Spending on illicit drugs in US nears $150 billion annually

Thoreau72 said:

Nothing personal, but it's drama.

Reality is that legislative "solutions" to human behavioral issues fail more often than they succeed. A legislative act is not a surgeon's scalpel, it is rather a sledge hammer and despite the best of intentions, has more unintended consequences than success.

Humans and society deal with addiction to many substances, including tobacco and alcohol and caffeine, and they manage to do that without "wars" waged by politicians.

Personally, I think a huge mistake was made in allowing vaping to proceed unfettered, but it's hard to tell a way through it, now that the cat is out of the bag. Could they effectively prohibit vaping? Not likely. Some humans are stupid and make very poor health decisions, and all the laws in the world cannot stop that.

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It's not drama, but just reality. I don't think that complete prohibition is ever really possible, but law and regulation can help to suppress the numbers.

Humans deal with quite a few addictions, it's true. What are the effects of those addictions? Caffeine won't make people go on a crime spree to get more. Tobacco has health implications, and actually can facilitate a certain level of crime. Alcohol is probably the worst on that list, and things such as DUI deaths are significant. So we have a huge interest in controlling, limiting, and regulating that industry. Once you get past even that, the wheels come off. Heroin and Meth addictions do lead people to violent crimes. It's too addictive too quickly and too damaging to society at large.

Vaping is going to come under regulation too, as it should. And while some people are stupid and make poor decision, if the consequences of those decisions spill over onto other people, then we have an interest to intervene and with government force should the shared consequences be too significant.

VanceMack said:

It’s not self righteous anything...it’s dealing with destructive behaviors responsibly. You want help getting off drugs, even behavioral health treatment...that’s a different pot of money altogether. But if you use and destroy your body, society does not have an obligation to feed you, house you, diaper you, and patch you up.


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The problem comes in with the harsh treatment in that way is you end up alienating the person from society for making a mistake anyone can make, the way we stigmatize and ostracize them, is they get desperate and when they get desperate many turn to crime, in which case you’re now supporting them anyway if and when they get caught whatever it is they are doing. Then they have a criminal record, then their chances of getting a job and supporting themselves even if they have the will or desire to get clean diminish and so they have to turn back to crime and in many cases the kind of crime may escalate and that’s a larger problem with the Justice System not just on this subject.

I get the hard love or harsh treatment mentality, sounds good on paper, but it’s ultimately in many cases counter productive, because in law enforcement and then incarceration as a result of harsh treatment you actually end up paying more, all it does it make you feel better about yourself and that’s not even to get into the larger big government disaster that has been the overall strategy for the last few decades.

Any person can become an addict of not just drugs but a wide variety of things, many legal and as a society, it’s not healthy to treat it as harshly as possible.

Ikari said:

It's not drama, but just reality. I don't think that complete prohibition is ever really possible, but law and regulation can help to suppress the numbers.

Humans deal with quite a few addictions, it's true. What are the effects of those addictions? Caffeine won't make people go on a crime spree to get more. Tobacco has health implications, and actually can facilitate a certain level of crime. Alcohol is probably the worst on that list, and things such as DUI deaths are significant. So we have a huge interest in controlling, limiting, and regulating that industry. Once you get past even that, the wheels come off. Heroin and Meth addictions do lead people to violent crimes. It's too addictive too quickly and too damaging to society at large.

Vaping is going to come under regulation too, as it should. And while some people are stupid and make poor decision, if the consequences of those decisions spill over onto other people, then we have an interest to intervene and with government force should the shared consequences be too significant.

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Life can be cruel, eh? And unfair.

It does seem some sort of regulation would be in order for vaping, but I doubt it will be successful, and have no opinion as to how it might be accomplished. Cruel, unfair and funny.

I would be interested in your claim about how tobacco itself, not its tax status, causes crime. Please elaborate.

The documented case of Dr. William Halstead a century ago of Johns Hopkins Medical School contradict your claim about opiate (morphine) addiction leading to violent crimes. Experiments in Switzerland, Portugal and several other countries with maintenance doses of heroin also contradict your claim. In fact, most opiate addicts can and do function as useful and working citizens when they are maintained in a scientific manner.

The violent crime you claim with meth in this country today is associated with the fact that the pitiful users are forced into black market activities and home brewing of their drug. Without that, they are not much more in behavior than heavy caffeine users or vape people--compulsive behavior.