Jubbergun wrote:
If we were to legalize and properly regulate cannibus and narcotics, people would lose interest, and the fees and taxes on the shit could fund treatment programs.
China tried this, or rather was compelled to. It didn't work, and that's why they fought the Opium Wars. After they lost, things went steeply downhill.
And that is why, today, China has some of the most draconian drug laws in the world - and some of the lowest rates of abuse.
Jubbergun wrote:
our obsessive American prudishness combines with our honest concern for our fellows in a way that won't allow us to admit that sometimes just allowing people who are dead-set on destroying themselves to do so might be the lesser of all possible evils
Actually, the reverse is actually true. American society is the most atomized in the world. Most cultures, both current and historical, consider our seeming indifference to others' lifestyles and ideas to be morally aberrant.
How women behave these days is a manifestation of that "every man for himself" American mentality.
Jubbergun wrote:
Drugs are bad, M'kay? But our drug policy is much, much worse, M'kay? So don't do drugs, M'kay? Or they'll send you to prison for twenty years over a bag of weed so you can be raped repeatedly by your cell-mates, M'kay?
It worked in Singapore. It works in China.
Jubbergun wrote:
It's funny how we didn't have an extensive drug problem in this country until we started prohibiting and over-regulating drugs. Just like we didn't have an extensive alcohol problem until we fucked up and let women vote us into prohibition.
Both are a myth. What happened, in both cases, was people had cash and the desire to spend it on improving their life satisfaction.
Bars opened to let American workers drink themselves down, and the Mexicans send drugs into this country because of how overpowered the American dollar is. Americans do this because Americans are profoundly unsatisfied people. Same as the Russians. Do you think they're a nation of alcoholics because of liquor laws, or because they're terribly unhappy people because their country is fucked up?
Jubber, you know firsthand that people do drugs because they're bored and/or hate their lives.
That is why I believe that the long-term answer to the drug problem is fundamental social change to make people feel more satisfied with life.
This is why the French have the answer to the drug problem. They are very good at enjoying life. They know how to make the most of every day, they understand that stability is more important than growth, and that constants are more pleasant in the long run than change. This is why French drama is typically deeply personal and very human and doesn't suffer from the unreality and pettiness of American drama. This is why French cities and estates change so little over hundreds of years. This is why Americans can't own something for five years without selling it or running it into the ground, but the French can.
You are going to roll your eyes, but that is the honest truth. France has the answer. We need to learn to love life the way they do, not through drugs and escapism, but making life more livable.
