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Very difficult to legalize and tax meth, which is what this guy mostly sold. It’s hugely addictive and harmful, and you can make it in a home lab. I was shocke

• gremloni 5y ago
  I agree but possession must never be a crime.
  • YeBanKo 5y ago
    Why not?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • gremloni 5y ago
      Because that’s low hanging fruit that lets cops run amok and it really makes no difference in the end. Go after the big guys and invest in rehab for the end user.
• lindseymysse 5y ago
  Err, aren't you on a programming website? Half of the people here are hopped up on meth their doctors gave them. We're as methed up as Germany in the 30's and 40's.
  • lindseymysse 5y ago
    downvotes provided by the local meth heads, lol
• ixacto 5y ago
  Alcohol and tobacco are also hugely addictive and harmful. This has been obvious for many years, yet the $$$ from these industries still keeps them afloat. Why should the government be allowed to tell me what I can and can't do with my body? If you want to meth yourself to death that's not hurting anyone else.
  • bawolff 5y ago
    > If you want to meth yourself to death that's not hurting anyone else. Desperate addicted people do desperate things that often do hurt others. That includes acoholics.
  • bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    alcohol and tobacco have increased sales taxes.
• trhway 5y ago
  The meth is ADHD medicine. Nobody is going to make it at home if it is made easy available. If society develops a reasonable culture of it's consumption we probably would see a boost of productivity and creativity instead of the growth of the wasteful prison industrial complex. >These radical criminal businessmen began as Communist partisans and Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and were sent to Guangdong province in southeast China for re-education in the 1960s and ’70s. Must be something in the communist Kool aid. Disproportionate share of the Russian businessmen of 199x with all it's ruthlessness, illegallity and violent crimes, raiding and takeovers came straight from the Young Communist organization bureaucracy.
  • cgh 5y ago
    My guess is supply would be constrained because of how addictive it is. You’d still end up with street-level dealers selling it. I could be wrong but it’s hard to see how cheap, legal, easily-available meth can lead to anything but an addiction crisis.
    • hellbannedguy 5y ago
      I'm ok with low level drug dealers still selling. Opening up a weed store is far from a sure thing. I know a few guys who smoke and they use dealers because of cost. Fine the drug dealers civil court. Get then where it hurts. Go after the dealers living in the nice home, driving the Mercedes Station Wagon. We are always going to find a reason to not legalize drugs. With the exception of antibiotics; Let's leagalize them all, including all those psychiatric drugs we need to pay $450 a session to get. Put a sticker on the bottle, "Want to have a few nights of fun, and many nights of misery open this bottle. And I know you the level headed guy who is strong willed and thinks you are the exception. Why take the risk. We have a poor social support system, and most rehabs are a joke." Make the tax reasonable, and put that money towards our homeless problem.
    • pas 5y ago
      It's already that. It's already unimaginably bad thanks to it being shunned into the shadows where most users are hidden, left behind to be eaten alive by their worst impulses. https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-the-least-of-us/ https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-t...
• vermilingua 5y ago
  7%, not one in 7, still an unthinkable number of people.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • cgh 5y ago
    Ugh, you are right, I misread. Thanks.
  • baldeagle 5y ago
    Thats 1 in 14. Still seems high (like apparently 1 in 14 people). I suspect it is very clumpy, especially if you put a time period restriction on it (which would likely lower the percentage)
    • deleted 5y ago
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    • BelenusMordred 5y ago
      I think many on this site really don't understand how prevalent drugs are in Australian society. As an Aussie that number doesn't seem big at all and is probably an underestimation.
      • kpennell 5y ago
        In somewhere like San Francisco, you really wouldn't meet that many middle/upper class people doing meth whereas it seems like somewhere like Melbourne, you would (it's called ice I think)
• version_five 5y ago
  I think drugs should be legal (or decriminalized) but probably with at least two categories, which no doubt causes it's own set of problems: 1. Recreational, like marijuana and alcohol and many hallucinogens, where regulating and taxing is the best solution, to deter organized crime and make sure people are getting the product they want to get 2. Harmful (and the definition is tough here) like meth and heroin, where the goal is something closer to medically supervised use, and breaking the habit where appropriate, but also making sure people are getting real drugs and not resorting to more dangerous alternatives or those of unknown origin. The point isn't that drugs are good, it's that people will do them anyway, so how do you remove the criminal element and keep people safer under the circumstances. I agree that they shouldn't sell meth at convenience stores, but someone addicted should be able to talk to a doctor and get it, and not have to buy some dangerous unknown thing off the street. I imagine if this happened, the next fight would be social control advocate groups pushing for currently legal drugs (alcohol) to me moved to my category 2. People's own puritan values and a hatred of the idea that someone else may be enjoying themselves in a way they don't endorse are a (the) main root cause of all the societal problems with drugs imo
  • rectang 5y ago
    The main question is not about the freedom of users, but about the freedom of the sort of entrepreneurs who read Hacker News to market legal drugs to heavy users as aggressively as possible. Addicts are where the money is. If you want to make bank on drugs, it's all about speeding up the downward spiral of addiction and extracting maximum value from addicts while they're spiraling.
  • cgh 5y ago
    Yeah, I agree on all points (I’m a proponent of legalization and live in a country with legal pot). I’ve witnessed first-hand the effects of prolonged meth addiction and it is not pretty. Your point of making it available by prescription is the good and obvious path. But will still be available as a party drug via illegal means of production and distribution.
    • pas 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
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• stickfigure 5y ago
  You are massively overstating the addictiveness of methamphetamine. You just said it yourself; one in seven Australians have tried it, and yet are not addicts. That's not a crisis, that's good news. I'm not a fan of meth, but I recognize propaganda when I see it. Meth has gotten (and still gets) the Reefer Madness treatment. From what I've observed, this narrative is so exaggerated as to be more or less false.
  • rp1 5y ago
    What evidence is there of meth not being super addictive and life destroying? The person you're replying to misread the statistic, which was actually 7% (not one-in-seven).
    • dylan604 5y ago
      Okay, but of that 7% how many of them suffered addiction and life destroying behaviors? I'm guess a large percentage of those users.
      • rp1 5y ago
        This study claims that there are 7.3 heavy meth users per 1000 15-49 year olds in Australia. Meaning 1 in 10 people who try meth become a heavy user. That seems like a lot to me, given the lifestyle heavy-users live. https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/estimating-number-regular-and-dependent-methamphetamine-users-australia https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/estimating-number-reg...
        • 55555 5y ago
          10% of drinkers are problem drinkers.
          • rp1 5y ago
            According to this study, only 10% of heavy drinkers are alcoholics. Obviously heavy drinkers are a small portion of total drinkers, so your 10% number is way off base. Even if it was correct, two wrongs don’t make a right. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN0J428D20141120 https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...
• strken 5y ago
  The stats I can find[0] give 6% lifetime usage of any amphetamine, where their definition includes Ritalin and pseudoephredrine without a prescription. Can't work out what percentage of lifetime use is meth without digging into the underlying whitepaper, although it looks like meth is about 50% of 12-month use. [0] https://nadk.flinders.edu.au/kb/methamphetamines/use-patterns https://nadk.flinders.edu.au/kb/methamphetamines/use-pattern...
• The_rationalist 5y ago
  Meth is legal see desoxyn
• dylan604 5y ago
  Somebody making $21B in meth didn't make it in a home lab.
• newsclues 5y ago
  https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm Legal meth
• arcticbull 5y ago
  Meth is already taxed in much of the United States via this convoluted drug tax stamp program. There's this whole fascinating process where their goal is to obviously get you on tax evasion, like Capone. But to make it legal, they have to make it possible for you to pay your taxes, without getting caught. So there's this whole anonymous no questions asked process where you can drop sacks of cash for your mandatory narcotics tax stamps. Some of the designs are truly amazing. [1] All drugs were decriminalized in Portugal in 2001 and saw Portugal saw their usage remain roughly constant. Their negative health and societal effects, however, plummeted - from among the worst in the EU to among the best in the EU. [2] I think legalization is a pretty obvious next step. Anybody who wants smack now can get smack, right now. Being illegal isn't making it any less accessible. I strongly believe that if it were legal, there wouldn't exactly be a flood of new drug users lining up at the dispensary to give crystal meth and black tar heroin a go. However not making them available is causing crime, sickness, violence and fueling a drug war that's hurting everyone. [1] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/why-do-states-tax-illegal-drugs https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/why-do-states-tax-ill... [2] 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...
  • gjs278 5y ago
    nobody pays the meth tax stamp, stop wasting space on the board by posting irrelevant shit
• ipnon 5y ago
  Wouldn't 7% having tried it, and the country being relatively safe and prosperous, suggest that meth and civil society are somewhat compatible? Interestingly, China appears to have more meth users per capita than Western countries like the US, with 0.5% or 13 million total Chinese users.
  • deleted 5y ago
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• pmoriarty 5y ago
  As long as we continue to discriminate between drugs we like or approve of, and those we're willing to put people in jail for, the drug war will never end. Those of us who are in favor of legalizing drugs on the principle of cognitive liberty -- that every adult should be free to do what they will with their own minds -- should support the legalization of all drugs, not just their favored drugs. We should also move away from blaming substances or their users for addiction, and look at what's missing in people's lives, at how the world is broken and lacking and how this dysfunction is leading people to seek solace in doing things that make them feel good, even to their own detriment. The war on drugs has plainly failed to solve addiction, and will continue to fail, because it does not get at the root of the problem, which lies not in the substances, nor in their users, nor their suppliers.
  • pugets 5y ago
    > We should also move away from blaming substances or their users for addiction, and look at what's missing in people's lives, at how the world is broken and lacking and how this dysfunction is leading people to seek solace in doing things that make them feel good, even to their own detriment. I think this is the right spirit, yet inconsistent with humanity. People are silly. They won't always (or even most of the time) do the rational thing for themselves, even when they know what it is. Some people start using drugs to fill a void, while others do it simply because they met the wrong person, or they wanted to see what it was like, or they wanted to impress their peer group, or any other silly reason. For examples of this, look no further than the rampant use of drugs in the entertainment industry. These actresses and rock stars can afford anything they want in life (especially counseling), yet so many still chase highs.
    • pmoriarty 5y ago
      "look no further than the rampant use of drugs in the entertainment industry. These actresses and rock stars can afford anything they want in life (especially counseling), yet so many still chase highs" They can afford things that money can buy, but they may be missing much of what money can't buy.
• vmception 5y ago
  A lot of people use meth thinking it is something else A lot of cocaine is meth, which maybe is used across more socioeconomic classes (all) than intentional meth there is probably a population that has only had meth but thought it was coke
  • ehvatum 5y ago
    > A lot of cocaine is meth Even adding lidocaine to meth is insufficient to disguise it as cocaine. The bite when tasting or snorting meth is immediate and distinct.
    • vmception 5y ago
      its just what nurses tell me they see but even there I’m sure there is a lot of misinformation I wish the state would just control the supply chain and be done with it
• qwerty456127 5y ago
  If so much people tried it yet most of them didn't become addicts this sounds like fantastic news to me. I used to be a "legalize everything, people should choose for themselves" guy until I tried meth once. I had absolutely no problem with it because I am lucky to be exceptionally addiction-proof but the way I felt during and after immediately led me to conclude "no, this can't be legalized, 95% of people will fail to resist". What you wrote, however, suggests people are way stronger than I expected.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• gwbas1c 5y ago
  > I was shocked to read in the article that one in seven Australians have tried it That's not very shocking when you consider how many children are exposed to ADHD medication. Adderall is indistinguishable from methamphetamine, Ritalin is a mirror image molecule of methamphetamine, and sometimes methamphetamine is prescribed for ADHD. Some times doctors will test a child for ADHD by prescribing medication and seeing if it improves or harms their behavior.
• cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Almost anybody who took MDMA that they bought at a rave or club or whatever in the 90s or early 2000s probably had one with methamphetamine in it, knowingly or unknowingly.
  • bongoman37 5y ago
    The MA part of MDMA is methamphetamine. They are pretty close structurally.
• Nursie 5y ago
  > I was shocked to read in the article that one in seven Australians have tried it. Is that true? That’s a real crisis if so. Is it a crisis? Or does it show things in a different light - if 1 in 7 Australians has tried it, and the sky hasn't fallen in yet, maybe that means it's not quite as awful as we've been led to believe by the tone of reportage around this drug? That's not to say it's good, and clearly there are massive negative consequences, but I see meth painted as a boogie-man, where the reality is likely more nuanced. This is an addictive, destructive drug, but there's more to a life spiraling out of control than just the substance at hand.
• satronaut 5y ago
  I think it's 1 in 70 who've tried it, not 1 in 7. While 1/70 is still substantial; ~1.3%, way less concerning than ~14% of the population
• octodog 5y ago
  Meth, when consumed in powdered form (speed), is a popular party drug in Australia, so I wouldn't be surprised. Most MDMA pills seem to have speed in them as well.
• raducu 5y ago
  I tried 2-fma, which is less recreational than pure meth. The dosage and means of administration make all the difference. Meth/desoxyn is the best rated drug for ADHD and I can see why.
• mschuster91 5y ago
  > Very difficult to legalize and tax meth, which is what this guy mostly sold. It’s hugely addictive and harmful, and you can make it in a home lab. Sell the hard stuff in apothecaries or specialized drug treatment centers at a price point competitive to street dealers and offer people a safe space to consume said drugs. That should at least get fatal overdoses and contamination issues under control, and the consumers are in a place where they can be reached out to by social services (housing assistance, mental health).
• Ginden 5y ago
  > you can make it in a home lab. Even if drugs can be made in home lab, almost no one is willing to do this. Even for metamphetamine (it's very easy to produce in home), 80% of meth in USA is imported from Mexico. Producing alcohol is so easy that you can do it accidentally - yet, majority of alcohol abusers just buy it.
• rm_-rf_slash 5y ago
  Couple of my in-laws are cops in rural New York and they’ve been saying for years that cooks have switched to bottles cause you can make it all in one then throw it out the window on the highway so you’re not otherwise caught with a lab in your trunk.
• krispyfi 5y ago
  A non-profit in the UK has put out a very detailed and convincing guide for how to regulate and tax meth. I personally think that there is no perfect solution, and regulation with taxation is the least of all evils. https://transformdrugs.org/publications/how-to-regulate-stimulants-a-practical-guide https://transformdrugs.org/publications/how-to-regulate-stim...