• Groovy Lizard@lemmy.eco.br
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    7 months ago

    For me the most impactful sentence here is the acknowledgement that the war on drugs failed. This is obvious to a lot of us, but to politicians to say this, could mean they are actually not tangled up with the drug lords. Cheers for Switzerland, hope the legal marijuana trials triumph with positive outcomes.

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The war on drugs was widely successful when you start considering that it was never meant to combat drugs. It was a political maneuver to divide the populace.

    • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
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      7 months ago

      I thought the War on Drugs was a distinctly American thing, ya know, starting a war that’s doomed to fail.

      • Groovy Lizard@lemmy.eco.br
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        7 months ago

        Nope, here in Brazil they love to copycat the US where it fails the most, like education, healthcare, prison system and war on drugs. Sadly the whole south america follows this path at some degree.

  • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    The “War on drugs” has been a colossal failure.

    Legalize, regulate and tax.

    At least then you can take the money out of the cartels and despotic regimes. You can then use the tax money raised to offset the harm these drugs absolutely do through social policies and rehabilitation programs that actually work

    • nicetriangle@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      Also helps ensure the drugs are clean. The US marijuana legalization process has absolutely not been perfect but the regime of testing for pesticides and mold is very effective.

      If cocaine were legal and regulated you wouldn’t be hearing all these stories of people dying of fentanyl overdoses from doing shitty cut coke.

      • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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        7 months ago

        It does make me wonder where they swiss government will acquire their coke. With weed, it’s fairly easy to grow it wherever you need to, but with coke, you pretty much have to be in certain regions, yeah?

        If that’s the case, is this still going to be supporting those same cartels? If more countries legalized, we could maybe hope to see legally grown, harvested, and processed coke without all the slave labor and shit. Could be a real boon for South American countries, too, if the cartels lost power, and the cocoa plantations could be nationalized.

        I just woke up, so I may be just talking out my ass, though

        • nicetriangle@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          I’m honestly totally ignorant to whether they can be grown indoors at scale outside of their normal growing region, but that’s a good point to bring up.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          7 months ago

          If you go to Peru, you can buy coca leaf tea, grown by legitimate companies, sold entirely legally. It’s amazing for adjusting to high altitudes, if you ever go to the Andes, I highly recommend you drink the tea.

          There’s huge illegal growing operations, but there’s legal ones. It’s not that hard to grow - I think it likes high altitudes and moisture, but although it’s not as easy to grow as “weed”, I’m pretty sure it’s easier than coffee

          • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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            7 months ago

            Not gonna lie I would love to have access to that tea. The powder is great and all but it makes me twitchy and I really only enjoy it on a night out while also drinking. I could see myself using the tea for long work sessions etc.

            • theneverfox@pawb.social
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              7 months ago

              It’s all dosage and concentration, like anything really. Cocaine is just a simple extraction from it

              You could get high off it, but not on accident… You’d have to put in some leg work

                • theneverfox@pawb.social
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                  7 months ago

                  Yeah, drinking a large amount of liquid is what I’d call “leg work”. You can’t just do a bump or smoke something, you have to pace your tea intake… Much harder to overdose or go on a bender

          • boomzilla@programming.dev
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            7 months ago

            Is Peru that country where lots of people, even older ones, with physically demanding jobs chew coca leaves before going to work?

            • theneverfox@pawb.social
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              7 months ago

              Yeah, especially at high altitudes.

              I would too… It helps blood flow and is a simulant. Gentler than caffeine too

    • Unaware7013@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      The “War on drugs” has been a colossal failure.

      That’s only true if you believe the lies that the “war on drugs” was actually about drugs. It never has been, it was always about having an excuse to incarcerate and beat down groups they didn’t like; minorities, the poor, and the left.

      When you look at it that way, it’s obvious that the war on drugs is actually a really successful means to an end. Just try not to have a heart and think of the countless lives they ruined to keep a boot on peoples’ neck.

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The war on drugs has been a massive success.

      It keeps people poor, desperate, and ashamed to engage in behavior rich people engage in.

    • Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      No, we keep it illegal and go the Ollie North strategy. Invent a more addictive form of cocaine (crack), and sell it to minorities to fund secret wars for oil in South America.

  • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    People. Cocaine is not maryjanes. You can get addicted badly to cocaine. There’s tons of neurological effects that will cause you to not function proplerly in society. By all means smoke your ganja but don’t equate hard drugs with it.

      • whereisk@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        People also confuse legalisation with general availability. The two are not synonymous.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      7 months ago

      I have a completely different problem with cocaine. Namely that it is extremely exploitive to the people who grow the coca. It takes about two acres of coca plants to produce just one kilo of cocaine. Obviously, that means the people who farm it are paid virtually nothing and live on starvation wages. If it’s really cheap in Switzerland, that makes it worse.

      On top of that, coca plantations are responsible for huge amounts of deforestation in an area of the world that should not be deforested.

      However- hundreds of thousands of people are working in coca plantations and own small coca farms and if this all ended, they wouldn’t even have the meagre wages they make from coca farming. So I don’t know what the solution here is.

      • sn0o@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        wouldn’t legalizing it also solve that issue? It could be grown legally - much like legal marijuana.

    • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Lots of highly addicting stuff is legal, I don’t care if people do cocaine. Make it legal and safely accessible so drug addicts can participate in society and not have to fund cartels

    • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      The same things can be said about maryjanes as well. And about alcohol. With cocaine it is just even more likely.

      • zen404@lemmy.eco.br
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        7 months ago

        Yeah it’s always the same thing. “Guys, you can smoke cigarettes, but weed will fry your brains and leave you completely useless to society. Legalizing would be a disaster”.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        7 months ago

        Yes, light and legal drugs are not okay as well. They too may cause severe health (including mental health) issues, as well as addiction.

        THC, alcohol, nicotine and even caffeine cause significant and measurable harm, and you’ll be much better off by restricting them long-term, unless you have medical indications to consume them.

        If you need any of them to relax or to have a good party or to stay productive, remember it is NOT sustainable and actively harmful and something has to be done about the way you organize your life. You can’t go on like this forever, it will get you eventually

    • htrayl@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The question is whether or not a legal-in-some-circumstances is more effective at reducing social damage than keeping it illegal.

    • djdadi@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      There are plenty of “hard drugs” you can do with very little damage to your body. Cocaine is not one of them. In fact, it’s one of the worst things you can do for your heart.

    • elscallr@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      What consenting adults do with their body is their own business.

      Bodily autonomy is an all or nothing thing. Whether you’re talking about abortion, gender affirming surgery, taking a dick in the ass and in the mouth at the same time, or shooting meth into your dick. It’s all the same thing.

      • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I don’t necessarily disagree, but this brings up the next round of tough questions:

        If your bodily autonomy is absolute, fine, but what happens when your choices and their impact start to spill beyond your own personal life?

        If you want to go wild with hard drugs, okay fine, whatever. But when you need medical attention because of that decision, should insurance providers or the state be obligated to spend in order to treat you?

        When your addiction costs you your job and support network, should the collective taxpayer have to subsidize your poor life choices?

        I don’t mind the notion that individuals should have final say over what happens to their bodies, but that sort of assumption of responsibility, at some point, cuts both ways…and the flip side of some of these decisions would suggest that the individual should bear all consequences of their decisions…which seems unlikely in practice. We’re not going to see an addict rushed to an ER and the hospital toss them out into the street saying, “This was your decision! Sorry!”

        And the mitigation measures seem equally unlikely to fly with the “strict bodily autonomy” crowd: increased insurance premiums or exception clauses in policies in order to keep expenses reined in for the rest of the policy holders/taxpayers who aren’t using their strict autonomy in a way that adversely affects others.

        While it’s fine to conceptually discuss these decisions in a vacuum where it only affects the individual, in real life application, these decisions have impacts outside the individual in almost every case, which fundamentally shift the discussion.

        • plumbercraic@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I struggle with this line of thinking because there are so many legal things people can do to increase their probability of being a burden in the national healthcare system. Alcohol, junk food, working too much, gambling too maybe. I can’t wrap my head around a system that would be “fair” and not fall into a black mirror episode dystopian “good citizen” points system. I’d rather just pay more than my fair share, knowingly subsidise people who make bad choices, and not live in the dystopian society.

          Theres a separate argument about the drugs increasing crime probability that I also don’t buy entirely. Those crimes are crimes already, so making these other “precrimes” also crimes seems a bit weird - not to mention wildly ineffective at reducing harm or use of the substances in question. I’m sure we can identify books and films that increase future criminal probability too.

          Bodily autonomy does hold some water for me as an argument, but for me it’s more about finding a way to minimise societal harm while maximally hurting the businesses profiting from these dark economies we have created through prohibition. But this brings up another round of tough questions: do we do this for all substances? Forever? Is this really the path of least societal harm? (I honestly don’t know)

        • elscallr@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Then you charge people with the crimes they’ve committed. You hold people accountable for the choices they’ve made. It’s quite simple, in my opinion.

    • olafurp@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Nobody is saying that people should start taking cocaine. Just that you shouldn’t get your life ruined by having it / using it.

      Also, knowing that what your getting isn’t mixed with mdma, amphetamines, ketamine and being able to properly monitor your dosage instead of guesstimating the purity and doing brain arithmetic is very helpful.

      There’s a major difference in having the person who sells it to you wanting you to quit vs wanting you to consume more.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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      7 months ago

      You can get addicted to and fuck up your life with bud too my friend. It’s harder but it’s possible. Source, me.

      Also, as the others said. Coke being illegal does nothing to stop its prevalence so what’s the point.

  • moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    People should note that cocaine is the widest illegal drug used in Switzerland. Cannabis is second.

    • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      Man, I just don’t get how that many people would like coke. It’s a shitty high, that doesn’t last nearly long enough, that has massive implications for your long term health, and it costs way too much for what you get. $50 of weed = enough for a week+. $50 of coke = maybe 30m if you’re not sharing. I’m glad I never really got it, it’s too much of a rich persons drug for me to have ever been able to service an addiction to it.

      • bfg9k@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        idk man some of the stuff I’ve had kept me going all night off of just a couple lines.

        Quality varies wildly.

        • orbitz@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          Always found coke highs were like an hour or two max, maybe mine wasn’t best but all night? Mean it wasn’t nothing after an hour but it was at the stage where coke’s name should be ‘more?’. If it did that to me in my party days I’d have said it was cut with some speedy stuff. That said I had a decent tolerance to most things at that point so my experience may not be usual either but it may not just be quality level is all I’m saying.

          • ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I’ve found the initial rush of coke to last for maybe an hour or two, but then there’s an afterglow where you’re still feeling it but not to the same intensity. The problem is that people will want to re-up as soon as the initial rush wears off which causes a much higher rate of usage.

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          Tolerance is wild. I’ve had a ball in the past and that’s like two weeks for two people. .2 is solid for a full night if being geeked.

          I asked the fella I got it from, later: “yer regular peeps, do you mind telling me how much they’ll do in a night, average?”

          He asked “on a weekend?” Yeah.

          “They’ll buy a ball on Friday, then back for another on Sunday.”

          Addiction is a bitch.

            • havokdj@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              You have it the other way around. Amphetamines last for QUITE a bit longer than cocaine does. Cocaine lasts like 90 minutes max, 30 minute peak at best if your body chemistry allows it. You can get high as fuck off a single dose of speed and be good for several hours, like a 4 hour peak.

              Also, nobody is cutting that shit together, have you ever even done either of those drugs before? You’d know that you can’t mix the two, you’re either going to get high off the coke or the amphetamine, that’s because the coke will block amphetamines so you’re basically just going to get extra stimulation and that’s it.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Worth noting that a gram of coke currently goes for a nationwide average of around 100-150 USD in Switzerland, and about 200-250 in the US, per the data I looked up.

        Different supply levels of and ease of access to various drugs make them comparatively more or less expensive. Combine that will a user base of above-average wealth and it makes sense.

        I agree regarding the absolute value of the two drugs though. Coke is fine, I suppose, but nothing I want to shell out the money for - but then again, I’m not in Switzerland so who knows.

        • Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          Holy fuck prices have gone up since I got sober. The current Swiss price is higher than the street price where i am in the US in 2012 when I last did the stuff.

          • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Note: unless you know someone, MOST cocaine you get (especially in the US) is complete shit and has been for decades. Likely less that half actually cocaine.

            So unless you have a contact up the food and I mean really up the chain. You’re not getting cocaine in the US, you’re get a mix of street trash with some Fentanyl to make you get the numb lips, vibrate sense. (unless they put too much in and then you die)

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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            7 months ago

            Not really the same as cocaine, but I feel the same way whenever I see cigarette prices now. I remember being able to get a pack of GPCs for a dollar before I quit in 2000.

        • Lobotomie@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Not too sure, Germany should still be around 50€ / gram with Suisse for sure not 3x the price

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I will happily edit in any corrections. This is just what I’ve found on Google. Haven’t done coke in years.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        7 months ago

        I honestly don’t get how that many people would like drugs in general.

        Like, if you need drugs to have a good time, you probably have mental health issues and you better solve those first.

            • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              I know this thread is about cocaine but you made a blanket statement about people using drugs having mental health problems. There’s plenty of recreational drugs out there and people use them for all sort of reasons, some of them might have mental health issues, none of them need your judgement.

              And it’s not just the coke parties you don’t get invited to.

              • uberkalden@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                I didn’t say every one using drugs has mental health issues. Wrong user.

                I will say that drug users live in this weird bubble that over normalizes it. Most people are “boring” and don’t do more than light drinking. We have parties. We have a good time. We don’t generally want to hang out with coke heads.

                • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  Sorry I thought i was replying to op’s smart comeback.

                  I will say that you too are putting “drug users” in one big bunch and judging them. No one wants to hang out with coke heads, I did mention recreational use. Your boring friends that only do light drinking are recreational drug users too BTW.

              • Allero@lemmy.today
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                7 months ago

                Not uberkalden, me.

                Just making sure you don’t claim something on people who didn’t say it.

                Also, your stance on me and other anti-drug folks as boring nerds who know no fun is hilarious to say the least and only reinforces the notion about drug heads not imagining what genuine fun even is.

                Imagine that for a second. No coke. No weed. No alcohol. Just a company of close friends, evening talks, board games, and tea. You don’t need to alter your mind in a slightest, because you have a completely real, not externally induced, fun. That’s the kind of parties I throw and participate in with my friends, and it’s lovely and creates a lot of moments we all cherish for long, long time.

        • havokdj@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          What exactly does substance use have to do with mental health?

          Nobody uses drugs as a way of having a good time, they are used to enhance a good time. If you aren’t having a good time sober, you aren’t gonna have a good time peaked either unless you took a LOT.

          • Allero@lemmy.today
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            7 months ago

            If you’re having a genuinely good time, there’s little in there to improve. If you’re actually happy, or actually relaxed, or anything, really, you can easily get even to overwhelming levels without using anything - assuming you have a healthy psyche and are currently in a good condition.

            But then people have anxiety disorders, they may be depressed, they might have BPDs, they may have extreme burnout - and then to curb it and have a truly good time they need substances - to let go, to induce positive emotions, to relax.

            Honestly this shows even with casual alcohol drinkers - remove alcohol and the party will appear bland and empty to them, they won’t be able to open up and have equally good time. They would look for alcohol in order to make the party good again. This is very problematic. And the same goes for party drugs - go ahead, hold a party with friends into drugs, but remove the substances, alcohol, etc. Not such a wonderful time, huh?

            People with healthy and good mental state and no addictions can absolutely have wonderful and amazing moments with their friends without “enhancing” their feelings in any way; there is no need to enhance anything, it peaks already. If it doesn’t, look up why.

    • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Is it weird that this somehow makes sense with all the banking?

      Why is it that the finance industry and cocaine seem to go together so often?

  • Grimy@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’ve had friends that were cocaine addicts and some that really hit the bottom. This seems insane to me, this isn’t a fun and easy drug like weed imo. I’ve always lumped coke with meth and heroin.

    • TheBlackLounge@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Its harm potential is somewhere in between. To put it in perspective, alcohol is worse than heroin. And like alcohol addicts, your friends should be able to get a clean and safe source to reduce damage, and the help they need without any fear of persecution.

      You can’t criminalize problems away. It evidently didn’t help your friends.

      • Grimy@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I don’t think alcohol is worse than heroin by any means, although the harm that alcohol does is definitely underestimated.

        I’d also like to say that I don’t necessarily think the use should be criminalized. Putting addicts in jail solves nothing and the justice system should be concentrating on the ones that sell it. Making it legal will just make more addicts, and won’t help the ones that currently are.

        It’s also harder to stop abusing something if it’s sold in every city legally. Dealers go to jail and their numbers can be deleted.

        Decriminalization but making the sale highly illegal while offering free rehab to the ones that need it is the way forward imo.

    • ngdev@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      My friend’s brother just died of heroin overdose a few weeks ago and I just couldn’t help but feel for him. How many dark alleys did he have to go to to get his high? How many sketchy people were involved? Did he have access to clean needles? He overdosed alone, and likely felt subhuman due to being relegated to the fringes of society just to get his high.

      Legalization would not have kept him from getting high, but it certainly would have enabled him access to clean drugs from a safe place, clean needles, and possibly made him viewed as someone who enjoyed getting high and not a piece of shit addict. He had a problem and it being illegal only made it worse for him.

      Legalize it all. He was an adult, it’s his body. He can do what he wants with it, it’s nobody’s place to tell anyone what you can or cannot consume. He loved getting high on heroin and I don’t see a problem with that.

      • lad@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        He was an adult, it’s his body

        This seems to be widely questioned view as of lately 😞

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      7 months ago

      Yes but they aren’t legalizing it because it’s fun and safe they are legalizing it because jailing people over drugs does not help them and there is no point in filling your jails with such a high percentage of your population.

        • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          Regulation and the obliteration of the illegal drug trade which directly harms millions in the pursuit of profit.

          It should however, (and I cannot stress this enough) be privatized. This would be a fucking nightmare and simply move the profit motive causing the harm to another source

    • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I wish it was legal in unrefined quantities. I don’t want a crazy addition, but maybe I’d like a tea with some extra kick now and then.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I don’t think that would be a good idea. We want it to be refined so it’s high purity and safe (or as safe as it can be).

        If anything I would suggest the opposite – make it legal when refined, and have a government agency certify they meet a certain quality. You’d want to encourage people to take the refined version, which has known composition and materials. The unrefined street product would be illegal, but the only “punishment” would be confiscation. No jail time, except perhaps for manufacturers who are knowingly getting people sick with their product.

        • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          See its traditional use in leaf form. It’s way less potent and it’s a lot easier to tell if something is wrong with a leaf than if someone cut something into a powder post inspection.

          Potency with coke is a real problem. It’s TOO good. And we get it refined in large part because of our silly policing policies around it. It’s silly to be policing a leaf the way we do when there’s coffee beans lining our shelves.

    • 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖈𝖍@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I agree with you. I know a lot of people who are cocaine addicts and their addiction makes them all incredibly unreliable. They stay up partying until 7am then crash for 12 hours the day of a big event. I’ve also known people who died due to tainted cocaine. It’s not a safe drug by any means. I’m all for decriminalization and treating it like a health issue, but it should not be taken lightly.

    • themelm@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Yeah there is no safe amount of cocaine to do. There is also no safe amount of alcohol to do. At least if shit is legalised people can decide to use cocaine or not with informed consent and can be sure they are actually getting pure cocaine.

      I had a friends cousin die from using cocaine but it was because they had bought it off a street dealer and it was tainted with fentanyl. They just wanted to have a little extra fun on a night out on vacation. They’d be alive and well if cocaine was legal.

      Prohibition doesn’t work. It just adds suffering and stigma to addiction. One of the biggest factors to addiction is isolation something that criminalizing health issues greatly contributes to.

        • themelm@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          Nonsense. Alcohol is a carcinogen, every part of your body it touches has an increased risk of developing cancer. It is directly neurotoxic. It damages the liver and stomache. A bottle of it can kill you. Stopping taking it can kill you.

          Weed taken orally is physically very safe. It can still be habit forming and there are other unwanted side effects but to act like it is physically comaparable to alcohol is silly.

          I say there’s no safe amount of cocaine because it is directly cardiotoxic and has been known to cause heart defects in healthy young men at moderate doses.

          I don’t think ant drug should be illegal I just think people should be aware of the dangers of substances so they can make an informed decision.

          • fxdave@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            Weed can also cause cancer. In fact, it’s worse in terms of that.

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    7 months ago

    Swiss cocaine so cheap and widely used they’re considering legalising it

    As prices halve on ‘highest quality we’ve ever seen’, Bern says ‘war on drugs has failed’ and looks at it being sold for recreational use James Crisp, Europe Editor 21 December 2023 • 2:53pm Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe

    Switzerland’s capital is considering legalising cocaine after admitting the “war on drugs has failed”.

    Bern is weighing up a pilot scheme to allow the sale of the class A narcotic for recreational use – a radical approach which is thought to be a worldwide first.

    Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe, according to the levels of illicit drugs and their metabolites measured in waste water, with Zurich, Basel and Geneva all featuring in the top 10 cities in Europe.

    Prices of the drug have halved in the country in the last five years, according to Addiction Switzerland, and usage is rising. Some politicians and experts have criticised complete bans as an ineffective means of addressing the crisis.

    “We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,” said Frank Zobel, deputy director at Addiction Switzerland.

    “You can get a dose of cocaine for about 10 francs these days, not much more than the price for a beer.”

    Cocaine prices have fallen because the market is flooded with large amounts of the drug.

    In 2022, more than 160 tons of cocaine were confiscated in Antwerp and Rotterdam alone, and much more got into Europe undetected.

    While prices have dropped, purity has increased. In Switzerland, 70 to 80 per cent of the substances sold are now pure cocaine. ‘Legalisation can do better than repression’

    Many European countries, including Spain, Italy and Portugal, no longer impose prison sentences for possession of cocaine, which is highly addictive, but nowhere has gone so far as to legalise it.

    The plan will require existing national law banning recreational use of the drug to be changed, but Bern’s parliament supports the scheme, which would follow trials now under way to permit the legal sale of cannabis.

    “The war on drugs has failed, and we have to look at new ideas,” said Eva Chen, a member of the Bern council from the Alternative Left Party, which co-sponsored the proposal. “Control and legalisation can do better than mere repression.”

    She said it was too early to say how the scientifically supervised pilot scheme would develop, including where the drug would be sold or how it would be sourced.

    The sale of cocaine could be based on the model for selling cannabis but with stricter rules.

    Any legislation would be accompanied by quality controls and information campaigns, Ms Chen added, with the aim being to curtail a currently lucrative criminal market.

    Bern’s education, social affairs and sports directorate is preparing a report on the possible cocaine trial, although this does not mean it will definitely take place.

    There will be many political hurdles for the proposal to clear before it can be implemented. Concern about potential dangers

    Bern’s parliament leans towards the Left but the government of the canton of Bern, one of 26 member states of the Swiss confederation, tacks to the Right and may yet be able to block the required change in national law.

    Still, the decision to go ahead could come in a matter of years, or earlier if the current cannabis schemes - where the drug is on sale at pharmacies - show successful results.

    But opponents of the plan have voiced concern about the potential dangers.

    “Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,” said Boris Quednow, group leader of the University of Zurich’s Centre for Psychiatric Research.

    He said its risks were in a completely different league to alcohol or cannabis, citing links to heart damage, strokes, depression and anxiety.

    “Cocaine can be life-threatening for both first-time and long-term users. The consequences of an overdose, but also individual intolerance to even the smallest amounts, can lead to death,” the Bern government said

    • Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Wow, that’s so disgusting, 10 francs? Man, where though? Where did he get it for 10 francs though??

    • msage@programming.dev
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      7 months ago

      “Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,”

      Isn’t sugar also strongly addictive, and very damaging to the body? Yet it’s marketed like there’s no tomorrow, and obesity doesn’t grow at an alarming rate?

      • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I guess it all depends on your definition. If you take only one gram of sugar per day, you probably have a very weird diet (keto?). Even a slice of bread will get you above that. On the other hand, a gram of cocaine per day…

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          One gram of cocaine a day is an enormous amount. It’s like one gram of caffeine… You can go way higher, but that’s a ton

          On the other hand, half a bag of cocq leaf? Half a box of coca tea? People have worse effects and addiction to caffeine

          Here’s the thing about cocaine… It’s very addictive, but the withdrawal is minimal. People with crazy cocaine habits can spend 20k a week on it, and lose their life savings. And, when they’re out of money, they can just stop. More likely than not, they do just stop

          You can’t buy pure caffeine normally… It’s quite dangerous, you can buy enough pills or energy drinks to kill yourself, but it’s not easy to take a lethal dose. If you could buy pure powder, you could.

          We should treat coke the same way - we can sell it in products, but we shouldn’t sell the pure form. Cocaine is safer… And that means you can take insane amounts of it

          Coca is a smoother, more effective, less addictive simulant than caffeine… Cocaine is not a good idea, and shouldn’t be sold directly. Coca products are great, but concentration, informed consent, and age need to be taken into account

        • msage@programming.dev
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          7 months ago

          So they have a different dosage?

          Like LSD is only on micrograms?

          That’s not the issue. I can get a kilo of sugar for almost nothing.

  • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    I’m for legalizing all drugs but some drugs like cocaine should come with meeting with a therapist to see if you are doing the right thing for what ails you.

    • ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world
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      Not all drugs are medicinal and this is legalization for recreational use. It’s okay to enjoy a drug recreationally.

      It is important to deal with any public health problems that arise from potentially more people being exposed to a highly addictive substance. But it’s quite clear this point that prohibition doesn’t work, so it’s much better to devote resources towards helping those with addictions.

      • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        I think a careful balance needs to be found somehow.

        Speaking only from my own experience: I have never touched C, and that is undoubtedly because of its legal status…while I smoked for more than half my life, undoubtedly because of the tobacco industry’s highly effective influence through the 20th Century.

        I remember when cigarette brands were ubiquitous at sports events and media. Race cars, movie stars, sport stars, soldiers…pubs, clubs, planes, trains and automobiles. It was everywhere - killing people in horrificly slow and painful ways, making everything and everyone stink, staining our hands, clothes, walls, teeth and facial hair, littering our town centres and countrysides alike. And this was all happening with our eyes wide open - it wasn’t ignorance. It’s only through decades of government intervention through health campaigns, law changes and huge taxation that the tobacco industry’s grip finally weakened enough for us all to realise the horror we had walked into with our eyes open. Slowly, some parts of the world have managed to walk it back and smoking is now in the minority, but you only have to look at vaping to see how ready corporate greed is to take advantage of our influential children.

        I’m not saying the above to scare people into thinking legalising cocaine would be the same - I am just highlighting what happens when the corporate world is allowed to act with impunity. I don’t think it’d be long before cocaine was back in coca cola.

        On the other hand, “the war on drugs” seems to do more harm than good.

        So can we trust governments to properly litigate and control legal and responsible distribution? I don’t know the answer, and I have no solutions…but the stakes are high - and so while I hope for change, I am also wary of it.

    • samokosik@lemmynsfw.com
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      7 months ago

      You can legalize even drugs such as but you generally need responsible people for that or not care about many deaths and addiction problems…

      However, there should not be high punishment for using them.

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    7 months ago

    Swiss guys, sitting on piles of cash and cocaine: “man, I don’t get it: everyone has cocaine, lambos and other stuff, what the fuss is about? Let’s just legalize all the shit, everyone has it anyway!”

    • LUHG@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      For me If it’s not high quality it’s the most depressing drug the day after. It’s not worth the 30 minute high.

      • Kalash@feddit.ch
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        “We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,”

        So that’s a yes?

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          7 months ago

          Seriously, it’s the first time I’m hearing cocaine advertised like a New Year Overstock Blowout at your local Ford dealership.

        • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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          7 months ago

          Haha that part definitely reads like a brag and an invitation.

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    7 months ago

    Real cocaine is not nearly as harmful as the amphetamines and opiates. I wish I could still get pure coke and molly.