ColonicAcid wrote:Reprimanding them doesn't just mean throw them in jail you dookie.
I despise the criminalising actions taken towards addicts and the problem with suppliers and general criminal activities can be dealt with by legalising drugs that show not to have too much of a catastrophic effect if done semi-regularly. If you think that this would cause pandemonium and the destruction of the west as we know it than I'm going to have to ask you to research the widespread effects of alcohol and alcohol withdrawal and then look at any drugs withdrawal other than benzos and find me one as deadly. Yet we still tolerate alcohol.
Addiction is not a crime, it's a mental condition, and the reprimand should be having to suffer through rehab programs to become a better person, not to arrest and forget about you.
okay i think we just reached common ground
however: the thing about taking drugs in the first place is that you fuel the market with demand, if less people took drugs then less people would sell drugs - this is just the reasoning used.
not that i necessarily agree with it being criminalized in the first place but i think that if you know it's criminalized and you still take it then you should've known better and it's your fault even if the law is unfair, you should've known better etc etc if you leave your door open and you get robbed it's your fault
and one thing you mentioned about crack vs cocaine for blacks vs whites a couple of pages ago:
hell, the majority of arrests for drugs arent even for using drugs, do you think the police has time for that? most of the people in jail for drugs are in for distribution and not consumption, this is also the reason cocaine in solid form = more time in jail than cocaine in powder form. it's much easier to distribute in solid form than in powder form and that's why there's a disparity.
if you look at the sentencing between meth and crack it's absolutely identical even though meth is more used by whites in rural areas of the US, it's about distribution, not race.