Comment by ehnto
5 years ago
Meth is definitely one of the drugs that becomes a public nuisance, since people do become erratic and violent while using. Meth users are the only people that worry me when walking through our city since it can make people who are already unstable become unpredictably violent. I wonder if other drugs were legal would people still do meth?
Meth was legal until the 70s, society functioned. The current problem is another side effect of the war on drugs
https://www.history.com/topics/crime/history-of-meth
According to period newspapers, it very much was a problem almost immediately after public introduction in the late 40s and early 50s. Here's an example from Australia, which banned it by 1955:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/71874426?searchTe...
Reading today's newspapers, you'd think Southern California just survived the apocalypse after the half inch of rain last weekend.
This is very much false, and completely contrary to the actual history. War on drugs only happened because of greatly increased social dysfunction due to drugs, not the other way around. It enjoyed wide social support at the time it was started, precisely because people saw how damaging the drugs are to their communities. The idea that drug-related social dysfunction is an effect of war on drugs is yet another of those "wet streets cause rain" ideas.
No. The war on drugs was an acknowledged political act to disenfranchise black people and the anti (Vietnam) war movement. Lopez, German (March 22, 2016). "Nixon official: real reason for the drug war was to criminalize black people and hippies". Vox. Archived from the original on May 30, 2017. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
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How do you explain this quote then, surely the war would cause a decrease no? Odd usage spiked decades _after_ they banned it
>Use of crystal meth in the United States exploded in the early 1990s. Between 1994 and 2004, methamphetamine use rose from just under two percent of the U.S. adult population to approximately five percent.
Society functions while people have access to guns too, yet there are still consequences to that choice. I am pro legalization of most drugs, but meth does give me pause. No one smoking a joint or tripped out on opioids has ever attacked me while screaming at ghosts in the street, I don't know enough about the role of meth in those kinds of instabilities but anecdotally meth, and alcohol too, sure seem to cause a whole lot of trouble in my city.
Other drugs already are legal. Alcohol is legal, and marijuana is effectively legal in Seattle, where people apparently do a lot of meth.
While true neither of those drugs would replace meth. Alcohol probably causes more social misconduct than meth anyway.
Possibly because it is legal.