Comment by mptest | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mptest | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry for the use of idiot, you're right. It's frustrating otherwise smart people be so reactionary and puritanical instead of analytical. I seriously can not imagine how "addicts + cartels" could ever in anyone's mind be better than just the addicts. Couple things there.

>Oxycontin being sold by multiple vendors competing in potency and price and selling their wares at Wal Mart

Again, from my very first comment on this thread I've never suggested limitless legal use. Daily limits, licensed taxed sellers only, could even have a licensing system. For the harder stuff could make counseling a requirement or something.

>How would the US look like if literally anyone could walk in a nearby store and buy Oxycontin practically at will?

More addicts than now is the answer you're looking for, and I'd agree if all we did was legalize drugs. but seriously consider my side for a minute. I do not want to stop at legalizing.

Consider the benefit of nearly limitless funding for rehab and counseling and other sociologically sound ways to reduce addiction. 5% of global trade $ wise cartels are responsible for. All that money turned to rehab. And you think we'd end up with MORE addicts?

I am seriously struggling to see how that even sounds logical to you.

Not to mention as a socialist I'd argue the real root cause of addiction is an alienation from our labor and the fruits of our labor. Ie: fix poverty, fix most fixable addiction.

I think the distance in our way of thinking is too great for a HN thread.

I see your argument and admit the possibility that you are right. I just want to point out that you are not only struggling to see how it sounds logic to me, you are struggling to see how this sounds logical to a vast number of people, including policymakers. The fact that very few countries in the world adopt a liberal view on any and all drugs should tell you that even if there is truth to what you are proposing, implementation will likely be very, very slow and difficult.

>you are struggling to see how this sounds logical to a vast number of people, including policymakers

I don't struggle to understand them. They're just machiavellian. Policy makers are bought by the capitalists, sorry, the lobbyists who benefit from billions in funding to the DEA and border control and prisons - and so they are not looking for the solution that helps constituents, they're looking for what enriches them personally thru super PAC donations or LE budgets.

It's the educated voters' positions, looking at the wealth of evidence showing prohibition is a failure at best, and a moral show put on for the puritanical more realistically, that baffles me.

People like you falling for something there's pretty much infinite evidence refuting the value of. Has the war on drugs helped ANYTHING? Anyone??? Stopped anything? It's never been easier to get drugs.

On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence that shows treatment centers safe injection sites and further, reductions in poverty do more to reduce addiction than moral policing.

It's most analogous to abortion policy. Abortion isn't reduced by banning it, it's reduced by better sex ed and access to contraceptives.

So counter intuitively to the simple minded, it may seem as if "pro choice" advocates don't also want to reduce the number of abortions. When in fact, they just use reason to solve the issue rather than a fkin harry potter book written 2k years ago they take as absolute truth.

>implementation will likely be very, very slow and difficult

Agreed, but the quicker we dispel the anti scientific notion that cartels + addicts > addicts... The quicker we may see progress.

I did time for shake I didn't even know was in my car, if I wasn't wealthy and white I would probably still be in jail rather than law school. So this is personal to me. Sorry for getting so heated

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