zlacker

>>jimbob+(OP)
The older I get the more I hate gambling. When i was younger I tended to think "hey it's their choice" but i've realized how unfair our society is in terms of things like this.

Food, gambling, etc. are all backed by hordes of brilliant well paid people trying to get you to ruin your life so they make money. On the other side is just regular people like us stressed out trying to survive.

This isn't some "freedom" issue, it's an incredibly huge power asymmetry and I think "we the people" need protection from these forces

>>snapca+0M2
Yeah, the issue with "it's their choice" is that through addictive behaviors they are trying to take away that sort of agency from people. I don't have an issue with gambling in general but I have a huge issue with people trying to trigger and profit from addicting behaviors. It's a phenomenally cruel thing to do to people.

>>tdb789+zQ2
It's very analogous to drug use. The libertarian point of view that people should be free to do what they want with their own bodies makes sense at first blush. But addiction is such an absolute blight on society that ending it will only improve the world.

>>tootie+cS2
Drug abuse is lower where people have a strong sense of community. Drug overuse is a symptom of a larger issue of disconnection and disillusionment. Legislating drug use is like saying "the beatings will continue until morale improves."

>>tastyf+dY2
No it isn't, it's very straightforward in every single civilization that has experienced it. humans + opiates = misery. it's not like we're some kind of paragons of logic and rationality we're animals and these are exploits

>>snapca+J03
I wouldn't use opiates as an example of causing misery. The opium poppy, for thousands of years, was a miracle plant to every society that knew of it. It allows anybody to have access to pain relief. Yes it can be misused. However, ALL opiates are still derived from the opium poppy. The ability for personal or commercial production of opium was removed from everybody by the US influenced UN policy. The UN now declares that three countries in the world are allowed to grow opium poppies to produce opium. That legal opium supposedly is used to create all of the worlds needed supply of pharmaceutical opiates. Every other country that grows Papaver Somniferum and processes it to opium is a target for military action to reduce the supply of illegal opiates. You see, the recent history of opium is a bit like an opium dream itself. A small number of people decided opium is evil and who gets to produce opiates and if you aren't on the list you are their enemy. This policy has done nothing to stop "illegal" production and use of opiates and has made a small number of people unimaginably wealthy while also creating the environment for "illegal" cartels, AKA competition, to flourish. Bayer first sold heroin as a less addictive morphine after all. In the name of enforcing the "allowed producers" list an innumerable amount of people trying to make a living by producing opium were killed. If it looks like a cartel and behaves like a cartel it might be a cartel.

I don't even want to go into the proven CIA and FBI complicity in drug trafficking in the name of stopping "illegal" opiates or all the people in jail for using "illegal" opiates.

Sure, opiates cause suffering. Its just mostly at the hands of a supranational cartel that we are part of. We aren't even allowed to grow the same plant in the US for seeds that many nations eat as a staple food. However, the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to grow or buy opium from India, Turkey, and Australia and sell millions of derivative opiate pills around the world. But, me being able to grow a handful of plants to produce my own pain medicine or domestic commercial production is the height of evil.

If we were all allowed to produce opium personally or commercially we would effectively end the reasons for illegal opiate importers to exist, create jobs for our own people, and remove an immense amount of power from the UN and pharmaceutical companies. We would also remove the need for military adventurism in places like Afghanistan and Myanmar. As an aside, opium production in Afghanistan increased from 82,000ha to 233,000ha during US occupation, which I choose to believe was, mostly because we didn't care and the Taliban had been destroying opium crops.

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bu...