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Comment by genericone | Hacker News Reader

Within reason right? I'm hoping that 'the right to consume anything they want for any reason' wouldn't include those things that cause sudden violent behavior and inability to feel fear and pain.

I forget which particular drug does this, but a search brought me to meth and I found this article which says people feel 'invincible' and 'paranoid' and can't be stopped with non-lethal means.

https://www.cpr.org/2020/02/05/suspects-on-meth-are-hard-to-...

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Let's start by eliminating federal drug laws, and leave it up to the states whether they want to pass laws against it.

Then, have a hard conversation about what freedom means, and whether restrictions on it really lead to better outcomes. Usually not.

You need to have federal drug laws because the one thing the federal government is supposed to do is manage the borders and relationships with other countries. If you don't have federal drug laws then bringing drugs across the border stops being a crime and we could end up with the fiasco of drug lords that Mexico has where journalists get beheaded for even reporting on it.

Mexico only has drug lords because US drug laws fuel their black market.

If you are skeptical of this, there are academic papers on the topic. You could also examine the history books regarding the rise of organized crime there. (For that matter, the rise of organized crime in the US was largely fueled by the prohibition of alcohol as far as I understand it.)

I am confused about what you mean. First, the federal government clearly has authority over international commerce. Second, the price of drugs in legal markets would be much lower, which would likely reduce revenue for criminal gangs in foreign lands. Third, the U.S.-Mexico border is long and it's hard to enforce smuggling laws, anyway. And fourth, Americans are quite capable of producing drugs on their own, and even more so if they were legal.

Cigarette smuggling is a thing because regulated cigarettes are more expensive than unregulated cigarettes. Why would that be any different for other drugs?

The revenue of bootleggers is sharply down since the 21st Amendment, because many people still choose to buy legal alcohol rather than moonshine.

Fortunately there is no drug that has any such innate effect. Care has to be taken when extrapolating meaning from crime statistics, especially when it comes to police. They lie and rely on bad science, like the idea of excited delirium: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excited_delirium

As a long time on-and-off meth addict and dealer, I'll tell you one thing:

Helluva drug!

Not convinced I'd want society to have unrestricted access to that one.

Meth is used to tread ADHD under the trade name Desoxyn. Alternatives include other amphetamines which exhibit substantially similar effects.

A significant portion of the population consumes amphetamines on a daily basis and manages not to go on crime sprees. Perhaps it isn't the drugs which are the problem?

Dosage is a major factor. Smoking meth is way different from eating Desoxyn. Even lots of Desoxyn.

Edit: Dosage and route both matter a lot.

Agreed regarding route - I didn't mean to imply that all patterns of use were equivalent. I was trying to illustrate that it isn't some bogeyman that will swallow you whole. The drug alone simply cannot explain the issues that are often attributed to it.

My point here is that many drugs have been demonized to a wholly unscientific degree and I often witness otherwise well educated and thoughtful people zealously perpetuating such myths without stopping to really think them through. IMO blaming bad behavior and even addiction on drugs is an easy out which avoids addressing the much more complicated underlying issues. Overdoses, abuse, addiction, and crime seem to me to be largely to blame on other systemic societal problems. As always, correlation does not imply causality.

Yes, I entirely agree about drugs being demonized. And I believe that people get to choose what drugs to use, and how to use them. But that also means that they're responsible for consequences.

Indeed, some drugs are so demonized that many who use them do get swallowed whole. Because it's what they expect, and part of the motivation.

You're right to some extend, or even reinforcing my point:

A significant portion of the population is on restricted / controlled / monitored dosage / supply.

Compare my point about unrestricted access.

And yet that significant portion of the population somehow manages not to descend into a life of lawlessness even though meth is incredibly easy to come by almost anywhere in the country.

I'm pointing out that it's absurd to attribute problematic behaviors to the mere consumption of drugs. We severely restrict freedoms in the name of a battle against symptoms rather than address underlying causes. Worse is that our waging of the battle itself is a vicious cycle, serving only to worsen the very same symptoms that it supposedly seeks to address.

It's been the standard military "go pill" for several decades. Maybe now superseded by modafinil. Modafinil is by no means as dramatic, but it's still great fun, and far easier on your teeth ;)

Edit: Actually, the progression in the US military was amphetamine to dextroamphetamine, and now also modafinil.

As someone who has had a modafinil prescription since 2002, you're greatly overselling it. Hardly that fun. It's positively mild in comparison to meth or pretty much all other recreational drugs. Modafinil and recreational drugs aren't even in the same boat.

Yeah, I am. But maybe if one took enough modafinil?

Don't try this at home without a blood pressure monitor.

It's doesn't get more fun with higher dosages. You're just going to end up more on edge. Modafinil works by blocking the neurotransmitter that promotes sleepiness. Most stimulants work by causing your brain to dump tons of the neurotransmitters that promote alertfulness. Different mechanisms.

Thanks, I didn't realize that.

Higher doses do further reduce the need for sleep, however. And while they don't put me on edge, they do increase the risk of saying and doing risky things. But maybe that's because I'm bipolar.

Are you sure? Modafinil isn't much fun. I mean, it's fun the same way antidepressants are if you're depressed, but it's the opposite of habit-forming and if you mix with alcohol or caffeine you only get the bad parts.

Huh? I always mix with caffeine, and have no problems. Also, it is "habit-forming". If I increase the dose to stay alert longer, and then taper down too abruptly, I get dazed. However, I suspect that you're right about alcohol. But that doesn't matter to me, because I've never been much into it. And THC is just fine with modafinil :)

Pretty sure you are thinking of PCP, which was advertised as causing these behaviors in the 70s and 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phencyclidine

PCP, dippers(cigarettes dipped in PCP liquid solution), loveboat (powdered PCP sprinkled on a weed blunt) is still a huge issue in urban US city's.

The effects vary per individual but the higher the dosage the more psychoactive effects are felt. I've seen a naked guy take on 8 DC cops....yes 8 police officers, and after being tased 3 times the guy finally went down.(first two attempts didn't take) But he was tossing grown 200-300lbs adult men like they were paper weights. The amount of force it took those officers to over come this one person on PCP was insane. Definitely not something you want to run into.

You must be thinking of the devil weed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhQlcMHhF3w

Seems like you can just require a license or prescription that can be taken away

do you want to ban alcohol ?

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