We need to Legalize all Drugs and Reform our Prison System

Legalize all Drugs
We need to legalize all drugs. Make individuals who want to use the drug take a class on the drug, take a mental health evaluation, take a health evaluation, and obtain a license in order to purchase the drug. Have an age restriction, regular mental health and health evaluations, and appropriate restrictions to the quantity, quality, and frequency of the purchase of the drugs. There would be special taxes on the drugs which fund addiction therapists, rehabilitation clinics, and additional law enforcement to stop the individuals who don’t comply with the new law. Addicts would be sent to military grade drug rehabilitation clinics funded by the taxes on the drugs. Anyone who does not have a license suffers similar consequences to the penalties which are in place now, a long prison sentence. This way we take the industry away from drugs dealers and gangster, generate billions in revenue, monitor and regulate drug use, and implement regulations which will help keep the population safe. There will be a significant drop in crime and less people will become criminals because these drugs will have become legal. There will be fewer gangs, fewer criminals, less violence, fewer people in prison, and less crime in general. In this plan, since individuals are being screened for preexisting medical conditions which are fatal with drug use, individuals are thoroughly educated on drugs and proper drug use, and because we have addiction clinics, heath evaluations, and mental health evaluations, even if more individuals were to use drugs, drug usage will become much safer.

Reform Prison
Instead of giving an individual "life in prison or the death sentence", send criminals to military grade colleges where they would get their Master Degree or P.H.D., while going to college they would also have a job, which could be done inside a prison to help pay for their college. Then after they receive their degree they would work and do research to find the cure for cancer, diabetes, aids etc.. If they find the cure for a major disease or have provided major contributions to a specific field and if they have been thoroughly checked for rehabilitation, then they can get out of prison. All of man kind benefits by getting rid of a major disease and they have the opportunity for social reintegration. This is what I have come up with so far.

What are your thoughts on this subject? and what are your thoughts on my propositions?

 

I think you're drug legalisation idea (which is hardly new) would only serve to replace existing problems with different ones. By restricting the people who can legally sue the drugs, you leave open an illegal market selling to those people (plus all the drugs users with a moral objection to government licensing and monitoring). The legal market would help mask the illegal one, making it even more difficult to police.

You could also have supply and price issues. Some drugs can only be efficiently produced in foreign countries (primarily due to weather) yet it would still be illegal there. The combination or taxation and capitalism could also push prices up, opening another widow for an illegal market.

All the medical checks and restrictions you could implement wouldn't chance the fact that some recreational drugs can kill perfectly healthy users. Beyond the obvious practical issue with that, you have a potential legal one too (private companies knowingly selling a product potentially deadly in normal use). Treatment of addicts is difficult too. How do you define an addict and what if the individual doesn't believe they have a problem?

I'm not dismissing the idea but I am challenging the implication that it's a magical solution to all our problems. The issue needs much more thought before we consider such sweeping changes.

 

Prison reform is long overdue but I don't think your idea is realistic. Most convicted criminals can barely read or write so talk of PhDs is laughable. There most certainly needs to be better education and training available to prisoners, to aid rehabilitation and give them a chance of contribute to society on release, but much of that needs to be at a much, much more basic level than you're suggesting.

 

2,266,800 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2010. I'm sure that there is a sizable amount of criminals who have the potential and the means to get a phd. You cant stereotype.

 

Yes the details need to be straightened out, but it is still better then the status quo. It isn't really restricting people who can use the drug because anyone can get a license as long as they aren't strung out, mentally unsound, or have pre-existing medical conditions which could be fatal with drug use. The license could possibly be offered for free.

Most of the time people die from an overdose. Due to classes on proper drug usage this threat would be minimized. The legal issue? Put a sticker on the packaging that says something along the lines of "this drug can possibly kill you, use as directed to minimize your chance of death." The class would discuss the health issues and make them sign a disclaimer. If there are annual health and mental health check ups, that can weed out an addict. Military grade rehab facilities would make an addict stop.

The details need to be figured out but legalization is the only way to go.

 

Broadly speaking drug use should be treated as a health issue and not a crime. The purpose of criminalising drugs was to deter people from taking them and thereby protecting their wellbeing. Well that didn't work out too well did it? The prohibition of certain substances has created an absolutely huge crime problem around the world with attendant misery at stratospheric levels. The criminalising approach has failed and should now be replaced.

As for education in prison, good points about basic education being important. It should happen and it should allow prisoners to get an education that helps them to fulfil whatever potential they have. Of course many aren't going to benefit, they're too far gone and frankly will be in and out of prison for the rest of their lives, but that doesn't mean that the effort is wasted. Basic education and then further education for those who can benefit is an investment. It's not soft-soaping criminals, it's an investment in crime prevention.

 

By "protecting their wellbeing" perhaps you mean white women not cohabitating with Chinese and Negroes not getting better at shooting white people and raping white women. Those were some of the purposes stated for the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1910 and followup legislation. There was also the wellbeing of the pharmaceutical companies which needed protection from the competition of self-medication.

Perhaps because the nature of such laws is not to protect people, but to serve other interests. The drug war is a war on human behavior.

Restitution should be the purpose of any justice system. However, the OP recommends that the prisoner be provided a free education which, right now, is the sort of education that saddles millions of law-abiding young men and women with years of crippling debt. Then, he suggests that those prisoners work for the government (a form of slavery) until they discover something and can be released. It would be better that they be required to serve those whom they have actually harmed until their debt to those people are repaid. Even providing to "victim's fund" in the absence of a living victim to whom restitution can be paid is a better service than serving government.

 

Not that sizable and a smaller one that the population as a whole. The fact remains that a vast proportion of criminals lack even a very basic level of education so we could achieve a much greater social benefit investing at that end of the scale.

 

You can't definitively state that your proposal would lead to a better situation without working out those details first. I'm suggesting that some aspects of your plan don't just need details but simply wouldn't work.

Legalisation of some or all currently illegal drugs could form part of a new approach to managing the whole issue but to truly address that needs pages, not a paragraph.

 

Yes it's extremely complex that's why I only indicated a general policy position, the shift from criminalisation as control to other methods of control embedded in a therapeutic and educational approach. Given the time I could probably present a massive report on the issue but I'd want plenty of $ for doing so!

 

what he said.

 

He did only give a general policy potion. You proposed some very specific methods.

 

Its not like my method is going to be voted on in congress next week. It is just a outline of how things could be regulated.

 

How many friends and loved ones have you lost to heroin addiction?

How many times have you seen your friends and loved ones put into rehab, after rehab, after rehab, only to return to using heroin almost immediately after getting out?

There is no truly widespread, viable and effective method of curing opiate addiction.

The only "cure" is to completely and totally cut yourself off from all access to the drug.

If heroin was made readily available to heroin addicts, they will use it until they die and destroy the lives of everyone around them while they are doing it. No one should have the legal right to force their children and families to watch them commit slow suicide.

You obviously are either a junkie yourself, or woefully ignorant of how junkies act, think and feel about their addiction.

 

I consider life in prison to be worse then death. There are over 2 million people in prison and over 7 million people on parole, probation, or in prison. There are people being murdered and imprisoned everyday due to the fact that America created a black market by making drugs illegal. Our entire society shouldn't have to suffer just because some dumbasses can't properly restrain themselves.

I have seen people struggle with addiction. Since drugs are illegal, many people aren't open about drug use. Regulating drugs would put things out in the open. Forcing addicts to go to military grade rehab centers would cure their addiction.

 

Marijuana, should be legalized and taxed the only way it is a gateway "drug" is the same criminals that sell it sell the other drugs. It would remove the main source of profits from the drug lords. The other drugs are far to dangerous to the health of society and the users themselves. Decriminalize the use and treat them as a mental health issue with experts handling the treatment. The sale of cocaine, heroine, and other hard drugs should have increased sentences. The removal of the users would decrease the burden on the prison system. That would allow the real threats to society to remain in prison for longer without having to release them to make space for non-violent offenders.

While education needs improvement in this country I do not feel prison is the place to make those improvements. The people in prison become animals to survive they leave more dangerous than they go in. While programs are and should be offered. The education of people before they become criminals is more important. If a individual has committed murder, rape or other horrible acts of violence punishment is well deserved. I do not feel as if they deserve benefits for those actions. The non-violent should be attempted to be rehabilitated and not be locked up with the animals.



The other issue I have not seen addressed is prostitution while I do not agree with the profession. The damage of it being illegal is a burden to the health and safety of our country. It allows sex-slaves to be forced to submit to slave traders in every major city in the US. It also creates profit for the same drug lords that control the sale of narcotics. Not to mention the diseases that are spread due to lack of testing. It as well should be taxed and regulated for the benefit of both society and the women in the industry.

 

Prostitution is a State Right. There is nothing preventing any State in this Union from enacting legalized Prostitution except their own voters. It's legal in Nevada, if you want that privilege in society, you are free to move there.

But Prostitution is perfectly permissible in America if the voters in that State want it. So obviously most people in most States simply don't want to legalize it and the Fed Gov has no power to force States to legalize it any more than they have the power to force States to legalize alcohol. There are still dry counties in America.

The same applies to the Death Penalty. The Fed Government has no right, short of Constitutional Amendment to force States to abolish the Death Penalty.

 

I am not opposed to the death penalty if anything it is under used in my opinion. We were talking about reforming the system I only made references to the crimes I believed could be regulated instead of prohibited to raise tax revenues and reduce enforcement cost. That would allow additional resources to be used for more serious issues. Was I wrong in my assessment of the issues at hand? I do not wish to violate state rights anymore than they have already been violated. I do not remember making that assertion in my comments. Was the result of it being illegal different than I assumed?

 

http://eazysmoke.com/marijuana-quotes.htm

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
- Albert Einstein quote on Hemp"

I agree with Einstein, the war on drugs has only caused less respect for government and increased crime

 

I agree that all drugs should be legalized with strict regulations on when/where you can use it as well as high tax...

Rehabilitation instead of prison!? even though prison can make people worse, there needs to be a known consequence to help prevent a lot of people from quitting crimes.

If a criminal is handed over to a more compassionate system then that's not as consequential, and people might be more likely to behave however they want.

 

While I agree with both you and Einstein on marijuana. The other drugs are more complicated. They change a person to different mind-set to where the drug is the most important thing in their life. Marijuana is not a true drug it is a plant if you were to remove the THC from that plant to be used in its pure form it is as dangerous as other drugs. While I think the use of the harder drugs should be considered a mental illness as opposed to a crime. They are not something we would want to see more available than they already are. So yes ending marijuana prohibition should be supported. I can not say the same for the more dangerous. Removing marijuana from the black-market would be a huge blow to cartels that bring so much misery to our country and the Americas as a whole. The war on drugs has been lost, hanging on to the same same failed approach is beyond ignorant.

 

Great logic,just admit the truth making something illegal doesn't solve anything
it only makes it worse

Hell murder is illegal has that ever stopped anyone from doing it

 

Treat it as health issue, nobody treats. Fat people or anorexic people as criminals
for their choses of consumption or lack of consumption.

So. Why do we treat these people as criminals

Legalizing isn't a cure all tho neither was the. 18th amendment

 

I don't mean to sound rude, but do you understand anything about addiction? People don't become addicted to drugs because they weren't taught how to use them. Likewise, doctors and people who do know how to properly use drugs get addicted to them. The effects of the drugs themselves is only half the problem. The addiction is the other half. And as long as you're going to be imposing arbitrary legal yes and no's as to who can use and who can't, the black market can and will still exist.

Another question. Do you think the people who get addicted to drugs now, after 40 or 50 years of the drug problems of our country being in the news and popular media, aren't aware that drugs are addictive and can hurt your life and even cause death? It's just like smoking cigarettes. Everyone knows they hurt you. They may not know exactly how, they may not the know the names of the chemicals that are in tobacco smoke, or the names of the diseases they cause, but they know smoking cigarettes will make you sick eventually.

I think it's great that people are thinking about this, but I don't think what you have suggested is the best way to go.

 

I said in my first post on this thread to decriminalize hard drugs and treat it as a mental health issue. The sale of cocaine and heroine is different; I do not see how those could be safely sold. How would you suggest the government regulate hard drugs?