[Itse]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I'm morally a libertarian, I think everyone should have the right to kill themselves anyway they want in principle.

That said as the foster dad of severely addicted teens I can tell you the effects of the defacto legalization of weed in Vancouver have been to enable my already messed up kids to have much cheaper easier access to far stronger dope.

I'm talking as someone who's kid was hospitalized because of weed she accidentally ate in a chocolate cake (enough to be quite dangerous), and who has seen a dear friends live almost get destroyed by weed. (And a friendship more or less destroyed. Not unrelated incidents.) Unsurprisingly weed really disgusts me now.

I agree with legalization of weed but it clearly will involve a massive increase in access and therefore use in all ages. It's hard to see how this wouldn't apply to all and any drugs.

Here's the disconnect for me. I've been observing societys reactions to weed from very close in the last couple of years, and I haven't seen any reactions that I felt served a real purpose. Nothing that would have prevented what happened, and nothing that would prevent it from happening in the future. Nothing that helped anyone, beyond the immediate hospital care of my child. (Which was fantastic and I'm so grateful for the professionalism of the hospital staff and the quality of care that I can't even put it to words.)

In short, my first hand experiences support the rather convincing statistical claims that the current drug policies are just not working. There needs to be a fundamental change in thinking for any actual movement forward.

While decriminalization is I think the right way forward, even more important would be that we stop approaching drugs as primarily a crime issue.

Drug policies should primarily be up to the Department of Health (or equivalent in each country), not the Justice Department.