How about the data on the broad societal effects of prohibition? Are you a tool?
For instance, you can't tell if increased drug use will harm high school graduation rates if no one has graduated yet during the term of legalization.
And for all the worrying over the so-called damage due by ending this prohibition, there should be an assessment of damaged caused by the prohibition. Then compare the two.
> We might think that smoking can be bad for individuals, and decriminalization is good for society at the same time. However, a seven month time period is not enough to read the experiment on many the variables claimed in the article (blight, drop outs, etc.)
From the article:
The ominously predicted harms from> legalization — like blight, violence, soaring addiction rates and other ills — remain imaginary worries.
"drop outs" wasn't mentioned in the article. And what, pray tell, is the methodology for doing such an analysis other than "drugs are bad, m'kay?"
And again, the whole point of the comment was a concern for assessing societal harm. To take such a view and not acknowledge the damage that prohibition causes is intellectually dishonest.
I made points about the whole picture and you've simply attacked me personally. Touché
In this particular state, prohibition has already ended.
so we're waiting to see if it has any effects: positive, negative, neutral, and to what degree those effects are.
If the results are negative (zomg, more kids are smoking pot and failing to graduate), then to take that data and say that ending prohibition was a mistake without taking the data about the damage caused by prohibition (funding drug cartels, taxpayer funded SWAT teams that assault citizens/property and not always the "legal" target, arresting citizens for the crime of using an intoxicant that is not on the approved list, etc), then that shows that the person asking the question isn't interested in the real question: is it worth it?
There's too much evidence on the origins of this prohibition (racism and a tool of oppression of "dirty hippy anti-war protesters") and evidence supporting repealing of this (Nixon's drug commission report which was ignored, as well as Portugal's decriminalization of drugs, etc) to support any drug prohibition. It's an abysmal failure and goes far beyond depriving some stoner of getting high -- it's killing people.
Sorry to be so strident, but this discussion is like arguing with Jenny McCarthy and giving her equal time about how vaccines cause autism. Maybe we should just stop doing them and wait and see how that turns out too?
For one, it's wrong. Ever been to Amsterdam? It doesn't sound like it!