I immigrated from India to Canada and plan on immigrating to US in the future. So I have experienced the ongoing failed "war on drugs" in India which has created a major overdose problem along with worsened the police/government corruption and thrown many people in prison. I have also seen the legalization of weed couple years ago in Canada.
I agree with you about the "Freedom means that you can do whatever the f you want, anything, as long as you don't impact other people." and share the exact same opinion. That's the same standard I apply to everything else too - from gay marriage to freedom of speech. I don't care about what's happening in someone's bedroom or whom they are having sex with as long as it's consensual adults. That's also why I am free speech absolutist. I absolutely hate the smell of weed and have never touched any drugs. But I want it to be legal because I believe the federal government/police needs to stop wasting tax payer resources on shutting down fundamental liberties. Similarly I believe we need to learn to develop a thicker skin and ignore things if they offend us instead of censoring/banning them using governmental or trillion dollar corporations. Just like sunlight is the best disinfectant for free speech, same approach with drugs. Same approach to allowing euthanasia (and even suicide but that can get messy and impacts too many other people so maybe not).
Let drugs be legal and prevent black markets and ensure "proper advertising" like we do in every other industry. Make sure regulations aren't getting in the way of the industry to the point where the government has to step in to subsidize them (Canada and California are having this problem).
That said, nalozone should be stocked in every pharmacy across America.
Just like needles. Needles can be bought in CA.
Hell--I would put it in emergency glass boxes all around SF, and most cities.
(To anyone addicted, bupernorpine works pretty well. Most of you could get down to a very low dose of bupenorpine pretty quick. It really helped me. I was never a bad addict. I just started taking pain pill from a nurse friend. Well, kind of a friend. She meant well. I could have just told her no, but didn't.)
In the nineties, a friend of mine called me up, and asked me what do you do with someone who is overdosed.
I told him there was naxolone, but it's only available at the hospital.
He called back while in transit. She died at the hospital.
He was living next to CVS pharmacy. If it was available, she would still be here. She wasen't even a long term addict. It was her second time using.
Is our medical system so well tuned that people receiving a procedure that literally saves their lives is inconvenient for you?
Do you agree that people that need and want help should receive it?
Where does your personal freedom and where does my personal freedom begin?
We in the US like to plaster freedom everywhere. And it's FREEDOM this, FREEDOM that. But I'm sad to report most people don't understand what freedom means. Freedom means that you can do whatever the f you want, anything, as long as you don't impact other people. If I drink alcohol, smoke weed or do heroin or mushrooms, or like to bang my head against the wall - as long as it does not impact you you should not care about it. Period. That's true freedom.
When it comes to legalizing or forming an opinion about something IMHO the question should be: is this going to impact me? If the answer is not I believe that be default we should not put any gates or laws or rules in place.
I think the govn should step in only to regulate the quality of the product (ie: if you're gonna sell weed it better be weed, if you're gonna sell alcohol it better be alcohol etc) not to dictate what is okay to sell and what is not okay to sell.