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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

I'm a big supporter of legalization, because I think prohibition is dramatically worse than any negatives from people smoking pot (similar to alcohol, etc).

That said, the two friends of mine that were the heaviest smokers, saw dramatic improvements in their lives in the few years immediately following giving up smoking pot. Both in terms of health and professional success. They were recreational smokers, rather than smoking for pain purposes or similar, it should be noted. One of them has become a very successful business person, the pot smoking had considerably dulled their ambition. They used to do the minimum to further their life. Afterward, their potential was unleashed, it was night and day (and a dramatic benefit to the well-being of their family).

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I am a huge opposer of legalization, because I've seen what pot has done to people I care about. I would point out that solution to the negatives of prohibition is not legalization, but decriminalization. The issue with legalization is that it removes the stigma with trying it, which means we get more users than otherwise.

We can maintain the very correct statements that drugs are bad and that all possible care should be made to remove it's availability and discourage it's use, but treat it as a social problem, not a crime. Let's continue to shut down drug dealers, who grow, import, and spread the crud around, but no longer penalize users. Offer them treatment, help them find better means, rather than throwing them in jail.

Maybe we need ways other than the law to stigmatize bad behavior. The law is a blunt instrument.

Churches might serve this purpose, but those are out of fashion now.

Thank God (:p)

I love the idea of minusing "thank God" / being happy that religion is largely passe. . . pure vindictive retaliatory holy grace

You don't need a church to express social disapproval.

There are lots of behaviors that are not illegal and not against religion that we still use social feedback to minimize.

Consider:

As a child I grew up in a home with a violent alcoholic father.

Should we shutdown licensed alcohol vendors because a few people react badly to alcohol / are irresponsible drinkers?

Obviously not.

The majority of people I've met have not been problem drinkers, nor problem users.

Drugs do not just lead you to harm others. In fact, like alcohol, most drug users probably do not harm others. But both cause significant self-harm. And society ends up bearing the burden of helping people who aren't able to help themselves, be it on an individual level or a governmental level.

> society ends up bearing the burden of helping people who aren't able to help themselves, be it on an individual level or a governmental level.

it doesn't have to do this. if people want to kill themselves slowly, they should be allowed to.

The problem is the same people who want to kill themselves slowly want our tax dollars to provide them free medical care whilst they do so. Your comment ignores the real burden that self-harming people create upon those around them, and why we need to get them out of self-harm rather than bearing the burden of it.

It's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of drug users never have a problem related to their drug use.

Just like the overwhelming majority of alcohol users never have a problem with their alcohol use.

While I agree with your general sentiment, I’m not convinced I have a comprehensive alternative to the current standard: legal / decriminalisation + harm reduction.

Prohibition seems like the least best alternative. I’m open to being wrong though.

With legalization comes regulation, which is extremely beneficial, so it's better than just decriminalization. Like other commenter posted, the law shouldn't be the stigma-ruler we use to measure things. And I'll further that by saying that education and information is more important than stigma.

Isn’t that an overreaction? Pot allegedly has had an adverse effect on your friends, but anecdotally its only had a positive effect on friends and co-workers.

> I am a huge opposer of legalization, because I've seen what pot has done to people I care about.

frankly, this argument has no place in a society that considers itself free. it is not for you to tell me what harm i may inflict on my own body, nor to restrict others from helping me do it.

You're staking out a pretty extreme position there. Society has already accepted: helmet laws, seatbelt laws, mandatory health insurance, age limits for alcohol and tobacco consumption, food and drug regulations, etc.

You can argue that our society can't consider itself free, but it's the society we have and the same argument is in play on a number of issues.

> Society has already accepted: helmet laws, seatbelt laws, mandatory health insurance, age limits for alcohol and tobacco consumption, food and drug regulations, etc.

not everything on that list is terrible; in fact, it provides a good opportunity to illustrate my point. not wearing a seatbelt makes it likely that you will become a lethal projectile in the event of an accident, so i'm okay with seatbelts being required. as far as food and drugs go, i think people should have access to as much information as possible about the things they are putting in their body, but i don't think they should be prevented from selling raw milk or dangerous drugs. i also think it is fine to prevent children from doing any number of risky things, as they are not mature enough be fully responsible for their actions. my problem is with treating adults like children. unless what you do with your body actually harms others, you should be left to do it in peace. and no, the fact that other people choose to waste resources cleaning up your mistakes does not constitute harming them.

It’s not up to the law to take upon itself the role of arbiter of society’s truer mores.

Once you establish a strong connection between what is lawful and what is moral, you open up the ominous gate of any future conflation of moral duty with any reproachable reach of law.

So you're in favor of alcohol prohibition, too, correct?

Alcohol is legal, not decriminalized. Alcohol kills and hurts more people than marijuana ever has and ever will. Despite those problems, most sane people do not believe prohibition of alcohol was a good time for humanity.

> I think prohibition is dramatically worse than any negatives from people smoking pot (similar to alcohol, etc).

Alcohol has been an integral part of Western civilization for quite a while now. Prohibition on alcohol is in no way comparable to prohibition on pot [in terms of its impact]. Why do you think its prohibition is "dramatically" worse than making this mind altering substance generally available?

[secret handshake disclaimer: I liked Spliff and I don't mean just the band.]

It's dramatically worse becouse it imputes innocent people as criminals and puts them in jail.

People who break the law are by definition not "innocent". You might disagree with the laws/penalties, but anyone who knowingly violates the law is categorically not innocent.

Of course, that's the entire point. Without prohibition they are innocent. With prohibition they are criminals. That is why prohibition is dramatically worse. People who are not a threat to society are imputed as criminals, losing their life to jailtime and a permanent criminal record.

The same argument could be made for anything. Not paying your taxes is only illegal because there is a law that says you have to. You can't just define words to have whatever meaning you want. If you agree that they did something illegal then you can't call them innocent without lying.

It isn't that hard, don't do illegal drugs if you don't want to be called a criminal. You can work to make them legal, but that doesn't change the fact that they are illegal right now.

I'm not "defining words to have whatever meaning". I explicitly agreed with you on the technicality of innocent vs criminal ("Of course"), and brought the conversation back the actual point:

Prihibition is dramatically worse because it imputes criminal charges onto people who are otherwise innocent. This is bad because these people are not a threat to society, yet with prohibition they lose their life to jailtime and a permanent criminal record.

I never said they are not illegal right now.

I talking about the original comment I was responding to. You specifically said that it "imputes innocent people as criminals". This implies that they are innocent which they are not.

I never said that it shouldn't be legalized/decriminalized, I'm just objecting to the usage of "innocent" to describe these people.

Ok, I hear you. But I think my usage is ok. The purpose of prohibition is to apply a criminal status to an otherwise non-criminal. And without that law they are innocent, no? Or how else should we describe the status of said citizens without the existance of prohibition?

Fine - you are correct. These people are not "innocent" in the legal sense, in that they are in blatant violation of the law.

However I would then ask if the legal criteria of judging innocence are useful to society. My claim is that they are not, in that we label people as "guilty" and socially disadvantage them, when they may otherwise be perfectly productive members of society. Their use of cannabis in and of itself causes causes comparatively less harm to others, at least relative to harder drugs like alcohol.

The point is that a person who otherwise works and provides value, but does cannabis is better for the society as a working person rather than someone in prison where people will pay with taxes for his living. If you skip on taxes you are living off of society so this should be illegal ofcourse.

Never disagreed with that. I'm just objecting to the usage of "innocent" in this context.

Ugh! Another case where technically correct is the worst kind of correct. It really adds nothing to the conversation, IMO.

Circular reasoning FTW. You are a totalitarian toady.

Because we've tried that prohibition, and the results are demonstrably worse. I would recommend Radley Balko's numerous articles and his book on how detrimental the "war on drugs" has been to civil liberties in the USA in general, and how many people's lives it ruined.

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