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Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

I dont smoke and it's easy to pick on smokers. I think the totalitarianism we see today has its roots, or at least it's proving ground, in the ostracism of smokers we saw in the 90s and early 2000s. Of course it's best to start with an easy target that is widely reviled, but once it is realized we can repress them, pressure mounts to do the same thing to other groups we disagree with or want to push our agenda on, and we get the current disregard for any personal freedom. This is a loss for all of society, not because smoking is good, but because personal choice is.

(And that ignores the fact that prohibition doesn't work. Guess what just became the most coveted drug for New Zealanders 14 and under)

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I don't do heroin and it's easy to pick on heroin users. I think the totalitarianism we see today has it's roots, or at least it's proving ground, in the ostracism of heroin users we saw in the 90s and early 2000s. Of course it's best to start with an easy target that is widely reviled, but once it is realized we can repress them, pressure mounts to do the same thing to other groups we disagree with or want to push our agenda on, and we get the current disregard for any personal freedom. This is a loss for all of society, not because using heroin is good, but because personal choice is.

(and that ignores the fact that prohibition doesn't work. Guess what just because the most coveted drug for New Zealanders 21 and under).

I write this out because freedom of choice becomes moot when something directly removes choice through its addictive properties. Particularly when other people pick up the bill for your human imperfections

As a casual smoker of good cigars, I strongly object to the comparison.

Just like you can drink wine responsibly, you can smoke responsibly. I don't think you can do heroin responsibly.

I'm not ok with being stripped of a wide variety of possible enjoyable experiences just because somebody is going to abuse them.

> I don't think you can do heroin responsibly.

Why not, out of interest?

https://erowid.org/chemicals/heroin/heroin.shtml

It's not like information about heroin is hard to come by.

Welcome to society! Believe it or not some possibly enjoyable experiences are already regulated/illegal.

I don't have much of a view on what other people should do with themselves or how drugs ought to be controlled, I just wanted to throw out this fact I had seen before.

An estimated 65% of people who inject heroin don't develop an addiction compared to only 20% of cigarette smokers [1]. I wouldn't bet my life on these exact numbers but everything I've read suggests that occasional heroin users exist [2] and may exist in similar proportions to occasional smokers.

You mentioned cigars, which might be different, but the original article is primarily about cigarettes.

Again, I'm not endorsing anyone smoking or using heroin, nor any particular policy. I'm just bringing up some findings that contradict the idea that responsible use of heroin is much less likely than responsible smoking.

[1] https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/08/whats-the-most-addictive-...

[2] https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/02/27/health/functioning-heroin...

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