Hacker News Reader

Comment by lukifer | Hacker News Reader

If you've seen firsthand what a drug like meth does to a person, it makes you think twice about the ideal that everyone has the right to put whatever they want into their body/mind. The fact is, not everyone has the good judgment to make responsible use of that freedom, and some drugs really are much nastier than others, causing deep harm to both the user and society.

At the same time, we would be deluding ourselves to think that locking people up changes anything, whether we go after the supply or the demand.

The best way to move towards a sensible drug policy is to start by admitting that there are no good solutions, and that the best we can hope to do is to minimize harm, both from the drugs themselves, and the cartels.

(I agree, though, regarding drug education: Erowid has the capability to save far more lives than DARE ever could.)

View on HN

The idea that anyone has the right to regulate someone else's life based on morality is deeply puritanical. It may seem like a different problem when posed in the form of a highly addictive and often destructive behavior such as meth use but it's still the same fundamental issue.

How much harm does being homeless do to society? How much harm does having a bad credit score do to society? Smoking cigarettes? Listening to thrash metal? Rock climbing? Eating a cheeseburger? Being HIV positive? What's the proper response to these sorts of things?

History has shown us in no uncertain terms that it is impossible to protect people from themselves. And every attempt to do so will fail utterly. Will result in more harm to the individual and more harm to society than the problem attempted to be addressed. There are good ways and bad ways to deal with the problems that, say, meth addiction creates. The wrong way is to try to regulate what people can put into their own bodies, that road leads to addicts who can't seek help because of fear of jail, it leads to no-knock militarized police raids, it leads to a criminal justice system increasingly cut-off from the populace. It leads to corruption, to gang violence, and to tragedy of epic proportions. There are too many examples from history to pretend otherwise.

P.S. http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3582329113/

> The idea that anyone has the right to regulate someone else's life based on morality is deeply puritanical

I'm saying nothing of morality, and speaking only of practicality. Absolute personal freedom is a beautiful ideal, in the same sense as world peace or the eradication of hunger; we should strive to achieve those ideals using every tool at our disposal.

But people (and societies) are extremely complicated, and in practice, one person's freedom can mean that another's is taken away. My freedom to play loud music at 3am removes your freedom to sleep soundly through the night. The premise of a social contract exists to seek a balance that maximizes freedom for everyone. Just because it doesn't always work isn't a reason to abandon the idea outright.

On the issue of drugs specifically, I think it's simply naive to pretend that easy and legal access to hard drugs won't have profound unintended negative effects on those besides the users themselves. I think we need custom-tailored policies for each drug that seek to strike a balance between personal freedom and the good of society (which is code for "the freedom of everybody else to not be fucked with by drug addicts").

"Smoking cigarettes?"

If it means you will be blowing smoke around and potentially having a negative effect on me or my family, lots.

"Being HIV positive"

If you don't tell your partners and spread it around, it could have devastating effects on many peoples' lives.

"The wrong way is to try to regulate what people can put into their own bodies, that road leads to addicts who can't seek help because of fear of jail, it leads to no-knock militarized police raids, it leads to a criminal justice system increasingly cut-off from the populace."

I seriously doubt addicts have to worry about jail. Have you ever seen the show "Intervention"? If the laws were as bad as you say in the US, the police would be waiting outside the homes of those people. Many of them are illegal drug addicts (and the show explains exactly which drugs they are taking).

The pro-marijuana movement is less about freedom and is more about trying to legitimize a mind-altering substance.

"It leads to corruption, to gang violence, and to tragedy of epic proportions."

Correlation != Causation. This seems to come up in every article except when it comes to drug related stats. It doesn't lead to corruption and gang violence. Those people would be just as corrupt and in gangs without drugs.

Also, it's your freedom and choice to put substances into your body..with or without laws. The tragedy is only brought on by the user and is most likely a symptom (the reason they got into drugs in the first place) of other problems. Most of the drug users I know had messed up childhoods/family life.

I also don't think we should make it any easier for an addict..because we will just end up with more people who won't really care about becoming addicted because there will be no consequences (IE: the government pays for your rehabilitation).

Could you explain to me in what ways your argument differs from that of prohibition of alcohol? If you can't, do you support a return to the prohibition of alcohol?

P.S. My comment about corruption was not meant to address the "corruption" of individuals who join gangs, rather it was meant to describe the corruption of the criminal justice system, society, and the political process that prohibitions causes.

"P.S. My comment about corruption was not meant to address the "corruption" of individuals who join gangs, rather it was meant to describe the corruption of the criminal justice system, society, and the political process that prohibitions causes."

Ahh, because if drugs were allowed, we would see virtually no gang activity in the US. We should check out Portugal and Amsterdam to see if all of the gangs just decided to disban because drugs are legalized.

>If the laws were as bad as you say in the US, the police would be waiting outside the homes of those people.

Nope. There are many other possibilities. The law could be that bad, but enforcement could be inconsistent. The law could be that bad, but certain classes might be relatively immune. And so on.

And correlation is different from causation, but in this case, it's deductively provable that prohibition acts as fuel for these things. It's not merely correlated in some indirect way.

"Nope. There are many other possibilities. The law could be that bad, but enforcement could be inconsistent. The law could be that bad, but certain classes might be relatively immune. And so on."

Nope. Intervention is on national television. A cop somewhere has to be seeing it. If it was as bad as you say, those people would be arrested asap. and certain classes might be immune? Please. the people on the show are from different classes.

"it's deductively provable that prohibition acts as fuel for these things."

So you are making the argument that the prohibition of drugs causes someone to form a gang? Why do people decide to do drugs in the first place?

Pot for example gets you high. It allows you to forget, for a short time, any of the bad things happening in your life and gives you a temporary happiness. Anyone that needs to do this has problems. It's those same bad problems at home that make gangs so enticing. Gangs provide family, a support network, and power.

Nobody is trying to protect people from themselves- they are trying to protect themselves, those close to them, and those unable to protect themselves. You may try to argue drugs are a purely personal experience, but anyone who had an alcoholic for a parent will tell you otherwise.

Nobody is trying to protect people from themselves- they are trying to protect themselves, those close to them, and those unable to protect themselves.

It's not too often you see such a blatant contradiction in the same sentence.

This is why we have laws against murder, theft, rape, etc.

And note how little prohibition did to stop the existence of alcoholic parents. They were still around, but you had to deal with Spatz Columbo running around too, shooting up the place.

If you want to fix the alcoholic parent problem, create a society that reacts to them in a compassionate manner instead of throwing people in prison.

"If you want to fix the alcoholic parent problem, create a society that reacts to them in a compassionate manner instead of throwing people in prison."

Why, so we can continue to enable them? If you coddle someone and are compassionate, people will never stop.

Perhaps, dear sir, you could recognize that there is an entire spectrum of possibility that falls outside of the choices "coddle them" and "stomp on their necks with boots until they stop".

"Perhaps, dear sir, you could recognize that there is an entire spectrum of possibility that falls outside of the choices "coddle them" and "stomp on their necks with boots until they stop"."

The only way people ever stop is when they hit "rock bottom" and realize the terrible choices they are making. This usually means going to jail for at least a little while.

Yes, but you can still start by being compassionate. Being kind and loving isn't necessarily enabling. It may very well become it, but it isn't always enabling. Tough love is not generally the first step, and every single case is different and must be treated as such. Please remember this.

"Tough love is not generally the first step, and every single case is different and must be treated as such. Please remember this."

If you look at any documentary about addicts (or hear real doctors talking about it), it's the step families are FORCED to take because every other method just results in the addict thinking they can continue.

"Being kind and loving isn't necessarily enabling."

If I tried to be kind to my addict friends and tell them in a sweet voice that what they are doing is hurting themselves, they would tell me to fuck off. People aren't stupid. They know that being addicted to Meth, Coke, or Heroin is shitty and unhealthy.

Tough love is the kindest and most loving thing you can do for an addict. It just might save their life. If they know that the result of being an addict will mean that you might not talk to them again, they will think twice about shooting up.

These are details I did not know. I suspected it would come to that point in most cases, but perhaps not all. It was because of those "not all" cases that I wanted to give some people the benefit of the doubt, at least for the first. If it's an "all", or at least very close to it, as you're suggesting, then I understand the need and revoke those parts of my statement.

The key is to address it as a problem for mental health professionals rather than a problem for the criminal justice system.

If you could walk into the drugstore and buy mushrooms, marijuana, 2CB, 2CI, LSD, DMT, adderol, MDMA, heroin and cocaine, how many people do you think would still be playing around with meth?

In some circles (truckers and construction workers), use of meth can directly translate into less sleep and therefore more money. And yes, I still think recreational meth users would also still exist. Never underestimate the self-destructive capacity of addictive behavior/personality.

I don't know what your response is meant to convey. Are you implying that legalizing heroin would be great to stem the tide of meth abuse?

First off, very few people would use heroin if opium were legal. But even ignoring that, heroin is one of the safest drugs there is. There are virtually no longterm negative effects on physical or mental health[1], and it's almost impossible to accidentally O.D. on, especially if you're doing it with folks who have access to naloxone. Of the 500k+ current users, there are only ~200 deaths per year from heroin[2], and a good chunk of those are suicides. In other words, it's perhaps 25x safer than smoking American cigarrettes.

[1] C.f. The Consumer Union Guide to Licit and Illicit Drugs.

[2] Not counting polydrug deaths.

"If you've seen firsthand what a drug like meth does to a person, it makes you think twice about the ideal that everyone has the right to put whatever they want into their body/mind."

It's been stated in other replies, but it bears repeating: this argument is nonsense. You can use the exact same reasoning to argue for banning anything that has ever caused harm to people (which is pretty much everything, ever).

> If you've seen firsthand what a drug like meth does to a person, it makes you think twice about the ideal that everyone has the right to put whatever they want into their body/mind. The fact is, not everyone has the good judgment to make responsible use of that freedom, and some drugs really are much nastier than others, causing deep harm to both the user and society.

I have, and not just for meth, but for heroin, and alcohol, and nicotine, and caffeine, and all sorts of other drugs.

Have you seen first hand what it looks like when somebody takes a women and fucks her in front of her husband, then tortures her, and finally cuts her head off?

What about a man being thrown alive into an acid bath?

No? Would you like to see that? Can you imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes? Just head South of the border. Ask for the Zetas. Ask for the families of people who have been kidnapped and turned into slaves.

This is the _reality_ of drug prohibition. Entire neighborhoods living in constant fear.

Methamphetamine can cause some damage to the human body when abused. So can water. The difference between a hit of meth in your hand and a punk standing over your head with a rifle pointed at your temple should be obvious. The difference between a hit of meth in your pipe and the unrelenting human suffering that goes on in America's overflowing prisons should be obvious. It is the difference between personal choice and the consequences thereof, versus violence imposed upon you by another, completely out of your control. It is the difference between freedom and prohibition.

I could kill myself by overdosing on a number of substances right at this moment, but I don't. It's because I know better, not because there's a law against it. It is far easier, cheaper and more humane to educate a population and provide them with the healthcare and counseling that they need than it is to deal with the horrors that are going on around you today due to prohibition.

Compassion and understanding and freedom will lead to a better world.

Prisons and prohibition perpetuate suffering.

> Prisons and prohibition perpetuate suffering.

No dispute whatsoever. I'm 100% in favor of decriminalization for these reasons and more; that's different than full-blown legalization, though. Remember the law of unintended consequences.

And in fairness, at least some of the gangsters you describe would continue to perpetrate horrors even if all vice laws were eradicated overnight. There's still plenty ill-gotten gains to be derived from extortion, human trafficking, organ harvesting, etc.

I suppose what I'm saying is that decriminalization is necessary, but not sufficient, for an effective drug policy. Remember that part of Portugal's successful program is getting as many addicts as possible into (state-funded) rehab/treatment. As the cops stand down, we also need the doctors to stand up.

> I'm 100% in favor of decriminalization for these reasons and more; that's different than full-blown legalization, though. Remember the law of unintended consequences.

Decriminalization is neutered legalization. We should stop coming up with excuses for sending people to prison. Prisons don't create model citizens, they are a breeding ground for suffering and are a waste of human potential. Their existence is symptomatic of a poorly functioning society.

If someone wants to buy marijuana, then it only makes sense for there to be someone who sells it. Otherwise you still have a problem.

Legalization is combined with regulation so that you don't have the problem of major corporations funneling millions of dollars into advertising campaigns targeting children (as we learned with cigarettes).

This is a problem that most programmers should be familiar with. It's a function minimization problem. Minimize suffering(x).

> As the cops stand down, we also need the doctors to stand up.

Yes, if there were a mantra to chant, it might be: legalization, education, and rehabilitation. You have to have all of them to get the best result.

> Prisons don't create model citizens, they are a breeding ground for suffering and are a waste of human potential.

Couldn't agree more; in fact, this is a problem far above and beyond drugs alone. I dare say that prisons likely have the lowest efficacy of any social program in the history of the world. :P

That aside, prohibition being evil and ineffective doesn't change the fact that drugs are dangerous. The worst ones are capable of altering a person's judgment and personality, and creating harm to others. Taking prohibition away solves the problem of prohibition; it does very little for the problem of addiction.

(For that matter, I'm also in favor of socialized mental health care, which could be a highly effective harm reduction technique for drug addiction and alcoholism, but for some reason you get labeled a freedom-hating commie for suggesting such things.) :P

Cars are dangerous. Sky diving is dangerous. Walking across a busy street is dangerous.

Having just lived through one of my parents going totally and utterly mad having taken absolutely no drugs whatsoever and having seen the vast majority of my friends at some point in their life taking 'dangerous' drugs let me tell you with total and utter certainty that there is nothing at all dangerous about marijuana, ecstasy, lsd, cocaine or speed. Well certainly compared to driving a car or going out for a drinking binge.

An extremely temporary sensation of happiness or fun is nowhere near as dangerous to a person as a manic or depressive episode, the latter two being states of mind being entirely brought on by your own brain with absolutely no 'dangerous' drug being involved.

And this is even before we mention alcoholism, ocd or the plethora of other brain diseases our own bodies can inflict on us.

In order to combat illnesses of the brain, your doctor will prescribe drugs which are fundamentally more brain altering than many of your 'dangerous' drugs. My mother can barely read a sentence in a paper at the moment. Most of my friends got degrees from universities after their 'dangerous' drugs.

And the next argument that blows your utterly preposterous and medieval argument out of the water is that brain altering drugs are on sale today.

Caffeine, Alcohol, Tobacco, probably even Chocolate and Sugar. And this is before we consider the addictive drugs that are pumped into burgers, fries, milkshakes, sweets and all the dodgy fast food being sold today across the world. Oh, sorry, I mean 'food additives'. Of course they're totally safe because McDonald's paid your senator to say so.

History is the only precedent that makes them acceptable.

That anyone can be sent to prison for owning any 'dangerous' drug, especially when up to 50% of the population have at some point taken them, is an utter travesty of freedom and common sense. Worst still is that the poorer communities pay the price, locked away for ridiculous amount of years compared to the widely published and yet bizarrely low sentence celebrities arrested for drug offences.

This is a war of false morality, waged by middle class people who themselves have in all probability at some point actually taken these drugs and yet still vote with 'hard-on-drugs' politicians. They are hypocritical fools.

My saying that drugs are dangerous is different than saying that drugs are inherently bad. I consider recreational drug use to be akin to mountain climbing: a safe, healthy hobby which will fucking kill you in you're not careful. :P

Anyway, you're arguing with the wrong guy. :) Drugs should not have anything to do with the criminal justice system, period. But to say that drugs aren't a problem worth taking seriously is ridiculous; not because drugs are evil, but because people are people. Alcoholism is a real problem. So is compulsive gambling, manic depression, and yes, drug addiction. We can take proactive steps to deal with that problem without turning people into criminals.

"If someone wants to buy marijuana, then it only makes sense for there to be someone who sells it. Otherwise you still have a problem."

Should we legalize child porn (there is a demand)?

There are many things that have demand, but shouldn't be legalized. I'm not saying pot is one of them, but you aren't making a very good convincing argument.

"This is a problem that most programmers should be familiar with. It's a function minimization problem. Minimize suffering(x)."

Who's suffering? People that want to put drugs in their body? It's something you choose to do. You aren't born with a joint in your mouth.

"As the cops stand down, we also need the doctors to stand up."

Why can't pot smokers just admit that the reason they want pot legalized is so they can get high? It has very little health benefit. It might help people with cancer/eye problems, but those people are in the minority.

If there is no down side to becoming an addict, we will have more addicts. If you know that the government will just "rehabilitate" you, more people will be willing to try thinks like heroine and cocaine. If you know that it will basically ruin your life, you might think twice about it.

Opiates were legal in China at one point in time...until nearly the entire country was addicted. Why can't we just learn from the past instead of continuing to repeat mistakes?

The argument isn't convincing if you rephrase it as "If there is even the tiniest amount of demand for something, it should be legal."

That isn't at all what he said, though. He was talking about the issue of partial decriminalization vs. full legalization+regulation.

The real argument is, "If we believe something is benign enough to make partaking in it legal, it is yellow-bellied inconsistency to make providing it illegal."

"The real argument is, "If we believe something is benign enough to make partaking in it legal, it is yellow-bellied inconsistency to make providing it illegal.""

Most of the proponents will never admit that smoking pot has adverse health effects. Everything seems to be rainbows and unicorns when it comes to pot. I want to see some real long-term studies, not from high times magazine.

Why can't people admit that they don't give a damn about the 'health benefits' and just want to get high? It's very cowardly to get it decriminalized under the guise of health.

Inhaling smoke into your longs that may or may not cause memory loss and paranoia can't be healthy. Pot changes people that smoke it regularly. It never fails. All of my friends that smoke it regularly have had absolutely no ambition in their lives and are still in pretty much the same positions they were in high school (it's been 11 years). Before the pot, they had dreams and goals.

If we ever have government run health care, regular drug users either shouldn't be covered or have to pay a ton more. I shouldn't have to pay for you mistakes.

Maybe you just have a lot of deadbeat friends? Some of the most intelligent and successful people I know are regular pot smokers, and many intelligent and successful people will tell you the same (just read the darn thread). You should try doing some research and expanding your horizons before making blanket generalizations about topics you don't understand.

Most of your comment has literally nothing to do with the topic (I didn't discuss health impacts at all, much less claim that pot is completely harmless). The small portion that does touch on the topic completely misrepresents or outright ignores what I said. I think you should examine your thought processes on this topic, because you seem to have some strong feelings that prevent you from discussing it rationally. I'm not saying you're right or wrong in your opinion — just that your responses seem more like a strongly felt emotional reaction than a thoughtful examination of the facts and arguments presented to you.

I think there's a valid point: we're not totally free agents. There might be some chemicals that are too addictive. For example, the cigarette companies refined tobacco to make it more addictive, enslaving millions to an addictive carcinogen. Decriminalization of harder drugs might be a better method, since it partially removes profit motive for production and refinement but doesn't incentivize use.

"It is far easier, cheaper and more humane to educate a population and provide them with the healthcare and counseling that they need than it is to deal with the horrors that are going on around you today due to prohibition."

This is a seemingly simplistic statement to something a lot more complex. Your brain doesn't care if you get counseling. It just wants its next high. If you can't get that next high from a computer game, you'll certainly want it from something more powerful (and in most cases, harmful). I'm surprised you haven't mentioned the neurological effects of using drugs like cocaine.

"Compassion and understanding and freedom will lead to a better world.

Prisons and prohibition perpetuate suffering."

I'm all for drug legalization as long as I, as a taxpayer don't ever have to pay (if we do ever have a public health care plan) for anyone that decides to become a drug addict. I say decides, because the consequences of doing these drugs might just mean you become an addict. This means you won't get covered if you become addicted.

Also, businesses should have the ability to fire a drug addict at any time. Even if it doesn't directly affect productivity.

You are free to make any choice you want in this world, but I shouldn't have to pay for your mistakes.

As it is, people are still suing the cigarette companies for getting cancer (even though it's been well known for 50+ years that smoking causes cancer). We also need to have tort reform.

But you are paying, for drug enforcement and imprisonment. Plus increased taxation, because people who are incarcerated generally aren't working steady jobs, but are stamping licence plates or something stupid like that.

> Also, businesses should have the ability to fire a drug addict at any time. Even if it doesn't directly affect productivity.

Would you fire someone who drank? or smoked? or was obese? They're equally addicted.

"But you are paying, for drug enforcement and imprisonment. Plus increased taxation, because people who are incarcerated generally aren't working steady jobs, but are stamping licence plates or something stupid like that."

Generally, those people would otherwise have low-paying jobs and wouldn't be contributing very much anyway. The people in prison aren't your daily pot smoker. They are dealers and people who committed crimes while under the influence of an illegal substance.

50% of the population already doesn't pay federal taxes. If we are going to go after revenue, we should start with this.

"Would you fire someone who drank? or smoked? or was obese? They're equally addicted."

Smoking cigarettes and obesity don't get you high, which has profound effects on your state-of-mind. If someone drinks on a daily basis and comes in hung-over..then yes. All of these also shouldn't be under the same category as "discrimination" because they are choices you make (freedom can have consequences) not uncontrollable qualities that you are born with.

> The people in prison aren't your daily pot smoker. They are dealers[....]

That distinction has become meaningless. Anyone who gets caught with more than the "intent to distribute" threshold (which apparently isn't a lot) is simply presumed to be a dealer.

"That distinction has become meaningless. Anyone who gets caught with more than the "intent to distribute" threshold (which apparently isn't a lot) is simply presumed to be a dealer."

It's more than just quantity:

"Anyway, several things can determine intent, including quantity. Other factors might include quality, packaging, what type of area the person was in and the time of day."

http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?77095-Intent...

If you are by yourself or with a few friends smoking a joint, the cops won't really bother you.

I love the bias on HN. Anyone that has anything negative to say about your precious weed gets down voted. If you really believe in this, you need to come to terms with the fact that there are negative health effects to smoking weed.

Rather than whine about it, perhaps you should examine why you got voted down. There's only one comment of yours in the thread that's rated less than 0, besides this unsubstantial one.

I'd wager you were voted down for proposing that employees could be let go "[e]ven if it doesn't directly affect productivity", and then you subsequently abandoned it when you defended cigarettes and alcohol by taking purporting to take their effects into account.

If you're going to propose something like that, at least stick to it, and especially don't whine about it when people don't like that you've created an inconsistent system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com