Alabama suffers crime because of drugs, it punishes people because of drugs, it builds billion dollar prisons and signs billion dollar prison healthcare deals because its justice system is overrun by the consequences of drugs. It forces people to spend lifetimes in prison because of drugs, it uses the presence of drugs as an excuse to put addicts back inside, and if it put a fraction of the effort into rehabilitation it would save more people, more money and more families.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240212131604/https://www.al.com/news/2024/02/archibald-alabama-says-its-tough-on-drug-crime-it-just-perpetuates-it.html

  • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
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    5 months ago

    Legalize drugs and addictions will go down, and the prices will plummet. The hard drugs will get much softer as well. Alcohol, Prohibition taught us this much. Who drinks moonshine these days? Nobody I’ve ever heard of. They sip a beer while watching the football game.

    • markr@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Addiction might go down, it might go up, but crime will definitely go down, and accidental overdose deaths will basically be eliminated.

      • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
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        5 months ago

        Addiction should go down since legalizing the drugs would make room for less potent forms of the drugs. So something like cocaine could be replaced with coca leaf tea, etc. It doesn’t completely eliminate it, but it ought to bring it way down.

        • Hexasphertate@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          I doubt a “less potent form of drugs” will happen exactly as you imagine. Drug potency has skyrocketed because logistically it’s easier to smuggle smaller quantities of a high potency substance. I personally think we would see a resurgence of drugs and doses of what people were previously doing before importing them got so difficult. What would be interesting though would seeing if any new analogs could be discovered with shorter term effects especially in the world of stimulants.

          • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
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            5 months ago

            Right, exactly. So if it was legal, then the potency should be able to drop because you don’t have to smuggle it anymore. Since it would no longer be illegal and you no longer have to smuggle it in, then the space could be used for the less potent forms instead of the tiny spaces for more potent forms we have now.

  • ZK686@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I just can’t behind this 'let’s go easy on drug users and drug sellers" mentality. I’m in California, and I swear the whole drug use and homeless crisis is getting worse, because we aren’t really punishing drug users. We’re just leaving them alone,…meanwhile, they’re robbing stores, building homeless camps where they can use drugs…etc…it’s just crazy. Look at places like Kensington in Philly…where it’s literally zombies walking around half dead…and no one seems to care.

    • dwemthy@lemdro.id
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      5 months ago

      It’s really out of control. Just last week I was in my Uber to work and had to see an encampment of the most destitute people in the city forced to live on the street because a bunch of NIMBYs don’t want shelters near them (they wanted to build one near my condo building and you’d better believe I gave them a piece of my mind about letting a bunch of drug addicts moving into real buildings in my neighborhood). It’s horrible the way they turn to drugs because if they’re going to die on the streets anyway they might add well die high. If we just arrest them all then at least they can contribute to the economy by providing free labor for a private prison! Anyway, the sight of those people made me vomit right there in the Uber. I’d rather have to pay the cleaning fee than walk the three blocks to work and actually have to SMELL those people!

        • ZK686@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          “Homeless people are on drugs and alcohol, but we should just have sympathy for them because it’s not their fault.”

            • ZK686@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Sure, I’ll mind my own business… if those same homeless people will stop coming up to me asking for money, stop using drugs around my work, stop drinking alcohol and yelling at people, and stop shitting and pissing on the building I work at.