[headgasket]

It’s probably a bad forum for this opinion, but I have a relative struggling with addiction and resulting mental issues ( resulting form substance abuse; he was highly functional and threw it all away), and because of this I made a 180 and think some form of prohibition for hard stuff is the only action that would help us. How to put that cat in the bag is anyone’s guess.

[ipnon]

I sympathize, but these drugs are already as prohibited as they're going to get. Possession, manufacture and distribution are punished by years and years of prison time. It doesn't make a difference.

[asdff]

It absolutely makes a difference. I live a five minute walk from a camp of meth users. They smoke it and use needles in broad daylight, right in front of law enforcement. Their camps are a hotbed of drug trafficking, rape, theft, assaults, and prostitution. Some cartels run the camps themselves and demand rent from their victims. If this stuff was enforced these camps would be cleared out and people put in jail, but as it is in my county most people are let off bail and go on to commit further crimes sometimes within the same day (usually the case when picked up for catalytic converter theft or grand theft auto)

[trhway]

Even more - it makes for harder kind of drugs being on the market. It is a known phenomenon - harder prohibition leads to harder stuff on the illegal market. That is why fentanyl is in such a wide use.

[DantesKite]

It does in Singapore. Lowest rates of drug abuse in the world.

But they execute you if you have over 500 grams of marijuana so a bit extreme.

[mgkimsal]

there's the laws, then there's enforcement. enforcement is he harder part, and I don't see any easy wins there. you're right though - much is already "prohibited". it still happens.

[gwbas1c]

> some form of prohibition for hard stuff

I don't know how we could make that work in the US. We already tried alcohol prohibition 100 years ago, and that didn't work. Patent medicines were made illegal, and prescriptions are required, for this reason.

We've already recognized that overprescribed prescription opiates in the early 2000's was a deliberate attempt to bypass these protections and get people hooked.

> How to put that cat in the bag is anyone’s guess.

I think it requires a scientific process instead of a political process. IE, the politicians need to encourage medical professionals to keep trying many different approaches until we figure out what works. This will only happen when politicians stop criminalizing addiction.

FYI: All currently legal treatment options in the US HAVE to target ending addiction. Allowing someone to voluntarily maintain an addiction to anything is currently illegal, and means that only people who voluntarily want to stop their addiction are helped.

[mythrwy]

Invent better (less harmful, more desirable) drugs?