Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs
spiegel.de
spiegel.de
Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves, why do they persist with it? A few reasons present themselves: Ideological motivations, they just don't like the drugs. The fact that if you terrify the population you can use that as means for greater political control and discipline. And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis.
Lastly the CIA has been found to be involved in the drug trade on a vast scale. This is not a conspiracy, there are many well-documented books on this. They need large sums of untraceable money for clandestine operations, and drugs are an ideal source of this.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR331.html
Noam Chomsky on the War on Drugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-JX0yXDlh8
Your alternate theories about money and control directly contradict the history of prohibition. Did you know that at the time alcohol prohibition was instituted, fully 1/3 of the federal budget came from liquor taxes? Alcohol producers were incredibly powerful, yet their product was banned because of moral panic. To a significant degree, women's' suffrage happened when it did so they could vote for prohibition.
There is a great PBS series on this: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition. It's a story of a grass-roots national movement of Americans, many of them heretofore politically marginalized, rising up against money and power to effect change.
The results of the Drug War are so racially biased as to make it effectively a New Jim Crow, and it makes one suspect that a lot of support for the Drug War, especially the part not based in drug-scare propaganda, is based in racism.
And that's not even getting to the employment of police, prison guards, parole officers, court officials, etc. that are highly dependent on the Drug War. And before you claim the prison population are not mostly drug offenders, take a look as the "customers" of the CJ system: a million and a half arrests per year, hundreds of thousands of prison sentences, and 20% of black people having served time for drug arrests, etc. It's highly racist and highly remunerative to the employees and vendors of the CJ system.
I don't think it's been established that alcohol causes alcoholism. In fact, research shows that excessive drinking does not correlate with alcoholism[0]. A much stronger predictor of alcoholism is SES. So if we really want to fight alcoholism, we should be fighting poverty.
People are much more likely to become psychologically addicted to alcohol than physically addicted. Alcohol provides an escape mechanism for social issues, it is that quality that makes it addictive, it doesn't need to have the same level of physical addictiveness of other drugs in order to be addictive.
So, if in the case of drugs, society moral standards, money and power are all at the same side; what's the chance of grassroot movement changing the laws?
That question was not rethorical, but giving my own answer, I think the path is changing the perception about drug addicts. That they are ill people, not criminals. If the social perception of a drug addict is the same as an alcoholic, then there is a chance of stopping the war on drugs.
I happen to agree with you that treatment, not prosecution is the answer for drug addicts. But there's legitimate moral reasons to oppose the idea.
Besides that, drug use is already well on its way to becoming decriminalized. The drug war is aimed not at users, but mainly at importers and purveyors. That poses another moral question: if drugs are harmful and addictive, why can't society ban people from selling them, like it does for all sorts of other harmful products? I understand the cost-benefit justification (bans are ineffective), but voters aren't driven by cost-benefit analysis. There are legitimate moral reasons to oppose the idea that we should just let people defy society and sell harmful products just because we can't effectively prevent them from doing so.
While it may be possible (for the sake of argument) that the DEA and CIA are extremely self-interested in the status quo, I fail to see the link to a career politician, who answers to corporate and private donors and sometimes constituents.
A congressman and an agency head have orthogonal goals and are accountable to vastly different interests.
Public opinion does not drive policy in this case, it is driven by policy. The public has been whipped up into a frenzy about drugs for years using various fear tactics, primarily racism to scare them into having a particular opinion which you now cite as "the majority's moral opposition". The moral opposition is trained as part of a concerted and very successful propaganda campaign.
That's a ridiculous proposition. There was a 40+ year gap between the two.
> The public has been whipped up into a frenzy about drugs for years using various fear tactics
Nixon coined the term "drug war" in 1971. Ever since then, public support for legalizing marijuana has been steadily growing: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1657/illegal-drugs.aspx. I don't think that jives with your theory of causation.
Anslinger was one of the most serious bureaucratic prohibitionists, immediately after its repeal was appointed to commission the agency associated with drug prohibition, did a 180 on all of his positions on Marijuana, and doctored scientific evidence to push for a new enforcement target, since he was given a large powerful agency with very little to do. Without a witch to hunt the witch hunter fades from relevance, so he manufactured one, and that's why we are where we are today.
> Public opinion does not drive policy in this case, it is driven by policy.
Just apply the standards we'd use for any official enemy nation. The US jails more of its own populace than anyone else. For many people, the US is effectively a police state. Highly effective outcome of the drug war: social control of certain population segments.
We can research who's been targeted historically: Irish (and other) immigrants by alcohol prohibition. Mexican immigrants by marijuana prohibition. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/etc/cron....)
or
> Americans have a moral opposition to drug use, because the government persists with the drug war ?
Impressionable children are indoctrinated against drug use, by US law enforcement, in US public schools.
> 70-80% of polled adults wanted to make even marijuana illegal.
That's impossible, because marijuana already was illegal. If that number is correct, is measures keeping marijuana illegal (maintaining status quo), not making marijuana illegal. You can't extrapolate that to a choice people would make when not constrained by history, and when not constrained by the persuasive force of current law.
That's one theory, but it does not jive with the data. Millennials grew up with teachers shrieking "just say no!" at school assemblies. They were the most heavily propagandized generation with regards to the drug war. Much more so than their baby boomer teachers who grew up in the 1960's. Yet they're the ones leading the way on legalization of marijuana. So how can you say that moral opposition to drug use exists because of propaganda, when the more heavily propagandized generation is also the one with the least opposition to drugs?
I have a different theory. Moral opposition to drug usage is based on the need to establish social norms that discourage escapism and dependency. In an industrial society with booming demand for labor, that's an important social norm to instill in people. But in a post-industrial, automated society, with a robust safety net, that becomes much less important. It's not like teenagers sitting in their basement smoking pot today would otherwise be going off to work at busy factories building a solid future for their families.
Because most of the opponents of legalization use the same talking points that the DARE and other school drug-abstinence programs use. Gateway drugs, etc. All the things we now know are nonsense. That's what makes it propaganda instead of information.
If these people didn't come to these opinions because of propaganda they'd use different terminology and different arguments.
> Moral opposition to drug usage is based on the need to establish social norms that discourage escapism and dependency.
No, because TV(, etc) is acceptable. Drugs are a problem because of our puritanical background. The issue isn't that you aren't being productive, it's that you're enjoying it.
The racism strategy was a much more powerful and effective tool for the older generation. There has been an attempt to continue to artificially associate drugs with other 'bad things' (terrorism, for example) now that associating something with black people isn't a guaranteed way to make people hate it, but success has been limited.
If you mean things like DARE, its worth noting that studies of DARE have shown that (despite its name and how it is sold to parents, etc.) it has no effect on participant's attitudes toward (or propensity for) drug use, but does make their attitudes toward law enforcement more positive.
I would say that's kind of true. I first believed what DARE said and never wanted to use any drugs. I eventually did try 1 and had a totally different experience that what they said and therefore took everything they said to be lieful propaganda.
>t has no effect on participant's attitudes toward (or propensity for) drug use
Woman's suffrage happened after the prohibition. The prohibition was the 18th amendment (taking effect on January 16, 1920), and woman's suffrage was the 19th amendment (ratified on August 18, 1920).
It's not about general funding (for which the government has many sources, including straight-up printing), but about untraced monies. Money is not all equal, and for certain purposes, taxed money is much, much less valuable than untraceable drug money.
That was at least the motivation for a lot of younger drug users I know.
In my country (India), there is a region in the Himalayas - Kasaul - where marijuana grows in the wild. It is so easily accessible that you can literally pluck some on a walk through the forest.
You'd expect with such easy availability, the locals would be all addled on weed/hashish all the time. Yet, most locals tend to be non-users. Most users tend to be tourists and outsiders who come solely for the purportedly "best in the world" hashish
We don't really know what would happen in a laissez-faire system, but we can be fairly confident that a medicalised approach would have substantial positive effects.
https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civ...
There's a few people offering anecdotes to counter that, but obviously actual research wins, the difference between Portugal and Japan are therefore likely to be cultural differences outside of strict drug laws.
Source: I had Japanese roommates in college who turned out to be potheads. They raved about the super-cheap marijuana they could get in the US, which was 1/5 to 1/10th the price as was available in Japan.
There are drugs that are partly or fully banned in other countries that are freely prescribed here (rohypnol, for example).
Mushrooms weren't banned at all until recently.
An ex's brother was prosecuted for weed but let off after paying a fine. Another guy I knew who sold was let off in exchange for his cellphone contacts.
Something interesting to consider is alcohol use in Japan vs. elsewhere: http://www.cmaj.ca/content/167/4/388.1.full
Basically Japan is following a tradeoff where they have chosen organized crime of lots of unorganized or violent crime.
So it will be very hard to compare such a system with a western country which deals with these issues in such a different manner.
I can mention that drug use is fairly low in my home country Norway as well despite pretty lax laws.
We are doing something very wrong with respect to heavier drugs like heroin though since we have a lot of overdose cases. But Switzerland and the Netherlands seems to be quite good at this and they have very liberal laws.
Unless the penalties drastically increase, or I am convinced that what I am doing is morally wrong, I shall probably continue to take my drug of choice for the foreseeable future.
From what I've heard, the marijuana that grows in the wild tends to be of a far lower quality than that which is cultivated.
I don't care so much about pricing, amsterdam levels would be OK for me. I consume so little that I would be OK even with higher pricing. But I could actually choose what type of effect, strength etc. I want, rather than random, mostly weak & expensive street stuff, bought from shady characters in dark alleys.
Unless society will be handling death/for life penalties for pure consumation here, I am not stopping consuming of a plant that used to grow all round us, was heavily subsidized when US colonies got independence etc. It just doesn't make sense, this is one of the cases of laws that are plain wrong (in case of this plant and all possible products from it). If there is such an immoral law, it actually feels good breaking it (but still preferring clean, legal, market-driven scenario).
In the Netherlands, where marijuana is effectively legal†, the percentage of the population aged 15-64 which has used the drug at least once in the past year was 5.4 (2005). In the US the data was from 2009 (pre-legalization in Oregon and Colorado), and was 13.7%
Anecdata: I've lived in both places, weed just isn't as cool in NL as it is in the US.
† Use of marijuana in NL is totally decriminalized and it is easily purchasable by anyone over 18.
It seems like a common thread through people getting addicted to drugs is trying to find an escape for a crappy/desperate life, so logically if it's less crappy people won't need an escape as much, right?
It's quite an absurd situation, honestly.
Humans tend to want what they can't have - it's reactance in action.
Now legalizing drugs would also give standards and tests. Instead of potentially toxic you'd get something tested (you may get shitty product still but the producer will get busted and closed easily).
e.g. Hindu Kush. Interestingly, cannabis has been used in India since 2000BCE.
Aren't there some tolerated/accepted uses of cannabis in India? I suppose what I'm really asking is it actually tourists or aren't there some significant traditional uses such as bhang? I can certainly understand that some users would just be tourists, but most I'm not sure of.
Gambling legalization is very close to drug legalization in my opinion, and that has shown that usage will increase, and the behavior will be destigmatized.
I'm not arguing against legalization. But I had a similar conversation with my kids about legalizing pot. I told them that whatever the health aspects of pot use are, the pot industry would use all of the tactics of the tobacco industry, to market pot as "cool" and perfectly safe.
(and I mean traditional plant medicines here, not, obviously, hemlock and the like :-)
"Medicinal" partly implies that a small amount of the substance will have an impact on the body, and there are many substances in plants where the dose does matter.
Likewise the corruption laws in developing countries seem to largely be about getting rid of political opponents. Everybody is basically guilty of corruption, but only those who are on the wrong side politically actually get prosecuted. Look at Russia, if you cross Putin they can charge you with corruption right away because they no almost everybody has done it.
In this regard laws which masquerade as fighting undesirable things in society really becomes a tool of oppression.
Also: theatre.
Much like a lot of airport/airline security measures are theatre to reassure the common people that something is being done, the war on drugs continues because people who don't know any better (or don't believe the ineffectiveness argument) will feel less safe if it officially stops or even steps down a notch. This situation perpetuates itself, and any escalation doesn't get reversed, and feeds into the politics point others have already mentioned because people feeling less safe are less likely to vote for you next time.
It is absolutely a conspiracy, just one that happens to actually have occurred and probably continues to occur.
They work with local organized crime to create covert hideouts and border crossings for CIA use, and give them funding and weapons in exchange, and things like the drug trade come out of that almost automatically.
(I don't quite "believe" this theory in the sense of imagining a bunch of rich people sitting in a room, conspiring about this and cackling evilly. I "believe" in this more in the sense of, I think drugs are very bad for you on average and they certainly are the #1 cause of untimely death among the people I've personally known, and I think that the kind of people making policy decisions will not be that upset if large numbers of poorer people are very adversely affected by legalization, any more than they are upset by the adverse effects of draconian prohibition measures.)
I really don't understand why people put themselves in echo chambers then complain to each other why the world is the way it is. It's a waste of time.
But to answer your question, it was voters.
You came up with a number that was close but not enough and you think that proves a point? Get the additional 20 out of every 1000 votes. The reason it's not 50% is because people don't want flip/flopping every few years.
To state this in another way- think of all of the Budweiser/Bud Light sponsorships and commercials and replace that Bud with the other kind of bud. That's about the scale and usage to expect, at the very least, if cannabis were to be completely legal everywhere alcohol is.
And all of the abuse, drunk driving, etc? Increase that somewhat. They won't be able to control all of it with treatment and education any more than they have with alcohol. Also, imagine the level of drinking at work even in the 1940's and 50's after alcohol prohibition was lifted.
Aside from cannabis, think of all of the other drugs that could be abused. Yes, drug violence, etc. will go down, but there is a tradeoff.
Note that drinking at work has gone away without government intervention.
I suspect a major cause is that prohibition is a well known method, used to handle other substances which the state wants to limit access to. Narcotics is intended for medicine and research, which makes it easy to regulate to licensed organizations. They use the same method for substances that is used to create explosives, weapon components, radioactive material, and so on. In Sweden, even things like pure alcohol or pure oxygen is regulated and require a license, since the target audience for that is quite narrow.
No one ever got fired for buying IBM, and no politician got blamed if they create regulations that limit use to only the intended target audience. Its not about being effective.
So far as I understand, a treaty[1][2] is the root of this problem. I assume that the validity and efficacy of this treaty will come into question April 19 through 21. Amending this treaty would pave the way for sensible drug control.
[1]: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/single-convention.ht...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...
But these asian countries and the european ones do have a number of things in common which is different from the US. Neither has poverty problems on the scale found in the US. Neither have racial conflict at the level found in the US.
And how comparable is really Singapore? It is a single city, tightly controlled with 3x the police force of a regular western country, where they practice DDR like surveillance in the sense that citizens are taught to report each other for all sorts of minor transgressions.
The US is a lot more similar to Europe so if one was ever too look at alternative policies I think looking at European experiences makes a lot more sense for the US than looking at Asian countries which are vastly different historically, culturally and in what political system they currently employ.
This is a dubious claim. How do you actually identify the number of people who are addicted? Even if there are fewer people addicted to the very few currently illegal drugs, are there fewer people addicted altogether?
I believe that more significant influencing factors are that drug usage is socially unacceptable Singapore and Indonesia, that citizens are more willing to accept government control over their private activities, that drugs are harder to acquire.
It seems more likely that those countries are able to have capital punishment for (what the West would consider to be) minor drugs offences precisely _because_ drug use is already low and drug users are more consistently vilified by society.
It is worth noting that Indonesia have changed their drug policies in recent years and are moving towards a medicalised rather than criminalised approach to drug use, largely as a response to rising rates of HIV infection amongst injecting drug users.
https://www.unodc.org/indonesia/en/issues/hiv-and-drugs.html
Quote from the article we're discussing.
I'm not convinced on Indonesia[1] and Hong Kong[2]; I've visited both myself several times, and drugs were easily available.
[1] http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/bnn-says-33-die-of-d... [2] http://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1826366/...
Singapore only executes drug dealers, producers and traffickers. This hasn't really had a significant effect on drug availability, and it still remains a major transit point for drug trafficking in Asia.
Indonesia? Drugs everywhere.
It's probably very underreported (because otherwise they would be executing a ton of people).
Being politicians, it doesn't matter so much what they know as what their constituents want (or believe they want). Which leads to the government being a screwed up, multi-headed entity with many competing and opposing objectives and directives.
Legalization would hit many powerful interests in their revenue streams.
Did you accidentally beat up the wrong person? Plant drugs on them and charge them with resisting arrest and possession.
Of course it's a conspiracy.
I'm sure those are all factors, but I bet the biggest factor is just police forces pushing for huge amounts of federal funding.
NNo, some people who work in the government understand that. Others have conflicting interests of cognitive biases or are stupid or have other reasons for disagreeing. 'The government' is simply not a monolithic entity and outside of certain narrow legal contexts pretending that it is leads to fallacious conclusions.
is that true? these things aren't really mutually exclusive right? this is just my supposition, but I would imagine that there is market synergy between legal cannabis and alcohol and tobacco.
Refer to the character Lawrence Kramer in "Bonfire of the Vanities" talking about feeding "the chow" into the criminal justice system.
Most countries went with the flow of international pressure, rather than banning as a sovereign decision. It came to a point in which any country that becomes sufficiently soft on hard drugs is labeled a "narco state", and that's widely considered reasonable grounds for a military invasion! What we're seeing today is the chilling effects of that.
That's the worst of both worlds. What will happen is a lot of people will become "addicts", get the drug (legally), then sell it to drug dealers to cash out. Criminals will keep their profits high, but they'll decrease their risk (because the government will be a safe and reliable supplier).
http://health.spectator.co.uk/the-case-for-prescription-hero...
And it is less risky. I'd support a system that gives I'd more junkies of the junkies aren't destroying their health, aren't stealing, have jobs.
But of you're only allowing heroin use for dependent users in a clinic, you won't destroy the black market. There are still people developing new heroin addictions in Switzerland. And not only new users will use the black market to get heroin. Anyone who wants to use it in their own home, anyone who wants to keep their use secret will have no other choice.
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http://www.premiereligne.ch/quai9/
(basically, a drug user's paradise: a "consumption space" injection rooms, clean drugs available, medical attention and reanimation in case of overdose, therapy programs and support programs with the intention to help people quit drugs without stigmatizing them and pushing them to it).
It is immensely successful. Drug crime becoming nonexistent here. The number of drug users is also decreasing, as drugs are now decriminalized, uncool, readily available and coming with friendly doctors and therapists.
if you get caught with tiny amount (< 1g) at the border, you will face harsh fine, full body cavity inspection etc.
Nah, this country is definitely not a paradise, just there are worse places.
But: you can legally grow it for your own consumption!
...it doesn't seem far of a stretch to make the leap to using your statement here to indicate that you may in fact be racist.
There was no reason to indicate their race, so why do it? Did they have blue eyes, too? What can I infer from shady blue-eyed people on street corners selling me drugs?
Now, if you carried that one step further and said that black people in Geneva are probably drug dealers, then yeah, that's racist...
The friend who'd taken me there was absolutely livid. He said it was the most incompetently rolled joint he'd ever seen.
Truly, it is a different place here.
(Although the downside is that tobacco smoking is rife and getting away from the smell at bus stops, station platforms etc can hard.)
It's becoming better, though. Smoking in bars and restaurants recently been banned — finally we can enjoy our remaining favourite drug — alcohol — without any distractions. :)
I wish this was the norm everywhere.
Possession of drugs remains illegal indeed (we are not talking about marijuana here — this is about "hard" drugs). But you can come to one of Quai9 centres and there are drugs available directly from the government (I am not sure whether for free or for nominal price — perhaps the latter), all of Swiss pharmaceutical quality. Heroin is definitely available (the personnel will try to move heroin addicts to replacement therapy ASAP, but at first, they can continue their habit), not sure about cocaine, but I think it is there as well, as there are mentions of "sniffing places" installed, whatever it is.
Thus, there is no possession and no trade (and it's pointless to engage of criminal trade of something that is legally available from the government).
The same goes with guns. It is legal to own, buy and sell very impressive guns in Switzerland, but it is illegal to own _ammo_ (unless you are hunter, or can prove that you need self-defense — but this is how it is handled in most European countries; Switzerland is different by making actual gun trade legal).
So, how do you fire these guns? Simple: you take one of them, go to the shooting range, and there you can buy some ammo to shoot with (it is very illegal to take it home). Shooting ranges are government-supported and regulated (Swiss government actually encourages citizens to train at shooting ranges).
Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr...
Source: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-portugal-...
Nevertheless, decriminalization of consumption (not traffic), has allowed drug users to reach out for treatment, which led to better statistics on drug use, better approaches to treatment and an overall decrease in hard-core drug use (cocaine, meth and such). Cannabis use is up from then, but that is perhaps an observation bias (better statistics).
The result of lower hard drug use is a lower crime rate. That effect is clear as water. It is now obvious that most crime had drug use as its cause.
Interestingly, there was a social effect that may be hard to reproduce. Hard drugs fell out of fashion. While cannabis is widespread in youth events, hard drug use is socially shunned. Perhaps the visibility of its effects hit the population, perhaps the relative personal cost became obvious, but it is certainly uncool to be a hard drug user.
You don't want abortion? Make Kansas, say, a no abortion state.
Legalized drugs? Head your head to Colorado.
Socialism? Sure New Hampshire is almost there already anyway.
Well, you get the point. It's been proven that actual markets almost always work as well if not better than diktat, so these "experiments" could be monitored and all the rest.
I mean, why not give something totally new a try?
What we have now is killing people and ruining their lives as I personally live through its failings everyday.
Jim Crow laws are an obvious example of that sort of problem. Abortion fits pretty well too. I'd argue that drug laws are another example, although in this case we have the human rights abuses imposed from above, and some individual states trying to break out of it.
For example, perhaps society benefits when you tax the wealthy to help the poor. But given the choice, the wealthy will move to where their taxes are lower, so that plan works poorly if you let individual states pick and choose.
Or perhaps society benefits when you don't tax the wealthy to help the poor, and make the poor pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But the poor will move to a state with more aid, again defeating the plan.
Obviously there are differences between the states right now, so this isn't a total obstacle. But it really only works to the extent that there is a lack of mobility between the states (people tend to want to stay where they are), or on issues where it doesn't matter.
Like the other response said, its prisoners dilemma. It is in the best interests of the rich to pay for honestly a majority stake in the society because they are the ones prospering the most from it. But if any one person of the ownership class can avoid paying, they have an incredible competitive advantage over their peers they will obviously exploit.
Independently, it is never in your best interests to give your money away in taxes. It is always in your best interests to have everyone else pay them but you.
This is why you cannot test any number of policies - basic income, progressive taxation, universal healthcare, amongst many more - because if you are not getting more out of these policies than you put in you have the instant ability to flee from paying for them.
What would happen, the results of the studies would be twisted and no further adoption would happen. It might happen because the media companies don't want whatever it is was shown to be "better". Lobbyists can overcome most facts by sheer force of their donations.
Yeah, it's what has doomed our political process these days.
What a great insight, and yes it would seem that the political aspect and confirmation-bias issues would probably render any results moot.
This the age we live in I guess...seemingly solid oppo research on any subject are just a few clicks away.
"Laboratories of democracy is a phrase popularized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann to describe how a 'state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.' Brandeis was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.
"This concept explains how within the federal framework, there exists a system of state autonomy where state and local governments act as social 'laboratories,' where laws and policies are created and tested at the state level of the democratic system, in a manner similar (in theory, at least) to the scientific method."
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratories_of_democracy
I'd adjust your statement: "What you are suggesting would only work if the level (of federal power we have NOW) didn't exist"
That all being said, I'm not even sure my full level of pessimism is merited; certain states had been independently experimenting with e.g. health care reform 10+ years ago which ended up forming the basis for the ACA. This sort of state based trial seems like it s exactly what the parent was suggesting, and what was alluded to in Brandeis's famous "Laboratories of democracy" quote that seems very apt to this discussion.
Hell, the Constitution itself was drafted to solve the problem of arbitrarily differing business rules and trade agreements between the several states.
As you say; it was drafted to solve the problem of differing business rules/trade, but the scope was originally VERY limited to interstate commerce. I simply don't see how it can be argued against that the purview has pretty distinctly expanded from then on.
Look of course I am aware of legal issues and all that, but doesn't make sense to enact such sweeping legislation as legalizing drugs or socialism on a small scale first before going national?
While many people engage in the popular delusion that people stop an activity when you pass laws banning, it's patently obvious that banning drugs is about as successful de facto as banning abortions. This means the real question isn't about the existence of a market for drugs.
Instead, laws that affect the market for drugs are about who is allowed to be the "supply" side of the equation. Obviously, some type of regulated market would be recommended if we want to have any amount of control over the market. Instead, we pass laws that ban legitimate businesses from entering this market, which is by definition a choice to turn the drug market over to criminals. By definition.
I suggest that choosing to give organized crime and violent gangs the profits from this high-value market. Usually, this is when prohibitionists claim that they can force the market to not exist by giving the supply side even more profit with ever stricter enforcement.
In the case of drugs, it is clear that people will use them regardless. So the question for policymakers can't be "how do we stop people using drugs?", it has to be "given that people will use drugs, how do we minimise the harm caused?"
The other interesting parallel is ashtrays in aeroplane toilets. Supposedly they're there because sometimes, despite the warnings and no-smoking signs, people light up in the loo anyway. It's better for them to have an ashtray to put the cigarette out in than to try to improvise and possibly start a fire. In a situation where a planeload of passenger's lives could be at stake, there's no room for moral grandstanding - they've done the pragmatic thing and realised that when total prohibition cannot be enforced, you simply do what you can to minimise the damage.
I know one: we advertise drugs in movies and on billboards and put a liquor store on every other street corner, Oughta show'em.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11940643/United...
But why heroin usage has raised?
I have read an (very convincing) argument that heroin usage is increasing due to the marijuana legalization. And no, it's not the typical "marijuana is a door the heavier drugs" thing, is merely supply and demand effect on the streets. Street dealers don't really sell weed as they used to now that better and legal weed exist, so they went on heroin. Heroin got a lot cheaper and widely available due to it (Unfortunately, I lost the article link).
I'm not arguing in favor or against legalization (I'm in favor all the way), my complain is how one folded the debate is. Numbers are great and they are definitely needed, but they may trick you into thinking that everything has a simple cause and effect when reality is much more complicated.
One striking example how lazy is legislation is the case of safer chemicals such as LSD or MDMA versus designer drugs such as 25i (nbomb). In some places such designer drugs are even legal (bath salts anyone?) due to how slow or careless the legislation is. As for LSD it's a long time in prison. The dealers are coerced to sell more dangerous substances.
This is an extremely misguided statement. The demand for high quality weed has never been higher. It doesn't matter if you legalize it, because you are still taxing it 50%. The individual sellers and producers will keep doing their thing. I can tell you right now that people who sell weed don't just magically start selling heroin. The types of people who sell weed are TOTALLY different that the types of people who sell heroin.
Yes, some people exist who sell both - but those types of dealers have been selling every kind of drug they can get their hands on and will never stop.
I think you need to take another look at the supply and demand of high quality marijuana. It is hard to consistently produce high quality marijuana - and once you do cure it correctly and get it packaged, it flies off the shelf as fast as you can answer your phone, regardless of if you are in a state where it is legal or not. Furthermore, there are many people who deliver marijuana on bikes and in cars and make a very good living. These people are not going to loose business to legal dispensaries I can guarantee you. There is always demand for reliable dealers who deliver high quality to you asap. Independent producers and dealers will be able to consistently undercut dispensary prices because the government is taxing it 50%. Combined with the value of delivery and you are not going to see marijuana dealers switch to selling heroin because weed is legalized.... it doesnt work that way. Two completely different clientele/lifestyle/risk factors.
That's my point too. And I believe that this increase in demand for high quality weed made many street dealers that sell shitty weed go for heroin. Now heroin is a cheap and common option at your local street corner.
> (...) those types of dealers have been selling every kind of drug they can get their hands on and will never stop.
Exactly. As you put it, they will never stop. It's time to realize that and include them on the equation. Why there aren't policies coercing the typical street dealer to sell safer drugs rather than weird dangerous experimental stuff (like on LSD vs Nbomb)?
Furthermore, the weed dealers I know who have been doing it for 10 years+ have no intentions to stop making money when it is legalized here at some point. They are not going to start selling heroin.
In Minneapolis all of our high quality weed basically gets driven here from LA/Colorado/Anywhere people have grow houses. The keyword here is "high quality". Anybody selling low quality weed is definitely selling coke/heroin as well. That's just the nature of the market here.
I guess I am kind of rambling but I find the economics of black markets fascinating. My main point is that I contend your claim that street dealers who sell shitty weed are now "switching" to heroin. This is just not true, and doesnt make sense. If you are selling heroin, you are one of those dealers who will sell ANYTHING you can get your hands on, including shitty weed/good weed/coke/whaetever. Once a dealer decides to sell things that come with heavy jail time then they dont give a fuck what they are selling. They are just in it for the $$$
They just don't care for the penalty (jail time) so they will sell anything for money, there's nothing we can do about it. This thinking is precisely what I'm criticizing, this one folded way to analyze the problem.
Let's take LSD vs Nbomb example once again. Making LSD is extremely hard specially because how hard is to find the ingredients. Nbomb is a piece of cake. Here's an example which there's nothing to do with addiction or punishment, it's just the plain practicality of dealing with the substances.
Maybe there's a way to set up an environment where the law breakers would still do it while causing less harm on society. That's the discussion I'm missing, how we coerce the bad guys to not be so bad.
A minor point, but cannabis use has gone down.
Key findings, page 1
> Around 1 in 12 (8.6%) adults aged 16 to 59 had taken an illicit drug in the last year. This equated to around 2.8 million people. This level of drug use was similar to the 2013/14 survey (8.8%), but significantly lower than a decade ago (11.2% in the 2004/05 survey).
Cannabis, page 3 (The chart on that page is pretty clear.)
> As in previous years, cannabis was the most commonly used drug in the last year, with 6.7 per cent of adults aged 16 to 59 using it in the last year, similar to the 2013/14 survey (6.6%; Figure 1.2). Over the longer-term, between the 1998 and 2003/04 surveys, the last year use of cannabis was stable, at around 10 per cent of adults, before falling to 6.5 per cent in 2009/10. The trend since the 2009/10 survey has been relatively flat, at between six and seven per cent (Table 1.02).
> Among younger adults aged 16 to 24, cannabis was also the most commonly used drug, with 16.3 per cent having used it in the last year. This was not statistically significantly different from the level in 2013/14 (15.1%), but was a significant fall compared with the 1996 survey (25.8%).
> Although the trend in the use of cannabis among 16 to 24 year olds appears to have shown a steady increase compared with the 2012/13 survey, it is too early to conclude that this is an emerging pattern at this stage. The estimates from the 2012/13 survey appear to be out of line with recent results, and a comparison of the latest estimate to previous years may indicate that the trend, which has been falling since the peak in 1998, has gradually stabilised (Table 1.06).
For the US: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/13/teen-marijuana-use-... (sorry about huffpo. CDC need to have a better website.)
> The biennial High School Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that the rate of marijuana use among U.S. high school students remained virtually unchanged from 2011 to 2013. It's also about 3 percent less than the peak of teen marijuana use in 1999, when nearly 27 percent of teens said they had recently used marijuana, according to the CDC data.
> In 2013, 23.4 percent of American high-school-aged teens used marijuana one or more times in the 30 days before the survey, the data show. That's nearly even with 23.1 percent in 2011.
According to the CDC, opioid painkillers addicts are 40 times more likely to be addicted to heroin than general population. “Most heroin users have a history of nonmedical use of prescription opioid pain relievers, and an increase in the rate of heroin overdose deaths has occurred concurrently with an epidemic of prescription opioid overdoses."
I can't say opioid painkillers are the only reason, but the experts seem to agree they're, at least, a major contributing factor.
I was listening to a social worker discuss the problem recently. His experience was that most new heroin addicts started on opioid painkillers, often with legitimate prescriptions, and weren't hard drug users previously. When their doctor refused to prescribe more painkillers (or the pills they were stealing from mom ran out, etc.), they turned to the black market, where it's much easier to obtain heroin than painkillers. He estimated 90% of his cases fit this pattern of prescription drugs being the gateway to heroin.
This same guy also discussed how a lot of overdoses he saw were from recovered heroin addicts that relapsed after being prescribed an opioid painkiller for a legitimate need, e.g., after an injury. As you say, they went back to their "old dose," without realizing a) their tolerance was lower and b) black market heroin is typically much better quality and a wider range of qualities these days. In the 80's (and 90's I think) heroin was usually <10% pure (i.e., 90% filler/other), but heroin on the streets today is often around 30% but sometimes as high as 70%. I don't remember the exact numbers, something close to that. He said you could tell when a super pure batch of heroin came through town, because overdoses would spike.
Another factor I've read, can't remember where, is that the higher quality heroin has made snorting it more feasible. So, that reduces some of the stigma/ickiness associated with needles, trackmarks, etc., increasing the pool of people who'll try it. And it can be easier to overdose via snorting, because it takes several minutes to feel the full effects, unlike injecting.
Nonetheless, the other hand always wants its share. In the case of Australia, harm minimisation has reduced drug-related crimes, but the prevalence of drug use in the general population continues to rise, especially with regard to pills and amphetamines. Blood borne viruses are also on the rise, despite the ubiquity of safe injecting rooms in every major city and availability of "sharps kits" in every retail pharmacy.
Interestingly, the conservative party temporarily swayed from this stance and implemented a "tough on drugs" policy for part of the 90s[1]. It was dubbed to the wider public as a "harm prevention" measure i.e. protecting those yet to experiment with drugs and the wider community that didn't use illicit drugs regularly. There was a significant reduction in every measure: drug use, drug crime and spread of blood-borne viruses. This policy did not cut safe injecting and drug use services, but increased police activity and ephemeral "say no to drugs" cut-through education programs. The policy was reversed in the early 2000s.
[1] https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civ...
Just like getting simple tax code, lots of accountants/lawyers, etc.
Problem with tight packing is that lots of the criminals wont be violent but will become in these prisons, and those who are violent will become even more so. Unless you plan building prisons only for life sentences these people will come out of prison more violent and messed up than ever. That hardly a receipt for a more peaceful society.
As long as people are going to get out at some point, you can't ignore what happens to them while they are incarcerated.
This entire sentence is constructed of wild, unsubstantiated assumptions, strung together one after the other.
There's no part of this that resonates with my experience of the world, nor with the apparent fact pattern of the end of prohibition in places where prohibition has been materially ended.
One of the main goals of legalization is to starve black market actors of revenue. Extortion and kidnapping don't scale nearly as well as dope; therefore they are orders of magnitude less profitable.
1.http://fusion.net/story/108575/how-mexican-drug-cartels-are-...
But not all drug traffickers are Tony Montanas, there are legions of petty criminals, or even workers who make money on the side dealing drugs.
And rehabilitating criminals in the criminal justice system becomes easier when drug-war-induced overcrowding of the prison system is reduced.
Surely you don't think the only victim in the drug trafficking industry are actually drug users?
The problem with hardcore drug use is that it literally strips you of your decision making capabilities. Many people describe it as a secondary being within their body, for damn good reason.
The only reason I ended up 'normal' and not an addict is that I had the support system in place to deal with the underlying issues that caused my reckless behaviour, before they led somewhere I had no coming back from.
My addiction started with Adderall, prescribed by a doctor.
Stop and ask this question: Why do we as a society need more and more and MORE mind-altering substances to cope with life?
Seriously.
Is society headed in the right direction if almost everyone needs some type of external chemical influence just to get through the week?
I already have an answer.
Citation needed.
> Is society headed in the right direction if almost everyone needs some type of external chemical influence just to get through the week?
Who are you to decide what the "right direction" is, for anyone but yourself? Right vs Wrong is a moral judgement, not a legal one. No one should have the right to tell me what I (or anyone else) can put into my body. On a similar note, I think assisted suicide should be legal as well, but that's a discussion for another day.
Stop and ask this question: Why do we as a society need more and more and MORE stimuli to cope with life?
Seriously.
Is society headed in the right direction if almost everyone needs some type of external influence just to get through the week?
I already have a answer.
Problem is, every time you fire up a computer or a phone or a TV, you're seeking a stimulus which is going to fire off chemical signals in your brain. Your mind CRAVES the stuff. You COULD just sit around creating things all the time and stimulating yourself, but that's not convenient, is it? Drugs just eliminate the bullshit by applying direct stimulus without the idiot boxes, or obviously unnecessary items like books or live performances.
Oh, and drop the coffee and tea. And sugar. And salt. And any food that tastes good. You don't need those either. External chemical influences, after all.
Ha ha. You're funny.
Well, if you answered yes, then you used a mind-altering substance / external chemical influence for your personal enjoyment. Don't you deserve jail for this? I mean, shouldn't you have been able resist the urge to intoxicate yourself, and instead pushed yourself in the "right direction" of sobriety? Since you failed at this, we might as well throw the book at you for it, right?
Alternately, if you answered "no" to my above question(s), then you're a liar and you can see yourself out.
The distinction is that we need to maintain a government force to compel the non-use of drugs that cause public harm. We need to make drug-use punishable, on the level of littering, trespass, vandalism, and disturbing the peace.
We need to be able to confine people who lose control of themselves and cause public harm when they are high, or in service of their high, but that confinement should be treatment oriented, not punishment oriented.
All of those except littering are generally nontrivial crimes (misdemeanors or felonies, not infractions), so making drug use punishable "on the level of" those is not only not legalization, its also not decriminalization.
(Actually, since drug use isn't generally criminal now -- possession, which is usually a prerequisite to use, is -- it would just be plain criminalization of drug use.)
Can you ban math(s)?
If tens of millions of people took a pill and sat basically unmoving for upwards of three hours each day, experiencing the lightshow generated by their own mind in concert with the pill, the squares would be in an uproar!
I don't want to live in a society of drug addicts, I want to live among people of sound mind, body and spirit, who conduct themselves honestly and honourable among their peers.
Should we be fighting all forms of escapism? Movies, books, comics, computer games? Daydreaming?
If not, why are "drugs" different?
Does this apply to all psychoactive substances? Tobacco? Alcohol? Chocolate? Nutmeg?
> I don't want to live in a society of drug addicts, I want to live among people of sound mind, body and spirit, who conduct themselves honestly and honourable among their peers.
Wouldn't we all? I do not think that eradicating drug use will bring about this this utopia, though.
Do people escape through books and movies? Not usually to the point that they become dangerous.
Let's be adults here.
Society doesn't havena lifestyle. Individual members of society have lifestyles, so I'll rephrase that question to be more correct:
What about the fact that drugs are incompatible with the lifestyle we want our people to have?
Now it sounds as authoritarian as it is. And who is "we"? Sure, the majority is against drug legalization, but this is in a society where everyone has been exposed to lies and propaganda demonizing drugs since their childhood. Before the propaganda started, people didn't care about drugs.
What about the fact that religion is incompatible with the lifestyle I want people to have? Isn't it better instead of allowing churches to exist to find the root cause which is forcing these people to seek comfort and stability from these lie-peddlers?
I don't want to live in a society of devotees, I want to live among people of sound mind and spirit, who think for themselves and strive to consider the big questions in an intellectually honest way.
[1] (that is, whatever we decide to lump together under that ridiculous umbrella term)
Depression, anxiety, moderate mania, genetic dispositions to addiction... how do we "find" these? The unfortunately thing is, we've been trying this the world over for a century and no one is meaningfully closer. In the meantime, we're destroying families and feeding an industry worth 10's, hundreds of billions founded on illegal drug trade.
Thing is, you likely already do live in a society of drug addicts. Whether discussing decriminalization or legalization, what you're allowing is those addicts to step out into the sunlight, so the society can help them reduce or end their drug usage.
Remember that laws of morality are a very tricky thing, and tend usually to inadvertently oppress significant parts of a population. Allowing a society to internally act on its compassion instead of outsourcing responsibility to a law seems to have a better outcome.
Says who? Billions of people consume alcohol and tobacco every week - these are drugs too!
I fail to see how unwinding with some weed/hash at the end of a day or at the weekend is a bad thing, or how it's any different to alcohol.
If I want to smoke a little pot on the weekends, I am going to do it. If you have a problem with it, I don't care, because you're not invited to my smokeout.
You are treading a dangerous line trying to write lifestyles into law. That's the same school of thought that people that oppose homosexuality and premarital sex use to to justify their unfair restrictions.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Sweden#The_Lega...
I can't find any source for this. What I can find is information about legal prescription from '65 to '67 to a limited number of addicts, who were able to get sufficient doses that they in effect became a source of drugs for drug dealers.
So they continued to have the same problem of dealers, but with substantially increased supply.
Note that many countries today have legal prescription of proscribed drugs to addicts. Prescription of heroin is legal in the UK, for example (and, in fact, it is not only prescribed to addicts, but also used for post-op pain management in hospitals), without the problems Sweden ran into, because the amounts are strictly controlled.
It seemed the Swedish government managed to get the worst of both worlds by continuing to fight drugs while turning themselves into a cheaper, safer source for dealers.
http://www.badscience.net/2006/11/methadone-and-heroin/
Unlike our former business of selling the stuff to China
But - hey, might be worth executing anybody who uses drugs to see what happens. But I hope you're going to start with the really destructive ones, like Alcohol and Nicotine before you start looking at the less harmful ones such as cannabis.
Perhaps compared to Singapore, but my main reason for leaving the US after just 1 year, was the police state feeling that country gave me.
So many draconian rules and heavy fines and penalties. So many aggressive cops who will go after people for the smallest things: under age drinking, jaywalking etc.
American border controls are like an imaginary communist police state. Ironically old east block countries aren't like this presently.
In America there are just rules for everything. I went to an American university and compared to a European one they are total control freaks: no drinking on campus. Boys and girls can't mix. I mean they even got people patrolling the dorms to make sure rules are upheld. It is like some nazi kindergarten for adults.
I left for University in the Netherlands. Instead I got a bar on campus right outside my flat. We lived boys and girls together and nobody was walking around monitoring us.
I even heard from American high schoolers coming on exchange that public display of affection is not allowed. I had never even heard such an expression before. So kissing, hugging etc apparently isn't allowed in American high schools.
Although that sounds so crazy I am willing to believe that is a gross exaggeration.
Really? Looking beyond what is drilled in to the population from birth and the US is very rule bound in my experience compared to Europe. Whilst over there I got ticketed for parking at the wrong angle, crossing the road in the wrong place. Granted not a rule, but got questions by police for walking and many other situations I forget.
Perhaps European countries have this many rules / laws but I have never experienced them being enforced
Alcohol is inherently harmful, but nicotine itself is a relatively safe drug; The harms associated with nicotine are overwhelmingly caused by the delivery mechanism of smoking.
We have alternative delivery mechanisms for nicotine that are drastically safer than tobacco smoking. E-cigarettes are most prominent, with around 95% lower harm than smoking[1], but snus is also a relatively low-harm product[2].
This principle is very important to the broader drug debate. We must be careful to separate the innate harms caused by a drug and harms that can be managed through good harm reduction policy.
[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-le... [2]http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/12/4/349.long
Well, to be fair, I wouldn't mind executing alcoholics and smokers. But you can have the best of both worlds - provide help and healthcare to ones who have fallen in drug use and execute the ones who can't complete rehab.
So, completely discounting the massive improvements in Portugal since decriminalisation?
I find it hard to understand why so many people in the US want to switch drug policy from one extreme of the spectrum to the other. It's a rash social experiment with consequences that are hard to predict.
In my view these were the main factors for the relative (and undeniable as per [1]) success of the Portugal approach:
- Decriminalizing the use and possession without the intent to distribute (the measure that gets all the credit)
- The harm reduction program [2] with measures like needle exchanges, safe rooms for drug injection (popularly known here as "salas de chuto", roughly "kick rooms"), methadone clinics
- Relocation, requalification and housing programs to vacate popular drug hotspots like, for instance, Casal Ventoso (before [3], after [4])
It is interesting because in the span of one generation heroin consumption turned from "cool, rebelious and chic" (like in Kate Moss heroin chic) to a bums drug, provided by the government to the ones that lost their ways.
This change in perception helped to break the cycle of graduation from light drugs (like cannabis) to hard drugs (like heroin) in the youth and most likely is a significant factor in the success of the portuguese approach.
Kids won't touch the hard stuff because they can see very clearly based on who ends up in "salas de chuto" or in the methadone centers the harmful effect of the drug.
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr...
[2] http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/country-data/harm-reduction/Port...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7lOXcR05_E (graphic, drug use, in portuguese)
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqIUU80W60M (in portuguese)
Only 20% of state and federal prisoners (those serving more than a one year sentence) have drug crimes as their most serious conviction.
80% of prisoners are serving time for violent (47.7%), property (17.1%), or public order crimes (13.8%) that no one would argue are victimless.
While some of the other crime is related to drugs, the point is that 80% of the prisoners in the US have grievously victimized our fellow citizens and residents and are not innocent "[people removed] from society in order to address the 'drug problem'" as the parent comment stated.
Source: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...
You think it was a government backed conspiracy against black males?
Success being what? People not doing drugs? Who said that's what people want?
Drug users should be left alone and drug abusers should have access to treatment.
It misses the fundamental point, which is that the goal isn't - or shouldn't be - a drug free society. But to reduce harm. Including to the drug users.
Accepting that ruining drug users - addicts or not - lives doesn't reduce harm needs to be the first step, because we seem all too willing to lock them up and ensure their prospects of making a living in any other way than through crime is removed, without considering that these people are also part of the community we are supposedly trying to save from harm.
I'm sure they also hang people for chewing gum in Singapore, or whip them or whatever, doesn't mean that we should imitate them.
Who wants to live in a society where people are treated like that?
I ask because, unless there is, I'm afraid I do not understand why it would be rational to do so...
It could. That's not the point.
The main point that Annan is making is that there should be a health system in place for addicts, instead of a penitentiary system (where addictions typically become worse).
The past 50 year study/failed experiment known as "The War On Drugs" has shown us that there is nothing you can do to stop people from taking drugs. The war on drugs not only wastes tax money, is not only completely ineffective, but actually drives people toward dangerous usage. If drugs aren't regulated you never know what you are getting. Just recently tourists were being sold white heroin in Holland instead of cocaine (3 fatalities AFAIR). If used in the same way as cocaine is, white heroin can be lethal. This is simply not possible if you are getting your fix from a regulated supply chain.
Basically, by regulating drugs there is hope that there will be fewer drug-related fatalities and in the long-run (possibly decades) we'll most likely see less drug-related crime. This quote from the piece sums up the remainder of the piece perfectly:
> It is time to acknowledge that drugs are infinitely more dangerous if they are left solely in the hands of criminals who have no concerns about health and safety.
Well, it would still be possible (see e.g. last year's horse meat scandal in Britain), but the entire supply chain would be known and could be prosecuted.
It's harm from drugs that's bad, and most of it comes from them being illegal, and thus: uncontrolled quality and quantity (overdoses, etc), overpriced (making people steal etc to buy them), black market (thus supporting a mafia that sells them, kills people etc). That, and landing people in jail (where they ruin their live, become actual hardened criminals etc) for simple pocession etc.
If you legalise, you can regulate, tax and educate - then drugs can be made as safely as possible, and most drug-related violence and crime dissapears.
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/whats-most-dangerous-...
Heroin, if unadulterated, is incredibly safe.
There are virtually no long-term health effects, and most overdoses/deaths are caused by it being unknown quality or cut with dangerous substances.[1] The only reason it's dangerous is prohibition
Heroin downregulates receptors to such a degree that it can take a person months to years to never to feel normal again without opiates, depending on the length of habit.
A heroin addiction of as short a duration as three months can easily take someone 3-6 months to feel normal again from.
PAWS symptoms include anhedonia, lack of motivation, lack of concentration.
For people addicted to heroin for a decade, or for people who were addicted at young ages, they may never feel ok without long term opiate maintenance.
Heroin suppresses neurogenesis in the hippocampus.
Also, it should be made abundantly clear to anyone who has taken some oxycontin that heroin is not equivalent. A mild heroin addiction can develop in as little as three days of use, where oxycodone can be used for 2-3 weeks without developing significant withdrawal symptoms.
Heroin is more addictive than oxycodone, and it is easy to take doses that depress respiration while sleeping to unhealthy levels.
Heroin use can induce central sleep apnea in many people that use it. This is not healthy.
Drugs that downregulate receptors are incredibly irrational things to do compulsively.
Buy Feeling Good by David Burns and give yourself some cogntive behavioral therapy, please.
Heroin can make your world dark in a way you do not want to experience.
For anyone that wants to safely experiment with opiates, please stick to safer subsitutes like oxycodone, or opium.
If you want to experiment with heroin, never, ever do heroin more than two days in a row. Just two days is enough to produce some hangover effects. This is not the case with opium, or oxycodone.
And if you do have a habit, get some suboxone and get off heroin. The prohibition lifestyle will kill you.
I just buried a friend from an overdose.
Believe me, I really wish these weren't the facts. I wish heroin was as safe as this meme makes it out to be.
This right here is why we don't have a sensible drug policy; many, many people think like this when approaching the subject.
If that is the case, one must also consider all of the costs involved in making the drugs illegal, from paying people to enforce their illegality (DEA, border agents, customs inspections), increased burdens on the legal system, and the funding more prisons, the increase in thefts committed by addicts due to the rise in prices, increased burden on medical services (impure drugs are more hazardous to health)...
If your goal is "decrease drug use at all costs," then I question the rationality of the goal.
When I consider subparagraph A of the Federal Analog Act, I sometimes wonder if what is actually desired by drug-control advocates is to make certain states of mind illegal. That there could be legislation defining legal and illegal patterns of brain activity is quite a trip in itself. I thought cyberpunk was dead.
Take for example Portugal: Almost 1% of the population was addicted to heroin a couple of years ago, as the country moved away form a dictatorship and found freedom (also coming from a colonial war). With decriminalisation, and by treating addicts as patients, instead of criminals, the panorama improved greatly.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...
That's a very strange thing to say, given we know very well that tobacco is much more dangerous than many illegal drugs.
Smoking kills more people than all other drugs combined. WAAAAAY more. Same with alcohol.
By then reducing the size of the black market, you drain it of customers and money, and make it easier to police. But banning stuff that large segments of the population already do, even while suffering legal risk, is a harder policy to enforce.
There's also the fact that horse-riding, backyard pools, gun ownership, rock climbing, not eating well or excercising enough as likely to kill you as some drugs, so a consistent approach to that would be welcome too.
Unlike the use of drugs, almost all of the things you mentioned fall under category of "exercise", which (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe is medically accepted to have immense benefits, whereas I'm not sure the case is the same with the drugs under consideration here...
Another flaw of your "the dangerous ones" generalization.
Does MDMA count as one of the dangerous ones? It has promising potential for the treatment of depression, PTSD, etc. Or other psychadelics such as mushrooms or LSD.
What about ketamine? It's used recreationally, but it's also commonly administered in hospitals and may also be beneficial for those suffering from depresson.
There are undoubtedly others.
Ironically, good research into these "dangeorus" drugs has been hindered largely because of the widespread perception among the public and policymakers that they are dangerous, whether or not that is actually the case.
Unless they all are, you don't really have a point. But, for the sake of argument, pretend the list was "gun ownership, not eating well, not exercising enough" - i.e. 3 out of the original 6 (which, apparently, is "almost all"). Feel free to add any of the many, many activities which aren't "exercise" but are more likely to decrease your life expectancy such as driving, sitting, crossing the road, ...
They virtually got rid of opium usage in a relatively short time, and they did it without any sort of war on drugs approach.
They certainly fought the drug usage but they did not imprison or blame drug users. Rather than told abusers they were victims who needed help. They were given education to cope with addiction, jobs etc. Even drug dealers were, except the worst ones who were imprisoned.
It might have helped the narrative that they could blame Britain as the evil doer.
While not the same as legalization it does have some resemblance to the Portuguese approach where the focus is on helping people taken for abuse rather than punishing or imprisoning.
In that case, Wikipedia could use your help cleaning up this and many related articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade_in_China
Don't forget to cite your sources! They're sticklers about that sort of thing.
I referring to the period following the opium ban. I believe this was the 50s, not the present day. We are also comparing to an insanely high level were the claims was that 90% of inhabitants of certain provinces were users.
If you're referring to the decades since the 1950s, under a communist regime the Chinese obviously had better things to worry about (like surviving, finding a meal or looking commie enough not to be singled out by their own children and 're-educated' in some hellish camp).