Argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities.
Legal challenges over the permitting process in states like New York have slowed implementation.
After settling other cases, New York — which has issued 60% of all cannabis licenses to social equity applicants, according to regulators — is facing another lawsuit. Last month, the libertarian-leaning Pacific Legal Foundation alleged it favors women- and minority-owned applicants in addition to those who can demonstrate harm from the drug war.
It’s not going to help minority communities if there are groups hell-bent on never doing anything to help minority communities.
I feel like this article is missing the main point. Yes; assholes trying to prevent black and minority success continue to be a thing same as ever.
But getting the police boot lifted off your neck a little has got to be a good thing, right? Tell me about that! Have arrests and hassling gone down or not?
So when do we start talking about all the reparations the US owes for the millions of lives it destroyed with it’s decades-long “War On Drugs” terrorism campaign?
Yeah I love weed and would honestly rather it’s mandatory than restricted but drug prohibition was popular in its day.
A lot of people here seem to think that if you kill a few politicians everyone will agree on leftwing principles and unite as one - that’s very much not what will happen.
Don’t forget the hippies and socialists. McCarthyism is baked into that as well, because political persecution.
Get fucked prohibitionists.
There will come a time when humanity wins the war on drugs, and everyone has the bodily autonomy to put what drugs they want in their own body.
And when that day happens… will you see drug users persecuting people for not being high?
Will you see prisons built for those who dare stay sober?
Will people be given felonies for being straight edge?
Will drug users militarize the police and erode our constitutional rights in a vain quest to enforce thier way of life on others?
NO
Who would want to do that to someone? Prohibitionists.
And we are NOT them.
Marijuana legalization will not end the worst consequences of the war on drugs.
Full legalization of all drugs is maximum harm reduction.
Out of curiosity, what drugs have you done? I rank powder cocaine as a low/medium level drug for addiction potential and effects. It seems like it gets its hooks in as a facilitator for alcoholism.
Crack, while the same drug, is an entirely different experience. If powder cocaine is a roller coaster, crack is like covering the same distance, but shot out of a cannon. Every thing is faster, harder on your body, and a lot more intense. The rush is so big that you immediately feel like you’re in a pretty heavy withdrawal within an hour, and there is no fatigue from a whole night of partying to inform you not to do more.
Maybe the law should pay attention to methods of ingestion and the effect each one has on behavior rather than demonizing a chemical by itself.
Part of full legalization includes adding resources for education and rehabilitation. We educate people so they are less likely to succumb. We remove stigmas that create barriers to people getting help with addiction, and then we help people.
Honestly, removing demand for crack would do more to shatter the supply.
Really? You care to source that? Because everything I can find has them significantly less burdened by drug problems than other European countries or most US States.
Aside from being there many times and seeing the problem first-hand here are a few articles:
The idea that decriminalization leads to less hard drug usage is seen to have an initial positive effect (which could be why you had previously thought it was better) but unfortunately has led to a larger unmaintainable drug problema:
- locations become drug trafficking epicenters
- rubber band effect from expiring and unmaintainable government funding
- number of users growing
The number of Portuguese adults who reported prior use of illicit adult drugs rose from 7.8% in 2001 to 12.8% in 2022 — still below European averages but a significant rise nonetheless. Overdose rates now stand at a 12-year high and have doubled in Lisbon since 2019.
Check Portland, OR. Not going so great now. The drugs nowadays are synthetic and designed to be addictive to most people. Decriminalizing them isn’t going to get them off the streets and stop people from getting hooked.
Thank fuck they didn’t use “decimate” like a dumbass. 🤘🏽
edit: The whingy downvotes here only underline the issue of confident illiteracy, vernacular morphology be damned. Just because some lazy fuck barely remembered the feel/sound/look of “devastate” and settled for the wrong word, doesn’t mean you have jump off the bridge too, kiddo. Read a damn book.
To “decimate” means “to destroy 10%.” I agree with you that “decimate” would be inaccurate, in the sense that the destruction wrought by the drug war easily exceeded 10%.
people have been using “decimate” to mean “to remove 90% and leave only 10% remaining.” When I was younger I was surprised to learn it didn’t mean that.
We already have a different word to indicate “to remove 10%” : tithe.
