> 1. Some substances that are detrimental to human health need to be controlled.

I'd rather the law be more around information than control. If one believes in the idea of freedom and liberty in the US, then one should support a model where individuals are allowed to make their own decisions, but ensure the facts around such substances are well researched and publicized.

Alcohol kills, and yet is not actually very well controlled at all. Marijuana doesn't kill anyone directly, and yet the lies told about it has kept it tightly controlled, even as the real facts continue to come out.

I don't believe the government really has any obligation to keep us safe from our own poor decisions, assuming those poor decisions can be argued to be have been informed using truthful information.

Why do you think medical prescriptions exist?

Let’s just publish the literature online and let people choose their dosage of Ivermectin.

Its very simple calculation really. Just look at the rest of the world if you're blinded by existing US system. 10s of countries have solved both of these problems in strikingly similar ways (similar as in similar for each problem not across the problems). So, why is US different? Answer: It's not. Majority of US folks need to just grow up to the fact that US humans aren't different than ROW humans and accept what data has been saying to them for generations. No point in being an outlier and trying to defend it tooth and nail.

Problem is, is there are no "US" folks - we're not a homogeneous population and different areas have vastly different priorities and needs, while federal overreach continually undermines state autonomy.

Using a gun often has a victim. A seriously injured or dead victim. Getting high does not. That difference cannot be overstated.

What about people driving while high (or the people they hit if they have an accident)? What about people who become addicted to drugs like heroin? What about people who OD on heroin?

I suppose you could argue that none of these people were injured or killed by the drugs--they were injured or killed by someone misusing the drugs.

But that same argument works guns too. Good luck trying to find some convincing way to distinguish the two.

What? Lol.

Let’s pull the stats on stabbing or blunt force trauma and ban baseball knives, kitchen knives and nail clippers as well ?

Terrorists ran people over with vehicles. So of course, renting a Uhaul van now has to come with a lengthy background check?

The absurdity of the comparison astounds me, and I’m willing to bet, would certainly astonish you were you to step outside the bubble you seem to be in. Have you met anyone that’s known or was a user of synthetics? Read up on the opioid crisis and the societal impact that’s had. It’s a crying shame that it isn’t taught in schools or spoken about even more than it is at present.

I don't know what ax you're grinding, but if you want less dead people from drugs, stop supporting laws that force people to engage with violent underground marketplaces to buy impure drugs of unknown origin.

Let me explain how civil conversation works. You put forth an assertion, and usually, a good response has a counterpoint, seriously or in jest to show you that your position may have not considered the whole thing.

When you draw an absolute line saying drug abuse has no victims, I laugh and point out other “crimes” that do and by your logic are thus different and must be banned.

Now, if you make another point about “forcing people to buy from violent underground marketplaces”, this is where your original comment becomes entirely irrelevant and you’re projecting some unsubstantiated paranoia of yours as a factual argument.

These are addictive substances. Many if not most of them leave permanent psychological scars and inhibit normal human functioning in ways that, unlike naturally occurring substances such as coffee are considered DETRIMENTAL to societal health and safety. By limiting exposure of society to synthetics or dangerous drugs, we limit their harm.

Your argument seems to be everyone in the US population wakes up everyday thinking “where can I get five ks of that sweet sweet Birria” ?

Stop acting like a dickhead if you don’t have any experience with rehabilitating the victims of these idiotic policies you’re proposing and go outside your moms basement once in a while.

With fentanyl being so potent these days and most guns never winding up killing anybody I wouldn't be surprised if the body count per "retail transaction" wasn't on the same order.

This isn't your 70s hippie weed or 80s crack. Dealing in hard drugs these days is a business with a pretty high body count due to the low LD50 of the substances involved. It's like the addictive substances equivalent of giving dynamite to teenagers. A lot of fun will be had but a lot of bad outcomes too.

So yeah, I'd say that dealing often has a victim too.

Impure drugs are a consequence of drug prohibition.

Synthetics are more potent and technically the opposite of impure.

They’re also sourced from China, a geopolitical adversary where political figures routinely point to the opium wars and revenge for that period on the west.

I don't get your point. If we want to save lives, let's stop forcing people to buy drugs from black markets. Lives will be saved if people aren't forced to buy unknown drugs and essentially "guess" what the right dose might be. That's how most deaths from illegal drugs occur.

There is a separate issue of doctors over-prescribing dangerous drugs and people abusing those drugs. I think preventing those overdoses and deaths takes a totally different approach.

“Forced to buy”?

You understand what “addictive substances” means , right? Your solution to protecting a population from being hooked on drugs is . . . Give them more and without restriction?

Sometimes the naïveté in the tech community amazes me.

Pure fentanyl makes for quite an impure heroin.

You can really only swap drugs for guns if gun related imprisonment is high. Are there are lot of people in prison for illegal gun possession / dealing?

Are there are lot of people in prison for illegal gun possession / dealing?

Yes. Tons of petty criminals and low level nonviolent felons are behind bars because whatever they were doing it they did it while packing heat or had a gun in their possession when their door got kicked in.

Packing while committing some other crime is a felony by itself in many places and in the case of federal crimes (e.g. drug trafficking) a multiplicative effect on your max sentence and raises the minimum by a ton. Many/most states also have laws that copy the federal law.

This is why why drug dealers who've made it big pay someone else to pack for them and/or store their product as soon as their business can support that.

To your point 1. no one is disputing that they need to be controlled. Alcohol is controlled, tobacco is controlled. The point is that making the illegal is an extreme way of controlling them (that doesn’t work).

Guns also need to be controlled (in my opinion way more that they currently are) but that doesn’t mean that I am advocating for them to be illegal.