re: Why are drugs and prostitution illegal?

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This is a huge problem. We can't treat it because we don't fully understand it.

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and our system makes it illegal with harsh penalties and that scarlet letter destroys most economic worth of those who get into the system. when they get free of the system, they're in a shitty position and are very likely to either go back to using or to participate in an illegal economy b/c their value in the proper economy is lessened.

even with all the opiate/anxiety pill issues in SLC the past 10 years, you still see the holy rollers pushing abstinence only and treating drug use as a criminal issue...when it's a mental health issue. i thought they'd learn their lesson, but they've forgotten.

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I think the war on drugs should be shifted to treating and research vs just throwing people into jail but that will never happen because cops would be out of jobs and jails would lose money.

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you are correct

just go look at who actually protests when decriminalization (not even legalization) is discussed. it's always the cops pushing their financial agenda (they don't even always link it to safety anymore. they straight up make it an issue of jobs).

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Since abstinence clearly doesn't work for sex, why would it for drugs? I never thought about it that way.

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the problem with abstinence is that it also creates ignorance

this belief that having an honest discussion about a potentially harmful behavior will just pique the interest and make people go crazy and go overboard doing the behavior, leads to ignorance. when people are ignorant of the dangers of a behavior...they make mistakes (and may end up doing the very thing that people promoting ignorance are trying to avoid)

this applies to any "dangerous" activity. drugs, sex, guns, internet socialization, etc

When people preach to you your entire childhood that drugs and sex are dangerous dangerous things that should ever be touched for any reason ever and you will die or be destroyed if you touch them it puts a serious issue into these kids when they get to the real world or high school and see plenty of people having sex and doing drugs and none of them seem to be evil or dangerous and they start trying everything themselves because at some point humans seek the truth for themselves.

And then you get the socialization we have discussed. The people who try any one of these things might start hanging out with others and someone in that group does other things so they try that and it spirals.

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I think for just this reason alone, because it makes a person far more likely to commit crime, meth should never be made legal.

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Alcohol makes someone far more likely to commit crime too (DUI) and destroys the body (brain/liver), but it's perfectly legal :D

hopefully we all agree on this: the laws we have in place for possession are draconian and borderline insane

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This issue of drug legalization is not a black & white issue where one extreme or the other will solve it. That's why I on the one hand fully support pot being legal but on the other hand think drugs like meth, heroin, cocaine, and crack should remain illegal.

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I can respect that opinion, but my stance is in a free country, you should be able to legally put whatever you want in your own body. Now if I was an employer, I'd run toxicology screenings before hiring people, and anything more than pot showed up, they wouldn't be hired. Just because you have the freedom to do something doesn't mean you should.

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Can anyone give me a reason?

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Here's a couple:

Drugs are illegal because the CIA makes billions of under the table money from cartels by controlling the import of drugs across our boarders.
Also, the lobby groups which support private prisons donate money to keep strict drug laws in place so they have a steady supply of prisoners.

Prostitution:
Our entire system of commerce is dependent upon sex to market products. Getting laid is ultimately why most people buy products so if we don't have to buy things to get laid our economy goes to shite.

Taking the tin foil hat off now...

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hopefully we all agree on this: the laws we have in place for possession are draconian and borderline insane

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borderline?

They're way past that.


Like i asked earlier:

Would yall atleast be for decriminalizing the use and possession to a certain amount of all drugs and aggressively targeting actual drug dealers?

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can respect that opinion, but my stance is in a free country, you should be able to legally put whatever you want in your own body. Now if I was an employer, I'd run toxicology screenings before hiring people, and anything more than pot showed up, they wouldn't be hired. Just because you have the freedom to do something doesn't mean you should.

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I see what you're saying and it does make sense. But the problem with drugs like meth and the other "hard" drugs is that when you've got people putting those substances in their body, it affects other people. In fact, if you look at the cost these addicts inflict on their communities from a crime and healthcare standpoint, not to mention things like child welfare, entitlements, etc. you see that they are a massive problem for society as a whole. And that's not even taking into account the "war on drugs" angle when it comes to how addicts cost society as a whole.

I'll give you one example from the show I watched the other night on Meth. They interviewed a meth cook who's lab exploded on him. He was in Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville with 2nd & 3rd degree burns over just about his whole body. Here's what will result from this one meth cook, who btw was also an addict.

1. His care at Vandy Hospital will cost well over $1,000,000.00. Of course he has no insurance or a job. The hospital will have to absorb those costs which means those costs will be passed on to the rest of us. They interviewed one doctor at the hospital and according to him they are approaching I believe he said it was $300,000,000 a year in uncovered costs of treating drug addicts for different medical needs.

2. His family lost their home when his lab exploded. He had a mother that I know of and i think a wife and kids. All those people will now more than likely, or probably already were, receive government assistance and now on top of that, government housing. So this guy, instead of supporting and proving for his family, now leave them to us, the tax payer to support and house.

3. Then there's the massive cost of cleaning up the burned out toxic waste dump left behind. This take special equipment and special handling and just this alone will cost tax payers thousands.

It's things like what I just listed that are the hidden costs of people using hard drugs. And those costs are placed on the shoulders of the rest of us. That's why hard drugs should never be legal.

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I think for just this reason alone, because it makes a person far more likely to commit crime, meth should never be made legal.

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Meth is more common in places were other drugs are hard to find. If they have access to the much safer Cocaine, it's doubtful there would be as many methheads.