Drugs: The Legalization Debate

[Uboat509]

Meth is definitely poison. It kills. But illegal meth is made in all kinds of insane ways that makes it even more poison; and as the illegal meth trade expanded in Portland, there was a corresponding explosion of Identity Theft related crimes. Perhaps with legal meth and known buyers you gain some degree of control over these problems. Problem is that we associate legalizing a vice with sanctioning it. We need to get over that. Legalize it to control it.

This doesn't address the fact that chronic meth users become unemployable and will still need to resort to crime to finance their habit.

The drug user with the discipline to not use because it is illegal is I suspect rare. I don't not use because it is illegal, I don't use because I understand the longterm consequences are far more devastating than any shortterm benefit. Those that do use will do anything to get their next hit, all sense of morality, let alone criminal deterence, is a distant thought with little deterence value.

I would suspect that it has kept more than a few from ever even trying it, or at least kept them to a small amount of "experimentation," but not enough to become hooked. I would also guess that more than a few of those who got clean did so at least partially because of an overwhelming desire not to go back to jail. If you make it cheaper and more readily available and with out legal consequences you open it up for a more people to get hooked on and become chronic users. Now as for those chronic users who have lost their sense of morality, I believe that anything, including drug laws, that keeps at least some of these people off the street is a good thing.

SFC W