WILL ILLEGALS STILL GET FREE HEALTH CARE UNDER HEALTH REFORM?
Do I even need to mention how much of a failure health insurance is? We'd save a shit load of money with socialized health care on this basis alone.
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Does this Bill include the coverage of drugs?
I've learned that the Canadian health care system doesn't cover drugs. Provided this Bill gets passed, would drugs be covered? That's an extremely important part of our health care.
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What to do with drugs?
I have the sense that most recreational drugs are like alcohol in that many people can use them and stay in control, but a few can't. I only have personal experience with alcohol, and I have seen it get the best of a few. There may be some recreational drugs which are exceptions. Inevitably, there will be the examples of those who fail to control their habit that will be covered in depth by the media to make a story. Long term, legalization might not work for that reason. Short term, it might at least break up the cartels.
Of course, the cartels will not disappear quietly. They will probably turn to kidnapping and extortion like the prohibition mobs did, but I think that is easier to defeat.
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The end of the war on drugs?
If this happens, all I can say is, It's About Time. This is one very real and palpable difference between Republican and Democratic ideology, and for all that people say the parties are the same, this is a bright, dividing line.
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Drugs harmful or not?
If all drugs were made legal, then the danger to society shifts from the violence of organized crime trading in the stuff to corporations marketing the stuff the same way that tobacco has historically been marketed - target the children, produce special blends to appeal to niche markets, buy pseudo-scientific studies to show that the product is harmless, hugely outspend any adversaries in the courts. I might agree with Alan's approach if it was accompanied by very strong regulation of marketing.
As to Simeon's original question, the BBC report didn't provide any definition of the term "harm" and so the chart at the bottom is really meaningless. Presumably science can address physiological and psychological damage, versus amount consumed and other variables like body weight, but the umbrella term "harm" seems to be an unscientific term.
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