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Comment by starkd | Hacker News Reader

The problem with that line of reasoning is that addiction inhibits a person's abitlity to reason about these issues. I'm sympathetic to the freedom of choice argument, but drugs are an exception. If you've ever had to deal with an addict, you know exactly what I mean. Drugs rewire your priorities in a big way.

We can treat addiction as a medical issue, but the sad truth is that there really are no effective treatments that can be deployed on a mass scale. The relapse rate of even the best programs is pitifully high. The best treatment is public policy which does not encourage drug use in the first place, or at least, tries to minimize its use.

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I largely agree with the point about addiction, but it's worth noting that a lot of banned substances - notably MDMA, Cannabis, LSD, and Psilocybin - aren't particularly addictive.

True. I'm largely sympathetic to the argument for decriminalization. Just on the grounds there should be limits in using government to protect people from themselves. But it's too often proposed as a quick an easy fix. Society does have an obligation to keep people from falling into a pit with relatively modest measures.

> If you've ever had to deal with an addict, you know exactly what I mean. Drugs rewire your priorities in a big way.

Can we do something about money then? I know people who have spent years of their lives arguing over pointless differences in specifications that end up going into the trash bin because it pays them more money than something useful. Lives and years down the tube.

I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, but certain behaviors towards money are discouraged, and in many places... outright banned. For example, the vast majority of states ban gambling outright, except in small sanctioned activities. Nevertheless, gambling takes place anyways, yet you rarely see any push to decriminalize commercial gambling

I can only ask you to try a bit harder then.

Simply because something contributes to a set of behaviours you disagree with doesn’t mean we should attack.

Sadly, for that very freedom we’ll end up with many more mega conferences about UI ecosystems while the world burns. C’est la vie.

But at least in the meantime we made a lot of money and we succeeded in stopping the kids from smoking the damned pot.

So you can't name anything, but want me to?

Behaviors I disagree with include things like flaking on a commitment with friends, forcing your children to do activities they don't want, etc. The effects of drugs are a whole order of magnitude worse, and these effects affect myself, others, and the drug user, in potentially deadly ways. Equating these concerns to simply being things I disagree with is disingenuous.

Name what? My point was made in allegory.

I would argue that obsession with accumulating capital has caused several orders of magnitude more situations like the ones you've named.

So we probably agree that while we're at banning drugs all over again, we should probably do something about mindless capital accumulation as its as harmful an addiction as any other—or more! It has led to the ruin and sublimation of entire nations of people—a far sight worse than a stolen car stereo.

Or if we don't want to get so dramatic, maybe just let the people eat their damned mushrooms in tranquility and stop using such broad strokes to paint over situations.

> The best treatment is public policy which does not encourage drug use in the first place, or at least, tries to minimize its use.

I don't have the exact numbers, but in practice you're talking about public policy which destroys a hundred lives to save one.

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