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With legalization, the drugs would be cleaner and dosing more predictable. We could then focus on helping addicts recover instead of worrying about the legal tr

With legalization, the drugs would be cleaner and dosing more predictable. We could then focus on helping addicts recover instead of worrying about the legal trouble and violence they might bring to our homes if we try to help them.

Gibbon1 8y ago
Being in my mid 50's I know lots and lots of people who at one time had problems with drugs and managed to recover from that and go on to lead reasonably happy lives. The ones that were unlucky enough to get arrested have had a lot harder time putting that behind them than the ones that weren't[1]. Being arrested puts you in the situation of Jean Valjean, released from prison, 'free' but not free. [1 I know someone who was a drug addict and dealing. He got busted. The end result was he had to scramble and sell even more drugs to pay his legal bills. He was successful eventually. But ultimately also because he lived in California.
austincheney 8y ago
So far legalization has not proven to solve the problems of demand or addiction. In the past several years legally available drugs have been the most abused and resulted in significant problems. I am not claiming this as a justification for increased enforcement either. If you aren't solving for demand you either aren't taking the problem seriously or you have anterior motives to ending drug abuse.
- pizza 8y ago
  Solving for demand means something like reversing the trend of disenfranchised people saying "fuck off to everything" [0]. How do you reverse alienation? Well, I can't purport to have the answer to that, but I can say that almost every popular political movement today is selling its own path to such a reversal (which, to be fair, they've been trying to sell for forever). That said, two possible avenues imo would be to reduce criminal penalties for people who are only hurting themselves, and also to try to make the US healthcare model more efficient - to make it like what seems like every other country already has. Those are two spirals that seem to trap a lot of already-burdened people, that drive them either to misery or living in extremis. [0] https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/12/06/the-antidote-to-civilisational-collapse https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/12/06/the-antidot...
- time-domain0 8y ago
  You're mistaken. Prohibition has always failed. 18th/21st amendments and Portugal decriminalization. It's not to say hard drugs are great, but criminalizing them creates more violence and crime in order to access them. Legalization solves several bigger problems: - MIC/PIC over-criminalization for profit - barriers to treatment - higher prices plus criminal enterprises lead to violent crime, i.e., Mexico right now, and greater property crime of users to support habits Solving economic, social issues is beyond the scope of drug policy but giving people hope, purpose, mission and security reduces usage. Having a functional community, society are preconditions to deterring substance abuse... whereas failed states and under/unemployment promote it. No amount of self-righteous crusaders will change human behavior, but they can certainly make it worse with naïve policies.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    I am not advocating for prohibition. I am just saying that legalization hasn't demonstrated a solution.
    - quetzthecoatl 8y ago
      It worked for Portugal - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
      - austincheney 8y ago
        Yes, it did work for Portugal. Portugal does not have the pharmaceutical industry that the US does. Due to criminalization of certain drugs and the extreme enforcement thereof demand for legally available drugs has never been higher in the US. The pharmaceutical industry is more than happy to fill that gap and meet the economic demand. By ignoring the data and eliminating access to controlled substances demand has not diminished but instead shifted to alternate products. Criminalization/legalization ignores all the data and research on this problem.
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  > So far legalization has not proven to solve the problems of demand or addiction. Those are really biological issues. If they were to make tobacco illegal tomorrow that also wouldn't solve for demand or addiction but would merely make it vastly more inconvenient for people to get their nicotine fix. But, as they've doing for (at least) the last 40+ years, if they try to get people to either not start or stop on their own (i.e. without jail time) then the problem just kind of fixes itself. Two choices really and one leads to having the largest prison population on the planet with no real end in sight to the "drug epidemic".
  - circlefavshape 8y ago
    +1 Some substances are psychoactive, and can be pleasurable to take. That's at the root of the demand, and can't ever really be "solved"
    - austincheney 8y ago
      Education and behavior are always solvable problems. Denial of such opens people to manipulation and opportunity loss.
      - FatDrunknStupid 8y ago
        Some people don't need the drugs. You're clearly delusional. Good luck my friend.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    I am not advocating for criminalization. Demand for tobacco id down specifically because there is ample activity and messaging to influence people away from interest in tobacco. If this same level of influence were applied for all drugs people would be generally much healthier.
- Nursie 8y ago
  > So far legalization has not proven to solve the problems of demand or addiction. It solves the problem of peoples lives being (further) ruined by punitive policy. It opens up the possibility of seeking help without risking criminal conviction.
  - austincheney 8y ago
    I was pretty clear that I am not advocating for criminalization.
    - Nursie 8y ago
      But you said that legalisation hasn't tackled addiction. So far I'm not aware of anywhere that the majorly addictive drugs (heroin, cocaine) have been legalised. Portugal has made inroads into its addiction problem with its decriminalisation program.
      - austincheney 8y ago
        > But you said that legalisation hasn't tackled addiction. It has not. Much of the opioid problem in the US is due to legally available drugs. Criminalizing those drugs would probably make it worse.
        thecopy 8y ago
        I think i've read somewhere that Portugal's decriminalization of all drugs has had positive effects.
        austincheney 8y ago
        I suspect legalization would have positive effects in the US as well, but I do not suspect it will slow consumption. This is evidenced by juvenile vaping rates. The trends indicate that vaping is on schedule to far exceed historic levels of tobacco consumption by minors. Vaping is generally healthier than tobacco having little or no toxins, but the nicotine content is variable and can occur in far greater concentrations than in tobacco products resulting in greater addiction rates than tobacco. Whether or not nicotine were criminalized demand and consumption would continue to grow. The problem is not legality or even availability. The problem is demand. Children want to smoke nicotine products that taste like candy. The messaging is that tobacco is bad, but vaping is... (not communicated). I suspect the differences in cultural attitudes between Portugal and the US are a large factor for the differences in evidence of success.
- empath75 8y ago
  Anybody who tells you that legalization is going to solve the problems of drug addiction is lying, but I don’t think anyone has ever argued seriously that it would. The point of legalization is to solve the problems of having a massive black market for drugs. Getting people to quit using drugs is a different issue entirely.
umvi 8y ago
Why is legalization better than decriminalization? If legal drugs are anything like Juuls, widespread availability and removal of social stigma will just cause use to explode and you have 10x as many addicts as you did before.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  Juuls = e-cig/vape brandname
  - umvi 8y ago
    Well my point was that they were originally intended to reduce nicotine addiction, but they are actually increasing nicotine addiction due to being perceived as safe alternative to cigarettes by teens. I suspect that legalizing drugs such that they are "cleaner and dosing more predictable" (aka "more safe") would inevitably cause an increase in usage and therefore addiction.
    - alistairSH 8y ago
      Sorry, I had no idea what a Juul was, and Google indicated it was a brand of e-cig. Only included the comment because I assumed other non-smokers would have no idea.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    No. When you read the patents you'll realize that Jull vapes were designed mimic the psychopharmacology of cigarettes, which everyone knows are pretty damn addictive. Regular vapes have a different chemistry. You hope that Juul gets sued out of existence and that the FDA rouses itself to action.
- krylon 8y ago
  AFAIK, countries that have tried loosening the laws on drugs have made good experiences. You would save a lot of money on law enforcement, plus you could tax drugs the way alcohol and tobacco are taxed now. With all that money, you could offer some reasonable therapy facilities. Also, I don't think the stigma would just disappear for stuff like heroin. Heroin is terribly addictive, and staying away from it remains a good idea regardless of its legal status.
ryanmercer 8y ago
>With legalization, the drugs would be cleaner and dosing more predictable. This is a huge problem. People have sold stuff that they claim to be LSD, MDMA etc while using other compounds that can be damaging to outright fatal. --- Then take things like anabolic steroids, especially injectables. If someone wants to use steroids, that should be their business as it doesn't hurt anyone other than potentially themselves HOWEVER purity. When you're buying stuff in a gym from a random guy or ordering from a Eastern European website or the darknet you only have the reputation of the seller to go by and you're injecting something of unknown purity into muscle which can (and occasionally does) result in abscesses/infection which can do considerable damage to your body. The infections are likely often from poorly manufactured 'gear' and not from operator error. Why not allow people that want to use steroids, for their own athletic performance, go to a qualified medical professional to not only have the drugs prescribed but to have their blood work monitored so that on cycle, and post cycle, therapy can be handled optimally for health. People will use the compounds, so why not allow them to do so as safely (and legally) as possible? I know of at least two of my friends that have served time, one bought steroids in his youth and has lived with the stigma of being a felon for decades now, the other acted as an one of the individuals getting the money from a PO box a decade or so ago and then forwarding the payment on to the actual seller to add a layer of protection for the seller and again in his early 20's landed a felony conviction and did time. Now he's in prison again, after getting the first felony expunged, for selling ancillaries and peptides (peptides aren't even explicitly illegal, they're simply not approved for administration to humans by unqualified medical professionals!).

Gibbon1 8y ago

Being in my mid 50's I know lots and lots of people who at one time had problems with drugs and managed to recover from that and go on to lead reasonably happy lives. The ones that were unlucky enough to get arrested have had a lot harder time putting that behind them than the ones that weren't[1]. Being arrested puts you in the situation of Jean Valjean, released from prison, 'free' but not free. [1 I know someone who was a drug addict and dealing. He got busted. The end result was he had to scramble and sell even more drugs to pay his legal bills. He was successful eventually. But ultimately also because he lived in California.

austincheney 8y ago

So far legalization has not proven to solve the problems of demand or addiction. In the past several years legally available drugs have been the most abused and resulted in significant problems. I am not claiming this as a justification for increased enforcement either. If you aren't solving for demand you either aren't taking the problem seriously or you have anterior motives to ending drug abuse.

pizza 8y ago
Solving for demand means something like reversing the trend of disenfranchised people saying "fuck off to everything" [0]. How do you reverse alienation? Well, I can't purport to have the answer to that, but I can say that almost every popular political movement today is selling its own path to such a reversal (which, to be fair, they've been trying to sell for forever). That said, two possible avenues imo would be to reduce criminal penalties for people who are only hurting themselves, and also to try to make the US healthcare model more efficient - to make it like what seems like every other country already has. Those are two spirals that seem to trap a lot of already-burdened people, that drive them either to misery or living in extremis. [0] https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/12/06/the-antidote-to-civilisational-collapse https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/12/06/the-antidot...
time-domain0 8y ago
You're mistaken. Prohibition has always failed. 18th/21st amendments and Portugal decriminalization. It's not to say hard drugs are great, but criminalizing them creates more violence and crime in order to access them. Legalization solves several bigger problems: - MIC/PIC over-criminalization for profit - barriers to treatment - higher prices plus criminal enterprises lead to violent crime, i.e., Mexico right now, and greater property crime of users to support habits Solving economic, social issues is beyond the scope of drug policy but giving people hope, purpose, mission and security reduces usage. Having a functional community, society are preconditions to deterring substance abuse... whereas failed states and under/unemployment promote it. No amount of self-righteous crusaders will change human behavior, but they can certainly make it worse with naïve policies.
- austincheney 8y ago
  I am not advocating for prohibition. I am just saying that legalization hasn't demonstrated a solution.
  - quetzthecoatl 8y ago
    It worked for Portugal - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
    - austincheney 8y ago
      Yes, it did work for Portugal. Portugal does not have the pharmaceutical industry that the US does. Due to criminalization of certain drugs and the extreme enforcement thereof demand for legally available drugs has never been higher in the US. The pharmaceutical industry is more than happy to fill that gap and meet the economic demand. By ignoring the data and eliminating access to controlled substances demand has not diminished but instead shifted to alternate products. Criminalization/legalization ignores all the data and research on this problem.
UncleEntity 8y ago
> So far legalization has not proven to solve the problems of demand or addiction. Those are really biological issues. If they were to make tobacco illegal tomorrow that also wouldn't solve for demand or addiction but would merely make it vastly more inconvenient for people to get their nicotine fix. But, as they've doing for (at least) the last 40+ years, if they try to get people to either not start or stop on their own (i.e. without jail time) then the problem just kind of fixes itself. Two choices really and one leads to having the largest prison population on the planet with no real end in sight to the "drug epidemic".
- circlefavshape 8y ago
  +1 Some substances are psychoactive, and can be pleasurable to take. That's at the root of the demand, and can't ever really be "solved"
  - austincheney 8y ago
    Education and behavior are always solvable problems. Denial of such opens people to manipulation and opportunity loss.
    - FatDrunknStupid 8y ago
      Some people don't need the drugs. You're clearly delusional. Good luck my friend.
- austincheney 8y ago
  I am not advocating for criminalization. Demand for tobacco id down specifically because there is ample activity and messaging to influence people away from interest in tobacco. If this same level of influence were applied for all drugs people would be generally much healthier.
Nursie 8y ago
> So far legalization has not proven to solve the problems of demand or addiction. It solves the problem of peoples lives being (further) ruined by punitive policy. It opens up the possibility of seeking help without risking criminal conviction.
- austincheney 8y ago
  I was pretty clear that I am not advocating for criminalization.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    But you said that legalisation hasn't tackled addiction. So far I'm not aware of anywhere that the majorly addictive drugs (heroin, cocaine) have been legalised. Portugal has made inroads into its addiction problem with its decriminalisation program.
    - austincheney 8y ago
      > But you said that legalisation hasn't tackled addiction. It has not. Much of the opioid problem in the US is due to legally available drugs. Criminalizing those drugs would probably make it worse.
      - thecopy 8y ago
        I think i've read somewhere that Portugal's decriminalization of all drugs has had positive effects.
        austincheney 8y ago
        I suspect legalization would have positive effects in the US as well, but I do not suspect it will slow consumption. This is evidenced by juvenile vaping rates. The trends indicate that vaping is on schedule to far exceed historic levels of tobacco consumption by minors. Vaping is generally healthier than tobacco having little or no toxins, but the nicotine content is variable and can occur in far greater concentrations than in tobacco products resulting in greater addiction rates than tobacco. Whether or not nicotine were criminalized demand and consumption would continue to grow. The problem is not legality or even availability. The problem is demand. Children want to smoke nicotine products that taste like candy. The messaging is that tobacco is bad, but vaping is... (not communicated). I suspect the differences in cultural attitudes between Portugal and the US are a large factor for the differences in evidence of success.
empath75 8y ago
Anybody who tells you that legalization is going to solve the problems of drug addiction is lying, but I don’t think anyone has ever argued seriously that it would. The point of legalization is to solve the problems of having a massive black market for drugs. Getting people to quit using drugs is a different issue entirely.

umvi 8y ago

Why is legalization better than decriminalization? If legal drugs are anything like Juuls, widespread availability and removal of social stigma will just cause use to explode and you have 10x as many addicts as you did before.

alistairSH 8y ago
Juuls = e-cig/vape brandname
- umvi 8y ago
  Well my point was that they were originally intended to reduce nicotine addiction, but they are actually increasing nicotine addiction due to being perceived as safe alternative to cigarettes by teens. I suspect that legalizing drugs such that they are "cleaner and dosing more predictable" (aka "more safe") would inevitably cause an increase in usage and therefore addiction.
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    Sorry, I had no idea what a Juul was, and Google indicated it was a brand of e-cig. Only included the comment because I assumed other non-smokers would have no idea.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  No. When you read the patents you'll realize that Jull vapes were designed mimic the psychopharmacology of cigarettes, which everyone knows are pretty damn addictive. Regular vapes have a different chemistry. You hope that Juul gets sued out of existence and that the FDA rouses itself to action.
krylon 8y ago
AFAIK, countries that have tried loosening the laws on drugs have made good experiences. You would save a lot of money on law enforcement, plus you could tax drugs the way alcohol and tobacco are taxed now. With all that money, you could offer some reasonable therapy facilities. Also, I don't think the stigma would just disappear for stuff like heroin. Heroin is terribly addictive, and staying away from it remains a good idea regardless of its legal status.

ryanmercer 8y ago

>With legalization, the drugs would be cleaner and dosing more predictable. This is a huge problem. People have sold stuff that they claim to be LSD, MDMA etc while using other compounds that can be damaging to outright fatal. --- Then take things like anabolic steroids, especially injectables. If someone wants to use steroids, that should be their business as it doesn't hurt anyone other than potentially themselves HOWEVER purity. When you're buying stuff in a gym from a random guy or ordering from a Eastern European website or the darknet you only have the reputation of the seller to go by and you're injecting something of unknown purity into muscle which can (and occasionally does) result in abscesses/infection which can do considerable damage to your body. The infections are likely often from poorly manufactured 'gear' and not from operator error. Why not allow people that want to use steroids, for their own athletic performance, go to a qualified medical professional to not only have the drugs prescribed but to have their blood work monitored so that on cycle, and post cycle, therapy can be handled optimally for health. People will use the compounds, so why not allow them to do so as safely (and legally) as possible? I know of at least two of my friends that have served time, one bought steroids in his youth and has lived with the stigma of being a felon for decades now, the other acted as an one of the individuals getting the money from a PO box a decade or so ago and then forwarding the payment on to the actual seller to add a layer of protection for the seller and again in his early 20's landed a felony conviction and did time. Now he's in prison again, after getting the first felony expunged, for selling ancillaries and peptides (peptides aren't even explicitly illegal, they're simply not approved for administration to humans by unqualified medical professionals!).