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A lot of people who are against legalization make this argument that those who are for it ignore the negative consequences, but for large swathes of pro-legalization people, that's just not true. I know there are negative consequences, and I know that in a very small number of people marijuana can cause serious consequences (and in larger numbers of people, harder drugs like cocaine and heroin can cause more serious consequences).

But the fact that things can cause negative consequences is not sufficient reason to ban them. The obvious example here is alcohol - it is beyond clear from data that alcohol is incredibly harmful. It is beyond clear that it is more harmful than at least some banned substances (marijuana, LSD, MDMA). It is likely that it is more harmful than harder substances like cocaine, but with less data on those we can't say for sure.

So yes, there are negative consequences, but as a society we have decided that we allow people to do things that cause negative consequences (as evidenced by the legality of alcohol). There are limits on that, but with alcohol as a line by which to judge those limits, it's clear that to have any kind of coherent public policy, marijuana should be legal. Or, of course, alcohol could be made illegal. The point is that if you think that alcohol should be legal but other drugs should not, you're just engaging in hypocrisy.

That's why it should be mostly about protecting the youth who are more likely to be uninformed about dangers. It is true that outright prohibition is pointless, but it can introduce a bit of friction that forces users to have to put in a little effort in order to try it. Because of the effort, it is more of a deliberate decision.

Absolutely - education and regulation are much more effective strategies than prohibition along pretty much every dimension. We've drawn the very reasonable line that young people whose brains are still developing don't get alcohol, and of course we should extend that standard to other drugs.

* I did use the qualifier 'often' which is not 'all' and to my opinion it's not enough. People readily forget the downsides and need constant reminders.

Edit: please note that the following includes the qualifier “most” and please understand that this does not mean “all”.

I think alcohol is a bad example as alcohol for most people has a way of punishing abuse on its own and quickly thereby maintaining a tight association between the high and the hangover. The aversion to the hangover means that for most people it's a self correcting problem. Most other drugs don't come with this and the association between the high and negative consequences are more remote and infrequent.

I think alcohol, despite the obvious and extensive damage it causes, is a great training drug that teaches most people moderation through first hand experience and encourages caution with other drugs.

Using alcohol as an example kinda makes the case for prohibiting alcohol as opposed to legalizing other drugs.

>Using alcohol as an example kinda makes the case for prohibiting alcohol as opposed to legalizing other drugs.

We tried that[0] in the United States, and it was an unmitigated disaster.

[0] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-18/

I'm not so sure about that. If you've ever talked with a full-blown alcoholic, the allure of drinking is almost a reflex with no consideration for its effects. I don't think they even remember having to lie in their own vomit or the severe hangover they will have to endure. The hangover is enough of a deterrent for myself, but they don't even think twice about it. Its amazing, really.

I'm convinced the only reason alcohol is legal is because it is culturally embedded. If it were being introduced anew, it would be prohibited. Its far worse than most illegal drugs.

I didn’t think I’d have to follow up a post on using a qualifier “often” with another post about using a different qualifier “most” which obviously doesn’t encompass “all”. Counter examples are clearly presumed necessary given the aforementioned damage.

I understand your point that most people who drink alcohol do not become alcoholics. But that is true for all drugs, really. I think the thing that separates alcohol is the long cultural acceptance.

Alcohol is incredibly easy to produce from almost any available organic matter makes it difficult to ban.

I disagree entirely with this viewpoint - alcohol is one of the most dangerous and addictive substances available, with serious long-term health consequences. While the opiate epidemic has made a lot of headlines, CDC data IIRC points to the alcohol resulting in the premature deaths of about five times as many people (not by direct overdose as with opiates, but via associated medical conditions like liver failure).

Alcohol has a complex set of biochemical effects, but note that part of the issue is that it's similar to opiates, i.e. it triggers the release of an endorphin-like molecule that people get addicted to in the same way as with morphine or heroin.

I still don't think alcohol should be made illegal, but in terms of long-term medical effects, it's certainly more dangerous than cannabis/THC and psychedelic drugs like mushrooms/psilocybine. It really belongs in the same class with amphetamines, cocaine, benzos, and opiates.

If alcohol is one of the most addictive substances around I do not think we need to worry too much. Alcohol is actually not very addictive. Most people can drink regularly drink large amounts of alcohol without feeling the least bit of addiction.

Alcohol is very bad for your health and it is a horrible thing to be addicted to but it is not very addictive.

The mechanism of alcohol addiction is well known and studied, and alcohol is certainly in the same addictive potential class as cocaine, heroin, nicotine and amphetamines.

I encourage you to actually do some research on alcoholism - both the number of people it affects as well as the way it prevents itself. You're dangerously uninformed on the topic to be presenting these kinds of opinions.

oh, come on! I think you're right on this issue, but since when are opinions dangerous? He's giving his honest opinion of the issue according to his experience.

You will be much more effective if you simply try to enjoy the conversation than trying to call out people for having "dangerous opinions".

You put quotes around "dangerous opinions" - you're wrong to do that, because I never used that phrase. I said he was dangerously uninformed.

There are times when people can have valid, personal opinions and times when there's just objective reality. Some people these days say that their opinion is that the 2020 election was stolen. That's not a valid opinion - it's just wrong. Saying that hangovers make alcohol self-regulating when >10M people in the US are alcoholics (for whom it is, as a point of fact, untrue that alcohol is a self-regulating substance) is not a valid opinion - it's a misunderstanding of reality.

As someone who knows people who have been very severely negatively affected by alcoholism, I do not enjoy conversations with people who make points about alcohol that are totally uninformed and suggest that we should base policy around those uninformed thoughts.

I just think you would enjoy the conversation more if your experience was not dependent on someone else's opinion. You are also assuming something about another person that is more than likely untrue. Sounds like a horrible way to live.

No offense to you, but who named you the arbitrator of "valid opinions"? I doubt you are that arrogant in person, but you sure are coming off that way.

Most =/ all. For some it doesn’t work this way and that is very costly to us all. Hence the great deal of damage that it causes. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, is alcohol too dangerous therefore we must legalize more drugs?

The point is that we should have a coherent policy in the US around how we treat drugs.

Either we should accept a certain threshold of danger around drug use and allow all drugs under that threshold to be used (with appropriate regulation), or we should not accept the use of dangerous drugs and should outlaw them.

Right now, US drug policy is that a fairly dangerous drug (alcohol) is not legal, while other clearly less dangerous drugs (marijuana, most hallucinogens, MDMA, etc.) are not legal. It should be changed to be a rational policy in which everything less dangerous than alcohol is legal or a policy in which alcohol is not legal.

If anything I think perhaps reducing the legal age for drinking in the US. Where I’m from getting black out drunk is considered immature and people are expected to grow out of it, but then we start a lot earlier. Plus we learn how to handle alcohol * before we learn how to drive so it’s not considered matcho to drink and drive. I think cigarette companies like the 3 year gap of being able to buy cigarettes but not alcohol.

I’m pretty pro legalization, I think it’s probably best handled at the cultural level, but until society matures there is going to a fair bit of collateral damage and I think we should be honest about that.

* it’s a generalization… obviously it doesn’t work out this way for everyone.

>The point is that we should have a coherent policy in the US around how we treat drugs.

But we have had a coherent policy around drugs in the US:

1. Identify a potential issue with a particular drug;

2. Investigate the issues and examine the evidence;

3. Create a set of policy solutions to address the issues;

4. Pick the least effective, most harmful policy solution and implement that.

5. Profit!

All you have to do is look at all the major drug legislation over the past 130 years or so to see that such is, in fact, the case.

And the US tried that, and it was a complete failure. Yet we as a society somehow failed to learn that lesson and here we are.

At no point did I advocate prohibition of alcohol, I am suggesting that others pointing out the incredible harm alcohol does doesn’t do a great job in making the case that more drugs should be legal.

> those pushing for legalization underplay the negative problems associated with drug use

But those problems already exist and are amplified by the prohibition.

I don’t understand how prohibitionists still believe that the ban on drugs would make drug use disappear when the last 80 years of prohibition completely failed at that.

It’s clear that prohibition does not work. But if we just try long enough it might? That’s not science, that’s ideology.

Prohibition on supply just increases the prices which encourages more people to jump into the market. For prohibition to be effective there needs to be strong punishments on consumption.

As someone who consumes quite a large amount of gray and black market medicine I'm actually pro-legalization of all drugs. I hate the medical monopoly and the overbearing government. But I also think people need to be very honest and frank about the consequences of legalization.

My concern, beyond what happens to other people, is that I'll have to check the ingredient label for a longer list of substances I don't want in my body. We have enough food fraud as it is with suppliers lying about the content, I want it to be an extremely serious crime to add drugs to food.

IMO I think legal prohibition is not the way to reduce consumption of a bad thing in a society, but to do what was done for smoking. You have to treat them as a public health issue, make it culturally distasteful and more and more annoying & expensive, but legal, to do so. That is what effectively reduces usage vs. straight out police prohibition.

And when people talk about legalization, they are not saying get rid of the entire doctor supervision & prescribing system, which creates a legal outlet.

> A university acquaintance went acute schizophrenic shortly after developing a pot habit, that could be a coincidence but the timing is suspicious.

Early adulthood is when mental illness often sets in, especially illness like Schizophrenia. You're implying cause one way without considering the other likely alternatives:

1) Your acquaintance started smoking a lot of pot because of the onset of early schizophrenia symptoms as a coping mechanism.

2) They are unrelated and early adulthood is just when people experiment more with drugs, and also when conditions like Schizophrenia start to manifest.

> A second cousin became mentally retarded immediately after smoking a joint. He's now a 30 year old who can't tie his own shoes.

I don't know what to say to this other than nobody's ever established an even remotely plausible link between these two things, assuming you aren't being hyperbolic.

"that could be a coincidence" is a qualifier that includes the points you brought up.

A friend of my 2nd cousin smoked a joint from the same stash and no such effect so it's clearly a combination of marijuana and the individual. Unfortunately such experiments are hardly repeatable in a clinical setting, he's not the only one, it's happened to number of people. One of the other mothers was collecting stories to try to turn into a book, give me a minute and I'll try to find it.

Edit: it may take me a while to find it, I think it ended up getting published but it wasn’t something I paid much attention to. I’ve only met my second cousin and his family once and a very long time ago.

A plant allergy gone wrong?

https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/schizophrenia-marijuana-...

> I don't know what to say to this other than nobody's ever established an even remotely plausible link between these two things, assuming you aren't being hyperbolic.

This one’s simple: unless they, or someone they know, grew the plant themselves, there is no practical way to know what really went into the joint. I’ve witnessed people having hallucinations after a joint, which seems unlikely with cannabis.

I’ve had hallucinations from pot that I’ve grown from seeds myself. As have others from the same pot. It was extremely strong hydro grown under stress, the bud glistened.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe there is a strong causal link between marijuana and schizoid type effects. I don't think this is even disputed. Maybe he was predisposed to it anyway, but the marijuana certainly did not help.

The only problem I see with legalizing all prescription drugs is that a lot of people would use them off label or in inappropriate context (ie taking antibiotics when you have a viral infection).

I think this could be managed with an appropriate regularity framework that I think should probably apply to psychoactive drugs as well. This would be some sort of licensing system. Anyone can get a license to buy antibiotics but it requires taking class and passing a test that demonstrates you understand the risks and agreeing to follow certain rules and procedures. A procedure for antibiotics might be that you agree you'll only purchase them if you have tested positive for a bacterial infection. All drugs should only be purchased for yourself (unless you have a distribution license which should be more difficult to get). If you get caught breaking any of those rules, you lose your license for some period of time and are subject to other penalties.

I think for something like antibiotics, no one would bother getting licenses as it's not worth the time of getting and keeping your license up to date (licenses would likely require annual renewal and continuing education). You'd just go through your doctor the couple times a decade you need them. But this could be hugely beneficial for a diabetic person that doesn't want to go to a doctor once a month to get their insulin prescription renewed. Or women that want birth control without paying doctor fees. Yes, it would result in less revenue going to our medical system but that seems like a plus side in those cases.

I don't deny that some drugs are incredibly dangerous but our society allows a lot of dangerous activities. If I want to buy a BASE jumping rig, I could do that and then start legally jumping off of cliffs with it as soon as it arrived. My chances of dying doing that are far higher than my chances of dying while taking most drugs (maybe some like fentanyl are exceptions). Would you consider whoever sold me the rig a murderer? Or do you think I'm an adult and should be allowed to make my own decisions as long as they're well informed?

Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains.

I think legalisation ought to be driven largely evidence of harm, not just by abuse of the drugs, but systemic harm both of legalisation vs. criminalization, but with a reasonably high level of ability to take personal risk.

E.g. for drugs where we know addiction drives crime, even fairly substantial harm from the drug itself might still mean legalisation is a net gain. Heroin might fit in that bucket (a small UK trial with prescribing it saw offending rates for those in the trial drop dramatically, and so reducing net harm to society).

At the same time high risk may justify a high degree of regulation of specific drugs to ensure people are at least aware of the dangers, and aim to reduce recruitment.

>Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains.

That particular cat is well out of the bag as, according to the WHO[0], a full 1/3 of antibiotics users obtained their last doses without a prescription. In fact, many countries (unlike the US) don't require prescriptions for antibiotics.

Which really sucks, as antibiotic resistance will (barring some serious scientific breakthrough(s)) likely be a huge problem over the next century or so.

I don't have a good answer WRT that, but agree with much of what you wrote.

[0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/21-11-2022-1-in-3-use-a...

And that's just humans using antibiotics. Roughly 2/3rds of antibiotics are used for veterinary purposes.

But yes, we need to be much more careful with how we use antibiotics than we currently are and I also don't have a good answer for how that happens.

surreptitiously - adverb in a way that attempts to avoid notice or attention; secretively. "Mary surreptitiously slipped from the room"

i.e. it was something done to you without informing you. To use your analogy it would be like blind folding someone and pushing them off a cliff (with base jumping gear on) if they lived I'd consider that at least attempted murder. But with secretly giving drugs to someone there is no way to avoid interference with the workings of a sound mind so that I think is on par with murder.

I thought you were implying companies adding addictive substance to their products in attempt to get people hooked which I thought a regulatory framework would fix. If coke puts cocaine back in their drink, it would require a license to buy so they wouldn't be able to do it without informing people.

Are you actually talking about something more akin to date rape? I'm really not sure if I understand how that might work. You slip someone opioids without them knowing until they're addicted and then you stop but reveal to them they're addicted to opioids hoping they continue that addiction? Or do you stop once they're addicted and just hope they figure it out? Or you just keep feeding their addiction without them knowing until you feed them a dose they OD on?

> Criminal gangs use this tactic fairly frequently as an alternative to killing someone but I believe it should solicit the same punishment.

Criminal gangs tend to take the more active holding people down and injecting people with drugs approach than the slow sneaky process. But once addicted the addict is now reliant on the gang for their continued supply and can be controlled. The real life instances I’m aware of was done on people who were preparing to testify against their family members in a gang. It was a speedball injection. But is has been depicted in fiction such as in the move ‘the town’.

My relatives were involved in sheltering them to get them clean, but as soon as they went home the gang found them and got them addicted again.

Gotcha. I guess I don't understand why you'd expect that behavior to become more common as a result of drug legalization.

All that would still be very illegal (I imagine injecting someone with even a completely safe saline solution without their consent would be considered assault in most jurisdictions). The type of people that are comfortable doing that clearly don't care about the law. I just don't see drugs being illegal as a limiting factor on crimes of that nature in today's society.

I'd also like to mention that a major source of funding for many criminal gangs is the black market sale of drugs. If we legalized and regulated drugs, they'd lose that source of money and I'd personally expect to see a decline in organized crime.

Safe saline is the least of the victims worries, water quality isn’t that important to the extent that many safe injection packs no longer include it. Tap water is usually fine, puddle water is usually fine. In medical settings the law of large numbers mean that usually isn’t good enough but for one offs it’s ‘usually’ ok.

It’s the action of adding chemicals to your brain that can and likely do have harmful long term effects, not limited to addiction, and many still unknown. If such an act was done to me I would consider it within my rights to kill that person in retribution.

I’m less confident on the expected drop in organized crime as taxes on the drugs usually means there is now money in tax evasion. Without tax it may become so cheap that other problems start to dominate.

The whole point of bringing up saline solutions was to point out that what you're describing is already illegal even for much less serious offenses. I'm not a lawyer so don't know what all crimes would be involved with injecting drugs into someone against their will but I'm willing to bet money it is breaking several.

As for illegal drug sales persisting despite legalization, how many people are still buying illegal moonshine? It does exist, I've seen it, but it's not nearly the problem it was during prohibition.

Despite being illegal forcibly getting someone addicted isn’t treated seriously at all. Unlike murder where there is a missing person or a body to show that a crime has taken place you with forced addiction you now have the addicts word which is considered inherently unreliable.

I’m more worried about organized crime/political corruption than I am about freely available drugs, but organized crime has all sorts of ways to make money so I don’t think we’ll be rid of it that easily. I think people underestimate the prevalence of how much corruption still exists. I even think it’ll get worse as fewer non-compromised people want to take police jobs.

Also prohibition ended 1933 but the major crackdown on gangsters was in 1970 due to a long period of federal government inaction.

> I think that if we legalize dangerous addictive drugs then we might as well legalize all medications/drugs by which point the medical establishment loses a big chunk of the income that it gets from being a monopoly supplier.

Yes, absolutely.

> I think that if we legalize dangerous addictive drugs then we might as well legalize all medications/drugs by which point the medical establishment loses a big chunk of the income that it gets from being a monopoly supplier.

Do you seriously think this is why medication is regulated?

In most developed countries prescribing and dispensing are separated (doctor/pharmacy) in part to prevent this. Japan is a notable exception and guess what: more drugs are prescribed per capita there than the rest of the OECD.

I would include pharmacy in the medical establishment, and yes I expect them to place significant lobby pressure to maintain their monopoly.

> A university acquaintance went acute schizophrenic shortly after developing a pot habit,

That's the age most people find out they're schizophrenic