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One of the 4 founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital was addicted to both cocaine and morphine and was able to remain functional while addicted for the rest of his l

One of the 4 founders of Johns Hopkins Hospital was addicted to both cocaine and morphine and was able to remain functional while addicted for the rest of his life. I think it's easy to mix up the effects of the illegality of certain drugs with the effects of the drugs themselves. Impurities and poor injection hygiene are probably a large part of the health effects of these two drugs currently, and they are a result of their black market status. I'm not saying you should go out and pick up an opiate or coke addiction, just that the difference in effect is sometimes more a result of the war on drugs and less a result of the drug itself. Bathtub gin made people blind during Prohibition too. I think the addictive potential of those drugs are overstated as well - most people who try heroin or coke do not wind up becoming addicted, just like having your two glasses of wine don't make you into a raging alcoholic. There appears to be a subset of people who are predisposed to becoming addicted to drugs, but that does not translate into "try heroin, become a junkie." The basis of the drug war is not rooted in any sort of rational division of drugs by harm. Anti-opiate laws were enacted to target Chinese immigrants, anti-cocaine and marijuana laws targeted blacks and Mexicans, anti-everything else laws were enacted in the 60's in response to anti-hippie hysteria. If we really based things on harm, psychedelics and marijuana would be legal, and alcohol would be illegal - alcohol being a cause of more than twice the deaths in the US than all other substances combined, and is a factor in a huge number of violent crimes.

mc32 12y ago
There are outliers and exceptions to lots of things, but that does not necessarily mean that therefore it's appropriate to extrapolate to the population at large. When people say window washers should wear safety equipment do we also say, well, there have been cases where window washers have fallen ten stories and survived, in order to color the hazards? There are also very many legal prescription drugs to which when people become addicted to them, lead to dysfunction. Just because an addictive substance is 'clean' and legal does not mean it's healthy for people to ingest at will. Drugs are like gambling. They hardly bring any good and potentially bring lots of bad. Do you think it would be good to push opiates on the Chinese, or push MJ on Mexicans and blacks? Would that be justice? While we may agree that punishment is disproportionate, or unjust, ridding society of substances that incapacitate people to varying degrees, is not too bad a thing. Would we rather have an intoxicated population, one less capable of making everyday decisions even-headed? Anyhow, your argument is beside the point. Japan has harsh drug laws and it mainly affects its own people, same with Cuba, Russia and other non-US puppet regimes, so it's not as though it's a uniquely american invention to subjugate classes or people no, rather, it was an attempt by social engineers to rid societies of what they perceived were ills which affected society.
- circlefavshape 12y ago
  > They hardly bring any good Good? Good for who? I would contend that most people's experiences of most drugs (including alcohol) are mostly positive. Mine certainly have been.
- ddoolin 12y ago
  > Drugs are like gambling. They hardly bring any good and potentially bring lots of bad. Do you think it would be good to push opiates on the Chinese, or push MJ on Mexicans and blacks? Would that be justice? While we may agree that punishment is disproportionate, or unjust, ridding society of substances that incapacitate people to varying degrees, is not too bad a thing. Would we rather have an intoxicated population, one less capable of making everyday decisions even-headed? I'm a regular marijuana smoker with the occasional mushroom and LSD trips and I can say at least the latter is extremely common among my friends and even coworkers! None of us are physically dependent on these drugs and all function completely level-headed in our everyday lives as software engineers, lawyers, analysts, and more. Trust me when I say there is more than "hardly any good." There is always the potential for bad, with this and just about anything, and acknowledgment of this requires us to educate each other on the proper time, place, reason, and so on surrounding their use. To _push_ those things on _anyone_ would be bad, sure. You should stop to consider that the associations you made with ethnicity and certain drugs is a result of the entire issue at hand! It's not simply that the punishment is disproportionate. It's that people are being criminalized for doing what others do every day, albeit in a different form that happens to be legal and socially accepted. The type of environment this creates is one where people are not educated on use and the production of these drugs is not supervised and not regulated, which is bad for everybody.
- ekimekim 12y ago
  > Drugs are like gambling I agree. In that the majority of people have some fun out of it, a small minority get addicted and need help, and legalization leads to massive tax incomes for the government.
burkaman 12y ago
I don't think the Hopkins founder is a great example here. He did have some impressive accomplishments, but at least according to this article [1], you couldn't call him functional in the same way a daily coffee or wine drinker is functional. A modern-day Halsted would be fired from any hospital, even if cocaine and recreational morphine were legal. I know there's more to your argument than "Halsted did it so it must be ok", but I think this is a useful point. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/health/27zuger.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/health/27zuger.html?_r=0

mc32 12y ago

There are outliers and exceptions to lots of things, but that does not necessarily mean that therefore it's appropriate to extrapolate to the population at large. When people say window washers should wear safety equipment do we also say, well, there have been cases where window washers have fallen ten stories and survived, in order to color the hazards? There are also very many legal prescription drugs to which when people become addicted to them, lead to dysfunction. Just because an addictive substance is 'clean' and legal does not mean it's healthy for people to ingest at will. Drugs are like gambling. They hardly bring any good and potentially bring lots of bad. Do you think it would be good to push opiates on the Chinese, or push MJ on Mexicans and blacks? Would that be justice? While we may agree that punishment is disproportionate, or unjust, ridding society of substances that incapacitate people to varying degrees, is not too bad a thing. Would we rather have an intoxicated population, one less capable of making everyday decisions even-headed? Anyhow, your argument is beside the point. Japan has harsh drug laws and it mainly affects its own people, same with Cuba, Russia and other non-US puppet regimes, so it's not as though it's a uniquely american invention to subjugate classes or people no, rather, it was an attempt by social engineers to rid societies of what they perceived were ills which affected society.

circlefavshape 12y ago
> They hardly bring any good Good? Good for who? I would contend that most people's experiences of most drugs (including alcohol) are mostly positive. Mine certainly have been.
ddoolin 12y ago
> Drugs are like gambling. They hardly bring any good and potentially bring lots of bad. Do you think it would be good to push opiates on the Chinese, or push MJ on Mexicans and blacks? Would that be justice? While we may agree that punishment is disproportionate, or unjust, ridding society of substances that incapacitate people to varying degrees, is not too bad a thing. Would we rather have an intoxicated population, one less capable of making everyday decisions even-headed? I'm a regular marijuana smoker with the occasional mushroom and LSD trips and I can say at least the latter is extremely common among my friends and even coworkers! None of us are physically dependent on these drugs and all function completely level-headed in our everyday lives as software engineers, lawyers, analysts, and more. Trust me when I say there is more than "hardly any good." There is always the potential for bad, with this and just about anything, and acknowledgment of this requires us to educate each other on the proper time, place, reason, and so on surrounding their use. To _push_ those things on _anyone_ would be bad, sure. You should stop to consider that the associations you made with ethnicity and certain drugs is a result of the entire issue at hand! It's not simply that the punishment is disproportionate. It's that people are being criminalized for doing what others do every day, albeit in a different form that happens to be legal and socially accepted. The type of environment this creates is one where people are not educated on use and the production of these drugs is not supervised and not regulated, which is bad for everybody.
ekimekim 12y ago
> Drugs are like gambling I agree. In that the majority of people have some fun out of it, a small minority get addicted and need help, and legalization leads to massive tax incomes for the government.

burkaman 12y ago

I don't think the Hopkins founder is a great example here. He did have some impressive accomplishments, but at least according to this article [1], you couldn't call him functional in the same way a daily coffee or wine drinker is functional. A modern-day Halsted would be fired from any hospital, even if cocaine and recreational morphine were legal. I know there's more to your argument than "Halsted did it so it must be ok", but I think this is a useful point. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/health/27zuger.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/health/27zuger.html?_r=0