What Is the Point of Drug Laws, I.E., Private Possession?

I have to confess two things to you all. First of all, I have never used an illegal drug. Not even pot. (I've been drinking basically all my life, because alcohol was ubiquitous in my house [I had exceptional parents though--I think they just didn't know].) And when I was younger, I did support laws that criminalized private possession of drugs, including cannabis.

Yeah, I would see people using drugs on TV. And a chill would run down my spine. How evil, I thought. But no. They aren't evil. People who use drugs are typically law-abiding otherwise. And they are our neighbors, our family members, our coworkers.

So why do we outlaw private possession? What are we trying to do? Save these people from themselves? Hogwash, I say.

In fact even with drugs are hard as crack or heroin, I think the penalties for their private possession does far more harm than the drug itself.

So why do we do it? And how on earth did this nonsensical approach to the matter get started to begin with? What's the history behind it?

 

Really! One of the factors often cited by treatment professionals as contributing to drug addiction is drug availability. In the city, I live in there are dozens of tent cities with hundreds of people living in miserable conditions. Drugs and alcohol are the major contributing issue in homelessness. Check the weather forecast for Western Washington to see how miserable living outside in a makeshift tent is. I have spent a fair amount of time in 12 step groups and nobody praises the experience of drug and alcohol addiction or thinks legalizing drugs like heroin or coke or meth or….is a good idea. The experience with the big Pharma opioid epidemic is a good predictor for making such drugs legal.

The use of pot and the experience with legalization in many states has been largely successful and is not on the same page as addiction to opioids. Not at all comparable.

 

With the privatization of prisons it's really only for money as far as low grade addiction wise drugs are concerned. It's now a money maker instead of a "government provided social service". If the prisons and jails in the country I live in become solely for profit by a corporate interest they need recurring convictions to make money. Almost half the inmates in my country are in for drugs of some type possession/trafficking/sales/violation. Now don't get me wrong, I agree with harsh sentencing for highly addictive substances (ie amphetamines, heroin tree of substances, crack cocaine/cocaine) but mainly hallucinogenics, weed, mushrooms are solely for maxing inmate population and maxing profits.

 

So, I at first assumed this was a troll post by a faceless anonymous adding their name to our ranks and starting off with this as their introduction...

Now I can see - it's @Jimbee68

So, I'll say what I think...


Most countries oppose drug use, however some uniquely sophisticated countries have policies that acknowledge them (I can't think of an example... but we'll move on. OH! Mexico. They used to have an allowance for small amounts of narcotics).

Sometimes it feels punitive and unusual to condemn people who use drugs.

I think now in United States medicine and rehabilitation the current trend is referred to as "harm reduction" - i.e. needle exchange, safe haven for using, and of course an effort to educate on the harms...

The countries that I mean have an interesting spin along these same lines - they treat it as a health concern rather than a legal one. The effort goes to offering addiction treatment and so forth.

 

In a word its all about CONTROL, to extrapolate on that that realizing that not all control is not bad or negative, ask control of what and also why and down the rabbit hole it goes

 

Portugal Won the War on Drugs by Giving It Up

Search results for Portugal drug war at DuckDuckGo