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The only problem I see with legalizing all prescription drugs is that a lot of people would use them off label or in inappropriate context (ie taking antibiotic

The only problem I see with legalizing all prescription drugs is that a lot of people would use them off label or in inappropriate context (ie taking antibiotics when you have a viral infection). I think this could be managed with an appropriate regularity framework that I think should probably apply to psychoactive drugs as well. This would be some sort of licensing system. Anyone can get a license to buy antibiotics but it requires taking class and passing a test that demonstrates you understand the risks and agreeing to follow certain rules and procedures. A procedure for antibiotics might be that you agree you'll only purchase them if you have tested positive for a bacterial infection. All drugs should only be purchased for yourself (unless you have a distribution license which should be more difficult to get). If you get caught breaking any of those rules, you lose your license for some period of time and are subject to other penalties. I think for something like antibiotics, no one would bother getting licenses as it's not worth the time of getting and keeping your license up to date (licenses would likely require annual renewal and continuing education). You'd just go through your doctor the couple times a decade you need them. But this could be hugely beneficial for a diabetic person that doesn't want to go to a doctor once a month to get their insulin prescription renewed. Or women that want birth control without paying doctor fees. Yes, it would result in less revenue going to our medical system but that seems like a plus side in those cases. I don't deny that some drugs are incredibly dangerous but our society allows a lot of dangerous activities. If I want to buy a BASE jumping rig, I could do that and then start legally jumping off of cliffs with it as soon as it arrived. My chances of dying doing that are far higher than my chances of dying while taking most drugs (maybe some like fentanyl are exceptions). Would you consider whoever sold me the rig a murderer? Or do you think I'm an adult and should be allowed to make my own decisions as long as they're well informed?

cjbgkagh 4y ago
surreptitiously - adverb in a way that attempts to avoid notice or attention; secretively. "Mary surreptitiously slipped from the room" i.e. it was something done to you without informing you. To use your analogy it would be like blind folding someone and pushing them off a cliff (with base jumping gear on) if they lived I'd consider that at least attempted murder. But with secretly giving drugs to someone there is no way to avoid interference with the workings of a sound mind so that I think is on par with murder.
- GoldenRacer 4y ago
  I thought you were implying companies adding addictive substance to their products in attempt to get people hooked which I thought a regulatory framework would fix. If coke puts cocaine back in their drink, it would require a license to buy so they wouldn't be able to do it without informing people. Are you actually talking about something more akin to date rape? I'm really not sure if I understand how that might work. You slip someone opioids without them knowing until they're addicted and then you stop but reveal to them they're addicted to opioids hoping they continue that addiction? Or do you stop once they're addicted and just hope they figure it out? Or you just keep feeding their addiction without them knowing until you feed them a dose they OD on?
  - cjbgkagh 4y ago
    > Criminal gangs use this tactic fairly frequently as an alternative to killing someone but I believe it should solicit the same punishment. Criminal gangs tend to take the more active holding people down and injecting people with drugs approach than the slow sneaky process. But once addicted the addict is now reliant on the gang for their continued supply and can be controlled. The real life instances I’m aware of was done on people who were preparing to testify against their family members in a gang. It was a speedball injection. But is has been depicted in fiction such as in the move ‘the town’. My relatives were involved in sheltering them to get them clean, but as soon as they went home the gang found them and got them addicted again.
    - GoldenRacer 4y ago
      Gotcha. I guess I don't understand why you'd expect that behavior to become more common as a result of drug legalization. All that would still be very illegal (I imagine injecting someone with even a completely safe saline solution without their consent would be considered assault in most jurisdictions). The type of people that are comfortable doing that clearly don't care about the law. I just don't see drugs being illegal as a limiting factor on crimes of that nature in today's society. I'd also like to mention that a major source of funding for many criminal gangs is the black market sale of drugs. If we legalized and regulated drugs, they'd lose that source of money and I'd personally expect to see a decline in organized crime.
vidarh 4y ago
Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains. I think legalisation ought to be driven largely evidence of harm, not just by abuse of the drugs, but systemic harm both of legalisation vs. criminalization, but with a reasonably high level of ability to take personal risk. E.g. for drugs where we know addiction drives crime, even fairly substantial harm from the drug itself might still mean legalisation is a net gain. Heroin might fit in that bucket (a small UK trial with prescribing it saw offending rates for those in the trial drop dramatically, and so reducing net harm to society). At the same time high risk may justify a high degree of regulation of specific drugs to ensure people are at least aware of the dangers, and aim to reduce recruitment.
- nobody9999 4y ago
  >Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains. That particular cat is well out of the bag as, according to the WHO[0], a full 1/3 of antibiotics users obtained their last doses without a prescription. In fact, many countries (unlike the US) don't require prescriptions for antibiotics. Which really sucks, as antibiotic resistance will (barring some serious scientific breakthrough(s)) likely be a huge problem over the next century or so. I don't have a good answer WRT that, but agree with much of what you wrote. [0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/21-11-2022-1-in-3-use-antibiotics-without-prescription--who-europe-s-study-shows https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/21-11-2022-1-in-3-use-a...
  - GoldenRacer 4y ago
    And that's just humans using antibiotics. Roughly 2/3rds of antibiotics are used for veterinary purposes. But yes, we need to be much more careful with how we use antibiotics than we currently are and I also don't have a good answer for how that happens.

cjbgkagh 4y ago

surreptitiously - adverb in a way that attempts to avoid notice or attention; secretively. "Mary surreptitiously slipped from the room" i.e. it was something done to you without informing you. To use your analogy it would be like blind folding someone and pushing them off a cliff (with base jumping gear on) if they lived I'd consider that at least attempted murder. But with secretly giving drugs to someone there is no way to avoid interference with the workings of a sound mind so that I think is on par with murder.

GoldenRacer 4y ago
I thought you were implying companies adding addictive substance to their products in attempt to get people hooked which I thought a regulatory framework would fix. If coke puts cocaine back in their drink, it would require a license to buy so they wouldn't be able to do it without informing people. Are you actually talking about something more akin to date rape? I'm really not sure if I understand how that might work. You slip someone opioids without them knowing until they're addicted and then you stop but reveal to them they're addicted to opioids hoping they continue that addiction? Or do you stop once they're addicted and just hope they figure it out? Or you just keep feeding their addiction without them knowing until you feed them a dose they OD on?
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  > Criminal gangs use this tactic fairly frequently as an alternative to killing someone but I believe it should solicit the same punishment. Criminal gangs tend to take the more active holding people down and injecting people with drugs approach than the slow sneaky process. But once addicted the addict is now reliant on the gang for their continued supply and can be controlled. The real life instances I’m aware of was done on people who were preparing to testify against their family members in a gang. It was a speedball injection. But is has been depicted in fiction such as in the move ‘the town’. My relatives were involved in sheltering them to get them clean, but as soon as they went home the gang found them and got them addicted again.
  - GoldenRacer 4y ago
    Gotcha. I guess I don't understand why you'd expect that behavior to become more common as a result of drug legalization. All that would still be very illegal (I imagine injecting someone with even a completely safe saline solution without their consent would be considered assault in most jurisdictions). The type of people that are comfortable doing that clearly don't care about the law. I just don't see drugs being illegal as a limiting factor on crimes of that nature in today's society. I'd also like to mention that a major source of funding for many criminal gangs is the black market sale of drugs. If we legalized and regulated drugs, they'd lose that source of money and I'd personally expect to see a decline in organized crime.

vidarh 4y ago

Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains. I think legalisation ought to be driven largely evidence of harm, not just by abuse of the drugs, but systemic harm both of legalisation vs. criminalization, but with a reasonably high level of ability to take personal risk. E.g. for drugs where we know addiction drives crime, even fairly substantial harm from the drug itself might still mean legalisation is a net gain. Heroin might fit in that bucket (a small UK trial with prescribing it saw offending rates for those in the trial drop dramatically, and so reducing net harm to society). At the same time high risk may justify a high degree of regulation of specific drugs to ensure people are at least aware of the dangers, and aim to reduce recruitment.

nobody9999 4y ago
>Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains. That particular cat is well out of the bag as, according to the WHO[0], a full 1/3 of antibiotics users obtained their last doses without a prescription. In fact, many countries (unlike the US) don't require prescriptions for antibiotics. Which really sucks, as antibiotic resistance will (barring some serious scientific breakthrough(s)) likely be a huge problem over the next century or so. I don't have a good answer WRT that, but agree with much of what you wrote. [0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/21-11-2022-1-in-3-use-antibiotics-without-prescription--who-europe-s-study-shows https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/21-11-2022-1-in-3-use-a...
- GoldenRacer 4y ago
  And that's just humans using antibiotics. Roughly 2/3rds of antibiotics are used for veterinary purposes. But yes, we need to be much more careful with how we use antibiotics than we currently are and I also don't have a good answer for how that happens.