Firstly: whether speaking in first, second, or third person: i'm referring as much as possible to societies / countries collectively, as opposed to individuals... i'm looking at group psyche & actions-- & therefore also avoid projecting personal & immediate / local societal experience collectively. Otherwise these type of discussions become moot / useless: sure, any outstanding poster here & his circle of upstanding acquaintances would not do this or that-- yet riots(to take a particularly bad & telling example) can/do occur just about anywhere, as well as just about any number of other societal ills--& probably in higher proportion than we admit(somebody had/has to be doing something!).
Secondly, our common ground: i daresay that everyone here will agree w/ these personal tenets:
God/Creator: don't matter to me who you worship or not-- as long as it does not lead you to break the Law AND as long as it doesn't lead to legislating private behavior & day to day activities of others not sharing your specific beliefs-- example: retail stores / certain businesses may not open on specific days of the week, etc.
Ditto for political beliefs, sexual orientation, which Commandments you choose to follow / not follow, etc.
Penal System: i'm not into the punitive aspect-- humans really have no right-- let's leave that up to the Creator. This is all that's needed:
Compensation: from the perpetrator not only to those victimized, but as much as possible to the judicial system for the costs incurred fromt the trial & incarceration.
Rehabilitation
Incarceration-- sufficient enough to protect society. This includes not releasing those who do not demostrate successful rehabilitation-- ie serial / habitual burglars, con artists, etc.(not just murderers & rapists). That's it!
On to 'banned substances'--
Let's not assume the same results will occur from the relatively benign examples of alcohol & marijuana: two downers that are among the least addictive, least malignant, & lowest dosage-strength of all the combined substances.
Allowing everyone to inexpensively & without legal worries, purchase banned drugs, will just open the floodgates to societal & medical problems-- & eventual collapse.
Let's say i'm the average Joe Competitive Schmoe, who wants to move up in the corporate world, and i'm looking for every edge i can possibly get:
I'm going to sign up for lots of company projects & work long, hard hours in a high-pressure environment; & as much as possible i will schmooze the bigwigs at all corporate meetings/outings(lunches/dinners):
firstly, getting hired / going on interviews-- I'll need the proper look, so i'll hit the gym & take some 'Roids, as well as some Diet/Metabolism pills to quickly lose weight: the kind that boxers, jockeys & wrestlers use-- i need to look buffed but not too big. For the actual interviews i will need to appear positive & in charge: a little Coke or Meth will do; as well I'll need to demonstrate friendliness & team spirit: some Ecstasy for that.
Now, I don't plan on using any of these regularly, just one time to get my foot in the door.
A few weeks later: I wowed them! They hired me! In fact, i impressed them so much they put me in charge of Sales & Marketing.
I soon find though, that they're a moribund & depressed bunch, and it will require every ounce of strength & willpower i posess-- and even more-- to whip them into shape. So in the meantime(i dare not discontinue my meds yet) i put in place different strategies & hire some agressive managers to implement them; and little by little we start improving. I now become implacable & extremely-demanding of my managers-- those who can't keep up i help them out w/ a little medicine to stay focused: either they keep up or they're history. Soon we're setting records, and now i'm on the fast track: regularly having lunch / dinner w/ the top brass--where the booze & high cholesterol flow freely. For these instances i need to have a bit more of a staid, in control demeanor: the usual upbeat & hard-charging manner may come off abrasive here, so i do a little heroin to take a bit of the edge off; i also end up taking extra diet pills to compensate for all the extra calories. I have been having trouble getting to sleep-- when i get home i'm still ususally too wound up from the day's work: i do feel real weary, but not sleepy(in fact i feel so exhausted that now i take an occasional Viagra)-- and the 6pak of Bud my old man used to use to come down & get to sleep is not feasible after two bottles of Bordeaux, so i now take some sleeping aids. Hey! I'm a lean, mean chemical machine!!
Epilogue: Everyone will have such pressures tailored specifically by their profession-- whether male, female-- high school / college jock, even wives who shop & lunch exclusively. One will soon be hard-pressed to find a chemically-free household! And what hasn't become apparent in Joe Schmoe's narrative(multiply his experience by countless workplace drones): how Joe has become paranoid-- little by little he has turned his company into a group of cliques; for he now has mirages involving his comrades, imagines any innocous conversation as a plot against him. And he has had a couple of psychotic incidents-- against his best friends too: he sometimes feels himself welling with uncontrollable anger and a desire to stomp the person-- when the episode transpires he knows what he's doing & that it's one of his best friends, but he feels helpless to stop it.
What will happen? Who will support these folks when they're not able to hold down jobs anymore? What about pregnancies? Do you allow a bunch of mentally & phisically challenged births? Do you abort?
Some of these substances affect a region of the brain that deals with empathy. Otherwise normal people will have uncontrollable rages & no feeling whatsoever for the plight of others. You see this example in candid detail in some of the Balkan countries-- we won't mention specific names so as not to offend anyone-- i have lots of very good friends from those regions; and those not so affected are the first to admit the problems:
Firstly--hard-drinking societies, & this is exacerbated by the bitter cold & lack of adequate heating / plumbing-- it's a fallacy, but people drink to stay warm-- in fact, liquor is sold in public by street pedllers in donkey carts making the rounds of neighborhoods. With meals, even children are allowed wine / beer, their nightime tea spiked for a better sleep.
Secondly-- former Communist involvement with performance-enhancing drugs for athletics & military, the two dominant factions of their society.
Thirdly-- proximity to established world drug trafficking routes & cultivating areas, along with access to them, black market smuggling being a way of life there, has almost put the finishing touch in that part of the world:
The result has been generations of chemically-induced psychos begetting other psychos. You readily see this in some new arrivals here: you try to be friendly & give a compliment & they're ready to fight instead; and it's often a faux pas to tell someone you just happen to meet from that part of the world that you already know someone from their or a neighboring country. They'll tell you they don't want to know: they've come to America for a normal life & don't want to meet any crazy people. I ran a placement agency for years--several times I was asked not to send anyone from his/her country & region.
Let's be pragmatic & not try to reinvent the wheel: often when something is so obvious / hasn't been changed, it's for a reason: many have already thought of it, it has been tried already, it didn't work. Recreational drugs are nothing new in this hemisphere-- coke, morphine, heroin, & opium for centuries were legal & in vogue--w/ little or no stigmas attached-- in fact, they were encouraged for curing fatigue & depression. There are reasons why they were subsequently banned.
You want to destroy the very fabric of society, go ahead-- we'll go back to living as wandering/quarreling nomads/tribes-- except that the planet is too overpopulated for that: we'll end up starving & killing each other off.
Toot a loot.
