Non-IT News Thread
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@coliver said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Europe has managed to completely eliminate drug cartels AND lower drug usage all in a single sweep. Make drugs dirt cheap and decriminalized and suddenly it is not "cool" to do them, there is no one making a lot of money to encourage pushing them and no money to support a cartel. The problem, quite literally, just doesn't exist when you don't use the government to make it exist. Switzerland went so far as to make heroin free and almost totally eliminated heroin usage almost overnight and eliminated all heroin related crime quite literally overnight.
Not only that but they offer free drug rehabilitation to the few people who do become addicts. This has been shown to be far more effective then our jail them till they quit policy. Resulting in far fewer relapses.
Sure recreational usage will spike for a short period of time, and some people will die as a result.. but in the long run, thing could only be better as, like you said, the coolness/rebellion factor would be gone.
That period has been super short. In sub-year long trials, they have seen positive results, dramatic ones, without those spikes. there might be spikes in days or weeks, but not in months.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@coliver said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Europe has managed to completely eliminate drug cartels AND lower drug usage all in a single sweep. Make drugs dirt cheap and decriminalized and suddenly it is not "cool" to do them, there is no one making a lot of money to encourage pushing them and no money to support a cartel. The problem, quite literally, just doesn't exist when you don't use the government to make it exist. Switzerland went so far as to make heroin free and almost totally eliminated heroin usage almost overnight and eliminated all heroin related crime quite literally overnight.
Not only that but they offer free drug rehabilitation to the few people who do become addicts. This has been shown to be far more effective then our jail them till they quit policy. Resulting in far fewer relapses.
Sure recreational usage will spike for a short period of time, and some people will die as a result.. but in the long run, thing could only be better as, like you said, the coolness/rebellion factor would be gone.
That period has been super short. In sub-year long trials, they have seen positive results, dramatic ones, without those spikes. there might be spikes in days or weeks, but not in months.
We can even look at Colorado. Not that you can really abuse marijuana but they saw only a few days were sales went crazy then they settled to the current levels. @Nic may know more about it I think he is in Colorado now.
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My Denver based friends have told me that the illegal marijuana trade in Denver lowered for a while, but then spiked back up because taxes and normal business expenses on legal sales have driven the price to high, as in much higher than it was when it was simply illegal.
Kinda funny.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
My Denver based friends have told me that the illegal marijuana trade in Denver lowered for a while, but then spiked back up because taxes and normal business expenses on legal sales have driven the price to high, as in much higher than it was when it was simply illegal.
Kinda funny.
Yes, that doesn't work. The European model is to make it free. Or nearly so. Growing at home is free. Lots of stuff comes from the government to make sure that there is zero value in selling dangerous drugs.
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the government trying ot get rich off of drugs will just make them another cartel. You have to remove the money from it, not just shift it around.
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Otherwise the government has a huge interest in making the public addicted. Whcih they do anyway because it makes for a complacent populace.
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Right - but don't you have to no allow the commercial sale of it as well. or does that part not really matter?
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Right - but don't you have to no allow the commercial sale of it as well. or does that part not really matter?
Why would someone buy commercially when there is a ready supply available for free?
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@coliver said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Right - but don't you have to no allow the commercial sale of it as well. or does that part not really matter?
Why would someone buy commercially when there is a ready supply available for free?
Are you meaning to say that the government would be in the giving drugs away for free business? You can't seriously be telling that European governments are just giving free drugs away to anyone who wants them? that seems like a health hazard.
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News Sites Start Charging Readers to Comment on Articles
Not sure what to think about that... I don't think I would ever pay to comment on a news site.
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@brianlittlejohn said in Non-IT News Thread:
News Sites Start Charging Readers to Comment on Articles
Not sure what to think about that... I don't think I would ever pay to comment on a news site.
I would never comment on a news site. So....
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@brianlittlejohn said in Non-IT News Thread:
News Sites Start Charging Readers to Comment on Articles
Not sure what to think about that... I don't think I would ever pay to comment on a news site.
I would never comment on a news site. So....
I would, but only anonymously, and I'd never pay to do so.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@coliver said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Right - but don't you have to no allow the commercial sale of it as well. or does that part not really matter?
Why would someone buy commercially when there is a ready supply available for free?
Are you meaning to say that the government would be in the giving drugs away for free business? You can't seriously be telling that European governments are just giving free drugs away to anyone who wants them? that seems like a health hazard.
that's exactly what they do. They give away heroine. Like I said, they started it as a test because the theory said that it should reduce usage. And in practice... it does. By a lot. Because there is zero value to pushing it and people don't choose to use this stuff because it is fun. It allows them to make selling it illegal while possessing it is totally legal. It's always free so there is no reason to ever sell it. It's always given away with free, clean needles (this alone has totally changed the face of their healthcare as it basically eliminated all drug related health issues) and you can never get heroine at a time when you don't have access to care and counselling.
They've reduced the number of users and massively increased the quality of life and health of the remaining uses while eliminating the deals and crime associated and dramatically lowered the cost of healthcare.
Win, win, win, win and slam dunk. Everyone wins, no health risk.
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Why wouldn't you do this with cigarettes then?
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Why wouldn't you do this with cigarettes then?
I don't think you could get the tobacco growers to give away what they've produced for dozens of decades without a lot of upheaval.
Drugs like those being discussed have always been illegal in the states. There are no standing legal drug cartels in the eyes of the US or congress.
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To boot so many cigarette companies are paying congressmen that trying to give them away would require almost all if not all of Congress being fired at once.
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@DustinB3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Why wouldn't you do this with cigarettes then?
I don't think you could get the tobacco growers to give away what they've produced for dozens of decades without a lot of upheaval.
Drugs like those being discussed have always been illegal in the states. There are no standing legal drug cartels in the eyes of the US or congress.
Well I'm not talking just the US (but you won't get the politicians who live on drug money to give up their money either), but more talking about in Europe - so you give the bad drugs away to reduce usage, so crank that idea up.. give away cigarettes and maybe alcohol too.
But the drug thing should be done in the USA. The whole war on drugs is just a facade.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Why wouldn't you do this with cigarettes then?
If you actually wanted to get people off of cigarettes, of course you would do things like that.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@DustinB3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Why wouldn't you do this with cigarettes then?
I don't think you could get the tobacco growers to give away what they've produced for dozens of decades without a lot of upheaval.
Drugs like those being discussed have always been illegal in the states. There are no standing legal drug cartels in the eyes of the US or congress.
Well I'm not talking just the US (but you won't get the politicians who live on drug money to give up their money either), but more talking about in Europe - so you give the bad drugs away to reduce usage, so crank that idea up.. give away cigarettes and maybe alcohol too.
But the drug thing should be done in the USA. The whole war on drugs is just a facade.
If cigarettes were causing major health issues and crime, I'm sure that they would. But remember, the drug cartel in this case is the US gov't. So, just like the Mexican cartels are funding the US Gov't to keep the war on drugs going, the US Gov't puts a lot of pressure on other countries to allow tobacco to be sold there.
It's like the Poppy Wars in China.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@DustinB3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Why wouldn't you do this with cigarettes then?
I don't think you could get the tobacco growers to give away what they've produced for dozens of decades without a lot of upheaval.
Drugs like those being discussed have always been illegal in the states. There are no standing legal drug cartels in the eyes of the US or congress.
Well I'm not talking just the US (but you won't get the politicians who live on drug money to give up their money either), but more talking about in Europe - so you give the bad drugs away to reduce usage, so crank that idea up.. give away cigarettes and maybe alcohol too.
But the drug thing should be done in the USA. The whole war on drugs is just a facade.
The US is beyond the highest consumer of drugs, if you just gave them away, I can't imagine the amount of social damage it would do. What you need to do is avoid the problems which cause drug use in the first place. The USSR didn't have really a drug problem at all, after its dissolution, it did, and still does. Americans are overt consumers, following this logic free pizza would mean less pizza would be consumed. I don't think Americans could stop doing anything if it was free.
I am reminded of Jello Biafra's promotion of the idea that drugs should be paid for by the state, and so should drug recovery programs. Basically you'd be asking tax payers to pay for drug use and recovery, with a revolving door policy.
I think a lot of Americans confuse decriminalisation and treatment with simply giving drugs away for free and then wiping their hands of the problem. The often cited Portugal would be much different if instead of decriminalisation and treatment they simply didn't even address the problems at hand and gave addicts their drugs.
I'm not saying don't legalise them or anything else, but give away for free would make them go away? Come on.
You know what stops crack addicts? Free crack.
