Colombian President Gustavo Petro said during a government meeting that cocaine is “not worse than whiskey” and that it’s only illegal because it comes from Latin America.
Colombia, the world’s largest producer and exporter of cocaine, has spent decades fighting drug trafficking, but the country’s left-wing president claimed the drug was being scapegoated by American politicians, who have waged the war on drugs for decades.
“Cocaine is illegal because it is made in Latin America, not because it is worse than whiskey,” Petro said during a six-hour-long government meeting.
“Scientists have analyzed this: cocaine is not worse than whiskey,” he added, suggesting that the global cocaine industry could be “easily dismantled” if the drug was legalized worldwide.
The thing is, he’s absolutely right. There was a suppressed 1995 study by the World Health Organization on cocaine and its effects. The US threatened to pull out of the WHO at the time since the findings didn’t match US drug policy. Instead of losing the US, the WHO quietly shelved the study.
https://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/cocaine/181-who-cocaine-study
https://web.archive.org/web/20090618160146/www.tdpf.org.uk/WHOleaked.pdf
From the conclusions section:
A continuum can be identified for cocaine use, which includes:
- experimental use
- occasional use
- situation-specific use
- intensive use
- compulsive/dysfunctional use
Experimental and occasional use are by far the most common types of use, and compulsive/dysfunctional is far less common. Compulsive or dysfunctional users often have serious relationship, work, legal and health problems.
If you haven’t already read it, check out Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari.
Okay, but the combination of coke and alcohol dramatically increases your risk for a heart attack, so having both really available is potentially an even worse health crisis.
ok but having a [INSERT THING HERE] dramatically increases your risk for [FUTURE HEALTH ISSUE].
fuck punishing someone for ingesting a substance, im an adult and in control of my own body, silly shit.
actually youre right, i am not in control of my body. Institutions of control will always be forcing their will upon me.
With the legalization of drugs, you can also tax it to finance addiction care and prevention, and by offering legal ways for dealers and producers to go legal, you can probably reduce violence. I see it as a double win.
Even Milton “Shock Doctrine” Friedman was against the drug war.
Friedman: I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there’s a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they’re sure of the quality. You know, the same thing happened under prohibition of alcohol as is happening now.
Under prohibition of alcohol, deaths from alcohol poisoning, from poisoning by things that were mixed in with the bootleg alcohol, went up sharply. Similarly, under drug prohibition, deaths from overdose, from adulterations, from adulterated substances have gone up.
That’s the problem. For-profit prisons exist.
Let’s not forget that slavery is allowed to exist as a form of punishment in the US.
The US threatened to pull out of the WHO at the time since the findings didn’t match US drug policy. Instead of losing the US, the WHO quietly shelved the study.
Time to release it then.
Whoa whoa whoa. Cocaine is way better than whiskey.
Found Sterling Archer’s fediverse account
Eh hard disagree…
I don’t know if most people would even know considering its usually stepped on a half dozen times and cut with caffeine and even nastier stuff… And those are the good cutting agents, not the poisons.
Average purity in the US is like 35-60% depending on the market. That’s atrocious.
Fuck it. Might as well at this point.
I think the only reason why it’s illegal is because it obit grows in 1 place and you can’t synthesize it. So there’s no money in it for our oligarchs.
Don Jr. has entered the chat
Don Jr. has booked a flight
hopeful Boeing noises
*noses
*nosedives(?)
