I don't get it. Heroin for example is a serious threat for physic and mental health isn't? If you sell them legally, uneducated and influenceable people would consume them, not realizing entirely their act no? It's real questions, I'm ignorant here.
> Heroin for example is a serious threat for physic and mental health isn't?
Heroin is comparable in risk profile to morphine, and is significantly weaker than fentanyl, both of which are frequently prescribed for pain management. Most of the risk of use comes from addiction, which causes other risky behaviors, and contamination. Both of these risks are poorly-mitigated by criminalization of heroin: addicts rarely want to be addicted, but have difficulty seeking help due to criminalization and social stigma, and contamination would be preventable if heroin were manufactured in regulated facilities.
Uneducated and influenceable people currently consume heroin, not realizing their act. The war on drugs has done nothing to prevent this, and in fact has made it harder for people to find real information on heroin. A regulated product could have messages printed on the packaging similar to the way that cigarettes currently do.
You could measure things like the average number of trials needed to get rid of an addiction as a measure of whether this product is highly addictive or not.
In short, saying something is "highly addictive" isn't a scientific claim because we don't have any definition of what "highly addictive" would mean. We can't even start to test the assertion because we haven't decided what the assertion means.
Uneducated and influenceable people currently consume heroin, not realizing their act.
I would be tempted to think the fact drugs are rare and difficult to obtain the first times decrease the odds of somebody becoming an addict. Pure speculation but there is some logic still. Say one night I'm crazy, I'm not going to find cocaine right away become hey, tonight is the night. I understand that it's not a proof that it's effective. Just that it might be.
Heroin is comparable in risk profile to morphine
Doctors prescribe morphine, most likely when not using it is worse than using it, which doesn't mean the risk are low. It's just the best of the worse solutions. I understand that when you lost a leg, you can take some hard drug, because anyway, if you don't you're done. I might be wrong again, just telling you the arguments of the common here.
Your logic seems fine to me, but it's based on an assumption that it is hard for people to find drugs for the first time. You're probably not frequently presented with opportunities to do heroin, but you're also probably not the kind of person who would do heroin even if you had the opportunity. Drug dealers aren't going to approach you to sell you heroin because the risk/reward ratio is too high. The same is not true of teens and people in their 20s in poor neighborhoods.
> Doctors prescribe morphine, most likely when not using it is worse than using it, which doesn't mean the risk are low.
True.
It's obvious actually. The drug dealer is a store. It gonna find its customers anyway.
Just for the fun, so now if I want to sell drug X, I just got to find people who got a lot of friends - who have potentially the profile to consume that drug. I bet it works really fine. You probably don't have to go in the street at all :P
EDIT: oh but how many people are saved by this: the risk/reward ratio is too high? The risk of the drug dealer is in the equation then. But you're right on something, the strong profile for drug X can do nothing and it's kinda unfair.
I don't know, and I'm pretty sure that it is unknown in general. However, drug use is lower in countries where drugs are legalized and regulated, and rehabilitation rates are higher. If this trend holds, whatever number of people are saved by being too risky for drug dealers to approach, the number of people saved by regulated legalization is likely to be higher.
I would be interested to understand the basis for your belief that it is a fact that (a) drugs are rare, and (b) drugs are difficult to obtain the first time.
The point is that drug policy is not targeted towards harm reduction or safety, but towards the demonization of the drugs, which means there's possible improvement if we stop doing that.
It keeps the number of drug addicts low and then makes the harm and safety problem less important at the same time?
The problem with demonization in general is that it requires willing suspension of disbelief, which is brittle.
Please remember also that Nixon's original WOD happened because lots of young people were coming back from 'Nam strung out.
It's quite possible that we saw a bunch of boys coming back "strung out" from the most psychologically damaging war in the country's history, not smoking pot.
Ugh, who cares about "narratives"? We have science to tell us which narrative is correct and which isn't, and for the most commonly used recreational drugs, we do know.
Both are fairly dangerous drugs. One is legal.
LSD: 1 star (if I remember correctly)
Canabis: 1 star
Cigarets: 2 stars (notice how people have a hard time to stop smoking)
Alcohol: 3 stars
Cocaine: 3 stars
Heroin: 6 stars
In my mind, if you try heroin once, you're addicted. Is that close to be correct? Because if it's correct, then the less people try it, the less there's addicts.
I don't think trying heroin is a good idea, but assigning star values like this is not helpful. If anything, it highlights heroin as a goal drug.
Also, note the lack of caffeine on the chart, it being very common drug that is highly addictive
Absolutely not. Most likely you'll feel sick and vomit, then be really high for a few hours and then afterwards feel incredibly guilty and decide to never make a habit of it. The number one factor in addictiveness is whether or not you have a "crappy life", probably closely followed by whether or not you have an addictive personality and whether or not you'd prefer one cookie now or two cookies in ten minutes.
Trying all drugs is illuminating because you learn that there is no "magic" drug that feels so amazing that all your problems melt away. That's a fairy tale.