Any substances widely consumed by people should be regulated and tested before they are sold to the public. Even the substances some people don't like other people consuming.
I suspect this is the beginning of reform. Politics moves slowly. At least my translation of the article implied that further steps towards decriminalization will come in the future.
In the US, states often pass laws that undermine federal laws. I'm less familiar with EU and German politics.
I always wonder how we as a society could legalize "hard" drugs. Do we sell them like alcohol / tobacco, with minimal restrictions? (Just age limits.) Or, do we require obtaining a license, or only allow taking hard drugs in a controlled setting? I don't have the answer; but it's an important discussion to have as drugs are decriminalized and legalized.
Alcohol is addictive, physical dependence forming and can be overdosed with no medical use. Are these not attributes of Schedule 1 drugs?
Alcohol has existed and been consumed since before humans existed. It’s also trivially easy to produce alcohol yourself, naturally manifesting out of a sugary liquid, meaning that prohibition is ~impossible.
If you mean just from an effects standpoint than yeah alcohol is absolutely top tier dangerous. But unfortunately/luckily, society operates on more than just statistics. And trying to take the human emotion element out of decisions is hopeless.
Ditto cannabis and opium poppies for example, arguably a million times more naturally manifesting than a distillation process.
Yes, but historically, alcoholic societies thrived and developed much better than stoner societies.
There's a liquor store in every strip mall, every restaurant servers liquor, every concert or sporting event serves liquor.
Meanwhile other drugs are heavily regulated if not outright illegal in most places still
The societies that drank liquor clearly dominated for this to be the case.
Wasn't LSD banned in the US because it got super popular and became a great "poster child" for the war on drugs? Not because it was not popular enough.
AFAIK caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are legal at this point mainly because they've been normalized. As in, people generally perceive them to have minimal risk, so there's not a lot of opposition.
Yes the risk is not actually minimal for any of those three. Even caffeine can be dependence-forming. But most people either don't know this or don't care.
You didnt think this through, Europe was a mongol raided, plague infested, dark-age shitshow untill they discovered tea and coffee. Id we are gonna go by 'drugs drive history' then caffeine is a top tier drug, and alcohol is crap.
But this has all the historifal rigour of "white people won, therefore everything white people do is the best'
So the answer is not the age of the substances, nor the natural occurrence in nature. It's something more irrational. I propose that it's regulatory capture by massive industrial interests. See also: scaremongering against weed vapes by the tobacco industry, or the classic Reefer Madness.
Technically yes, but that didn't stop marijuana from being schedule 1. Actually, isn't it still schedule 1 in the US?
Hell, even meth can be prescribed by a doctor; I believe the brand for it's called Desoxyn and it's usually prescribed for severe overeating disorders, not usually ADHD.
https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling
The key phrase is "currently accepted medical use". That is an arbitrary definition that is set by the regulator. A drug must have a medical use that is accepted by the DEA who defers to the FDA for such definitions.
That's a very subjective statement. Many animals seek out alcohol in the wild. For example, bears will seek out fermenting berries and get "drunk."
> drug hardness
There really is no objective distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs. For example, spend a minute skimming https://www.gatewayfoundation.org/addiction-blog/hard-vs-sof.... "These arbitrary categories have no clear criteria or definition, and they also have no scientific basis"
I am not clear how this proves or disproves anything. Deer seek out mushrooms that are poisonous to us. We seek out coffee beans, whoch are poison to insects but caffeine is fine for us in small doses. Etc.
Also caffeine is a top tier drug.
It basically put all the drugs into a tiered system. Weed would be grouped with alcohol, regulated but basically available everywhere. Non addictive but more powerful drugs like MDMA and shrooms would be available at pharmacies with a consultation from the pharmacist, basically just making sure users planned ahead and knew the risks. It went all the way up to to intravenous heroin use at specific facilities with on site nurses, where users had to consult a doctor every so often.
If anyone knows the article or something similar, I would like to reread it just to see what the author got right and to review their ideas going forward.
Even after marijuana legalization, many states still have thriving underground marijuana markets.
Many people who consume a lot of a substance over time will inevitably seek out cheaper sources. The sources complying with regulation and testing requirements, however light, will be more expensive than someone growing some plants in the back of a spare building somewhere.
The problem is exacerbated for more expensive and addictive drugs. The few people I’ve known who became addicted to opioids were spending significant amounts of money to maintain their habit and traveling to increasing dangerous situations to get better prices.
It’s optimistic to declare that everyone should have access to well tested drugs, but the reality is that it’s not a magic bullet. I also have some serious doubts about the narrative that increasing availability of drugs won’t contribute to more widespread addiction problems.
Politicians who lost the war to keep a harmless drug illegal try and price out people from consuming it.
The flip side is that taxation of recreational usage in Colorado has been very good for the state budget. I remember several years where the taxes collected were high enough that the state increased income tax refunds, and in one case to 100%, because Colorado has tax income caps and must return tax income overages. The reality though is, if you're dependent on a drug and there's a cheaper way to get it, you'll do that. And in fact, a lot of people in Colorado still home-grow and trade/sell with friends, because purchasing the product through a dispensary is too expensive.
The average price in Colorado for an ounce of high quality marijuana is about $100 /before tax/, which makes it around $115 after tax vs Oregon's $70 at point of sale, that's a significant difference in pricing.
That is not the case here in Seattle. The shop near my house sells a vast array of marijuana products at prices the old black market could never have touched. Economy of scale works! The testing requirements add real value - very few people will choose to buy some sketchy black-market grower's mystery weed when they can select from dozens of strains with measured cannabinoid percentages at a legal shop instead.
Here's an article explaining why Washington has been more successful than California in moving its marijuana industry aboveground:
https://reason.com/2022/11/14/washington-has-been-much-more-...
The culture there is the intersection of hippies and libertarians (of both the left and right varieties), a conglomeration basically joined exclusively by their general disdain towards government oversight. A lot of farms went legit, but it's not exactly surprising that others didn't.
The cost of dodging regulations can easily exceed the cost of compliance.
Avoiding police raids costs money too. But lets imagine you are right.
When you go to the bar, do you buy the cheapest boose they sell? No, you don't. Do you choose wine for w party by selecting the cheaperst crap they sell?
When I speak to people who use sibstances recreationally, they are discussing who has good stuff, who is dishonest, etc. They aren't just buying the cheapest white powder they can find.
But I think it's also pretty clear that is a significant political leap that may even be at least a couple of generations away.
In the meanwhile this sounds like a pretty good way to save lives which may even be possible within the current political environment.
Well, no, not only. It also serves the consumers.
> Any substances widely consumed by people should be regulated and tested before they are sold to the public
Agreed.
It's progress and it's pragmatism, because it's either this or nothing. There is no meaningful amount of political support for what you describe.
Likely IMO
> there might be more junkies
Unlikely, the myth of "one-taste of some drugs = instant addiction" need to die.
I say this as a formerly-active heroin addict: the hardest part of my time as an active addict was not having heroin. I was almost entirely functional, I had a full-time job the entire time, but if I was unable to get any for a couple of days it sent me completely spiralling.
If had a doctor's note showing I was an active heroin addict which would allow me to purchase heroin OTC at a chemist it would have improved my life immeasurably and made it much easier for me to quit. After all, it was only ever a day or two before I could buy more, and I know even now I could buy some heroin illegally online and have it drop through my door in less than 24 hours.
Personally I'm unable to consume any psychoactive substance as I've learnt by now it sends me down a path that gets harder to return from every time, but I believe all drugs should be made legal, and all drug problems should be handed over to the health system rather than the justice system.
Glad they work for you though. Is your plan to stay on them indefinitely or to try and get off them entirely?
Not sure! I might come off it in the future, but it does have some upsides, costs me nothing, and keeps me on the straight and narrow. Playing it by ear basically, I just bought my first home which is quite exciting :) so maybe in the future I’ll come off it, which is a lot easier to do from the injection than it is the sublingual strips or tablets
And after numerous cycles of getting clean and relapsing, I recognise what do cravings I get immediately and they don't bother me anymore.
There are tons of functional, contributing people using drugs, but you don't know about it. All you saw are the people who have hit rock bottom and developed serious issues with them, and you've assumed they must be the only ones using dreugs and that drugs inevitably lead to that. It's a common error, but a big one nonetheless that leads to wildly unscientific conclusions. To then make or support policy based on those conclusions is extremely irresponsible.
Draw a line on a bellcurve, the people on the right can use drugs safely without destroying their lives the people on the left cannot. GP is saying that for hard drugs, that line is a little to far to the right to sustain a clean and safe society so we should ban them all together. That might not be a reasonable option for western countries but lets not act like acknowledging that is a fallacy.
No, I'm not saying that at all. I have no idea the makeup of Singapore and Taiwan.
I am saying that you can't take a heavily biased sample and make conclusions about the entire population. This is a well accepted reality in statistics. It's deeply unscientific and can lead to horrendously incorrect conclusions. Then making policies on those conclusions that can lead to death and/or imprisonment of people is at best grossly irresponsible.
My reply will be brutish. I know it happens. I just don't want to see it. I don't want to watch mothers with toddlers be solicited for change in the checkout line at drug stores, or young couples be harassed outside a coffee shop. I hate that I can't eat a meal a terrace without some drugged out beggar trying to hustle me for change.
I don't care who or what does drugs. I don't care about the functional or dysfunctional drug users. It's mental gymnastics at this point. I just don't want to see them.
Whatever you do in the privacy of your own home that's fine. But that's not happening. We just can't have nice things.
In Singapore if they catch you with heroin, you hang. I think in Taiwan they give you 10 years for weed. I wasn't solicited for drugs. I felt safe at night. In both cases their metro was clean. It seems to work for them. At least to my apparent superficial standards.
You either go full measure or decriminalize it. The West has never gone full measure. We are slowly decriminalizing it.
That's not an option. Germany is pretty woke about human rights.
Surely you must realise that US will not become clean like Singapore just by adopting it's drug policy?
You must realise that other policies that keep singapore clean will have to be adopted too, like massive fines for littering, community, and among them an aggresive 'socialist' housing policy?
"Remarkably, Singapore has achieved a home ownership rate of over 80 per cent among its citizens. This is through three policy pillars operating since the 1960s
Housing for over 80 per cent of residents is the ubiquitous high-rise public housing blocks built by the Housing and Development Board (HDB)"
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20181025-the-cost-of-ke...
In principle I agree that many drugs should be legal, and we should instead spend more resources on mental health and support for addicted people. But if all we can get a majority for is the latter part that's still an improvement.
Similarly with drugs: if they're available from reputable, accessible, legal sources, the number of consumers ready to buy from black-market sources will be significantly reduced.
Its not blocked, its cheaper than store-bought beer.
Only after you've created the black market through prohibition, does regulation then become impossible.
Every single bad thing you can think of about drugs isn't caused by the drugs at all, but by the prohibition. And the few exceptions to this that someone might find... those rare bad things not caused by prohibition itself aren't actually reduced by prohibition. They still happen anyway. The junkie who is ruining his relationship with family still does so today.
Most people think you HAVE to forbid stuff sometimes. If it's forbidded it's because it's dangerous and it kill people. What you are advocating is a bit like saying "oh it's forbidden to stab people in the streets but if you do it we should teach you to do it the proper way to minimize pain". This makes 0 sense.
And I do take drugs recreationally..
People are getting into dangerous territory, let them be responsible of their actions. It's not like you can't test your stuff first or do risk reduction anyway if you make half an effort to inform yourself. Now saying the gov should organize or sponsor while he decided to forbid it is nonsense of the highest level. If they had more money to do that they would use it to actually fight more the cartels
European countries where I live don't have a crook pharma industry and still have a good status quo with drugs.
Sure, but that does not apply to magic mushrooms, noone ever died from OD on magic mushrooms.
Provably does not apply to LSd either, MDMA is debatable, etc.
There are like 100's of drugs, and most aren't like heroin.