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[SOLDIER First]

So one person doesn't have their life ruined, and the prison system doesn't bloat. Meanwhile, they continue being drug addicts on the street where no one is going to arrest them or even attempt to deal with them, while they befoul the community with their behavior. I'd call it a wash, at best. What exactly is the right thing to do with a serial drug abuser who has no plans to reform, and no respect for the society in which they live? Just deal with it? Deal with them sleeping on your door step, shitting on the streets and committing crime to fuel their addiction? There are plenty of stories from the West Coast of regular citizens being sick of the "we can't do anything about it" attitude when it comes to drug addiction and non-prosecution. Fully decriminalizing everything and taking no responsibility for the fallout isn't the answer. Especially when we have the poverty situation in this country to the extent we do.

wow, this is some quality "i don't think drug addicts are humans who deserve basic human decency" right here

the actual solution to the problems of drug addiction (aka the ones that are actual problems that addicts face and not anecdotes from people who don't think their lives matter) is rehabilitation programs, but considering the amount of people who consider drug addicts subhuman like you, those are incredibly unlikely to come to pass any time soon

[MrRoboto75]

Nonono being high on opiods gives you complete diplomatic immunity.  That's why everyone's doing it.

[nenjin]

so those types of people would be very rare indeed.

They do not appear to be that way in states that have decriminalized or otherwise deferred prosecution of drug offenders. I'm not talking like, some dude smokes pot every day or likes to eat some mushrooms or drop some acid. I'm talking like hard core addicted crack/cocaine/meth/heroin addicts.

wow, this is some quality "i don't think drug addicts are humans who deserve basic human decency" right here

Oh get out of here with that ivory tower shit. I've probably hung out with and spent more time with drug addicts than you have. My point is, some addicts do not give a fuck. They will happily steal, live "off the land" at the cost, expense and rights of other people. For every "poor misunderstood drug addict who just needs compassion" there is at least one who will just take your compassion and sell it for meth. You cannot act as though they don't exist and then also turn them loose on society and ask society to just put up with it. It's asking society to carry the burden and cost of their addictions while having no legal recourse.

[SOLDIER First]

then they were probably pieces of shit before they became addicted to something, not because of it, but - newsflash! - even people who are still pieces of shit are people. you don't get to decide that everyone who's addicted to drugs should be treated like criminals just because there are some who are shitty. human decency isn't conditional and it's really, really weird to me that you want to insist it should be

[MorleyDev]

They will happily steal

Which is still a crime you can be jailed for and therefore not an issue with decriminalizing drug possession itself? Shitty people can still be shitty, the question with criminalization of possession is whether merely having the drugs on your possession/using them alone is a suitable cause for imprisonment. You can bring up all sorts of 'oh but what if they X', but that's not relevant to the question there. That's other acts that get judged separately by the legal system as crime/not crime.

[SOLDIER First]

nah, people so consumed by addiction that they're driven to theft to buy more drugs are actually violent criminals who enjoy stealing, and destigmatizing addiction just means they'll steal more because ??

[bloop_bleep]

To be fair, drinking alcohol while driving is not innately bad, but it's still illegal (despite recklessly getting into a car accident also being a crime) because it predisposes the person to bad behavior. Same could be argued for taking psychoactive drugs.

[MorleyDev]

That's the 'operating heavy machinery' clause less than that it 'predisposes' you to: Namely when you put yourself in a position where other peoples lives are at risk depending on your actions then your judgement isn't allowed to be chemically impaired. Despite how cavalier we are about them as a species, cars are friggin dangerous metal speeding death boxes and so get treated as such by that particular caveat: Don't operate them with impaired judgement or people die.

Don't perform heart surgery drunk, and don't drive a car drunk.

[ChairmanPoo]

Drinking alcohol while driving is not forbidden because it predisposes people to bad behavior. It's forbidden because it screws your reactions and judgement while managing a two ton machine that can move at high speed.

I'm also in favor of forbidding people to take drugs while driving, without criminalizing possession itself

[hector13]

It is innately bad because you are less able to control the car. Plenty of empirical evidence to back that up.

There are doubtlessly people who can drive a car perfectly well while out of their face, but I imagine they’re few and far between.

Equating that to taking any kind of drug is a bit ridiculous.

[bloop_bleep]

Drinking alcohol while driving is not forbidden because it predisposes people to bad behavior. It's forbidden because it screws your reactions and judgement while managing a two ton machine that can move at high speed.

That's what I meant.

And I was drawing a parallel between driving drunk then getting into an accident and taking drugs then stealing.

Because causing an accident due to reckless driving is already a crime is not a reason for drunk driving to not be a crime.

Sure, maybe some people are perfectly cool and collected junkies. But plenty of them are belligerent. Because taking drugs in itself is not bad, and there are already crimes for stealing etc. doesn't mean it shouldn't be a crime.

[Parsely]

So one person doesn't have their life ruined, and the prison system doesn't bloat. Meanwhile, they continue being drug addicts on the street where no one is going to arrest them or even attempt to deal with them, while they befoul the community with their behavior. I'd call it a wash, at best. What exactly is the right thing to do with a serial drug abuser who has no plans to reform, and no respect for the society in which they live? Just deal with it? Deal with them sleeping on your door step, shitting on the streets and committing crime to fuel their addiction? There are plenty of stories from the West Coast of regular citizens being sick of the "we can't do anything about it" attitude when it comes to drug addiction and non-prosecution. Fully decriminalizing everything and taking no responsibility for the fallout isn't the answer. Especially when we have the poverty situation in this country to the extent we do.

Obviously you don't just make the decision to decriminalize drugs and ALSO do absolutely nothing to support people when they get out of prison. There are already organizations of volunteers that exist to support people who get out of prison, so any plan to decriminalize drugs nationwide should involve expanding these efforts https://www.prisonersupportnetwork.net/

Who said anything about addicts? Even if people hit with drug charges are addicts, they're the least in need of being jailed. Even if no addict ever wanted to change, a cage would never be a solution.

Putting someone in jail, taking their freedom and privacy, possibly torturing them with solitary confinement, forcing them to go through the humiliation and oppression of the parole process, and permanently ruining their chances at getting a job if they're a felon, is a massively disproportionate and cruel response to someone who shit on the sidewalk, slept on your doorstep, kicked your dog, and deleted your savegame.

[MorleyDev]

Sure, maybe some people are perfectly cool and collected junkies. But plenty of them are belligerent. Because taking drugs in itself is not bad, and there are already crimes for stealing etc. doesn't mean it shouldn't be a crime.

Except by that logic, drinking alcohol at all should be illegal (predisposes you to committing violent crimes), anything potentially addictive to cost excess should be illegal (people steal to fund gambling habits), you get the idea. Again, drink driving is illegal because you are directly taking other peoples lives into your hands every time you get behind the wheel. Every person driving every car on every public road is directly taking the lives of everybody else on or near that road in their hands. Having impaired judgement in any situations where you willingly and knowingly take peoples lives into your hands is seen as criminal negligence, so they make specific laws for specific situations where it needs defining what that is (drink driving so they can define the amount of alcohol to make it enforceable, for example).

Heck I think the laws in some places are worded such that you can actually drive drunk off your tits on private land and it's only if you're out in public on public roads that it becomes a crime.

[dragdeler]

-

[Rolan7]

I'd imagine if someone is committing crimes other than drug addiction, you could arrest them for those crimes.

1 million percent. End of debate. But seriously even among druggies you'll be hard pressed to find people actually endorsing being reckless behind the wheel.

This.  Legislate behavior, not drugs.  Allow people to govern their own lives.
I have more in common with the shitty libertarians than the tankies, but I still sympathize tankie.
Liberty, equality!