Should All Drugs Be Legalised? | Agree To Disagree 

As a Canadian I smoke and don't want harder drugs but because I had to go to a dealer I was offered every drug I could imagine when it was still illegal. Luckily I was not tempted but many are.

Completely agree. I smoke and have never had any desire to even try anything harder. I live in the UK and hate the dealing with drug dealers side of things. It helps my insomnia immensely so I only ever smoke before bed and have to be treated like a criminal because I struggle with sleeping.

@@odfkjdhgovj How old are you may I ask? I suffered a similar thing, after a while of "needing a joint" to help me sleep/deal with my insomnia - I realised I was addicted the the tobacco in the end. I cut down completely on tobacco and got a decent sleep after that. Not saying it is the same issue, just speaking of my personal experience. But I completely agree with the point regarding gateway as it is illegal. If the first time you ever had to deal with a street dealer was for cocaine or MDMA, it would be very scary. Once you've met a few weed dealers, it breaks down the barrier of them being scary people or w.e.

That is purely anecdotal.

@@iamalpharius6288 Is it? I have had a similar experience with dealers, offering other drugs. Only anecdotal when one person says it, there is 1000s of people who agree and will say their dealers offered them MDMA/cocaine, which they accepted. Sure they might have done it anyway, but no way to really know either way.

Robert Dempsey agreed! Probably their best content so far. The rest usually just feels like clickbait, but this is actually interesting.

I agree something needs to be done over all these people dying from opiates

@@Bondenaron 100% agree with you. This and "The Gap".

Even if you aren’t exposed to criminal culture you still come out with a felony half the time. Felonies limit job opportunities, housing options, and voting rights. If you limit people’s options like this you shouldn’t be surprised when they start using again.

a banana that’s so true , most people start using harder drugs after getting with marijuana then going onto probation then you can’t smoke weed so you get into harder drugs ( heroin , cocaine , pain pills , etc. ) then by the time your off probation you don’t even wanna smoke weed anymore , your addicted to hard drugs by then. That’s what happened to me at least , and a lot of other people I know..

It's about the criminals but how do you get to them? That's the issue here. If you you want to make the connection and decriminalise drug use and make it into a sickness, you have to really cut down on the small fish that make the crimes possible. It could and should be done but it's a difficult subject.

Throwing addicts into prison, where they can still get drugs, is so dumb.

There should be mandatory prescription in mental health hospitals for addicts of any kind.

Steven Burns I’m sorry

She should have raised them better.

@@christianruvalcaba7788 your lack of empathy is disgusting. Pray if you believe in anything that nothing like this ever happens to you. Karma is a bitch.

And after all she's been through, having the objectivity that she has towards drug legalization is astounding. The most enormous kudos to her.

@@christianruvalcaba7788 The ignorant blanket statement, eh? Addiction causes destruction in all walks of life. Rich, poor, stable families, unstable families. I had a good childhood and I went through many stupid things that my siblings did not but it does not mean that my parents did a bad job. I can only blame myself.

Not to mention giving them a lifetime criminal record.. making it impossible to travel, go to university, get a job etc. Which leads to more drugs..

It's not about helping it's about protecting other people from theme they should be punished for takeing drugs they knew it was illegal they knew it was bad

@@hbkhinkali2475 you are part of the problem. the key is prevention. if someone doesn't abuse drugs then there is no reason to punish them. how stupid do you have to be to say that. i mean, duh. you need to intergrade people with addiction back into society. it's a mental health issue, just like veterans who suffer from PTSD and people who suffer from mental illness. there is no such way to do that. there are no programs for these people, and it's people like you who say punish them punish them punish them, they don't get a chance to be human anymore. not all drug addiction is intentional. don't be so ignorant.

@@trazz407 but difference is that they deserve this mental illness they take drugs with there own wish if they admit it and ask goverment to help them than they should not be arrested and they should be helped but if they secretly take drugs and goverment finds out about it than they should be arrested

@@hbkhinkali2475 you aren't even being open minded to the other side of the argument. yes people do abuse drugs willingly, and they shouldn't be cast away from society, they need help, and there is no such government funded programs to help them. that hasn't existed in my lifetime of 30 years. a lot of people who struggle with addiction is not by choice. you have any idea how many people become addicted to opioids because they were prescribed them from their doctors for pain medication. you have any idea how many people are drugged and then taken away for human trafficking. you have any idea how many veterans that take drugs just for the sake to try to get through each day. there are so many different variables and no options to get help. and it's a known fact that people are less exposed abusing drugs when they are happy and not depressed. that's how you fight addiction, is providing more advantageous living and life conditions so people don't feel the need to take something to make them happy or feel the need to escape reality. for those who are stuck with those bad habits, there needs to be a place that's safe so they can seek the help they need. WE DON'T HAVE THAT. your idea is to throw them in jail and ignore it. it's like cancer, if you are proactive and find a solution before it grows out of control, it's less dangerous, you can't just leave it there and ignore it.

I think it was meant to be like "Criminal/crime/gangs" like either one of them

just heard it then looked at your comment... hilll AIR E US

i dare you to be as eloquent as her talking about losing your children to drugs...

@@itchynights bet money? 👀🙃

Old people lol

I think it's not about gateways. It's about people. People who take any drugs (alcohol is a drug) are more experimental, more willing to try things. I know people who started using various things but I was never surprised by it. The liberal kinds. Or the conservatives, less open, more restricted.

@@Arcaryon I really glad you brought that up. I think there are gateway people. The substance itself isn't really to blame.

@@remymcspanky2909 I never met the family father that studied econemy and went to church that suddenly started to smoke weed and then transitioned into harder stuff. Those cases may exist but they are exaptions. If you take weed, you are already willing to do something that is illegal in many parts of the world - unless it isn't. That alone says more than the chemicals themsleves. If you tell people that hard drugs like alcohol, tobacco and the worse stuff will end up killing or severely damaging them at high doses or just frequent use and they refuse, this is nothing that I blame on people being naive. For example, folks always thought legalizing weed would be this big deal. Many more users aso. Truth is - not much changed exapt for governmental quality control and tax revenue. Many poor people still have dealers, others have always gone to coffee shops, I mean here in Europe traveling to the Netherlands is a classic for this reason for many people.

I think what the lady on the left said is exactly right. It's not the drug itself, it's who you have to come into contact with to obtain it and then they pressure people into purchasing harder stuff. You know, the criminal element. That's what she was getting at.

The war on drugs killed millions there is no middle ground

This isn't a difficult subject at all. What we are currently in is quite simply prohibition, now, prohibition, of any form has never worked, not once. Didn't work in the 1900's with Alcohol in America, hasn't worked in over 40 years of this "War on Drugs" The only thing its done is create a trillion dollar, unregulated market world wide and plunged countries like Mexico into civil war with no end in sight. Heres the thing, some 10,000 years ago the first "civilization" the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (basically where modern day Iraq is) have reordered over 20 different beer recipes as well as a plant that grows wild in that area of the world they called "The joy plant" aka The Opium Poppy that they readily used for a myriad of different things. The key to actually "winning" the war on drugs is 5 fold. 1. Stop punishing the addicts (Decriminalization) - Substance Abuse Disorder is a recognized mental disorder, its drug addiction, now, we don't punish Alcoholics JUST for being alcoholics, we don't punish people with gambling addiction JUST because they have a gambling addiction, we don't punish sex addicts JUST for being sex addicts, all these addictions/disorders get education and treatment and rehabilitation meanwhile we punish drug addicts FOR BEING drug addicts and I'll tell you this, a conviction or prison sentence does MORE HARM to a drug addict, generally speaking, than drugs do. Why? Because people can be treated, educated and rehabilitated from drug addiction meanwhile a conviction/prison sentence is FOR LIFE, that shit is always on your record, it never goes away and it fucks up your whole life. 2. Harm minimization - Understanding that you're not going to stop addicts/drug users from being drug users just because its illegal and then helping to at least minimize the potential harm drugs can do to them eg; safe injecting rooms (lots of addicts have hepatitis from sharing dirty needles, giving them a place they can at least go to get clean needles etc so as not to have to use dirty shared needles and risk hepatitis) OR for younger kids in the night club scene, Pill testing so they can know what exactly is inside the drugs they are taking, know what is a safe level (if any) to have and if anything is in them they don't know about. PILL TESTING has been proven to drastically reduce overdoses and deaths. 3. Education - This is 2 fold, this is educating the users about what they are using, harms etc but also educating the public to help remove the fucking huge stigma attached to drug addiction. 4. Treatment/Rehabilitation - Take the money currently spent on catching, prosecuting, jailing/punishing drug addicts/users and instead put that towards education/treatment (psychologists etc)/rehabilitation centers to help those people on drugs get clean and stay clean! 5. Legalization - Obviously with restrictions eg; Driving while on a substance, Working on a substance etc etc (similar to alcohol.. which is, statistically shown to be the most socially damaging drug on the planet by the way) * The final step, legalization firstly puts all the cartels out of business, the only reason they are in business is because of the illegal nature of the drugs, if they are legalized then the cartels have to compete with proper drug companies, producing cleaner, purer, safer versions of the drugs which would then be sold at specific locations (similar to bottle shops) * Immediately you'd have overdoses, drug/gangland violence etc reducing drastically. * The products would obviously be heavily taxed (as governments around love to do. aggressively tax vices eg smocking and alcohol) so this would mean additional taxation for the government, income that could then be used to fund steps 2, 3 and 4. P.S. Sidenote, I know people will say "Legalizing or Decriminalizing drugs will make everyone do drugs" and this has been shown and proven to be false. If you've never touched drugs, never wanted to etc, then legalizing drugs makes absolutely ZERO difference to your life, NONE. The only people whos lives this makes a difference too is the people who are on drugs or are drug addicts, those people, who are going to do drugs regardless, who already know where to get drugs from etc, are the only ones affected and that effect is taking away the fear (fear of prosecution, fear of being ostracized because of the stigma surrounding drug use) associated with drug use AND helping to minimize the dangers associated with it. That is it. OVERALL, decriminalization/legalization is a net positive, it gets more people into rehab, it gets people out of jails and back living their lives, it stimulates tax revenue, helps eliminate cartel presences and drastically reduces crime rates. If you don't believe me look up "The Portugal Method" and see how they were on the verge of a heroin epidemic over 10 years ago, they decriminalized drugs and see the effect it has had on those addicts + the country as a whole. Edit, This comes from someone who knows what they are talking about, most of my family are "drug and alcohol" workers/counselors, my mother and grandmother ran a women's only sobering up house (helping drug addicted women get clean and sober and help them move on with their lives) for MANY MANY years, I've seen first hand what drug addiction can do to someone and I've seen first hand how the current system can, in many cases, only make matters worse. Its been over 40 fucking years of this bullshit, 40 fucking years of laws created by racists, The first Anti-Cocaine laws were directed at black men in the south in the early part of the 20th century and it was all about "what would happen to those black men if they took that white powder up their nose and forgot their proper place in society"

@@beau9956 beautifully put

@@israelgulley9104 Thank you very much

@@beau9956 I hope you're working in government some where. If not you're the kind of person the world needs.

It's what people used to do in the old days. You could have a differing opinion and still be friends. Ya know. Unlike now, people get cancelled for having a different opinion.

@@werebilbyj4449 he means it's funny because alcohol is just a drug too

"socially acceptable drug addict"

Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs but it's legalized in the west wtf?

@@speedking7224 tradition, religion and corruption are the three reasons alcohol is still legal

Ciggies are bad - yes. However, you don't see people murdering, stabbing and acting psychotically because of it; smokers are screwing only themselves. On the other hand, alcohol ... Drinking kills more than drugs (not forgetting the anti-social aspects), but drugs are rapidly catching up.

@@smeggyhead1 No, smokers do not only harm themselves, they harm everyone in the room. This is a socially acceptable bodily injury with a death toll. Luckily laws for protection of non-smokers become more and more strict. Hell, a running engine causes less particulate matter than cigarettes.

@@generalsaufenberg4931 As you say, the risks of modern-day 2nd hand smoke is nowhere near what it used to be (and yes it used to be really bad). Many people smoke outdoors because they are considerate, or it is expected of them, or they don't want to stain their homes, or it is in their contract. No smoking at all in substantially enclosed public spaces, so workers can work, and diners can dine, and passengers can be driven, in peace. So while there is a death toll from passive smoking, I suspect it is not quite that of drunken, and high (and long-term induced mental illness), anti-social behaviour (let alone the organised crime that supplies it).

@@smeggyhead1 no, the risk of passive smoking is the same.why? because smokers do not even begin to understand how much damage they cause. people have been shot dead for far less....parents, poisoning their children are thrown into jail! smokers poison their children, but escape punishment... smoking is negligent homicide, and should be punished as such.. but unfortunately the state is only interested in the tax revenues. so you can continue to smoke, but other drugs are prohibited, because they are not taxed..... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ci_6CQ5R558.html

@@generalsaufenberg4931 "the risk of passive smoking is the same" Can you show evidence for this? "because smokers do not even begin to understand how much damage they cause" What is the basis for this? Also, could the same be said for drug users? We know those addicted to drugs forgo everything (family, finances, friends) for their next fix and there are plenty of examples of exactly that for both drugs and alcohol; the same cannot be said for ciggies. As for the "other drugs": they are also smoked/boiled, and residues (gas and powder) are left in apartments, clubs/pubs, and even money. ru-vid.com/show-UCHzCXKL1Iy_YRc8NiJk-ngAvideos

Yeah but alcohol is not as worse as heroin

@@joeconway9541 true, but for an alcoholic it is.

Tf it ain't!

@@joeconway9541 Alcohol kills 3 million people per year on average...

@@Jay-of8yf fair

Billy Bob am I weird that I never had a temptation to try anything? I don't smoke, I don't drink (just one shot for rare occasions like friend's wedding for example, I don't drink systematically). I was offered MJ by a friend and crack at parties. Never actually wanted any of it. When I was a kid I saw some members of my family shitfaced I think that's why I hate drinking that much, I never want to see myself acting that way. Both my parents used to be smokers, and that never allured me either. Dunno why I never wanted to try drugs.

Some of these questions are subjective. It mostly depends on what kind of drug it is.

Exactly, me too...

Lol same 😂

can i ask how old are you?

Weed absolutely is a gateway drug, it brings you into contact with organized crime, and those lads dont only sell weed. But, legalize everything and that would no longer be the case.

They appear to have a pint of non alcoholic drink that neither of them barely touched though tbh.

Mad

Weed can be just as dangerous, it can chill you out but it can also make you more agitated and frustrated. Also smoking weed can destroy your lungs.

@@logun6972 Alcohol is much more dangerous yet not only do we tolerate it, we advertise it and here the UK its encouraged almost and apart of the culture.

Ellis Thomas It’s nice for the people that can handle it just like weed. It doesn’t make sense that alcohol is legal and weed isn’t to that much I agree.

@Drew Kangaroo its barely even a drug it's a naturally occurring plant. Its vegan.

@Drew Kangaroo they're not talking about legalising all drugs to the extent that Canada and some North American states have done with weed. They're talking about allowing a drug like Heroin to be made legal for pharmaceutical companies to manufacture so that doctors may be able to use it to help depends of the drug more safely get of it.

It is scary how people never see Alcohol as the drug it is.

@@sekkev I know right? Alcoholism is more common than a lot of people think, and it can ruin lives very quick.

@@grahamvandyke A lot of people have a bad connection to alhocol today. Withour being alcoholics. But they are just one step away from it :/

No, alcohol is not a "devastating" drug, it has a high abuse potential, that does not necessarily mean use itself will give a bad result, abuse will.

Never

@@nick-her9275 Never what, decriminalise? I would not go as far as legalise, but criminalising it helps nothing

I fully agree with what you wrote there plus our governments would also tax them meaning that it generates further income for our respective countries, great comment by the way. 👏

@@KingDomsKingdom85 Taxation is theft, just legalize and nothing more.

Now when it comes to needle exchange I know they say "oh the hiv and hepatitis rate is down bc these people get free needles" but those same people throw their dirty needles in the streets like in San Francisco. School children are warned to not walk on piles of leaves in fear they will step on needles. San Francisco is a disgusting place. They spend millions of dollars giving free needles away along with dispensers for those needles but these addicts do not care where they toss their needles. They are in the streets, alongside businesses and homes. Along with piles of feces bc its not a crime to publicly defacate and urinate in public. They spend millions of dollars hiring needle clean up crews and cleaning up human poop off their streets as well. So no they are not saving money or saving anyone giving away free needles bc the addicts toss them like cigarettes out a window. Look up American Dystopia on youtube. There is much worse specially on San Francisco if anyone is interested or just look up San Francisco poop or needles. Decriminalizing all drugs has the potential to turn into that.

I’d actually bet there are more cases of heroin users who have drank alcohol than who have smoked weed

Exactly legal heroin is worse you dickhead

@@joeconway9541 its really not though alcohol is resposible for more deaths loss of property and productivity than any other substance

@@bigvinnie3 it is also far more readily available than any other substance. As such it will affect more people.

Tyler Saunders just not true tho is it

Tyler Saunders follow up to my previous comment best to have something to back my point up here is why more people die from alcohol (very quick google search have not saved sources will get them again if really needed) 948,000 heroin users in the states divide that by the death count of 46,720 you get 1 death for every 20 people now alcohol which is drunk by 146,389,666 people (taken by the percentage of people that are said to drink 18 and over which us 70% and the population of people of 18 which is 209,128,094) then if you divide that by alcohol related deaths which is 88,000 you get 1 death for every 1,663 that why the numbers are different

Roger Thompson that’s not her point, she’s saying all drugs come from organised crime no matter who you buy it off.Illegal weed will be grown by organised crime no matter how far down the pyramid you receive it

@@krima3825 that's not the reality when it comes to cannabis

@@krima3825 Dude the very comment you are respondind to refutes your point. This man is implying he has the ability to grow his own or grow for him and friends. If you consider a man growing a plant for himself 'Organized Crime' than you are right, but I'd say that is a bit of a stretch. If you just grow and harvest a plant, and boom, you have your very own drug, How the hell is that part of Organized Crime? With cannabis, people have the ability to litterally be the whole 'Pyramid', again, that is not organized crime. What should be considered criminal is to treat these people as felons..

@@marlymcfly1991 it seems you're both missing the mark. Some people grow their weed but others buy off of drug dealers. I've been offered coke and heroine off of people I've bought weed off. Had I been someone else, in a different context, with a better sales pitch, perhaps I'd have bought that instead. It happens a lot, so in that case, weed is a gateway drug.

@@sheadoherty7434 In that case, the drug itself isn't "pushing" you into doing other drugs. It is the people who sell you weed "push" you into doing other drugs. I don't think that when you buy your weed from a coffeeshop (where they don't sell other drugs) that it wil automatically lead a person into doing other drugs.

yeah exactly its cause some people are pussies who get peer pressured into it live I've been asked to take a eco (acid) at a gaff one time and a few of me mates had some n I just said nah 😂

Generally with heroin overdoses are accidental, most regular users know how much they need to get where they're going. Deaths tend to happen when a batch of heroin that is much stronger than the usual grade hits the streets and by taking their normal, everyday dosage of this stronger stuff it can end up killing them. Morphine as used in hospitals for pain relief is very similar to heroin (both opiates) but because it is very strongly regulated in its production in terms of strength a doctor can easily administer safe doses based on body weight and other criteria for pain relief whereas if they tried to do the same with street heroin it would be very easy to accidentally kill someone simply because the strength was unknown. I do completely agree that being able to stroll down to your local pharmacist and freely buy things like coke, meth and heroin wouldn't be a good thing but controlling the production and distribution would solve a lot of the inherent dangers and criminal industries associated with hard drugs. These things are already illegal but it's not stopping people getting hold of and using them so it could be seen at the very least to be damage limitation.

Why? if you want them you can get them now and laws aren't changing anything. So what's the difference if it's safer and quality assured

Portugal is a clear example

Hahahahahahahaha oh look at you. All stupid and shit.

M C are you okay buddy?

Am I the only one who is sane and has sense because to me drugs are drugs and they are gonna fuck up your health

Awab Tarik that’s exactly why they should be legalised you doofus

Lol really, the music is unnecessary and borderline annoying.

I agree, its my biggest qualm with this series. I also don't like how they dramatize the last question, drawing out the choice. There was an edit made in this video where one person moved her drink over immediately to "strongly agree" and you can see they cut away from that, and presumably had them stare at each other for a few moments for dramatic effect.

Lol all to say it didn't happen.

They will always want more heroine, they don’t want the effects to wear off so once it does and the pharmaceutical doesn’t give them more they’ll go straight back to the street dealer

Well, depending on the type of drug, street-level drugs are far more dangerous than pharmaceutical ones. Take heroin for example. Usually when you buy street heroin, it's practically impossible to get "100% clean heroin", because alot of dealers *cut* their drugs with addatives. Sometimes it's harmless (a common addative ingredient being glucose powder, which is harmless), but sometimes they cut their drugs with even heavier drugs (fentanyl is 50x times stronger than heroin, and 100x times stronger than morphine. Dealers often add this to heroin because it gets their customers even more addicted to their mix, which increases profit.) And other times they add just straight up dangerous chemicals to the mix. Because if you take 1 gram of heroin powder, and mix it with 2grams of some bullshit detergent or whatever, you suddenly have 3 grams of "heroin" that you can sell, tripling the profit. If sold from a pharmacy, the heroin would not be cut with surprise stronger drugs, or other shit just to push profit. And some people that buy drugs regularly from a dealer might one day get a mix that is stronger than they usually buy. But since there is no way to tell, they might just think it's the usual stuff they always buy, take a "normal" dose of it, and die because this time around the stuff they bought happened to be uncut, and super potent. If bought from a pharmacy you would be able to tell exactly how strong it is, and be sure that no shady stuff has been added.

Fr I'm just thinking damn....I'm high

And I didn’t smoke weed till I was 15 and ended up trying quite a few drugs. So I agree homie

EXACTLY!! i think they decriminalised it but after that, usage dropped significantly as it was focused more on rehabilitation rather than punishment like we have here in the UK

they indeed did that but at the same time they reinforced and improved health care and education system and education in general, so if we legalized drugs in other country without improving education and health of that country, that country would fall apart in no time

@@somethingsomewhere66 true but the statement still applies. I'm not saying "look at Portugal" just to legalise but to also learn from all the other stuff you've pointed out too. It's a nuanced and complex problem and it seems Portugal have provided the framework for a 360 response to the problem

@@timdurgan oh, ok, the the problem is that I saw a lot of people in the comments trying to legalise drugs just for it to be easier for them to take it, they don't care about society.

because alcohol isn't a drug, it's a fairytale

@@chrisakaschulbus4903 it's not a drug, it's a drink

@@louis8117 and acid is not a drug, it's just paper ;)

@@chrisakaschulbus4903 acid and shrooms are great. to call them a drug and put them in the same sentence as heroin and cocaine is stupid.

@@louis8117 a drug is a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body. Alcohol does exactly that...

Don't multitask!

Pardon me for replying to myself, but when it comes to heroin one alternative route you can take to begin recovering is going to a methadone clinic. It's legal, and it is a step in the right direction for those who want to recover. Progress is progress, big or small.

living is the true gateway drug. Just by being alive you will at one point in your life be around or offered a chance to do drugs.