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Comment by thenmar | Hacker News Reader

As unpopular as this comment is, it needs to be said. Privileged, white, upper class libertarians simply don't care how drugs affect poor communities. The free market will sort everything out.

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Do you think people in poor communities are generally finding it difficult to gain access to drugs? Do you think pushing poor people who do drugs or have friends/family members who do outside of the bounds of the law improves their lives? Do you think creating a barrier of distrust between drug users and law enforcement is helpful?

A lot of the problems of drug use are either orthogonal to legality or worsened by prohibition. We saw this with alcohol and it's just as true with marijuana and most other drugs.

And other folks don't appear to care how criminal records for minor non-violent drug offenses (like simple possession) affect poor communities.

Selective enforcement of drug laws is only one of many ways that poor and minority communities are abused by the "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to quote bell hooks. Legalizing drugs won't magically change anything except for rich white kids whose parents would otherwise have to pay a fine when they get arrested.

Wait, so "selective enforcement of drugs laws" is abusive to poor communities, but reforming those laws won't change anything?

Why do I suddenly have the feeling that I'm being trolled?

You're missing the forrest for the trees. Reforming drug laws won't solve racism, classism, or sexism. Anyway, everyone here is in favor of reforming drug laws - this thread of discussion is within the context of talking about the relatively radical position of legalizing all drugs without any supportive educational or healthcare programs.

Ah, silly me. I hadn't realized that I reject "any supportive educational or healthcare programs". I thought I supported stuff like that, but you've educated me.

Now I'm pretty sure that you're either playing me, or you really are one of those "folks" I mentioned above.

That doesn't make any sense.

If the evil White people you are referring to didn't care about the poor, why would they say "the free market will sort everything out". They would say "the free market will screw you over, but that's the way things should be".

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