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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Okay but why would I base them on the opinions of slave owners? That sounds stupid and nonsensical.
So there are two things at play here: rights and opinions. Legal rights in America are based on the constitution and the decisions made by the supreme Court. I'm not saying that they're correct or not; justified or not; or ethical or not. I'm just making a statement of fact that's where rights originate from in US law.
Opinions can be based on whatever you want. You are free to agree with or disagree with both the Constitution and the supreme Court. You can consider them valid or invalid institutions.
I'm not trying to tell you that you should be of a particular opinion or not.
Rights in America are not given by the constitution, they are in-born. The constitution helps enforce your naturally given rights, but it is certainly fallible at this, for example it's initial failing to protect the right to freedom held by slaves.
There are opinions, and there are facts. The right to freedom is a fact. Many of the founders were wrong on one of the foremost issues of their time, slavery, at a time when most of the rest of the world was not wrong about it anymore. As such, we should strongly discount all of their beliefs that are not independently verifiable. For instance, the electoral college. This was created in order to maintain the power of slave owners on government, and should be seen as a tool to oppress the will of the people. The EC is not flawed because it was created by slave owners, but it is suspect due to that, and on further inspection, it turns out to be a tool of oppression.
So your initial comment was something along the lines of, "why don't I have the right to do whatever drugs I want?" And I said that there wasn't a constitutional right to drugs. Are you of the opinion that there's a right to do drugs?
Oh, lol honestly I just assumed I was in a different sort of discussion based on your comment. But actually, yes I am, to a degree. Most recreational drugs anyone's heard of are, for the most part, safe enough. Otherwise they wouldn't be widely used. Average functioning adults should be allowed to put whatever they like in their body, provided they're informed of the effects it will have. Gatekeeping getting high is idiotic, when we are fully capable of providing safe places to do it. There are a ton of benefits to mental health in recreational drug use, not to mention that it is fun and nice and so should be acceptable in society, if done safely. And if the government was actually researching which drugs are fun and good when done safely, we wouldn't have to rely on either dealers, our idiot friends, or the Internet to tell us which ones not to do.
So I personally disagree. I don't think there's a right to be intoxicated (or shouldn't be a right). I actually would like to see the limits of the 21st amendment tested by passing laws that forbade alcohol consumption after DUIs. I personally don't have a problem with the legalization of marijuana and I'd extend it to certain hallucinogens (e.g. psilocybin, mescaline, & LSD). I would not like to see amphetamines and opiates legalized though and if there were a legalization referendum on them I'd personally vote against it.
Opiates and amphetamines are wildly different classes of drugs. The vast majority of overdose deaths are due to opiates. You can very much function in the real world while on amphetamines, which is not true for opiates (at average doses of each). There was a time actually when MLB players were regularly using amphetamines as a performance enhancing drug. There are definitely some lifestyle reasons one might choose to use them (for instance, all of the reasons people take Adderall, which afaik doesn't have any truly "medicinal" value, it just straightens out peoples brains). I'd agree that opiates shouldn't be legal short of strict use in medical care, but I think amphetamines have enough recreational value with a low enough risk involved that we should be allowed to use them as we see fit (with proper guidance).
It's similar with Psilocybin etc., there is a clear medical purpose to them, but there is also a clear recreational value to them. Mushrooms were responsible for me coming to understand my place in the universe, you could say. There is a potential for abuse, but there is also a potential for great benefit when used correctly.