19 ms·

I’m an alcoholic. I’ve cut back on my use significantly, and I’m currently in a period of abstinence. Because alcohol is legal and socially accepted, it’s entir

I’m an alcoholic. I’ve cut back on my use significantly, and I’m currently in a period of abstinence. Because alcohol is legal and socially accepted, it’s entirely my responsibility to manage my behaviour and keep my use to non-problematic levels. Not everyone has the social support to make that happen. I think legalisation would be beneficial, as you say, because the criminal justice system does not serve addicts. However, while proceeding with legalisation, we must also establish better social support systems so that people can safely enjoy drugs in moderation.

twblalock 11y ago
Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? The libertarian case for legalizing drugs falls apart if society has to take responsibility for providing support systems as a reaction to the actions of individual drug users. Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. Yes, I know this is shortsighted because we already pay for the costs of incarceration and law enforcement. But that's the status quo, and changing it is going to require convincing people that the alternative is better.
- justsaysmthng 11y ago
  Because your addiction is also your wife's problem, your parent's problem, your company's problem. Addiction affects more than just the addict. And addicts are in need of help - while it is easy to think that "they like being high, it's their choice", in fact the addicts hate their habit more than anything, yet they can't stop using without external help. Would you help a person with a broken leg ? Why ? Well, that's your answer right there. Edit: Just a couple of days ago I've watched this documentary and I guess that's how I came to these conclusions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k01VM1f1Akk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k01VM1f1Akk
  - oxide 11y ago
    illegal drugs encourage abuse and addiction, not the other way around.
  - atom-morgan 11y ago
    You could realistically make a case that someone's addiction, like nearly any other choice, affects everyone to some extent.
    - cornstalks 11y ago
      I don't want to jump in this debate, but I want to point out that that's the opposite argument that many people use for trying to get drugs legalized: "It's not hurting/affecting anyone else besides me; why do people care that I want to use drug X/Y/Z in my home in my personal time?" I hope people don't argue that drugs should be legalized because it's a personal life choice that doesn't affect anyone else, and then turn around and argue that more support for addicts is needed because their personal issues do affect others. I know your comment doesn't have this logical contradiction, but I wanted to point this out in case any readers read your comment and silently nod their heads in agreement despite them also holding onto an obviously contradictory opinion.
      - jkestner 11y ago
        Life is full of contradictions. If we have evidence that legalizing drugs and increasing support for addicts works for society (see: Portugal), who cares about ideologically pure arguments?
  - rubicon33 11y ago
    If they broke their leg while doing something that endangered not only themself, but their family, their friends, and society on a whole, I might not jump at an opportunity to help them.
    - j2bax 11y ago
      Personally I don't consider myself such a good judge. If someone's in need, I like to think I will help them in whatever capacity I can. Many things lead to people making bad decisions, and they aren't all internal 1-sided factors.
- md224 11y ago
  Libertarians like free markets, right? Has anyone tried applying free market principles to drug use? Perhaps if all drugs were legal, people would be able to find less harmful drugs instead of being forced to abuse what's currently legal, and medical costs would go down. I remember reading an anecdote about a guy who stopped drinking by taking occasional painkillers. It scratched the same itch, so he didn't feel the need to drink. Of course the reaction was "this guy is just swapping one addiction for another, and he's going to end up dead with a needle in his arm." But I would much rather have someone dependent on opiates than dependent on alcohol. I can't help but wonder if millions of alcoholics could get sober with, say, a daily dose of Buprenorphine. Seems like more choice would be a good thing.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - cbd1984 11y ago
    > Libertarians like free markets, right? Has anyone tried applying free market principles to drug use? In a completely free market, there are no labeling laws, and no way to enforce purity until after someone has died or been harmed by a bad product and has an estate or next-of-kin capable of suing the producer. And that, of course, assumes the producer is both still in business and is going to be dissuaded from making bad product just because it lost one lawsuit, which might only amount to less than one percent of its total income. I'd rather avoid that.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      Free markets in no way preclude torts. If your ... snake-oil medicine kills somebody, that's a tort. Taken properly, this means you won't just lose one lawsuit, you'll enjoy the legal equivalent of being bombed back to the stone age. Free markets only work if there is good and efficient law. Indeed, David Friedman has written extensively on this very subject. His "Machineries of Freedom" is excellent.
      - cbd1984 11y ago
- pessimizer 11y ago
  > Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations Where did you detect this suggestion? > The libertarian case for legalizing drugs falls apart if society has to take responsibility for providing support systems as a reaction to the actions of individual drug users. That's also where the libertarian case falls apart for legalizing cheeseburgers, and motorcycles.
  - twblalock 11y ago
    > Where did you detect this suggestion? From evincarofautumn's post: > However, while proceeding with legalisation, we must also establish better social support systems so that people can safely enjoy drugs in moderation. Those social support systems will cost money. They will have to be funded by taxpayers. Unless they are cheaper than the current system of enforcement and incarceration, people will not support them. Furthermore, it is more politically palatable to punish drug users than to help them. People will be morally opposed to these support systems, and will use them as a reason to oppose drug legalization. > That's also where the libertarian case falls apart for legalizing cheeseburgers, and motorcycles. Drug legalization is a political debate. This is about practicality, not pure logical argumentation. There is no political argument for legalizing cheeseburgers and motorcycles, because they are already legal. Nobody is attempting to change the status quo. If we want to legalize illegal drugs, we will have to convince people to change the status quo. Changing the status quo, which is the default position, requires evidence that the suggested alternative is superior.
    - cmdrfred 11y ago
      > Those social support systems will cost money. They will have to be funded by taxpayers. Will they? The illegal drug market currently drives prices far above the cost of production. You could probably tax any drug at 300% and it would still be cheaper than illegal alternatives. Legalizing drugs and providing support may be a net revenue generator.
    - AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
      > Those social support systems will cost money. They will have to be funded by taxpayers. Why couldn't private industry or charities provide such services? Perhaps this is not so evident to non-drug-users, but harm reduction/prevention is a very important component to using drugs safely. Along the lines of, "always use protection," and "don't drink and drive," drug companies can make helpful use guidelines like "don't mix this cocaine with that amphetamine capsule" and "don't share your needles with your buddies" and then implement services/programs to ensure the success of these guidelines. Ask anyone who's smoked weed for more than a decade (and outside of California) what it was like to buy weed before legalization and medical marijuana became a thing. They'll tell you that you had usually no idea what kind of weed you were getting, and you had to be happy with whatever the dealer gave you. Today? There's a fucking weed strain review startup called Leafly.com and it's helpful! The point is that as drugs become part of the mainstream due to our ability to perpetuate good use habits, support the procurement of high-purity substances (thanks to the dark net), and the legalization efforts in many parts of the world, harm reduction and addiction support services will crop up to address the new challenges presented. Whether the government forces this upon us, or if the industry does it itself, it will happen due to the huge number of stakeholders that directly benefit from doing so.
- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  I wouldn't say the argument falls apart. We have an obligation to help these people no matter what. We already spend lots of money trying to help them, even though we don't do a very good job of it. That would not change. The libertarian argument against prohibition boils down to this: The government can't stop people from doing anything, it can only punish people after they've done it. Substance abuse is something we'd really rather people didn't do, but punishing people after they've done it doesn't help anyone. Therefore, substance abuse shouldn't be punished. It's also worth noting that most libertarians aren't fiscally conservative capital-L Libertarians. Most of them do not have a problem paying for social services.
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    > The libertarian argument against prohibition boils down to this: The government can't stop people from doing anything, it can only punish people after they've done it. Substance abuse is something we'd really rather people didn't do I am not a libertarian, but I have worked in drug policy reform advocacy groups, and a number of my colleagues were libertarians. This is not at all an accurate description of the prototypical libertarian argument against prohibition.
    - twblalock 11y ago
      Yeah, the libertarian argument is basically that people ought to be able to do what they want with their own bodies, including consuming drugs, and that it's not the government's business if they endanger themselves. If drugs become legalized, the system that gets created will not fit the libertarian vision.
      - hutzlibu 11y ago
        Well, I support an experiment to test your claims. The limited ones of decriminalizing seems to support the libertarian claims.
      - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
        At least the bellwethers in Colorado et al seem pretty consistent with what libertarians might think ok.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Replace "drug use" with "mental health" to broaden the discussion and it eventually becomes apparent that societal issues such as individual well-being, whether drug addiction, mental instability, or a morbidly obese inducing lifestyle has costs that even a staunch libertarian would be wont to address at a systemic level, not just a notion of letting 'the private sector' or charity do the work.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    "Mental health" has a troubled past. Many problem abusers are in fact self-medicating.
- cmurf 11y ago
  It's called the veil of ignorance. Locke was among its supporters, and while Locke was a staunch supporter of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, including property rights, he considered hoarding to be against nature. So it's possible to describe yourself as libertarian and still support publicly funded alcohol and drug rehab. In other words, how do you want a society work where you or a family member might have a strongly prone to addiction? Do you want a society that tries to neutralize such affects so that they can still be functioning members of society? Or do you want only the whim of charity and profit motive of private industry to take care of them? I think the latter very clearly has all the wrong incentives for a stable society. It's classist, and it ignores that everyone has defects of some sort or another.
  - mariodiana 11y ago
    The "veil of ignorance" is John Rawls's term, not John Locke's. Please don't go using the one for the other. From your comment, what I can see is that you're using Rawls's philosophy far more than Locke's. It is not accurate to say that Locke supported this "veil of ignorance" idea. Locke was arguing about the nature of human beings. Rawls is doing something very different.
- evincarofautumn 11y ago
  > Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. I agree. However, I’m talking not only about treating addiction, but preventing abuse in the first place. The first line of social support is made up of our friends and families. Outreach and education could foster better attitudes toward mental health and addiction, and reduce the systemic effects of stress and loneliness. Rehab is very late in the game, and it’s much more difficult and costly for everyone involved.
  - groovy2shoes 11y ago
    I admire your courage to speak out about your alcoholism on a public forum. You're not alone. I myself went through a rough period of alcoholism for about 5 years. You're absolutely correct about social support: when I finally kicked the habit (about 3 years ago), I was only able to do it because I switched jobs and made some new friends. The stress of my previous job combined with the loneliness of being isolated from all my friends were, in retrospect, huge players in my alcoholism. In fact, once I was in that new position, I found it remarkably easy to reduce my drinking to social norms. Nowadays, I hardly even drink at all. I haven't had a drink since before Thanksgiving, and I don't even think about it anymore. Hang in there. If there's any way I can help, let me know. I'm a fellow PL enthusiast and designer (I still refer to one of your concatenative programming articles now and then, thanks for that!), so perhaps we can chat sometime :)
    - evincarofautumn 11y ago
      Thank you. I don’t feel like it’s courageous—I think of it as just an annoying illness that I’m dealing with. Work stress and loneliness were big factors for me as well. I moved across the country with no support network, then went through a difficult breakup. Changing jobs, finding new friends and hobbies, and meeting a new partner who has also dealt with addiction, have all helped enormously. I am still working on Kitten, and it would be a great help to chat about it, as well as whatever you’re working on. Feel free to email me, or star the repo on GitHub and I’ll include you in the pre-release announcement—soon, hopefully!
- serge2k 11y ago
  > Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. which just proves once again most people are idiots.
- SNvD7vEJ 11y ago
  "It's not drugs that kill people. People kill people." Oh, wait...
- ewzimm 11y ago
  If people are acting as a danger to others because of drug abuse, that's already illegal without any kind of drug prohibition. The only people who are added to the prison system by prohibition are the ones who aren't bothering anyone and the ones who are selling them. Of course, this leads to a monopoly on drug sales by criminals. What do we possibly have to gain by giving criminal organizations a monopoly on drug sales and incarcerating people for choosing to ingest the wrong chemicals?
- merpnderp 11y ago
  Libertarians agree that society needs to take responsibility for providing a support system. It's just their definition of society differs from yours. They believe interested parties should take up the burden, where you apparently mean the government should provide those services, which means forcing people to provide those services.
  - mariodiana 11y ago
    This is the most important distinction that libertarians make: government and society are not the same thing. Most everyone else simply conflates the two. "What, as a society, should we do?" Individuals are in society with one another; there is no such thing as "Society," in the collectivist sense.
- elipsey 11y ago
  >>Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? Suposing that it doesn't, doing nothing would be a hell of lot cheaper and easier than what we are doing now. Opiodes are derived from cheap agricultural products. A tablet of herion needn't cost more than asprin. The explicit goal of federal enforcment agencies is to raise prices by restrict supply. You and I are spending a fortune on that project, and it's not helping anyone except the sprawling profession of drug-warriors, and the black market gangsters. Ok, maybe it helped HSBC a little. Kind of ironic, isn't it? This is one of those things that makes me wonder why we even have economists if no one will listen to them. Go get a cup of coffee, fire up youtube, and listen Milton Friedman's talk "Socialism & The War On Drugs." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIQ5_4tOx0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIQ5_4tOx0U If you don't like that one, pick one from any decade since the Nixon administration. :)
  - citizensixteen 11y ago
    >Go get a cup of coffee, fire up youtube, and listen Milton Friedman Another vote for Milton. I have watched several of his talks on the subject and it is amazing how clear and rational his thinking is. It is a real pleasure to watch. Amazing how this subject has become dominated by misinformation and hype. Nobel economist Milton Friedman said, "The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill Said in the middle of the 19th century in 'On Liberty.' is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual’s own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it’s in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they’ll do you harm, why isn’t it all right to say you must not eat too much because you’ll do harm? Why isn’t it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you’re likely to die? Why isn’t it all right to say, “Oh, skiing, that’s no good, that’s a very dangerous sport, you’ll hurt yourself”? Where do you draw the line? If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.” Milton Friedman interview from 1991 on America’s War on Drugs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKhukbe_VkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKhukbe_VkE
- WalterBright 11y ago
  Nothing about libertarianism requires people to not help those in need of support.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  You pretty much already said it yourself... it's already a problem, it affects not just the individual but his environment, too, and generates costs unto society, too. Now, there are cost-effective ways to solve these issues and they happen to be humane, too: support people with issues they have immense difficulty overcoming themselves, include them in society, do not stigmatise, create support structures. It's effective and carries a short-term cost. The alternative solution to the problem is not cost-effective, not humane and in fact, not very effective: criminalise a person's problem, push him away into the worst corner of society (prison), stigmatise him (prison), fine him, take away his opportunity, and expect him to resist a drug that has a hold on his brain every waking hour without help. It doesn't work and carries a long-term cost. And that's just the individual, let's not get into the side-effects of criminalising drugs. (I welcome anyone to look into the Mexican drug war which has taken the lives of more than 100 thousand people in the past decade, and is at least partially rooted in drug policy of various American countries including the US) Further, I think it's important to stress the limitations of self-control. For example, we don't expect an orphan to take care of himself. We argue, because it's a kid with no level of responsibility or maturity. The libertarian case of self-responsibility does not apply here, based on the biological limitations of a kid's brain. But it's important to consider that people under the effect of drugs or addictions are also to a large extent, not a similar extent but a substantial one, emotionally/biologically limited to take adequate self-responsibility. The solution then isn't to say 'you're an adult, so get over it and take responsibility', when your brain simply has a hard time, not by choice, to act in a way that you know is rational. And in this way an addiction is similar to many other forms of disease. Similarly a depressed person can not 'just' take self-responsibility and get over it. What remains then is the argument 'but before you got addicted, you should've known better'. And that is the worst argument. For one because people don't get addicted by some clear choice, some are ignorant, some are exposed to drugs as very young children, some use it after experiencing extreme trauma. And even if you should've known better, I don't believe the solution is to withhold support as a form of punishment for the sake of punishing a bad action, that makes no sense to me.
- azernik 11y ago
  Because not everyone who supports drug legalization is a libertarian. There exist pragmatic reasons to legalize drugs even if you believe that the issue is a legitimate state interest.
- ImTalking 11y ago
  I don't understand this separation of individualised vices. What's the difference when society allows you to eat 10 large pizzas a night, become diabetic and obese, and the State will treat the diabetes? What's the difference when society allows you to smoke 5 packs of cigs a day, get lung cancer, and the State will treat that cancer? What's the difference when society allows you to drink 5 bottles of bourbon a night, kill your liver, and the State will attempt to find you another liver? And please remember: alcohol is a drug. A very very bad drug.
- kazinator 11y ago
  The libertarian case usually includes a chapter on removing those support systems, minimal taxation and governments that only defend the borders and enforce criminal and civil law. > Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. But what happens is that they get both. They ban drugs and pay for treatment. And they pay for the consequences of the criminal activity behind drugs. The property crime and violence and all that. The consequences of drugs get so out of hand because of the legal status. People who use illegal drugs have to hide and so they don't get the help early enough, if at all. They also have to interacts with criminals, and are exposed to additional risks, like not knowing what the heck they are actually putting in their bodies.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Hardly. What happens if someone is irresponsible and they drive recklessly, ending up in a rolled over car in a ditch somewhere, trapped. Should society just say "well, they brought that on themselves, fuck 'em"? As a society we've decided that the appropriate thing to do in such situations is to expend collective resources to help them, providing rescue and hospitalization as necessary. Just as when someone recklessly mishandles flammable materials in their home and burns their own house down. Just as when someone decides to commit suicide. There is a social responsibility to help one another, and we've consistently bought into that responsibility along many fronts, even when individuals get themselves into trouble through their own errors or choices. In the long run it turns out to be a net benefit to society for a lot of reasons, because often times it can put people on the path to turning their behavior around, and often times people make mistakes and learn the error of their ways. Also, addressing social responsibilities earlier (in this case, at the addiction stage) can save money down the road by avoiding the costs of other social responsibilities later (e.g. emergency medical care). But if society doesn't reach out then those people may not get that opportunity to become productive members of society, and they may end up seeing a society that doesn't value them and is adversarial to them, which is an encouragement to reciprocate.
- XJOKOLAT 11y ago
  Your initial question startled me to my core ... it's the kind of question which reminds me why there are such deep divides between humans. Maybe it's a question of ideology or lack of experience. Possibly you've never seen a friend caught in the web of addiction and so have never understood the deep desire to support someone, to treat someone, to help them overcome addiction. Having understood the mechanisms by which a person can descend into addiction and criminality, I'll take the legalisation of drugs with an associated support structure over the simple banning and criminalisation of the drug users any day. I'd also suggest that the status quo you speak of is actually changing before your very eyes.
- robbiep 11y ago
  Your argument is (in my opinion) naively individualistic. You argue that someone's actions should not create any obligations for support. But that denies the interconnected nature of society. If someone gets injured and is unable to work, and has the misfortune of living in the United States (as opposed to Canada or Australia) then he cost of fixing them may be unbearable, meaning that a potential useful human life has now been subjected to the sidelines, rendering them unable to contribute to society. Thus we have a responsibility to provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society. In the same way, addiction and substance abuse damage otherwise useful members of society. Not everyone will fall so far from the tree, but we have a responsibility to provide the institutions necessary to try and get them back on track. When you're talking about illegal drugs, the best way to do this would be through funnelling taxation revenue from sale of previously illegal drugs into rehab and outreach programs (as with THC sales in the Netherlands, where 99% of hard drug users are linked in with social services).
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    Thus we have a responsibility to provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society. It may turn out to just be quibbling over the meaning of "responsibility", but I don't see how that follows. I can see saying that it would be beneficial / nice / good / useful /etc. to "provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society". But saying "responsiblity" - to me - suggests a degree of obligation that I don't accept.
  - jpt4 11y ago
    > a potential useful human life has now been subjected to the sidelines, rendering them unable to contribute to society. Thus we have a responsibility to provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society. This implies a commonly held value structure that prioritizes fuller utilization of human resources. Beyond the in-thread demonstrated non-universality of this particular metric, which raises the question of how and whether to apportion responsibility among ideological dissenters (by force? by opt-out choice? by opt-in choice? casuistic contract negotiations? (only the first scales with low implementation overhead)), "responsibility" does not exist in a vacuum. If one is responsible for something else, one is obligated to affect it. If one is to act to modify with legitimacy, one must have legitimate authority over the modified. Therefore, responsibility for the welfare of others implies authority over the status of others. Mutual responsibility thus creates mutual authority, which is a breeding ground for collisions of contrasting decisions, and thus conflict. Because effective decision-making systems nigh by definition reduce the possibility of conflict, executors of explicitly overlapping authority generally must be trained in the harmonious interaction of their jurisdictions. It is difficult to train nation-state scale populations, thus particularly in harmonious jurisdiction overlap. The rules for interaction must then be so simple as to be (or become) obvious and heuristic. What simple rules do you propose to effectively avoid mass conflicts of authority between humans with the full distribution of domain competencies displayed in a nation-state population, e.g. that of the United States of America?
- gohrt 11y ago
  > The libertarian case Very few people in society care about the libertarian case. > Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. Is that so? I'd estimate that the number of such people is not very high, and is dropping.
- sgift 11y ago
  > Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? Replace drug use with something else and you get to the basic question of society. "Why should someone have to support someone else?" - a philosophical question. You have to decide for yourself what the answer is - for me it is simple: Because helping others is what society is all about, without that we are nothing more than individuals in an "everyone for himself!"-scenario, which doesn't strike me as the kind of place I want to live in.
  - mistermann 11y ago
    That's a very positive way to communicate the policy of the genuine left.
- Hollenbrand 11y ago
  Three years ago I would have agreed with you that it is not the responsibility of society to help addicts. Having a brother who has struggled with heroin addiction has changed my views, however. He's been clinically dead twice, before being brought back to life by paramedics, and has woken up next to a dead body after a night of abusing the drug. Addiction is often a consequence of underlying mental problems which need to be addressed before addiction can be overcome. It's not even necessarily a matter of increased taxes to pay for addiction treatment, but rather a restructuring of the way the money is used. Take Portugal as an example. They decided to treat drug abuse as a public health issue, decriminalizing all drugs and redirecting the money formerly used to enforce drug law to helping addicts. Their drug use has declined. According to a Harvard Medical School study, nearly 35% of Medicare patients were prescribed an opioid from more than one doctor at the time of the study, and 1/3 of this group got opioid prescriptions from four or more doctors. Is this not creating obligations for the rest of us? You would think that you pay the costs of law enforcement to enforce drug law, but many police forces are underfunded and rely on profits from seized drug money and speeding tickets to fund themselves.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  > Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? Well because we don't live an idealized Ayn Randian universe. Unless someone moved off the grid, cut off all ties with society, and is on a boat in international waters, or some uninhabited island, they are part of a society. They might not like it, but they are. If they have children, parents, siblings. They are part of the family. If a parent, is using drugs and not providing for their children, I don't think it makes for a healthy society to watch from the sidelines and say "That's ok. Everyone is responsible for themselves. The gospel of Ayn Rand says so. So let the children starve". That doesn't advocate incarcerating or punishing anyone. But it advocates helping. And it is, and I think should be, a major obligation. At least I would happily spend my tax money on. > The libertarian case for legalizing drugs falls apart if society has to take ... It does fall apart. But making sure the liberatrian cause survives and is proven correct, is not a priority. What is a priority though, is making sure children have safety, shelter, are clothed, are not hungry etc. If, as a result, the libertarian cause must falter and be proven to be a joke, I think most people will be ok with that. (Although it seems here on HN quite a few would be rather distraught).
- woliveirajr 11y ago
  That's the point I always consider: I'm also inclined to think that anyone, to be able to take drugs freely, should be responsible for the consequences, including support, treatment, medical cares in case of overdoses... But then I begin to think about consequences of car crashes (be it to me or to someone else), about cigars. Some countries already treat that, assuming it's a thing that the society wants. And it easily goes to bed eating habits, and I think that the line goes too much to the other extreme. Then I conclude that people from each country, each nation, or even each state/city, has a common sense on what is acceptable or not: the society from that circumscription decides when to pay for individual damages (treatment, support, etc), and for which source of damages. If cars provide more benefits than costs, decide to support it. Drugs? No. Cigars? Yes. Nuclear power plants ? Yes. And so on....
vixen99 11y ago
Difficult to believe that 'better social support' doesn't mean a government spending more money. Is the tax payer expected to fund people to 'safely enjoy drugs in moderation'?
- jrockway 11y ago
  Why not tax the drugs themselves to provide this support?
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    Why not require insurance to cover the costs? It is, after all, a product liability concern.
  - ImTalking 11y ago
    But we do. Alcohol and nicotine are taxed.
SCAQTony 11y ago
I am curious, as an admitted alcoholic what is it like during the holidays when Billboards, radio commercial and internet ads play up alcohol as a gift or good time? Do you find alcohol tempting, annoying or are you sanguine about it?
- evincarofautumn 11y ago
  It doesn’t really phase me. Alcohol is always available, and reminding me of that fact doesn’t really make it any harder. I typically cut loose a bit over the holidays, as I’m seeing friends and attending parties, but I try to remain mindful that it’s not to be an everyday thing, especially because it interferes so much with things I want to do—work, hobbies, and relationships. A useful strategy for me is to create obligations that preclude me from drinking excessively, such as being DD.

twblalock 11y ago

Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? The libertarian case for legalizing drugs falls apart if society has to take responsibility for providing support systems as a reaction to the actions of individual drug users. Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. Yes, I know this is shortsighted because we already pay for the costs of incarceration and law enforcement. But that's the status quo, and changing it is going to require convincing people that the alternative is better.

justsaysmthng 11y ago
Because your addiction is also your wife's problem, your parent's problem, your company's problem. Addiction affects more than just the addict. And addicts are in need of help - while it is easy to think that "they like being high, it's their choice", in fact the addicts hate their habit more than anything, yet they can't stop using without external help. Would you help a person with a broken leg ? Why ? Well, that's your answer right there. Edit: Just a couple of days ago I've watched this documentary and I guess that's how I came to these conclusions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k01VM1f1Akk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k01VM1f1Akk
- oxide 11y ago
  illegal drugs encourage abuse and addiction, not the other way around.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  You could realistically make a case that someone's addiction, like nearly any other choice, affects everyone to some extent.
  - cornstalks 11y ago
    I don't want to jump in this debate, but I want to point out that that's the opposite argument that many people use for trying to get drugs legalized: "It's not hurting/affecting anyone else besides me; why do people care that I want to use drug X/Y/Z in my home in my personal time?" I hope people don't argue that drugs should be legalized because it's a personal life choice that doesn't affect anyone else, and then turn around and argue that more support for addicts is needed because their personal issues do affect others. I know your comment doesn't have this logical contradiction, but I wanted to point this out in case any readers read your comment and silently nod their heads in agreement despite them also holding onto an obviously contradictory opinion.
    - jkestner 11y ago
      Life is full of contradictions. If we have evidence that legalizing drugs and increasing support for addicts works for society (see: Portugal), who cares about ideologically pure arguments?
- rubicon33 11y ago
  If they broke their leg while doing something that endangered not only themself, but their family, their friends, and society on a whole, I might not jump at an opportunity to help them.
  - j2bax 11y ago
    Personally I don't consider myself such a good judge. If someone's in need, I like to think I will help them in whatever capacity I can. Many things lead to people making bad decisions, and they aren't all internal 1-sided factors.
md224 11y ago
Libertarians like free markets, right? Has anyone tried applying free market principles to drug use? Perhaps if all drugs were legal, people would be able to find less harmful drugs instead of being forced to abuse what's currently legal, and medical costs would go down. I remember reading an anecdote about a guy who stopped drinking by taking occasional painkillers. It scratched the same itch, so he didn't feel the need to drink. Of course the reaction was "this guy is just swapping one addiction for another, and he's going to end up dead with a needle in his arm." But I would much rather have someone dependent on opiates than dependent on alcohol. I can't help but wonder if millions of alcoholics could get sober with, say, a daily dose of Buprenorphine. Seems like more choice would be a good thing.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- cbd1984 11y ago
  > Libertarians like free markets, right? Has anyone tried applying free market principles to drug use? In a completely free market, there are no labeling laws, and no way to enforce purity until after someone has died or been harmed by a bad product and has an estate or next-of-kin capable of suing the producer. And that, of course, assumes the producer is both still in business and is going to be dissuaded from making bad product just because it lost one lawsuit, which might only amount to less than one percent of its total income. I'd rather avoid that.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    Free markets in no way preclude torts. If your ... snake-oil medicine kills somebody, that's a tort. Taken properly, this means you won't just lose one lawsuit, you'll enjoy the legal equivalent of being bombed back to the stone age. Free markets only work if there is good and efficient law. Indeed, David Friedman has written extensively on this very subject. His "Machineries of Freedom" is excellent.
    - cbd1984 11y ago
pessimizer 11y ago
> Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations Where did you detect this suggestion? > The libertarian case for legalizing drugs falls apart if society has to take responsibility for providing support systems as a reaction to the actions of individual drug users. That's also where the libertarian case falls apart for legalizing cheeseburgers, and motorcycles.
- twblalock 11y ago
  > Where did you detect this suggestion? From evincarofautumn's post: > However, while proceeding with legalisation, we must also establish better social support systems so that people can safely enjoy drugs in moderation. Those social support systems will cost money. They will have to be funded by taxpayers. Unless they are cheaper than the current system of enforcement and incarceration, people will not support them. Furthermore, it is more politically palatable to punish drug users than to help them. People will be morally opposed to these support systems, and will use them as a reason to oppose drug legalization. > That's also where the libertarian case falls apart for legalizing cheeseburgers, and motorcycles. Drug legalization is a political debate. This is about practicality, not pure logical argumentation. There is no political argument for legalizing cheeseburgers and motorcycles, because they are already legal. Nobody is attempting to change the status quo. If we want to legalize illegal drugs, we will have to convince people to change the status quo. Changing the status quo, which is the default position, requires evidence that the suggested alternative is superior.
  - cmdrfred 11y ago
    > Those social support systems will cost money. They will have to be funded by taxpayers. Will they? The illegal drug market currently drives prices far above the cost of production. You could probably tax any drug at 300% and it would still be cheaper than illegal alternatives. Legalizing drugs and providing support may be a net revenue generator.
  - AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
    > Those social support systems will cost money. They will have to be funded by taxpayers. Why couldn't private industry or charities provide such services? Perhaps this is not so evident to non-drug-users, but harm reduction/prevention is a very important component to using drugs safely. Along the lines of, "always use protection," and "don't drink and drive," drug companies can make helpful use guidelines like "don't mix this cocaine with that amphetamine capsule" and "don't share your needles with your buddies" and then implement services/programs to ensure the success of these guidelines. Ask anyone who's smoked weed for more than a decade (and outside of California) what it was like to buy weed before legalization and medical marijuana became a thing. They'll tell you that you had usually no idea what kind of weed you were getting, and you had to be happy with whatever the dealer gave you. Today? There's a fucking weed strain review startup called Leafly.com and it's helpful! The point is that as drugs become part of the mainstream due to our ability to perpetuate good use habits, support the procurement of high-purity substances (thanks to the dark net), and the legalization efforts in many parts of the world, harm reduction and addiction support services will crop up to address the new challenges presented. Whether the government forces this upon us, or if the industry does it itself, it will happen due to the huge number of stakeholders that directly benefit from doing so.
thescriptkiddie 11y ago
I wouldn't say the argument falls apart. We have an obligation to help these people no matter what. We already spend lots of money trying to help them, even though we don't do a very good job of it. That would not change. The libertarian argument against prohibition boils down to this: The government can't stop people from doing anything, it can only punish people after they've done it. Substance abuse is something we'd really rather people didn't do, but punishing people after they've done it doesn't help anyone. Therefore, substance abuse shouldn't be punished. It's also worth noting that most libertarians aren't fiscally conservative capital-L Libertarians. Most of them do not have a problem paying for social services.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  > The libertarian argument against prohibition boils down to this: The government can't stop people from doing anything, it can only punish people after they've done it. Substance abuse is something we'd really rather people didn't do I am not a libertarian, but I have worked in drug policy reform advocacy groups, and a number of my colleagues were libertarians. This is not at all an accurate description of the prototypical libertarian argument against prohibition.
  - twblalock 11y ago
    Yeah, the libertarian argument is basically that people ought to be able to do what they want with their own bodies, including consuming drugs, and that it's not the government's business if they endanger themselves. If drugs become legalized, the system that gets created will not fit the libertarian vision.
    - hutzlibu 11y ago
      Well, I support an experiment to test your claims. The limited ones of decriminalizing seems to support the libertarian claims.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      At least the bellwethers in Colorado et al seem pretty consistent with what libertarians might think ok.
6stringmerc 11y ago
Replace "drug use" with "mental health" to broaden the discussion and it eventually becomes apparent that societal issues such as individual well-being, whether drug addiction, mental instability, or a morbidly obese inducing lifestyle has costs that even a staunch libertarian would be wont to address at a systemic level, not just a notion of letting 'the private sector' or charity do the work.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  "Mental health" has a troubled past. Many problem abusers are in fact self-medicating.
cmurf 11y ago
It's called the veil of ignorance. Locke was among its supporters, and while Locke was a staunch supporter of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, including property rights, he considered hoarding to be against nature. So it's possible to describe yourself as libertarian and still support publicly funded alcohol and drug rehab. In other words, how do you want a society work where you or a family member might have a strongly prone to addiction? Do you want a society that tries to neutralize such affects so that they can still be functioning members of society? Or do you want only the whim of charity and profit motive of private industry to take care of them? I think the latter very clearly has all the wrong incentives for a stable society. It's classist, and it ignores that everyone has defects of some sort or another.
- mariodiana 11y ago
  The "veil of ignorance" is John Rawls's term, not John Locke's. Please don't go using the one for the other. From your comment, what I can see is that you're using Rawls's philosophy far more than Locke's. It is not accurate to say that Locke supported this "veil of ignorance" idea. Locke was arguing about the nature of human beings. Rawls is doing something very different.
evincarofautumn 11y ago
> Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. I agree. However, I’m talking not only about treating addiction, but preventing abuse in the first place. The first line of social support is made up of our friends and families. Outreach and education could foster better attitudes toward mental health and addiction, and reduce the systemic effects of stress and loneliness. Rehab is very late in the game, and it’s much more difficult and costly for everyone involved.
- groovy2shoes 11y ago
  I admire your courage to speak out about your alcoholism on a public forum. You're not alone. I myself went through a rough period of alcoholism for about 5 years. You're absolutely correct about social support: when I finally kicked the habit (about 3 years ago), I was only able to do it because I switched jobs and made some new friends. The stress of my previous job combined with the loneliness of being isolated from all my friends were, in retrospect, huge players in my alcoholism. In fact, once I was in that new position, I found it remarkably easy to reduce my drinking to social norms. Nowadays, I hardly even drink at all. I haven't had a drink since before Thanksgiving, and I don't even think about it anymore. Hang in there. If there's any way I can help, let me know. I'm a fellow PL enthusiast and designer (I still refer to one of your concatenative programming articles now and then, thanks for that!), so perhaps we can chat sometime :)
  - evincarofautumn 11y ago
    Thank you. I don’t feel like it’s courageous—I think of it as just an annoying illness that I’m dealing with. Work stress and loneliness were big factors for me as well. I moved across the country with no support network, then went through a difficult breakup. Changing jobs, finding new friends and hobbies, and meeting a new partner who has also dealt with addiction, have all helped enormously. I am still working on Kitten, and it would be a great help to chat about it, as well as whatever you’re working on. Feel free to email me, or star the repo on GitHub and I’ll include you in the pre-release announcement—soon, hopefully!
serge2k 11y ago
> Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. which just proves once again most people are idiots.
SNvD7vEJ 11y ago
"It's not drugs that kill people. People kill people." Oh, wait...
ewzimm 11y ago
If people are acting as a danger to others because of drug abuse, that's already illegal without any kind of drug prohibition. The only people who are added to the prison system by prohibition are the ones who aren't bothering anyone and the ones who are selling them. Of course, this leads to a monopoly on drug sales by criminals. What do we possibly have to gain by giving criminal organizations a monopoly on drug sales and incarcerating people for choosing to ingest the wrong chemicals?
merpnderp 11y ago
Libertarians agree that society needs to take responsibility for providing a support system. It's just their definition of society differs from yours. They believe interested parties should take up the burden, where you apparently mean the government should provide those services, which means forcing people to provide those services.
- mariodiana 11y ago
  This is the most important distinction that libertarians make: government and society are not the same thing. Most everyone else simply conflates the two. "What, as a society, should we do?" Individuals are in society with one another; there is no such thing as "Society," in the collectivist sense.
elipsey 11y ago
>>Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? Suposing that it doesn't, doing nothing would be a hell of lot cheaper and easier than what we are doing now. Opiodes are derived from cheap agricultural products. A tablet of herion needn't cost more than asprin. The explicit goal of federal enforcment agencies is to raise prices by restrict supply. You and I are spending a fortune on that project, and it's not helping anyone except the sprawling profession of drug-warriors, and the black market gangsters. Ok, maybe it helped HSBC a little. Kind of ironic, isn't it? This is one of those things that makes me wonder why we even have economists if no one will listen to them. Go get a cup of coffee, fire up youtube, and listen Milton Friedman's talk "Socialism & The War On Drugs." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIQ5_4tOx0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIQ5_4tOx0U If you don't like that one, pick one from any decade since the Nixon administration. :)
- citizensixteen 11y ago
  >Go get a cup of coffee, fire up youtube, and listen Milton Friedman Another vote for Milton. I have watched several of his talks on the subject and it is amazing how clear and rational his thinking is. It is a real pleasure to watch. Amazing how this subject has become dominated by misinformation and hype. Nobel economist Milton Friedman said, "The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill Said in the middle of the 19th century in 'On Liberty.' is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual’s own good. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it’s in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they’ll do you harm, why isn’t it all right to say you must not eat too much because you’ll do harm? Why isn’t it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you’re likely to die? Why isn’t it all right to say, “Oh, skiing, that’s no good, that’s a very dangerous sport, you’ll hurt yourself”? Where do you draw the line? If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel. That's literally true.” Milton Friedman interview from 1991 on America’s War on Drugs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKhukbe_VkE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKhukbe_VkE
WalterBright 11y ago
Nothing about libertarianism requires people to not help those in need of support.
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
You pretty much already said it yourself... it's already a problem, it affects not just the individual but his environment, too, and generates costs unto society, too. Now, there are cost-effective ways to solve these issues and they happen to be humane, too: support people with issues they have immense difficulty overcoming themselves, include them in society, do not stigmatise, create support structures. It's effective and carries a short-term cost. The alternative solution to the problem is not cost-effective, not humane and in fact, not very effective: criminalise a person's problem, push him away into the worst corner of society (prison), stigmatise him (prison), fine him, take away his opportunity, and expect him to resist a drug that has a hold on his brain every waking hour without help. It doesn't work and carries a long-term cost. And that's just the individual, let's not get into the side-effects of criminalising drugs. (I welcome anyone to look into the Mexican drug war which has taken the lives of more than 100 thousand people in the past decade, and is at least partially rooted in drug policy of various American countries including the US) Further, I think it's important to stress the limitations of self-control. For example, we don't expect an orphan to take care of himself. We argue, because it's a kid with no level of responsibility or maturity. The libertarian case of self-responsibility does not apply here, based on the biological limitations of a kid's brain. But it's important to consider that people under the effect of drugs or addictions are also to a large extent, not a similar extent but a substantial one, emotionally/biologically limited to take adequate self-responsibility. The solution then isn't to say 'you're an adult, so get over it and take responsibility', when your brain simply has a hard time, not by choice, to act in a way that you know is rational. And in this way an addiction is similar to many other forms of disease. Similarly a depressed person can not 'just' take self-responsibility and get over it. What remains then is the argument 'but before you got addicted, you should've known better'. And that is the worst argument. For one because people don't get addicted by some clear choice, some are ignorant, some are exposed to drugs as very young children, some use it after experiencing extreme trauma. And even if you should've known better, I don't believe the solution is to withhold support as a form of punishment for the sake of punishing a bad action, that makes no sense to me.
azernik 11y ago
Because not everyone who supports drug legalization is a libertarian. There exist pragmatic reasons to legalize drugs even if you believe that the issue is a legitimate state interest.
ImTalking 11y ago
I don't understand this separation of individualised vices. What's the difference when society allows you to eat 10 large pizzas a night, become diabetic and obese, and the State will treat the diabetes? What's the difference when society allows you to smoke 5 packs of cigs a day, get lung cancer, and the State will treat that cancer? What's the difference when society allows you to drink 5 bottles of bourbon a night, kill your liver, and the State will attempt to find you another liver? And please remember: alcohol is a drug. A very very bad drug.
kazinator 11y ago
The libertarian case usually includes a chapter on removing those support systems, minimal taxation and governments that only defend the borders and enforce criminal and civil law. > Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. But what happens is that they get both. They ban drugs and pay for treatment. And they pay for the consequences of the criminal activity behind drugs. The property crime and violence and all that. The consequences of drugs get so out of hand because of the legal status. People who use illegal drugs have to hide and so they don't get the help early enough, if at all. They also have to interacts with criminals, and are exposed to additional risks, like not knowing what the heck they are actually putting in their bodies.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
Hardly. What happens if someone is irresponsible and they drive recklessly, ending up in a rolled over car in a ditch somewhere, trapped. Should society just say "well, they brought that on themselves, fuck 'em"? As a society we've decided that the appropriate thing to do in such situations is to expend collective resources to help them, providing rescue and hospitalization as necessary. Just as when someone recklessly mishandles flammable materials in their home and burns their own house down. Just as when someone decides to commit suicide. There is a social responsibility to help one another, and we've consistently bought into that responsibility along many fronts, even when individuals get themselves into trouble through their own errors or choices. In the long run it turns out to be a net benefit to society for a lot of reasons, because often times it can put people on the path to turning their behavior around, and often times people make mistakes and learn the error of their ways. Also, addressing social responsibilities earlier (in this case, at the addiction stage) can save money down the road by avoiding the costs of other social responsibilities later (e.g. emergency medical care). But if society doesn't reach out then those people may not get that opportunity to become productive members of society, and they may end up seeing a society that doesn't value them and is adversarial to them, which is an encouragement to reciprocate.
XJOKOLAT 11y ago
Your initial question startled me to my core ... it's the kind of question which reminds me why there are such deep divides between humans. Maybe it's a question of ideology or lack of experience. Possibly you've never seen a friend caught in the web of addiction and so have never understood the deep desire to support someone, to treat someone, to help them overcome addiction. Having understood the mechanisms by which a person can descend into addiction and criminality, I'll take the legalisation of drugs with an associated support structure over the simple banning and criminalisation of the drug users any day. I'd also suggest that the status quo you speak of is actually changing before your very eyes.
robbiep 11y ago
Your argument is (in my opinion) naively individualistic. You argue that someone's actions should not create any obligations for support. But that denies the interconnected nature of society. If someone gets injured and is unable to work, and has the misfortune of living in the United States (as opposed to Canada or Australia) then he cost of fixing them may be unbearable, meaning that a potential useful human life has now been subjected to the sidelines, rendering them unable to contribute to society. Thus we have a responsibility to provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society. In the same way, addiction and substance abuse damage otherwise useful members of society. Not everyone will fall so far from the tree, but we have a responsibility to provide the institutions necessary to try and get them back on track. When you're talking about illegal drugs, the best way to do this would be through funnelling taxation revenue from sale of previously illegal drugs into rehab and outreach programs (as with THC sales in the Netherlands, where 99% of hard drug users are linked in with social services).
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Thus we have a responsibility to provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society. It may turn out to just be quibbling over the meaning of "responsibility", but I don't see how that follows. I can see saying that it would be beneficial / nice / good / useful /etc. to "provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society". But saying "responsiblity" - to me - suggests a degree of obligation that I don't accept.
- jpt4 11y ago
  > a potential useful human life has now been subjected to the sidelines, rendering them unable to contribute to society. Thus we have a responsibility to provide safety nets to restore them to health and a functional member of society. This implies a commonly held value structure that prioritizes fuller utilization of human resources. Beyond the in-thread demonstrated non-universality of this particular metric, which raises the question of how and whether to apportion responsibility among ideological dissenters (by force? by opt-out choice? by opt-in choice? casuistic contract negotiations? (only the first scales with low implementation overhead)), "responsibility" does not exist in a vacuum. If one is responsible for something else, one is obligated to affect it. If one is to act to modify with legitimacy, one must have legitimate authority over the modified. Therefore, responsibility for the welfare of others implies authority over the status of others. Mutual responsibility thus creates mutual authority, which is a breeding ground for collisions of contrasting decisions, and thus conflict. Because effective decision-making systems nigh by definition reduce the possibility of conflict, executors of explicitly overlapping authority generally must be trained in the harmonious interaction of their jurisdictions. It is difficult to train nation-state scale populations, thus particularly in harmonious jurisdiction overlap. The rules for interaction must then be so simple as to be (or become) obvious and heuristic. What simple rules do you propose to effectively avoid mass conflicts of authority between humans with the full distribution of domain competencies displayed in a nation-state population, e.g. that of the United States of America?
gohrt 11y ago
> The libertarian case Very few people in society care about the libertarian case. > Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse them. Is that so? I'd estimate that the number of such people is not very high, and is dropping.
sgift 11y ago
> Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? Replace drug use with something else and you get to the basic question of society. "Why should someone have to support someone else?" - a philosophical question. You have to decide for yourself what the answer is - for me it is simple: Because helping others is what society is all about, without that we are nothing more than individuals in an "everyone for himself!"-scenario, which doesn't strike me as the kind of place I want to live in.
- mistermann 11y ago
  That's a very positive way to communicate the policy of the genuine left.
Hollenbrand 11y ago
Three years ago I would have agreed with you that it is not the responsibility of society to help addicts. Having a brother who has struggled with heroin addiction has changed my views, however. He's been clinically dead twice, before being brought back to life by paramedics, and has woken up next to a dead body after a night of abusing the drug. Addiction is often a consequence of underlying mental problems which need to be addressed before addiction can be overcome. It's not even necessarily a matter of increased taxes to pay for addiction treatment, but rather a restructuring of the way the money is used. Take Portugal as an example. They decided to treat drug abuse as a public health issue, decriminalizing all drugs and redirecting the money formerly used to enforce drug law to helping addicts. Their drug use has declined. According to a Harvard Medical School study, nearly 35% of Medicare patients were prescribed an opioid from more than one doctor at the time of the study, and 1/3 of this group got opioid prescriptions from four or more doctors. Is this not creating obligations for the rest of us? You would think that you pay the costs of law enforcement to enforce drug law, but many police forces are underfunded and rely on profits from seized drug money and speeding tickets to fund themselves.
rdtsc 11y ago
> Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? Well because we don't live an idealized Ayn Randian universe. Unless someone moved off the grid, cut off all ties with society, and is on a boat in international waters, or some uninhabited island, they are part of a society. They might not like it, but they are. If they have children, parents, siblings. They are part of the family. If a parent, is using drugs and not providing for their children, I don't think it makes for a healthy society to watch from the sidelines and say "That's ok. Everyone is responsible for themselves. The gospel of Ayn Rand says so. So let the children starve". That doesn't advocate incarcerating or punishing anyone. But it advocates helping. And it is, and I think should be, a major obligation. At least I would happily spend my tax money on. > The libertarian case for legalizing drugs falls apart if society has to take ... It does fall apart. But making sure the liberatrian cause survives and is proven correct, is not a priority. What is a priority though, is making sure children have safety, shelter, are clothed, are not hungry etc. If, as a result, the libertarian cause must falter and be proven to be a joke, I think most people will be ok with that. (Although it seems here on HN quite a few would be rather distraught).
woliveirajr 11y ago
That's the point I always consider: I'm also inclined to think that anyone, to be able to take drugs freely, should be responsible for the consequences, including support, treatment, medical cares in case of overdoses... But then I begin to think about consequences of car crashes (be it to me or to someone else), about cigars. Some countries already treat that, assuming it's a thing that the society wants. And it easily goes to bed eating habits, and I think that the line goes too much to the other extreme. Then I conclude that people from each country, each nation, or even each state/city, has a common sense on what is acceptable or not: the society from that circumscription decides when to pay for individual damages (treatment, support, etc), and for which source of damages. If cars provide more benefits than costs, decide to support it. Drugs? No. Cigars? Yes. Nuclear power plants ? Yes. And so on....

vixen99 11y ago

Difficult to believe that 'better social support' doesn't mean a government spending more money. Is the tax payer expected to fund people to 'safely enjoy drugs in moderation'?

jrockway 11y ago
Why not tax the drugs themselves to provide this support?
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  Why not require insurance to cover the costs? It is, after all, a product liability concern.
- ImTalking 11y ago
  But we do. Alcohol and nicotine are taxed.

SCAQTony 11y ago

I am curious, as an admitted alcoholic what is it like during the holidays when Billboards, radio commercial and internet ads play up alcohol as a gift or good time? Do you find alcohol tempting, annoying or are you sanguine about it?

evincarofautumn 11y ago
It doesn’t really phase me. Alcohol is always available, and reminding me of that fact doesn’t really make it any harder. I typically cut loose a bit over the holidays, as I’m seeing friends and attending parties, but I try to remain mindful that it’s not to be an everyday thing, especially because it interferes so much with things I want to do—work, hobbies, and relationships. A useful strategy for me is to create obligations that preclude me from drinking excessively, such as being DD.