4 ms·

"Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that are part of the drug trade " Serious question. If the friction is removed (illegality is friction) and this proces

by larrys 13y ago

"Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars that are part of the drug trade " Serious question. If the friction is removed (illegality is friction) and this process is legal and available what will prevent people from deteriorating into 24/7 pleasure seekers (much like some people get addicted and spend their life in crack houses?)

ChuckMcM 13y ago
It's an excellent question, I don't think its possible to predict the outcome. In places where heroin is both easily available (low friction) and there is little social stigma attached to it, you get folks wasting away in opium dens, but not everyone who could be in those dens, are. No doubt a lot will depend on how functional folks can be while 'high'. I have known people who were essentially 'pill heads' or addicted to oxycodone such that they were constantly under the influence but they were still able to do the job assigned to them. (I make no judgement as to whether their performance was improved or hampered by their drug use). Perhaps folks could dial it up or dial it down depending on their need. But what scares policy maker types is that you have an unpredictable effect if something comes into existence. They will try hard to prevent its creation because of the possibility of bad outcomes even in the presence of the possibility of good outcomes (perhaps you'd have lower workplace rage events if people could dial in a mild soporific state).
grannyg00se 13y ago
But without the illegality and high cost, it's not so bad. You get a bunch of people hanging out high without all the robbery, extortion, prostitution, and organized crime. A bunch of harmless pleasure seekers doesn't seem like a major issue without all that other stuff.
- larrys 13y ago
  "You get a bunch of people hanging out high" Doesn't that assume though that the "bunch" is a bunch of the same size? I would argue that the bunch will become larger that is that more people with a predisposition will get hooked on the high. Of course we don't know that number. Could be 1% higher could be 20% higher. Compared to the other societal costs people might judge it to be a fair tradeoff. Or not.
- rmc 13y ago
  Alcohol is legal and not high cost. So either alcohol is different from those drugs (if so how?) or its very similar, which means this drugs will have the same ills as alcohol.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Mostly true, but you will still have some of the negatives you mention, just as we do in relation to alcoholism. That's not a reason to maintain prohibition, but if we're making drugs legal then we should channel some of the tax revenue to harm mitigation, which is inevitably going to be necessary.
glenra 13y ago
Where cocaine was legal, people used the cocoa leaf to make a tea they drank all the time, the way we drink coffee or caffeinated soda. When heroin was legal (from the Bayer company!), addicts took it in pill form and it caused no particular social or financial or health problems - the primary negative effect of long-term heroin use is constipation. The vast majority of the harm illegal drugs do to people is due to the drugs being illegal; it has nothing to do with characteristics inherent to the chemistry of the drugs. (I recommend the book Licit and Illicit Drugs. You can read it here online: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumen... )
- eurleif 13y ago
  >people used the cocoa leaf to make a tea they drank all the time, the way we drink coffee or caffeinated soda. Coca leaf tea is one thing. What about crack? Don't say it would never have been invented without criminalization; everything is invented eventually.
  - chongli 13y ago
    >What about crack? What about it? Serious drug addiction is a mental health problem. We'll never solve this problem without focusing on it directly. Trying to "get drugs off the streets" is focusing on the symptom, not the cause.
    - eurleif 13y ago
      I tend to agree, but the comment I was responding to was claiming that drugs only cause harm because they're illegal.
      - glenra 13y ago
        When drugs are illegal, the economics of an illegal market tends to push them towards more concentrated highs. When heroin was legal people took it in pill form, which is much safer than "shooting up" but is a relatively inefficient delivery mechanism so you don't use it when the chemical gets to be really expensive per unit volume. When alcohol was legal SOME people went for the harder stuff but beer was a lot cheaper and more common; under prohibition, whiskey was cheaper than beer. If you are selling an illegal product, your legal risk is generally proportional to the volume of product being smuggled or kept so you want to maximize the number of effective doses per unit volume. The economics thus favors high-concentration forms of whatever drug. It also favors faster, more intense highs, in that if people are going to all that risk to get something they want to be sure the payoff is proportional and can't afford to wait around for the effect. So cocaine becomes more available relative to pot, and becomes available in more concentrated and more convenient forms as technology permits (versus the old way of making tea from cocoa leaves and using it as a pick-me-up beverage) So yes, "crack cocaine" was the result of prohibition. Yet even crack could be used responsibly - it's exactly like regular powder cocaine or caffeine in that regard. But responsible use is more likely if it's legal.
networked 13y ago
"[T]hough we may not want to be wireheaded now, our wireheaded selves would probably prefer to be wireheaded." The Less Wrong community has been discussing questions related to wireheading for years now. To get a taste for their discussion on the subject check out the post at http://lesswrong.com/lw/1oc/you_cannot_be_mistaken_about_not_wanting_to/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/1oc/you_cannot_be_mistaken_about_not... (where the above quote comes from) and everything it links to.
Ihmahr 13y ago
Arn't most of us '24/7 pleasure seekers' even though we don't use drugs?
- tzakrajs 13y ago
  I think the fear is that we will deteriorate into 24/7 pleasure receivers until we perish.

by larrys 13y ago

ChuckMcM 13y ago

It's an excellent question, I don't think its possible to predict the outcome. In places where heroin is both easily available (low friction) and there is little social stigma attached to it, you get folks wasting away in opium dens, but not everyone who could be in those dens, are. No doubt a lot will depend on how functional folks can be while 'high'. I have known people who were essentially 'pill heads' or addicted to oxycodone such that they were constantly under the influence but they were still able to do the job assigned to them. (I make no judgement as to whether their performance was improved or hampered by their drug use). Perhaps folks could dial it up or dial it down depending on their need. But what scares policy maker types is that you have an unpredictable effect if something comes into existence. They will try hard to prevent its creation because of the possibility of bad outcomes even in the presence of the possibility of good outcomes (perhaps you'd have lower workplace rage events if people could dial in a mild soporific state).

grannyg00se 13y ago

But without the illegality and high cost, it's not so bad. You get a bunch of people hanging out high without all the robbery, extortion, prostitution, and organized crime. A bunch of harmless pleasure seekers doesn't seem like a major issue without all that other stuff.

larrys 13y ago
"You get a bunch of people hanging out high" Doesn't that assume though that the "bunch" is a bunch of the same size? I would argue that the bunch will become larger that is that more people with a predisposition will get hooked on the high. Of course we don't know that number. Could be 1% higher could be 20% higher. Compared to the other societal costs people might judge it to be a fair tradeoff. Or not.
rmc 13y ago
Alcohol is legal and not high cost. So either alcohol is different from those drugs (if so how?) or its very similar, which means this drugs will have the same ills as alcohol.
anigbrowl 13y ago
Mostly true, but you will still have some of the negatives you mention, just as we do in relation to alcoholism. That's not a reason to maintain prohibition, but if we're making drugs legal then we should channel some of the tax revenue to harm mitigation, which is inevitably going to be necessary.

glenra 13y ago

Where cocaine was legal, people used the cocoa leaf to make a tea they drank all the time, the way we drink coffee or caffeinated soda. When heroin was legal (from the Bayer company!), addicts took it in pill form and it caused no particular social or financial or health problems - the primary negative effect of long-term heroin use is constipation. The vast majority of the harm illegal drugs do to people is due to the drugs being illegal; it has nothing to do with characteristics inherent to the chemistry of the drugs. (I recommend the book Licit and Illicit Drugs. You can read it here online: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumen... )

eurleif 13y ago
>people used the cocoa leaf to make a tea they drank all the time, the way we drink coffee or caffeinated soda. Coca leaf tea is one thing. What about crack? Don't say it would never have been invented without criminalization; everything is invented eventually.
- chongli 13y ago
  >What about crack? What about it? Serious drug addiction is a mental health problem. We'll never solve this problem without focusing on it directly. Trying to "get drugs off the streets" is focusing on the symptom, not the cause.
  - eurleif 13y ago
    I tend to agree, but the comment I was responding to was claiming that drugs only cause harm because they're illegal.
    - glenra 13y ago
      When drugs are illegal, the economics of an illegal market tends to push them towards more concentrated highs. When heroin was legal people took it in pill form, which is much safer than "shooting up" but is a relatively inefficient delivery mechanism so you don't use it when the chemical gets to be really expensive per unit volume. When alcohol was legal SOME people went for the harder stuff but beer was a lot cheaper and more common; under prohibition, whiskey was cheaper than beer. If you are selling an illegal product, your legal risk is generally proportional to the volume of product being smuggled or kept so you want to maximize the number of effective doses per unit volume. The economics thus favors high-concentration forms of whatever drug. It also favors faster, more intense highs, in that if people are going to all that risk to get something they want to be sure the payoff is proportional and can't afford to wait around for the effect. So cocaine becomes more available relative to pot, and becomes available in more concentrated and more convenient forms as technology permits (versus the old way of making tea from cocoa leaves and using it as a pick-me-up beverage) So yes, "crack cocaine" was the result of prohibition. Yet even crack could be used responsibly - it's exactly like regular powder cocaine or caffeine in that regard. But responsible use is more likely if it's legal.

networked 13y ago

"[T]hough we may not want to be wireheaded now, our wireheaded selves would probably prefer to be wireheaded." The Less Wrong community has been discussing questions related to wireheading for years now. To get a taste for their discussion on the subject check out the post at http://lesswrong.com/lw/1oc/you_cannot_be_mistaken_about_not_wanting_to/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/1oc/you_cannot_be_mistaken_about_not... (where the above quote comes from) and everything it links to.

Ihmahr 13y ago

Arn't most of us '24/7 pleasure seekers' even though we don't use drugs?

tzakrajs 13y ago
I think the fear is that we will deteriorate into 24/7 pleasure receivers until we perish.