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When this topic of marijuana legalization comes up, it seems like most conservative news agencies ask the loaded question, "Does this mean you're in favor of de

When this topic of marijuana legalization comes up, it seems like most conservative news agencies ask the loaded question, "Does this mean you're in favor of decriminalizing hard drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and meth?" I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer?

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
With more loaded questions: "Alcohol destroys more lives than any of those drugs: are you saying we should return to the era of prohibition and mafia violence? Should our children die because people can't be responsible? That doesn't sound like small government or liberty to me."
joel_perl_prog 13y ago
Simple. The answer is "yes." So-called hard drugs are ... well ... they ain't health food. But presumably I'm writing to an audience of utilitarian thinkers, so it should be trivial to load up the arguments onto a balance beam: for, and against. We have lived through the against side it. We know exactly what those consequences are, for society. Importantly, criminalization does ZERO to limit demand, and thus, supply. Zero. This is demonstrably true. So, now imagine a world where all of those same people who already choose to abuse drugs to the point where it becomes a severe health and social hazard, except those activities are not illegal anymore. Yes, you still have the dangers of those people acting irrationally, or even rationally, but just anti-socially, in pursuit of their high. But this happens now, already. With the added negatives of the so-called war on drugs (which in reality is a war on the American people, especially black people), just thrown into the mix. Like so many others have done, I could write at great length (and so could you, dear reader, most likely; many of you) about this subject. It's completely fucked, in a word. And I live in Colorado, so if you'd like to hear about what's happened after pot was legal, I can tell you: nada. Zip. Nothing bad. Zero. And that won't ever change, either. Yeah, pot's not cocaine, but believe it or not, doing a few lines of blow doesn't turn a normal human being into a psychopath. Or, if it does, that same person would become just as dangerous after a pint of vodka.
- aianus 13y ago
  One thing I've always wondered: what would street dealers do if they couldn't make money selling crack anymore? I somehow doubt they'd give up and get a job at McDonald's. Legalizing drugs might therefore lead to an increase in robberies, muggings, kidnappings, sex trafficking, etc as these former dealers need to find new ways to support themselves. Thoughts?
  - joel_perl_prog 13y ago
    Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped? Exactly. There's a sort of twinge of classism (or even racism) in your comment, by the way. The assumption that people who participate in a normal capitalist marketplace are inherently criminals is just silly. They do what they do because it's a bustling marketplace. Period.
    - aianus 13y ago
      I don't know, what did the low level bootleggers and enforcers do after prohibition ended? If I was one, I'd have moved on to similar work in narcotics and prostitution. People choose to risk jail time and physical harm to make mediocre money as a street dealer because they have no better options. Most of them don't even have high school diplomas, what else are they going to do? If we don't do anything other than eliminate the black market for drugs their next best option is still going to be some sort of crime.
      - joel_perl_prog 13y ago
        Sure. But you assume there's a permanent class of criminals whose only interest is crime. The principle interest in the drug game is money. It's a business. What I'm saying is, there's not a "fixed amount of crime," which you imply; you basically say it's like squeezing a balloon. The amount of air doesn't change, it just gets displaced a little bit. What we need is a sociologist (or someone who has otherwise done the reading) to come in with studies and numbers. I'm sort of working outward from my reference, Pinker's The Better Angels Of Our Nature, and suggesting that crime, too, overall crime, is dropping. And would drop even more if the laws were written correctly. In other words, there's not a fixed number of criminals, nor a fixed amount of crime.
nmjohn 13y ago
"Well INSERT_NAME_HERE, by hard drugs, you mean three substances which all are regularly administered as prescription drugs? Cocaine as cocaine hydrochloride, meth as desoxyn, and heroin as diamorphine? So to call them hard drugs is a bit of a misnomer used to unfairly elicit a negative connotation. While decriminalizing all drugs is a controversial issue, a conversation on shifting the focus from drugs as a criminal act to a conversation on health effects and what we as a society can do to help those who have become dependent on these substances, as opposed to taking the inhumane approach of locking them up and throwing away the key."
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  It is kind of high schoolish to say "Oh ya, those 'hard drugs' are used by doctors so haha they are not hard drugs." I mean, really that's just kind of ridiculous. It's sort outrageous, people already refer to pain killers as being part of the "hard drug" addiction. It refers to chemically addictive drugs that are also more dangerous than things like marijuana. This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly.
  - nmjohn 13y ago
    I'd say "it is kind of high schoolish" to change the phrasing of my statement by adding the "Oh ya" and "so haha" making the statement sound silly by word choice, and not actually countering the argument whatsoever. As a fact, those drugs are used by doctors commonly. And the idea of a drug being considered a "hard drug" is entirely based in opinion and semantics. So your outrage is entirely your opinion, which you have every right in the world to, but it does not make me wrong; it means we view something differently. If you don't think opioid painkillers should be considered hard drugs, nothing I say can change that, so here is a challenge to you. Get a prescription for oxycontin. Take it everyday for two months then stop. Come back 2 days later and tell me if you still feel that way.
    - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      No, I think it is entirely appropriate. What you wrote is this sort of smart aleck sort of response. It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs. I don't think it adds much, it's just typical way of trying up define problems out if existence.
threatofrain 13y ago
There are a great deal of dangerous things that we don't stop citizens from doing, and some of those things seem entirely unproductive (or counterproductive -- a biological hazard), such as extreme sports. We need a culture that stops people from doing dangerous drugs through cultural techniques, not through police and courts, and that's what the government did with cigarettes. The government realized that criminalizing cigarettes was probably outside of its power, and instead it waged a campaign against the culture of smoking. It painted cigarette smoking as biologically dirty and smokers as inconsiderate or reckless. I think that cigarette use is no longer popular not because the police have been jailing cigarette smokers, but because it has become a mildly dirty activity. If you use the law to prohibit things, then people won't develop the oral or cultural methods to tell their kids to avoid certain dangers.
runeks 13y ago
> I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer? "Yes" would be my answer. I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization? Criminalization doesn't lower usage, it makes it harder on addicts (imprisonment retains them in the drug world), it increases the risk of fatality of the drug, and it increases crime, funneling funds from tax payers to criminals. Every time I hear a story about drug cartels and their unspeakable violence and immense profits, all I can think of is "how can we be so stupid?". We are creating this problem ourselves, and we don't seem to even realize it. The only argument for criminalization is the irrational one: it's not a good idea to do drugs -- it doesn't solve anything -- therefore we should make it illegal. Once you actually give the issue thought, the conclusion seems completely obvious to me.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Yes. And, especially this: >I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization? People ask the "what about hard drugs?" question as if criminalization has solved the problem. It obviously hasn't, and has instead created all of the problems associated with the supply-side (i.e. rampant violence, over-crowded jails, etc.) The demand-side problem is clearly going to exist. So, in what possible way could it make sense to additionally create such a monstrous supply-side problem that criminalization creates? Worse, the incredible sums of money spent battling this completely manufactured supply-side problem could obviously go towards ameliorating the demand-side effects.

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago

With more loaded questions: "Alcohol destroys more lives than any of those drugs: are you saying we should return to the era of prohibition and mafia violence? Should our children die because people can't be responsible? That doesn't sound like small government or liberty to me."

joel_perl_prog 13y ago

Simple. The answer is "yes." So-called hard drugs are ... well ... they ain't health food. But presumably I'm writing to an audience of utilitarian thinkers, so it should be trivial to load up the arguments onto a balance beam: for, and against. We have lived through the against side it. We know exactly what those consequences are, for society. Importantly, criminalization does ZERO to limit demand, and thus, supply. Zero. This is demonstrably true. So, now imagine a world where all of those same people who already choose to abuse drugs to the point where it becomes a severe health and social hazard, except those activities are not illegal anymore. Yes, you still have the dangers of those people acting irrationally, or even rationally, but just anti-socially, in pursuit of their high. But this happens now, already. With the added negatives of the so-called war on drugs (which in reality is a war on the American people, especially black people), just thrown into the mix. Like so many others have done, I could write at great length (and so could you, dear reader, most likely; many of you) about this subject. It's completely fucked, in a word. And I live in Colorado, so if you'd like to hear about what's happened after pot was legal, I can tell you: nada. Zip. Nothing bad. Zero. And that won't ever change, either. Yeah, pot's not cocaine, but believe it or not, doing a few lines of blow doesn't turn a normal human being into a psychopath. Or, if it does, that same person would become just as dangerous after a pint of vodka.

aianus 13y ago
One thing I've always wondered: what would street dealers do if they couldn't make money selling crack anymore? I somehow doubt they'd give up and get a job at McDonald's. Legalizing drugs might therefore lead to an increase in robberies, muggings, kidnappings, sex trafficking, etc as these former dealers need to find new ways to support themselves. Thoughts?
- joel_perl_prog 13y ago
  Just ask yourself one question: what did all the bootleggers do after alcohol prohibition was dropped? Exactly. There's a sort of twinge of classism (or even racism) in your comment, by the way. The assumption that people who participate in a normal capitalist marketplace are inherently criminals is just silly. They do what they do because it's a bustling marketplace. Period.
  - aianus 13y ago
    I don't know, what did the low level bootleggers and enforcers do after prohibition ended? If I was one, I'd have moved on to similar work in narcotics and prostitution. People choose to risk jail time and physical harm to make mediocre money as a street dealer because they have no better options. Most of them don't even have high school diplomas, what else are they going to do? If we don't do anything other than eliminate the black market for drugs their next best option is still going to be some sort of crime.
    - joel_perl_prog 13y ago
      Sure. But you assume there's a permanent class of criminals whose only interest is crime. The principle interest in the drug game is money. It's a business. What I'm saying is, there's not a "fixed amount of crime," which you imply; you basically say it's like squeezing a balloon. The amount of air doesn't change, it just gets displaced a little bit. What we need is a sociologist (or someone who has otherwise done the reading) to come in with studies and numbers. I'm sort of working outward from my reference, Pinker's The Better Angels Of Our Nature, and suggesting that crime, too, overall crime, is dropping. And would drop even more if the laws were written correctly. In other words, there's not a fixed number of criminals, nor a fixed amount of crime.

nmjohn 13y ago

"Well INSERT_NAME_HERE, by hard drugs, you mean three substances which all are regularly administered as prescription drugs? Cocaine as cocaine hydrochloride, meth as desoxyn, and heroin as diamorphine? So to call them hard drugs is a bit of a misnomer used to unfairly elicit a negative connotation. While decriminalizing all drugs is a controversial issue, a conversation on shifting the focus from drugs as a criminal act to a conversation on health effects and what we as a society can do to help those who have become dependent on these substances, as opposed to taking the inhumane approach of locking them up and throwing away the key."

dinkumthinkum 13y ago
It is kind of high schoolish to say "Oh ya, those 'hard drugs' are used by doctors so haha they are not hard drugs." I mean, really that's just kind of ridiculous. It's sort outrageous, people already refer to pain killers as being part of the "hard drug" addiction. It refers to chemically addictive drugs that are also more dangerous than things like marijuana. This is just playing coy to pretend that in hard drugs don't exist or something silly.
- nmjohn 13y ago
  I'd say "it is kind of high schoolish" to change the phrasing of my statement by adding the "Oh ya" and "so haha" making the statement sound silly by word choice, and not actually countering the argument whatsoever. As a fact, those drugs are used by doctors commonly. And the idea of a drug being considered a "hard drug" is entirely based in opinion and semantics. So your outrage is entirely your opinion, which you have every right in the world to, but it does not make me wrong; it means we view something differently. If you don't think opioid painkillers should be considered hard drugs, nothing I say can change that, so here is a challenge to you. Get a prescription for oxycontin. Take it everyday for two months then stop. Come back 2 days later and tell me if you still feel that way.
  - dinkumthinkum 13y ago
    No, I think it is entirely appropriate. What you wrote is this sort of smart aleck sort of response. It's not as if most people are not aware that you can be prescribed drugs very similar to street drugs. I don't think it adds much, it's just typical way of trying up define problems out if existence.

threatofrain 13y ago

There are a great deal of dangerous things that we don't stop citizens from doing, and some of those things seem entirely unproductive (or counterproductive -- a biological hazard), such as extreme sports. We need a culture that stops people from doing dangerous drugs through cultural techniques, not through police and courts, and that's what the government did with cigarettes. The government realized that criminalizing cigarettes was probably outside of its power, and instead it waged a campaign against the culture of smoking. It painted cigarette smoking as biologically dirty and smokers as inconsiderate or reckless. I think that cigarette use is no longer popular not because the police have been jailing cigarette smokers, but because it has become a mildly dirty activity. If you use the law to prohibit things, then people won't develop the oral or cultural methods to tell their kids to avoid certain dangers.

runeks 13y ago

> I don't know a good response, though. How would you answer? "Yes" would be my answer. I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization? Criminalization doesn't lower usage, it makes it harder on addicts (imprisonment retains them in the drug world), it increases the risk of fatality of the drug, and it increases crime, funneling funds from tax payers to criminals. Every time I hear a story about drug cartels and their unspeakable violence and immense profits, all I can think of is "how can we be so stupid?". We are creating this problem ourselves, and we don't seem to even realize it. The only argument for criminalization is the irrational one: it's not a good idea to do drugs -- it doesn't solve anything -- therefore we should make it illegal. Once you actually give the issue thought, the conclusion seems completely obvious to me.

unclebucknasty 13y ago
Yes. And, especially this: >I would ask the counter question: what is there to gain from criminalization? People ask the "what about hard drugs?" question as if criminalization has solved the problem. It obviously hasn't, and has instead created all of the problems associated with the supply-side (i.e. rampant violence, over-crowded jails, etc.) The demand-side problem is clearly going to exist. So, in what possible way could it make sense to additionally create such a monstrous supply-side problem that criminalization creates? Worse, the incredible sums of money spent battling this completely manufactured supply-side problem could obviously go towards ameliorating the demand-side effects.