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Re:Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of M... by rayiner on Friday October 07, 2022 @08:45AM (#33120465)
I don’t believe in the concept of “victimless crimes.” Society should enforce moral standards and help people make good decisions. Why do you need marijuana? It doesn’t seem necessary to me. Maybe for legitimate medical uses.

Edit: To respond to the dead comment below, I think banning alcohol would probably be a good thing. Alcohol exacts a terrible toll on women and children. It’s no surprise, then, that the first thing American women did with the right to vote was ban alcohol. Alcohol is banned in my home country, and many others.

That said, I’m afraid it’s too deeply embedded in western culture to make banning alcohol a realistic possibility. But just because that’s true, how does that justify legalizing and normalizing the new vice of drug use?

Re:Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of M... by fknorangesite on Friday October 07, 2022 @10:19AM (#33121691)
> I think banning alcohol would probably be a good thing.

Yes, after all this worked so well the first time.

Re:Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of M... by rayiner on Friday October 07, 2022 @12:27PM (#33123491)
As I said, it might be impractical in a society where alcohol use and abuse is deeply ingrained in the culture. It works just fine in for example Muslim countries where there are social taboos to back up the law.

My point is that, even if alcohol prohibition is impractical in a western country, that’s not a reason to normalize and legalize a new and different vice.

Re:Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of M... by OkayPhysicist on Friday October 07, 2022 @03:08PM (#33125604)
What moral standards? And more interestingly whose moral standards? What moral rule is violated by allowing vice, or what utility function is reduced?

If you don't establish such axiomatic foundations in conversations about morality, you're doomed to just talk past each other. For example, I treat free will and empathy as axiomatic goods. I don't like being told what to do, and I don't like harm coming to others. By extension, others having their free will suppressed is bad, but not axiomatically bad in so much as it can cause greater suppression of the freedom of others.

Under such a framework, it should be pretty obvious why I would oppose prohibition. If someone does something that in of itself does not harm others, then that thing is at worst ethically neutral, and thus there is no good to offset the ethical evil of interceding in them doing it. On the other hand, if someone is attempting to kill someone else, or enslave someone else, or otherwise suppress the other's ability to be free, then preventing that by any means necessary is a moral good.

So what are YOUR axioms that you are operating off of? What base assumptions underlie your "moral standards"?

Re:Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of M... by cudgy on Saturday October 08, 2022 @04:21AM (#33130703)
Well said. How do you feel requiring people to wear seat belts or helmets fits into this model?
Re:Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of M... by inigoalonso on Saturday October 08, 2022 @06:24PM (#33136613)
People injured by being reckless take away medical resources from those that are injured by no fault of their own.