Time to end the war on drugs

Great Debates
41

Just because solution A doesn’t work for problem B doesn’t mean it won’t work for problem C. But it seems like in most cases, making a popular and addictive consumer substance completely illegal only results in an unregulated market taking over the production and distribution, leading to all kinds of negative effects.

I suspect that almost everyone wants drug consumption to create as little damage as possible. It makes no sense to want anything else. There’s just a difference of opinion on what methods actually work and what constitutes a ”drug”. In essence it makes much more sense to view it as a health issue and treat it as such.

Recreational drug use in itself is not necessarily even bad. We use all kinds of things to alter our moods and states of consciousness, such as dancing, listening to music, day dreaming, porn, supplements, yoga, meditation… you name it. One of the ways to do it is to east, smoke, inject or snort some substance that changes the way we experience life and our selves temporarily. If you don’t develop an addiction, it’s not really a problem, in fact it can be very beneficial to your life experience. So what we are looking for is to minimize the people that hurt themselves or others as a result of drug use, and/or who develop addictions.

If minimizing harms is your agenda, and it really should be, then you have to give up on the idea of prohibition simply because it does not give you the results you want. Legalization, prevention and health care on the other hand does address the very problems we are looking to solve here.

The other point is that not all drugs are created equal. Crack and cannabis are two completely separate things with completely different effects in every way, one being very harmful and addictive, the other being possibly a health benefit and not very addictive at all.

My two favorite drugs are cannabis and psilocybin* and I frankly think it is absurd to classify any of them as a ”drug” in the normal sense. They are naturally occurring medicines that have some very cool health benefits as well as also being very pleasurable to use. Actually the fact that it is a medicine that is enjoyable seem to be a negative for some, because I guess it’s not seen as morally acceptable to become ”happy” from simply eating or smoking something. You’re supposed to work hard and suffer and all that, and then maybe you get to be a bit happy on your holidays. Or after you die.

Summary: Prohibition doesn’t work, not all drugs are bad.

  • Both are illegal in Sweden where I live, but completely legal in other parts of Europe, which also makes no sense. It’s actually illegal here to go out pick and eat a naturally occurring mushroom** that contains psilocybin. We’ve made nature illegal.

** But it is not illegal to eat poisonous mushrooms that can actually kill you. Only the type that makes you feel good and at one with the universe.

42

Possibly. But rather than a wholesale carte blanche, I’d put some strings on it.

If you OD, you don’t get medical treatment. Period.

If you injure someone while fried on drugs, you are tried as a first degree felony, minimum sentence 20 years.

If you kill someone while on drugs, you are tried for capital murder and the death penalty is in play. Or life without parole in states that did away with the DP.

Employers can still test for drugs and refuse to hire you, or fire you outright if you test positive. You have no recourse if this happens.
And I would include alcohol in all this as well. Bottom line is this: you wanna fuck yourself up, have at it, but do it in a way that does NOT affect other people.

43

“Prevention and healthcare” are not morally compatible with “legalization”. It is completely incoherent for the state to declare that it is perfectly OK to engage in an activity while simultaneously declaring that that activity is bad and we need to spend money to treat people for the consequences of engaging in it.

Then you’re not approaching this issue from a facts-based perspective.

44

And yet that’s what the state does. With cigarettes, with liquor, with violent sports, with sports cars, with junk food and with extramarital sex. If you just can’t wrap your head around the puzzling conundrum that is this free-dumh thing the yoo-mahns have invented we don’t know what to tell you, Dr. Manhattan.

45

All this talk about Anti-freeze is making me thirsty!

46

Is there a practical reason for those strings you want attached or is it a moral stance you feel should be made?

47

Wait, wait, can you help me there a minute?

Prevention is the prevention of harms, not the prevention of engaging in that activity . Except perhaps insofar as engaging in it in particular instances would be harmful. Even then, there’s more ways to prevent someone from engaging in an activity than making it illegal e.g.: persuasion or taxation.
One can quite well want legalization, prevention of harms and healthcare related to the harms of an activity and also recognize that that activity will sometimes lead to harms while not thinking that the activity is, on the whole, bad. Do you agree?

Where do you get “declare that it is perfectly OK”?
“I want A to be legal” =/= “I think A is perfectly OK”

Where do you get “that activity is bad”?
“Activity A has some harms associated with it which can be prevented or treated” =/= “activity A is bad”

Do you really think about this issue in terms which are as stark and admit as little nuance as “declare that it is perfectly OK” and “that activity is bad”?

48

That makes no sense to me actually. It’s legal to have sex, but we still treat people who get STD’s. It’s legal to go skiing, and we treat people who break their legs. No, your argument makes no sense at all to me.

That’s interesting, because in most areas when you discuss an issue, it’s actually considered a good thing if someone has personal experience of it. I guess the fact that I have researched ”drugs” through reading studies is ”good”, but the fact that I have then tested them myself and verified it actually means that now my insight is somehow worthless.

Like how only people who have NOT actually had sex are the ones that we should listen to when it comes to sex. Because obviously, once your genitals have touched someone else’s, you are no longer pure, you are now corrupted and working for the pro-Sex lobby.

It seems as if you are more interested in defending your opinion than evolving it, so why are we having this debate?

49

Double post.

AND I got ninja’s by people who answered better than I did. Big fail for me. I’ll get my coat. :frowning:

50

Disagree. The law does not provide for death as a punishment for chemical overdose. It is the responsibility of the state to preserve human life even when their infirmity is caused by their own hand.

Disagree. Mandatory minimums do more harm than good.

Disagree. It should be up to the prosecutor and the jury whether the death penalty is warranted.

Conditionally disagree. If it is legal to use a given drug, then an employer should not be permitted to discipline or discharge an employee for using it provided that they are not demonstrably under the influence of said drug while on duty.

51

And yet, we still treat willfully transmitting an STD to another person as an act of assault, which would be a no-go if we were to “legalize everything”.

And yet, we still hold ski resorts accountable for negligence, which would be a no-go if we were to “legalize everything”.

The plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.

Is the protection of the public health within the state’s purview, or isn’t it?

52

Now tell us why murder should stay illegal.

53

This makes no sense either. Hammers are legal, does not mean using a hammer to kill someone is. I don’t think (and neither do you) that ”legalize everything” means ”make it legal to drug someone else without their consent” just as sex being legal does not mean rape is.

So ski resorts are now illegal… or what the heck are you trying to argue here? You’re making a very strange case here. Why not just in your mind consider that when someone says ”make it legal” they mean ”treat it like we do alcohol” rather than ”freely distribute it to everyone with no regulation in place”.

I suspect that having spent years actually researching this, as well as writing policy documents on it, I have been in contact with a lot more ’data’ than most, and on top of that I have actual first hand experience of some ”drugs” that are illegal in some countries but not others. What do you have? An opinion… yay!

I’ve been through this argument before you know, hundreds of times. The arguments you are making I’ve been reading and hearing for decades. I used to believe them, then I did the research and changed my mind. I know that is considered anathema in your culture, but from my perspective it’s a Very Good Thing ™ and I try to do it as often as I can.

I guess that depends on where you live. Personally I think it should be, and that the ”drugs issue” should be mainly a job for the health care profession. But how is that an answer to my question of why we are having the debate? I’m simply inquiring into whether you are here to gather information and explore other perspectives, or whether you are here to promote or defend a specific politician opinion with no real intent on changing your mind.

54

Imma have to disagree with your analysis of the legal implications of drug legalization there, Learned Hand.

You think legalizing all drugs implies legalizing every single use which can be made of it, including torts and assault? That is bleedingly obviously false, you are either throwing shit at a wall hoping something will stick or seriously unfamiliar with how law and the English language work.

You put the term “legalize everything” in quotation marks. Can you tell me who precisely said “legalize everything”, that specific phrasing, in this thread? Perhaps I’ve missed it and someone other than you has used this precise formulation. If someone other than you has indeed used “legalize everything”, do you not see two possible and distinct meanings to that expression?

How does it go in your mind? Is it: A)“legalize every drug” = B)“legalize everything” = C)“legalize every possible use of drugs”?

This hinges on using the word “everything” to mean two different things. You simply cannot go from A to C by way of B when you use B in two different ways.

55

At the moment, drug users are thrown in prison. You don’t get much more marginalised than that.

56

For perspective here, 3.7 percent of Americans incarcerated at the state level are there for drug possession. But I think the great majority of them are there because the amount they possessed was greater than is plausible if just for personal use.

I’m basically anti-prison. While we can’t close them all down, any plausible excuse not to put someone in prison works for me. But just plain drug users put not just in jail (and I think that’s rare), but prison? I realize that the cutoff for personal use amounts vs. dealer amounts is going to be arbitrary. But do you have any statistics on personal use possession amounts, or just being high walking down the street, leading to prison?

Having said that, I do think it is just plain wrong to fund the illegal drug trade abroad by buying the product in the US. Prison for recreational users? No. A few weekends in solitary, done in a way that doesn’t cost the drug user his or her job? If the drug is illegal where grown, that sounds about right to me. We owe Afghanistan at least that much.

As for treatment vs. prison, if there is a proven treatment for a validated diagnosis, I’m for that. But not all users are addicts needing treatment. With some, what’s wrong isn’t what it does to them, but that they are (depending on the drug) funding foreign warlords.

57

Warlords (pick your connotation) will always find funding, typically one or another sort of illicit trade. I’d rather have warlords economically invested in world markets in ways favorable to my economy and national security and inclined to support my agenda in terms of international trade and security arrangements, than not.

58

So what do we do if, after we “legalize everything”, there are still people selling krokodil and speedballs and the other kinds of drugs that kill people? What do we do when the FDA says that a given recreational drug can’t be made safe, in any dose, at any level of purity?

By saying you want to treat “drugs” like alcohol and subject them to regulation, you’re conceding that the government has the just authority to ban unsafe products from coming into the hands of the public. Saying you want to “legalize everything” or “end the war on drugs” therefore is an empty declaration - what you want is for the government to legalize the drugs you enjoy using, and leave those addicted to “the bad drugs” - the ones that destroy lives, families, and communities - out to dry.

I never consented to growing up on the street because my parents chose to use drugs instead of holding down jobs or paying rent, but I guess you think that’s OK since they should have had the right to get high.

59

So what do we do if, after we’ve made them legal but regulated, a (much smaller) group of people are still selling moonshine, high explosives, guns with their serial numbers filed off and non-FDA approved drugs ? What, oh what could *possibly *be done ?! We can either make things 100% illegal or let people do what they want ! There’s is no middle imaginable, or indeed any agency tasked with that kind of enforcement at all !

60

So you’re agreeing that we shouldn’t “end the war on drugs” or “legalize everything”, then.