Hearing some spoiled college-educated kid (malaclypse, not you legs) recite statistics for why drugs are good and should be legal, is a lot like hearing some teetotaler get in front of an AA meeting and tell them how bad alcohol is for them and how easy it is not to drink. So yeah biased.
Gee, I didn't know I went to college! I'm pretty sure I graduated high school with a 1.8 GPA dude, and I'm pretty sure I'm a part of the working class who happens to have a library card where he can obtain these mystical objects called books, you know, with words forming cogent thoughts inside 'em, the ability to be cross referenced with one another to determine the veracity of information presented, etc. However, none of this really matters because you can't just attack the person and expect that to be the same thing as attacking their argument- that's called an ad hominem attack, and you don't have to go to college to understand that.
Anyhow, I never claimed that I was without bias, what I would like to know is how my bias relates to the growing number of scientists (people who understand the way substances interact with our brains, minds, bodies- risks and benefits) , law enforcement officers (people who understand how prohibition hurts individuals, families), and policy makers (people who can enact social reform) who want to end prohibition.
Heroin is dangerous- nobody is saying that it's not, but it doesn't take a genius to consider for a second the notion that it's more dangerous outlawed than not. When it's outlawed, you have to deal with: the danger of the drug itself- you don't know HOW pure it is, you don't know if it's been adulterated; the exposure to a criminal network; the threat of jail time; the lack of a support base for helping you with your addiction (because it is criminalized). If it were legalized and available we could get rid of a larger amount of those threats while simultaneously better informing the public about its dangers instead of focusing on just-say-no fear mongering which at this point is glaringly ineffective in curtailing use. Do you see how peoples lives have been destroyed by these drugs under prohibition- a system where they get no help to combat their problems? No hope for outreach because of fear of being locked up? If you don't die from abuse and are "lucky" enough to get caught you spend years in prison and then are stigmatized as a criminal when you go back to society. Putting citizens in prison is a shitty stop-gap of a "solution". The above goes for coke as in case of the unfortunate person who Bob spoke of.
But anyways, I've got no love for opiates, stimulants- I think they're damaging in the same way as alcohol, and they are not my primary focus (though they still are a civil liberties issue, there is a better case for alcohol/heroin/cocaine/meth being Scheduled due to potential harm), and it is the drugs which have the potential to heal past trauma being illegal which really infuriates me. MDMA and psilocybin for treatment of PTSD, Ayahausca/DMT for treatment of anxiety/PTSD, psilocybin for treatment of cluster headaches and OCD symptoms, a wide history of recorded experiences with largely positive effects and a large number of people with experience of mushrooms from all walks of life claiming it as one of the top three most significant/spiritual experiences of their lives, and these things have such an absurdly low potential for damage, addiction (mescaline and other entheogens are actually quite effective in BREAKING addiction to other substances- alcohol, tobacco, heroin), abuse that it could never be argued that they are illegal because of a rational interest in preventing harm. Ever. At least Legs gets it in this regard, nobody else even cared to mention these substances.
I don't know why they feel its necessary to try and get people to think like them when it comes to politics or religion, as if it somehow validates their opinion and self-identity if they can brainwash others to think like them, but I have no taste for being a part of it.
I don't need you to validate my opinion, nor do I expect you to change your mind on anything, ever, lol. You're my equal and can believe whatever you want- I'm not trying to get you to use mind altering substances, I'm trying to get you and others to reconsider their position as to their legality, to give ME the freedom to do so (because my freedom to fuck who I want, use what substances I want, these never ought to have been anyone's fucking business but my own), because people's lives are at stake. I wouldn't have to try to convince people if other people hadn't change the rules fifty years ago because they wanted to start a War on Some Drugs to make a profit.
The people in this country who use aren't being informed properly and are suffering draconian punishments (thankfully this is starting to change) when caught in some jurisdictions, the people who have to live under oppressive drug regimes in other countries due to prohibition on them started by the USA and adopted worldwide by force or coercion, the people who might be helped to recover by psychedelics, their lives have value and meaning and prohibition hurts them far more than it helps (heroin use is damaging, but you know what else is damaging? being in the prison system with violent offenders for non-violent crimes, for one). It's necessary to try to get others to consider these things because we are weak when we are divided. We can only make social reforms together. Nobody was pushing for the rights of people of color alone, nobody's pushing for the rights of LGBT people alone, nobody's pushing for the rights of workers alone. The only way you can engage and change institutions and laws is together.
