Would be much safer if I teach my kids to stay away from smoking and drugs.
Worked on me.
Worked on me.
Hopefully you also warn them about the opiates that their doctor will cheerfully prescribe.
Frankly, if the opiate epidemic taught us anything it's that there's probably lower risk in your teenagers taking an edible at a party than getting an overly aggressive codeine prescription from their doc after breaking their arm.
I'm not really arguing with you, education of kids is key. But legality is such a poor yardstick. See: opiates, tobacco, and alcohol - super damaging, extremely habit forming, yet completely legal and even culturally acceptable.
Meanwhile, LSD is treated like fentanyl (literally the same Control Substances Act schedule - the highest #1) and is pushed underground where it's adulterated by god knows what, even though a small gov-sanctioned lab could easily produce the entire country's supply of entirely pure substance in a few weeks.
I don't know what the answer is, but surely it's more nuanced than drugs=bad, legal=fine, doctor-perscribed=no-risk. (I'm not saying you're arguing these points, I'm just channelling the zeitgeist as I see it).
Edit: What bothers me most on these HN discussions is how casual some commenters act of taking drugs. Like it's somehow great. Let's not act as if taking drugs is normal or something everyone should try.
So, if the actual goal is harm-reduction for the population at large (and not for what seems to be a small sample who wouldn't care either way since they're not into that), maybe instead of outlawing substances, we should make sure that people don't take random crap that will mess them up even worse than what they were originally looking for. Because it seems that people will continue taking drugs.
So maybe, as a society, we should finally accept reality instead of insisting that wishful thinking will somehow work after it has failed miserably for ages.
The legal aspect is a very difficult discussion, and it's more based on opinions than facts.
But at start we need to decide if we want these drugs in our society or not. And I'm always surprised at how the HN crowd is: taking drugs are awesome, we want it in our society.
As an easy example: I don't consider myself an alcoholic and even hate being drunk, yet I would be bummed to never be able to have a drink again.
> I think it starts with educating youth, with proper campaigns. Make it clear living as an addict is not something you want.
Indeed. But I'm not convinced that banning the substances in addition to this education is actually useful.
> But at start we need to decide if we want these drugs in our society or not.
That's a good question. But, like it or not, these drugs are in our society today. I don't see any practical means of getting rid of them. Outlawing them clearly not only doesn't work, but actually has some pretty terrible side-effects of its own: health-related (via adulterants) as well as social (drug-related gang crime).
After the discussion here, I wonder if there would be some middle ground. Make it legal to buy, but very controlled and individual. That way people who want to stop might get the help they need. Or the strict control would be able to prevent excesses. It's for sure a very complex problem, with lots of different opinions.
> normal
By most definitions of the term, yeah, using drugs is "normal", and ancient practice. Strict persecution seems to me to be a recent invention
> everyone should try
Absolutely: not everyone should try all recreational drugs. As radical as saying that no one should try any recreational drug, right?
The discussion here is about meeting in a healthy middle and you seemed to have taken the latter position, which you must agree is radical and out of the question
At some level, everything we put into our bodies has consequences, but it seems terrifying to me to have discussions about a healthy middle ground of how much meth is ok in a serving of mozzarella. Then again, I have no idea if the fancy chemical names currently listed as ingredients on the labels of food I eat are preservatves or what, and what their actual consequences are to my health.
Corn syrup, as bad as it may be to consume in great quantities with a modern lifestyle, is food with calories even if it may lack other more healthy nutrients. Should be banned? I don't think so. But regulated so companies don't abuse it as a cheap ingredient.
For how legal recreational drugs would work just look at nicotine regulation.
I'm from Europe, so your theory to control certain communities sounds very much as a conspiracy theory to me.
You also didn't answer my question about alcohol. Why is it legal and not cannabis?
If I had a magic wand and had to pick 1 legal one, I would go for cannabis. I think it has less negative effect on society than alcohol. But here we are, and my standpoint is to no approve new drugs and try to phase out the current ones.
I like my beer, wine and tequila, but I also see youth doesn't flock to it as much as my and previous generations. If properly done, it can be phased out.
And we don't have to choose only one, that's arbitrary too. We can easily dismantle the current prohibitory system to allow for a system of regulated production and access which would improve safety and reduce overdose deaths. Most overdoses happen because of the nature of the black market. There is no regulation or testing so substances, particularly opioids, can get cut to unknown potencies depending on the person handling it. This makes it a gamble every time a person were to use rather than consuming a measured amount of a pure substance. Prohibition objectively increases harm to individuals, society, and the economy.
Prevention needs to be the main driver to prevent addicts.
Edit: And it's pretty absurd to believe functioning societies are built on drug addicts.
I love how you also ignored the rest of my points about whose society you're referencing.
Do you work in the drug or addiction field?
Then your argument is moot, as you engage in drug use. Just because it's a liquid in a glass bottle doesn't mean it isn't a drug.
Furthermore, the simple fact is that not everyone agrees with your take on personal freedom.
You have quite a lot of work ahead of you to prove that an adult from consuming a substance in their own home should be arrested and fined/jailed under threat of State violence.
This argument is so hard to make, that Harry Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst, two of the leading forces behind the criminalization of cannabis in the US a century ago, opted instead to rest their argument atop racism, political fearmongering and subterfuge (calling it marijuana instead of cannabis).
https://www.chieftain.com/story/news/2010/03/22/marijuana-s-...
I, for one, am glad that you don't have a magic wand to wave around and create law without due legislative process. That sounds like an incredibly autocratic method of governance. It would be good to consider that yours isn't the only valid opinion on this matter, and to reflect upon the arguments others are making.
And it already improved since I was young. People would smoke in cafees and parties. The non-smokers just had to live with all the crap. I'm happy my kids can go out now without the terrible smell in their hair, clothes and passive smoke in their lungs. It's getting prohibitted in more and more places, so I'm on the winning side :D.
Roughly 50% of US adults have dabbled in drugs, and that number goes way up if you include legal drugs like nicotine and alcohol.
Education is important, but so are structural protections. It's the C vs Rust debate, you can have safety by being super-duper diligent all the time, or you can have safety by design.
My parents did a great job. Sobriety was a core part of my identity throughout high-school and I'd proudly express that I had no desire to use drugs or alcohol. That lasted to the ripe old age of 20, which to be fair was longer than most of my peers.
Obviously there's plenty of downsides too - but the idea that a stern lecture or twenty will stop kids taking drugs is kind of laughable.
When we go to hospitals, and those cancer patients are outside smoking, I point out "see, these are the smokers". Every opportunity when marginaal people are smoking, I point out how stupid and marginaal they look. My kids are disgusted by it, the same way I was.
So it's not a "you are not allowed to smoke" or "smoke is bad for you", it's a "you want to be a loser who thinks he's cool? Go ahead and smoke"