6 ms·

Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear! So the idea behind legalization is n

Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear! So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather: 1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs? 2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs legal and repurpose those rents for education, health, and harm reduction purposes? Legalization doesn't mean you can buy crystal meth at the local 7-11, it just means you don't buy it from a drug lord cum human trafficker.

mc32 6y ago
How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction? Ok, so I don’t get adulterated drugs, that still doesn’t do anything for the addiction. Are we then going to actively discourage people from doing drugs? If so how? What effective form does that take?
- ch4s3 6y ago
  Decriminalization and legalization brings peoples addiction out of the kind of hiding that prohibition requires. This makes it easier and safer for people to seek addiction services, and easier for their loved ones to spot their problematic use earlier. Portugal is testament to this. Also consider places like the Netherlands or various states in the US where cannabis is legally available. What you see there is that other drug use shifts to cannabis which is relatively safer than alcohol or opioids. You also see declining rates of use among teenagers as it become less mysterious and dangerous but rather common and uncool.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Cigarettes are legal yet many Western countries have been successful at driving down their use.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Do you think if we made them illegal use would go up or go down?
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      Did people stop drinking alcohol during prohibition?
      - mc32 6y ago
        That wasn’t the question, but rather, did consumption go down? I believe the answer was yes, it did go down but alcohol is so ingrained in society for so many millennia that prohibiting it will not shut off consumption.
- elmomle 6y ago
  Legalization is one key part; destigmatization is the other. Those who understand addiction, either first-hand or through research, understand that the root problem is not the drug/habit; the drug/habit tends to be the addict's best known way to sooth immense psychological pain. Shame drives addiction in deeper. So to actually help addicts, one needs to destigmatize the conversation, allow people to say "Hey, I'm in a bad place and I need help" with minimal fear of being judged (the addict tends to already hate their self pretty profoundly). And given how human nature works, destigmatization depends on legality. Stopping addiction isn't about judging addicts; it's about understanding the root cause of their problem (which tends to be intense emotional trauma) and giving them empathic help to start building healthy relationships.
  - mc32 6y ago
    I’m not saying we punish the user, but rather find a way to minimize availability. Also, trauma is not always a cause for addiction. Lots of people suffer trauma and don’t get addicted, conversely we also have people with little trauma who get addicted.
    - elmomle 6y ago
      https://silvermistrecovery.com/blog/2018/09/2019-guide-the-link-between-childhood-trauma-and/ https://silvermistrecovery.com/blog/2018/09/2019-guide-the-l... It isn't a 1:1 causal link--virtually nothing is. But there's very strong evidence that unprocessed trauma is one of the core drivers of addiction. It's constructive to think of drugs and addictive behaviors as emotional crutches. You don't help people with problems walking by making crutches illegal; you do so by focusing on treating the root cause, which may include taking the crutch away in a properly supportive therapeutic environment. I'd also point you to the experiments dubbed "Rat Park" (https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-tea...). Addiction is ultimately a social/emotional disease; the drug/habit is the symptom.
      - mc32 6y ago
        I’m sympathetic to your POV. However, sometimes there is no root cause other than “Hyacinth had me try sniffing some glue and I got hooked”. Sure, some kids can say “no”, but many give in to peer pressure and after a few times there is no going back. I do agree with a good therapeutic environment, but relapses are common, so it takes vigilance and follow up and so on.
- el_nahual 6y ago
  Again, drugs exist and are available now. So you shouldn't think of the options as "drugs are legal and available vs drugs are illegal and unavailable". They are available in either case! Making drugs legal means that one can control the points and conditions of distribution. So one could require licensing, education, or even controlled application. Sure, you can take good, cheap, heroin, but you have to take it here. Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal drugs, the more appealing illegal drugs become, so there's a safety -maximizing point somewhere along that integral.
  - tremon 6y ago
    To draw a parallel with filesharing: "Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal movies, the more appealing illegal downloads become, so there's a profit-maximizing point somewhere along that integral." We've all witnessed the war-on-piracy that the powers-that-be have been pursuing a few decades ago, and we've all seen it fail spectacularly. Similar to the drugs story, by going after the Napster-type filesharing systems, they created a much more lucrative black market where criminals made millions by being the first to crack protection schemes. What reduced the problem to a manageable level? Apple Music/Spotify/Netflix. By making it legal to do entertainment in the confines of their own home, the harm to society at large was much reduced. And even better, because everything is legal now, production companies have much better insights into their market, and can better produce content that their users actually want.
    - mc32 6y ago
      If we look at entertainment we see that ease of access has increased viewership (consumption). In terms of drugs we want to wean people off of addiction. Of course making drug use less dangerous is better than not, but it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances.
      - tremon 6y ago
        it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances. The experiences of Portugal and The Netherlands show otherwise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-a... https://drugpolicy.org/blog/america-take-note-three-lessons-holland-learned-after-decades-evolving-its-drug-policy https://drugpolicy.org/blog/america-take-note-three-lessons-...
- btilly 6y ago
  Do you have any evidence that using law enforcement is reducing drug use? I sure don't! As for actively discouraging people, we are actively discouraging people from using tobacco. And it seems to be working pretty well. I recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk to challenge your assumptions on this. (Retired police captain arguing against the drug war.)
- luckylion 6y ago
  > How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction? It's easier for a 15-yo to buy weed than to buy alcohol (where weed is illegal, I should add).
- thisisbrians 6y ago
  Better educating the masses about dosing and risks prevents some of the worst outcomes (like overdoses). Fostering a culture where the risks are discussed openly in society might help folks make better decisions and avoid addiction in the first place. Additionally, having the option for medically supervised detox (and the drugs required to do that safely) without fear of prosecution is a complete game-changer. Really, I think this represents a shift in mindset from punishing individuals for their addictions to handling it as a societal issue that needs a comprehensive solution. Here's a good read on how Portugal has handled things (to quite some success): https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/ https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalizatio...
cassianoleal 6y ago
It also means when you do have problems you can seek help and talk openly about them instead of diving further down the hole, afraid of getting caught. With illegality there's no hope. With legalisation there's at least a shimmer of it.
- 3131s 6y ago
  It's also means your life isn't wrecked even further by years of incarceration and criminal charges. It also means that users won't die nearly as often from inconsistent doses, contamination, mislabeling, etc. It also means that gang warfare that is killing young people in our country and many others will stop over time. Honestly what is it that's so hard to understand about any of this? It's so obviously a projection of biases held by a certain majority, most of whom probably have their own legal drug of choice. People who uphold prohibition have a lot of blood on their hands and yet were expected to tolerate these buffoons and pretend that they're not criminals and closet fascists. It's a disgrace!
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
"Well, the reality on the ground says that rape being illegal does not actually make it impossible." Hell of a logic! Guess that means we should throw laws out the window and focus on making rapes safer and more enjoyable for rape victims? Inb4 "consent": that ship sailed long ago once addiction came on the scene.
- el_nahual 6y ago
  This comparison is so spectacularly wrong that it barely warrants a response, but here it is: Some acts (and what matters here is the act itself, not the legal definition of the act, so I refer to acts not crimes) are defined as an act on a third person without their consent. One definitionally cannot consensually murder or batter someone else. This is why it is correct for these acts to be illegal. Taking drugs is not in this category. While it is certainly possible to harm others through one's drug use, it is also certainly possible to take drugs without harming others. The whole point of legalization is to create structures and incentives that minimize the harm to 3rd parties. This is true of many vices: gambling, prostitution, alcohol, tobacco, pornography. In he case of drugs it is particularly strong because much of the harm that comes from drug consumption is harm that occurred in the production and distribution of said drugs.
  - otabdeveloper4 6y ago
    Did you read my post? Addicted people cannot consent.
- aaron-santos 6y ago
  Steelmanning is going to change your life.
retSava 6y ago
1) safer for those stuck in consumption patterns, yes. And safer on a whole by reducing the number of new consumers. An endorsement and social acceptance via legality is the wrong way I think. Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side. 2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices, do things that ethics otherwise hinder, etc. They will do this by, as today, move drugs outside of the system to avoid taxes, cut the stuff with other substances, etc. I think the 2) is such a strange argument. Following the 2) argument, are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans? Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc.
- roughly 6y ago
  Is there research on how the legalization of weed has affected the existing criminal sales & distribution networks?
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side. I don't believe that's a thing. Look up Research Chemicals when you have a minute. They're variations of existing drugs with pretty much the same properties, but not necessarily illegal, e.g. 1P-LSD. Governments react by making them illegal at some point, but you have quite a while until they actually are. Still, we're not seeing things like 1P-LSD in every household, because, most people don't avoid LSD for legal reasons.
- nickik 6y ago
  > 2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices That's why we have all those traffickers and the mafia running super markets and bakeries, they are so good at running business that they can beat any capitalist enterprise. And if you are simply referring to normal business, that do tax fraud, its the same problem as literally every other business. Are you against all business because people try to avoid taxes? > are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans No, rather not give them a trade where being the worst nets big profits where there is opportunity for a lot of extra crime because the job is already criminal, so why does it matter. > Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc. What % of the cigarette market is that? Likely less then 0.1%. How many super rich successful black market cigarette millionaires are there?

mc32 6y ago

How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction? Ok, so I don’t get adulterated drugs, that still doesn’t do anything for the addiction. Are we then going to actively discourage people from doing drugs? If so how? What effective form does that take?

ch4s3 6y ago
Decriminalization and legalization brings peoples addiction out of the kind of hiding that prohibition requires. This makes it easier and safer for people to seek addiction services, and easier for their loved ones to spot their problematic use earlier. Portugal is testament to this. Also consider places like the Netherlands or various states in the US where cannabis is legally available. What you see there is that other drug use shifts to cannabis which is relatively safer than alcohol or opioids. You also see declining rates of use among teenagers as it become less mysterious and dangerous but rather common and uncool.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Cigarettes are legal yet many Western countries have been successful at driving down their use.
- mc32 6y ago
  Do you think if we made them illegal use would go up or go down?
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    Did people stop drinking alcohol during prohibition?
    - mc32 6y ago
      That wasn’t the question, but rather, did consumption go down? I believe the answer was yes, it did go down but alcohol is so ingrained in society for so many millennia that prohibiting it will not shut off consumption.
elmomle 6y ago
Legalization is one key part; destigmatization is the other. Those who understand addiction, either first-hand or through research, understand that the root problem is not the drug/habit; the drug/habit tends to be the addict's best known way to sooth immense psychological pain. Shame drives addiction in deeper. So to actually help addicts, one needs to destigmatize the conversation, allow people to say "Hey, I'm in a bad place and I need help" with minimal fear of being judged (the addict tends to already hate their self pretty profoundly). And given how human nature works, destigmatization depends on legality. Stopping addiction isn't about judging addicts; it's about understanding the root cause of their problem (which tends to be intense emotional trauma) and giving them empathic help to start building healthy relationships.
- mc32 6y ago
  I’m not saying we punish the user, but rather find a way to minimize availability. Also, trauma is not always a cause for addiction. Lots of people suffer trauma and don’t get addicted, conversely we also have people with little trauma who get addicted.
  - elmomle 6y ago
    https://silvermistrecovery.com/blog/2018/09/2019-guide-the-link-between-childhood-trauma-and/ https://silvermistrecovery.com/blog/2018/09/2019-guide-the-l... It isn't a 1:1 causal link--virtually nothing is. But there's very strong evidence that unprocessed trauma is one of the core drivers of addiction. It's constructive to think of drugs and addictive behaviors as emotional crutches. You don't help people with problems walking by making crutches illegal; you do so by focusing on treating the root cause, which may include taking the crutch away in a properly supportive therapeutic environment. I'd also point you to the experiments dubbed "Rat Park" (https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-teach-us-about-addiction https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-tea...). Addiction is ultimately a social/emotional disease; the drug/habit is the symptom.
    - mc32 6y ago
      I’m sympathetic to your POV. However, sometimes there is no root cause other than “Hyacinth had me try sniffing some glue and I got hooked”. Sure, some kids can say “no”, but many give in to peer pressure and after a few times there is no going back. I do agree with a good therapeutic environment, but relapses are common, so it takes vigilance and follow up and so on.
el_nahual 6y ago
Again, drugs exist and are available now. So you shouldn't think of the options as "drugs are legal and available vs drugs are illegal and unavailable". They are available in either case! Making drugs legal means that one can control the points and conditions of distribution. So one could require licensing, education, or even controlled application. Sure, you can take good, cheap, heroin, but you have to take it here. Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal drugs, the more appealing illegal drugs become, so there's a safety -maximizing point somewhere along that integral.
- tremon 6y ago
  To draw a parallel with filesharing: "Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal movies, the more appealing illegal downloads become, so there's a profit-maximizing point somewhere along that integral." We've all witnessed the war-on-piracy that the powers-that-be have been pursuing a few decades ago, and we've all seen it fail spectacularly. Similar to the drugs story, by going after the Napster-type filesharing systems, they created a much more lucrative black market where criminals made millions by being the first to crack protection schemes. What reduced the problem to a manageable level? Apple Music/Spotify/Netflix. By making it legal to do entertainment in the confines of their own home, the harm to society at large was much reduced. And even better, because everything is legal now, production companies have much better insights into their market, and can better produce content that their users actually want.
  - mc32 6y ago
    If we look at entertainment we see that ease of access has increased viewership (consumption). In terms of drugs we want to wean people off of addiction. Of course making drug use less dangerous is better than not, but it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances.
    - tremon 6y ago
      it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances. The experiences of Portugal and The Netherlands show otherwise: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-a... https://drugpolicy.org/blog/america-take-note-three-lessons-holland-learned-after-decades-evolving-its-drug-policy https://drugpolicy.org/blog/america-take-note-three-lessons-...
btilly 6y ago
Do you have any evidence that using law enforcement is reducing drug use? I sure don't! As for actively discouraging people, we are actively discouraging people from using tobacco. And it seems to be working pretty well. I recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk to challenge your assumptions on this. (Retired police captain arguing against the drug war.)
luckylion 6y ago
> How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction? It's easier for a 15-yo to buy weed than to buy alcohol (where weed is illegal, I should add).
thisisbrians 6y ago
Better educating the masses about dosing and risks prevents some of the worst outcomes (like overdoses). Fostering a culture where the risks are discussed openly in society might help folks make better decisions and avoid addiction in the first place. Additionally, having the option for medically supervised detox (and the drugs required to do that safely) without fear of prosecution is a complete game-changer. Really, I think this represents a shift in mindset from punishing individuals for their addictions to handling it as a societal issue that needs a comprehensive solution. Here's a good read on how Portugal has handled things (to quite some success): https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/ https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalizatio...

cassianoleal 6y ago

It also means when you do have problems you can seek help and talk openly about them instead of diving further down the hole, afraid of getting caught. With illegality there's no hope. With legalisation there's at least a shimmer of it.

3131s 6y ago
It's also means your life isn't wrecked even further by years of incarceration and criminal charges. It also means that users won't die nearly as often from inconsistent doses, contamination, mislabeling, etc. It also means that gang warfare that is killing young people in our country and many others will stop over time. Honestly what is it that's so hard to understand about any of this? It's so obviously a projection of biases held by a certain majority, most of whom probably have their own legal drug of choice. People who uphold prohibition have a lot of blood on their hands and yet were expected to tolerate these buffoons and pretend that they're not criminals and closet fascists. It's a disgrace!

otabdeveloper4 6y ago

"Well, the reality on the ground says that rape being illegal does not actually make it impossible." Hell of a logic! Guess that means we should throw laws out the window and focus on making rapes safer and more enjoyable for rape victims? Inb4 "consent": that ship sailed long ago once addiction came on the scene.

el_nahual 6y ago
This comparison is so spectacularly wrong that it barely warrants a response, but here it is: Some acts (and what matters here is the act itself, not the legal definition of the act, so I refer to acts not crimes) are defined as an act on a third person without their consent. One definitionally cannot consensually murder or batter someone else. This is why it is correct for these acts to be illegal. Taking drugs is not in this category. While it is certainly possible to harm others through one's drug use, it is also certainly possible to take drugs without harming others. The whole point of legalization is to create structures and incentives that minimize the harm to 3rd parties. This is true of many vices: gambling, prostitution, alcohol, tobacco, pornography. In he case of drugs it is particularly strong because much of the harm that comes from drug consumption is harm that occurred in the production and distribution of said drugs.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  Did you read my post? Addicted people cannot consent.
aaron-santos 6y ago
Steelmanning is going to change your life.

retSava 6y ago

1) safer for those stuck in consumption patterns, yes. And safer on a whole by reducing the number of new consumers. An endorsement and social acceptance via legality is the wrong way I think. Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side. 2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices, do things that ethics otherwise hinder, etc. They will do this by, as today, move drugs outside of the system to avoid taxes, cut the stuff with other substances, etc. I think the 2) is such a strange argument. Following the 2) argument, are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans? Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc.

roughly 6y ago
Is there research on how the legalization of weed has affected the existing criminal sales & distribution networks?
luckylion 6y ago
> Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side. I don't believe that's a thing. Look up Research Chemicals when you have a minute. They're variations of existing drugs with pretty much the same properties, but not necessarily illegal, e.g. 1P-LSD. Governments react by making them illegal at some point, but you have quite a while until they actually are. Still, we're not seeing things like 1P-LSD in every household, because, most people don't avoid LSD for legal reasons.
nickik 6y ago
> 2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices That's why we have all those traffickers and the mafia running super markets and bakeries, they are so good at running business that they can beat any capitalist enterprise. And if you are simply referring to normal business, that do tax fraud, its the same problem as literally every other business. Are you against all business because people try to avoid taxes? > are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans No, rather not give them a trade where being the worst nets big profits where there is opportunity for a lot of extra crime because the job is already criminal, so why does it matter. > Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc. What % of the cigarette market is that? Likely less then 0.1%. How many super rich successful black market cigarette millionaires are there?