Alabama suffers crime because of drugs, it punishes people because of drugs, it builds billion dollar prisons and signs billion dollar prison healthcare deals because its justice system is overrun by the consequences of drugs. It forces people to spend lifetimes in prison because of drugs, it uses the presence of drugs as an excuse to put addicts back inside, and if it put a fraction of the effort into rehabilitation it would save more people, more money and more families.
Addiction might go down, it might go up, but crime will definitely go down, and accidental overdose deaths will basically be eliminated.
Addiction should go down since legalizing the drugs would make room for less potent forms of the drugs. So something like cocaine could be replaced with coca leaf tea, etc. It doesn’t completely eliminate it, but it ought to bring it way down.
I don’t disagree, it ‘ought to’, but my point is simply that even if it doesn’t the benefits of legalization to both the addicted community and society in general are more than enough to justify legalization.
Ah, good point
I doubt a “less potent form of drugs” will happen exactly as you imagine. Drug potency has skyrocketed because logistically it’s easier to smuggle smaller quantities of a high potency substance. I personally think we would see a resurgence of drugs and doses of what people were previously doing before importing them got so difficult. What would be interesting though would seeing if any new analogs could be discovered with shorter term effects especially in the world of stimulants.
Right, exactly. So if it was legal, then the potency should be able to drop because you don’t have to smuggle it anymore. Since it would no longer be illegal and you no longer have to smuggle it in, then the space could be used for the less potent forms instead of the tiny spaces for more potent forms we have now.