Can you believe 'The Economist' magazine is arguing for drug legalization!

[Texas_Roofer]

Although the details of regulation of drugs if they were legalized is not fully fleshed out…

Just remember through out human history, thousands of years, only about 75 have regulated drugs! The other 5000+ years had no substantial drug regulation.

 

[jpm1977]

Just remember through out human history, thousands of years, only about 75 have regulated drugs! The other 5000+ years had no substantial drug regulation.

I don’t disagree, but there’s really been no regulation of anything until the Industrial Age economy. And many societies didn’t have drugs besides alcohol. There was no opium or cocaine in Medieval Europe, for example.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

FYI
*-Around 300 BC, opium is used by Arabs, Greeks, and Romans as a sedative and soporific.

• In 1527, opium is reintroduced into European medical literature by Paracelsus as laudanum (opium mixed with alcohol). These black pills or “Stones of Immortality” were made of opium thebaicum, citrus juice and quintessence of gold and prescribed as painkillers.*

saferinjecting.net/stuff-history-drugs.htm

 

[jpm1977]

FYI
*-Around 300 BC, opium is used by Arabs, Greeks, and Romans as a sedative and soporific.

• In 1527, opium is reintroduced into European medical literature by Paracelsus as laudanum (opium mixed with alcohol). These black pills or “Stones of Immortality” were made of opium thebaicum, citrus juice and quintessence of gold and prescribed as painkillers.*

saferinjecting.net/stuff-history-drugs.htm

I stand corrected. I knew opium was in Asia (Afghanistan), and I guess I could have figured it could have made its way to Europe. Although it may have been in Europe, I doubt it was widely available, and was probably a highly expensive treatment available to the wealthy.

Cocaine was native to S. America, I think, so it wouldn’t have been available.

My point is, with today’s transportation and agricultural technology, drugs are more widely available than in the past, and this despite it being illegal. So, if drugs are going to be legalized, it would make sense to regulate them as we do alcohol and tobacco.

 

[Awake30]

It seems that if we look at it from an economic perspective, it doesn’t seem like a bad proposition to me. Think of all the tax dollars used on law enforcement specifically geared towards anti narcotics. Obviously things aren’t working. Look at the results so far.

 

[Benadam]

It seems that if we look at it from an economic perspective, it doesn’t seem like a bad proposition to me. Think of all the tax dollars used on law enforcement specifically geared towards anti narcotics. Obviously things aren’t working. Look at the results so far.

A moral perspective too when something that doesn’t work is institutionalized , becomes an intrinsic component of the economy and then it’s dysfuntional perspective permeates the mindset of the people adding twisted structures to society supporting that distorted paradigm.