Shouldn't all drugs be legal

[Carl-Richard]

2:29:00 There is apparently a drug that inhibits implicit racial bias, and it works on the adrenaline receptors, which essentially supports the claim that xenophobia, racism, and white nationalism is based on nothing but fear hahaha 

 

[Forestluv]

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I used to have that view myself, but Hamilton Morris made me reconsider that position (I'm still on the fence though). He essentially doesn't believe in the hard/soft drug dichotomy. I recommend watching his latest Joe Rogan podcast appearance:

 

A 3hr video is a fairly large time investment. Is there a time range in which he makes his case against a hard/soft drug dichotomy, or was it pretty much the whole 3hr video?

[Carl-Richard]

4 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

I’m curious of the limits of your view. . . If there was a substance that gave the user 20min. of bliss, yet also caused the user to lose self control and kill people, would you say as a society we should allow that substance to be sold, bought and used?

Hamilton Morris addresses this argument and calls it "pharmacological determinism": the person did "x" and had drugs in his system, therefore the drugs are mostly responsible. It often overly simplifies the problem. I think there are additional factors that are more responsible than the drug in question, which you can describe as "lifestyle" (being poor, desperate, mentally ill, unhealthy, socially neglected etc..).

The question should be how much does legalization/criminalization impact that dynamic and is it significant? The problem is we don't know the answers because we haven't tried it out. The intuition is that legalization would just be adding fuel to that fire of vulnerable people with volatile and erratic social behavior; but firstly, we don't actually know that; and secondly, this also has to be seen in relation to the other benefits that legalization would bring.

[diamondpenguin]

On 9/2/2020 at 0:42 AM, eluumyratin76 said:

Prohibition didn't work for alcohol even though alcohol is known to be more distructive then any other drug. How does the government justify making certain drugs illegal? During Prohibition the consumption of alcohol was made more dangerous, because you had  inexperienced people trying to make the alcohol and adding substances to it that would make it more dangerous to consume also people would have to buy it from bootleggers and back alleys making it more shady for transactions making it also more dangerous. So this is the case with those drugs which are illegal now. Many times drugs end up having toxins added to it making them far more dangerous then if they were legal and sold at a pharmacy. Because people are still going to get those drugs whether legal or not, but by making it illegal those people are being put into situations that actually cause the issues they are trying to prevent by making it illegal. So this becomes a self destructive loop where in so many ways making drugs illegal is society's cure to the problem which has become worse then the disease itself. I realize how abuse of drugs can be destructive, but by making it illegal it becomes even more distructive, so in the same way as we pick our president shouldn't the government atleast choose the lesser of the two evils by legalizing those drugs that they've criminalized because of course theres still going to be issues with drugs if legalized but there will be less destruction then the issues caused by making it illegal. 

We must keep meth, crack, and all that addictive shit illegal while giving licenses to do psychedelics. Great idea man, but making a drug like heroin legal is just an awful idea. Why do people talk about so much drugs here? 

Edited September 8, 2020 by diamondpenguin

[Hatfort]

Not all drugs are the same, we don't need to regulate all of them the same way. A more honest education about their effects should be done, people should be informed they can be potentially addictive for some, or that high dosages may even cause death, I don't deny that. But those are extreme cases, people should and is informed that alcohol and vehicles are a deadly mix and I believe most people take that seriously.

New ways of regulating them will start arriving in the first world within the next 20 years (I hope). We'll make mistakes, that's natural, but it's also how we'll improve as individuals and societies. It's clear for anyone who follows this website that there are big potential benefits in some drugs like psychedelics, these notions are spreading. I also don't think is that bad a certain amount of leisure or just for fun use of them. Youngs will be youngs.

Decriminalization and social help for those who lose themselves on drugs should be a route to follow too, the sooner, the better. For those lost and their close ones especially, but for everyone else as well.

[Forestluv]

17 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Hamilton Morris addresses this argument and calls it "pharmacological determinism": the person did "x" and had drugs in his system, therefore the drugs are mostly responsible. It often overly simplifies the problem. I think there are additional factors that are more responsible than the drug in question, which you can describe as "lifestyle" (being poor, desperate, mentally ill, unhealthy, socially neglected etc..).

Yes, I intentionally over-simplified to highlight one dot within a more complex system of dots. 

17 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

The intuition is that legalization would just be adding fuel to that fire of vulnerable people with volatile and erratic social behavior; but firstly, we don't actually know that; and secondly, this also has to be seen in relation to the other benefits that legalization would bring.

How broad are you using the term “legalization”? Does that include allowing businesses to market, sell and profit off the substance?

My impression is that most people use the term legalization to include businesses selling and profiting. In the United States, adderall is legal with a doctors’ prescription, yet cannot be sold by regular businesses. 

I view “legalization” as a spectrum dependent on the level of regulation and restrictions. Even with psychedelics - I think there should be some type of regulation and education required if they became fully accessible to everyone. As well, I would be ok with making them illegal in certain cases and requiring professional approval in some cases. 

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

A 3hr video is a fairly large time investment. Is there a time range in which he makes his case against a hard/soft drug dichotomy, or was it pretty much the whole 3hr video?

I remember from a long time ago that he mentioned it explictly, and I thought it was on that podcast (I'm rewatching it right now), but regardless, he does build around that point during the podcast when he talks about arguments like "pharmacological determinism", which he gets into it at 0:12:45, 54:47 and 1:06:47. It's hard to find a definitive statement because he talks about so many different topics.

He gives some anectdotes from his own use, like how he thinks that methamphetamine and normal amphetamine feels almost identical, how he tried heroin once and didn't like it (says that cannabis gives an arguably superior feeling of euphoria). Then he also talks about how all drug scare stories "is never the drug" (0:57:54).

 

1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

How broad are you using the term “legalization”? Does that include allowing businesses to market, sell and profit off the substance?

My impression is that most people use the term legalization to include businesses selling and profiting. In the United States, adderall is legal with a doctors’ prescription, yet cannot be sold by regular businesses. 

I view “legalization” as a spectrum dependent on the level of regulation and restrictions. Even with psychedelics - I think there should be some type of regulation and education required if they became fully accessible to everyone. As well, I would be ok with making them illegal in certain cases and requiring professional approval in some cases. 

I don't even know if I would want businesses in charge of it, or atleast I would want heavy-heavy-heavy government regulations. The legalization argument that seems most persuasive outside the pharmacological debate is about getting the production and distribution out of the hands of the criminals. Whether or not leaving it in the hands of businesses is better, I don't know. You could say that I'm primarily in the camp of decriminalization, but I also have an idealistic view of some aspects of legalization; the efficacy of which I can't really substantiate.

The pharmacological/social side of the debate is more about the hard/soft drug dichotomy (and so-called pharmacological determinism). The issue is where to draw the line on which drugs are too irresponsible to sell for recreational use. One can always bring up pharmacology statistics and dependence charts and argue either way, but I believe the most pressing argument against the significance of the dichotomy is to question which role drugs are playing in social harm after all: is it primarily a causal factor (of course it is to a great extent) or primarily a symptom of other issues, and to which degree does it warrant a certain solution?

One can also question the state of alcohol and its relationship to social harm, and how despite it being on the top of that list, it's still legally sold everywhere. Either way, I don't use drugs (anymore), so I'm not too concerned personally one way or the other. I'm open to be persuaded either way  

Edited September 8, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Roy]

46 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Legalization and decriminalization are distinct. It sounds like you are making an argument for decriminalization more than legalization.

Broad decriminalization at the very least, where to go with legalization from there has a lot of factors that might require radically different policies for different places.

48 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

I’m curious of the limits of your view. . . If there was a substance that gave the user 20min. of bliss, yet also caused the user to lose self control and kill people, would you say as a society we should allow that substance to be sold, bought and used?

Legal to buy, legal to have, legal to use. Illegal to manufacturer and distribute.

49 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Harm is not restricted to the individual - certain substances like meth expand beyond the user and causes societal harm. A substance can be made illegal to market, sell and use - yet a user would not be charged as a criminal. They would be sent to a program to help them with their problems and addiction. The idea is that making the drug illegal, without criminality, would help reduce harm caused to society. 

Forgive me as I am not aware of the current up to date statistics of it, but my intuitive understanding of the situation is that it's counter-intuitive. There are actually less users and less harm when a substance is allowed vs when it isn't.

I am willing to conceded to the evidence though.

My sticking point on the issue is that the little guys (users basically) shouldn't be punished by society just because it's easier and more convenient to go after them. I feel resources are best spent on helping guide people on what drugs actually do and why they should value their health, and giving them ultimate (legal) freedom to make the choice of what they put in their bodies.

I believe there would actually be less meth users if this was the case, part of the reason people are drawn to those substances is because it's further down the gateway of other drugs and the hierarchy of things you "shouldn't do". This "keep your hand out of the cookie jar" attitude kind of welcomes and encourages distraught and rebellious people to do it even more.

If all substances are on even playing field culturally and legally, then it seems people aren't as interested to do them.

This is all just my hunch though I'm not up to date on everything.

[Forestluv]

25 minutes ago, Roy said:

Legal to buy, legal to have, legal to use. Illegal to manufacturer and distribute.

This is a broad statement. Without regulation and restrictions this would open up a pandora of Libertarian-eque problems.  Are you advocating for unrestricted and unregulated?

[Opo]

1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

A 3hr video is a fairly large time investment. 

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This keeps popping up and I can't delete it. 

@Forestluv You can always speed it up and spend 1.5hr on it. 

[Carl-Richard]

31 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

This is a broad statement. Without regulation and restrictions this would open up a pandora of Libertarian-eque problems.  Are you advocating for unrestricted and unregulated?

The funny part about keeping the production and distribution criminalized is that as long as you don't get caught, you have a totally unrestricted and unregulated market . I believe a lot of the social harm stems from exactly that extreme lack of restrictions, and that if you wanted to legalize it, you would naturally want to go in the direction of regulation.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Forestluv]

@Carl-Richard I’m trying to observe where the starting and ending points are for people’s view of legalization. If there is zero regulation and restriction, that goes full on libertarian. For example, should it be legal to inject black tar heroin into a 4 year old child? Should it be legal for pilots to fly planes while tripping on 400ug of LSD? This might sound absurd, yet people are throwing around the term legal and suggesting no regulation or restriction. I’m curious about where people draw the line, if any. 

[Carl-Richard]

55 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

@Carl-Richard I’m trying to observe where the starting and ending points are for people’s view of legalization. If there is zero regulation and restriction, that goes full on libertarian. For example, should it be legal to inject black tar heroin into a 4 year old child? Should it be legal for pilots to fly planes while tripping on 400ug of LSD? This might sound absurd, yet people are throwing around the term legal and suggesting no regulation or restriction. I’m curious about where people draw the line, if any. 

I often feel like a simple man when I say this, but we have a model for how alcohol works in our society, and putting the production/distribution issues aside, I don't see a big reason why it couldn't be emulated for most other drugs (and of course improved upon). Don't get me wrong though, the prospect of legal heroin scares me when I think about the amount of people I know who have drank so much alcohol to the point of spending the next 3 days dry heaving. If there is anything that shouldn't be emulated, it's the drinking culture of young people.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Carl-Richard

[Consept]

Massive results in portugal from decriminalisation. I know it might not be as simple as different countries have different dynamics, but looking at these stats i think why is it not a priority to work some sort of change to drug policy along these lines

[Light Lover]

@eluumyratin76 This is an extremely interesting question and one I have spent hours contemplating. It's good of you to have brought it to light. I can't really speak as I have never been addicted or any conventional drug, illegal or legal. But the key here is trust. Food for thought: if heroin became legal, would you feel safer because it would be in a way that is legal and prevents black market dealings/the quality would be safer? Or would you, like me, feel very uncomfortable because you don't trust most of the people around you and know that a lot of them would start becoming junkies, and this time, their heroin induced antics would be seen as normal and legal?