Today, the decriminalization or legalization of cannabis is an increasingly well-accepted idea, with four US states (and Uruguay) allowing it for recreational usage and many more for medical purposes. Most Generalites seem to be in favor of it, acknowledging this forum's socially-liberal leanings. A more contentious issue is the decriminalization or legalization of harder drugs - highly stigmatized substances such as cocaine, amphetamines, and heroin, along with ones that are physically harmless, such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms.
Many are convinced that across-the-board drug decriminalization (see the difference between decriminalization and legalization here) would result in something akin to a societal breakdown. Everyone would be too high to go to work. Children would be dying in the streets, needle in arm. Gangs would run free, addicting everyone and everything to their Satanic product. This is, to put it mildly, really fucking incorrect.
Portugal decriminalized hard drugs, and that hasn't happened to them. In fact, quite the opposite: drug use in there is actually down by half. Instead of jailing an addict for years and blazing their path toward lifelong recidivism, ruining their lives more than the drugs probably ever would have, Portugal discards the drugs and recommends the "offender" to a rehab center.
The Drug War in America has been a catastrophically expensive, harmful, racist, and evil failure. Almost 700,000 non-violent drug offenders were arrested in 2013, because they possessed something the government (or, perhaps, the private prison lobbies) didn't want them to have. Ignoring the fact that drugs like cannabis, psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, mescaline, DMT, etc, are not only effectively harmless but also are very possibly beneficial to mental health, this seems like an affront to justice in its own right.
Terence McKenna once said that "psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong."
I admit to being a bit of a psychonaut myself, but I would agree with that statement. I believe all drugs - psychedelics, opiates, and stimulants alike - should be fully legalized, in the interest of freedom, justice, and rationality. I mean, should we ignore all of the following?
Cannabis. Can possibly cure cancer. 23 Other Benefits. LSD has a variety of benefits, including reducing anxiety and curing alcoholism. Mushrooms can cure depression, and can cause lasting personality changes for the better. Opiates are the best painkillers in the world, and are already over-prescribed. Need I say more? And we're giving weak meth to small children already.
Legalizing drugs would make a huge dent in cartel profits, and would ensure users had knowledge of exactly what's in their substance, not to mention its exact potency - which would likely have a big effect on overdoses.
What say you, NSG? Should we legalize it all?
