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this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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This only works if your country has good social care… what you’re advocating for is an exacerbation of addiction and mental health crises across the US.
The idea that legalization or something similar would lead to more issues is completely unfounded and rests on the idea that the approach we take right now solves anything and stops people from using drugs. You legalize drugs to IMPROVE the situation, not to make it worse. The repressive approach towards drugs has made all drug issues worse, it is not some sort of dam that is holding back the tide of run-away drug problems, we already have that while they are all illegal.
People by and large do not end up with mental health issues because of drug use, they have mental health issues, or medical issues, or financial issues, which leads them towards drug use, which, with our current approach towards them, puts them into a downwards spiral. A more sane approach centered around harm reduction would be a means to help people in those situations, instead of turning people, who often ended up in that situation through nothing more than an accident or medical issue requiring pain relief medication, into criminals.
I'm pretty sure they're saying the same thing. They're just saying those means to help people need to be in place before you allow dangerously addictive substances to flow freely in the marketplace.
I do not want illegal drugs, but I also want universal healthcare so that people who do get addicted get the treatment they need.
Also, plenty of healthy, sane, rich people become addicts, so I don't think your claim about what leads people to drug use is necessarily true.
Depression exists regardless of income. It can be caused by genetics, childhood trauma, shitty parents, etc... So that still falls under mental health issues.
Then I guess we should have a robust mental healthcare system in place before we decriminalize heroin and meth...
Not in my opinion, because the underlying implication is that a mere change in the legality of a substance would lead to a major rise in its use that we need to counter with an improvement of social care. I'm of the opinion that we would be in a far better situation if we had never intercepted a single gram of any illegal substance or put a single person behind bars for their drug use. Of course we need better social care, but a reduction of repressive approaches to counter the drug issues alone would improve the situation and we don't need to wait for "socialism" to take off in the US.
Portugal decriminalized all drugs. It's not as clear-cut as you think. I am in favor of decriminalization, but to pretend there will be no major fallout is not in line with what happened there.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/
It's easy to fall in the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy though. The article goes on insinuating cause and effect, and tucks away the most likely reason at the end of the article, cutting funds of drug prevention to a quarter of what it was.
So you mean we need a robust mental healthcare system if we decriminalize drugs? I agree.
Of course, but if you cut funds to your social healthcare system towards drug prevention and then point to drug decriminalization as the cause of a worsening situation, you're not being truthful. That's why I mentioned the logical fallacy.
We need to focus and do better on harm reduction before we go full blast so I agree with you 💯