Depends on your goal. If it's to reduce mortality, yes, decriminalize is good. But it will increase usage.
[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr...
- Reported lifetime use of "all illicit drugs" increased from 7.8% to 12%, lifetime use of cannabis increased from 7.6% to 11.7%, cocaine use more than doubled, from 0.9% to 1.9%, ecstasy nearly doubled from 0.7% to 1.3%, and heroin increased from 0.7% to 1.1%
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110725093536/http://www.idt.pt...
[0] https://kek.gg/i/6vgYNF.png
Yeah, it's not like they are addictive or anything.
However, using it once or a few times is nowhere near being addicted. And all the other bullet points in your source [0] look pretty great:
- Increased uptake of treatment
- Reduction in new HIV diagnoses amongst drug users
- Reduction in drug related deaths
- Drug use among adolescents (13-15 yrs) and "problematic" users declined
- Decreased street value of most illicit drugs, some significantly
Not necessarily. When people really want something they will eventually find a way to get it anyway, it's not because you criminalize it that its usage drops. Just like IP infringement has not significantly dropped since they can put people in jail for it.
When you buy it from dangerous people, you have to be in contact with dangerous people. It gives dangerous people leverage against you and people who care about you.
Dealers don't assault, endanger or attack random customers who just stop buying.
That's totally absurd, and that someone would suggest it - indicates that they are getting their information from Netflix/Hollywood films or something, not reality.
The vast majority of dealers are actually fairly normal people anyhow.
Doctors in emergency rooms usually have instructions to confiscate any illegal drugs they discover on OD-patients, but are faced with the very real dilemma of leaving the patient at their creditors mercy. This can cause real harm (as in "First do no harm") to the patient and their prospects of recovery or harm reduction.
But nobody is 'going after' someone who just decided to stop smoking something.
The counter of this is why underage drinking is higher in the US than elsewhere. Society made it a taboo and that attracts people. In countries with lower age limits there's less underage drinking. The culture itself doesn't see it as such a big deal and there's no pent up against.
But it goes with greater awareness of the risks as well, and once it's in the public, you can expect a lot more discussion about its usage rather than a too simple "it's bad" attitude.
Decriminalization means it's not illegal to possess, not that it's legal to sell. An important distinction in these sorts of discussions.
I would suggest that maybe it's ok to continue to criminalize the sale of the more dangerous stuff, say of Schedule I drugs, but... well, marijuana is still on the Sched I list, so it's not like that list is particular scientifically rigorous.
No, not true at all.
Supply and Demand.
The 'cost' of doing drugs in society right now is pretty dam high. Social stigma, the possibility of going to jail, various professional licences lost.
The 'free market price' of synthetic heroin and other drugs would be as cheap as sugar. Walk down to the local store and buy 1Kg of meth for $20. Jesus no.
People are really un-pragmatic about this issue.
I've had my exposure to it: a friend OD'd while in SF, another friend drug related suicide, and a third friend just fell in to a 'crack whole' for 20 years and now he lives full time in a clinic. Another - friend of a friend - has a 'weed' addiction (I know it's not common, but it exists) and he lives in a home as well.
These people were ruined long before they ever passed away or went into a home.
Selling crack or opioids in the corner store would instantly yield a massive public health crises.
'Legal' drugs - i.e. prescription drugs are already a major, major driver of the problem.
Here in Canada - doctors are not required to give out the 'absolute minimum' of opioids after operations etc. You don't get 'a bottle' with 'refills' - you get like 3 pills.
Why? Because there was a public healthcare crises developing even with legal substances.
That's how strict they need to be, because that's what's on the line.
If 'legal drugs' did not cause problems, then I suggest the massive amount of 'doctor shopping' and 'fake prescriptions' all over the US would not be resulting in serious problems, but they are.
It's just one of those things - some people can handle their drugs - most people can't and fall down the slippery slide.
Addicts will pay, so, the price it's not a big influence in they taking drugs. It's a big influence in what kind of life they have. There are cases of rich functional addicts.
Maybe, cheaper drugs would create more addicts, but we have the example of alcohol and weed in some places to examine. It's not so clear this is the case.
Legal drugs doesn't mean, necessarily, socially accepted drugs. I think that makes a big difference.
Is it? I've never heard of anyone who wanted to try drugs and was unable to get them. Maybe it's different in the US, but in Europe, you can always find a supplier.
But I also know that I would be risking various legal and social consequences. A conviction for possession of drugs would affect my employment options, it would affect my travel options (visa forms often ask about such convictions), it may cause issues in the future if I ever got into a custody battle for my kids.
Given all of that, I have no plans to walk down the street and buy some weed from my friends' kids.
But I do have a collection of cigars in my house which I enjoy on occasion.
If it were possible to buy marijuana in the same way I can buy cigars, with the same legality, for a comparable price, then I might do so.
Now, I don't really see why society should care if I were to substitute some of my tobacco consumption with marijuana consumption, but there's a reasonable probability that this would be one of the outcomes if marijuana were totally legalised.
And on the subject of drug availability, I'm aware of a few remote Alaskan towns where it's difficult to obtain drugs. I'm sure that there is some more developed and less isolated region of the world where it is also difficult to get such things, but that's probably not the common case. There is a global demand for such things, and there's only so much you can do to restrict the supply. Regardless, people will still find ways to get high. In the Alaskan towns I mention, bored teens will 'huff' paint fumes instead. There's not really a winning situation there; we can only minimize harm.
Criminalising everything to do with drugs has utterly failed. That's just a flat out fact, the huge damage done to your friends demonstrates this. The damage to society has been staggering, not just the effects of the drugs themselves but the criminalisation of huge swathes of the population.
It's time to try something different.
Not really.
If you create a big series of regulations and taxes around drugs - then there will still be a huge secondary, black market.
The 'war on drugs' will therefore continue - even as you 'legalize' drugs. Double whammy.
Take cigarettes - a much milder health concern:
"the total U.S. tobacco market represented by illicit sales has grown in recent years and is now between 8.5 percent and 21 percent." [1]
So now you have to 'fight a war on drugs' - and deal with the massive health-care crisis from the considerably more people who well get hooked on opioids, barbiturates etc..
[1] http://sites.nationalacademies.org/dbasse/claj/us_illicit_to...
So given that eliminating drugs completely has utterly and comprehensively failed, at huge financial and social cost, and given that legalization and regulation has proven to be effective time and time again, the question is which approach is best at managing the damage these drugs do and protecting individuals and society?
The experience in places where this has been tried is that the supply in the black market reduces and prices significantly increase. So yes, the evidence is that legalization does a better job of restricting black market access than blanket criminalization.
Note that having a legal market doesn't suddenly mean the police stop busting drugs gangs. What it means is that drugs gangs not only have to face exactly the same law enforcement crackdown they already have, but also have to compete with legal, medically regulated access to drugs. It's a double-whammy for them.
this point is under appreciated. i see new taxes and regulations spring up on legalized cannabis in California. and, just like with the high taxes on a pack of tobacco cigarettes, some of the market goes underground. (except, with cannabis, it hasn't had time to fully emerge from the underground in the first place!)
I really hope you have to go through the tremendously painful surgery, and get those "3 pills".
Another feasible description of the world is that this marginal effect is very small, and almost everyone who wants to do drugs does already.
We don't need to speculate on how significant these factors are; we can look at places like Portugal that fully decriminalized drugs, and extrapolate from there.
> It's just one of those things - some people can handle their drugs - most people can't and fall down the slippery slide.
I sympathize with your point about losing friends to drugs; however I'd suggest that "most" isn't the right quantifier to describe the proportion of individuals that "fall down the slippery side". Some people are susceptible to mental health issues, and drugs can trigger episodes that might not otherwise happen. But the harms those individuals would experience from a general increase in prevalence of drug use are dwarfed by the harms that are currently inflicted on the drug users who do not abuse or otherwise have problems with drugs.
(And note that if we didn't spend as much money incarcerating drug users, we'd have a lot more money available for helping individuals with mental health/addiction problems.)
While would be nice to wave a wand and do away with all of the harms discussed here, the current drug policy proves that attempting to reduce drug usage through prohibition adds more harm elsewhere in the system than the harms that it attempts to prevent.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/opinion/actually-prohibiti...