4 ms·

> You can't protect people from themselves You can't protect all people from themselves, but you can protect a lot of people from themselves. If you look at s

by pg314 10y ago

> You can't protect people from themselves You can't protect all people from themselves, but you can protect a lot of people from themselves. If you look at smoking [1] in the US, smoking went from 42.4% in 1965 to 16.8% in 2014. Raising awareness, taxing cigarettes, outlawing advertising, warnings on packaging, these things work. The same could be done with alcohol if society wanted. One of the reasons why it hasn't happened with alcohol is because alcohol is ingrained into our culture. > by the percentage of people saved by life saving drugs that make it to market faster/would otherwise be blocked. Do you have any estimates for this? Do you have estimates about how many people would die by allowing poorly-vetted drugs on the market? > which of course goes down significantly when people realize that they shouldn't blindly trust everything in our markets How would you suggest the average person go about evaluating a drug/treatment? > sentenced to die directly by rejecting appeals from terminally ill patients to get access to experimental drugs/procedures sentenced to die implies that experimental drugs/procedures would save them. Undoubtedly some could be saved, but I doubt it would be more than a small fraction. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/ https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/ci...

wonder_er 10y ago
Oddly, the people you're asking to implement this harm reduction plan are often making the same mistakes as those who would "benefit" from the regulations. Government bureaucrats are not special or different from us regular folk. Why should we expect them to be?
- pg314 10y ago
  Because you can select them for their expertise. E.g., to create medical regulations, you can select doctors and pharmacists.
lend000 10y ago
All of your points are born of the flawed assumption that it is ethical to take away people's freedoms because you think you know better. Even if you DO know better and could PROVE it (which is never guaranteed in theory OR in practice -- see: FDA, USDA), I would never support coercive measures. It's about as moral and effective as outlawing suicide. The practical arguments are already lost. There were a lot of well-intentioned common folk and bureaucrats who think JUST LIKE YOU and tried something called Prohibition, and it didn't work. Same with the drug war.

by pg314 10y ago

wonder_er 10y ago

Oddly, the people you're asking to implement this harm reduction plan are often making the same mistakes as those who would "benefit" from the regulations. Government bureaucrats are not special or different from us regular folk. Why should we expect them to be?

pg314 10y ago
Because you can select them for their expertise. E.g., to create medical regulations, you can select doctors and pharmacists.

lend000 10y ago

All of your points are born of the flawed assumption that it is ethical to take away people's freedoms because you think you know better. Even if you DO know better and could PROVE it (which is never guaranteed in theory OR in practice -- see: FDA, USDA), I would never support coercive measures. It's about as moral and effective as outlawing suicide. The practical arguments are already lost. There were a lot of well-intentioned common folk and bureaucrats who think JUST LIKE YOU and tried something called Prohibition, and it didn't work. Same with the drug war.