If we end the drug war, how would that work?

[Yavin4]

I'm all for ending the drug war for various, obvious reasons. My only question is how would we regulate the purchasing of drugs? Through a subscription from a doctor? Over the counter? How would this work?

[malthaussen]

1. How would you like it to work?

No reason marijuana could not be just as accessable as beer, than which it is safer anyway.

-- Mal

[NightWatcher]

2. put it right next to cigarettes in stores

You have to have an ID that shows you are of age (TBD)

More importantly, cops would not use the thought or threat of drugs to harass minorities, the poor, or young to manipulate them into capitulating into extended police contact.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. see for example liquor stores. nt.

[stevenleser]

6. That's the key. Allow Liquor stores to sell drugs. Tax them. Use taxes to pay for rehab clinics. nt

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

4. Open clinics with taxes from rich people and corps who have had a free ride since 1981

to provide opiate substitute therapy for all heroine addicts, or provide the heroine itself in a controlled manner designed to get them off and clean or onto a substitute.

Put tariffs on imports and create mfg jobs here including in areas where meth is really popular, give them a reason not to be speed freaks.

etc

[eShirl]

5. like alcohol

including being legally allowed to produce your own homebrew/homegrown (up to a certain quantity per year, and you can share but not sell it)

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. It would be a challenge to our prescription drug system.

If I can buy heroin at the smack shop, why bother with a prescription for Percocet from the doctor?

And what about antibiotics? Could I buy them over the counter, too?

I'm all for drug legalization, but there are some thorny issues. Still, we can work them out.

[Hestia]

8. There was a socialist publication in the late 1980s - New Solutions - who addressed this in one of

his publication issues.

First, all drugs, valium, etc. would be legal. You would have to use a valid id that would be swiped when you went into a pharmacy and get a valium, set under whatever limits were deemed okay to use. Say 1-10 mg pill per month. Other medications would be legal under medical supervision and limits. Of course, there are stronger pharmaceuticals that have been developed since the late 1980s but maybe this may be a way to keep people from od'ing on scripts? You could still get high but not with 100s of pills at a time.

It's something to think about.

Why is that the just say no generation only thinks of drugs as cannabis? Who's business is it who and how you get high as an adult?

I still have that publication - it was only in business like a year to 18 months - that I will dig out and scan and let everyone read. I don't know who the author/publisher was but boy he made a lot of sense in his writing. Turned everything on its head instead of thinking of everything as either/or solutions.

[Yavin4]

9. Beyond MJ, everything else should be legal?

Including oxy and heroin?