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Comment by leif | Hacker News Reader

My point, though, is that the law isn't really going to change much.

First of all, even if people in high places (why yes, I am that good) start thinking legalization of <your-favorite-chemical-here> might be a good idea, it'll take years, decades even, to come up with a sound policy about exactly how to do it, what degree of legality is involved, and how to enforce it.

After that happens, do you really think many peoples' lives will be changed? You can't even smoke cigarettes in bars anymore; do you think you'll be able to smoke pot on the street? Probably not. Will you see high/spun/tripping people everywhere? No. You'll go about your business as usual, and if you're the sort of person that wants to do these drugs, you'll still be doing them in the same places, under the same circumstances, as before. Maybe 50 years later culture will get around to adjusting to it, but I can't see it. Maybe I'm too young, or too old, or just too cynical.

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One of the things I think is most corrosive is the culture of selling drugs. Why go to school at 15 when you can drop out and make twice what you're parent(s) do selling drugs. Even if little changed for the users or even the level of violence, simply removing that cash flow would fairly quickly have a large positive effect.

Why go to school at 15 when you can drop out and make twice what you're parent(s) do selling drugs.

Of course the book Freakonomics posed the question of why so many street-level drug dealers still live with their (usually single) parents, and the answer was that most of those dealers don't actually make much money. But, yes, the DREAM of making big money draws young people into dealing when studying their math and English lessons would almost surely produce more return on investment for their time.

Coming home from college this summer I've realized how many of my friends sell drugs as their summer occupation. Just selling weed earns you twice what you'd make doing long hours for minimum wage, it seems.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to get in on the business. Seems like a high-risk high-reward situation.

Agree, the current situation is not really preventing drug usage, but it is generating a great deal of violence and putting a lot of money (and guns...and power) in the hands of criminals.

I would not be so sure. Previous to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 80's to early 90's, very few people expected that it would fall so soon. If asked, most people (including most historiand, political scientists, and politicians) would have said a collapse (if it happened at all) would probably take many decades. Yet in a few short years it was accomplished, and all of a sudden there were a slew of new republics in its place.

Or look at the end of segregation. Again, to large percentage of the US population at the time it seemed not only that segregation was the way things were, but that it was the way it was meant to be (with much more irrational and passionate attitudes against desegregation than even the anti-drug hysteria we have in the US today), and very few would have expected it to end so soon. And yet all of a sudden there was a mass movement that resulted in desegregation within a decade (though a good argument could be made that the process still isn't complete today).

It is easy enough to find many other examples of fast, radical change throughout history. Just look at the history of any number of revolutions or fights for independence (though, of course, some are take much longer, like the Irish and Palestinian quest for independence).

The point is that history has a way of changing radically, and very quickly. Just because the goal may seem far off today doesn't mean that it will remain so. History is being made as we speak.

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