow right off the hinges with these lost soles filing claims for disability benefits. That will insure a system that is getting a bit anorexic to put it mildly to just go under even faster. Drug addicts are losers who will jump on any entitlement program earned by conscientious working folk, and I know that fact is not going to make me many friends here but we all know it’s true. I just choose to do away with all the phony politically correct BS to gloss over everything.

@woodcutter “the floodgates will blow right off the hinges ”. possibly in the first few months of an over-all drug reform. That faction is most likely self limiting. Those that would overuse recreational drugs will wipe themselves out and frankly, I hope they do it quickly.

It is Darwinism of the drug world, only the fit and self controlled survive. Society will ultimately benefit.

@woodcutter I think @Ron_C is quite right, but I am basically in agreement with you that I don;t want to pay for someone’s medical care when they deliberately shoot themselves in the foot. I would not, though, that we are paying through the frigging nose for the failed war on drugs, the crime it creates ,and the massive prison population from it. In contrast, rehab would likely be a bargain. And where it fails, they die anyway. Whitney Houston didn’t check out early for lack of money to fix her addiction problem.

Personally Its really none of my business if people want to drink gasoline if it makes them high, shoot super glue or meth or whatever let them at it. It would save a shitload of money to not enforce laws against it but we all know that in this country, we save money on one end (if it really happens) and it goes toward some other stupid expenditure. It will always stay in the dumb cycle. I don’t think that in the end making drugs legal will do anything to help the users. You try to save money dealing with a problem it won’t go away and the same money will eventually need to be rerouted back towards the“unintended consequences” of the well intentioned remedy.

@woodcutter Prohibition seems to say you are wrong.

@ETpro really? how so? We legalize alcohol and we get the Betty Ford Center or, other monies that are eventually diverted toward other alcohol treatment facilities. The whole thing is always going round and round and besides, it can be a stretch to compare the effects of crack, heroin, meth etc to beer or wine. I don’t buy into the social crack user myth. People can and do drink socially. The one’s who experiment with crack almost always turn into a disaster as well as their lives and the lives of others. It happens pretty fast. I haven’t heard of home invasions perpetrated by those who just want a drink but I suppose it happens. A crackhead will do anything to chase the high and they won’t care what it is. Making that shit legal won’t change a thing for these people. They will still always be broke unless someone starts a neo lib program to give crackheads free money using the money they save from not putting them in prison. Do you want any of your income tax money used to give to wandering crackheads? Assuming you pay income taxes I’m betting you don’t. I’m betting none of us would.

@woodcutter Are you saying that nobody drank during prohibition? That’s extraordinary. How dod all the bootleggers and Mafia bosses make so much money? Organized crime as we know it today got its start during prohibition. They grew incredibly powerful wan accumulated vast wealth during prohibition. Is that because there was no market for what they were providing. It doesn’t seem likely.

I totally agree that crack and meth are disaster drugs. They are incredibly addictive and destroy users lives and eventually kill them. I see the solution to that as education. Drug education has failed up to now because so much of it is pure BS and it doesn’t take kids long to see through it. Once they realize they are receiving corporate propaganda to support the alcohol and sugar industries, they tune out any further messages.

As to taxes, I own a small business, so yes, I pay. Regarding what I want done with my money. I want certain services provided, and I am a pragmatist. I want those services provided effectively; but so long as that’s achieved, I want it done in the most cost effective manner possible.