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Legalize It All – How to Win the War on Drugs (2016)
- qbit 9y agoIt's interesting that whenever the subject of legalizing drugs comes up, people rarely argue for legalization from the perspective of cognitive liberty. Why we allow certain people to decide what states of consciousness are allowed for other people never ceases to amaze me.
- marcoperaza 9y agoI imagine it comes across as pie-in-the-sky thinking to many people who have seen what addiction does to people. Addicts will even take drugs that they know will kill them in the span of a few months (see the krokodil epidemic in Russia).
- joshontheweb 9y agoSo you would rob others of their liberty over self to preserve your own sense of righteousness?
- Banthum 9y agoNo, to maximize their chance of a happy, productive life, and maximize the chances of those around them, and maximize the health and strength and long-term viability of our society as a whole. Humans are not well-adapted to the temptations, challenges, and weird outcomes of modern life. Many people - probably most people - need to have their world and their choices shaped by social policy and group morality. Left with total freedom and no guidance, they would destroy themselves because they couldn't understand or handle the perverse, distant, brutal, unpredictable outcomes of their decisions. We're just not evolved to thrive in a world with World of Warcraft, heroin, credit cards, sugary drinks, alcohol, motor vehicles, birth control, mass media, porn, reality TV, glamour magazines, Photoshopped models, etc. The more our world diverges from the conditions of our ancient ancestors, the more it needs to be shaped. And as a very individualistic freedom-loving person, I hate saying this but it's true.
- jstanley 9y agoYou're not superior to anyone else. Grown adults can make their own decisions and suffer the consequences. Acting like you have a right to tell other people what they can and can't do is incredibly egotistical.
- marcoperaza 9y ago>Grown adults can make their own decisions and suffer the consequences. Not in any western country. People are heavily insulated from the consequences of their actions by the welfare state. We even subsidize their ability to bring children into the world and (most likely) raise them poorly.
- Sleeep 9y agoNo, what is egotistical is believing your individual choices don't affect others and believing that the consequences your actions are not externalized by society. I'm not even pro criminalization, but, c'mon man.
- Banthum 9y agoIf other peoples' actions affect me, I absolutely have the right to influence those actions.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago> "Left with total freedom and no guidance, they would destroy themselves" The state should provide a certain base level safety net, especially so those who realised they messed up have a way to turn things around, but society should allow people to learn from their mistakes. It's important to give people that freedom to grow, even if it takes some self-destructive behaviour before someone wants to turn their life around. Actions that affect multiple people should be handled differently, but if all I'm doing is making myself unhealthy then perhaps I just have different priorities. In short, freedom should include the freedom to mess up.
- arcticbull 9y agoWithout the freedom to try (the same thing as the freedom to fail) society may never move to a better balance point. We can't know what we don't know until we try. Catch people when they fall but certainly don't try and stop them from making an attempt in the first place.
- lawpoop 9y agoWhich it turns comes across as ignorant, to people aware of how successfully Portugal handled their heroin addiction crisis, through decriminalization.
- marcoperaza 9y agoNow you're talking about an argument from efficacy, not liberty. My point is that the argument from liberty isn't going to get a good hearing when drug addiction is such a major societal problem. No one cares about your right to get high when drugs are destroying people's lives and entire communities. Drug policy will be judged mostly on its efficacy in preventing and ending addiction and wanton self-destruction.
- lawpoop 9y agoI would rather say that it's argument from evidence, but that's perhaps an academic point. But I disagree that drug policy is judged on the merits you mention; we have evidence of decriminalization in portugal, and its relative success in preventing destruction. Meanwhile elsewhere in the world there is very little appetite to entertain the idea of decriminalization or legalization, despite evidence supporting the theory that prohibition exacerbates the effects its intended to directly prevent.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- labster 9y agoThis post sounds suspiciously like promoting thoughtcrime and has been sent to MiniLuv for processing.
- hehheh 9y agoThat's pretty much the only argument I ever see, other than the standard one for cannabis (it's just a plant).
- qbit 9y agoIt seems to me the standard argument for legalizing cannabis is tax revenue. It reminds me of when Kansas was considering abolishing capital pinishment. It wasn't due to any ethical or moral reasoning, but because of the economics of housing death row inmates.
- embwbam 9y agoIt's not that these are the best reasons to change the law. It's that these are the reasons everyone can agree on
- dontreact 9y agoWhat's the standard response of this argument to the problem of addiction? Why should we allow large corporations to market drugs which are so addictive that on balance we expect legalizing them to take people's cognitive liberty? What about children who are easier to deceive and more likely to get addicted?
- Inconel 9y agoAs someone who's pretty firmly in the legalization/decriminalization camp, and as someone who doesn't partake in drug use, I rarely even consume alcohol or caffeine despite quite enjoying the taste, I don't really have a terribly persuasive response to your concerns. All of the things you highlight are deeply troubling and concerning to me as well, however, it seems fairly apparent that our current methods of dealing with drug use and addiction are so appallingly unsuccessful, and have been so costly, both in lives and expenditures, that legalization or at least complete decriminalization seem like a better alternative at this point. And this doesn't even take into account any views I may have on the personal liberty perspective.
- DanBC 9y agoAddiction is a public health, not criminal justice, problem. Many of the problems of drugs - acquisitive crime, sex work, blood borne disease transmission - are made far worse by the illegality. People wanting to legalise drugs are not saying "it's fine to sell heroin to 8 year olds". Legalisation of drugs would make it easier to control sales to children.
- arcticbull 9y agoI think the answer is the same as with alcohol and cigarettes, which have all these same problems. (1) Should we allow corporations to market addictive drugs? No, we shouldn't -- not blanket anyways. Same as tobacco. You don't get to advertise. The product sells it self you don't get to help out. (2) Children: You don't get to advertise to children. You don't get to sell near schools. You don't get to sell to anyone under 18 (or probably 21 for some reason in the US). (3) If that's not enough, require a license from a physician who gives you a walkthrough on the risks, how to do drugs safely and what to do if you have trouble or think you're getting addicted. (4) Mandatory addiction counseling, as in Portugal. Realistically, though, I would be very surprised if selling drugs legally lead to a huge spike in usage. Anyone who wants heroin now can just get it, thing is, most people don't want heroin. Legalizing that won't change that in my opinion. Legalizing doesn't mean requiring people to take them, or even market them, or even shine a positive light on them. It means not taking people with a medical problem and throwing them into prison where they have access to even more drugs.
- chroem- 9y agoI'm a huge fan of Washington State's ban on public smoking, and I wish they would ban tobacco outright. Why then should I support proliferation of even more addictive and harmful substances? Tobacco smoke is bad enough, but used hypodermic needles laying on the ground is another issue entirely. The trouble with addictive drugs is that a person's free agency is overruled by dependancy on the substance: addicts want to quit but can't. We keep other far less harmful products off the market through regulation, and I don't see how this is any different.
- cortesoft 9y agoDid you read the article? The percentage of people who become addicts after using drugs is actually quite low, even for the 'big four' most addictive drugs (cocaine, heroin, meth, and crack)... so it is NOT true that everyone's free agency is overruled by addiction. In fact, a significant majority do not lose free agency; should they all be restricted because some people can't handle it? The harmful products we should regulate are ones whose use harms other people; things like pesticides, pollutants, etc. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Lots of people think playing video games or watching tv 'rots your brain.' Some people eat way too much unhealthy food. Should we ban tvs and Doritos?
- wfunction 9y ago> In fact, a significant majority do not lose free agency; should they all be restricted because some people can't handle it? What's the difference between this argument and "why should I have to pay for the insurance of others who get sick? should we all have to pay because a few can't live a healthy life?"?
- warsharks 9y agoliving a healthy life does not guarantee you a life free of health problems. but fair enough if they must restrict it have a licence system whereby people apply for the substances they wish to use and have to pass a test that confirms their basic understanding of the chemicals, if properly educated the vast majority of people would be responsible just as they are when driving a car
- noahdesu 9y agoI'm really conditioned to come at the legalization issue from other angles, but the cognitive liberty argument is quite nice. The talk here [0] provides a good introduction to the topic, but fair warning, there is a lot of passionate politics discussed (e.g. the state of jefferson etc...). [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPL8_4W-8Q&t=1012s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPL8_4W-8Q&t=1012s
- 3131s 9y agoThe cognitive and personal liberty argument is all that should be required. It's my body and my mind, and I won't let another person exert that control over me. The negative externalities of drug use are mostly caused by prohibition itself and are minor compared to a whole host of things that are considered normal and vital to society (alcohol, junk food, driving a car, consumerism, etc.). Being branded a criminal will not exactly be the helpful push you need toward quitting drugs anyway. Some other good arguments are... * harm reduction through unadulterated and consistent drugs, clean needles, less stigmatization of addicts * elimination of the black market around illegal drugs * money from taxation * reduction of the prison population and financial savings in the legal system / government / police * the opportunity for research into both the medicinal effects of drugs like marijuana, mdma, psilocybin, and potential treatments based on greater scientific insight into the addictive properties of recreational drugs. * that prohibition actually pushes people toward more dangerous drugs (heroin --> fentanyl, LSD / mushrooms --> 25i-NBOMe, marijuana --> K2) * that the drug war is simply not working, so even if drug use has some inherent detriment to society, there's no realistic way to make that disappear.
- ansible 9y agoI don't think the cost savings angle gets mentioned enough. If you put people in jail for using drugs, everyone else is paying for that through taxation. If they are working, then they are paying taxes. Even in areas with chronic unemployment (and we need to have a while 'nother conversation about economic inequality), a good percentage might still be working if not in jail. So that is a double whammy to the tax payers who are paying for the War on Drugs.
- mythrwy 9y agoBecause in the real, non-theoretical bullshit world there are many undesirable social effect. For instance, dependence, irrational behavior, broken homes and death. Which necessarily involve other people and society as a whole. That's why. Sorry to be curt, but the idea an individual is independent of society approaches orthodox communism in lack of practical workability. However I would argue that the current approach also breaks up homes, kills people and is generally irrational so that doesn't seem the way to go either. Gore Vidal I think has the ultimate answer to the drug problem. Invent better drugs. Mitigate the harm. People will leave off the dangerous trash if there are better (and cheaper) alternatives.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mobiletelephone 9y agoInterestingly, the war on drugs has pushed people away from better and cheaper alternatives.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Piccollo 9y agoNo drugs are degenerate.
- mullingitover 9y agoNot sure if this is an anti-drug statement with poor punctuation...Or pro-drug legalization.
- b_ttercup 9y ago"Addiction is a hideous condition, but it’s rare." Is this a true statement for harder drugs?
- noahdesu 9y agoIt would seem to be the case, but I certainly don't have any numbers. I've only started reading the book Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari, but it starts out by describing the scene in the US and around the world in the early 20th century when drugs were legal to buy, and even after initial prohibition, when doctors would prescribe opiates to addicts. The picture that is painted by the book seems to suggest that addicts were allowed access and it was athen small minority of this group that couldn't hold down jobs and raise families.
- anythingnonidin 9y agoYes. > Proportion of users that become dependent: > Tobacco: 32-68% > Alcohol: 15-23% > Cannabis: 9% (30% of users with abuse or dependence) > Cocaine: 17-21% > Stimulants: 11% > Anxiolytics (includes benzodiazepines): 9% > Analgesics i.e. pain relievers: 8% > Psychedelics: 5% > Heroin: 23% > Anthony, Warner, Kessler, 1994; Lopez-Quintero, Pérez de los Cobos, Hasin, et al., 2011 http://www.rethinkpsychedelics.org/ http://www.rethinkpsychedelics.org/
- maxxxxx 9y agoIt's interesting that even Heroin has only 23%. I always believed that one shot of Heroin would be enough. On the other hand I met someone a few years ago who had done a lot of drugs who told me he had done done heroin a few times, didn't like it and never did it again.
- joshontheweb 9y agoWhy would you believe that aside from taking DARE classes? There is so much FUD in the drug space that it clouds proper judgement.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mcappleton 9y agoWhat if they were legal but every sale had a special tax with the money specifically going to rehab and for those who need help.
- nefitty 9y agoI imagine regulated distribution. Make people have to jump through hoops, get enrolled in a national registry and take educational classes on the drugs. Incentivize this route by offering cheap/free, pure drugs so that black market alternatives become exceedingly less worthwhile. Basically the meta version of parents allowing their kids to drink under supervision. Society has a chance to convey and establish norms for use and can intervene if a person falls into dangerous patterns.
- undersuit 9y agoCopy the driver education program? Supervised learning and testing with a controlled final "test drive", even have 5/10 year re-certification tests.
- mythrwy 9y agoYou don't see potential problems with a national registry of drug users? Like say, employers, snoopy neighbors and political opponents?
- nefitty 9y agoThat's a great point. I actually heard of a colleague of mine who was injured on the job at his previous work. He did construction. They found out he was a medical marijuana patient and that made him ineligible for re-employment or workers comp.
- bkeroack 9y agoBy this definition of win we also "won" the Vietnam war.
- grondilu 9y agoBeware, though. It's true that the war on drugs seems to do much more harm than the products they try to prevent people from consuming, but I would worry a bit about a world where big pharmaceutical could suddenly research recreational drugs as business opportunities. Medicine is only for sick people. Recreational drugs would potentially be for everyone. Plus, they can be made extremely addictive. It's the perfect commercial product. New drugs already exists that are more addictive and powerful than old ones. Like Fentanyl, for instance[1]. Who knows what research labs would come up with if they threw lots of money and brain power into it? A global legalization of drugs would be quite a Pandora's box. I'll quote Noah Harari and say it would start what he calls "the chemical pursuit of happiness" [2]. In the end, the risk is that we end up like the woman with an orgasm button[3], or turn us into some kind of vegetative state, as described in "the metamorphosis of Prime intellect"[4]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Deus:_A_Brief_History_of_Tomorrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Deus:_A_Brief_History_of_... 3. http://boingboing.net/2008/09/16/brain-implant-result.html http://boingboing.net/2008/09/16/brain-implant-result.html 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Intellect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Int...
- sldoliadis 9y agoYou're raising some of the best arguments I think I've read for drug regulation, to be honest. However, for me in the end I think it comes down to this: there's lots of horrible things people can do to each other, and we generally respond to that by punishing the offense. So, although I'd like to see drugs legalized, I could also see huge taxes on certain types of drugs, at least in certain settings, or punishments for irresponsible advertising, etc. Fentanyl to me is an interesting example, because to me it illustrates problems with drug regulation: it puts control over decision-making authority into a small group who are given unquestioned deference about those decisions. If anyone could get fentanyl, I think there would be an expectation that everyone evaluate it potentially, and that the consumer learn more about it, or get second opinions from other experts (psychologists, pharmacists, neuroscientists, biochemists). As it is, we sort of say "ok, whatever you say doc" and then ... well... we saw how that went. Someone expressed surprise at how little the cognitive liberty argument gets raised in all of this, which I agree with 100%, but I'd take that further. What I'd argue is that I'm surprised that physical autonomy, as a health issue, isn't raised more. To me, drug regulation and medical regulation are two sides of the same coin. The same laws that criminalize ecstasy are the same laws that prevent an experienced, knowledgable consumer from purchasing an antidepressant without a prescription. People act like if you could get meds from whomever, or on your own, that all hell would break loose, but there are intrinsic consequences to acting heedlessly. People would figure it out fast. And to the extent they didn't, we're better off addressing it as a public health problem than a crime problem.
- mnm1 9y agoH. L. Mencken identified in Americans “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” A better, more succinct description of the American attitude that created and still fuels the drug war (amongst other disgusting things) simply does not exist. You can write a million pages and not get as much clarity as Mencken does in this one phrase.
- Nickersf 9y agoThe war on drugs policy is a disaster. As someone who enjoys doing drugs I have put though into the stigmatization legality and health effects of drugs. Much like healthcare this is an extremely complex subject. Decriminalization: Pros: helps treat addiction as a public health issue. Keeps people out of the prison industrial complex. Takes the taboo elements out of it for the youth. Cons: supports the drug trafficking systems that kill people. Strips tax revenue from governments and money from 9companies who can help treat addiction. No quality control of drugs - look at tweekers and junkies who can't afford quality gear. Spread of infectious diseases. Legalization: Pros: substances can be produced by companies who can compete to make good quality drugs. Generates tax revenue and stimulates the economy. Puts a wrench in the cog of the drug trafficking systems - less babies filled with dope and dead drug mules. Cons: companies exploit addicts. Drugs get marketed to the wrong people. Drug revenues go to support more corrupt politicians. Drug addiction becomes normalized. It also raises other questions such as what are the goals of our greater society? Living in a rigid corporate, industrialized society leaves little time for many people to have recreation time. Being strung out or twisted on meth can make it hard to keep up with the rigors of life. I also don't want the construction crew down the street drunk or high on heroin working the tower crane... downers impare your motor skills. Stimulants go after your cognitive and social abilities. Tough topic.
- DanBC 9y ago> I also don't want the construction crew down the street drunk or high on heroin working the tower crane... downers impare your motor skills. Stimulants go after your cognitive and social abilities. Legalisation of drugs doesn't mean you can drive while under the influence of heroin, or operate machinery under the influence of amphetamines. Interestingly, amphetamines are already commonly used in the construction trade (particularly shop-fitting) to help people work the "crunch" timeframes.
- 3131s 9y agoThis is another crucial but obvious point that somehow gets glossed over -- we already have laws for criminal negligence, DUI, littering (for the syringes that everyone is complaining about), disorderly conduct, theft, etc. so there is no need to worry that the world will collapse into disorderly chaos. There is zero indication that someone will decide to just do heroin because it's suddenly legal, and Portugal's recent history indicates that it's possible to simultaneously lessen addiction rates while moving toward less criminalization.
- vinceguidry 9y agoI don't think we are ever going to be able to move towards a perfectly-reasonable public stance towards intoxicants. My personal problem with marijuana is that I just don't want to smell the shit everywhere. Your human right to ingest whatever substance you want is going to inevitably conflict with my right to choose whether I want to ingest it too or not. We've gone in one policy direction with marijuana, and another entirely with tobacco. Once you get to legalization, you're inevitably thrust back towards getting it the heck back out of the public sphere. Tobacco seems to offer the perfect opportunity to examine the intersection of human rights way of looking at it with "plain ole'" regulation for greater social harmony. Tobacco, like it or not, is a mind-altering drug that people rely on for all sorts of really personal reasons. Our recent push to banish it is pure and simple classism. But the people decrying the war on drugs also seem to often nurture a quiet bigotry against smokers. Smoking is legal, for now at least. But eventually you won't be able to light up without running afoul of some regulation, God forbid they start actually enforcing the now-common 50 foot rule from the entrance of businesses. So yeah, maybe the focus on tax revenue is probably the best one. I like human rights as much as the next guy. But I'm gonna turn into a raving classist asshole the second my neighbor forces me to smell his damn weed through the shared wall. (yes it's happened) I'm already quietly cheering the slow banishment of tobacco, cognitive liberty be damned. Sure, cannabis and tobacco are both smoked, and not all drugs are. But are we really prepared as a society for a world in which drug use is truly legal? Are people really forgetting that these things are well and truly dangerous? Cocaine makes a real mess out of people. What about synthetic drugs? I don't think you're ever going to be able to convince a reasonable person that those things should be legal. So there you go, War on Drugs part 2. To sum up, legalization isn't really a viable public option. It's a fantasy.
- nerdponx 9y agoTobacco, like it or not, is a mind-altering drug that people rely on for all sorts of really personal reasons. Our recent push to banish it is pure and simple classism. That doesn't follow. Are you suggesting that some social classes have better reasons for smoking than others?
- vinceguidry 9y ago
- PaulAJ 9y agoThe quote in this article is dubious at best. There is no other evidence that Erlichman said this, and no evidence in the Nixon archives to back up allgation made in the quote, even if Erlichman had said it. Erlichman served time in prison for Watergate, and seems to have been annoyed about not being pardoned. The records from the Nixon presidency suggest that the WOD was actually driven by Nixon's fixed belief in then-prevalent myths about the danger to America from blacks, homosexuals, drug use and mental damage. https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/32247/did-ehrlichman-claim-the-reason-for-the-nixon-drug-war-was-to-criminalize-black/33044#33044 https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/32247/did-ehrli... https://medium.com/@ReachCASP/health-scientist-blacklisting-and-the-meaning-of-marijuana-in-the-oval-office-in-the-early-1970s-71ea41427b49#.9ksrgwmj3 https://medium.com/@ReachCASP/health-scientist-blacklisting-...
- mattbgates 9y agoDefinitely agree.. if not legalization, decriminalization. You cannot criminalize someone who is addicted to something. In fact, if were to get politically correct with treating addicts like criminals and arresting them, it is probably likely that over 100 million Americans would be in jail for being addicted to a substance. I wrote an article on the decriminalization of drugs. The only ones "winning" the war on drugs are those who have turned it into a business. http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/drug-user-decriminalization/ http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/drug-user-decrimi...
- sauronlord 9y agoConfusing the real goal with the stated one.