I support the legalization of recreational drugs. The money currently spent by the federal and state departments of justice would be better spent on the education of psychologists who could provide treatment of drug and alcohol addiction as well as other mental illnesses.

You have to define “recreational drugs”.

“Definition of recreational drug. : a drug (as cocaine, marijuana, or methamphetamine) used without medical justification for its psychoactive effects often in the belief that occasional use of such a substance is not habit-forming or addictive.”
Merriam‑Webster

Using that definition, I have to say that it mildly pains me to say, “No, I don’t support full legalisation of all recreational drugs.”
As a practical matter, I think recreational drugs are illegal largely because of the burden they place on law enforcement. Alcohol was a genii that could never be put in the bag [made illegal], and look at what it costs society.

Marijuana I support legalizing.
Decriminalization of some recreational drugs I could get behind.

I can’t see legalization of cocaine or methamphetamine. That is some pretty nasty stuff. I can see regulation and legalization of marijuana.

I used to be in favor of decriminalizing all of it. After several questions asked by others on Fluther I am reluctant to make it all legal.

We have a young person in our hospital right now that is on a ventilator barely hanging on to life after taking bath salts recreationally.
My answer is no.

Yes to marijuana,mushrooms, ayahuasca and iboga. No to cocaine, heroin, and bath salts. Why should it be all or nothing? Though to be truthful, aya and ibogaine are ceremonial and not recreational.

As a Libertarian my answer is supposed to be yes, But it is not yes.

“The war on drugs” approach isn’t working and should be dismantled or at least re conceived.

Did we learn nothing from the failure of the War(s) on poverty?

Make marijuana legal. We have a huge problem with opiate addiction here that needs to be addressed. Many get into it through legal channels. If we make hard drugs legal we’ll just have that many more drug addicts.

This seems like a strange question for “General”. Not sure if I’ll get modded.

Those that do not support legalization – do you at least support complete decriminalization? Take heroin, for example. Here in New England, heroin has become a pretty big problem. Note that it is currently illegal. So, we know that its current illegal status is:

- not stopping people (from high school kids to adults) from getting heroin
– arresting people for possession and sale is costing taxpayers money
– we’re forcing a black market, leading to increases in crime (and all of the societal and financial costs that come with that)
– people who get arrested are stuck with prison sentences and records, reducing their chances of success in life
– the product is not regulated, which means that much of the heroin is cut with some nasty stuff
– the lack of regulation also can lead to increases in overdoses and death, as we recently saw when new batches for sale were far more potent than previous ones. We lost a high school kid last year.

Since a part of the rise in heroin’s popularity is coming from the public’s addition to prescription opioids (heroin is much cheaper), we seem to have a health crisis. It doesn’t appear that treating this as a crime problem is successful at all.

Do I support full legalization of all drugs? I come from the perspective that things should be legal until there has been sufficient reason and overwhelming evidence that it should not. But from what I can see, all attempts to make and keep drugs illegal cause more problems than they attempt to resolve. So, I guess my answer would be: yes. Although, if there were some proposed decriminalization measures that would help solve the problems caused by keeping drugs illegal, I may be open to them.

Bath salts?

Is anyone comfortable with explaining this one to me?

@SecondHandStoke “Bath salts” refers to a category of “designer drugs” (read: unknown composition, but often something like this mixed with various other chemicals) that are typically disguised as actual bath salts or other items. Bath salts have a history of causing nasty effects / leading people to do some really insane things, although I don’t really know anything about it other than what’s been reported in news stories.

Guess I’m in the minority here but I don’t like sharing highways with high drivers. I’m not in favor of making it legal except for medicinal use.

I do, but incrementally. I also think a period of decriminalization might be good before full legalization. The reason I favor incrementalism here is that I have to admit there could be unforeseen consequences, and I think this is something that is worth being cautious about. But the war on drugs has done so much damage to the country and to so many communities and families that we really need to recalibrate how we think about drug use.

Marijuana, regulated and treated under the same penalties as alcohol yes. Heroin, cocaine, and other highly dangerous and addictive drugs no. Marijuana should be treated just like alcohol. No using and driving, no using at work, no public use, short of sitting around your campfire on a camping trip. If you can’t leave home without it you have a problem, plain and simple.

@PhiNotPi

Thank you.

I would, but right now I’m just too wasted.

Yes. The “war on drugs” has been one of the most costly (in terms of money and lives), futile and ill-advised undertakings in history. Yet we keep telling ourselves that if we just keep at it then we’ll win someday. If people want something enough they’ll have it. Making it illegal doesn’t change that and doesn’t make it go away.

@ibstubro “As a practical matter, I think recreational drugs are illegal largely because of the burden they place on law enforcement.”

The burden they place on law enforcement is because they are illegal.

@Pachy “Guess I’m in the minority here but I don’t like sharing highways with high drivers.”

You already do.

My vote is to channel all the War on Drug money into a Federally supported Free Mental Health Care program. It took a few visits to a shrink for me to realize I was an alcoholic because I was self medicating my stress and anxiety with booze. Almost every alki I met in AA was doing the same thing. Many with the added boost of pills and harder drugs. Regular check ins with a counselor or psychiatrist I firmly believe would help a lot and I mean a LOT of people.

I know, Darth_Algar. But legalizing pot surely won’t make driving safer.

@Pachy

Nor will it make driving any less safe.

@Darth_Algar It’s bad enough that drivers text and drive as it is…I cannot imagine our roadways filled with stoned drivers smoking a doob and texting while they drive.

I love when people imagine that these things don’t happen as it is.

Although I balk at absolutes such as the word “all,” I would like to call an armistice in the so-called “war on drugs.” The “war” isn’t and never has been winnable, although its casualties can’t be counted.

Of course these things happen, just look at the drunk driving stats, the point is that anyone driving under the influence of anything and risking innocent lives should be subject to the maximum penalties for such crimes.

No. Just no. And this is a hard position to come to for someone who came of age a year after the Summer of Love.

But they ruin lives, as I’ve seen up close. The tragedy and the waste and the collateral damage are beyond speech.

Some of the weirdest drugs aren’t illegal now; they’re too new, and the law hasn’t caught up. They’re just as dangerous, maybe more so because they’re not recognized and there aren’t antidotes. Illegality isn’t a deterrent, much less a safeguard, but legality sends the wrong message. It isn’t okay.

[Mod says] Moved to Social on request

@Jeruba Agreed 100% from someone who came if age in the mid-70’s and witnessed the same carnage of those eras.

Yeah, it’s a good thing that most recreational drugs are illegal so that none of that bad stuff could ever happen.

Good grief, use some common sense. Legality is NOT tacit approval.

@CWOTUS Of course it isn’t, not any more so than gun control. The bad guys and addicts will always get their illegal guns and drugs of choice but that doesn’t mean we should serve it up to them on a silver platter with bon bons and roses either or host free drug and gun give aways at our local parks and civic centers.
The penalties are there for a reason and even if it doesn’t completely discourage all it might discourage some, so it comes down to the old cliche of ” even if it saves one life it was successful.” Keeping dangerous drugs illegal won’t deter all but it will deter some and some is better than none at all.

^ But as I describe in my comment above, it appears that the current illegal status of drugs is causing more harm than good. And I was discussing heroin. Certainly, marijuana is an easy one. There just isn’t any good reason for not legalizing it. But what happens when a public health crisis is treated as a crime problem? Couldn’t you see some advantage to approaching it a different way than we have so far – especially since it is not working?

Also, @Coloma: “Keeping dangerous drugs illegal won’t deter all but it will deter some and some is better than none at all.”

I’m not sure if we can state this with certainty. I don’t abstain from heroin because it’s illegal. So, I wouldn’t start following a change in its legal status. However, there must be some people who – like teens – do drugs because they are illegal. I had a friend whose mom used to host parties and buy us beer. It took all the fun out of it. Nobody really got drunk, and it was a snooze-fest.

Dear sweet Jesus on a bike, nay, nay & thrice nay!!!
I dread to think what the chef would put in the salmon mousse & I have a reputation to consider

It’s still a bad argument, @Coloma – dangerous and foolish. We should have learned our lesson with Constitutional Prohibition (of alcohol, for the low-information, don’t-know-no-history readers), which proved to be far more lethal than the alcoholism problem that it purported to stem.

Not only did it help to foster organized crime in this country to a level that it had never seen outside of Washington, DC, but the government then doubled down on its idiocy and added poison to the ethanol that was produced. So they made a nominally “safe” item – problematic as it may have been – literally deadly. So much for “doing it for the greater good.”

Making things legal does not make them free, “on a silver platter with bon bons”. That’s just a false dichotomy – a form of logical flaw in your argument.

And if we were going to ban things “because if it saves just one life then it’s worth it”, then why do we still have automobiles, motorcycles, baseball, elevators, hammers and kitchen knives, to name a few?

I’m all for a little bit of foolishness now and then, but let’s not make foolishness parade around in adult clothes and trying to pass for actual thought, logic and good argument.

@CWOTUS I agree to a degree, we all know that the more forbidden the fruit the more desirable it becomes. However, look at the abuse of prescription pain killers/Opiates that are now being reclassified as schedule two drugs because of the rampant abuse and fallout. There has to be some regulation of controlled substances and while not foolproof certainly is better than a free for all. That’s all I’m saying.

There will always be a black market for everything but where do we draw the line? Do we make illegal poaching of endangered species legal so poachers can be given the green light to wipe out as many species as they so desire without consequence? I am one that experimented with drugs in my youth but you know what? I was fearful enough to have never even considered trying to smuggle illegal drugs in from another country or to get involved in any sort of dealing. Why? because the threat of going to prison for the rest of my life was not appealing. Worked for me and a lot of others no doubt, so in this regard yep, success.

Thanks, @Cruiser. My point exactly !!!

Was someone proposing that driving and smoking pot should be legal? I think I missed that. There is nothing that says that legalization eliminates restrictions on driving and consuming drugs/alcohol. Alcohol is legal, yet some people seem to be making the argument that its legal status is resulting in roadways filled with people drinking and driving (in a way that wouldn’t be if alcohol was illegal).

@DoNotKnowMuch Drinking and driving is legal in every state…up to their legal limit statutes. Alcohol is insidious as it takes about 20 minutes for the alcohol to take total effect. Some people leave a party or bar reasonably sober taking a last sip before they go and 10 miles down the road they are seeing double.

Pot would be way more difficult to set legal limits as it all comes down to tolerance levels and that varies greatly from person to person. When I first started smoking pot 2 hits nearly incapacitated me I mean gone wiped out stoned. 5 years later I could smoke a whole joint go to work like nothing affected me. I built up a tolerance to the pot.

Then you have the regulation aspect of pot. With alcohol you have your levels of proof which is a clear delineation of what you are consuming. When I smoked pot you had levels from Indiana Ditch weed where 3 joints were neede to catch a buzz to Maui Wowie where a half a bong hit and your were stuck on the couch for the next 3 hours and driving was not an option. So is it your suggestion that if you take a hit of pot you are not allowed to get behind the wheel of a car? If so for how long? How do you enforce this?

I support decriminalization. Fully. For all things.

Take the power away from the black market to push the stuff to kids and addicts.

Give addicts the freedom to ask for help when they need it without fear of imprisonment.

Decriminalizing drugs doesn’t mean we’re going to have billboards with Meth-slinging cowboys promoting their brand. It just means fewer people will spend their lives in jail for making a bad choice in a time of weakness, and more will stand a better chance of becoming productive members of society.

Absolutely not.

Good Christ, why do some people act as if legal = unregulated?

@DoNotKnowMuch Every conversation I’ve ever been in discussing smoking weed and driving, both in real life and Fluther, a whole bunch of people argue pot doesn’t affect the ability to drive. It’s scary!

@JLeslie I disagree whole heartedly and on the rare occasions I still imbibe, maybe once a year or so anymore, I would never consider driving. Not only because you are easily distracted and it is unsafe but because it would ruin the entire moment which is to relax not be in hyper vigilance mode. haha

@Coloma You aren’t in the “bunch of people.” It doesn’t change that a lot of people I’ve known and talked to throughout the years think it’s just fine, and not like drinking and driving.

No.
Regulated or not there will be those who abuse.
How would you feel if you were laying on the pavement as a result of a car accident and the first responder if one who is high? ( and therefore slow reacting)
There are no way to key an eye on people who may abuse it while on the job.

People already go to work high. In some cases their bosses provide the drugs.

Seriously, what rock do some of you live under? Is it furnished?

Living under a rock? Occupants would be stoned out of their minds…ironic much

@Darth_Algar Why do atheists use terms like “Good Christ”?

Regulation of all recreational drugs is not a solution. Medical marijuana is currently regulated in California, and it’s a joke. Those who want to get some can without too much trouble.

Apparently, then, @filmfann, illegality isn’t working so much, either.

So why not legalize, so at least we can deal with medical / addition issues as they occur – and we know that they will occur – without the legal issues of people self-reporting “criminal” behavior when they could be asking for help?

Why ruin people’s lives with police and jail time if they do what every damned president for the past quarter-century has already admitted doing – without the penalties that would have precluded their ability to even seriously run for the office?

The insanity of The War on Some Drugs seems worse than the effects of the drugs themselves.

@JLeslie “Every conversation I’ve ever been in discussing smoking weed and driving, both in real life and Fluther, a whole bunch of people argue pot doesn’t affect the ability to drive. It’s scary!”

Who here is arguing that pot doesn’t affect the ability to drive?

@Inspired_2write _“No.
Regulated or not there will be those who abuse.
How would you feel if you were laying on the pavement as a result of a car accident and the first responder if one who is high? ( and therefore slow reacting)
There are no way to key an eye on people who may abuse it while on the job.“_

The same could be said for alcohol, but we don’t hear of many incidents of first responders going to work drunk.

@filmfann “Why do atheists use terms like “Good Christ”?”

For the extra blasphemy.

I’m also fond of ”Dear, sweet Mithras” and ”Jesus, Mary and holy saint Joseph.”. I’m an equal-opportunity blasphemer

@Darth_Algar @YARNLADY on this Q is saying what I said. I can look for more examples, but I’m afraid if I don’t post this I’ll lose it, because my phone keeps updating the page when I switch back and forth.

Edit: here’s another. This one is scarier.

I think Ozzy Osbourne said it best when asked about this, “What the fuck!?!...SHARON!!!
To be fair to him though, he was off his head on a cocktail of 7UP & tixylix at the time

Relevant

@JLeslie

Going back nearly a decade ago? That’s reaching. Seriously.

Any pot smokers that I know all drive normal or reeeeeeeaallllly slowly.

I heard that they drive NORMLly.

@Darth_Algar Maybe we should do a new Q?

There was an interesting piece about the history of marijuana use on NPR today, but I was out of my normal listening area and can’t find it.

Mexico, it seems, has historically had a lot less tolerant view of drugs than the US. Mexico has decades of anecdotal evidence that marijuana caused users to become aggressive and obnoxious. Based on that, Mexico banned marijuana and California was the first state to follow suit in 1913.
The establishment view at the time was that marijuana literally caused ”Reefer Madness” and that was the basis for the original prohibition. Amazing that it’s so hard to get a law 100% based on misinformation revisited.
Cocaine was available from Sears until, I believe, 1900. The US first started meddling with the opiate trade when they took the Empire to the Philippines.

I stand corrected. Normally I would have typed ” normally”. Maybe I hit a bowl first. Maybe I’m just a doofus.

@Jak – I think you just missed a pun.
http://norml.org/

@JLeslie

For what?

Aaaaaahhhhhhh! (Runs screaming and waving arms above head!) See? I told you I was a doofus!

@Darth_Algar If jellies think it’s ok to toke and drive.

Thank you all for your contribution to this thread. But I am still strongly in favour of legalising all recreational drugs (without exemptions). As far as the lethal ones go? I think they should be legalised too. Most of the problems with bad side effects are usually due to a lack of a high standard product and incorrect dosages. I think if a thorough studies was conducted on these drugs, they could be made somewhat less lethal.

@NerdyKeith Somewhat less lethal is still lethal and will take lives. I’m not for any law that will take our young people’s lives.

@chyna

But you’re for a failed policy that empowers criminal cartels and results in thousands of deaths at the hands of cartel violence each year?

@chyna Yes they are. But they can actually seek assistance without the law being against them and it removes the black market. We have to realise that many of these substances have not really been produced in a regulated manor. They are no worse than alcohol in my view. Only if you are an alcoholic, you can get assistance with he law on your side. With over substances you cannot.

@Darth_Algar Exactly my point, well said.

I think it’s a double edged sword personally. Sure, we save lives in the cartels but we also just turn loose millions of drug abusers like kids in a candy shop to gorge on their drugs of choice without legal threat. Once drugs were legal the deaths would sky rocket even more from accidental overdose I think. Plenty of more deaths to follow no doubt.

Might as well let the bad guys kill each other. Collateral damage and pest control. lol

Except that the bad guys just don’t kill each other. They kill judges, they kill police officers who won’t be bribed, they kill innocents who don’t look the other way, they kill innocents who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, they finance and arm terrorist groups. In November, 1989 Pablo Escobar, head of the world’s largest drug cartel, had a commercial airliner bombed in mid-flight, killing over 100 innocent people, just to snuff out a presidential candidate who refused to capitulate to him. (And as it turns out the candidate wasn’t even on that flight. Oops. Lol, right?)

Pablo Escobar ruled a drug empire that, at it’s height, was taking in $60,000,000 a day (yes, you read that correctly, sixty million dollars a day). And to remain in power he launched a campaign of violence and terror that claimed tens of thousands of lives. All of Escobar’s wealth and power came from the prohibition of a substance that people are going to seek out anyway. Without that he would never have amounted to anything more than a petty car thief and scam artist. Legalize the shit, let the legit drug companies have the market. Take away the cartels’ source of income and power. I’ll guarantee you that Mallinckrodt won’t be blowing up airliners to get rid of politicians they don’t like.

@Darth_Algar True, well, as always, a multi-faceted issue with no perfect answers.

^^No perfect answers, but a few incorrect and flip ones?

I think it should be treated like alcohol ( which is, according to Wiki, a recreational drug).
It’s fine if you consume it, just be responsible about it and don’t get yourself into situation where your or other people’s lives can get in danger. So, if it becomes legalized, at least we should have some rules and restrictions about it.

don’t drink and LSD