12 ms·

Had a relative that was given intravenous penicillin by a GP and it almost killed her. Knew a guy once that almost died by bee stings. Had a friend in school wh

Had a relative that was given intravenous penicillin by a GP and it almost killed her. Knew a guy once that almost died by bee stings. Had a friend in school who started smoking pot at age 12 and it destroyed his life. Life is about risk, and everything we ingest has the risk to do terrible things to us. You can die from too much water. So the question isn't whether things or good or bad, rather who gets to assess the risk and what tools do they use? Would I want my 16-year-old assessing the risk of magic mushrooms? Hell no. Would I want my drug addicted 35-year-old cousin? Yeah, probably. So the real question is who gets to decide. And why. I'm completely comfortable with some kind of psyilocybin addiction treatment coordinated (but not approved by) a GP or LCSW. I also would rather not flip the coin on drug use, including a fair number of prescription drugs. But as a voter I remain convinced of my right to change my mind and not have others make that choice for me. The problem we're seeing now, that is only just getting started to be addressed, is that vast numbers of chemicals have been off-limits for even scientific exploration of benefits. That means nobody can assess the risk -- of things that might have great benefit to mankind. That's whacked.

allegory 12y ago
The thing is that health expenditure and legalisation are proportionally tied. Thou who bites off the latter, increases the former in psychiatric and general healthcare. And that's not fair on everyone else. So perhaps you should forfeit your right to free healthcare when you make that choice? (I speak with respect to the NHS in the UK). For ref, I'm allergic to penicillin as well. Fortunately because we have research budgets, we have other antibiotics. Perhaps expenditure on drug related problems (crime, psych, healthcare) should be diverted into that?
- drewblaisdell 12y ago
  > Thou who bites off the latter, increases the former in psychiatric and general healthcare. Do you have data on the overall cost of legalization/decriminalization? Surely the decrease in the cost of incarcerating drug offenders is significant.
- DanielBMarkham 12y ago
  I agree with your point. These are practical matters with practical consequences. However I do not believe you take your reasoning far enough. It's worse than that. As you know, many times effects can be randomly distributed. So ingesting substance X may kill or maim 70% of the people, do nothing in 29% of the people, and cure incurable cancer in 1%. So who gets to decide whether granddad, who is dying of this cancer, gets to take the substance or not? The problem the western democracies have been struggling with for decades is that at some point somebody has to say "no". No, I will not pay for the consequences of your choice to smoke every day. No, I will not provide a treatment that may only work in 1% of cases. Somebody has to be an adult. Instead we hold conflicting ideas: I want to make my own choices vs. I want to live in a world where I do not have to worry about anything. Unfortunately the universe does not feel obliged to play along. From historic experience, I don't think criminalizing things we don't want to pay for as a society is workable. How about providing some kind of long-term healthcare insurance that would cover people in a vegetative state for many years? Or just making it all open and informing people as much as possible what's going on around them? Because there's also a perverse aspect of the relationship you describe: by giving healthcare providers sole discretion over these things, we're also putting them in a position to define deviancy down. I fear the real problem isn't making yourself into an addict for the rest of your life -- it's that the rest of us want a more homogeneous society in which fewer and fewer outliers are tolerated. That worries me from a statistical and evolutionary standpoint. We need our Edgar Allan Poes, our General Grants, our Gonzo Journalism. Yes, 99.9% of junkies are basically walking dead people. Then you run into a Freud. We can't sacrifice the Freuds in our empathy towards the others who are suffering. Would I sacrifice 10% of the population on an ongoing basis to keep that kind of chaotic, creative, evolutionary potential? I don't there's even a question about it. It's an existential question, not a moral or philosophical one. This has been the natural state of our species for eons, and it's what brought us out of the savannah. The real question is why we would want to deviate from it. I don't want to live in a totally-controlled world where I am unable to make capricious decisions affecting the rest of my life -- and I hold that opinion for purely pragmatic reasons. It does not sound like any kind of future state for mankind that we ever imagined (aside from dystopian fiction) It also does not sound like the species has much of a future if it keeps heading this way. Freedom and natural variation sucks. Let's have more of it.
- collyw 12y ago
  Legalise and tax it then. The exact same argument could be made for smokers "not being fair on everyone else", except they contribute more in tax than they use (partly due to dying earlier).
- joesmo 12y ago
  I would gladly forfeit my right to free healthcare as long as all the smokers, drinkers, and caffeine addicts do so. It'd be simple discrimination otherwise, especially considering the health costs of, especially, nicotine and alcohol. Come to think of it, this would pretty much solve all healthcare problems as it would eliminate most spending.
- wildgift 12y ago
  If psilocybin can be used to get people to stop smoking, drinking, or using heroin, it could seriously reduce healthcare costs. People in the drug underground use it to treat OCD and depression. I've heard of people saying they use it once or twice a year to "stop worrying so much" or "to get my head straight." What kind of addictive drug motivates people to want to break the law annually to take a drug just one time?
Taek 12y ago
Drugs are much less of a coin flip when you are aware of the risks going into using them. The 12yo who destroyed his life probably had no idea what he was getting into. Dealers will also commonly give younger people laced drugs because they can't tell the difference - it's entirely possible that he got pot laced with PCP (it's hard to sell PCP, and at low doses it's similar to pot) or another drug. A well researched individual who is curious about LSD will know that LSD can trigger schizophrenia in people who are genetically predisposed for schizophrenia. If you aren't genetically disposed to schizophrenia, LSD is not going to cause schizophrenia. Greater amounts of studies and scientific research into drugs like this increase our knowledge and make their informed usage much less risky.

allegory 12y ago

The thing is that health expenditure and legalisation are proportionally tied. Thou who bites off the latter, increases the former in psychiatric and general healthcare. And that's not fair on everyone else. So perhaps you should forfeit your right to free healthcare when you make that choice? (I speak with respect to the NHS in the UK). For ref, I'm allergic to penicillin as well. Fortunately because we have research budgets, we have other antibiotics. Perhaps expenditure on drug related problems (crime, psych, healthcare) should be diverted into that?

drewblaisdell 12y ago
> Thou who bites off the latter, increases the former in psychiatric and general healthcare. Do you have data on the overall cost of legalization/decriminalization? Surely the decrease in the cost of incarcerating drug offenders is significant.
DanielBMarkham 12y ago
I agree with your point. These are practical matters with practical consequences. However I do not believe you take your reasoning far enough. It's worse than that. As you know, many times effects can be randomly distributed. So ingesting substance X may kill or maim 70% of the people, do nothing in 29% of the people, and cure incurable cancer in 1%. So who gets to decide whether granddad, who is dying of this cancer, gets to take the substance or not? The problem the western democracies have been struggling with for decades is that at some point somebody has to say "no". No, I will not pay for the consequences of your choice to smoke every day. No, I will not provide a treatment that may only work in 1% of cases. Somebody has to be an adult. Instead we hold conflicting ideas: I want to make my own choices vs. I want to live in a world where I do not have to worry about anything. Unfortunately the universe does not feel obliged to play along. From historic experience, I don't think criminalizing things we don't want to pay for as a society is workable. How about providing some kind of long-term healthcare insurance that would cover people in a vegetative state for many years? Or just making it all open and informing people as much as possible what's going on around them? Because there's also a perverse aspect of the relationship you describe: by giving healthcare providers sole discretion over these things, we're also putting them in a position to define deviancy down. I fear the real problem isn't making yourself into an addict for the rest of your life -- it's that the rest of us want a more homogeneous society in which fewer and fewer outliers are tolerated. That worries me from a statistical and evolutionary standpoint. We need our Edgar Allan Poes, our General Grants, our Gonzo Journalism. Yes, 99.9% of junkies are basically walking dead people. Then you run into a Freud. We can't sacrifice the Freuds in our empathy towards the others who are suffering. Would I sacrifice 10% of the population on an ongoing basis to keep that kind of chaotic, creative, evolutionary potential? I don't there's even a question about it. It's an existential question, not a moral or philosophical one. This has been the natural state of our species for eons, and it's what brought us out of the savannah. The real question is why we would want to deviate from it. I don't want to live in a totally-controlled world where I am unable to make capricious decisions affecting the rest of my life -- and I hold that opinion for purely pragmatic reasons. It does not sound like any kind of future state for mankind that we ever imagined (aside from dystopian fiction) It also does not sound like the species has much of a future if it keeps heading this way. Freedom and natural variation sucks. Let's have more of it.
collyw 12y ago
Legalise and tax it then. The exact same argument could be made for smokers "not being fair on everyone else", except they contribute more in tax than they use (partly due to dying earlier).
joesmo 12y ago
I would gladly forfeit my right to free healthcare as long as all the smokers, drinkers, and caffeine addicts do so. It'd be simple discrimination otherwise, especially considering the health costs of, especially, nicotine and alcohol. Come to think of it, this would pretty much solve all healthcare problems as it would eliminate most spending.
wildgift 12y ago
If psilocybin can be used to get people to stop smoking, drinking, or using heroin, it could seriously reduce healthcare costs. People in the drug underground use it to treat OCD and depression. I've heard of people saying they use it once or twice a year to "stop worrying so much" or "to get my head straight." What kind of addictive drug motivates people to want to break the law annually to take a drug just one time?

Taek 12y ago

Drugs are much less of a coin flip when you are aware of the risks going into using them. The 12yo who destroyed his life probably had no idea what he was getting into. Dealers will also commonly give younger people laced drugs because they can't tell the difference - it's entirely possible that he got pot laced with PCP (it's hard to sell PCP, and at low doses it's similar to pot) or another drug. A well researched individual who is curious about LSD will know that LSD can trigger schizophrenia in people who are genetically predisposed for schizophrenia. If you aren't genetically disposed to schizophrenia, LSD is not going to cause schizophrenia. Greater amounts of studies and scientific research into drugs like this increase our knowledge and make their informed usage much less risky.