Afghanistan is the fastest-growing maker of meth, U.N. says

alphacyberranger@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 232 points –
Afghanistan is the fastest-growing maker of meth, U.N. says
nbcnews.com
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Meth would be less harmful to society if we legalized it.

Idk it is very very addicting. And the addictive feeling lasts a very long time

You aren't thinking of all the cartels and various criminal outfits that could be bankrupt because of that.

Well, I guess the alternative is to keep it illegal and live with what we have now.

I like the idea that life sucks so much that meth makes it better and the answer to that isn't to try to improve lives but to lock people up so life is even fuckin worse.

Yep. It's all a tool to control the masses.

I just don't see how it would be less harmful since it is so addictive

Making it illegal doesn't stop people from getting addicted to it.

I get what you're saying, but I completely disagree. Making it a illegal limits the amount of people who try meth, which fundamentally limits how many people get addicted to it.

Does it really limit the amount of people who try it?

Looks to me like people resort to drug abuse when their lives are miserable. Seems like the best way to 'limit' the people who abuse drugs is to improve their lives without them.

Seems like all the money spent enforcing drug laws would be better spent improving society. And it's a lot of money.

I do agree with you, but there’s a group of people who have almost anything we as a society place value on, and yet they still go to meth/other drugs. Sure, the average homeless drug addict on the street fits your description well, but even then there’s some who developed addiction due to medical problems, and only then went to street drugs, and the aforementioned ‘depressed rich kid’.

So... if people are going to do drugs anyways, why make them illegal?

Seems like you're simultaneously saying that drugs should be illegal because it 'limits the number of people who do them,' yet there will always be people who do drugs no matter what?

Wouldn't it still make sense to make drugs legal so the resources wasted on enforcing drug laws can be better spent somewhere else? That way we actually reduce the amount of people who resort to drug use out of misery. The people who you say will do drugs 'no matter what' are going to be doing them whether they're illegal or not. So it doesn't really make sense to make them illegal because we're not actually reducing the number of users.

I was just adding info to the ‘people only do drugs when they’re down’ part. Personally, I don’t really care. People find new and fun ways to kill each other anyway, why waste resources making something illegal when you could instead collect tax money from it.

I’m on the legalise everything side, I just disagree about it only being people down on their luck.

Yeah, meth is much much addictive than your average drug.

People don't try it because they're down or miserable.

And trying it is basically how you get addicted

People don’t try it because they’re down or miserable.

Every single meth user I know has done meth at the lowest point in their lives.

I'd like to see why you think 'People don’t try it because they’re down or miserable.'

Every single meth user I know has done meth at the lowest point in their lives.

Yes, because Meth is literally the best feeling anyone can ever have. Ever.

But people also do Meth at every other point in their life.

I know you're replying in good faith, but I dont think you fully grasp what Meth is actually like.

But people also do Meth at every other point in their life.

Never said they didn't, just talking from my own experience which I know is relevant for a lot of people.

On average, it's poor people who are sad with life that resort to meth use. That doesn't mean it's all of them. Just the vast majority.

On average, it's poor people who are sad with life that resort to meth use. That doesn't mean it's all of them. Just the vast majority.

This is not true.

As a recovered addict, making it legal would effect the drug dealers and cartels much more than the users. This would remove some harm from society. I believe the larger solution is to provide help those that abuse it. Legalizing it on top of treatment instead of persecution would be optimal for most drugs, although meth is a hard sell (pun definitely intended).

I'm for approaching drug problems with harm reduction and I think that with opiates handing them out for free under controlled circumstances and with access to therapeutic help a lot of the problems caused by them will be negated or vastly reduced but with stims I'm a little more sceptical.
Safe use is always good but I'm not sure that general access to them will bring more good than bad in this world.

Good point. I'm not sure either.

I think the scientific approach would be best applied here. Let's legalize them so we can experience what it's like. Right now, we only really have information pertaining to prohibition.

If I'm wrong, I'd have no problem admitting it. The problem is that all we can do is speculate, because we can't seem to test any of this.

Portugal did this. scientific paper about it overall the effects are positive from what over heard. (Haven't actually read that paper, but I didn't want to site a randomly googled news article.)