8 ms·

A substantial fraction of people become addicted to opiates when they are not freely available, too. Which begs the question... is addiction the problem? Or are

by beat 7y ago

A substantial fraction of people become addicted to opiates when they are not freely available, too. Which begs the question... is addiction the problem? Or are the problems consequences of restricted availability? To put it another way... if heroin were legalized tomorrow, would you start shooting up? Is illegality the best (or only) way to prevent addiction? Look at tobacco. It's legal. Most people don't use it, because it's addictive and dangerous, and usage rates have dropped considerably due to social pressures and awareness campaigns. When proposing (or defending) a solution, make sure you ask yourself if it actually solves the problem.

thefounder 7y ago
Look what happened with the tobacco or the alcohol regulation. It looks like most of the people got addicted to smoking pretty quickly. I can't see a single good thing if they would switch to heroin. I believe China had the opium legalised and it didn't turn to be a good idea either.
- elevenoh 7y ago
  Might this outcome differ in a ubiquitous information age?
TallGuyShort 7y ago
Is illegality even A way to prevent addiction? Because most of the data in the US indicates no correlation between enforcement and addiction rates. We say we enforce drug laws for people's protection, catch them with drugs, throw them in jail and say, "see? this is what happens when you take drugs." The discussion around Denver's laws has often been on the assumption that before Colorado legalized marijuana, no one had access to marijuana. They throw around statistics with out before / after comparisons, or without full context. One famous example was a guy who drove into a parked cop car - a test confirmed that some time in the last 6 months he had smoked marijuana. Nevermind that his BAC was astronomical. Anti-marijuana headlines for days on that one.
- Misdicorl 7y ago
  Yes, absolutely. There is a significant population who will not do something if its illegal. Full stop.
  - michaelmior 7y ago
    The question is whether that same population do the thing if it were not illegal? Certainly not everyone in that group. I'm not sure it's even possible to collect this kind of data, but it's a relevant question.
    - Misdicorl 7y ago
      Of course its relevant to understand the scope. But the question is `Does making something illegal have any ability to prevent addiction?` The answer here is an incredibly clear yes.
      - beat 7y ago
        I don't think it's "incredibly clear" at all.
        Misdicorl 7y ago
        You've never met anyone who won't do something because its illegal? I suppose thats reasonable. In any event, I can assure you they exist.
        TallGuyShort 7y ago
        Your arguments are stupidly repetitive and anecdotal. I can also assure you that people exist who make a lot of money pushing drugs because it's illegal and they're good at breaking the law. You've posted far less data and just complained about semantics of my first sentence being different from the data I've posted.
        beat 7y ago
v_lisivka 7y ago
We already know the answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War . In the 17th and 18th centuries, the demand for Chinese goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) in Europe created a trade imbalance between Qing Imperial China and Great Britain. European silver flowed into China through the Canton System, which confined incoming foreign trade to the southern port city of Canton. To counter this imbalance, the British East India Company began to grow opium in India and smuggle them into China illegally. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese trade surplus, drained the economy of silver, and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that worried Chinese officials. In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalize and tax opium, appointed viceroy Lin Zexu to go to Canton to halt the opium trade completely[8]. Lin wrote to Queen Victoria an open letter in an appeal to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade.[9] When he failed to get a response, he initially attempted to get foreign companies to forfeit their opium stores in exchange for tea, but this ultimately failed too. Then Lin resorted to using force in the western merchants' enclave. He confiscated all supplies and ordered a blockade of foreign ships to get them to surrender their opium supply. Lin confiscated 20,283 chests of opium (approximately 1210 tons or 2.66 million pounds)[10]. The British government responded by dispatching a military force to China and in the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire,[7] a tactic later referred to as gunboat diplomacy.
- dtech 7y ago
  How is this relevant? This was mostly an economic war, and number on addictions and suffering are unavailable, unreliable, or in a very different society. And I'm not expecting China to invade the US if the US legalized opium.
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
There's a huge demand to get high, but most ways get high are illegal. If you start to legalize some options, the demand to get high in more dangerous ways should decline. We can already look to a few countries --I think as success models (Portugal, Netherlands, Czech Republic) -- that have done this and see how the demand curve for more dangerous substances has trended. All of those countries legalized Weed, LSD and Magic Mushrooms, Amphetamines, and natural opiates at the same time (I think). I think the US states will legalize them in categories, and I'll be interested to know if by having LSD legal, if that significantly impacts the market for illegal MDMA. Or if by having MDMA legal, if that significantly impacts the market for opiates. We should already have some data on that by weed being legal in a lot of the US for a year or more now. DARE clearly didn't work. But whatever we did for smoking worked very well. Only 10.4% of 18-24 year olds smoke cigarettes.
zild3d 7y ago
Please noone make the "Juul for opium"

by beat 7y ago

thefounder 7y ago

Look what happened with the tobacco or the alcohol regulation. It looks like most of the people got addicted to smoking pretty quickly. I can't see a single good thing if they would switch to heroin. I believe China had the opium legalised and it didn't turn to be a good idea either.

elevenoh 7y ago
Might this outcome differ in a ubiquitous information age?

TallGuyShort 7y ago

Is illegality even A way to prevent addiction? Because most of the data in the US indicates no correlation between enforcement and addiction rates. We say we enforce drug laws for people's protection, catch them with drugs, throw them in jail and say, "see? this is what happens when you take drugs." The discussion around Denver's laws has often been on the assumption that before Colorado legalized marijuana, no one had access to marijuana. They throw around statistics with out before / after comparisons, or without full context. One famous example was a guy who drove into a parked cop car - a test confirmed that some time in the last 6 months he had smoked marijuana. Nevermind that his BAC was astronomical. Anti-marijuana headlines for days on that one.

Misdicorl 7y ago
Yes, absolutely. There is a significant population who will not do something if its illegal. Full stop.
- michaelmior 7y ago
  The question is whether that same population do the thing if it were not illegal? Certainly not everyone in that group. I'm not sure it's even possible to collect this kind of data, but it's a relevant question.
  - Misdicorl 7y ago
    Of course its relevant to understand the scope. But the question is `Does making something illegal have any ability to prevent addiction?` The answer here is an incredibly clear yes.
    - beat 7y ago
      I don't think it's "incredibly clear" at all.
      - Misdicorl 7y ago
        You've never met anyone who won't do something because its illegal? I suppose thats reasonable. In any event, I can assure you they exist.
        TallGuyShort 7y ago
        Your arguments are stupidly repetitive and anecdotal. I can also assure you that people exist who make a lot of money pushing drugs because it's illegal and they're good at breaking the law. You've posted far less data and just complained about semantics of my first sentence being different from the data I've posted.
        beat 7y ago

v_lisivka 7y ago

We already know the answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War . In the 17th and 18th centuries, the demand for Chinese goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) in Europe created a trade imbalance between Qing Imperial China and Great Britain. European silver flowed into China through the Canton System, which confined incoming foreign trade to the southern port city of Canton. To counter this imbalance, the British East India Company began to grow opium in India and smuggle them into China illegally. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese trade surplus, drained the economy of silver, and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that worried Chinese officials. In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalize and tax opium, appointed viceroy Lin Zexu to go to Canton to halt the opium trade completely[8]. Lin wrote to Queen Victoria an open letter in an appeal to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade.[9] When he failed to get a response, he initially attempted to get foreign companies to forfeit their opium stores in exchange for tea, but this ultimately failed too. Then Lin resorted to using force in the western merchants' enclave. He confiscated all supplies and ordered a blockade of foreign ships to get them to surrender their opium supply. Lin confiscated 20,283 chests of opium (approximately 1210 tons or 2.66 million pounds)[10]. The British government responded by dispatching a military force to China and in the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire,[7] a tactic later referred to as gunboat diplomacy.

dtech 7y ago
How is this relevant? This was mostly an economic war, and number on addictions and suffering are unavailable, unreliable, or in a very different society. And I'm not expecting China to invade the US if the US legalized opium.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago

There's a huge demand to get high, but most ways get high are illegal. If you start to legalize some options, the demand to get high in more dangerous ways should decline. We can already look to a few countries --I think as success models (Portugal, Netherlands, Czech Republic) -- that have done this and see how the demand curve for more dangerous substances has trended. All of those countries legalized Weed, LSD and Magic Mushrooms, Amphetamines, and natural opiates at the same time (I think). I think the US states will legalize them in categories, and I'll be interested to know if by having LSD legal, if that significantly impacts the market for illegal MDMA. Or if by having MDMA legal, if that significantly impacts the market for opiates. We should already have some data on that by weed being legal in a lot of the US for a year or more now. DARE clearly didn't work. But whatever we did for smoking worked very well. Only 10.4% of 18-24 year olds smoke cigarettes.

zild3d 7y ago

Please noone make the "Juul for opium"