6 ms·

It's interesting that whenever the subject of legalizing drugs comes up, people rarely argue for legalization from the perspective of cognitive liberty. Why we

by qbit 9y ago

It'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 ago
I 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 ago
  So you would rob others of their liberty over self to preserve your own sense of righteousness?
  - Banthum 9y ago
    No, 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 ago
      You'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 ago
        No, 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 ago
        If 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 ago
        Without 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 ago
  Which it turns comes across as ignorant, to people aware of how successfully Portugal handled their heroin addiction crisis, through decriminalization.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    Now 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 ago
      I 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 ago
This post sounds suspiciously like promoting thoughtcrime and has been sent to MiniLuv for processing.
hehheh 9y ago
That's pretty much the only argument I ever see, other than the standard one for cannabis (it's just a plant).
- qbit 9y ago
  It 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 ago
    It'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 ago
What'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 ago
  As 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 ago
  Addiction 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 ago
  I 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 ago
I'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 ago
  Did 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 ago
      living 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 ago
I'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 ago
  The 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 ago
    I 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 ago
Because 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 ago
  Interestingly, the war on drugs has pushed people away from better and cheaper alternatives.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by qbit 9y ago

marcoperaza 9y ago

I 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 ago
So you would rob others of their liberty over self to preserve your own sense of righteousness?
- Banthum 9y ago
  No, 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 ago
    You'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 ago
      No, 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 ago
      If 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 ago
      Without 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 ago
Which it turns comes across as ignorant, to people aware of how successfully Portugal handled their heroin addiction crisis, through decriminalization.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  Now 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 ago
    I 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 ago

This post sounds suspiciously like promoting thoughtcrime and has been sent to MiniLuv for processing.

hehheh 9y ago

That's pretty much the only argument I ever see, other than the standard one for cannabis (it's just a plant).

qbit 9y ago
It 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 ago
  It'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 ago

What'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 ago
As 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 ago
Addiction 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 ago
I 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 ago

I'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 ago
Did 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 ago
    living 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 ago

I'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 ago
The 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 ago
  I 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 ago

Because 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 ago
Interestingly, the war on drugs has pushed people away from better and cheaper alternatives.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]