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Comment by chx | Hacker News Reader

I have a very simple world view which, I guess, could be considered a radically liberal one: everyone can do as they please as long as it doesn't tread on the same rights of another person. You want to inject, snort or sniff something? Go ahead! It's your body, after all. Neither I, nor any government should have anything to say about this. Obviously, you should not operate a vehicle while intoxicated and we need to have a conversation on who pays how much for health care -- but are we going to punish obese people too...? So that's a more complicated conversation but in itself no drug use should be criminal.

Along these lines I only have one question: why only cannabis? (I am Canadian.)

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Because of its popularity and its relatively benign effects. It isn't a drug that will induce addiction or cause long term health damage (well... that we know of). And it certainly seems much less harmful than the other psychoactive drug that we have legalized (alcohol).

But I think popularity is probably the biggest factor. Its when you see your own family/friends' family being destroyed by criminal convictions resulting from marijuana use does it create a strong push to legalize the stuff.

> why only cannabis?

You've got to start somewhere. Bear in mind legalization didn't pass with sweeping support, the Conservative right is still largely opposed.

Isn't there some friction here with regards to nationalized health care? Society at large will pay for the poor health decisions of individual citizens.

I’m honestly curious how many people don’t do drugs solely because it’s illegal? How many people are thinking “I’d love to try meth; if only it were legal!”

Related: I'd take steroids if I could do it legally under the supervision of an endocrinologist, with products that have all the audit-trails of modern pharmacology (rather than "Bob's basement grow juice"). But the alternative seems too risky to me, especially since it's illegal and the consequences of being caught in my case are quite severe.

True but would that have any effect on health care? I was more specifically referring to people using hard drugs because it’s no longer illegal.

Judging from places where decriminalisation has been introduced, there is very little overall change after a small bump immediately afterwards. As you say, most people who want to and aren't prevented from doing so by e.g. work requirements are already doing so given the prevalence of drugs.

If cannabis use results in higher health costs.

However, the preponderance of research suggests a null hypothesis at worst and a reduction in cancer rates and opiate dependency at best.

And more: If it results in higher health care costs than the savings realized in law enforcement, judicial proceedings, and prisons.

They're asking about legalizing other drugs with more severe health and societal impacts (potentially meth, heroin, PCP, etc)

Fair point, but you could say the same thing about skiing or any other potentially risky human activity. The point of society isn't to minimize health care costs but to maximize happiness.

If you're going to reason about the effects of this the collective society you must also consider the cost/benefits of continued prohibition to the society as well. We are already paying for the decisions of the state to imprison people under prohibition. Is this cost more or less than the cost incurred to national healthcare of individuals poor health decisions?

In principle, it’s mostly other consumers of canabis who will pay, via a “sin tax”. That’s already the case with cigarettes and alcohol.

I think that would be a classically liberal view rather than a radically liberal one. As in, French Revolution type of classical.

The opposing view is that the people of a country have a responsibility to protect every citizen of their country. By enacting prohibition on certain substances we attempt to protect our citizen from that substance so they can live a more full life.

I do agree that drugs should be decriminalized and that the money we spend on enforcement should be instead spent on public education and rehabilitation to prevent people using them and help people stop using them.

That's also typically the libertarian position (e.g. there shouldn't be victimless crimes).

If you mean Ayn Rand style libertarianism I refuse that. I also believe we should have a society that works together and helps the less fortunate.

> we should

This has nothing to do with libertarianism, most likely the opposite.

> you should not

But (what if) there's a correlation...

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