Rising GOP support for the U.S. taking unilateral military action in Mexico against drug cartels is increasingly rattling people on both sides of the border who worry talk of an attack is getting normalized.

Wednesday’s Republican presidential primary debate featured high-stakes policy disagreements on a range of issues from abortion to the environment — but found near-unanimous consensus on the idea of using American military force to fight drug smuggling and migration.

    • @Llewellyn@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Alcohol - yes. Though it seems there are ways of consuming it without getting addiction. And that’s not the case with cocaine and opiates.

      Sugar - not so much. Addiction and physical harm is real, but not on the same level. Also it’s very hard to effectively forbid sugar. I think it’s unreal.

      • you falsely assume all users of cocaine and opiates to be addicted. If that would be the case, then medical use wouldnt be possible.

        These substances are very addictive and need to be treated with great respect and caution. Something that is not possible in the environment created by their criminalization.

        • @Llewellyn@lemm.ee
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          -310 months ago

          These substances are very addictive and need to be treated with great respect and caution.

          Exactly. They are dangerous to the level I don’t trust ordinary people to use them, only medical professionals

          • criminalization fails to prevent use by “ordinary people”.

            It is the same like with sex ed. People who teach their teenagers about the risks and how to minimize them have much better success at preventing teen pregnancy or stds for their children than those that go the “wait till marriage or go to hell!” way.

            In the same way countries that have introduced programs for harm reduction like drug checking, consume rooms, needle exchanges etc. suffer much less drug related deaths, or problems like HIV and Hep C.

            But you cannot do harm reduction, social care and addiction prevention in an environment where the only people that drug users can talk about drugs with are other users and dealers.