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Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

I generally agree with the sentiment that drugs should be treated like we treat other addictions like alcohol. Drugs should be decriminalized, anti social criminal behavior should stay criminalized. If I’m drunk and pee in public or assault someone, I’ll go to jail. That is what should happen if I do it under the influence of drugs.

The one difference though between alcohol and some of the drugs is potency and how quickly one can be addicted to it. Therefore, treatment should be much more easily be available and it should be much easier to have an intervention.

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Driving drunk is illegal because you're likely to kill someone, and then it'll be too late to say "let's just prosecute the crime of manslaughter, and not prevent future manslaughters by prosecuting drunkenness in the car."

In the same way, we should make it illegal to do drugs in situations where you are likely to cause irreparable harm.

If we legalize drugs, let's create safe situations to do so. Many drugs are being legalized under the supervision of a doctor. We could also allow drug use within a safe space where you can't OD, and where you won't leave needles on the ground for kids to step on.

Legalization and decriminalization are two different things. I am all for decriminalizing. From a personal viewpoint, I don’t think drugs should be legalized.

And as far as the legal administration etc., that already exists in SF and it has had a poor track record of helping people.

Decriminalizing drugs doesn’t fix the supply problem, which makes drug use such a budensome expense that there are all kinds of knock on effects (theft, poverty, etc). Someone commented on how rich people don’t see drug use, but sure they do. Aside from the fact that most everyone here is pretty rich and complaining about addicts, I come from an upper middle class suburb with a ton of addicts. Lots of people I went to school with died of overdosed. But it’s not immediately visible because people’s families reluctantly take them in, they generally have enough money for drugs, etc.

Not arguing for outright legalization—while I once did, I now think it’s naive. And I’m not sure we could pull off a Portugal style system in the US. But descriminalizariam doesn’t seem to be working that well.

Which is why I argue:

> Therefore, treatment should be much more easily be available and it should be much easier to have an intervention.

If drugs become burdensome enough that you have to commit crimes to feed your habit, then maybe the society should be able to intervene and help? If I have a drinking problem that I need to steal money for, the solution shouldn’t be cheaper alcohol, but a way for me to stop drinking. Same applies for drugs. Part of the reason why families support (reluctantly) drug habits is because getting help is often not easy or cheap.

Legalization addresses the 100,000 overdose deaths a year.

Legalization bankrupts criminal organizations.

Legalization creates tax revenue.

Refusing to prosecute antisocial behavior is the problem.

For PCP that’s basically everything. For weed that’s basically nothing (although you shouldn’t drive high)

More people are killed on the road in accidents caused by elderly folks than drunk drivers. I know this sounds insane, but drunk driving should be no harm no foul.

In some sense, it is. Barring random sobriety checkpoints (which are generally avoidable).

We don't have checkpoints where I live near Detroit. Are these really a thing? I've seen them in movies and TV but never experienced it.

I've seen a handful in CA. Usually they're visible from a large distance, given the flashing lights and traffic backup. Sometimes they'll even have signs up a few blocks in advance warning about the upcoming stop.

I used to commute in a red sports car at midnight, and my direct path to the freeway and home was regularly blocked by a checkpoint. The officer started to instruct me on being checked, and I whined that I was tired, and he waved me by. Town was notorious for interfering with traffic with their checkpoints and speed enforcement. Sometimes checkpoints were disclosed on radio. Looking back it’s amazing they didn’t cite me for my confessed exhaustion. Also this was a long time ago so YMMV.

Arizona has very aggressive checkpoints by the lakes and rivers during the holiday's

Leaving aside the freedom argument for a moment, does it have the intended effect? (1) Catch drink-drivers, and/or (2) reduce drink-driving?

https://www.findlaw.com/dui/arrests/dui-checkpoint-laws-by-s...

Varies from state to state - in some states they are illegal under state law or state constitutions, etc. Looks like they're illegal in MI.

I guess I have some not so unique experience. I was given a DUI in 2011 during a routine traffic stop. They officer cited I cut the protected left turn too tightly. The officer then said he smelled marijuana, even though I was currently smoking a normal cigarette. I was arrested immediately, my blood was taken, and being an occasional pot smoker, THC was in my blood, I got a DUI while completely sober driving to work at 9 AM.

Sucks. Shoulda got a better lawyer. I know folks who have gotten out of full on crashes at 0.18 BAC thanks to lawyer shenanigans.

Was fresh out of high school and grew up poor, I never had a chance of beating it. But hey, at least I got to visit tent city before it was shut down.

Seems like a lot of folks in this thread would call situations like yours "necessary collatoral damage." Some of the stuff I'm reading here is genuinely disgusting, and it makes me uneasy to think I might work with some of the folks espousing it.

I don't see how this is necessary collateral damage for the prevention of drunk driving. I think most folks in this thread would agree that current implementations leave an awful lot to be desired, regardless of what they believe the best approach to be theoretically.

That's a problem with specifics though, not with the general existence of DUI laws. Weed will be hard to enforce but BAC is more cut and dry, I don't see a problem with having a BAC cutoff for driving.

My friend who was killed by a repeated drunk driver might have argued otherwise. If you can't drive responsibly, it's in society's interest to make sure you never do.

This is whataboutism. Drunk driving kills and should be harshly punished. People who are unsafe drivers for other reasons (e.g. too old) should be handled separately, but their existence is not an excuse for irresponsible behavior.

Elderly folks should be taken off the road as well?

They often are, and there is some (at least in some places in the US) cultural inertia to intervene and get someone to voluntarily surrender their driving privilege (either formally by giving up their license in favor of a State ID or informally by giving up their vehicles) before the state does it for you.

I've been around for those conversations with grandparents on a few occasions now, and many people I know have too.

I don't think its an anomaly, but it is anecdotal

There’s no safe way to consume a substance that rewires your lizard brain to seek more of it

Yet somehow most people are not alcoholics. So evidently it can be done.

As long as your current economic/geopolitical situation is favorable, sure.

Up to a third of the population of some of the east European countries are alcoholics.

I'm not saying bans are the solution, but ignoring problems just because you aren't affected isn't a great idea either.

Any sources for the 1/3rd claim?

Not 1/3 but 1/5 of Hungarians have a drinking problem: https://dailynewshungary.com/hungary-has-the-highest-rates-o...

Belarus - male population.

I expect it's worse in Russia, but there's not much in reliable stats.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/972561/belarus-alcoholis...

You suspect that only because of the heavy anti-Russian sentiment going around right now (leading to a negative bias without fact checking).

Alcohol consumption is down significantly there and has been on the decline. They’re not even in the top 15 countries who consume the most:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/01/russian-alcoho...

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-c...

Interesting, thanks for the links.

So curbs in alcohol sales work pretty well!

Maybe (but you can still buy booze illegally after 11pm - or at bars). I think it's more or less greatly improved economic conditions and improving quality of life. The 1990s and early 2000s in Russia (Belarus & Ukraine as well) were seriously dire. I was surprised by how many people didn't drink in my travels there. A good movie to check out on that time period is "Brother" (Brat).

The question to ask is, why is the rest of us not addicted? Most of us drank at some point, and we aren’t. What’s the difference between people who get addicted, and those that dont

I guess a short answer could be 'circumstances'.

The important bit seems to be whether something is physiologically capable of getting humans addicted.

Of course banning isn't a credible solution, but recognizing the problem is important by itself too.

It can be done by a certain percentage of people.

> The one difference though between alcohol and some of the drugs is potency and how quickly one can be addicted to it.

This is a good point.

If I go to the liquor store, I can buy bottles that are 90% alcohol or bottles as low as 3% alcohol.

If we legalize "hard" drugs like opiates, meth, etc. then we'll get a similar differentiation along with the benefit that the drugs will be checked by Trusted Sources (both government and industry) to effectively eliminate certain adulterants.

And for the folks who become addicts (physically or psychologically), there's no legal risk in telling their doctor or therapist or anyone, and they can better enter treatment.

There are folks who drink 750ml (~24oz) of 40% liquor every day. It's rare but they have an addiction. They can also get treatment, while the rest of us enjoy 5% beers and 13% wines more moderately.

> there's no legal risk in telling their doctor or therapist

Maybe no LEGAL risks, but if you live in the USA and want to have insurance and/or life insurance, you wouldn’t want to disclose this info since they’ll either deny you or charge you extra.

That's an interesting argument -- I don't know if/ how much it's true, but that was certainly the norm for decades for gay men.

On that basis, I think it's better if we remove the legal risk even if there are still societal or economic risks.

> I can buy bottles that are 90% alcohol or bottles as low as 3% alcohol

Depends on the state. Some states banned 90%+ hard liquors (eg. Everclear) while other states allow it. Some other states have banned selling hard liquors and wines unless it's from a state run liquor store. Other states just allow open sale at any store. It's all state dependent as the US is federal.

One big problem is that while the US has finally wrapped its brain around the fact that incarceration doesn't fix drug addiction, we have mistakenly fallen into the belief that treatment does. But even the absolute gold-standard treatment program (residential group and individual therapy with chemical assistance where appropriate) has about a 25% success rate (meaning still clean after 5 years).

Literally no matter what we do we are going to have a large number of people who have drugged their way out of society and will not be able to come back. And we need to figure out what to do about that.

I often like to bring up a thought-experiment involving a drug (or brain-parasite) where one dose makes the person willing to commit any crime or violence in order to secure another hit, even selling their kids into slavery and cutting off their own leg. Also multiple doses kills the person, and it has no medical value whatsoever.

IMO this helps highlight the spectrum we're dealing with, where one point is "taking that is a bad choice but I support your freedom of choice and autonomy", and another might be "holy shit this doom-substance so irredeemably anti-freedom that banning it is obviously the best practical choice."

Even if you look at such a drug as a roundabout form of suicide, it's one where the person must be blocked from harming others on their way out.

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