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Comment by saas_co_de | Hacker News Reader

Well, about half the country has legalized cannabis now. There were plenty of people who said that could never happen.

What this article proposes is dumb though:

> We should also decriminalize the small-scale possession of drugs for personal use ... we should continue to make it illegal to possess large quantities of drugs

All that means is letting rich people enjoy getting high while putting poor people in jail. For all practical purposes that is the status quo already since it is almost impossible for non-dealer recreational users to get charged unless they do something really retarded.

The only real answer is total legalization. It will happen. It will just take time.

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Legalization leads to commercialization. Do we really want for-profit corporations working to create demand for heroin and meth? It is already a huge problem that they're pushing opiates when ibuprofen+paracetamol is just as effective.

"when ibuprofen+paracetamol is just as effective"

Liver says no.

> Do we really want for-profit corporations working to create demand for heroin and meth?

The sensible thing to do would be to bring the supply of drugs out into the open and remove it from the black market.

Most of the issues from drugs like crime, violence and overdose deaths comes from the fact that it's a black market that cannot be regulated with standards or restricted to minors. If we regulated it similar to alcohol or tobacco (or stricter even), we wouldn't have so many problems.

>> Do we really want for-profit corporations working to create demand for heroin and meth?

We don't really want them working to create demand for any pharmaceuticals, tobacco or alcohol either. Which is why in a lot of places advertising of such is banned to a greater or lesser extent.

>> ibuprofen+paracetamol is just as effective

Eh, not really.

https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/no-significant-diffe...

While that is interesting (and a little surprising), it's one measure on one sort of pain.

It doesn't look at speed of onset, length of effect or the health impact of repeated dosing - paracetamol is not all that well tolerated by the body and ibuprofen can irritate the stomach.

I'm also surprised because I'm sure I read sometime last year that for some types of pain, paracetamol is indistinguishable from placebo.

Note that this is very specifically ibuprofen AND paracetamol taken together. You're right that both of these drugs can be hard on various internal organs. But compared to opiates? From the opioid epidemic to my personal experience, there is no comparison as to which has larger consequences.

> Do we really want for-profit corporations working to create demand for heroin and meth

There already are for-profit corporations creating demand for heroin and meth. They are just exempt from taxes and product liability laws.

The second one is the really important issue. Having drugs illegal is what shields the producers and distributors from product liability law suits. Without that there would be no billion dollar business in this shit.

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