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.
And then there's the other end of things, where you've got young teens experimenting and getting hooked while they are young and stupid.
Or those who are being abused or suffering mental health issues with no access to mental health services, and end up self-medicating just to get by. You can say 'they should have just gotten help' but it's hardly that easy, even for an adult, and you can't expect a 14yo kid with apathetic (or worse) parents to figure out how to get help for themselves or even know that they need that sort of help. Never mind the stigma associated with seeking help.
So no, even look at morality and not cost, it's very closed-minded to assume all drug addicts should be held to blame for their own addiction and just left to wallow in their misery.
The bottle however, states to take 2x daily, no warning about addiction.
Luckily, I am educated and intelligent, so I avoid taking it unless absolutely necessary, and now go months without needing it.
I have friends who were not so lucky - they interpreted "as needed" as to mean "as the bottle says if I feel any tinge of axiety". They got addicted and at best, had to go through expensive rehab programs. At worst, they succumbed to depression and died from it.
Please, do tell more me how a PhD student who follows their doctor's instructions, assuming they are a fellow expert, should be judged as having a moral failure.
you might find this interesting reading then. here's a quote from the executive summary.
> The United States is in the midst of an unprecedented drug overdose epidemic. Drug overdose death rates have increased five-fold since 1980.1 By 2009, drug overdose deaths outnumbered deaths due to motor vehicle crashes for the first time in the U.S. Prescription drugs, especially opioid analgesics, have been increasingly involved in drug overdose deaths.
In that light your comments about "they chose to do it" are horrible. People are self-medicating to relieve trauma. It might not be an effective way to relieve trauma, but given the piss-poor state of psychological treatment or judicial system for survivors of abuse it's not surprising people end up with sub-optimal solutions.
If I choose to take drugs without the intention of becoming addicted, and I become addicted, then yes, I became addicted by accident. Even if I was aware of the risks of becoming addicted.
Much like how if I decide to drive my car without the intention of hitting anyone, then if I hit someone, it is deemed an accident. Even if I was aware of the risks of hitting someone with my car.
In which case you are responsible. There is no accident.
It's all a question of probabilities and risk. The probability to hit someone while driving normally are pretty weak, and the consequences fairly low in normal circumstances (i.e. while you respect every law). When drunk, the probabilities go through the roof, as well as how damaging the consequences can be.
When you start to take drugs, even considering all the surrounding context, the consequences can be terrible and the probabilities are quite high.
So no, it not an accident, assuming you see yourself as a human being, able to think about these. If you see yourself as a victim who couldn't foresee anything, then good for you.
People like to pretend driving drunk is somehow different from driving tired, but the risks are actually similar. In fact a large chunk of 'drunk driving' accidents have more to do with people driving home late than intoxicated. Speeding, talking even just to passengers, and just flat out not paying attention also present major risks.
PS: 13x low odds are still generally low odds. http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittPorterHo...
That's an analogy, but so is just driving. There is a risk of being presented with a situation in which you cannot avoid hitting someone every time you drive (the risk is significantly greater if you drink, but it is present irrespective.) If knowing that a risk exists with an action is sufficient to make it "not an accident" if the risk materializes when you have chosen to take the action, even when you have no intention for the risk to materialize, and even the contrary intention, then there is no such thing as an "accidental" collision -- whether with a pedestrian or another vehicle -- while driving.
If that principle, OTOH, is invalid and it is possible to have an accidental collision when driving, then the principle cannot be invoked to argue that no one becomes addicted to drugs accidentally.
I just don't think it is a good analogy for hardcore drug use. Many of us did not choose to start taking drugs. Not with any real sense of context. The consequences are very often "not real" until they become "all too real."
A better analogy, would be "What do you do when you find yourself in a car moving at high speed with no brakes and no control over speed?"
This analogy specifically does not mention how you got into that position. Because its sort of irrelevant how your brakes came to be shot. What is relevant is how you can stop without causing damage to anyone else - in this situation, like with hardcore drug use, everyone involved is a victim. My point here is that recovery and harm reduction are not about casting blame. They are about finding a damn barrier to run into instead of a minivan full of kids.
I know a guy who spent 8 years of his life in prison, in many visits, mostly for petty theft and drug use/traffic (mostly cannabis). He had a really horrible life, and is a pretty cool guy, although he's obviously still struggling with addiction. He often says "there are only innocent people in prison, at least they all say that".
What about people who become addicted to prescription drugs like painkillers and sleeping tablets? There may have been sound medical reasons for their use at the start.
That begs the question: should society ban the sale of harmful products? I can buy: a sword; a gun; a packet of cigarettes; arsenic; cyanide; Doritos; Dianetics; Season 1 of Survivor and so forth. All of these things may be argued by some to be harmful (and by others not to be).
Why may I not choose to buy cocaine, LSD or marijuana as well?
Personally, I'd rather live in a more libertarian society, where you could do whatever you want (to yourself) and accept the consequences. But that's not the society we live in.
It really makes no sense...
Not true. Many people reasonably take the pills their doctor gives them and end up with an addiction.
> That poses another moral question: if drugs are harmful and addictive, why can't society ban people from selling them
Because you can't. It failed. It's not a moral question. In fact, that's specifically the problem.
> but voters aren't driven by cost-benefit analysis.
So, what of it? We should keep doing things we know don't work because the uninformed don't understand?
So we live in a democracy, and so have to pay at least some attention to what the people want.
The alternative is a dictatorship of some sort. Historically, those tend to ignore cost-benefit analysis and whether or not things actually work just as much as any democracy. Main difference is that the opinions of only one or a handful of people matter, and you have no access to influence those opinions, no matter what you think of them.
We are very purposefully NOT a democracy, because it is well understood that majority rule for everything is VERY bad for the minority, and EVERYONE is a minority in some aspect of their lives.
Somehow people don't consider it a dictatorship that we don't poll the common person for fire-safety law...
And especially in an area (drugs) where we know that hundreds of millions of dollars of propaganda and advertising have been spent on teaching lies, we shouldn't pretend that polling the victims is going to be informative in relation to their natural (untampered) desires.
Why isn't marijuana legal across the US then?
No. First, your assumptions around choice, etc. encode a whole panoply of privileged thinking. That all people have the same information, peer support, life context, apparent access to life paths and choices, etc. But let's just let that go. The other replies re: accidental addiction and a whole host of other information out there contradicts this position well enough.
The real problem with this conclusion is that it is morally illegitimate to allow a social and humanitarian problem to persist, intensify, and spread because of any so-called moral position. "Morality" that creates a set of decisions (punish drug users!) but ignores the ultimate moral fallout of those decisions is itself a position bereft of actual morality.
Yet alcoholics tend to be regarded as having an illness and are not treated as criminals, as opposed to what heroin addicts go through. Any discussion of the drug war that doesn't involve a discussion of the hypocrisy around alcohol is sorely lacking. And the drug war is about users - the UK government is currently stealthily spreading fear based propaganda around cannabis use through charity type organizations that are not obviously tied to the government.
And morality? Forget it. There really is no such thing as morality in Western societies today, except around the extreme things like pedophilia... and even then, that was hidden under the rug for decades - e.g. Jimmy Savile or the Catholic Church. Trying to bring morality into this sort of discussion is a feint. Morality tends to be an excuse for authoritarian attitudes and positions.
The best solution is to have an informed populace. Harm minimization and a more sophisticated understanding around altered states and psychological/spiritual issues by society. But that sort of thing does not mesh well with the agenda of a lot of politicians and other people.
Are those the same "moral reasons" that people opposed the idea of suffrage and civil rights?
The same moral reasons you listed to condemn drug addicts can be applied to alcohol addicts. But those are saw more as ill people by the same society that consider drug addicts criminals. So I think it is a possible path.
oh please. go tell that to the black community.
"Dammit Otto, you're an alcoholic!" vs. "Dammit Otto, you have lupus!"
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.