20 ms·

What’s the basis of the argument for prohibition if someone isn’t hurting others?

by tmountain 4y ago

avsteele 4y ago
"This thing is inherently too risky/dangerous to use ... like firing a gun off into the air"
- watwut 4y ago
  Isn't the whole objection that it might hurt others?
- metadat 4y ago
  This is dead wrong, and an extremely ignorant take. Firing a gun into the air is ill-advised and illegal because such bullets have a tendency to randomly impact and maim or murder bystanders within the radius of a couple of miles. https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/02/15/firing-a-gun-into-the-air-can-kill-someone/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/02/15/firi... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/can-falling-bullets-kill-you.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/can-falling-bull...
  - Vecr 4y ago
    Yeah, firing a gun into the dirt is much safer. If you have a giggle switch make sure you can handle the recoil, otherwise you might shoot yourself or someone else in the foot.
- avsteele 4y ago
  I'm telling you what the argument is. Not endorsing it. That's why its in quotes.
Tao3300 4y ago
It usually boils down to someone's sky daddy not liking it.
- magila 4y ago
  Drug prohibition in the US was motivated more by hate for black/brown people than sky daddies.
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    There’s a lot of truth in this. Cocaine was legal into the 20th century and prior to prohibition blacks weren’t allowed to drink in certain places. For recreation cocaine became something they could use and at rising murder and violence in black communities was blamed on “cocaine crazed negros”. https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fiends-are-a-new-southern-menace-murder-and-insanity.html https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fi...
  - kodah 4y ago
    In the instance of marijuana I agree, but alcohol prohibition was primarily influenced by political morals (Progressives at the time) and the Protestant church [1]: > Led by pietistic Protestants, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption. Many communities introduced alcohol bans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and enforcement of these new prohibition laws became a topic of debate. Prohibition supporters, called "drys", presented it as a battle for public morals and health. The movement was taken up by progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic and Republican parties, and gained a national grassroots base through the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After 1900, it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized "wet" supporters from the wealthy Roman Catholic and German Lutheran communities, but the influence of these groups receded from 1917 following the entry of the U.S. into the First World War against Germany. Direct evidence is that we still call tax on alcohol and tobacco "sin tax". Other psychedelics were more popular in white communities. For instance, American Counterculture started in the 1960s and by 1966 Congress passed the Drug Abuse and Control Amendment. This was directly to address magic mushroom and LSD use. By 1970 we had the Controlled Substances Act which placed all psychedelics under Schedule I. The only exception being for Native Americans. [2] Cocaine is a bit more interesting because it actually was commercially viable for a long time. It was in everything from Coca-Cola to wine and cigarettes. It was banned in 1914 with the Harrison Act. [3] This one was banned for a mix of legit and racist reasons. It's documented that internationally there was more crime due to addiction spreading like wildfire after the Spanish-American and Philippine-America wars. On the other hand, the language used in the US to gain traction to ban it was entirely racist and inaccurate as most users of Cocaine were white. [4] Nixon did aim Marijuana enforcement at the Black community. Rhetoric in the 1800's used racist language to get the bills passed, but primary users were white. Almost all other prohibitions had to do with morals, religion, and crime. Sometimes it was a mix of all of the above. The commonality in almost all prohibitions was putting more of ones opponents in jail. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat... [2]: https://psychable.com/history/history-of-psychedelics-in-america https://psychable.com/history/history-of-psychedelics-in-ame... [3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8473543/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8473543/ [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act
comrh 4y ago
Societal harm
tastyfreeze 4y ago
With the welfare state that exists, a common argument is that people that destroy their bodies or brains are a burden on "society".
- heap_perms 4y ago
  I sincerely think that even if all drugs were legal, the rate of consumption wouldn't necessarily increase much. "People who take drugs "don't give a damn if they're legal, generally speaking.
  - tastyfreeze 4y ago
    I agree. I don't think there should be a prohibition on any drugs as it is a personal choice and humans have been drug consumers for millennia. Drug use isn't something that can be legislated away.
    - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
      > humans have been drug consumers for millennia I don’t find this argument convincing at all in the modern era. Synthetic drugs and even commercialized organic drugs are significantly more potent than anything that could be found a century ago. Synthetic cannabinoids are vastly more addictive and dangerous than cannabis ever could be, for example. Synthetic drugs like MPDV are known to produce compulsive redosing even in people who could moderate their intake of traditional drugs like cocaine. You can’t compare what’s available now to historic drugs.
    - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      At a minimum, regulation is still needed, with criminals penalties for violating the regulations. Civil suits can only reach so far. Make the really hard stuff only available by prescription.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    I don’t know about that. For another perspective, if alcohol and nicotine became illegal then the amount of alcohol and nicotine consumed would go down. Not to zero, but it wouldn’t stay the same. We’ve already seen evidence of this during prohibition and in areas where the legal age to buy nicotine has been raised. Prohibition has become known as a failure because there was still a vibrant underground alcohol trade, but it didn’t mean that everyone continued drinking at the same rate. It really did reduce alcohol consumption.
reducesuffering 4y ago
Imagine opioid pills were OTC. For a lot of people, they will initially be instant feel-good happy pills, even though people know there will be disastrous repercussions to taking them indefinitely. How many people go through bouts of severe depression? Won't some percentage of them, in moments of weakness, decide to try the opioid pills, feel good, and get sucked in? Shouldn't we as a society, try to curb humanity's worst impulses for their greater good, like parents do for their unknowing child?
- justinator 4y ago
  I hear what you're saying, and generally I agree. But then I also see how alcohol (which for all intents and purposes will be our stand-in for opioids) abuse has ripped apart lives and families.
- frant-hartm 4y ago
  No we shouldn't. There is a big difference between a parent safely bringing up a child and a state interfering with what an adult person does to themselves. Otherwise you open a can of greater good worms. If you have money, opioids are easily available via dealers throughout the world and there is no epidemic of addicts. Yes there are individual cases, but most of these would be destroying their lives in some other available way if opiods weren't available, like heavy use of alcohol.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    > opioids are easily available via dealers throughout the world and there is no epidemic of addicts There is absolutely an epidemic of opioid addicts.
    - frant-hartm 4y ago
      Let's agree to disagree.
  - xp84 4y ago
    This is an area where we must acknowledge that one's "values" frame of reference is inextricably linked to how you decide this question. Yes, we definitely are sacrificing some of everyone's bodily autonomy because we think it's less bad than the consequences of putting no limits on it. Caffeine, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Cannabis, Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, Fentanyl, biological weapons and on some parallel track: BB gun, .22, Glock, AR-15, automatic rifle, RPG, cannon, tank, land mines, nuclear warhead If there's even one thing on the above list that you'd not want to be automatically OK for every person in the world to own and operate (at least on a "until you hurt someone" basis), then you're putting an arbitrary limit which values "preventing likely harms to others" over absolute autonomy. Even if you'd allow the warhead I don't think either of us can be said to be 'right' or 'wrong' -- just that it's most productive if we acknowledge which "paramount value" (perfect freedom vs. reduction in predictable harms to innocent others) we are prioritizing, and acknowledge that we have to make a significant sacrifice in the other one in order to do that.
ren_engineer 4y ago
it was supported by progressives and feminists in the early 1900s and actually resulted in fewer deaths from alcohol and lower domestic violence. The anti-prohibition rhetoric in modern times was essentially manufactured by corporate interests to imply it doesn't work https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibition-alcohol-public-health-crime-benefits https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit... https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffrage-metoo/ https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffra...
- TylerE 4y ago
  Uh, that’s not exactly a complete picture. Prohibition also allowed the mafia to gain a foothold in the US.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    In the same sense so did police officers and departments that looked the other way.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Has nothing to do with the fact that prohibition reduced drinking and domestic violence sharply.
- throwaway742 4y ago
  It also resulted in the rise of gangsters like Al Capone.

What’s the basis of the argument for prohibition if someone isn’t hurting others?

avsteele 4y ago

"This thing is inherently too risky/dangerous to use ... like firing a gun off into the air"

watwut 4y ago
Isn't the whole objection that it might hurt others?
metadat 4y ago
This is dead wrong, and an extremely ignorant take. Firing a gun into the air is ill-advised and illegal because such bullets have a tendency to randomly impact and maim or murder bystanders within the radius of a couple of miles. https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/02/15/firing-a-gun-into-the-air-can-kill-someone/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/02/15/firi... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/can-falling-bullets-kill-you.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/can-falling-bull...
- Vecr 4y ago
  Yeah, firing a gun into the dirt is much safer. If you have a giggle switch make sure you can handle the recoil, otherwise you might shoot yourself or someone else in the foot.
avsteele 4y ago
I'm telling you what the argument is. Not endorsing it. That's why its in quotes.

Tao3300 4y ago

It usually boils down to someone's sky daddy not liking it.

magila 4y ago
Drug prohibition in the US was motivated more by hate for black/brown people than sky daddies.
- nemo44x 4y ago
  There’s a lot of truth in this. Cocaine was legal into the 20th century and prior to prohibition blacks weren’t allowed to drink in certain places. For recreation cocaine became something they could use and at rising murder and violence in black communities was blamed on “cocaine crazed negros”. https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fiends-are-a-new-southern-menace-murder-and-insanity.html https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fi...
- kodah 4y ago
  In the instance of marijuana I agree, but alcohol prohibition was primarily influenced by political morals (Progressives at the time) and the Protestant church [1]: > Led by pietistic Protestants, prohibitionists first attempted to end the trade in alcoholic drinks during the 19th century. They aimed to heal what they saw as an ill society beset by alcohol-related problems such as alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption. Many communities introduced alcohol bans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and enforcement of these new prohibition laws became a topic of debate. Prohibition supporters, called "drys", presented it as a battle for public morals and health. The movement was taken up by progressives in the Prohibition, Democratic and Republican parties, and gained a national grassroots base through the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After 1900, it was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League. Opposition from the beer industry mobilized "wet" supporters from the wealthy Roman Catholic and German Lutheran communities, but the influence of these groups receded from 1917 following the entry of the U.S. into the First World War against Germany. Direct evidence is that we still call tax on alcohol and tobacco "sin tax". Other psychedelics were more popular in white communities. For instance, American Counterculture started in the 1960s and by 1966 Congress passed the Drug Abuse and Control Amendment. This was directly to address magic mushroom and LSD use. By 1970 we had the Controlled Substances Act which placed all psychedelics under Schedule I. The only exception being for Native Americans. [2] Cocaine is a bit more interesting because it actually was commercially viable for a long time. It was in everything from Coca-Cola to wine and cigarettes. It was banned in 1914 with the Harrison Act. [3] This one was banned for a mix of legit and racist reasons. It's documented that internationally there was more crime due to addiction spreading like wildfire after the Spanish-American and Philippine-America wars. On the other hand, the language used in the US to gain traction to ban it was entirely racist and inaccurate as most users of Cocaine were white. [4] Nixon did aim Marijuana enforcement at the Black community. Rhetoric in the 1800's used racist language to get the bills passed, but primary users were white. Almost all other prohibitions had to do with morals, religion, and crime. Sometimes it was a mix of all of the above. The commonality in almost all prohibitions was putting more of ones opponents in jail. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat... [2]: https://psychable.com/history/history-of-psychedelics-in-america https://psychable.com/history/history-of-psychedelics-in-ame... [3]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8473543/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8473543/ [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act

comrh 4y ago

Societal harm

tastyfreeze 4y ago

With the welfare state that exists, a common argument is that people that destroy their bodies or brains are a burden on "society".

heap_perms 4y ago
I sincerely think that even if all drugs were legal, the rate of consumption wouldn't necessarily increase much. "People who take drugs "don't give a damn if they're legal, generally speaking.
- tastyfreeze 4y ago
  I agree. I don't think there should be a prohibition on any drugs as it is a personal choice and humans have been drug consumers for millennia. Drug use isn't something that can be legislated away.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    > humans have been drug consumers for millennia I don’t find this argument convincing at all in the modern era. Synthetic drugs and even commercialized organic drugs are significantly more potent than anything that could be found a century ago. Synthetic cannabinoids are vastly more addictive and dangerous than cannabis ever could be, for example. Synthetic drugs like MPDV are known to produce compulsive redosing even in people who could moderate their intake of traditional drugs like cocaine. You can’t compare what’s available now to historic drugs.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    At a minimum, regulation is still needed, with criminals penalties for violating the regulations. Civil suits can only reach so far. Make the really hard stuff only available by prescription.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  I don’t know about that. For another perspective, if alcohol and nicotine became illegal then the amount of alcohol and nicotine consumed would go down. Not to zero, but it wouldn’t stay the same. We’ve already seen evidence of this during prohibition and in areas where the legal age to buy nicotine has been raised. Prohibition has become known as a failure because there was still a vibrant underground alcohol trade, but it didn’t mean that everyone continued drinking at the same rate. It really did reduce alcohol consumption.

reducesuffering 4y ago

Imagine opioid pills were OTC. For a lot of people, they will initially be instant feel-good happy pills, even though people know there will be disastrous repercussions to taking them indefinitely. How many people go through bouts of severe depression? Won't some percentage of them, in moments of weakness, decide to try the opioid pills, feel good, and get sucked in? Shouldn't we as a society, try to curb humanity's worst impulses for their greater good, like parents do for their unknowing child?

justinator 4y ago
I hear what you're saying, and generally I agree. But then I also see how alcohol (which for all intents and purposes will be our stand-in for opioids) abuse has ripped apart lives and families.
frant-hartm 4y ago
No we shouldn't. There is a big difference between a parent safely bringing up a child and a state interfering with what an adult person does to themselves. Otherwise you open a can of greater good worms. If you have money, opioids are easily available via dealers throughout the world and there is no epidemic of addicts. Yes there are individual cases, but most of these would be destroying their lives in some other available way if opiods weren't available, like heavy use of alcohol.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > opioids are easily available via dealers throughout the world and there is no epidemic of addicts There is absolutely an epidemic of opioid addicts.
  - frant-hartm 4y ago
    Let's agree to disagree.
- xp84 4y ago
  This is an area where we must acknowledge that one's "values" frame of reference is inextricably linked to how you decide this question. Yes, we definitely are sacrificing some of everyone's bodily autonomy because we think it's less bad than the consequences of putting no limits on it. Caffeine, Alcohol, Cigarettes, Cannabis, Cocaine, Meth, Heroin, Fentanyl, biological weapons and on some parallel track: BB gun, .22, Glock, AR-15, automatic rifle, RPG, cannon, tank, land mines, nuclear warhead If there's even one thing on the above list that you'd not want to be automatically OK for every person in the world to own and operate (at least on a "until you hurt someone" basis), then you're putting an arbitrary limit which values "preventing likely harms to others" over absolute autonomy. Even if you'd allow the warhead I don't think either of us can be said to be 'right' or 'wrong' -- just that it's most productive if we acknowledge which "paramount value" (perfect freedom vs. reduction in predictable harms to innocent others) we are prioritizing, and acknowledge that we have to make a significant sacrifice in the other one in order to do that.

ren_engineer 4y ago

it was supported by progressives and feminists in the early 1900s and actually resulted in fewer deaths from alcohol and lower domestic violence. The anti-prohibition rhetoric in modern times was essentially manufactured by corporate interests to imply it doesn't work https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibition-alcohol-public-health-crime-benefits https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit... https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffrage-metoo/ https://time.com/5501680/prohibition-history-feminism-suffra...

TylerE 4y ago
Uh, that’s not exactly a complete picture. Prohibition also allowed the mafia to gain a foothold in the US.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  In the same sense so did police officers and departments that looked the other way.
- tomcam 4y ago
  Has nothing to do with the fact that prohibition reduced drinking and domestic violence sharply.
throwaway742 4y ago
It also resulted in the rise of gangsters like Al Capone.