Is this topic over-debated? Sure. Does that mean we shouldn’t give it a try?
Should all recreational drugs be legal for an adult to buy and take?
Some starter arguments for:
- Removing criminal market, which is notoriously violent and resilliant
- Prohibition is futile
- Allows regulation, improving safety
- Encourages rehabilitaiton
- Encourages scientific study on substances of beneficial interest (e.g. cannabis, ketamine)
Some starter arguments against:
- Vulnerable people need to be protected against potentially harmful/addictive substances
- The current economic system encourages sellers to foster addiction (e.g. tobacco, alcohol)
- People affected by ‘harder’ drugs are inevitably antisocial and dangerous
- Illegality is an effective deterrent
- Legality normalizes drug use, which should be discouraged outside of medical purposes
spoiler
My intuition is that Lemmy attracts a lot of both USA-libertarian and progressive socialist demographics which both tend to have more permissive views on this topic. Because of this, I chose a more extreme topic than merely ‘safer’ drugs.
Caveat; I assume that you are proposing that by default an adult can buy ‘recreational’ drugs without any special permission (similar to alcohol in most of the USA).
Answer: Yes, but I think a higher priority should be given to prescription drugs. Many people use recreational drugs to self-medicate, and there are better drugs that currently require a prescription (e.g. Xanax is probably better for anxiety than marijuana). In addition, the need for prescriptions puts an unnecessary barrier on access to a lot of drugs with low potential for abuse (such as contraceptive pill).
That’s an insightful point to make about (if I may paraphrase) recreational drugs being abused to cope with problems prescription-only drugs are more effective for. I agree.