What option would you prefer for recreational/illicit drug policy?

[usmbguest5318]

Thinking about an implementation approach I'd probably start with something like the following:

1. Identify what substances to make legal/non-criminal.
2. Establish or facilitate creating an infrastructure for selling it and taxing it. (No Internet or mail order sales.)
   • I'd likely require it be purchased in stores only by credit card and by people who can show they are employed full time when they make a purchase. It just doesn't make sense to me that people who can't pay their bills or hold down a job should be allowed to buy it. If they can produce it on their own, well, they can, but that's a different matter. I'm not trying to stop all irresponsible use, but I would want to see some sort of reasonable but not grossly onerous constraints put in place. I think the constraints should be the same for all "illicit" substances.
   • I'd probably want to have an easily accessed database of users who've harmed others and prohibit those would be users from buying, using, being in the presence of or having possession of any addictive substance (drug/alcohol).
3. Designate all the tax revenue collected for drug sales (including alcohol and nicotine) be allocated to a fund having two uses:
   1. To provide healthcare treatment -- perhaps in the right situations, a modest degree of restitution as well -- to victims of drug users (abusers), and if there is anything left over,
   2. To provide rehab treatment/services to drug users.
4. If folks want to grow or produce their own materials to make the drugs for their own consumption, that's fine with me. Just as folks should be able to make their own clothes, build their own house, or whatever, they should be allowed to produce their own recreational drugs for their own consumption. Selling it to others is a different matter. I think if one wants to do that, one needs to do so as part of the authorized infrastructure....That is, they need to have a registered, licenses and physically existing place of business for doing so. It can be their house; I don't care about that. I care that they they have a business that keeps good records that can be audited, tracked, customers identified, etc. if and when the time for that to happen comes about.

I generally agree with most of that in principle. But I think the more restrictions you put on it, the more it'll drive it back underground into the black market again. For serious addicts, they're going to get their fix one way or the other, either legally or illegally.

the more it'll drive it back underground into the black market again.

There is no way to rationally act against black markets so as to eliminate them. By definition they exist outside of the law and organized infrastructure; thus while one can know they exist, one must also realise they will exist in any environment that also has a system of law because there will always be people who want to obtain goods/services outside of "normal" constructs.

When you or I sell an old, say, lawn mower to an acquaintance, we are engaging in a black market transaction. Worrying about the black market and it's size and viability is not a reason to act or not act in any given way. Only anarchy can eliminate the black market for there can be no black market in anarchy.

What's safe to say is that any actions to legalise/decriminalize drugs will reduce the size of the black market from what it currently is. To that end, exchange that is today not counted in our economy will, to some extent, add to our overall GDP. That's a good thing.

 

[Disir]

Option A:
Maintain the status quo for federal drug laws. Each state can pass whatever drug laws they want, but the federal government can still pick and choose which drug laws to enforce and which states/persons/dealers/etc. to go after, depending on which President/party is in office.

Option B:
Ramp up the war on drugs nationwide with even stiffer penalties and even more "draconian" anti-drug laws.

Option C:
Decriminalize and/or legalize all drugs and raise taxes and/or allocate funds from other programs to pay for federal and/or state treatment for addiction. Employers cannot discriminate against you for using drugs so long as you can competently do your job (i.e., surgeons and truck drivers can use drugs as long as they can still competently do their job).

Option D:
Decriminalize and/or legalize all drugs, but the government is not going to pay for addiction treatment or other medical procedures to treat any damage to your body that results from taking drugs. Employers cannot discriminate against you for using drugs so long as you can competently do your job (i.e., surgeons and truck drivers can use drugs as long as they can still competently do their job).

Option E:
Decriminalize and/or legalize all drugs and raise taxes and/or allocate funds from other programs to pay for federal and/or state treatment for addiction. Employers can discriminate against you for using drugs. Thus, if you fail a drug test for work, your employer has the right to fire you.

Option F:
Decriminalize and/or legalize all drugs, but the government is not going to pay for addiction treatment or other medical procedures to treat any damage to your body that results from taking drugs. Employers can discriminate against you for using drugs. Thus, if you fail a drug test for work, your employer has the right to fire you.

Option G:
Completely leave drug policy up to each individual state. Get the federal government entirely out of drug policy. Employers cannot discriminate against you for using drugs so long as you can competently do your job (i.e., surgeons and truck drivers can use drugs as long as they can still competently do their job).

Option H:
Completely leave drug policy up to the federal government. No states rights when it comes to drug laws. Employers cannot discriminate against you for using drugs so long as you can competently do your job (i.e., surgeons and truck drivers can use drugs as long as they can still competently do their job).

Option I:
Completely leave drug policy up to each individual state. Get the federal government entirely out of drug policy. Employers can discriminate against you for using drugs. Thus, if you fail a drug test for work, your employer has the right to fire you.

Option J:
Completely leave drug policy up to the federal government. No states rights when it comes to drug laws. Employers can discriminate against you for using drugs. Thus, if you fail a drug test for work, your employer has the right to fire you.

Option K:
Other. Describe your ideal drug policy.

K. Decriminalize smaller amounts and pop the living crap out of larger amounts. The Harm Reduction method the entire way. No bullshit..........but what they really need is treatment. Investigate successful treatments and establish a criteria for the rehabs. Force them to keep records for longer than 3 months if they receive government funding.

Or lock them up. I see absolutely no reason the rest of the population has to deal with the fall out.

 

[ChrisL]

The problem with spending money on "treatment" for druggies is that it does no good at all unless they really want to stop.

 

[Disir]

The problem with spending money on "treatment" for druggies is that it does no good at all unless they really want to stop.

Exactly. Hence, harm reduction.............for the rest of the population. I should have been more clear. I hate the whining, "But they need treatment."

 

[WillowTree]

Is one of your options: treat drugs and cigarettes the same as we treat alcohol, in all respects? If not, that's what I'd do. I'd probably change some of the laws so that mere possession is not criminal in any regard. I really don't care that someone has drugs of any sort (alcohol and nicotine being drugs too), I care that while under their influence, one causes direct harm to someone (or their property) other than themselves.

As for the treatment aspects, it's not clear to me that addiction itself is or is not a disease, and I don't think the psychiatric community have arrived at a clear conclusion on the matter. Some scholars think it is and others think it is not. There seems to be a strong case for both positions. Accordingly, for now while the jury's out, I think it best, because we are talking about people and lives, to err on the side of caution and compassion and implement policy based on it being a disease. It's clear to me that at some point in the addiction process, one makes a choice to try a given substance. Nobody, for example, starts smoking a pack or two a day. Eventually, however the role of choice becomes irrelevant because the person can no more choose to stop using the substance than they can choose not to have gall stones.

• The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America
  
• Defining Addiction
• Addiction as accomplishment: The discursive construction of disease (sociological perspective)
  
• Choice, Behavioural Economics and Addiction
  
• Addiction and the Brain-Disease Fallacy
  
• Neurobiologic Advances from the Brain Disease Model of Addiction
  
• The Science of Addiction: Drugs, Brains, and Behavior
  
• Addiction and Choice: Theory and New Data
  
• Alternative Models of Addiction
  
• Drug addiction. Is it a disease or is it based on choice? A review of Gene Heyman's Addiction: A disorder of choice

Note to would be responders regarding whether addiction is a disease or a consequence of bad choices....Don't reply to me about what you think one way or the other without reading the linked content above. I don't care what you think, and I am well aware that there isn't a clear consensus among psychiatrists and among neurologists. Frankly, I'm not looking to engage in discussion on this topic. I merely desired to answer the OP's question.​

Incorrect. You can choose not to use a substance! I was addicted to nicotine and decided to stop! So I did..

 

[usmbguest5318]

Is one of your options: treat drugs and cigarettes the same as we treat alcohol, in all respects? If not, that's what I'd do. I'd probably change some of the laws so that mere possession is not criminal in any regard. I really don't care that someone has drugs of any sort (alcohol and nicotine being drugs too), I care that while under their influence, one causes direct harm to someone (or their property) other than themselves.

As for the treatment aspects, it's not clear to me that addiction itself is or is not a disease, and I don't think the psychiatric community have arrived at a clear conclusion on the matter. Some scholars think it is and others think it is not. There seems to be a strong case for both positions. Accordingly, for now while the jury's out, I think it best, because we are talking about people and lives, to err on the side of caution and compassion and implement policy based on it being a disease. It's clear to me that at some point in the addiction process, one makes a choice to try a given substance. Nobody, for example, starts smoking a pack or two a day. Eventually, however the role of choice becomes irrelevant because the person can no more choose to stop using the substance than they can choose not to have gall stones.

• The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America
  
• Defining Addiction
• Addiction as accomplishment: The discursive construction of disease (sociological perspective)
  
• Choice, Behavioural Economics and Addiction
  
• Addiction and the Brain-Disease Fallacy
  
• Neurobiologic Advances from the Brain Disease Model of Addiction
  
• The Science of Addiction: Drugs, Brains, and Behavior
  
• Addiction and Choice: Theory and New Data
  
• Alternative Models of Addiction
  
• Drug addiction. Is it a disease or is it based on choice? A review of Gene Heyman's Addiction: A disorder of choice

Note to would be responders regarding whether addiction is a disease or a consequence of bad choices....Don't reply to me about what you think one way or the other without reading the linked content above. I don't care what you think, and I am well aware that there isn't a clear consensus among psychiatrists and among neurologists. Frankly, I'm not looking to engage in discussion on this topic. I merely desired to answer the OP's question.​

Incorrect. You can choose not to use a substance! I was addicted to nicotine and decided to stop! So I did..

Good for you.

 

[WillowTree]

I think your surgeons and pilots must not be discriminated against. If drugs are legal they may use them just like everyone else.