It's a lot harder to write a coherent response than downvote, but given there's so much misinformation around the internet, you could do nothing but try to correct it by replying, 24/7 and still get nowhere. Downvoting hides bad comments, and depending on your metrics comments that are based on a flawed premise should be hidden.

Buying drugs do not meaningfully fund terrorism. So to criminally prosecute someone for buying drugs because it might stop them from giving money to the "bad guys" is an abuse of both humans and logic. The bad guys only sell drugs because they're the only ones willing to break the law. If you cared about stopping them, you legalize recreational use so non-criminals would make the money. But the whole argument for prosecuting individual users is because "drugs are bad and you're bad for using them". The whole drugs fund terrorism was it interesting lie or propaganda, (depending on your view). And lies even when repeated unintentionally or unknowingly should be downvoted.

Speaking to this point exactly; drugs do not meaningfully fund terrorism. In a person's locality, one can readily learn what their supply chains consist of, and who is the chemist/grower producing it. For one to assume flat out that all drugs somehow for some reason pass through a cartel shows lack of knowledge, or bad faith. Especially today in the booming drug market, one can very easily buy right from cannabis growers and right from chemists, or nearly directly. Cartel drugs are frankly poor quality absolute garbage.

OP mentioned terrorism clearly as an after thought. The bulk of their message was focused on crime. This gives your position a sort of "knee jerk" air about it. To then be given a low effort downvote option to facilitate your low effort analysis simply enables your perpetuation of a reactive culture.

And you're not one person against the world. You don't need to correct every single misinformed opinion on the entire internet 24/7. Take the time to help one person who you feel is misinformed and bring them to truth.

I did, I replied to you.

But OP did their argument a huge disservice. Even considering I wasn't focused on that aspect given I specifically chose "bad guys" instead of terrorists. Or that their concept that drugs are necessarily connected with crime. Their argument with or without adding in terrorism is based upon a either a lie or a misunderstanding. One that would wrongly have additional credibility seeming to be true if it got up voted.

But I'm curious to why you're blaming me (rhetorically) for perpetuating a reactive culture when not only am I not even sure what that means, but I didn't even downvote him.

And I appreciated your reply and considered your reasoning. It was a helpful observation that has tempered my distaste for downvoting.

Being HN, this is a good place to throw up some citations and they would stand a far higher chance of being read and understood by your target audience even if they disagree with you.

And I don't feel I'm "blaming" you per se, but your response gives the impression that even if you didn't downvote this specific referenced post, you've done it before for the reasons you gave.

In any case, I must have heard the same lies or misunderstandings because I thought the connection between drugs and crime was fairly obvious. I would absolutely appreciate some citations.

That’s because everybody here already knows that keeping drugs illegal is what is actually funding criminal organizations.

Bingo. Plus, as it pertains to LSD itself, what he said was patently false. LSD has always been largely distributed among intellectual circles for decent low prices and among hippie circles. Real LSD is not meth, and it's not heroin. It wasn't and isn't trafficked by cartels. Maybe fake synthetic chemicals being sold as "acid," but not pure LSD-25. It was a perpetuated government War on Drugs (tm) myth.

No, what is actually funding those organizations would be the profits of the drugs they are selling. The law may be responsible for creating an environment that allows such groups to prosper, no argument there. But an unjust law doesn't make it morally permissible to work with violent criminal organizations.

In any case I think it is unreasonable to downvote someone who is arguing in good faith simply because you disagree with their premise.

> No, what is actually funding those organizations would be the profits of the drugs they are selling.

No, that's a nonsensical sentence. Profits are funding. What I said is correct: The law is what is actualizing the profits (or the funding). Without the law there would be no profits, no funding. Ergo, the law is causing the funds to happen. Profits are not self-caused. They don't just happen by themselves.

> But an unjust law doesn't make it morally permissible to work with violent criminal organizations.

Yes it does. Morals are subjective. I'm absolutely fine with it. These criminal organizations are far less violent and less criminal than my own government which I fund by paying taxes.

Furthermore, the vast majority of people buying illicit drugs are not buying directly from violent criminal organizations or even non-violent criminal organizations. They're buying from a friend who buys from a friend who buys from a friend who might buy from a criminal organization (who might be violent).

> In any case I think it is unreasonable to downvote someone who is arguing in good faith simply because you disagree with their premise.

You (and them) made poor arguments based on your ill-formed opinions and presented no evidence. You both deserve the downvotes.

It's downvoted partly because of the reasons other commenters have given and also because it shows ignorance about the drug market and about LSD specifically. Why participate in the discussion when you are not informed?

Yes, those violent LSD trafficking organizations.

The rhetoric is like straight out of the '80s and is not a "valid argument."

I downvoted for the initial sentence: "I mean, the organized crime groups that sell these drugs do harm people"

By that reasoning every gas station should be closed for selling oil that came from Saudi Arabia.

How about them apples?

Since America isn't officially the world police, switching scope like this makes a bad comparison. There are plenty of reasons the US might interact with foreign countries in a way it wouldn't with internal domestic groups.

I was arguing from the initial moralistic view about fruit from a poisoned tree.

And by the way, the US has for several generations been the unofficial world police. The US drug laws force other countries to toe the line as well.

But this is going off into the weeds. The real point is that the War on Drugs manufactures crime by design.

I mean yeah, if you view fruits from a forbidden tree as poisoned/immoral. The logic is sound.

So, they probably don't like dem apples, they're poisoned.

Except it's quite possible that the LSD supply chain had no violence associated with it, so it's pure conjecture biased by a "drugs are bad, m'kay?" attitude. Those apples are far from guaranteed to be poisoned.

I've seen the same argument about cannabis, and while some may come from cartels, much of it comes from indy growers and that supply chain is more than likely violence free.

As mentioned by another, the whole element of criminality is manufactured by the state and was designed from the start as a tool of oppression, not to "keep us safe".

I'm with you on that. I'm only trying to say that if you believe drugs are bad. I.e. if taking drugs is itself inherently immoral the logic is still sound. I don't believe the drugs are inherently immoral I do believe that fruit from The forbidden tree is poisoned.