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The Christian ethic and all that jazz that you mention dates back a long time, but the reason it's as crazy as it is in the US today is the much more recent "War on Drugs" that Nixon started:

"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-r...

Wow really explains why China bans drugs. This kind of reductive reasoning is a mere rationalization of a complex socio-political issue.

Well China does have a history with this sort of thing. The Opium wars lead to what China calls the century of humiliation which is still a defining characteristic in their global outlook.

More info here : https://youtu.be/xD1nDGeiSAs

I think the comment about China was a way to highlight that a country with no Christian back ground (and thus no history of a Protestant Work Ethic) bans drugs. It is a round about way of point out that the PWE is not the only reason drugs are illegal.

China bans drugs because the US exported their drug laws via the UN. Perhaps you could find a better example.

While it is a complex socio-political issue, there is a valid position that China has parallel cultural norms - political structures that maintain significant control over the private sphere, a high social premium placed on order and low individualism.

It makes sense that a society with those values, along with Confucian history, would ban drugs.

Dope costs money. When you've got a habit and no job, how are you going to pay? People steal to support their habits. Little children have their childhood stolen because their parents were addicts. People crash cars and kill people. That's why drugs are illegal.

Just like gambling, alcohol, opiates, etc?

Besides the wealth of extremely addictive substances (and activities) that are legal (some regulated), there's also at least one illegal drug that you're never going to be (chemically) addicted to: LSD.

The "we're protecting you" logic behind making arbitrary drugs illegal is nonsense. It's even more weakened by the fact that at least a few of the illegal drugs with "no medical purpose" have, in fact, some medicinal use: Marijuana for anti-nauseau, combating eating disorders, and pain relief, and MDMA for PTSD.

Alcohol is illegal here until you're 21, and then there are rules like no driving after drinking. We even tried to make it illegal but it wasn't tenable. Gambling is also illegal or very regulated in my state. And opiates are a controlled substance, you can't get them without an Rx.

I think we're talking at cross-purposes. I'm talking about the ravages of drug addiction on society. It's not about protecting you, it's about protecting society from you.

>Alcohol is illegal here until you're 21

Did anyone ask for drugs to be legal for kids? or to not be regulated at all?

> We even tried to make it illegal but it wasn't tenable.

Neither is the war on drugs, you have to be blind to not acknowledge its huge failure, both economically and socially.

By far the most ravaging drug in the world is alcohol. So just like alcohol you put rules in place around drugs.

The reason drugs cost so much is because they are illegal, not because they cost a lot to produce or distribute. So we make the drug dealers rich, or we put them in prison, and this has a corrupting effect on police, border patrol, and who knows how many other organizations.

Plus we spend a ton of money, lives, and energy fighting something in a obviously losing fight. Isn't it better to educate, and help people with addictions? Or do you support the prison industry ;-)

|By far the most ravaging drug in the world is alcohol

Ever considered that this has something to do with it being the most accessible and normalised?

If you could pick up crack at your corner store, if it was advertised everywhere, if crack brands sponsored large sporting events and people commonly went for a puff after work, do you really think it won't be the most ravaging drug in the world, and exponentially worse than alcohol?

Portugal legalized all drugs years ago, and addiction rates have gone down.

Alcohol costs money. When you've got a habit and no job, how are you going to pay? People steal to support their habits. Little children have their childhood stolen because their parents were addicts. People crash cars and kill people. That's why drugs are illegal.

Alcohol is more addictive than many illegal drugs. Why does the above reworking of your comment feel erroneous?

It costs more money because it is illegal (demand supply curve). Just as large a percent of people use drugs as when the drug war started. So we're not saving anyone, we're just empowering gangs and cartels with higher prices. And then to feed those higher prices, driving addicts into prostitution or crime to make enough money.

If they were legal, prices would come down. Fewer crimes would need to be committed to pay for them. Enforcement dollars could be redirected to education and treatment of addiction. And maybe the drug wars ravaging nearly every country to the South of us would go away.

I don't know how much weed prices where affected in states after legalization but here where it's still illegal, one can get 10g of dope/weed for price of single night at bar and smoke every day for a month with average tolerance.

If we are talking about other drugs, can't say anything...

Video games costs money. When you've got a habit and no job, how are you going to pay? People steal to support their habits. Little children have their childhood stolen because their parents were always gaming. People crash cars and kill people because their attention is on their little screen. That's why video games should be illegal.

You can do this with literally anything.

That's patently absurd. You're not likely to see a gamer out there ripping and robbing to support a habit. Do people get addicted to games? Food? Sex? Whatever? Yeah sure. But by far drugs lead to more crime.

Drugs do not lead to crime. Desperation and opportunity, the need to survive, with a lack of morality, all directly lead to crime. Drugs do not make people commit crimes. Emotions, those mental states, do however. What we need, as a country, society, and human race is to recognize the importance of treatment of the mind above all else. Reduce suffering. Sure, there will always be a degree of sadness in life, we should as an intelligent species, strive to end mental and physical suffering.

I don't see a lot of clinically depressed people sticking guns in people's faces. Nor do I think lack of morality has anything to do with addiction.

Rather than treat the mind, I believe in treating the spirit.

Totally! Lets try to remove the hopelessness from peoples lives that makes them turn to drugs. We can put the whole drug fighting budget into mental health.

And ILLEGAL drugs lead to crime much easier than legal one since you need to socialize with (sometimes) criminals to get your stuff.

Which you wouldn't have to if they were legal

If we made videogames illegal you definitely would see people doing just that.

Replace "video games" with "gambling" and you absolutely have people out there "ripping and robbing" to support a gambling habit.

Yet, in a large amount of places, some form of gambling is indeed legal (usually heavily regulated of course, but legal nonetheless).

In several nations (or states), there's even a form of completely legal, state sponsored gambling (with often ridiculously lower odds compared to private gambling offerings).

The issue here is that the "treatment" might be worse than the "disease". The vast majority of narcotic users (and gamblers) actually are responsible in how they use the narcotic (play the game). And illegal drug (or gambling) enterprises are also associated with an uptick in crime. Such is why the original "Prohibition" (of alcohol in the US) failed in the first place.

It doesn't help that current governments often tend to treat even simple possession of certain narcotics as a fully-fledged crime. As opposed to not caring except in the case of addiction, where it is at that point a medical problem. (Even the United States' old alcohol prohibition did not outlaw possession or consumption.)

> You can do this with literally anything.

Yes you can. But the evidence shows that crime related to supporting a drug habit actually exists compared to a Facebook habit.

Addiction comes in many flavors. Gaming addiction don't add substances to your body that your body cannot produce and regulate by itself.

I wonder what would happen if wow subscriptions became illegal and the only way to get one more month of the stuff is to find a "guy"

Exactly. But Protestant Work Ethic doesn't make sense anymore when work is scarce and there are millions of unemployed without any prospects.

So how do you avoid revolution and keep voters happy? Legalize drugs, supply computer games and VR, provide UBI.

Which may be a good reason to not legalize drugs. My meager understanding of the issue is that happy people are less likely to grow dependent upon drugs.

(Don't take this the wrong way. I support legalizing drugs. The social costs of the war on drugs are to high to believe that there is a net benefit.)

I have been trying to be sarcastic. Sorry.

I do not support legalizing drugs, decriminalization yes.

I am afraid that capitalism and greed, lobbying and 'free market' will be given a chance to make big profits from it. And put more people into addiction in result.

Mixed response to 2nd par, but agreed w/ 1st. Many years ago I read abt PWE in an awesome little book "The Hacker Work Ethic" (forward written by Linus Torvalds) and it resonated. Highly recommended.

The reason drugs are illegal is because they are addictive. Many of them so addictive, in fact, that they can easily suck you in and destroy your life even if you resolve to only try them "just once". Some drugs like tobacco and alcohol are less addictive than most and are therefore still legal, others like whereas others like heroin are more addictive and are therefore banned.

You are contradicting yourself, and plain wrong.

Please point out the contradiction in my previous statement. As it stands, it seems to me that you're the one who's wong.

You claim drugs are illegal because they are addictive, then admit that alcohol and tobacco are addictive, yet not illegal.

Furthermore, marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 drug by the DEA, making it illegal at the federal level (no known medical uses), which based on your reasoning, would indicate it to be addictive.

Yet, prescription opiates, which people are overdosing daily, is legal.

And, you spelled 'wrong' as 'wong'.

That's a needlessly pedantic interpretation of my comment. As I clearly explained with my comparison between alcohol and heroin, the point is it's a matter of degree. Less addictive substances are less likely to be banned, whereas more addictive substances are more likely to be banned. That's why tobacco isn't banned, but heroin is. I would have thought that was obvious to everyone. Apparently not.

(And yes, obviously the laws aren't entirely consistent on this. They should be, but they aren't. That's not a valid refutation of my main point.)

I must not understand "The reason drugs are illegal is because they are addictive."

And as a result, more addictive drugs are more likely to be illegal, whereas less addictive ones are less likely to be illegal. What's not to understand?

What's not to understand is where ethanol falls here. It's easily as addictive as opiates, including heroin

Mmm, no. Marijuana is used habitually by some, but withdrawal syndromes are hardly as severe as alcohol or tobacco. Hallucinogens are not atypically used habitually either (some of the dissociatives might be habit forming but from what I understand habitual use of the serotogenics is pretty rare).

Most of these substances you are describing are older; from what I see, I'm afraid the narcotic regulation of more "traditional" narcotics largely rested on societal structure. Tobacco and alcohol are narcotics traditionally used for a long time by Europeans. Alcohol prohibition was tried, but failed in part, I feel, because many of the people in power didn't really, deep down, believe in it at all. (If I recall, at least two Prohibition-era American presidents, Warren Harding and Woodrow Wilson, had private liquor stashes available during their time in the White House.)

Marijuana, cocaine, and opium are not traditional European narcotics. As such, it was something "other people" used; the ill effects were much more easily demonized. There was some fairly racist propaganda surrounding the original Harrison Narcotics Tax Act that kind of demonstrated this point.

Obviously the ill effects of narcotics (such as addiction) are the driving force behind these prohibitions, but in my opinion a fair bit of the current "scheduled hierarchy" of narcotics is not really based on medical science.

> Obviously the ill effects of narcotics (such as addiction) are the driving force behind these prohibitions, but in my opinion a fair bit of the current "scheduled hierarchy" of narcotics is not really based on medical science.

Sounds to me like we're in agreement. I'm not sure why you started your comment with "Mmm, no." The laws aren't perfectly consistent on which side of the line they place different substances on (for a variety of historical reasons), but the underlying reason as to why drugs are illegal in the first place is (quite obviously) because of their addictive nature.

I'm sorry, but this isn't true at all.

Alcohol is terribly addictive and destructive. Far more so than many illegal drugs. Its legality has nothing to do with these issues.

> Alcohol is terribly addictive and destructive. Far more so than many illegal drugs.

That's probably true. I doubt it's more addictive than heroin though, which was why I used that as my example for the other end of the spectrum. If alcohol was as addictive as heroin, I'm quite confident it would be just as illegal.

One thing to consider here, is the addictiveness of many drugs has to do with the purity. If meth is over 60% pure, then the addiction rate goes WAY up. Legalization is one way of managing the purity.

Maybe. Though if you ban meth that's >60% pure but allow meth <60% pure, really all you're doing is drawing the line on what is allowed and what isn't in a slightly different location. The linked article seems to be arguing that all drugs should be legal, regardless of how addictive they are or are not.

"Potential for abuse", not "addiction" is the legal standard the DEA uses to classify drugs. And actual harm to society is factored in. Caffeine is more addictive than steroids, yet guess which one is a DEA controlled substance.

Nobody denies that heroin is extremely addictive. Total harm and "potential for abuse" caused by alcohol and tobacco would likely land it somewhere on schedule 2 or 3 if they weren't economically useful for their profits, despite their "potential for abuse".