3 ms·

About 2/3 of American adults drink alcohol. About 0.3% of Americans took heroin within last year, x200 difference. Diagnosed alcohol vs heroin use disorder: 14

About 2/3 of American adults drink alcohol. About 0.3% of Americans took heroin within last year, x200 difference. Diagnosed alcohol vs heroin use disorder: 14.8M vs 1.1M, x13 difference. Addiction treatment stats: 50% alcohol, 5% heroin, x10 difference (percentages of all addiction treatments). The sole fact that the two are on the same scale in terms of deaths, delinquency and even visibility should indicate that that per capita hard of heroin and alcohol are incomparable. You sure can rock a concert while being high, not so much in withdrawal, and you wouldn't want you bus driver, nurse, teacher or pretty much anyone else around you be in either. But sure, feel free to count yet another dangerous, addictive, yet inexplicably socially accepted psychoactive drug in the same list with heroin - coffee.

haroldp 3y ago
> You sure can rock a concert while being high, not so much in withdrawal, and you wouldn't want you bus driver, nurse, teacher or pretty much anyone else around you be in either. These are problem behaviors with or without prohibition. And prohibition doesn't seem to reduce them. So you have not fixed them with prohibition, you have only imported the additional problems of cartel drug manufacturers, violent drug gangs, purity dosing and adulteration deaths, infectious disease spread through dirty needles, political corruption, an oversized militarized and swamped criminal justice system, and all the crime associated with needing to rob, steal and whore for drugs priced at 100X what they would cost if legal. > But sure, feel free to count yet another dangerous, addictive, yet inexplicably socially accepted psychoactive drug in the same list with heroin - coffee. Also pornography, sex, gambling, shopping, etc. Chemical dependance is neither required nor sufficient for addiction to be a destructive force in a person's life. What can't we ban if we decide it is sufficiently harmful?

haroldp 3y ago

> You sure can rock a concert while being high, not so much in withdrawal, and you wouldn't want you bus driver, nurse, teacher or pretty much anyone else around you be in either. These are problem behaviors with or without prohibition. And prohibition doesn't seem to reduce them. So you have not fixed them with prohibition, you have only imported the additional problems of cartel drug manufacturers, violent drug gangs, purity dosing and adulteration deaths, infectious disease spread through dirty needles, political corruption, an oversized militarized and swamped criminal justice system, and all the crime associated with needing to rob, steal and whore for drugs priced at 100X what they would cost if legal. > But sure, feel free to count yet another dangerous, addictive, yet inexplicably socially accepted psychoactive drug in the same list with heroin - coffee. Also pornography, sex, gambling, shopping, etc. Chemical dependance is neither required nor sufficient for addiction to be a destructive force in a person's life. What can't we ban if we decide it is sufficiently harmful?