OT: Gary Johnson: We Need To Stop Criminalizing Personal Choice

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I sometimes wonder: Why is it so difficult for so many to grasp that in a free society, we need to allow people to make choices, even if we might personally disagree with those choices and as long as they don’t harm others.

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wise

the war on drugs is the biggest sham going today. I'm sure y'all have seen it by now but this was from a former Nixon staffer during an interview years later:

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“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

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And yet we're still paying for that crap today. Unreal.

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Personal Choices

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Marijuana

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If it really and truly is about personal choice why draw the line at marijuana? If one is a fervent champion of personal choices shouldn't people have the choice whether to snort cocaine, shoot heroin, or ingest meth as well? If not it still looks like line drawing to me--it is simply a matter of moving the goal posts to where you think they ought to be.

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The War on Drugs

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IMO it needs to continue. I like dealing with clear minds. People seem to make better decisions when they are clear headed.

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they do harm others...my kids don't understand that shite...they are weirded out by it cause they have been taught the shite is wrong...cause it is...and it's fricking weird...

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being weirded out doesn't harm them in itself. There's a whole bunch of weirdos in the world. Might as well just get used to it.

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liberty only goes so far until it infringes on somebody else's.....

....when I take my kid to the bathroom, I don't need some Caitlyn Jenner weirdo in there with my kid cause it's their liberty...that's just dumb

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That's a different issue to me. Creates circumstances for a lot of real harm.

IMO, if some dude wants to dress up like a girl, that's his right. He still has to use the men's room though, because he's still a man.

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If it really and truly is about personal choice why draw the line at marijuana? If one is a fervent champion of personal choices shouldn't people have the choice whether to snort cocaine, shoot heroin, or ingest meth as well?

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If I had my choice, I wouldn't draw any line on ingesting substances. However, given the structure of our current healthcare system, that would mean making taxpayers pay for the inevitable medical issues of hard drug addicts. If we had a true free market for health insurance, I would be all for it.

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If it really and truly is about personal choice why draw the line at marijuana? If one is a fervent champion of personal choices shouldn't people have the choice whether to snort cocaine, shoot heroin, or ingest meth as well?

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That's a great topic for a debate, and I don't really have a good answer. Personally, when it comes to stuff like this I'm of the opinion "do whatever you want, I don't care, as long as it doesn't affect me in any way".

Marijuana absolutely, unequivocally shoudl be legal. But for the rest of your question, let's say we legalized all drugs. At the moment, I can't think of one substance or product that is legal and all-clear by the govt where the only way to buy it is to go to someone's home who made it in a bathtub. So, are we assuming here that some compnay would be making and selling meth and heroine in stores? That does not seem like a good thing. So, I guess it's a tough question to answer since there are so many variables. We shoudl also acknowledge that people using heroine or meth are far more of a danger to others than someone on weed.

If you legalize, regulate it and tax it, similar to Cigarettes, you will have the necessary funds to pay for treatment and education.

Also, by legalizing it, hopefully you can at least reduce some of the organized crime that is driving the illegal drug market now.

And the biggest reason to do it ... filling our prisons over and over with non violent drug offenders.

That's also a reason it probably will never happen. Prisons are a billion dollar industry in the US. Sad but true.

Legalize pot and decriminalize everything else. Put junkies in rehab centers instead of jail cells so they actually have a chance to kick their habbit and become a productive member of society.

Give out clean needles to prevent the spread of HIV and cut down on overdoses.

I will say since he came out against cops, he is dead to me. I still think he's the best option but I'm just done with caring.