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Comment by nxc18 | Hacker News Reader

Although this had unfortunate consequences, and would be unthinkable in today's enlightened world, I'm not sure the line of reasoning here was unreasonable.

The idea that manufacturers would be allowed to produce vast quantities of a partially illegal substance, without putting in efforts to prevent illegal use, seems unreasonable.

Imagine the outcry if it turned out Phizer was manufacturing all the heroin. (They and their friends are manufacturing the heroin addicts, but the doctors are equally to blame here) It seems reasonable the government would act to stop it. The understanding of human behavior was not developed enough in the 1920s to really expect a perfectly safe program.

You could argue that the government should have been serving, rather than fighting the people, but a democracy, even a republican one like the US's is subject to the whims of an easily frightened electorate.

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> Although this had unfortunate consequences, and would be unthinkable in today's enlightened world, I'm not sure the line of reasoning here was unreasonable.

It is only reasonable for people who believe in social engineering of society to achieve some kind of betterment, even if that includes use of force or actually killing thousands of citizens by poisoning them.

Let me be clear on this, these people that died as a result did nothing other than buying products in a free exchange. No alcohol or drug dealer put a gun to their head and forced them to buy and consume their products.

This is not to say that I believe drugs are a good thing, it's just not my business to tell anyone what he or she should desire or not.

There are many types of Collectivist ideologies out there that believe in engineering societal improvement and they all have one thing in common: They are authoritarian and disregard the free will of individuals. Some might poison products to kill off the undesired or use state force to prohibit certain products, some might send rebellious citizens that think "wrong" to re-education camps (Soviet Gulags) and some might even send them to extermination camps. (National Socialist from Germany)

I reject all of that, I do not care in the slightest about what these Collectivists believe would be an enlightened society and how to bring that about. I'm an individual with personal interests and everyone should stay out of my business as long as I do not harm others.

If you can convince me and others to freely restrict ourselves in a way that could improve society then I'm fine with that.

> I'm an individual with personal interests and everyone should stay out of my business as long as I do not harm others.

While I'm sympathetic, I believe you mean "do not directly harm others". Many of the arguments people have are actually about indirect harm—virtually no-one argues that people should be able to directly harm others without provocation or fear of retaliation.

And once you start talking about limiting or otherwise prohibiting/reducing "indirect" harms, things get MUCH more difficult to deal with and "live and let live" don't apply so much—again, assuming you want to do something about indirect harm at all (not everyone does).

Yes absolutely, I meant actions that directly harm others.

The problem is that once you start going down the path to prohibit something that might indirectly cause harm you've basically given your government permission to ban anything they want to because they are always going to find some data that proves any action as indirectly harming someone somewhere.

Today we even police people that cause harm to the feelings of others by saying something that the person disagrees with.

Freedom of speech becomes pointless if you are only granting it to those who say things that do not offend anyone. That's the kind of freedom of speech that Stalin allowed in the Soviet Union. You may only say things that Stalin likes or that he isn't offended by.

That's why I'm principled about this. Let instead courts determine such issues. If you can successfully prove in a court of law that you have been harmed then you have the right to claim damages. Others will take note of the result and adjust their behaviour accordingly.

It is still done today. Prescription opiods are loaded with acetaminophen that will make you far sicker sooner than the opiods will.

And the recent widespread availability of Oxy, which doesn't have acetaminophen (i.e. tylenol), is thought to be responsible for the current opiate epidemic.

Yes, I'm sure it has nothing to do with pharmaceutical companies rewarding doctors for over-prescribing it, and in essence mobilizing them as drug dealers.

It surely does have something to do with that, but the point is that it wouldn't be possible if Oxy weren't well-suited for recreational use.

But the entity deciding to lace certain drugs with another drug designed to harm a class of users, and deciding to not lace certain other drugs, is the same entity that runs the legal Oxy cartel. Surely it's not possible to believe that part of their actions in this regard are motivated by any sort of social concern.

Or am I missing something?

PS: this, of course, not getting into the obvious immorality of lacing a drug to harm addicts. Only a mentally sick society could think otherwise in 2016.

>PS: this, of course, not getting into the obvious immorality of lacing a drug to harm addicts. Only a mentally sick society could think otherwise in 2016.

It's not to harm addicts. It's to discourage recreational use in the first place. If you're prescribed Vicodin and are warned about the harmful effects of taking more than the prescribed amount, you are less likely to act on the "what the hell, might as well pop 3 or 4 and get a buzz" thought that pretty much anyone prescribed these drugs could reasonably have at some point. So you never start on the path to becoming a self-destructive addict.

> It's not to harm addicts. It's to discourage recreational use in the first place.

Yes, discourage recreational use of some specific highly-addictive drugs and not others, at the expense of providing some addicts with a slow agonizing death. As I said, sick.

It's definitely over-prescribed, especially by "pain clinics" that hand them out like candy. But in contrast, pain clinics handing out vicodin prescriptions like candy would be a much less serious issue because the acetaminophen limits the abuse potential.

It only limits the abuse potential long term—an addict will still abuse the stuff, they'll just ruin their liver in the process.

I could see if it was mixed it with something that made you harmlessly sick in larger quantities. But acetaminophen won't give you the negative consequences until much later when your liver is damaged.

It's not there to stop people who are already addicts. It's to dissuade the person prescribed the drug for a good reason from experimenting with it recreationally.

Are you so certain our model of human behavior has gotten better? We face a similar, although less direct, problem with drug prohibition today: due to following outright prohibition over regulation, innumerable people are affected by tainted, low quality or overly potent drugs who instead could have been helped by harm reduction programs and regulated substances.

We still do this. Don't drink a bottle of rubbing ethanol (not taxed as drinking alcohol) or you will get extremely sick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubbing_alcohol#US_legislation

The colloquial usage of 'rubbing alcohol' in the US refers to isopropyl alcohol and no reasonable person would think to drink it.

Denatured ethanol comes up more at the hardware store.

In stock at every Walgreens near me: https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/walgreens-ethyl-rubbing-al...

And at most CVS's: http://www.cvs.com/shop/health-medicine/first-aid/antibiotic...

Also done in various other countries, including the EU.

The line of thinking is unreasonable. The line of thinking is this:

"I don't want somebody doing something I don't like. Therefore, I have the right to kill them."

That's the line of reasoning behind all law (or at least all law that carries the death penalty).

> (or at least all law that carries the death penalty)

So, nearly no law - and in fact no law in countries without the death penalty?

Every country with a police force has an unwritten law imposing the death penalty for law-breaking. In order to arrest someone and send him to a Norwegian country-club prison, the threat or use of force must occur. Force is, ultimately, lethal violence.

> Every country with a police force has an unwritten law imposing the death penalty for law-breaking.

"for law-breaking" is an over-generalization, but okay, not "no law." Merely "no law on the books."

> In order to arrest someone and send him to a Norwegian country-club prison, the threat or use of force must occur.

Lots of punitive measures beyond arresting someone. Wage garnishment, for example. Given how many employers refuse to employ felons out of hand, it's likely no force against your employer was necessary to get them on board with garnishing your wages either. Merely having the government label you a criminal can be a grievous overreach, in my book, for breaking many minor laws.

Cops rarely want the hassle and danger involved in arresting people.

> Force is, ultimately, lethal violence.

I think you're overgeneralizing to the point of making these terms meaningless. And that's coming from someone who considers tasers to be "lethal violence".

>> Force is, ultimately, lethal violence.

>I think you're overgeneralizing...

The threat of violence only works when it is credible, and it is only credible when consistently applied. Cops will kill you if you frustrate them in their escalation of force, they have to - otherwise the jig is up and law enforcement gets very difficult. There are cases where the state will intentionally look the other way so long as it remains low profile, because the price for publicly maintaining the status quo is just too expensive.

its possible to use force without killing someone you know.

Not on a large scale. Imagine what would happen if you ignored a cop's orders, and failed to recognize his authority as he continued to escalate force.

in england, ten cops would pin you down. same in china. which country are you thinking of that youd somehow end up dead by resisting arrest?

Ok, and then ten of your football hooligan buddies jump in. You are making a mistake in looking at it from a scenario based perspective - one can easily craft any scenario to fit their argument. Also, a ten cop dog pile could certainly kill someone.

> which country...

Any country in which overwhelming nonlethal police force is not unfailingly on hand everywhere... so every country. Consider it from the state's perspective: lose control of the population or kill an unsympathetic troublemaker? History shows us which option is most frequently selected. Good on England for showing restraint, but that doesn't change the fact that every command is suffixed with "... or else I'll kill you."

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