8 ms·

But note that all those statement are about the amount of harm in an environment where alcohol is legal, cheaply available in every supermarket, widely advertiz

by brazzy 6y ago

But note that all those statement are about the amount of harm in an environment where alcohol is legal, cheaply available in every supermarket, widely advertized, and its consumption socially accepted, even expected. Can you really say in good conscience that other drugs wouldn't be worse if they became equally ubiquitous?

yspeak 6y ago
This obviously.
cfcosta 6y ago
Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Having drugs being illegal make them stronger, as they have to be transported in secret, and create derivative drugs to fill lower price ranges for long term addicts, such as crack and oxy.
- brazzy 6y ago
  > Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Knowing and doing are two different things. Yes, you'd get fewer accidental overdoses from people getting stronger stuff than they thought. But you'd get more (possibly a lot more) people overdosing from chasing a high despite having built a tolerance, or from doing crazy shit while high, and drug psychoses. > Having drugs being illegal make them stronger, as they have to be transported in secret, and create derivative drugs to fill lower price ranges for long term addicts, such as crack and oxy. And with full legalization, you'd have billions of advertizing dollars invested into marketing and research departments by companies trying to convince people to get high from their brand. Remember, I am not arguing for the status quo or against some degree of decriminalization. I am arguing that the larger observed harm caused by alcohol is not useful evidence that illegal drugs are inherently less dangerous than alcohol.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    You could make advertising them illegal. Also make alcohol and tobacco advertising illegal at the same time.
    - brazzy 6y ago
      That's kind of a minimal measure, and already implemented to some degree in many places. Its effects are limited, and it's a cat and mouse game because there are so many subtle ways to advertise.
      - saiya-jin 6y ago
        These are all just speculations - we can take a stance we prefer and expand it ad infinitum. Kind of pointless. Ie I am pro legalization, and I can't imagine if society had proper education and precise dosing people would go and overdose frequently. Do you often see people who decide to drink 2 litres of vodka in one setting? We all know how bad idea it is without the need to walk that path. Also alcohol is one of few (if not the only) drug that actively increases aggressiveness in consumers. Its proven numerous times all over the world that legal marihuana pushes away worse addictions, lowers the crime. Even ignoring the tiny details of bringing benefits to consumers (select of various strengths and non-harmful methods of application), bringing benefits to the state (taxation, control over what folks consume) and overall society - taking away massive source of income for organized crime. At this point it just doesn't make any sense for a rational society to have weed illegal. Shooting in its own foot, ignoring reality of humans and all that. Psychedelics is another group where at least active research in treatment of various psychiatric disorders should be actively encouraged by state. Potential is massive, by far the best area for improvement in otherwise pretty stale domain of medical drugs development (unless you consider drugging into oblivion anybody with issues with valium et co, which basically no expert does).
        xorcist 6y ago
        > alcohol is one of few (if not the only) drug that actively increases aggressiveness Why would you write something like this? Have you seen someone on meth, or any kind of amphetamines? It's a whole different degree of bad. Not to mention in combinations where someone can be horrendously violent and completely indifferent to it.
hummusman 6y ago
I think the crux here is that decriminalising/legalising the use of drugs such as heroin would not make them more widespread and ubiquitous. Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access in almost all countries, and most people are well aware of the high risks associated with them. Legalising them would bring users/abusers into a more public sphere where it is far easier to access harm reduction and the state can provide it without legal complications
- brazzy 6y ago
  > I think the crux here is that decriminalising/legalising the use of drugs such as heroin would not make them more widespread and ubiquitous. That is a very ridiculously wrong statement. > Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access in almost all countries You apparently have a pretty wide definition of "Very easy". I wouldn't have the faintest clue how to lay my hands on some heroin. Yes, I might start asking around in the vicinity of nightclubs based on hearsay that party drugs are supposedly sold there and the dealers might know someone who sells heroin. That would require navigating some scary situations quite outside my comfort zone. That's a completely different level of availability than alcohol, of which there are shelves full in every supermarket and ads plastered all over telling me how it will make me hip and attractive. > Legalising them would bring users/abusers into a more public sphere where it is far easier to access harm reduction and the state can provide it without legal complications You don't need legalization for that, merely decriminalization of use and possession.
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    I'm surprised you don't get constantly hassled by sketchy people on the street trying to sell you drugs. Also, homeless people everywhere often know who to ask or where to go.
    - SirSourdough 6y ago
      I hope we can agree that there's a significant difference in accessibility for something you can legally buy from the store versus something that you have to seek out illegally from random "sketchy people on the street".
nerbert 6y ago
Rat park comes to mind. The issues are not the drugs, but our well being in society.
- brazzy 6y ago
  The drugs have a huge negative effect on well being, and that is not just because they're criminalized (though that is part of it).
  - nerbert 6y ago
    Drugs had great positive impact on millions of people as well. You can’t just cherry pick the worst cases without including the others.
- the-dude 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Replication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Replication
  - pksebben 6y ago
    I want rat park to be true. It's depressing that it's not been effectively replicated. That said, it's conclusions are sort of common sense; if you give people options and one of them feels better than the rest they will take it, so give them more good options. It's almost as if rats aren't subject to market forces...
    - the-dude 6y ago
      And this is what is exactly wrong science. We have had a scientist in NL who claimed that people who eat red meat are more aggressive. Because she wanted it to be true. And maybe the original researcher of Rat Park just wanted it to be true too.
krageon 6y ago
Less criminalisation inevitably means less drug harm. Any other stance can only be made in bad faith. Just look at relative harm numbers, the stats (especially at something like the EU level) are available publicly.
- brazzy 6y ago
  > Less criminalisation inevitably means less drug harm. Any other stance can only be made in bad faith. That is in itself an extremely bad faith statement. > Just look at relative harm numbers, the stats (especially at something like the EU level) are available publicly. Yes, look at them. They do not support your statement because you are asserting that the corellation is basically linear, but I was talking about an (entirely hypothetical) scenario that is completely outside the data, namely full legalization. No EU state has legalized heroin or cocaine. The poster boy for decriminalization is Portugal, but they haven't even legalized use, let alone production or distribution. They have merely turned use into an administrative offense rather than a criminal one and are providing a lot of harm-reduction services. There is a huge difference between that and full legalization where big business spends billions on advertising to market addictive substances - which is the situation we have with alcohol that leads to a lot of harm.
  - krageon 6y ago
    At the end of the day, we have multiple points on a spectrum with related harm levels. If you can't look at that and see a reasonable approach and stance to take, then nothing can be said that will make you do so.
- dkroy 6y ago
  Also, we currently have a real life case study to learn from in Portugal though I haven't been staying up to date with the latest results on that approach with resulted in more decriminalization of drugs across the board.
  - brazzy 6y ago
    Portugal has not, in fact, fully decriminalized any previously illegal drug. Not even cannabis.
that_guy_iain 6y ago
For the most part, yes. Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available. For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice. I've even been told of a story where people thought someone was having an overdose and they were told to go home because they couldn't risk calling an ambulance, I was told this story by one of the people telling the person to go home, so I believe it. The crime that comes from heroin comes from people trying to make money to buy heroin. Considering tobacco is more addictive, and we have way less crime to buy tobacco, it seems logical to assume crime would drop if drug addicts didn't have to spend 20-30 a day on drugs. Then you have the violence and anti-social behaviour which for most drugs is non-existent.
- jariel 6y ago
  " I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal" Wow, you're not using your imagination well enough to recognize how ubiquitously widespread opioid addiction would be were it integrated into our coffee, soft-drinks, an aperatif with dinner etc.. It would be a massive, ongoing public health crisis. Combined with the fact that the effect quickly erodes, that users want ever more aggressive substitutes like Fentanyl, it almost guarantees the inevitable OD. Blaming the 'harm' on systems literally trying to stop the promulgation of what arguably is actually poison ... is a leap in logic. Tobacco is similarly additive, but it obviously has a completely different set of health effects. Finally - if Tobacco is really in the same category of addictivity, then ironically, you've made an argument that we really should shut down the opioid industry hard, because while quitting smoking is difficult, it's not existentially hard and the resulting withdrawal does not require medical attention or anything on the scale of 'Trainspotting withdrawal'. An acquaintance in Prison indicated they call the heroin addicts zombies, because they bang on the doors and yell 3 times a day as they receive their poison, which is slowly killing them. I'd argue that incarcerating people and slowly killing them is a strange punishment for those wanting to 'reduce harm' whereupon the logical thing for their health would be to make sure they had absolutely no access and an opportunity to dry out. I hope that in 50 year we look back on 'free heroin' like lobotomies or shock therapy. Humans have some control of our faculties and must overcome impulses of all kind - facilitating the total degradation of that control system by administering poison is definitely a form of torture. I'd rather be waterboarded.
gameswithgo 6y ago
we are starting to get data on that for weed as it is legalized across the usa
- brazzy 6y ago
  Yes, cannabis is an example where evidence seems to support the idea that full legalization, while still causing some harm, is probably less harmful than criminalization, and might even overall reduce harm if it partially replaces alcohol. But it's a bit of an outlier in that regard, among illegal drugs.
rtisdale 6y ago
This was relevant to the parent post as well as your own comment. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210 A UK study led by a panel of experts analyzed a number of recreational drugs and evaluated them across 16 different criteria. Alcohol was one of the most dangerous drugs and was unique in that it was the only drug that posed more risk to society than it did for the actual user. This is of course, not definitive proof of the parents assertions but the findings do lend evidence to it.
- shuckles 6y ago
  What is their definition of harm to others? Meth addicts can be very violent yet this study says they pose little risk.
  - whythre 6y ago
    Meth addiction can also really mess with sex drives. In college I had a friend who was a social worker and she said that with the growing meth usage meant increased child sex abuse, basically due to parents getting high and then messing with their own kids. This is secondhand, but she was clearly disturbed by what was an increasingly prevalent issue in our college town.
qwerty456127 6y ago
> Can you really say in good conscience that other drugs wouldn't be worse if they became equally ubiquitous? I'm sure that in general people on weed, shrooms, DMT or MDMA are much much less prone to violent aggression and destructive behaviour than drunk people. I'm also sure all of these but the last do much less (if any) harm to your health than alcohol does. The only drugs I know which can be considered as or more dangerous than alcohol are opioids (except kratom - it's considered opioid but is harmless unless you consume huge amounts regularly for too long), cocaine (if taken chronically), meth (if abused, can change life for good if used properly to treat severe ADHD cases) and bromo-dragonfly. LSD probably is dangerous for people who are borderline crazy - psychos may become more violent after taking it.
- pksebben 6y ago
  Ahem. A couple addendums, if I may: LSD has no measurable long term side effects - the myth that it makes people go crazy came out of the fact that our can make you feel crazy. Kratom is not an opioid. to qualify as an opioid, you must be derived from opium. Cocaine is not nearly as dangerous as alcohol. It is, perhaps, easier to indulge in cocaine to excess, but people on it are not nearly as likely to do things that will kill them. take a look at DUI vs DWI deaths. Also, long term alcohol abuse is more toxic than long term cocaine use. Generally, though, you're kind of on the right track. Alcohol is the absolute worst. I might also add to the conversation that making something illegal doesn't reduce it's use.
  - ThrustVectoring 6y ago
    > LSD has no measurable long term side effects IIRC it permanently increases the big-5 personality trait Openness
    - qwerty456127 6y ago
      And too much openness may actually make some of violent people more dangerous - they may just become even more open to violence if they have been thinking in that direction already.
bjelkeman-again 6y ago
One of the core dilemmas to me in this argument is that the way we do it now exports the problem to others who have less resources to deal with the impact. Countries breaking, millions in jail, hundred billion $ spent etc. [1] [1] https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTC-Economics-briefing.pdf https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTC-Ec...
pksebben 6y ago
if you make something illegal, you don't reduce it's use necessarily, but you do increase the harm done by pushing users into the dark. Compare the harms of alcohol abuse now to the harms of alcohol as an illicit substance during prohibition, with the explosion in organized crime that came with it. Legalizing reduced the harm.

by brazzy 6y ago

yspeak 6y ago

This obviously.

cfcosta 6y ago

Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Having drugs being illegal make them stronger, as they have to be transported in secret, and create derivative drugs to fill lower price ranges for long term addicts, such as crack and oxy.

brazzy 6y ago
> Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Knowing and doing are two different things. Yes, you'd get fewer accidental overdoses from people getting stronger stuff than they thought. But you'd get more (possibly a lot more) people overdosing from chasing a high despite having built a tolerance, or from doing crazy shit while high, and drug psychoses. > Having drugs being illegal make them stronger, as they have to be transported in secret, and create derivative drugs to fill lower price ranges for long term addicts, such as crack and oxy. And with full legalization, you'd have billions of advertizing dollars invested into marketing and research departments by companies trying to convince people to get high from their brand. Remember, I am not arguing for the status quo or against some degree of decriminalization. I am arguing that the larger observed harm caused by alcohol is not useful evidence that illegal drugs are inherently less dangerous than alcohol.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  You could make advertising them illegal. Also make alcohol and tobacco advertising illegal at the same time.
  - brazzy 6y ago
    That's kind of a minimal measure, and already implemented to some degree in many places. Its effects are limited, and it's a cat and mouse game because there are so many subtle ways to advertise.
    - saiya-jin 6y ago
      These are all just speculations - we can take a stance we prefer and expand it ad infinitum. Kind of pointless. Ie I am pro legalization, and I can't imagine if society had proper education and precise dosing people would go and overdose frequently. Do you often see people who decide to drink 2 litres of vodka in one setting? We all know how bad idea it is without the need to walk that path. Also alcohol is one of few (if not the only) drug that actively increases aggressiveness in consumers. Its proven numerous times all over the world that legal marihuana pushes away worse addictions, lowers the crime. Even ignoring the tiny details of bringing benefits to consumers (select of various strengths and non-harmful methods of application), bringing benefits to the state (taxation, control over what folks consume) and overall society - taking away massive source of income for organized crime. At this point it just doesn't make any sense for a rational society to have weed illegal. Shooting in its own foot, ignoring reality of humans and all that. Psychedelics is another group where at least active research in treatment of various psychiatric disorders should be actively encouraged by state. Potential is massive, by far the best area for improvement in otherwise pretty stale domain of medical drugs development (unless you consider drugging into oblivion anybody with issues with valium et co, which basically no expert does).
      - xorcist 6y ago
        > alcohol is one of few (if not the only) drug that actively increases aggressiveness Why would you write something like this? Have you seen someone on meth, or any kind of amphetamines? It's a whole different degree of bad. Not to mention in combinations where someone can be horrendously violent and completely indifferent to it.

hummusman 6y ago

I think the crux here is that decriminalising/legalising the use of drugs such as heroin would not make them more widespread and ubiquitous. Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access in almost all countries, and most people are well aware of the high risks associated with them. Legalising them would bring users/abusers into a more public sphere where it is far easier to access harm reduction and the state can provide it without legal complications

brazzy 6y ago
> I think the crux here is that decriminalising/legalising the use of drugs such as heroin would not make them more widespread and ubiquitous. That is a very ridiculously wrong statement. > Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access in almost all countries You apparently have a pretty wide definition of "Very easy". I wouldn't have the faintest clue how to lay my hands on some heroin. Yes, I might start asking around in the vicinity of nightclubs based on hearsay that party drugs are supposedly sold there and the dealers might know someone who sells heroin. That would require navigating some scary situations quite outside my comfort zone. That's a completely different level of availability than alcohol, of which there are shelves full in every supermarket and ads plastered all over telling me how it will make me hip and attractive. > Legalising them would bring users/abusers into a more public sphere where it is far easier to access harm reduction and the state can provide it without legal complications You don't need legalization for that, merely decriminalization of use and possession.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  I'm surprised you don't get constantly hassled by sketchy people on the street trying to sell you drugs. Also, homeless people everywhere often know who to ask or where to go.
  - SirSourdough 6y ago
    I hope we can agree that there's a significant difference in accessibility for something you can legally buy from the store versus something that you have to seek out illegally from random "sketchy people on the street".

nerbert 6y ago

Rat park comes to mind. The issues are not the drugs, but our well being in society.

brazzy 6y ago
The drugs have a huge negative effect on well being, and that is not just because they're criminalized (though that is part of it).
- nerbert 6y ago
  Drugs had great positive impact on millions of people as well. You can’t just cherry pick the worst cases without including the others.
the-dude 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Replication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Replication
- pksebben 6y ago
  I want rat park to be true. It's depressing that it's not been effectively replicated. That said, it's conclusions are sort of common sense; if you give people options and one of them feels better than the rest they will take it, so give them more good options. It's almost as if rats aren't subject to market forces...
  - the-dude 6y ago
    And this is what is exactly wrong science. We have had a scientist in NL who claimed that people who eat red meat are more aggressive. Because she wanted it to be true. And maybe the original researcher of Rat Park just wanted it to be true too.

krageon 6y ago

Less criminalisation inevitably means less drug harm. Any other stance can only be made in bad faith. Just look at relative harm numbers, the stats (especially at something like the EU level) are available publicly.

brazzy 6y ago
> Less criminalisation inevitably means less drug harm. Any other stance can only be made in bad faith. That is in itself an extremely bad faith statement. > Just look at relative harm numbers, the stats (especially at something like the EU level) are available publicly. Yes, look at them. They do not support your statement because you are asserting that the corellation is basically linear, but I was talking about an (entirely hypothetical) scenario that is completely outside the data, namely full legalization. No EU state has legalized heroin or cocaine. The poster boy for decriminalization is Portugal, but they haven't even legalized use, let alone production or distribution. They have merely turned use into an administrative offense rather than a criminal one and are providing a lot of harm-reduction services. There is a huge difference between that and full legalization where big business spends billions on advertising to market addictive substances - which is the situation we have with alcohol that leads to a lot of harm.
- krageon 6y ago
  At the end of the day, we have multiple points on a spectrum with related harm levels. If you can't look at that and see a reasonable approach and stance to take, then nothing can be said that will make you do so.
dkroy 6y ago
Also, we currently have a real life case study to learn from in Portugal though I haven't been staying up to date with the latest results on that approach with resulted in more decriminalization of drugs across the board.
- brazzy 6y ago
  Portugal has not, in fact, fully decriminalized any previously illegal drug. Not even cannabis.

that_guy_iain 6y ago

For the most part, yes. Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available. For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice. I've even been told of a story where people thought someone was having an overdose and they were told to go home because they couldn't risk calling an ambulance, I was told this story by one of the people telling the person to go home, so I believe it. The crime that comes from heroin comes from people trying to make money to buy heroin. Considering tobacco is more addictive, and we have way less crime to buy tobacco, it seems logical to assume crime would drop if drug addicts didn't have to spend 20-30 a day on drugs. Then you have the violence and anti-social behaviour which for most drugs is non-existent.

jariel 6y ago
" I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal" Wow, you're not using your imagination well enough to recognize how ubiquitously widespread opioid addiction would be were it integrated into our coffee, soft-drinks, an aperatif with dinner etc.. It would be a massive, ongoing public health crisis. Combined with the fact that the effect quickly erodes, that users want ever more aggressive substitutes like Fentanyl, it almost guarantees the inevitable OD. Blaming the 'harm' on systems literally trying to stop the promulgation of what arguably is actually poison ... is a leap in logic. Tobacco is similarly additive, but it obviously has a completely different set of health effects. Finally - if Tobacco is really in the same category of addictivity, then ironically, you've made an argument that we really should shut down the opioid industry hard, because while quitting smoking is difficult, it's not existentially hard and the resulting withdrawal does not require medical attention or anything on the scale of 'Trainspotting withdrawal'. An acquaintance in Prison indicated they call the heroin addicts zombies, because they bang on the doors and yell 3 times a day as they receive their poison, which is slowly killing them. I'd argue that incarcerating people and slowly killing them is a strange punishment for those wanting to 'reduce harm' whereupon the logical thing for their health would be to make sure they had absolutely no access and an opportunity to dry out. I hope that in 50 year we look back on 'free heroin' like lobotomies or shock therapy. Humans have some control of our faculties and must overcome impulses of all kind - facilitating the total degradation of that control system by administering poison is definitely a form of torture. I'd rather be waterboarded.

gameswithgo 6y ago

we are starting to get data on that for weed as it is legalized across the usa

brazzy 6y ago
Yes, cannabis is an example where evidence seems to support the idea that full legalization, while still causing some harm, is probably less harmful than criminalization, and might even overall reduce harm if it partially replaces alcohol. But it's a bit of an outlier in that regard, among illegal drugs.

rtisdale 6y ago

This was relevant to the parent post as well as your own comment. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210 A UK study led by a panel of experts analyzed a number of recreational drugs and evaluated them across 16 different criteria. Alcohol was one of the most dangerous drugs and was unique in that it was the only drug that posed more risk to society than it did for the actual user. This is of course, not definitive proof of the parents assertions but the findings do lend evidence to it.

shuckles 6y ago
What is their definition of harm to others? Meth addicts can be very violent yet this study says they pose little risk.
- whythre 6y ago
  Meth addiction can also really mess with sex drives. In college I had a friend who was a social worker and she said that with the growing meth usage meant increased child sex abuse, basically due to parents getting high and then messing with their own kids. This is secondhand, but she was clearly disturbed by what was an increasingly prevalent issue in our college town.

qwerty456127 6y ago

> Can you really say in good conscience that other drugs wouldn't be worse if they became equally ubiquitous? I'm sure that in general people on weed, shrooms, DMT or MDMA are much much less prone to violent aggression and destructive behaviour than drunk people. I'm also sure all of these but the last do much less (if any) harm to your health than alcohol does. The only drugs I know which can be considered as or more dangerous than alcohol are opioids (except kratom - it's considered opioid but is harmless unless you consume huge amounts regularly for too long), cocaine (if taken chronically), meth (if abused, can change life for good if used properly to treat severe ADHD cases) and bromo-dragonfly. LSD probably is dangerous for people who are borderline crazy - psychos may become more violent after taking it.

pksebben 6y ago
Ahem. A couple addendums, if I may: LSD has no measurable long term side effects - the myth that it makes people go crazy came out of the fact that our can make you feel crazy. Kratom is not an opioid. to qualify as an opioid, you must be derived from opium. Cocaine is not nearly as dangerous as alcohol. It is, perhaps, easier to indulge in cocaine to excess, but people on it are not nearly as likely to do things that will kill them. take a look at DUI vs DWI deaths. Also, long term alcohol abuse is more toxic than long term cocaine use. Generally, though, you're kind of on the right track. Alcohol is the absolute worst. I might also add to the conversation that making something illegal doesn't reduce it's use.
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  > LSD has no measurable long term side effects IIRC it permanently increases the big-5 personality trait Openness
  - qwerty456127 6y ago
    And too much openness may actually make some of violent people more dangerous - they may just become even more open to violence if they have been thinking in that direction already.

bjelkeman-again 6y ago

One of the core dilemmas to me in this argument is that the way we do it now exports the problem to others who have less resources to deal with the impact. Countries breaking, millions in jail, hundred billion $ spent etc. [1] [1] https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTC-Economics-briefing.pdf https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTC-Ec...

pksebben 6y ago

if you make something illegal, you don't reduce it's use necessarily, but you do increase the harm done by pushing users into the dark. Compare the harms of alcohol abuse now to the harms of alcohol as an illicit substance during prohibition, with the explosion in organized crime that came with it. Legalizing reduced the harm.