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Comment by caymanjim | Hacker News Reader

This article is ridiculous. The domestic cocaine industry in Colombia is irrelevant. The international market is what drives production. Regardless of domestic legality, international trade isn't going to become legal just because Colombia wants it to. Even if the US didn't interfere internally, they (and the UN and others) wouldn't change their stance on international trade. The government purchasing domestic production would only increase domestic production, and when they ultimately stopped buying it up due to cost and cancelled the entire program, the international market would be flooded with even more cocaine, and the economic disruption would cause even more internal conflict.

Cocaine should be legal everywhere. It's not, though, so this is a stupid idea. A giant unsustainable agricultural subsidy isn't going to reduce domestic production when the entire market is international. On the contrary, it will only increase the size of the market and the amount of violent criminal behavior associated with it. By all means decriminalize consumption (which they've already done), but until there's a legal international market, don't subsidize it.

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I think the right sociological/economic perspective is that this is a proposal to take cocaine income away from drug cartels and move it to the state. This is effectively the state wanting to compete with the cartels economically.

There are potential upsides to this. A functioning government has some level of citizen representation and a justice system with some level of accountability. Drug cartels do not.

So, if you assume for the moment that coca farmers and others in the cocaine supply chain will be doing that work regardless, the question is mostly: do you want them to live within the bounds of the law and have the government be the power structure that dictates their lives, or do you want drug cartels? The former has plenty of problems and corruption. But the latter is an outright authoritarian power-by-violence regime.

Allowing people in the cocaine industry to be law-abiding citizens is probably a good thing.

Then there is the longer-term question of what incentives this change would place on society and how it would affect the scale of cocaine production. Anyone can see there's ample risk of a cobra effect here. Whether that outweighs the benefits of removing money from violent cartels is a hard question to answer.

If the government buys the cocaine who are they going to sell it to? Smugglers in Guatemala?

> The domestic cocaine industry in Colombia is irrelevant

Export markets can be "less illegal" if they merely need to hide as domestic consumption, not be completely hidden. This will tame, if not eradicate, the Cartels.

The article says that the proposed law wouldn't allow the selling of cocaine for recreational use, and it would only allow the sale for medicinal use.

It's not an article, but an interview. And the interviewee clearly claims that his intention is to start a public debate.

You can call it ridiculous and stupid all you want but, looking at this thread, it obviously is working.

Not an expert, but knowing what I do about the drug war and our involvement in it:

A lot of the domestic pressure within Colombia, MX etc. comes FROM international partners, like the US - Colombia gets a ton [~500M USD] of defense and security related funding for it [1], and we send military partner forces there to train their military and security forces.

All of that would need to be unwound as matter of course, regardless of whether or not the plan makes sense.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia

"Cocaine should be legal everywhere. It's not, though, so this is a stupid idea."

I have to disagree.

I don't know if it's part of the plan, but if cocaine were to become legal in Colombia, then Colombia could become a destination for cocaine tourism, just as the Netherlands became a destination for marijuana tourism.

That could result in a lot of tourism revenue (as has been the case for the Netherlands and other countries which legalized drugs).

In addition, legalizing cocaine would end organized crime's involvement in cocaine production in Colombia, which would be a huge improvement for the lives of Colombians and for their government and legal system, which are all currently detrimentally impacted by said organized crime and the horrific and widespread violence and corruption that it causes.

The increased safety of Colombia, once organized crime is reduced would make it even more desirable as a tourist destination, which would bring in even more tourism revenue.

Add to that all the tax revenue that would come from taxing legal cocaine, and the financial incentives for legalizing cocaine become even greater.

This sounds like very far from a bad idea, and is in fact the exact same reasoning that was used to legalize drugs in other places all over the world and, to my knowledge, in all cases where this has happened it's been a net positive.

You managed to enumerate the potential happy path benefits without mentioning how the consumption of such hard drugs could potentially disrupt/destroy those 'potential benefits'. How will the (cocaine) tourism and local & international communities be effected when people start dying because of overdosing or potential violent behaviour under the effect of these harmful drugs? Will a potential decrease of violence in one area be surpassed by potentially increased violent behaviour due to cocaine + alcohol and other drug consumption? I am very skeptical about legalising such hard drugs, especially when people fail to mention any negative consequences...

Calling cocaine a ‘hard drug’ is just programming from 50+ years of the War on Drugs. And whilst it’s not the safest drug ever, the vast majority of people who do it are not dying, or have any real long term negative effects.

Of course there will always be people who do too much, or become addicted, but that’s the same as alcohol, cigarettes, food, etc. It should then be a public health issue, not a crime issue.

Prohibition has not worked, it seems like it never works. Drug use has grown exponentially since the War on Drugs started, the costs of policing it are astronomical, and the harm to communities in the supply chain is enormous.

Downstream the users are criminalised and are putting themselves at risk because the product they’re consuming doesn’t have any mandated quality control.

Everybody loses when prohibition is a strategy. Well, except the cartel bosses and the organisations paid to enforce these unenforceable laws.

Legalisation has a cost too: public healthcare and individuals who may die or suffer because of addiction. But those people exist now, there isn’t a barrier to entry here, drugs are not hard to get hold of.

My personal opinion is that prohibition is immoral. Legalisation combined with good public education and rehabilitation schemes would help the world to get out of this cycle of death and criminality.

> Calling cocaine a ‘hard drug’ is just programming from 50+ years of the War on Drugs. And whilst it’s not the safest drug ever, the vast majority of people who do it are not dying, or have any real long term negative effects. Of course there will always be people who do too much, or become addicted, but that’s the same as alcohol, cigarettes, food, etc. It should then be a public health issue, not a crime issue.

I would like to see the statistics on how easily people overdose on alcohol vs cocaine + the magnitude of damage each of them causes on an increasing scale. You can't overdose on cigarettes or food, so I always thought that anything you can overdose on can be classified as hard drug, but don't quote me on that.

Talking about the known dangers is easy, but what about the unknown unknowns? Also, how would it impact society if cocaine became too popular among youth? ( because it is glamorised in movies & music )

Being skeptical and asking questions on drugs and their potential negative consequences gets one downvoted nowadays... smh

"I always thought that anything you can overdose on can be classified as hard drug"

You can overdose and die from drinking too much water, or consuming too much table salt.

You can overdose from many perfectly legal, over-the-counter drugs, like over-the-counter pain killers, and many, many prescription drugs.

By your definition they'd all be "hard drugs".

you left out an essential part of the quote: => don't quote me on that.

Sorry but you are either taking the piss or you are just not interested in a reasonable dialogue. Of course you can overdose from anything if you intend to overdose, but what I meant was how easy is it to overdose accidentally, which should be obvious...Now I'll quote you: "Oh COME ON!"

Ok, so now your criteria is that a hard drug is one you can overdose accidentally on?

Well, accidental overdoses do happen on legal prescription medications, also on alcohol. Would you consider those "hard drugs"?

And, back to water... accidental overdoses have occurred from drinking too much water. Paradoxically, it tends to happen when people have heard that they should "drink lots of water" when they're exerting themselves and getting hot, but they don't realize that it's important to get electrolytes with your water, or drinking too much water will disturb the electrolyte balance in your blood and you could die.

So even by your "accidental overdose" criteria, water would be a "hard drug".

Also, if I can infer that you consider accidental overdoses to be undesirable, then you should be all for making drugs legal, as it's their illegal status that leads to more accidental overdoses, because (as I said in another comment in this thread), when drugs are illegal their users don't know the purity or dose they're getting, while when drugs are legal their known dosage and purity leads to fewer accidental overdoses.

> So even by your "accidental overdose" criteria, water would be a "hard drug".

smh...what a load of nonsense. you really put so much effort into misunderstanding what I said.

I specifically said "how easy is it too overdose accidentally" meaning depending on the DEGREE it could be labeled a hard drug or not. point is that from the very beginning I basically said that "I always thought: X, but don't quote me on that - i.e. enlighten me about what's the correct classification". It's as if you are just trying to actively misunderstand me so you can have someone to argue with...

"How will the (cocaine) tourism and local & international communities be effected when people start dying because of overdosing or potential violent behaviour under the effect of these harmful drugs?"

Why would they overdose if cocaine is legal?

Overdosing on illegal drugs is primarily caused by people taking too much of a drug due to a misjudgment of its purity or contents.

So that (for example) when someone thinks they're taking 1x of a particular illegal drug, they could actually be taking 2x of it (and that 2x is lethal, whereas 1x would have been just fine).

Alternatively, someone might think they're getting 1x of drug X, whereas they might really be getting 10x of drug Y or some unknown mix of drug X and Y, and the quantity of drug Y is lethal.

Such misjudgement, in turn, is caused by it being difficult or impossible to judge the purity or contents of drugs you buy on the street.

When drugs become legal they are labeled as to dosage and constituency, so their users will know exactly what they're getting, and overdoses will be minimized because non-suicidal users will simply choose to take non-lethal amounts.

Quality controls of the legal drug manufacturing process will further minimize adverse effects, compared to black market manufacturing which is a free-for-all in terms of quality (or lack thereof).

Users could, of course, still overdose if they mix cocaine with other drugs, but education campaigns should hopefully mitigate that risk, and in any case it won't be any worse than what happens when those same people mix effectively unknown illegal substances.

As for cocaine use causing violence, from my understanding it's alcohol that is most likely of all drugs to cause violent behavior, yet most people are not seriously calling for it to be made illegal because of that fact.

The violence associated with cocaine is mostly caused not by the drug itself but by organized crime syndicates warring with each other over control of the illegal cocaine market. This source of violence, of course, would be completely eliminated were cocaine to be legalized, as the market would be completely controlled by legal entities, and legal entities (like Pfizer and Merk) don't tend to war violently with one another over turf.

> Users could, of course, still overdose if they mix cocaine with other drugs, but education campaigns should hopefully mitigate that risk, and in any case it won't be any worse than what happens when those same people mix effectively unknown illegal substances.

I highly doubt that young people who take cocaine to party will be type of people who will listen or dedicate their time to education campaigns.

> in any case it won't be any worse than what happens when those same people mix effectively unknown illegal substances.

That's a bold claim which I would like to see substantiated with evidence. How could one possibly foresee the potential damage that could be caused by cocaine going mainstream once it is legalised. I'm just here to have a conversation and ask questions, just so the downvote trigger people don't lose their minds in anger because someone dares to question their narrative.

"That's a bold claim which I would like to see substantiated with evidence."

Oh, come on!

You're telling me that if some random stranger offered to sell you a few grams of mystery powder and you have no idea what's in it -- could be fatal, could be not... you'd rather take it, roll the dice, risk your life, and play russian roulette than go to a pharmacy to take a known quantity of pure cocaine -- a quantity you know won't be lethal and would probably make you fell really good instead?

Color me more than skeptical.

I doubt anyone would choose the russian roulette option than take a legal, regulated, pure, professionally measured and reliably labeled drug that they know won't kill them.

If a study was ever conducted on this, it would probably earn an Ig Nobel Prize.

"I highly doubt that young people who take cocaine to party will be type of people who will listen or dedicate their time to education campaigns."

This is in fact the strategy of harm reduction, and more recently of benefit enhancement. I recommend listening to interviews with Emanuel Sferios, the founder of DanceSafe (probably the most well known harm reduction organization, which does things like provide free drug testing and water at festivals).

Sferios gave a good talk, the first part of which (titled "Pleasurable Drug Use is Safer Drug Use") is here: [1] (though I recommend listening to all parts of it)

He focuses specifically on MDMA, but the harm reduction principles he talks about are applicable to all substances.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAdRIjF5aso

I was talking about the broader consequences, you're obviously right in the specific case, but that's why I wrote:

"That's a bold claim which I would like to see substantiated with evidence. How could one possibly foresee the potential damage that could be caused by cocaine going mainstream once it is legalised."

Thanks, that summarizes my thoughts on the article as well. Also, the article says that even in Colombia people will be able to buy cocaine only if their doctor feels that they meet the requirements for pain relief. How many recreational cocaine users are taking it for pain relief?

There's certainly a lot of benefits of legalizing cocaine or heroin. But legalization also increases exposure to say like kids.

I know I sipped some alcohol before I turned 21, what if I tried shooting up on heroin or sniffing coke? I think the story here is much more complicated then "legalize" it.

Certainly the drug war was a huge mistake but completely legalizing drugs isn't exactly the right solution either.

The current opioid epidemic is the result of legalization through medical usage.

I'm also willing to bet that people who support complete legalization are users either casual or frequent (not necessarily addicts) so there's a personal agenda going on here as well.

Is there anyone who is completely drug free who supports total legalization?

I don't think this will happen. Heroin is not cool at all, nobody does that willingly. Coke is a bit more common in certain scenes like big business.

But really, whoever wants to do these drugs is doing it already. Legalising is not suddenly going to make people want to use them. In the Netherlands cannabis is legal but it's a really uncool thing to do. Nobody wants to be a stoney. Most people try it once or twice and move on. Others get addicted yes, but really they're going to get it one way or another.

There's also a big range between legalising or promoting something. It can stay forbidden but just remove the huge penalties. Because that's what drives those prices up: It attracts the most unsavory types that are willing to take the heavy risk. It drives the huge profits they make and the violence.

And yes I've never used any drugs outside of alcohol (which I use infrequently). Not even weed.

> Heroin is not cool at all, nobody does that willingly.

People with chronic pain?

> Coke is a bit more common in certain scenes like big business.

It's really common in many other circles as well, I think you might be surprised.

> Legalising is not suddenly going to make people want to use them.

Pretty much yes. It's in fact the opposite in many cases. I remember being really interested in drugs (especially psychedelics) in my teenage years precisely because of the associated seemingly neurotic stigma there was (and to a wide extent still is) around the subject of drugs. If there hadn't been any "drugs are bad" campaigns (in school or otherwise) it probably wouldn't have caught my interest in the same way. I knew there was something to it, and I certainly wasn't gonna let laws stop me from finding out what, and I was right.

There are lots you can learn about yourself and the mind with various substances. Individuals experimenting with self-discovery shouldn't be illegal. Criminal cartels on the other hand are a whole other topic of discussion.

Interesting, I didn't know how unpopular cannabis is in the Netherlands. I'm not sure if the numbers I found are very comparable, but it seems like about 5% of adults used it at least once last year in NL compared to over 20% in US.

I don't think legalization has affected usage much in the US either, it seems you're right that it's determined by other cultural factors rather than laws.

It aligns with the Dutch people I've met as well - it's surprising!

>Heroin is not cool at all, nobody does that willingly.

Last I heard, heroin induces pleasure and euphoria. People do use it willingly.

> I'm also willing to bet that people who support complete legalization are users either casual or frequent (not necessarily addicts) so there's a personal agenda going on here as well.

this is kinda unfair and also close to an ad hominem argument. people don't generally advocate for anything unless they have some sort of personal stake. I don't currently consume anything that isn't legally available, though college was a different story. I support legalization because several of my friends have already died from tainted drugs, not because my habits would change if more drugs were legal.

in practice, I find the "think of the children" argument quite weak here. when I was in high school, alcohol and cigarettes were far harder to obtain than almost anything illicit.

edit, just noticed this:

> The current opioid epidemic is the result of legalization through medical usage.

how can you even compare abusing the trust people have in their physicians to push drugs whose risk profile the manufacturer lied about to legalizing them for recreational use?

>how can you even compare abusing the trust people have in their physicians to push drugs whose risk profile the manufacturer lied about to legalizing them for recreational use?

I can do a comparison because it's factually correct. I am not talking about physicians lying I'm talking about easier access.

it's apples to oranges. you are talking about doctors endorsing certain drugs and writing prescriptions based on fraudulent claims by the manufacturer. how can this possibly inform a reasonable discussion on legalization?

No it's apples to apples. I'm not talking about doctors endorsing drugs... that's what you added. I'm talking about easier access. If I wanted an opioid fix one avenue is pain medication, yes it's through a doctor but this is not starting usage through endorsement it's using a doctor as a new doorway for access.

The epidemic in the US is caused by endorsement AND easier access, but I'm not comparing the endorsement part, just the easier access. The endorsement is indeed a separate phenomenon.

In Europe alcohol and cigarettes are normal thing on high schools.

don't get me wrong, they were common in my US high school too. but if you wanted cigarettes, you had to find a senior who was already 18. for alcohol, you needed someone with a fake ID or an older sibling/friend (since the US drinking age is 21). in contrast, weed/lsd/mdma/coke were sold straight out of people's lockers and cars. alcohol and cigarettes required planning, but you could buy anything popular and illegal without leaving campus.

"Is there anyone who is completely drug free who supports total legalization? "

Weed is decriminalized to the point that it allmost does not matter. And this is the only drug I do occasionally. (and not at all since some time)

And I do support total legalization.

Out of the philosophical point of view, that adult people should own their own body and life. And what I do with my body, is my buisness and not anyone else.

How can I think of myself as free, when other people regulate what I am allowed to consume?

And from movies, literature and some people in real life, I know what coke and heroin does to people, so I have no intentions of consuming them. Same with alcohol btw.

But if other people think its beneficial to them - I would try to convince of the big risks not worth the effort. But ultimately I would (and did) it accept as their choice. Even if that means they destroy their life. It is their life, after all. This usually does mean tragedy, I am painfully aware of that - but with the criminalization it means even bigger tragedy.

I don't think it's that simple. It's like the freedom to flaunt not wearing a face mask. Your freedom can actually hurt you and society in general. China for example a country without as many freedoms has handled covid way better then the US do in no part to less freedoms.

Additionally specifically for the drug thing we already draw lines in legality even for people like you who promote total freedom. Should a 5 year old be allowed to sniff coke and shoot up on heroin just for his freedom? Well he's a kid... and doesn't know any better so he needs to be controlled.

Does that same logic apply to adults who don't know any better who walk around without masks? Where is the line drawn? Why do kids have to be restricted but not adults that don't know any better, what affords the child the "privilege" of more restriction?

If you legalize heroin and coke you are definitely going to reduce drug related violence and the lacing drugs with impurities but you will increase the amount of addicts and regular users including users who start using at childhood.

"Why do kids have to be restricted but not adults "

Maturity. But I also want to restrict children as little as possible, so they can learn to deal with freedom and self responsibility as soon as possible.

Up to the point, that they fully take responsibility over their body and life. I don't think that this automatically happens at 18 or 21. Some are ready at 14. Some never will.

"but you will increase the amount of addicts and regular users including users who start using at childhood. "

And this is not a fact and not covered by statistics of ares that did legalisation/decriminalisation.

Because avaiability is very high today already with the illegal status. Take away the temptation of the taboo for rebelling teens and you get even lower numbers. And you can more easily help those who still fall for it.

>Maturity. But I also want to restrict children as little as possible, so they can learn to deal with freedom and self responsibility as soon as possible.

See maturity is a vague term this is where the controversy lies because adults can be immature too. What is the logic that gives immature kids this "privilege" over an immature adult.

>Because avaiability is very high today already with the illegal status. Take away the temptation of the taboo for rebelling teens and you get even lower numbers. And you can more easily help those who still fall for it.

This is not a fact either. In fact it's very convoluted logic. Something that is illegal is used more over something that is legal because of rebellion? It's so against common sense.

I decriminalize murder, murder goes down. I decriminalize theft, theft goes down. I decriminalize corruption, corruption goes down.

None of those statements make sense.

But suddenly this one does:

I decriminalize drugs, drug use goes down.

Seems not just illogical but delusional. A convenient excuse to promote a personal agenda.

You don't seem to want to have a real discussion, thats probably why your coment was voted to death.

Anyway: the sources I thought to be common knowledge for anyone interested in the topic:

Here a ressource from the german parliament (from their scientific service):

https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/675688/4ba9aed6de8e96...

"DieDrogenpolitik der Niederlande führte zu einem Rückgangder Konsumenten harter Drogen auf ein Niveau, das unterhalb des Niveaus der meisten Länder Westeuropas und den USAlag. Zwischen 1979 und 1994 sank dieKonsumprävalenz in Bezug auf harte Drogen von 15 auf 2,5Prozent"

roughly translated, Consumption prevalence of hard drugs in netherlands: 15 % down to 2.5 % after liberalisation.

And to the other point, well, just because you cannot imagine other people wanting things not just for themself, but for other people, it still happens.

Or if you want to wrap it around: sure, I want to have legalization for myself. Not because I want to shoot heroin (I could do that already today), but because I want a saver and healthier world to live in.

War on drugs is a real war. Illegal market prices created narcos where only those prospered who were the most ruthless and strongly armed.

With legalisation they suddenly would be out of income. Which surely does not suddenly mean peace, when the weapons and mentality is still there, but in the mid or long term they would vanish.

And columbia and mexico could have peace. And all those poor junkie devils around the world could get real help (from the saved money of the war) and not prosecution.

You accused me of being secretly a heroin junkie.

This is not HN style of discussion.

(I suppose you ended up on dangs watchlist or even got shadowbanned, as not many people else read this thread now, if at all)

And this was the main point:

so you could "defeat my cointerpoint" to no one wants total legislation who is not an addict.

So start again with that. I never did any hard drugs. I have no intentions of doing so.

I do have maybe small personal gains with total legislation of marijuhana - but no personal gains from advocating total legislation.

Au contraire.

This actually hurts marijuhana legislation efforts as people like you just assume I am a coke/heroin/meth addict. And feel pushed to keep things forbidden alltogether.

People are more open to legal ganja, but not at all to legal hard drugs.

So if I would just want to incremental my personal life a bit, I would jump on the train of most pro weed legalisation advocats saying "yes yes, hard drugs are bad and should stay banned. But ganja is so soft, much less harmful than alcohol, so please please legalize it so I can be stoned all they and worry less."

Well no. First of all I know weed is a dangerous drug, too. But I simply want to decide for myself, when are the times it is beneficial to me and when not. Likewise with other substances.

And when I claim that right for myself. I think it is fair to claim it for others too, even though I disagree with them about the benefits of coke for example.

So my point of view on legalization is altruistic. Not egoistic.

Did that change your point of view a bit?

I actually think so. Not that you advocate legalization, but that you probably wont make that point again.

> You accused me of being secretly a heroin junkie.

This is an outright lie and lying is not part of HN rules.

I used heroin as an example. You may not be using heroin but I'm pretty sure you're certainly using some kind of illegal drug or legal drug on the regular. You have personal stake in the game. But that's just a guess, I'm certainly not accusing you of it, you can say you're totally drug free and that's fine, I won't say you're wrong.

>This actually hurts marijuhana legislation efforts as people like you just assume I am a coke/heroin/meth addict. And feel pushed to keep things forbidden alltogether.

Did I push this? So you do use mj on the regular. It's not a "hard" drug but it shows you have a biased stake in the game.

Anyway I'm not pushing anything. My agenda as I said before. Is I don't know.

>This actually hurts marijuhana legislation efforts as people like you just assume I am a coke/heroin/meth addict. And feel pushed to keep things forbidden alltogether.

So you admit that this is your bias.

>(I suppose you ended up on dangs watchlist or even got shadowbanned, as not many people else read this thread now, if at all)

I can flip privacy setting on and off. I made a personal post just for you.

"See maturity is a vague term this is where the controversy lies because adults can be immature too"

It is, but it is still legally clearly defined who is consent and who is not, because of insanity etc. (the problems of this process is a seperate issue)

"This is not a fact either. "

It is a fact that usage went down with decriminalisation. The other part was a explanation. You are free to disagree with that explanation and offer your own.

And the other part:

murder and theft is directly hurting others.

Drug taking is at most directly hurting yourself.

But feel free to discuss your personal agenda of war on drugs with someone else.

There are modern current examples of how decriminalization has positively affected countries where it's been tried. See Portugal where high school age students reported a massive drop in people trying the hard stuff for the first time, overdoses and new outbreaks of HIV and HEP C were drastically decreased, and money was spent on treatment and outreach rather than drug crackdowns which inevitably led some to get clean and others to lead more stable lifestyles.

https://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133086356/Mixed-Results-For-P...

Portugal is an interesting one. But you pain a one sided story.

So basically problematic usage has gone down. But regular legalized decriminalized recreational usage has gone up. So I picture it like coffee. More addicts everywhere but it's legal. Replace coffee with heroin and it's pretty much the same picture.

Is it better to live in a society where everyone does a cup of heroin in the morning and it's totally normal and no one is dysfunctional or is it better to have the heroin relegated to a few violent problematic users?

It makes sense. You decriminalize a crime you get less crimes. Maybe changing perspectives is the solution but then again maybe not.

In many places kids can buy heroin more easily than alcohol. You know dealer won't ask for an id.

But probably only the worst would actually sell to kids.

Dealers are not all fucked up devils trying to lure people into total submission.

This type surely exist, but I never met one. (but I also never was into hard drugs)

I was just hit in a head on collision at 6 AM by a drunk driver. The driver was buying meth in our small town, and returning to their small town.

The dealer sold meth to somebody who was obviously far, far beyond the point of being able to drive, got their money, and sent them back on the road merrily. This dealer is also selling to somebody who obviously has almost no money (besides the bit scraped together to pay for the drugs), was just released from prison, and is addicted to both hard drugs and alcohol.

Ya, I'd say dealers are pretty much scum of the earth.

Sorry to hear that. But meth is a very low category, probably the lowest of junkies.

I know only weed/psychedelic dealers. That kind that does not try to drain you, but even tell you, if they think you come too often for your own good .. they are definitely not the scum of the earth.

When something is legal people will be much more nonchalant about it and a kid will definitely have easier access to it outside of buying it from a dealer.

I don't think people particularly care whether something is legal or not when it comes to drugs. It's not like when heroin becomes legal everyone will start to take it. And even if somehow a kid obtains heroin from a legal source they'll know dosage strength and doctors will know what to do. If you buy from a dealer you can't know what exactly it is. Many deaths were caused by accidental overdose when dealer added cheap Chinese fentanyl to make it "stronger" but was too lazy to mix it properly. When you buy legal alcohol you can be sure you won't get methanol poisoning or ingest hand sanitizer.

>I don't think people particularly care whether something is legal or not when it comes to drugs.

Yeah so instead of hiding it in a locker I leave all over the table and my 9 year old kid comes in and steals it. I'm talking about that ease of access.

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