<story><title>After California decriminalized pot, teen arrest, overdose, dropout rates fell</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/15/after-california-decriminalized-weed-teen-arrest-overdose-and-dropout-rates-fell/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>whiddershins</author><text>The burden of proof should be on the people who want to restrict rights, not on the people who want to liberalize.&lt;p&gt;This concept is more or less in line with the spirit of the Bill of Rights, but seems to be curiously absent from common American discourse.&lt;p&gt;Enforcing ANY law, even a seatbelt law, restricts rights and causes some amount of harm. I find it perplexing anyone thinks legalized recreational substance use would actually cause more harm than drug enforcement does, even aside from the metaphysical harm of having your freedom reduced.&lt;p&gt;It is as if the harm inherent in law enforcement doesn&amp;#x27;t count, as if there are kinds of acceptable and unacceptable violence. Which doesn&amp;#x27;t seem like a philosophically defensible ideology to me.</text></comment>
<story><title>After California decriminalized pot, teen arrest, overdose, dropout rates fell</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/15/after-california-decriminalized-weed-teen-arrest-overdose-and-dropout-rates-fell/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ojbyrne</author><text>&amp;quot;does not lead to any number of doomsday scenarios envisioned by legalization opponents&amp;quot;... of course the real doomsday scenario - poorer employment prospects for Law Enforcement - hopefully will happen.</text></comment>