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I don’t why people keep bizarre metaphors which make little as id that somehow reinforces their point. Fentanyl and knives are not quite the same (I hope I don

I don’t why people keep bizarre metaphors which make little as id that somehow reinforces their point. Fentanyl and knives are not quite the same (I hope I don’t have to try and explain why). More seriously though all those issues you mentioned are caused by flaws in the enforcement mechanism. Addressing them directly seems like a better idea than full legalization. As flawed as the current situation is how exactly would legalization of hard drugs improve it or be a net benefit for the society?

amanaplanacanal 3y ago
Many ways: put the murderous cartels out of business, stop ruining people’s lives with felony convictions, cut down on accidental overdoses from black market drugs of unknown contents and potency, less impetus for corruption in law enforcement. All the same benefits that we gained from repealing alcohol prohibition.
- alienicecream 3y ago
  The cartels are mostly killing each other, those people weren't going to be a great boon to society anyway, they would've found a different criminal enterprise to get into. And if you don't want to go to jail for doing drugs, you can just not do drugs.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > And if you don't want to go to jail for doing drugs, you can just not do drugs Or we could just not put people in jail for using drugs? What’s the point of that? Not that I think it it happens particularly frequently in most places these days.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      We put people in jail for using drugs because we put people in jail for having drugs because otherwise people could sell the drugs that they have in private, and at that point what are you even trying to make illegal? Sales from ordinary merchants subject to purity standards?
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        Generally in many places you would only be put in jail if you possess medium/large amounts of drugs and/or the state can prove that you intended to distribute them. > Sales from ordinary merchants subject to purity standards? You mean pharmacies?
        AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Generally in many places you would only be put in jail if you possess medium/large amounts of drugs and/or the state can prove that you intended to distribute them. Ordinary users often possess "medium" amounts of drugs, i.e. what might reasonably be a one month supply for an individual, which prosecutors will then claim proves intent to distribute, when it proves no more than that a user might prefer not to interact with drug dealers more than once a month. They often even possess "large" amounts of drugs, when the drug dealer cuts the drug 1000:1 with whatever trash and then the cops want to charge you based on the amount of white powder you have instead of the amount of the actual drug. The problem is that it's completely plausible for an ordinary user to have more of a drug for their own use than a dealer needs to sell at any given time. The dealer really only needs to have in their possession the amount being sold to the current user. If amounts below that threshold aren't illegal then actual dealers could feasibly avoid having more than that amount. If amounts smaller than that are illegal then you're putting users in jail. You can't have it both ways. > You mean pharmacies? Pharmacies, drug stores, convenience stores. The same places people buy bourbon and aspirin without having to worry that it's full of methanol or has been spiked with fentanyl or contains 5000mg when the last batch was 150mg.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > The cartels are mostly killing each other The cartels are mostly killing the people around them, i.e. people in poor neighborhoods. They're not exactly known for being discriminating or acting with due process. > And if you don't want to go to jail for doing drugs, you can just not do drugs. Drug tests have false positives. Being in possession of something doesn't prove you knew you had it. Cops lie. People plead guilty when they're innocent because of coercive plea bargaining, but a system that gave everyone their day in court would be infeasible to operate at this scale. A system that actually implemented innocent until proven guilty would allow 90+% of the guilty to go free because the state couldn't prove that the median case wasn't one of the preceding. It's easy to say we should just use a better system but people have been failing to implement one for generations.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      You can stop putting people in jail for using drugs without legalizing drugs.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        I'm honestly trying to understand why this would be useful. So you want to use drugs and now you know that you can do this without being arrested. But the pharmacy isn't allowed to sell them to you, you have to get them from the black market. You go to the guy on the street corner, you pay money, you get drugs. The law doesn't punish you for this so you can keep trying until you succeed. The law tries to punish him, but he's making money so there are ten thousand guys lined up behind him whenever he gets arrested. If you're the sort of person who uses them irresponsibly you get addicted. Then, because you have to buy them from the black market, what should have cost $10 for a bottle of 100 now costs $10/dose so you resort to stealing to get your fix. If you're the sort of person who uses them responsibly, you think you're getting a dose equivalent of 10mg of the drug but this time it's actually a dose equivalent of 200mg and you get addicted anyway, or overdose. Or the drug is cut with drain cleaner. Meanwhile you still have all the problems with gangs killing each other over territory etc. What advantage does this have over letting people buy drugs at the convenience store?
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  Alcohol is not particularly addictive compared to some opioids and some other hard drugs (for most people). But yeah, I agree with your points, I just don’t think they outweigh the potential societal harm.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    According to the NIH more than 10% of people age 12 or older, approximately 30 million people, are alcoholics. Some studies have shown that tobacco is more addictive than heroin and you can buy it at a convenience store. Being addictive is an argument for legalization, so that people know how much they're getting and don't become addicts by unintentionally taking too much.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > According to the NIH more than 10% of people age 12 or older, approximately 30 million people, are alcoholics. Even if that were true (which it isn’t) how would it be an argument for legalizing more potentially highly addictive and harmful substances even if we can’t manage the issues related to the ones which are currently legal? > tobacco is more addictive Nicotine. Which is not particularly harmful on its own and can be consumed in various different ways. > so that people know how much they're getting and don't become addicts by unintentionally taking too much. Which might work out fine if a significant proportion of the population were not incapable of behaving rationally and could fully control their actions. Unfortunately that’s not the case. They don’t really use the word ‘alcoholic’ that much and the criteria they use are not very strict and pretty vague.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > They don’t really use the word ‘alcoholic’ that much and the criteria they use are not very strict and pretty vague. They don't use the word "alcoholic" because they're medical professionals and call it "alcohol use disorder": https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-topics/alcohol-facts-and-statistics/alcohol-use-disorder-aud-united-states-age-groups-and-demographic-characteristics https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-to... > how would it be an argument for legalizing more potentially highly addictive and harmful substances even if we can’t manage the issues related to the ones which are currently legal? Because making the substances illegal only makes the problem worse. Addicts go to the black market where they get the substances in unknown concentrations, leading to a higher propensity for overdose and addiction. There are drugs (like amphetamine) that are highly addictive at high doses but at low doses have been show to actually reduce the propensity of the user to become addicted to other substances. Which makes it critical to ensure that the dose of the drug is known to the user. > Nicotine. Which is not particularly harmful on its own and can be consumed in various different ways. Tobacco. There is some evidence that nicotine in combination with other substances in tobacco products is more addictive than nicotine on its own. > Which might work out fine if a significant proportion of the population were not incapable of behaving rationally and could fully control their actions. Unfortunately that’s not the case. This is not a justification for making a problem worse instead of better.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Fentanyl and knives are not quite the same (I hope I don’t have to try and explain why). Knives are somewhat more dangerous because they make more effective weapons, resulting in a higher propensity for intentional harm. Both can lead to accidental harm -- 350,000 people are injured by kitchen knives every year: https://beaumonteh.com/kitchen-accidents/ https://beaumonteh.com/kitchen-accidents/ Fentanyl is used in drug trafficking because of its potency, which makes it easier to conceal and transport for a given effective dose. This, of course, makes it much more likely to result in overdose and addiction, even though it's only the preferred opioid because of prohibition. > More seriously though all those issues you mentioned are caused by flaws in the enforcement mechanism. There is a market for drugs, legal distributors are prohibited, therefore the profits go to the criminal enterprise that maintains supply. Drug dealers can't go to the legal system to resolve their disputes because they would be exposing their criminal activity, so they resort to violence as a dispute resolution mechanism. This isn't caused by any specific enforcement mechanism, it's caused by prohibition. Most hard drugs are available with a prescription. If getting a prescription is easy, i.e. anyone can describe the symptoms of a condition that drugs treats to a pharmacist and ask for it, this is effectively legalization. If getting a prescription involves any kind of burden of proof on the patient or bureaucratic hurdles, you'll be denying necessary medication to people who can't navigate them. This is an intrinsic trade off. > As flawed as the current situation is how exactly would legalization of hard drugs improve it or be a net benefit for the society? If drugs were legalized then they wouldn't be subject to such high distribution costs and commonly available formulations could use more forgiving variants, resulting in harm reduction. People who want opioids would generally get codeine instead of fentanyl. They would also get accurately labeled amounts of codeine instead of unpredictable amounts of fentanyl. There are many conditions for which the treatment is a controlled substance: Persistent pain, severe ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. If you have these conditions and could just open up walmart.com and have them mail you a bottle of codeine or Adderall then you could seek further treatment with the benefit of a medication that allows you to accomplish ordinary tasks like seeking further treatment. The same is true if you ever fail to renew your prescription for any reason and would then have to go through the process again without the benefit of the medication that allows you to think clearly or make scheduled appointments or even so much as stop being frozen in place staring at the wall. There is some promising research into the use of drugs like ketamine or MDMA for PTSD. The research isn't conclusive (is it ever?) but the drugs are decades old with known side effects. Someone with this condition may reasonably judge the risk to be worth the attempt, when the major unknown isn't what happens if it doesn't work, it's whether it works or not. But if you need a prescription, and you can't get a prescription because the research is still ongoing, you can't try the medication that might very well turn your life around. This is drug prohibition destroying lives.

amanaplanacanal 3y ago

Many ways: put the murderous cartels out of business, stop ruining people’s lives with felony convictions, cut down on accidental overdoses from black market drugs of unknown contents and potency, less impetus for corruption in law enforcement. All the same benefits that we gained from repealing alcohol prohibition.

alienicecream 3y ago
The cartels are mostly killing each other, those people weren't going to be a great boon to society anyway, they would've found a different criminal enterprise to get into. And if you don't want to go to jail for doing drugs, you can just not do drugs.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > And if you don't want to go to jail for doing drugs, you can just not do drugs Or we could just not put people in jail for using drugs? What’s the point of that? Not that I think it it happens particularly frequently in most places these days.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    We put people in jail for using drugs because we put people in jail for having drugs because otherwise people could sell the drugs that they have in private, and at that point what are you even trying to make illegal? Sales from ordinary merchants subject to purity standards?
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      Generally in many places you would only be put in jail if you possess medium/large amounts of drugs and/or the state can prove that you intended to distribute them. > Sales from ordinary merchants subject to purity standards? You mean pharmacies?
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Generally in many places you would only be put in jail if you possess medium/large amounts of drugs and/or the state can prove that you intended to distribute them. Ordinary users often possess "medium" amounts of drugs, i.e. what might reasonably be a one month supply for an individual, which prosecutors will then claim proves intent to distribute, when it proves no more than that a user might prefer not to interact with drug dealers more than once a month. They often even possess "large" amounts of drugs, when the drug dealer cuts the drug 1000:1 with whatever trash and then the cops want to charge you based on the amount of white powder you have instead of the amount of the actual drug. The problem is that it's completely plausible for an ordinary user to have more of a drug for their own use than a dealer needs to sell at any given time. The dealer really only needs to have in their possession the amount being sold to the current user. If amounts below that threshold aren't illegal then actual dealers could feasibly avoid having more than that amount. If amounts smaller than that are illegal then you're putting users in jail. You can't have it both ways. > You mean pharmacies? Pharmacies, drug stores, convenience stores. The same places people buy bourbon and aspirin without having to worry that it's full of methanol or has been spiked with fentanyl or contains 5000mg when the last batch was 150mg.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > The cartels are mostly killing each other The cartels are mostly killing the people around them, i.e. people in poor neighborhoods. They're not exactly known for being discriminating or acting with due process. > And if you don't want to go to jail for doing drugs, you can just not do drugs. Drug tests have false positives. Being in possession of something doesn't prove you knew you had it. Cops lie. People plead guilty when they're innocent because of coercive plea bargaining, but a system that gave everyone their day in court would be infeasible to operate at this scale. A system that actually implemented innocent until proven guilty would allow 90+% of the guilty to go free because the state couldn't prove that the median case wasn't one of the preceding. It's easy to say we should just use a better system but people have been failing to implement one for generations.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    You can stop putting people in jail for using drugs without legalizing drugs.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      I'm honestly trying to understand why this would be useful. So you want to use drugs and now you know that you can do this without being arrested. But the pharmacy isn't allowed to sell them to you, you have to get them from the black market. You go to the guy on the street corner, you pay money, you get drugs. The law doesn't punish you for this so you can keep trying until you succeed. The law tries to punish him, but he's making money so there are ten thousand guys lined up behind him whenever he gets arrested. If you're the sort of person who uses them irresponsibly you get addicted. Then, because you have to buy them from the black market, what should have cost $10 for a bottle of 100 now costs $10/dose so you resort to stealing to get your fix. If you're the sort of person who uses them responsibly, you think you're getting a dose equivalent of 10mg of the drug but this time it's actually a dose equivalent of 200mg and you get addicted anyway, or overdose. Or the drug is cut with drain cleaner. Meanwhile you still have all the problems with gangs killing each other over territory etc. What advantage does this have over letting people buy drugs at the convenience store?
ffgjgf1 3y ago
Alcohol is not particularly addictive compared to some opioids and some other hard drugs (for most people). But yeah, I agree with your points, I just don’t think they outweigh the potential societal harm.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  According to the NIH more than 10% of people age 12 or older, approximately 30 million people, are alcoholics. Some studies have shown that tobacco is more addictive than heroin and you can buy it at a convenience store. Being addictive is an argument for legalization, so that people know how much they're getting and don't become addicts by unintentionally taking too much.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > According to the NIH more than 10% of people age 12 or older, approximately 30 million people, are alcoholics. Even if that were true (which it isn’t) how would it be an argument for legalizing more potentially highly addictive and harmful substances even if we can’t manage the issues related to the ones which are currently legal? > tobacco is more addictive Nicotine. Which is not particularly harmful on its own and can be consumed in various different ways. > so that people know how much they're getting and don't become addicts by unintentionally taking too much. Which might work out fine if a significant proportion of the population were not incapable of behaving rationally and could fully control their actions. Unfortunately that’s not the case. They don’t really use the word ‘alcoholic’ that much and the criteria they use are not very strict and pretty vague.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > They don’t really use the word ‘alcoholic’ that much and the criteria they use are not very strict and pretty vague. They don't use the word "alcoholic" because they're medical professionals and call it "alcohol use disorder": https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-topics/alcohol-facts-and-statistics/alcohol-use-disorder-aud-united-states-age-groups-and-demographic-characteristics https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-to... > how would it be an argument for legalizing more potentially highly addictive and harmful substances even if we can’t manage the issues related to the ones which are currently legal? Because making the substances illegal only makes the problem worse. Addicts go to the black market where they get the substances in unknown concentrations, leading to a higher propensity for overdose and addiction. There are drugs (like amphetamine) that are highly addictive at high doses but at low doses have been show to actually reduce the propensity of the user to become addicted to other substances. Which makes it critical to ensure that the dose of the drug is known to the user. > Nicotine. Which is not particularly harmful on its own and can be consumed in various different ways. Tobacco. There is some evidence that nicotine in combination with other substances in tobacco products is more addictive than nicotine on its own. > Which might work out fine if a significant proportion of the population were not incapable of behaving rationally and could fully control their actions. Unfortunately that’s not the case. This is not a justification for making a problem worse instead of better.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> Fentanyl and knives are not quite the same (I hope I don’t have to try and explain why). Knives are somewhat more dangerous because they make more effective weapons, resulting in a higher propensity for intentional harm. Both can lead to accidental harm -- 350,000 people are injured by kitchen knives every year: https://beaumonteh.com/kitchen-accidents/ https://beaumonteh.com/kitchen-accidents/ Fentanyl is used in drug trafficking because of its potency, which makes it easier to conceal and transport for a given effective dose. This, of course, makes it much more likely to result in overdose and addiction, even though it's only the preferred opioid because of prohibition. > More seriously though all those issues you mentioned are caused by flaws in the enforcement mechanism. There is a market for drugs, legal distributors are prohibited, therefore the profits go to the criminal enterprise that maintains supply. Drug dealers can't go to the legal system to resolve their disputes because they would be exposing their criminal activity, so they resort to violence as a dispute resolution mechanism. This isn't caused by any specific enforcement mechanism, it's caused by prohibition. Most hard drugs are available with a prescription. If getting a prescription is easy, i.e. anyone can describe the symptoms of a condition that drugs treats to a pharmacist and ask for it, this is effectively legalization. If getting a prescription involves any kind of burden of proof on the patient or bureaucratic hurdles, you'll be denying necessary medication to people who can't navigate them. This is an intrinsic trade off. > As flawed as the current situation is how exactly would legalization of hard drugs improve it or be a net benefit for the society? If drugs were legalized then they wouldn't be subject to such high distribution costs and commonly available formulations could use more forgiving variants, resulting in harm reduction. People who want opioids would generally get codeine instead of fentanyl. They would also get accurately labeled amounts of codeine instead of unpredictable amounts of fentanyl. There are many conditions for which the treatment is a controlled substance: Persistent pain, severe ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. If you have these conditions and could just open up walmart.com and have them mail you a bottle of codeine or Adderall then you could seek further treatment with the benefit of a medication that allows you to accomplish ordinary tasks like seeking further treatment. The same is true if you ever fail to renew your prescription for any reason and would then have to go through the process again without the benefit of the medication that allows you to think clearly or make scheduled appointments or even so much as stop being frozen in place staring at the wall. There is some promising research into the use of drugs like ketamine or MDMA for PTSD. The research isn't conclusive (is it ever?) but the drugs are decades old with known side effects. Someone with this condition may reasonably judge the risk to be worth the attempt, when the major unknown isn't what happens if it doesn't work, it's whether it works or not. But if you need a prescription, and you can't get a prescription because the research is still ongoing, you can't try the medication that might very well turn your life around. This is drug prohibition destroying lives.