Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[grave worm]

Legalize all drugs and empty the prisons. Then when everyone is freed, burn them down, or turn them into community centers, or laser tag arenas or something.

[MrRoboto75]

Then when everyone is freed, burn them down

that sounds a little rude.

[misko27]

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.

Most bad (or "bad") things in most cases can be justified by circumstances that exist in 1% of cases, but it's because a majority of people will think rare cases apply to them that we have rules.

[hector13]

Then when everyone is freed, burn them down

that sounds a little rude.

I think he meant prisons.

Which, you know, since they’re privately run now and are an industry in and are an industry in and of themselves, means they’re here to stay because losing people their jobs for the greater good isn’t feasible.

[dragdeler]

-

[hector13]

According to the Beeb, Biden is within 3.5k votes in Georgia with probably less than 1% to count, and is within 61k in PA, with 6% left to count. PA has narrowed from a significant Trump lead (I think it was 800k+ at one point) to this, so it’s feasible Biden can make that up in the votes left to count.

If either of those two states go for Biden, it’s game over, assuming everything else stays as it is (NV and AZ for Biden, though he could lose his lead in both and still win with PA, or either of them as long as he maintains the other if he wins Georgia).

[Lord Shonus]

Biden only needs Arizona and Nevada, which he almost certainly has. Flipping any other states is just a lovely buffer.

[hector13]

He does, but it would feel much safer to have one of PA or GA too, at least in terms of legal challenges.

[feelotraveller]

Georgia is right down to the wire = anybody's guess, since only about 19k votes to come and if they split as they have been over the last day or so it's... uncallable.  At least in the region where a legal challenge over a tiny portion of the votes, or perhaps even a recount could change the outcome.

Pennsylvania is much more solid for Biden since there are still several hundred thousand votes (mail) to be counted and these have been breaking majorly for Biden, something like 75-25 or even 80-20.  (But final result is days away whereas GA could potentially be today.)

Meanwhile Trump is doing his best to kick off a civil war, so much so that the three major news networks pulled the plug early on during his speech.

[misko27]

That's waaay too kind a description of what he was doing. He sounded many things: annoyed, upset, like a man whose been robbed, like someone who has to put out what everyone needs to think, a man whose gotta contest everything you say and never lets you get through a single sentence, a crazy uncle, and more.

But above all, he sounded... subdued.

[nenjin]

This.  Legislate behavior, not drugs.  Allow people to govern their own lives.

This is what I'm referring to.

The video refers to "lost souls who wander the streets, untethered to home, or family, or reality" and city residents who feel compassion, "but who no longer feel safe."

I can't find the video but there was a little expose on a guy who had been arrested and released dozens and dozens of times over a few years for petty crimes, theft and other things, coupled with his drug addiction and he cheerfully told the camera he'd keep doing because the city was basically a paradise. He could commit crime, get arrested and be released the same day.

This is not the environment to decriminalize all drugs in. The reality of being caught possessing a controlled substance, and getting arrested, is what keeps illicit activity on the DL, keeps them from cutting loose in the streets full tilt, passing out whereever is most convenient, begging, harassing, ranting at people while high AF. A lot of this making people feel unsafe doesn't technically break any laws...but how many sidewalks do you honestly want to cross over to avoid that stuff? I don't see the point in decriminalizing the "hard stuff." What merit is there in it? It might be illegal to sell drugs to kids, but I guess if you're just within a few blocks of a school in possession of drugs and no one actually catches you selling anything, it's all good then?

I see merit to decriminalizing a lot of stuff, but ALL STUFF? Blanket? No. Even if you disregard the fact some people do go batshit crazy while high AF, either because they can't handle it or they have a mental illness and smoking meth just aggravates it, you're still left with a black market largely controlled by criminals selling a product worth crazy amounts of money. That generates crime all on its own. People act like if someone commits a crime, it's just guaranteed you'll catch the person, they'll get prosecuted, and all that jazz. None of that is a guarantee but you're increasingly the likelihood someone will get victimized by allowing narcotics activity to operate unchecked _in America_. Portugal, it ain't. Sorta like when I used to say that, look at how gun crime in other countries operates with strict gun laws versus America....those places aren't America, and aren't filled with Americans and our often fucked up sense of personal freedom or individualism.

Decriminalizing everything is just a knee jerk reaction, or if not knee jerk, then a calculated response to lack of funding given to treatment, mental health and homelessness. Yeah, if I'd been caught carrying cocaine in my 20s I'd have gone to jail and it might have seriously fucked up my life. But it was the drug itself that made me go "I don't really need this in my life." I was lucky to not get addicted until either a) I got arrested b) I got mixed up with the wrong people or c) I got robbed and maybe killed trying to buy drugs. I don't think hard drugs and decent society go hand in hand. Plenty of other drugs don't ruins people's lives, health, minds, relationships, careers or judgment. Many of the hard drugs do. And I struggle to think of a good reason not to criminalize something so destructive. I've never met a hard core life long drug user whose life was good or in control. It destroys people and I don't see how removing barriers to them doing it is a good thing. The prison system in the US is barbaric and awful, it's true. But sorta like I think "defund all police full stop" is a knee jerk extreme left wing reaction that doesn't think through the reality of every day life, so too is "decriminalize everything, man" well-intentioned while also being woefully short sighted.

[delphonso]

I don't know nenjin - I don't know of any city/country that have decriminalized and have recriminalized.

[nenjin]

That's a fair argument I suppose. But the reasons for that could be varied, not just because it didn't turn out to be a BFD.

[SOLDIER First]

well ideally we need to fix the problems that drive people to take hard drugs in the first place so they don't feel like their lives are so shitty that they need to be on drugs to cope, but when you go and paint even some addicts as nothing but violent and remorseless criminals it gets harder and harder for anyone to give enough of a shit for these things to happen

plus, you know, both the democratic and the republican parties actively suppress welfare, job security, insurance, and all manner of things that would go towards helping prevent addictions from forming in the first place, but that's a different conversation

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It's simple as this - treating drug use as a crime is worthless, no matter how desirable it is to eliminate addiction. An addict in prison later becomes an addict out of prison, and having gone through a hardening experience. Then they've cracked a guy's head open, they've learned how to lockpick and pickpocket from pros, they've increased in desperation. You're right where you started.

You could put repeat offenders away for life. Hell, you could give them the needle. But I don't think you'd be satisfied with that solution. I certainly wouldn't be.

Addiction is a medical problem. It must be treated by medical means. We don't arrest hoarders either, for all the trouble they cause. The Oregon measure specifically keeps non-criminal users out of the system and close to the rehab network. It even funds that network more. And if a guy really can do coke every day and not end up a junkie, then it's nobody's business just as it should be.

And if it's the cartels you want to kneecap, this is an essential step in doing so. Legalize everything that's reasonable to legalize to cut their funding, and decriminalize the rest to stop giving cops an excuse to go beating on psychonaut kids since it's easier than dealing with organized criminals.