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A concern is that the practicalities of such a legalization would just make things worse. It could make it much easier for children to get hold of. You would also need to define what is "pure" and police that for an endless list of possible products. It is difficult enough to keep salmonella out of food, effective regulation of cannabis sounds impossible. Any regulation would need to be sufficiently loose that you do not need a black market.

I would argue that the most important impact of drug use is to people who are not drug users. Any legislation should put the interests of those people first.




> It could make it much easier for children to get hold of.

There are currently no age restrictions on heroin. All a child needs is a morally-bankrupt drug dealer, which imo is easier than finding a morally-bankrupt store clerk if it were legal.

> You would also need to define what is "pure" and police that for an endless list of possible products.

'Pure' can be easily defined, and it doesn't have to be 'pure' anyway, just not increasingly harmful - beer isn't pure alcohol, McDonald's burgers aren't pure beef, etc.

> It is difficult enough to keep salmonella out of food, effective regulation of cannabis sounds impossible. Any regulation would need to be sufficiently loose that you do not need a black market.

Comparing keeping salmonella out of food to keeping drugs clean is apples and oranges - they're entirely different problems. Also, given the insane markup drugs are subject to today, primarily due to the risk of distribution, prices would fall with regulation, and imo enough to undercut any current black market. Also, the quality could be better or worse, but you know it would be safe.


I got addicted at 16. Was easier than convincing someone at a bottle shop to sell alcohol to me.


> There are currently no age restrictions on heroin. All a child needs is a morally-bankrupt drug dealer, which imo is easier than finding a morally-bankrupt store clerk if it were legal.

It is very easy for underage people to get hold of alcohol. It is ridiculous to suggest that drugs would be any different. It would make it much easier to buy.

> Beer isn't pure alcohol, McDonald's burgers aren't pure beef, etc.

I still don't understand how you can regulate that. How exactly do you define "not increasingly harmful"? Presumably whatever the definition it risks creating a black market, or being very cheap; both outcomes would be negative.

> Comparing keeping salmonella out of food to keeping drugs clean is apples and oranges - they're entirely different problems.

Why? It would presumably need a similar system of inspection and rules. It doesn't just need to be safe for current drug users, but all the other people that may decide to give it a go. Why would people give up basic consumer rights?


> It is very easy for underage people to get hold of alcohol. It is ridiculous to suggest that drugs would be any different. It would make it much easier to buy.

While I was underage (I'm 24 now, so not long ago), it was easier to find weed than it was to find alcohol. The repercussions for selling weed to a 16 year old are the same as selling weed to an 18 year old are the same as selling to a 21 year old and so on. The repercussions for selling alcohol to a 21 year old versus an 18 year old or cigarettes to an 18 year old versus a 16 year old are entirely different, in that there are none if you sell to someone of legal age.

If you're already selling an illegal substance, there's no legal reason not to sell to someone who would otherwise be under age if the substance was legalized. What you're doing is illegal either way. With alcohol and tobacco, you're asking a store clerk likely making minimum wage to take a risk so you can buy alcohol. It's just way less likely to fly.


As a kid, weed is easier to get than alcohol. Heroin might be less common but only because its not as popular.


Where I live McDonalds are the only fast food chain to hammer the fact that their burgers are 100% pure beef (produced inside the borders of my country even).

Don't know if it is correct but repeating it on tv for months sounds risky if they are lying.


It is correct some places, and may now finally be correct everywhere, but especially in the US it is not all that obvious whether or not your meat is "pure" in any meaningful sense:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_slime


I assume that what the GP referred to is that even though it's all "beef" (part of a cow's body), one beef product might be mostly tendons, bonemeal and fat, while another is a cut of fillet, almost 100% muscle tissue. Colloquially, I think most people would agree that the latter is more pure than the former.


When I was a teenager, it was easier for me to buy pot than beer because pot was illegal in general while beer was legally available for most of the population.

From what I have heard, this situation was not atypical.


I think this would vary hugely by location (Europe will be different). In some places underage drinking is accepted by adults where drug use is not.


Drinking was by no means less acceptable at the time than smoking pot; the relative ease of getting pot was despite it being frowned upon much more.

Think of it this way: who requires a black market for pot? Every single person who wants pot. Who requires a black market for booze? Not everyone who wants booze... just a narrow band of people spanning 5 or 6 birth years. A group of people who tend to be rather broke.

You can find an adult or two that is willing to buy you a sixpack once in a while fairly easily, but that isn't their job, they couldn't make it their job (since the market is limited and poor), and they probably have more interesting people to hang out with. Pot though? The guy that sells the pot does it for a living. He's going to be far less flaky.

If you, as an adult in an area where medical pot is legal, try to buy pot regularly from somebody who has a medical card, you will likely find that they are less reliable than somebody who does it fulltime. As pot becomes legal to a greater portion of adults, this effect will only increase.


Thank's that's interesting.


> Any regulation would need to be sufficiently loose that you do not need a black market.

No, it wouldn't. There are black markets in many legal goods to evade taxes and other elements of regulation, and yet the social harms associated with such black markets tend to be much less than for similar goods that are prohibited (compare alcohol before and after Prohibition).

You mostly seem to be arguing if we can't have a perfect scheme for legalization and regulation, we should instead keep the status quo prohibition, but a legal-and-regulated scheme can be far from perfect (indeed, can even be quite bad) and be a marked improvement from the status quo.

> I would argue that the most important impact of drug use is to people who are not drug users.

I'd like to see that argument (and note that "argue" and "assert" are not the same thing.)


> I'd like to see that argument (and note that "argue" and "assert" are not the same thing.)

Except that drugs are such a culturally charged issue that "argue" and "assert" become the same thing. Fundamentally I find the culture distasteful so I reject it. The arguments in favor seem to crassly exploit the illness of a few addicts to justify more convenient access for recreational users. This completely ignores treatment, or drug prevention in favor of a faith based approach based on barely though out laws.


> Except that drugs are such a culturally charged issue that "argue" and "assert" become the same thing.

No, the fact that some people are emotionally invested in an issue doesn't mean that "argue" and "assert" become the same thing, its just means that "assert" becomes a lot more common than arguing.

> Fundamentally I find the culture distasteful so I reject it.

What culture?

> The arguments in favor seem to crassly exploit the illness of a few addicts to justify more convenient access for recreational users.

The arguments in favor of what?


We already have two very good examples of regulating a legal drug with little or no black market: Tobacco & Alcohol

I think many of the things we've learned with regulating those drugs could be applied to a lot of other drugs.


Both tobacco and alcohol have sizable black markets, mostly as a way to avoid tax.


The major impact to society is because of peripheral crime, not the use itself.




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