All drugs should be legalized for recreational use

[Thoreau72]

Does mom drink? Do drugs? Have unprotected sex? Don't feel alone. That is common in modern atheistic Bolshevik America. Kids have little problem getting into mom's alcohol stash and if we make dangerous mind-blowing drugs legal then kids will have an easier time getting into those also. We need to ban dangerous drugs, not guns. Bad drugs kill more people in America than guns do.



Making a mind-altering drug legal changes its chemical makeup, making it more dangerous? I doubt it.



Making alcohol legal did not decrease alcoholism and making addictive recreational drugs legal will also do nothing to slow addiction. Making addictive drugs legal will no doubt increase the addiction problems that are plaguing modern America.

What making alcohol legal again, the repeal of the Volstead Act did was greatly decrease numerous crime rates. No, it may not have decreased alcoholism, but it did stop the crime CREATED by prohibition.

Utopia is not an option, but good policy IS an option.

 

[marke]

What making alcohol legal again, the repeal of the Volstead Act did was greatly decrease numerous crime rates. No, it may not have decreased alcoholism, but it did stop the crime CREATED by prohibition.

Utopia is not an option, but good policy IS an option.

Legalize violent crime and you might be able to empty whole prisons and cut the prison budget and lay off hundreds of thousands of police officers.

 

[Thoreau72]

Legalize violent crime and you might be able to empty whole prisons and cut the prison budget and lay off hundreds of thousands of police officers.

Who wants to legalize violent crime? Only a dummy, for sure. :roll:

If that's all you have, I would say your position in the discussion has become one of absurdity.

 

[COTO]

I'm in close agreement with @Northern Light. Decriminalization (not legalization) as a means of handling drug abuse/addiction in a more effective way while maintaining the unequivocal social position that substance abuse is unacceptable.

Decriminalization has some auspicious precedents. Portugal tried decriminalization years ago, largely out of desperation in response to epidemic drug abuse. They simultaneously invested the money they'd spent policing drug-related activity and incarcerating addicts into employment incentives for drug convicts (e.g. "hire on an ex-con as a mechanic, and we'll pay half his salary for the first two years"). Their theory was that if drug addicts could develop strong social ties--friends, jobs, a sense of duty, a sense of accomplishment--it would be much easier for them to beat addiction. As of the latest data, the experiment was a resounding success. Drug abuse rates dropped precipitously in the early years and have stayed low since.

Legalization is another matter. I know the principal argument here is that the government can regulate and benefit from the tax revenue, however:

1. There is no reasonable or safe way to regulate recreational use of cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, etc. except to say "Don't use them. Ever.".
   
2. If Colorado's experiment legalizing cannabis is a bellwether, legalization will do nothing to undercut the black market. The 'products' sold legally are too impotent, too expensive, and too limited in supply to compete with the black market. When last I checked (mid-2018), the black market in Colorado was (statistically speaking) doing better than before legalization.
   
3. Legalization cedes society's moral authority to declare "use of these drugs is harmful and wrong" and have the message taken seriously. This is a particularly important message in an era when we want to promote maintenance of good mental health. Drug abuse can wreak incredible harm on the brain, especially for people with predispositions to depression, anxiety, and other mental illness. We don't want our message to be, "These are OK in small doses. Just be safe." We want the message to be, "Under no circumstances is recreational drug use acceptable."

Cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms stand out in the sense that these have legitimate (i.e. medicinal) uses, but I see no reason why these can't be treated like any other prescription medication: taken in limited doses under the direct supervision of a physician. Legalizing them for recreational use doesn't make sense either.

I sincerely hope that our society never becomes so drug-addled that simply throwing up our hands and declaring, "Sure. Go ahead and bake your brain. Buy your coke at the corner store. Try not to OD in front of your kids. Thanks for your tax monies." ever makes sense.

 

[Thoreau72]

I'm in close agreement with @Northern Light. Decriminalization (not legalization) as a means of handling drug abuse/addiction in a more effective way while maintaining the unequivocal social position that substance abuse is unacceptable.

Decriminalization has some auspicious precedents. Portugal tried decriminalization years ago, largely out of desperation in response to epidemic drug abuse. They simultaneously invested the money they'd spent policing drug-related activity and incarcerating addicts into employment incentives for drug convicts (e.g. "hire on an ex-con as a mechanic, and we'll pay half his salary for the first two years"). Their theory was that if drug addicts could develop strong social ties--friends, jobs, a sense of duty, a sense of accomplishment--it would be much easier for them to beat addiction. As of the latest data, the experiment was a resounding success. Drug abuse rates dropped precipitously in the early years and have stayed low since.

Legalization is another matter. I know the principal argument here is that the government can regulate and benefit from the tax revenue, however:

1. There is no reasonable or safe way to regulate recreational use of cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, etc. except to say "Don't use them. Ever.".
   
2. If Colorado's experiment legalizing cannabis is a bellwether, legalization will do nothing to undercut the black market. The 'products' sold legally are too impotent, too expensive, and too limited in supply to compete with the black market. When last I checked (mid-2018), the black market in Colorado was (statistically speaking) doing better than before legalization.
   
3. Legalization cedes society's moral authority to declare "use of these drugs is harmful and wrong" and have the message taken seriously. This is a particularly important message in an era when we want to promote maintenance of good mental health. Drug abuse can wreak incredible harm on the brain, especially for people with predispositions to depression, anxiety, and other mental illness. We don't want our message to be, "These are OK in small doses. Just be safe." We want the message to be, "Under no circumstances is recreational drug use acceptable."

Cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms stand out in the sense that these have legitimate (i.e. medicinal) uses, but I see no reason why these can't be treated like any other prescription medication: taken in limited doses under the direct supervision of a physician. Legalizing them for recreational use doesn't make sense either.

I sincerely hope that our society never becomes so drug-addled that simply throwing up our hands and declaring, "Sure. Go ahead and bake your brain. Buy your coke at the corner store. Try not to OD in front of your kids. Thanks for your tax monies." ever makes sense.

Do you think the government should be in the business of defining all manner of victimless crimes? Does it do a society good to have victimless crimes, crimes against the state?

 

[COTO]

Do you think the government should be in the business of defining all manner of victimless crimes? Does it do a society good to have victimless crimes, crimes against the state?

Let's ignore for the moment that these drugs can cause delusions, psychosis, paranoia, aggression, impaired judgment, and homicidal rage. Let's ignore that they're prone to overdoses (society's cost: more emergency calls, more hospitalizations); they cause immense stress on the heart, liver, kidneys; they collapse veins and arteries; they literally eat away flesh in the stomach, sinuses, and dermis (society's cost: more healthcare, more hospitalization, higher insurance premiums). Let's even ignore that they can be used for everything from date rape to cheating at athletics/academics to temporarily suppressing all fear, pain, and guilt.

Let's look exclusively at the costs of addiction to these drugs.

Foremost, there's the financial cost. The addict needs more and more of the drug to get high, hence he requires increasingly large sums of money. It starts with money he has, then money he borrows from lenders, then money he extorts from friends and family (until he's bled them dry too), then petty theft, then violent crime, then anything at all necessary, assuming he doesn't die at some point during the process.

Who are the victims here, besides the addict? Families, friends, the people who have to watch him self-destruct, the people who have to scrape him out of his own vomit off the pavement. There's also the people he robs, the creditors he defrauds, the people whose paycheques are raided to pay the law enforcement officers, court officers, social workers, and EMTs who spend countless hours dealing with the mayhem he causes. I dare you to work at a drug rehab clinic for a month and come back opining about "victimless crimes".

Then there are the human costs. The addict can't hold down jobs at length. He can't produce anything, or better his society while addicted. He can't function. Walk into an addict's place of residence (if he has one), you'll see a piece of property totally destroyed. If a landlord is lucky, he'll be able to evict the addict before he's rendered whatever space he's living in permanently unlivable. There's another dare for you: tour a drug addict's apartment, then tell the building owner drug abuse is a "victimless crime".

But the addict on the street needs to eat and live too. Hence tax dollars feed him. Charity clothes him. He can always find a place to urinate, defecate, and dispose of his trash; taxes will pay to clean it up (hopefully). He lives like this indefinitely, bleeding government coffers dry until either until his dwindling prospects of rehabilitation come to bear or he dies. Rehabilitation is an escape for the lucky few, but like everything else related to addiction, it's expensive and taxpayer funded.

Once an addict is rehabilitated, is the nightmare over? It's unlikely. Drug abusers have a fearfully high rate of recidivism. Even when they do stay on the straight and narrow, they now have to contend with the long-term mental and physiological effects of hard drug use, which begin compounding with the very first use. Depression, damage to memory and concentration, anxiety, paranoia (something I personally witnessed with a friend), crippling headaches, nerve pain, dementia, cancer, ... . I could go on forever, but you can look it up on any addiction resource online. If an ex-addict can't cope and can't work, then even having beaten the addiction, he's society's burden for the rest of his life.

In conclusion: if we lived in a world where everyone existed in their own bubble, not interacting, paying taxes, paying insurance premiums, owning property, contending with crime, etc., and if we didn't count users of hard drugs as 'victims', then indeed we might regard hard drug use as a victimless crime.

We do not live on such a world. I, for one, am content with governments acknowledging this in our laws.

 

[Thoreau72]

Let's ignore for the moment that these drugs can cause delusions, psychosis, paranoia, aggression, impaired judgment, and homicidal rage. Let's ignore that they're prone to overdoses (society's cost: more emergency calls, more hospitalizations); they cause immense stress on the heart, liver, kidneys; they collapse veins and arteries; they literally eat away flesh in the stomach, sinuses, and dermis (society's cost: more healthcare, more hospitalization, higher insurance premiums). Let's even ignore that they can be used for everything from date rape to cheating at athletics/academics to temporarily suppressing all fear, pain, and guilt.

Let's look exclusively at the costs of addiction to these drugs.

Foremost, there's the financial cost. The addict needs more and more of the drug to get high, hence he requires increasingly large sums of money. It starts with money he has, then money he borrows from lenders, then money he extorts from friends and family (until he's bled them dry too), then petty theft, then violent crime, then anything at all necessary, assuming he doesn't die at some point during the process.

Who are the victims here, besides the addict? Families, friends, the people who have to watch him self-destruct, the people who have to scrape him out of his own vomit off the pavement. There's also the people he robs, the creditors he defrauds, the people whose paycheques are raided to pay the law enforcement officers, court officers, social workers, and EMTs who spend countless hours dealing with the mayhem he causes. I dare you to work at a drug rehab clinic for a month and come back opining about "victimless crimes".

Then there are the human costs. The addict can't hold down jobs at length. He can't produce anything, or better his society while addicted. He can't function. Walk into an addict's place of residence (if he has one), you'll see a piece of property totally destroyed. If a landlord is lucky, he'll be able to evict the addict before he's rendered whatever space he's living in permanently unlivable. There's another dare for you: tour a drug addict's apartment, then tell the building owner drug abuse is a "victimless crime".

But the addict on the street needs to eat and live too. Hence tax dollars feed him. Charity clothes him. He can always find a place to urinate, defecate, and dispose of his trash; taxes will pay to clean it up (hopefully). He lives like this indefinitely, bleeding government coffers dry until either until his dwindling prospects of rehabilitation come to bear or he dies. Rehabilitation is an escape for the lucky few, but like everything else related to addiction, it's expensive and taxpayer funded.

Once an addict is rehabilitated, is the nightmare over? It's unlikely. Drug abusers have a fearfully high rate of recidivism. Even when they do stay on the straight and narrow, they now have to contend with the long-term mental and physiological effects of hard drug use, which begin compounding with the very first use. Depression, damage to memory and concentration, anxiety, paranoia (something I personally witnessed with a friend), crippling headaches, nerve pain, dementia, cancer, ... . I could go on forever, but you can look it up on any addiction resource online. If an ex-addict can't cope and can't work, then even having beaten the addiction, he's society's burden for the rest of his life.

In conclusion: if we lived in a world where everyone existed in their own bubble, not interacting, paying taxes, paying insurance premiums, owning property, contending with crime, etc., and if we didn't count users of hard drugs as 'victims', then indeed we might regard hard drug use as a victimless crime.

We do not live on such a world. I, for one, am content with governments acknowledging this in our laws.

Why do you and the government allow nicotine addicts to run rampant? Why does it allow Juul to exist? How and why do you and the government allow caffeine addicts to thrive?

 

[COTO]

Why do you and the government allow nicotine addicts to run rampant? Why does it allow Juul to exist? How and why do you and the government allow caffeine addicts to thrive?

Western governments are cracking down on smokers. Being a smoker today is an isolated, expensive, miserable existence. At the same time, the effects of cigarette smoking aren't nearly as acute or debilitating as for hard drugs. The biggest risks are emphysema and cancer, and these can take the better part of a lifetime to manifest.

e-Cigarettes and vaping are relatively new and their adverse health effects relatively unknown. I suspect they'll wind up being regulated exactly like cigarettes.

Caffeine isn't addictive and has minimal impact on human health.

If you're going to hang your hat on "Why isn't _____ illegal, then?", hang it on sugar and alcohol. Both are addictive. Both are immensely costly to society, albeit in different ways. Nevertheless, they differ from hard drugs in that both can safely be used in quantities that yield no adverse effects, acute or chronic, mental or physiological. That is, it's possible to enjoy alcohol without getting intoxicated, and it's possible to enjoy sugar without gaining weight or damaging one's cardiovascular system. Both have widespread culinary uses, and moderate consumption of alcohol has numerous health benefits. Hard drugs have no such a fallback. They have no use besides their ability to directly induce powerful psychotropic effects in the brain, they carry severe risks when used in any significant quantity, they damage the brain and body when used in any significant quantity, and they can't be used responsibly.

Even so, the overall cost of sugar and alcohol to Western society is valued in the trillions. It's likely both would be banned if they weren't so universally popular. If enough people in a society want something badly enough, no government can keep it away from them in perpetuity. The best a government can hope for is to prevent such a "critical mass" of demand from building up. That ship sailed long ago for sugar and alcohol.

 

[Lovebug]

What would happen if we legalized all drugs? To answer that, why not look at what happens when we prohibit drugs?

Alcohol prohibition was such a monumental disaster that they passed a Constitutional Amendment to repeal a Constitutional Amendment. It only took 10 years to see the contrast. Most of us would've never heard of Al Capone if it weren't for prohibition. An average back-alley cutthroat was able to become one of the richest and most powerful criminals in American history, all thanks to the black market created by prohibition. And that's just one example. The lesson was clear: No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.

But for some reason we forgot that lesson and decided to prohibit all other drugs, as if somehow the results would be different. They haven't been. We just went from Al Capone to El Chapo (and Pablo Escobar).

So at the very least, legalization would remove all the negative effects caused by prohibition. That alone is a net positive.

Drug abuse and addiction are inherently medical problems, not criminal. Prohibition mischaracterizes the problem into something it's not. A properly-waged war on drugs would embrace treatment and prevention programs that are effective at combating the terrible nature of addiction and drug abuse. Instead, what we're waging today is more like a war on people. And we wonder why we aren't winning.

No matter how dangerous a drug is, when you make it illegal you make it more dangerous, not less.

As long as it includes moonshine, that's ok with me. Let people decide what they consume, drugs, booze, meat, making sure no one drives impaired and acts responsibly when necessary.

 

[Thoreau72]

Western governments are cracking down on smokers. Being a smoker today is an isolated, expensive, miserable existence. At the same time, the effects of cigarette smoking aren't nearly as acute or debilitating as for hard drugs. The biggest risks are emphysema and cancer, and these can take the better part of a lifetime to manifest.

e-Cigarettes and vaping are relatively new and their adverse health effects relatively unknown. I suspect they'll wind up being regulated exactly like cigarettes.

Caffeine isn't addictive and has minimal impact on human health.

If you're going to hang your hat on "Why isn't _____ illegal, then?", hang it on sugar and alcohol. Both are addictive. Both are immensely costly to society, albeit in different ways. Nevertheless, they differ from hard drugs in that both can safely be used in quantities that yield no adverse effects, acute or chronic, mental or physiological. That is, it's possible to enjoy alcohol without getting intoxicated, and it's possible to enjoy sugar without gaining weight or damaging one's cardiovascular system. Both have widespread culinary uses, and moderate consumption of alcohol has numerous health benefits. Hard drugs have no such a fallback. They have no use besides their ability to directly induce powerful psychotropic effects in the brain, they carry severe risks when used in any significant quantity, they damage the brain and body when used in any significant quantity, and they can't be used responsibly.

Even so, the overall cost of sugar and alcohol to Western society is valued in the trillions. It's likely both would be banned if they weren't so universally popular. If enough people in a society want something badly enough, no government can keep it away from them in perpetuity. The best a government can hope for is to prevent such a "critical mass" of demand from building up. That ship sailed long ago for sugar and alcohol.

Caffeine isn't addictive?

Hogwash, like most everything else in your post.

 

[COTO]

Caffeine isn't addictive?

Not according to the AJDAA.

Let's just put it like this: it creates a dopamine response something like 1/2,000th as powerful as a hit of cocaine. Its withdrawal symptoms, for those who experience any, include headache and mild lethargy.

From an addiction standpoint, comparing it to hard drugs (or even to alcohol or sugar) is a non-starter.

Hogwash, like most everything else in your post.

Considering the time I invested in responding to your questions, I'd appreciate specific counterarguments. What do you dispute--and more importantly, why?

This is a message board. We have all the time in the world. :coffeepap

 

[Thoreau72]

Not according to the AJDAA.

Let's just put it like this: it creates a dopamine response something like 1/2,000th as powerful as a hit of cocaine. Its withdrawal symptoms, for those who experience any, include headache and mild lethargy.

From an addiction standpoint, comparing it to hard drugs (or even to alcohol or sugar) is a non-starter.


Considering the time I invested in responding to your questions, I'd appreciate specific counterarguments. What do you dispute--and more importantly, why?

This is a message board. We have all the time in the world. :coffeepap

I know a handful of people, regular coffee drinkers/caffeine users, who when not able to have their daily fix, experience headaches and other symptoms of withdrawal. I don't drink coffee but I do drink tea daily, and on those days I do not drink tea, I too experience mild headaches. Withdrawal symptoms, however mild or severe, are one criteria under AMA definition of addiction.

What you offered in your previous post which I classified as hogwash was not reasoned argument. It was merely the pap one would hear in a DARE class or something like that. Essentially various appeals to emotion telling me how "horrible" drug use is, all the time ignoring the legal aspects of prohibition, all the while ignoring the damage done to society by your prohibition.

Nothing personal, but garbage is still garbage, propaganda in favor of the status quo is still propaganda.

 

[GDViking]

The problem is the judgement of the person using them.

When I was a young man, my roommate got "experimental" with his girlfriend. The next thing I knew, he was screaming for my help. I did CPR until the ambulance got there to take over. It turned out he put cocaine either on his penis or in her vagina, I never got that answer. OD's such as this are a quick spike, much like an injection and you can turn the corner pretty quick.

He was arrested later, and not charged AFAIK. I kicked him out to keep from being evicted myself. She dropped out of college and move back with her parents in another city. I suspect she had some mental deficits due to oxygen starvation. I never saw either one of them again.

Provided any of this story is true, there is more to it.

Cocaine in the vagina is no different than the nose, it would take a massive amount for an OD.

I've known several people who have ODd and everyone of them were long term intravenous users.

My cousin died two times before the third time took, and all this was in the eighties well before well before narcan.

Myself and many I knew had an unlimited supply of coke, if it was possible to OD on powder without cooking it or shooting I would have myself as well as many of acquaintances at the time.

 

[GDViking]

Persuasive argument; I ought to agree, but ............ . What if a a result of legislation the number of those addicted to, say , crack cocaine or crystal meth increased? Could we just accept yet more ruined lives and walk on by?

( I have never partaken of any illegal drug. Not that anyone should care.)

That is where rehab and personal responsibility comes in.

Just as most people can drink recreationally without becoming alcoholics, most people can use drugs recreationally.

Nicotine is 25 times more addictive than heroin.

I have used far more than my share of coke, (never did heron but new many who have) but could take it or leave it at will.

Cigarettes on the other hand were very, VERY hard to kick.

On the other hand I have a very good friend who is kicking opioids right now and says it is the hardest thing he has done, be quit smoking, drinking,coke (guy loved his rock) meth but prescription pills became the one be had to go to rehab for. He still uses weed for pain management.

Everyone is different...

 

[GDViking]

If they are already legal then why do kids still go to jail if caught with them? A kid from the neighborhood who I used to do things with because I liked him and his family situation left him handicapped in sad ways, is now sitting in prison if Florida for the next 25 years because of drugs.

Did he go to prison because of the drugs or the laws against the drugs???

 

[GDViking]

I have always been pro legalization, however with all the current fentanyl ODs I have concerns of our ability with science, and the search for enlightenment and/or the perfect high.

That will probably happen regardless, however I do not know if decriminalization will make things safer or not.

The one thing I know is that these decisions should not be made by people with no personal experience and still believe that "refer madness" was a documentary, rather than a comedy...

 

[GDViking]

Who wants to legalize violent crime? Only a dummy, for sure. :roll:

If that's all you have, I would say your position in the discussion has become one of absurdity.

Haven't followed marke for very long have you?

Absurd would be the understatement off the year...

 

[GDViking]

As long as it includes moonshine, that's ok with me. Let people decide what they consume, drugs, booze, meat, making sure no one drives impaired and acts responsibly when necessary.

I often fall asleep after a twenty ounce porterhouse, should driving under the influence of meat e outlawed???

 

[marke]

Did he go to prison because of the drugs or the laws against the drugs???

He would not be in prison if not for laws designed to stop the distribution of mind-altering drugs which damage or kill tens of thousands of young Americans each year.

 

[Thoreau72]

He would not be in prison if not for laws designed to stop the distribution of mind-altering drugs which damage or kill tens of thousands of young Americans each year.

Because of those same dumbass laws, the CIA is in the dope business. Does that make you joyful?

 

[marke]

Because of those same dumbass laws, the CIA is in the dope business. Does that make you joyful?

Have you ever read about dug running through Mena, Arkansas by the "CIA" working with associates of Bill Clinton? Or how "CIA" associates of LBJ took out JFK because of he was supposedly a threat to "American security?" Members of a secretive "government organization" restricted doctor and nurse access to Seth Rich after he was shot in DC, ending in Rich's death the next day.

We will likely never know how many bad guys are on the government's payroll doing 'cleaning' for bad politicians in the democrat party. The body count following the Clintons' rise to power and continued corrupt operations is enormous. Bodies also line the pathway to Obama's rise.

Of course I am against illegal drugs and of course I support laws which are designed to curb the enormous damage being done to Americans by illegal drugs.

 

[COTO]

Withdrawal symptoms, however mild or severe, are one criteria under AMA definition of addiction.

Going cold turkey on oxygen can produce some wicked withdrawal symptoms too. Perhaps that's why there's more than one criterion for addiction.

Incidentally, the AMA doesn't recognize "caffeine addiction" as a disorder. Neither will you find it in any version of the DSM, among countless other addiction-related disorders.

Perchance sir could find us a reputable medical agency that does recognize caffeine addiction as a legitimate disorder and quantifies its total cost to society, to help shore up his argument.

What you offered in your previous post which I classified as hogwash was not reasoned argument. It was merely the pap one would hear in a DARE class or something like that. Essentially various appeals to emotion telling me how "horrible" drug use is, all the time ignoring the legal aspects of prohibition, all the while ignoring the damage done to society by your prohibition.

Firstly, listing the manifold harms hard drug use causes to society is hardly an "appeal to emotion" when prevention of such harms (and human suffering generally) is the principle reason for the prohibition. I was neither dramatic nor hyperbolic. The financial costs weren't exaggerated.

Secondly, you'll have to explain to me what "legal aspects of prohibition" I'm ignoring, bearing in mind that I, like @Northern Light, favour decriminalization.

Finally, I'd welcome an explanation of the "damage done to society" by decriminalizing rather than legalizing hard drugs, and why it outweighs the financial and social costs of abuse outlined in my previous two posts.

 

[COTO]

...the search for enlightenment and/or the perfect high.

Do you equate "the perfect high" with "enlightenment"?

Do you associate drug use with either?

 

[Thoreau72]

Going cold turkey on oxygen can produce some wicked withdrawal symptoms too. Perhaps that's why there's more than one criterion for addiction.

Incidentally, the AMA doesn't recognize "caffeine addiction" as a disorder. Neither will you find it in any version of the DSM, among countless other addiction-related disorders.

Perchance sir could find us a reputable medical agency that does recognize caffeine addiction as a legitimate disorder and quantifies its total cost to society, to help shore up his argument.


Firstly, listing the manifold harms hard drug use causes to society is hardly an "appeal to emotion" when prevention of such harms (and human suffering generally) is the principle reason for the prohibition. I was neither dramatic nor hyperbolic. The financial costs weren't exaggerated.

Secondly, you'll have to explain to me what "legal aspects of prohibition" I'm ignoring, bearing in mind that I, like @Northern Light, favour decriminalization.

Finally, I'd welcome an explanation of the "damage done to society" by decriminalizing rather than legalizing hard drugs, and why it outweighs the financial and social costs of abuse outlined in my previous two posts.

Decriminalization is a vague term that sounds nice, but fails logic. A system that allows use of a substance but prohibits the sale or purchase of that substance is not in touch with reality, it is an absurdity.

Yet you are somehow proud you've offered this as a meaningful alternative. Yes, it has that warm fuzzy feeling, but is an absurdity.

Your logic fails in other ways too. You seem to suggest that marijuana is a "hard drug", when it clearly is not. There is no known fatal dose for the stuff, yet a bottle of aspirin or acetaminophen can kill a human. Sufficient quantity of most alcoholic beverages will kill a human, and has.

Legal and regulated sales would greatly lessen the corrosive effects the prohibition has on our police and the entire criminal justice system. It would end the very expensive enforcement apparatus that currently engages in "enforcing" a dumb public policy.

I don't consider caffeine addiction a disorder either. Nor do I consider nicotine addiction a disorder.

Dr. William Halstead of Johns Hopkins Medical School in the last century carried on just fine with a maintenance dose of morphine or heroin self-administered, demonstrating (along with others) that morphine addiction need not be a disorder.

 

[COTO]

Decriminalization is a vague term that sounds nice, but fails logic. A system that allows use of a substance but prohibits the sale or purchase of that substance is not in touch with reality, it is an absurdity.

Yet you are somehow proud you've offered this as a meaningful alternative. Yes, it has that warm fuzzy feeling, but is an absurdity.

It's nothing of the sort, and has succeeded in practice (see my argument re Portugal).

It simultaneously acknowledges society's position that the decriminalized substances are harmful, unfit for consumption, and ideally banned, but that the costs of enforcing such a ban are prohibitive (no pun intended) and/or the ban would be ineffectual.

At the same time, it hinders the ease with which the decriminalized substances can be produced and distributed. There can be no marketing, no advertising, no true mass production, no brick-and-mortar retailers, no deals to stock convenience stores or supermarkets, no lobbying efforts, no economic dependence on the revenue of hard drugs, no way to produce, import, or distribute in the light of day.

Society maintains its stance that hard drugs are a scourge and treats them accordingly. It's not ideal, but it's the best we can do.

Your logic fails in other ways too. You seem to suggest that marijuana is a "hard drug", when it clearly is not. There is no known fatal dose for the stuff, yet a bottle of aspirin or acetaminophen can kill a human. Sufficient quantity of most alcoholic beverages will kill a human, and has.

I don't consider marijuana a hard drug, but it shouldn't be legal except by prescription. When it has no medicinal purpose, it falls into the category of having "no use besides [the] ability to directly induce powerful psychotropic effects in the brain" I mentioned earlier. Neither painkillers nor alcohol fall into this category.

Legal and regulated sales would greatly lessen the corrosive effects the prohibition has on our police and the entire criminal justice system. It would end the very expensive enforcement apparatus that currently engages in "enforcing" a dumb public policy.

So would decriminalization.

And even though I favour decriminalization, I can't tell you with certainty that the resulting costs and consequences to society would be less than the cost of "the very expensive enforcement apparatus" currently in place.

Dr. William Halstead of Johns Hopkins Medical School in the last century carried on just fine with a maintenance dose of morphine or heroin self-administered, demonstrating (along with others) that morphine addiction need not be a disorder.

A drug addiction is defined as a compulsive need to use a drug in spite of causing significant harm to oneself or others.

If Dr. Halstead was self-medicating and was doing so knowledgeably as a doctor, keeping his dosage level, using the drug to restore/maintain proper function, not impairing his ability to judge, work, or interact, and doing no significant to himself or others, then he wasn't addicted.

If, however, he was shooting up to get high, bumping his dosages to ensure 'high' stayed high, impairing his ability to judge, work, and interact, and generally doing significant harm to himself and others, then he was indeed an addict, and his addiction indeed constituted a disorder.

More to the point: opioids for pain management are 100% legal today, under the supervision of a doctor. Precisely because our society recognizes that these drugs have a use beyond baking people's brains for pleasure.