Medical usage of drugs is a whole different ball game. I mean, when I was running as a paramed 99% of the drugs I carried could not have been used by civilians. There are levels of legalization/decriminalization, in other words. I don't think anything should be kept out of the medical field if it produces good results with minimal side-effects (which is more than can be said for most medical drugs).
This seems like an awfully different change of tone from your previous post, where you're "bursting" Scarecrows "bubble."
That said, I'm wasn't stating my personal opinion.
Oh okay, now it all makes sense...you're back-peddling. Weird I really got the feeling from your first post that you were serious.
I personally think it makes sense to legalize MOST drugs (yes, meth and whatnot should stay illegal because they are just so incredibly harmful even to third parties). If you make it legal, you can regulate it. You can't "regulate" illegal drugs -- that philosophy is errant. I mean, we've got the Prohibition as evidence of this. OOO, alcohol was banned (actually I think it was hard liquor, but still). Enter speak-easies and moonshine and bootleggers. Prohibition get's lifted, all those vanish (with the exception of moonshine :P), and what remains we can actually regulate. Alcoholism is now, although widespread, at least manageable.
Honestly, illegal or not I don't know many people who have not had contact with/used drugs at some point, which is proof of how the politics are wrong on this. Legalize it, then regulate it. And reap a nice profit on the side. Also, doing this with the top drugs like cocaine and marijuana and whatnot would eviscerate the cartels main cash-goods. By eviscerating the cartels, crime (and illegal immigration, tbh) would drop, particularly that which stems from gangs (crime in general might not be heavily impacted, but this area of crime would be dealt a huge blow).
All that said, I still stand by what I said earlier. No matter what you and I say, the general public opinion hasn't changed enough to bring something like this to pass. It won't happen. Maybe in a few generations, but not yet. At least not from what I can see. There is SOOO much more that grabs the news and the political timesheets.
Also, I'm speaking as an American. I cannot speak for the status of other countries, since we are typically somewhat slow on the draw when it comes to policies like this.
I feel like you're making points that seem obvious to anyone who is aware of the hypocrisy of our current drug laws, but following it up by essentially saying ignorant people are scared of what might happen.
Yeah people thought society would crumble when they legalized marijuana in colorado, but turned out they were all hypochondriacs. I'm unwilling to tolerate or accept the slowing of logical progress to appease the consensus of the ignorant masses. Nor am I willing to accept said ignorance merely because it's a consensus.
You went from saying it'll NEVER happen, to now it makes sense to you. Policies change all the time, especially when people are allowed to be open minded and actually educate themselves on the facts. If your opinion on it changed that quick, it shouldn't be that farfetched that others can be convinced...even then the old timers who are vehemently against all drugs because they were told to be and no other reasons are going to be dead soon.
So it's up to us, the open minded youth who will inherit this earth to make the correct decisions relating to these drugs to improve the world for those who come after us. I'd rather do this through people who've done their research and know what they're talking about, like scarecrow, rather than acquiesce to fears of ignorant people who probably couldn't figure out the carb on a run of the mill pipe.
