4 ms·

Let's be honest. Our culture has a completely hypocritical attitude towards drug use. The people who make the drug laws are either idiotic or spineless politi

by LPTS 18y ago

Let's be honest. Our culture has a completely hypocritical attitude towards drug use. The people who make the drug laws are either idiotic or spineless politicians, the people who enforce them are sadistic bullies, and the people who support the system are uninformed morons, latent Fascists or nosy busybodies. In fact the entire drug war is actually a proxy for a cultural conflict between conformist and nonconformist elements in society. It's common for conforming bullies to be enabled to abuse nonconforming weird kids by school authorities. The drug war is that at a huge scale. A few commonly seen fallacies include that use does not mean abuse. Use can be beneficial (see Carl Sagan, Steve Jobs). Abuse is not always a net negative (see, Paul Erdos, the rock and roll hall of fame). Addicts can function fine in society (cofounder of hopkins). If some scientist looking for a cancer cure wants to take speed or provigil to help them work, more power to them. Do you want to tell families suffering from Alzhihmers that their cure was delayed because the best researcher was arrested for taking ADD medication to hold the complexities of the disease in her memory as she worked on a cure? How much time should a cancer researcher, using a mental performance booster and trying to find a cure be put in jail? In fact, I would argue that, for brilliant scientists working on saving lives, the obligation to dedicate themselves fully to their work in much more pressing then the obligation to follow idiotic, racist, superstitious laws. In fact, much scientific progress came from scientific people breaking dumb superstitious laws and societal conventions. See, for example, early researches in anatomy, which the church treated as unholy, or early research in astronomy. So if researchers (particularly researchers who save lives) want to do this, it's part of a long, illustrious tradition of ignoring irrational rules to get science done. But then I care more about progress and a cure for these things then the particulars of what metabolites are in the urine of the researchers that found it. Maybe I'm deviant confused and unethical that way.

ericwaller 18y ago
It's a much less noble cause, but I've made a similar argument in regards to professional athletes using steroids. Sure steroids can seriously screw up your body, but some of these guys are making millions of dollars a year for their physical performance. There's nothing immoral about letting these guys trade long term health for shorter term physical performance and loads of money.
- pg 18y ago
  The difference with athletes is that they're playing already circumscribed games. Since everyone has to obey artificial rules, there's no harm in making the rules prevent damage to the players. In fact it's hard to think of a sport that doesn't already have rules of this type. Winning in games is by definition relative. But winning at ideas is absolute. The faster you find a cure for cancer the better. I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports.
  - ericwaller 18y ago
    Certainly, I only bring up the sports example in attempt to strengthen the case for mental enhancement. Interestingly, your argument comes to bear on drug use in school since competition there is also relative.
  - LPTS 18y ago
    "I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports." This could mean several things. i'm curious what you think about a few cases that make explicit some of the ambiguities. 1 A person has debilitating OCD and is prescribed ritalin by a psychiatrist, which they take daily, so they can function. 2 A healthy person at the top of their field takes ritalin and other stimulaties daily over his career to enhance performance, prescribed by a physician. Cannot perform at the top of his field without it. 3 A person has debilitating OCD, is uninsured, and self medicates by taking illicitly obtained psilocybin mushrooms 6 times a year. (studies show that psilocybin reduces symptoms of OCD for longer then a month). 4 A person has treatment resistant cluster headaches that stops them from thinking. Their treatment provider informs them that their best bet is probably psychedelic mushrooms, which must be obtained illicitly. 5 A person has a psycho-spiritual crisis after finding out their religious leader is a fraud, and takes illicit LSD in the aftermath with confused and possibly self destructive intentions. Partly as a result of this experience, their psychology is permanently altered in a way that makes their thinking better. 6 An alcoholic uses illicitly obtained LSD to induce the kind of spiritual experience his psychologist said correlated with a relapse of alcoholism. 7 A musician takes illicit drugs as part of the creative process. 8 A musician takes prescribed drugs not according to directions as part of the creative process.

by LPTS 18y ago

ericwaller 18y ago

It's a much less noble cause, but I've made a similar argument in regards to professional athletes using steroids. Sure steroids can seriously screw up your body, but some of these guys are making millions of dollars a year for their physical performance. There's nothing immoral about letting these guys trade long term health for shorter term physical performance and loads of money.

pg 18y ago
The difference with athletes is that they're playing already circumscribed games. Since everyone has to obey artificial rules, there's no harm in making the rules prevent damage to the players. In fact it's hard to think of a sport that doesn't already have rules of this type. Winning in games is by definition relative. But winning at ideas is absolute. The faster you find a cure for cancer the better. I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports.
- ericwaller 18y ago
  Certainly, I only bring up the sports example in attempt to strengthen the case for mental enhancement. Interestingly, your argument comes to bear on drug use in school since competition there is also relative.
- LPTS 18y ago
  "I'm not advocating using drugs to help you think better, btw, but there's more of a case there than in sports." This could mean several things. i'm curious what you think about a few cases that make explicit some of the ambiguities. 1 A person has debilitating OCD and is prescribed ritalin by a psychiatrist, which they take daily, so they can function. 2 A healthy person at the top of their field takes ritalin and other stimulaties daily over his career to enhance performance, prescribed by a physician. Cannot perform at the top of his field without it. 3 A person has debilitating OCD, is uninsured, and self medicates by taking illicitly obtained psilocybin mushrooms 6 times a year. (studies show that psilocybin reduces symptoms of OCD for longer then a month). 4 A person has treatment resistant cluster headaches that stops them from thinking. Their treatment provider informs them that their best bet is probably psychedelic mushrooms, which must be obtained illicitly. 5 A person has a psycho-spiritual crisis after finding out their religious leader is a fraud, and takes illicit LSD in the aftermath with confused and possibly self destructive intentions. Partly as a result of this experience, their psychology is permanently altered in a way that makes their thinking better. 6 An alcoholic uses illicitly obtained LSD to induce the kind of spiritual experience his psychologist said correlated with a relapse of alcoholism. 7 A musician takes illicit drugs as part of the creative process. 8 A musician takes prescribed drugs not according to directions as part of the creative process.