Canada Asks Drug Makers to Stop Marketing Opioids

If you think about the history of drug and the law in this country, its pretty revealing. Pretty much until the turn of the 20th century we had no drug laws at all, or hardly any. Maybe a local ordnance here and there, but nothing resembling “The War on Drugs” to be sure.
People didn’t seem to think about them the way we do now. There was no line. Doctors could tell you what you ought to take, but you didn’t need them specifically to get anything. Of course, location mattered a whole lot more meaning where you lived dictated what you had access to, but you could get and take what you want.
I think the government putting itself between hand and mouth is a little more intimate than I prefer so long, again, as the hand belongs to the same body as the mouth.

To me, it’s not so much about consequences as rights.
Our Constitution and the function of our government was created with the intent of protecting the people from the government. The Constitution is mainly a document of limiting what the government can do and it’s reach. You just have to look at the language to determine that.
Unfortunately, the conversation has changed from limiting government to limiting the people. And that’s just generally how it’s thought of now. At least it seems that way to me.

The question re-framed is therefore, does the consequences of having drugs legal out weigh the right to ingest whatever you want. As of right now, I am siding with the right to take whatever you want over consequences of what that would do.
And as consequences go, there are good ones as well as bad ones. And for every good there is a bad and vice versa.
Hence and therefore, I currently support the right over the consequence but I haven’t experienced the tragedy some have. I don’t know if the emotion would supplant my thoughts. Emotions are very powerful.

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But we could use money from legal drug sales to fund the issues addicts have. I also think fewer people in prison would mean saving money.

If it could be shown the tax revenues of legal drug sales would outweigh the costs, sure.

Sure saving prison spending. increases welfare and food stamp spending by a good bit. Also the spend added by giving kids such easy access to drugs

I’m still in favor of fining non violent drug offenders over prison though

It probably costs more to imprison someone than have them receive welfare.

I’d sure hope so. But I would have to think the net positives of not jailing drug users would outweigh the negatives of a more addicted country, easier drug access to kids, higher healthcare costs, etc etc

How can kids’ access to drugs get any easier?

By allowing the people that give it to them to access it legally? The same way it’s easier to get ahold of anything legal compared to illegal?

Just as with alcohol and cigarettes, which are legal.

It may be easier for people to purchase drugs but, they wouldn’t be able to buy an amount that would make dealing much of a profitable option and, since selling drugs to minors would still be illegal, it wouldn’t make selling to them any easier.

I’m missing the connection? It’s absurdly easy for young people to get ahold of alcohol and cigarettes. The same cannot be said of cocaine and meth.

Why not? In this hypothetical of legal drugs are there somehow quotas you can’t exceed? A registry that your sale goes on? My sister profits today from MJ that she buys from a guy who gets it legally in MI. 10 years ago it was pretty difficult to get your hands on wax, and god forbid oil, and today it’s everywhere after only being medically legalized in another state.

Of course it would. As of today your local coke dealer needs to be worried about his buy, transporting, and his sale. Legal drugs means all he has to do is worry about his sale. And if you’re not an idiot the sale is the safest part.

Edit: also given the legality, I can’t imagine anything but a massive decrease in the amount of time LEOs spend on drugs

Where is he buying these legal drugs?

I would assume the places that would open to sell drugs if it’s legalized? They don’t sell MJ at Walmart, so I wouldn’t imagine the hard drugs would be sold there either. It’d most likely be dispensaries

edit: but people do theorize that when MJ is legal nationwide regular stores will start to sell as well. Idk if I buy into that myself

And are they going to sell coke by the kilo?

If there’s demand for it and it’s completely legal? Why not?

Because it’s for personal use. Do mj dispensaries place limits on how much someone can buy? I’m genuinely asking.

If places where drugs were sold were allowed to sell in bulk like Costco, then yeah, I wouldn’t agree with it.

Not any of the ones I’ve been to. I went to one in Vegas a couple weeks ago on PTO with my wife and they had prices per oz for the bud, but I didn’t ask how much I was allowed to buy.

Why does where it’s sold matter? If there’s no registry or purchase tracking (like there isn’t with MJ everywhere I’ve been), you just buy as much as you can sell.

Most dealers aren’t sitting on bricks of coke. Lowering the risk level and giving easier legal access would just increase the number that exist.

Regardless, it takes the cartels and gangs out of the equation.

Well back to the original thread, it seems the province of British Columbia is reaming the industry, and inviting other provinces.

The thing that irks me is that it had to come after the US government laid the groundwork first, and we just followed along. Meanwhile in NAFTA, our Prime Minister just said it is better to have a lousier deal than none at all. He can elbow someone in Parliament and trounce a Conservative senator in boxing, but he isn’t a hard man always on the world stage.

The suggestion throughout this article is that both Canada and Mexico are both in kimuras with going along with the US position. The weight of NAFTA supposedly bears down.

I was thinking over the last number of years that grass legalization here in Canada will allow more resources to go after more serious drugs, but will the approach have to change? Or will it finally collapse? [edit: that is to say, will the bad drug industry finally collapse?]

I saw this good article, and think it a good read.

I wonder what more really the police officers think of letting out some past cannabis traffickers.

Probably depends on the people and the cops.

I’ve had cops that would dump a bag and tell me to fuck off because they knew me when I was a kid and/or other family members that they were cool or partied with, and a couple that came after me like I was Scarface over a bowl or a few grams.

Cops are people too. Gotta give them a pretty wide berth on opinions.

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