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The point of that line of reasoning is not that drugs should all be legal; rather, it is that the current laws are not based on health (and the assumption is that it should be). Drugs that pose some of the most serious health risks, alcohol and tobacco, are legal and can be purchased without consulting a doctor, even by people who are killing themselves with their habit. Drugs that pose less of a health risk like marijuana or psychedelic mushrooms are completely banned. Moreover, illegal drugs, like illegal alcohol, have unknown doses and may have unknown impurities, or may even be a different drug than what the seller claimed.

Anyone who knows the history of the war on drugs knows that public health is a cover story. The first drug laws in the USA were bans on cocaine and heroin, and the arguments presented to Congress and the general public were overtly racist. It was said that cocaine turned black men into murderous demons who could not be stopped even after being shot in the heart. Heroin, besides being made by a German company, was also said to be popular among Asian immigrants who were bringing their awful habits here. Then marijuana was banned, because, according to the testimony given to Congress, it fueled jazz music and caused white women to want to have sex with black men, and Mexicans were using it to corrupt the white youth. Drug enforcement has always disproportionately targeted black people.

Sure. It makes sense, law should be protecting public health - it is a fair assumption. Now, there is a disagreement on the methods, whether making drugs more accessible would have a positive impact on the public health. A common basic argument just going per analogiam with alcohol doesn't have any sense in this context. It's a bit like a child's argument: "other children can binge youtube, why can't I, mommy?". Other arguments, like the lack of quality control in the illegal market, are different - they can't be reversed in such a childish manner and should be taken seriously.

PS Your point of view is very US-centric, I assure you the arguments against drugs in country I live might have been invalid, but definitely not racist.

I disagree that the alcohol comparison is not useful. I think many people in the US take lots of their social world as axiomatic and correct and natural. Two such "axioms" are the legality of alcohol and the illegality of "other drugs." The comparison with alcohol helps those who have not considered drug laws in good faith break out of their stupor and realize the "axioms" are created socially. The hope is that they will realize that the supposedly natural distinction between alcohol and other drugs is illusory.

Fair enough, the comparison itself may be useful as an "intuition pump" to start the discussion.

> Maybe "everything should be legal", but with some age clauses / agreement of a medical doctor? Maybe the law should be replaced with other measures?

People often overlook that "legal" doesn't necessarily mean, for example, you can just open a shop and start selling magic mushrooms. "Legal" covers all of your above options. Alcohol is legal, but it's heavily licensed, taxed and restricted. In some countries (Scandinavian in particular), you can only buy booze from government kiosks. Similarly, DXM cough syrup is legal, but you'll find it difficult to "legally" walk into a pharmacy and buy enough for you and a friend to get high. Many prescription drugs are legal, but yeah, you need a medical doctor to approve your use of them.

The fact that certain substances are illegal and classified as dangerous and/or useless for medical purposes is another ramification regardless of your ability to go purchase X drug or item. There are "legal" substances that are dangerous (but not fun) that are widely studied, bought and used - for example, cyanide. Saying "magic mushrooms are illegal and you can't study them with science" because they're fun is, by comparison, kind of mad.

Anyway, I'm sure none of you needed pharmacies, prescriptions or off-license booze shops explaining to you, but there's nuance to the legal status of a substance beyond "it's banned" vs "you can go buy it in a shop right now" that some people can miss when you bring up the topic.

Sure, you're perfectly right, this is a different point polarizing the discussions. There is a lot of misunderstandings around modalities (should/has to; is possible/is necessary) in common arguments:

- substance is legal = there is a free access to the substance

- you have right to protest = you can go around the city and do anything, as long you make a point

- there is freedom of speech = you can speak anything you want without consequences

1) Alcohol is actually worse than X for almost all X

2) Most people don't think alcohol is bad enough to be illegal

3) Therefore logically those same people should agree that X shouldn't be punishable with criminal sanctions, as its use is no worse than things we already tolerate.

I.E. The argument presupposes that alcohol should be legal because most people think it should be. This is often used as a form of argument because it hangs off ideas people already have about the world and asks them to think logically/consistently. "If I can have a beer and not ruin my life, and objectively X is less bad than beer, maybe my opinions on X can adjust".

If you want to talk about alcohol being a pretty evil substance, I'm not going to argue.

I think this is something that's often lost in the debate too - you don't have to wholeheartedly approve of the use of something to want to see it legalised, just acknowledge that applying criminal charges to use is both unjust and deeply unhelpful to society and individuals.

ad 1) that is a disputable assumption, but sure

ad 2) as you've said - it's interpreted as "alcohol should be legal". Such interpretation is arguable, but still it makes sense under some views on ethics.

ad 3) this doesn't follow logically from 1) and 2). You have to add new assumption: "2.5) There exist people who believe both in 1) and 2)". Going from "something is true" -> "there are people who believe" is also an invalid reasoning, similarly to the previous: "most people believe" -> "should"

Obviously, you're right in the last paragraph, the polarization makes the debate a bit pointless. The middle ground is quite vast, in fact.

Point 1 is not all that disputable nor is it an assumption. The scientific studies on the matter tend to support alcohol being one of the worse drugs we know about, in terms of harm to the individual, addiction potential and harm to society. It is exceeded by heroin, cocaine and tobacco, but little else (maybe meth I guess).

Point 2 is not an interpretation - it's again a fact, most people (over half) in western societies like the US and UK drink alcohol, a proportion which rises if we just look at the adult population. I'm not making the argument that alcohol should be legal, I'm saying that most people already think that. I agree here, if you want to be pedantic, that their consumption does not prove that, only implies it, but there is also likely a proportion of non-drinkers who think it should be legal. So again - I'm not making any claims about whether alcohol should be legal, I am making claims about the likely views of your interlocutor in a debate about legalisation.

Point 3 is simply stating that given point 1 is true (which it is, empirically, to the best of our current knowledge) and you are talking to someone in group 2 (which you probably are), then if they want to be self-consistent they ought to examine any negative views on legalisation.

This is an explanation of why an argument along the lines of "booze is legal" is often made and may be effective. NOT an attempt at a formal proof for why any particular drugs should be legal in isolation or a justification of alcohol's status. As such I'm afraid I find your response overly nit-picky.

A perfectly valid response to the argument is "But I don't necessarily agree that alcohol should be legal", which then widens the terms of the debate.

Sorry for sounding nit-picky, I didn't want to undermine your argument as I agree with you.

The only problem I find is that, even if 1) and 2) are true, and you are talking to someone in group 2), it doesn't entail that the person believes that "1) is true". They still may be perfectly self-consistent by rejecting 1).

Talking just from my experience (anecdotal evidence, I know) most people from the group 2) would reject 1). People don't know the scientific studies or do not trust them enough to be convinced.

That's fair enough, and I agree, people can be very reluctant on that front.

It goes against a lot of conditioning that drugs are just plain bad, and it appears to contradict their lived experience in which they don't think they've really had an issue with alcohol so it must be OK. Not like those other things where people get addicted and get into all sorts of trouble. It's just a beer. Never mind aunt Theresa who died falling down the stairs, drunk as a skunk, at the age of 40 because her cirrhotic liver just burst like an overripe melon when she hit the bottom step. Or your friend's mum who they're not on speaking terms with because she put her drinking habit ahead of feeding her kids when she was young. If anything that just adds to the conviction that drugs must be so much worse, because drugs are bad, and this is 'just' a beer.

Personally I have a complex relationship with alcohol. I brew at home but I'm not blind to the damage it's done to me (thankfully just some pretty bad hangovers and behaving like an arse from time to time, well, and the belly) or to others.

Making alcohol illegal has been tried and is generally thought to be a rather bad idea (except for Al Capone).

It is a valid point, that should be taken into consideration in the discussions on the topic, but it doesn't validate the original argument.

The proponent of the "reversed argument" may argue, that, even if we can't ban alcohol (a real shame in their opinion), we shouldn't damage the situation any further with another evil substance. Later we may find that the new substance becomes "unbannable" as alcohol.

I'd argue they're already as unbannable as alcohol (from the perspective of if alcohol were banned)

Canada legalized marijuana & not much changed

By saying "we shouldn't damage the situation further," you're assuming that the harm of allowing the substance is worse than the harm of prohibiting it. With alcohol, we experimented and found that the harm of prohibiting it was worse than the harm of allowing it.

Therefore it's reasonable hypothesis that by outlawing a less harmful substance, we're causing more harm right now than we'd cause by allowing it. We don't know that for sure until we try the experiment, but it seems like a rational thing to try.

It kinda does, because the nature of the ban is not any different, and neither are the social consequences. Prohibition failed not because consuming alcohol is actually healthy, but because the social costs of maintaining a meaningful ban far exceeded any advantages from reduced consumption. The same, then, applies to any drug that is not any more harmful.

Yes, exactly this, and then one can extrapolate that it’s management should be focused public health and not law enforcement.

Great sentence!!!

> I believe the discussion should rather focus on the role of the law in the public life

This is exactly my concern. This flies over most people’s head.

During the Barret confirmation process I became very interested in the Supreme Court and was surprised to find that I much preffered Justice Scalia’s approach to the the law. To the point where I came to respect a decision I previously thought abhorrent: Citizens United.

Citizens United was the right decision in light of how the legislature wrote the law. The law should have approached that topic in a constitutional manner.

The people really need to get their act together and actually see what Congress is doing. Don’t let the media do the “work” for you. Its not that the news is fake—its that they dont give you the news. To the point of not publishing the texts produced by the governement. The texts are public and can be understood. Unfortunately they are obfuscated by the media which wont list it as a source.

Every power centre in America will happily point the finger somewhere else while the entire system repeatedly fights the same battles, one generation after the next.

This dissipates the political power and attention of the individual, leaving the naked pursuit of profit unmolested.

> What really saddens me though is when people advertise recreational use of possibly dangerous substances.

Anything done recreationally that puts someone in harm saddens me. I don't tell friends to go skiing down a black diamond unless they are comfortable down a bunny hill first. The same goes for drugs, especially those that have legitimate health benefits and enjoyment/entertainment purposes.

My advice is: do your research, understand dosing, and have a support network of people around you that are more experienced. That goes for any drug - including alcohol.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/False_dilemma

It might be that neither is the correct answer.

not advising just sharing my opinion that it's super refreshing to get out of reality using LSD/shrooms once every 2-3 months. Been doing this for years and noticing much less side effects than with alcohol/cigarettes. everybody is different though.

The danger (both to the consumer and to others) of magic mushrooms is extremely low, much much lower than alcohol.

The problem with the reverse argument is that that cat is out of the bag now. We've tried banning alcohol in the west, and it's not gone down too well in the past.

Yup, the #1 reason alcohol is legal in the US is because we tried making it illegal and that just made things worse.

I'm in favour of removing restrictions. Cigarettes are not illegal but their usage has been declining very sharply, especially after a country banned smoking in bars. Many people certainly quit but I think its that a lot less people get into them in the first place, despite the fact they never lost their cool factor. The people made a conscious choice, and no banning of anything was necessary.

Cigarettes definitely did lose their cool factor.

The problem with banning alcohol is that anyone can make it with basic household ingredients.

The problem with banning mushrooms is that anyone can pick them off the ground.

From a purely idealistic point of view, I'd think the following -- note: the world isn't idealistic but too complicated for me to understand. The first argument is a pro free market argument, the second argument is a pro regulated market argument.

So pure right wing capitalists should probably tend to be pro drugs and pro weapons and pro selling everything (maybe a bit more extreme right, I'm bad with political terms). Left wing socialists should be pro regulation and scrutinize weapons and drugs and how it should be sold.

My stance: regulate it. Make sure people can take it, but have a healthcare worker supervise it. And definitely open it up for research, it doesn't make any sense that some drugs are illegal to research. All kinds of dangerous things can be scrutinized under research, yet when it's drugs then somehow it's not possible? It doesn't make sense.

Note: where I'm from socialism means an amazing welfare state like a Scandinavian country.

Note 2: I'm bad with political labels, if I happened to have offended you, I'm sorry.

Ah but you forgot the key premise:

Alcohol cannot be illegal