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Comment by SamBam | Hacker News Reader

> From my political position it’s personally insulting that institutions such as the DEA and FDA tell me what I can and cannot put into my body.

I'm of two minds about that. While I agree that I ought to have full autonomy over my own body, at the same time the state has a vested interest in not allowing its population to fall victim to life-destroying drugs, especially when those drugs target the most vulnerable members.

Russia's heroin problem has been rising and rising -- apparently 2% of the population are addicted, and much higher rates for certain segments [1] -- and people talk of a "lost" generation. And it may get even worse.

I think our social contract with the state involves not allowing that to happen to its population.

[1] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120792...

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There's a path to getting people off hard drugs like heroin that the war on drugs doesn't address at all, in fact it exacerbates it. Getting people off hard drugs is not the intended outcome, the war on drugs fills up private prisons with inmates and generates a lot of money.

https://www.mic.com/articles/20186/war-on-drugs-how-private-...

To be clear, nothing in my comment suggested I support the war on drugs and mass incarceration, rather it was whether the state should have any "say" in my putting hard drugs in my body.

While

> at the same time the state has a vested interest in not allowing its population to fall victim to life-destroying drugs, especially when those drugs target the most vulnerable members

the current strategies don't work. The root cause of why people seek drugs is a complex topic and none of the strategies to keep people off drugs seem to address the root causes but to simply ban and punish.

I don’t disagree the state has an interest in the health and well being of its citizens. I think it should promote that health and well being with education, access to healthcare, and other forms of social support. I’d also be okay with limiting the advertising rights for drugs.

I do not think prohibition improves the well being of citizens. Heroin is easily available in virtually all major US cities.

I think this is the key point that gets lost in these discussions. Legalization, or decriminalization, does not equal an abdication of responsibility by the state—it can actually mean the opposite.

But that begs the question that criminal prohibition of drugs like heroin actually reduces their use. If proponents of bans are responsible stewards of liberal society, they not only have to show that the problem is greater than the loss of liberty, they also have to show a causal link between denying that liberty by force and actually solving the problem.

Everybody agrees heroin is bad for the individual and for society, and that it should go away. What isn't clear to me is that putting users in jail and creating a hugely competitive profit incentive for violent gangs is actually effective towards that goal.

With heroin already illegal we see that a given portion of the population uses it anyway, so how much of the population do we think is not using it solely because it is banned? How does this compare to purely medical intervention?

The fact that, in the US, high fructose corn syrup is so prevalent, proves that the US government does not have people's health in mind whatsoever. The war on drugs isn't about morality or health, it's about control. They just claim it's about morality and health to convince people to support it.

You might be interested to learn that heroin is actually quite a safe drug and safer to self-administer than paracetamol [0]. While you're right that the state has a duty to protect its citizens the war on drugs, all drugs, has the opposite effect.

Drugs are a public health problem not a criminal one. People are taking things like heroin primarily due to other factors in their life, which the state should address. For drugs like magic mushrooms lack of availability is increasingly looking like actively harming the availability/development of a positive treatment for many conditions.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/14/drugsandalc...

(tldr the negative impacts of heroin all arise from its criminalisation, while it is extremely addictive it's also extremely hard to overdose on when taken on its own)

> the negative impacts of heroin all arise from its criminalisation

This is something of an exaggeration; heroin withdrawal can happen even without criminalization, for example, and is profoundly unpleasant, and constipation can dramatically reduce your quality of life. But certainly those negative "impacts" pale compared to the epidemic of drug-overdose deaths caused by prohibition, or even prohibition-induced unplanned withdrawal experiences.

That's a good point. I guess in addition poly-drug use is made more likely by criminalisation but doesn't necessarily cease with legalisation.

> the negative impacts of heroin all arise from its criminalisation

This is a really, really simplistic view. Heroin will build up tolerance and withdrawals can kill you, or are at least extremely unpleasant. It's only safe as long as you have access to an ever increasing supply of heroin.

I think your example is kind of unfortunate because a lot of drugs are actually quite safe, but not the very addictive, tolerance-building, terrible withdrawal kind (opioids, benzos, alcohol). Magic mushrooms are, of course, none of those three things.

The Russian heroin addicts are all on fentanyl by now, it's hard to find heroin nowadays from the streets in many places.

But isn’t it already illegal in Russia? Sounds like that’s not working out so well. Maybe time to try a different plan?

Thats a fair point. But does prohibition work in terms of reducing negative outcomes?

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