This is an interesting challenge. I guess the best way I can put it would be:
"That no law shall be made preventing an informed and consenting adult from consuming whatever substance they so please."
As a side tangent: Tennessee prevents the sale of raw milk. I can not go to a dairy farmer in TN, watch him produce a pail of milk, and pay him for the pleasure of considering that pail of milk to be mine. Why? This is probably the stupidest prohibition I have yet to see. If you want to prevent the general public from unwittingly consuming raw dairy, that makes sense. But why can I not purchase raw dairy that I know to be raw and produced in good condition? There is a work-around to this, where you are legally entitled to consume the dairy of any cow you own... and so some dairy farmers sell "shares" of their cow, which entitles you to its milk. I'm not wholly against such an arrangement but it does seem rather farcical in its mandatory character.
It is pretty silly. They could solve the problem by imposing strict liability on dairy sales. If the farmer sells you a pail of raw milk and you get sick from drinking it, that farmer is liable for it, no waivers.
This is often how other dangerous products such as fireworks are regulated. The liability is a cost of doing business.
Strict liability would always apply in that case, if you sell product X for the intent of purpose Y and doing Y with X causes injury then the seller of X is strictly liable.
Strangely enough since raw milk is sold for "dog/animal use" that limits any liability for human consumption since it's explicitly sold for not human consumption.
> no law shall be made preventing an informed and consenting adult from consuming whatever substance they so please
Which is as stupid as it can get, unless you add the prescription that said adult must be the only one to bear the consequences of its consumption.
You want to binge-drink every night? Sure, why not? Just make sure in advance that you won't come in contact with civilised people while intoxicated, and sign a statement releasing the society from any duty to assist you when your liver shuts down. Similar for lighter or heavier drugs.
You want to smoke as a chimney? Damn, I'll fight with you to protect your right to fill your lungs with tar! Just don't go to the E.R. every time a small cold turns into a serious respiratory issue, and especially make sure you collect all the ashes and all the smoke, before they poison unwilling people.
> Which is as stupid as it can get, unless you add the prescription that said adult must be the only one to bear the consequences of its consumption.
By and large that is already the law. It is already illegal to harm someone else.
This is a significant and annoying factor of many knee-jerk reactions that harshly criminalise already illegal things. That was how the rollback of basic liberties went after 9/11 for example - there was a pretence that somehow terrorism wasn't already illegal and effectively policed. And we ended up with mass spying and about as much terrorism as there ever was. Similar to this, really. I doubt the amount of drugs taken will change, they are just looking for excuses to spy more.
Which means that nobody should be surprised of measures meant to prevent people from getting harmed.
Following your reasoning, as it is already illegal to harm someone else, then there is no point in banning weapons from aeroplanes; or in forbidding drunk people from operating a vehicle...
I'd like to point out that I'm not a priori against drugs; but whoever proposes that anybody can do what he wants within a society, he does not know what society means.
But in the US, which does not have public healthcare, the burden "to bear the consequences of consumption" does already fall on the individual in those cases.
This pro-prohibition argument is more impressive when made in countries that do have public healthcare, although it still falls short when trying to explain why doctors should mend bones that people break while engaging in some high-risk activities (like skiing or mountainbiking), but should not heal ailments that people incur while engaging in other high-risk activities (such as smoking).
Banning drug consumption in public spaces, where they might harm others, is a different issue, and the drug that is most problematic here - tobacco - is in any case one of the least restricted ones.
This is not true, in a number of ways. The most obvious example: A person overdoses on something and is taken to the emergency department, treated, and then asked to pay. If they don't have the money, well, tough -- that cost simply ends up borne by the hospital. They also take up scarce resources (a bed, and the corresponding attention of medical professionals) thus delaying the treatment of other patients.
It's not only a matter of medical insurance: it's also, and most important, a matter of driving while intoxicated, or putting yourself into such miserable conditions that you will forget any human decency and commit petty and/or dangerous crimes to get your next dose.
Generally if you’re sick enough to need the ER you’re too sick to drive. Further, did you know that there is such a thing as legally impaired driving?
> Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free.
Notice how that doesn’t say “only if they do what I say”?
What about putting yourself in such miserable conditions that you will forget human decency and commit the non-petty crime of violating everyone's constitutional rights?
Your entire argument rests on the unfounded and frankly disgusting notion that addiction is a choice and not a disease.
Should people be held responsible for crimes committed under the influence? Absolutely, to a significant extent, though there are some gradations there. Should people be denied medical treatment for their ailments because some people believe they're a moral failing, when all the evidence proves they are in fact medical ailments? Absolutely not.
It's worth pointing out the medical industries complicity with stigmatizing drugs. The idea that anyone who ever touched a drug should die in the street without medical care is extremely popular to the medical community.
You'll see lip service about being compassionate towards drug addicts, then send them to around the least compassionate people on earth towards drug addicts, except maybe cops.
Here in Norway there's a huge push towards medicalisation of drug users after the Portuguese model. While I think it's maybe a mild improvement over prison, fines and a criminal record, having experienced both first and second hand how addicts are treated in the medical and psychiatric systems, I'm struggling to be too thrilled about it.
We need a fundamentally new cultural paradigm in how we see drug use. Medicine will obviously play a part for those who truly need help, but not everyone does, and forcing help on those can actually turn them into addicts or otherwise hurt them.
> medical industries complicity with stigmatizing drugs
I know nothing on this subject, but I trust you checked your sources.
Anyway, concerning public health, or any other public policy, would you rather listen to people who devoted several years to the study oh the human body and psyche, and whose profession consists in helping others, or to people who pour money into heinous criminal organizations without a second thought just to spice up a party?
Honestly, I don't think this is captured in "the sources". Keep in mind you're dealing with a culture here, much like with policing issues.
Doctors don't hold each other accountable, and assume that if there's an issue with a patient, it's the patient's fault; they're being unreasonable, and some poor doctor must be putting up with their bullshit.
Then you have the very real truth that addicts don't always make the best patients. Further they tie up an inordinate amount of medical resources. It doesn't just stop and end there. Medical abuse is rampant, in any case, and with several other conditions, why would they leave drug addicts out? There's an environment of hostility from both sides - addicts who are fed up with treatment from doctors, and doctors angry with addicts; the fighting can cause a feedback loop.
Doctors are some of the most anti-addict people on the face of the earth. If you took a blind poll of doctors and got their true thoughts, I think a shocking number would be in favor of euthanasia via medical inaction. They are not trustworthy on these issues. Believe it or not experiencing the worst of society, often through bigoted and stereotypical lens, does not make someone a rational decision maker. You're more likely to find bitter, angry hotheads that just want to punish the bad people they've come to hate.
Getting back to "the sources" here, there really aren't great sources, because no one reporting has a motive to talk about this. You will see some quiet conversations, but they don't go far. Doctors are respected and addicts aren't. Medical policy is written by medical workers (the ones I'm criticizing). IMO the media isn't great at holding doctors accountable. They're getting better with police, but they used to be horrible there too.
Media, government, doctors, and insurance companies are way more of one team than people realize. With police we only heard stories for the longest time. Some of them seemed like conspiracy theories, but the number and magnitude of these interactions mount. This is true here, too. People are getting abused by their doctors. If you ask around you'll hear stories.
If you talk to drug addicts, who've had experience with doctors, and shockingly, even people with very moderate use (even one time!), you'll hear the truth: You are dealing with a temperamental, sketchy piece of work that's also a powerful bureaucrat that will take your different lifestyle as carte blanche to refuse to treat you and ignore your medical issues... and it doesn't even matter if you quit!
Just talk to someone that's gone through the system. You will hear conflicting reports, just like a huge percentage of people never have bad interaction with police, but there's a lot of people out there that know exactly what I'm talking about. There's sides of society not everyone sees.
Think about how bad you sound speaking up and there's massive chance you sound even worse in the story.
I'm not sure we are talking about the same subject!
I was responding to someone proposing to let everybody consume what he wants, and I replied that freedom to choose must imply obligation of bearing the consequences.
Concerning the addiction, while freeing any addicted person from his shackles would be of great value for everybody (both the addicted person and the society at large), we must also insist on prevention as much as possible. And considering addiction only a disease, while forgetting that it usually stems from an initial deliberate choice, is a very dangerous stance.
Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but you cannot ever become dependent on a drug if you never consumed it. Which means that, short of being forcefully injected, every dependency on an illegal drug has roots in the initial choice.
I feel the pain for the people already in it, but treating anything less than extremely serious has being, and is still, wreaking havoc on several generations.
Just stop pushing the idea that there is anything cool or romantic in illegal drugs.
> I fail to see how legality is relevant to the question of whether choosing to take a drug is choosing to become addicted.
A substance being illegal basically everywhere should be a strong hint that it may be dangerous. Most of the people on Earth not using a substance is a strong hint that it may not be necessary.
Illegal, dangerous and not necessary: several good reasons not to use it, and no good reason to use it.
Concerning cigarettes, look at how much money has been spent on dissuading people from smoking. With dangerous substances, not using them is the only sure way not to lose.
In conclusion, while I reiterate my support towards helping people already addicted, it is important to pass the right message to those who are hesitating.
Dependency is not an illness that comes on its own: it cannot come without prior usage, thus stay safe and don't use.
I'm sorry but your idea of why drugs are illegal is completely devoid of historical context and medical fact. Two of the most harmful psychoactive drugs we know of are the legal ones: alcohol and tobacco. Some of the least harmful psychoactive drugs we know of are illegal(psychedelics).
Drugs being banned had nothing to do with supposed harmfulness. It had everything to do with suppressing counterculture, racism, and doubling down on failed policy decisions.
And to say there are no good reasons to use drugs is again hopelessly misguided. It's exactly the kind of simplistic, moralistic bullshit that is so obviously false it drives teenagers to ignore any public advice outright. It's just not as black and white as that. Hell, most recreational drugs happen to have legitimate medical uses: opioids, benzodiazepines, cannabis, psychedelics, amphetamine, even meth!
To help guide people away from addiction and into reasonable use we need to acknowledge the good and the bad, not pretend there's only bad. We've been doing that for decades and the jury's in. It doesn't work.
> Dependency is not an illness that comes on its own: it cannot come without prior usage, thus stay safe and don't use.
What are your credentials? MD? at least some sort of medical / physiological phd? have you at least experienced it at all in the past? where are you drawing your knowledge from?
> Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but you cannot ever become dependent on a drug if you never consumed it.
I mean super easy one there is crack addicted newborns. Clearly they’ve used right?
Are you aware that when someone abuses substances they usually have some underlying issue? Things like PTSD, bi-polar, etc. These people start using because their conditions are untreated, and they just want to feel normal. This of course escalates when they need to use more and more of the substance until before long they’re dependent.
What does the initial choice have to do with anything? As long as humans have existed, so has addiction. In all these centuries, prohibition has never helped. People use the fact that addiction starts with a choice - by the way, it doesn’t always - as an excuse to double down on failed policies that cost the public trillions of dollars, destroys families, and leads to massive amounts of death and human suffering.
Does this refusal of medicine extend to those who are incompetent? For example, if someone staples their finger to the wall should they be allowed to seek medical help? What about a car accident due to texting while driving? What about someone carrying a lot of boxes downstairs then trips and falls?
Why when people do something you don’t like do you want to control them by removing access to medicine?
Pasteurization switched from the old to new method [0]; the health issue with milk is not just the condition when it was produced, but the growth of pathogens afterwards, during the supply-chain:
* From c. 1910-end 1960’s, milk was treated by batch pasteurization at 63°C/145°F for 30 mins (pathogenic bacteria killed off as measured by 1960s technology, but flavor barely affected)
* Since then industry switched to HTST pasteurization at 72°C/162°F for 15 seconds (kills more pathogens; 120 times faster but affects flavor)
* Even higher-temperature methods are HHST and UHT [1]
US milk producers also refused to pasteurize for decades after some European countries started, only because it would slightly decrease their profits. So they put formaldehyde and other stuff in it instead.
Then you just inact harsh punishments for farmers that do so, like every other criminal law ever made? Why would you ban restaurants entirely because people might get sick eating from one every so often.
If you'll sell $2000 more raw milk when you lie about its safety and the potential fine is $200k that will ruin your life if you're caught doing so, the trade off is not worth it. This is also the problem with corporate America in general, the fines are too damn small and are just taken as operating costs instead of nuclear deterrent.
So is cooking or curing meat before eating it, but sushi restaurants haven't been blanket banned. There's a difference between driving one farmer that poisons people out of business and prohibiting it entirely.
Even stuff like fugu which can genuinely kill you remains legal. The difference is being told the caveats upfront loud and clear, instead of trying to hide it and lying to people. That's the crux of the issue isn't it, after all? Being informed enough to be able to make your own decisions, and making those disclaimers required by law. That's what needs addressing, not banning shit because it's easy.
> So is cooking or curing meat before eating it, but sushi restaurants haven't been blanket banned. There's a difference between driving one farmer that poisons people out of business and prohibiting it entirely.
I'm not sure why people always bring up sushi restaurants so incorrectly when discussing this topic.
Much like the requirement to pasteurise milk, when fish are caught we require they are processed to destroy bacteria and parasites via freezing.
> Even stuff like fugu which can genuinely kill you remains legal.
I had trouble establishing how widespread the legality of Fugu is. Some articles claim it's widely banned, whereas others that it must be imported from Japan, which requires the individual to be licensed.
The other difference is that fugu is entirely safe when prepared with care. Applying safety measures to the production of unpasteurised milk can reduce the risk of introducing new/more bacteria but it cannot remove any already present.
People being defrauded, injured, poisoned, and dying must be much more efficient. That's the reality that drove the formation of these agencies.
I'm sure an inability to trust the safety, quality, and accuracy of the things one buys wouldn't have any negative effect at all on a market.
The illustrious and unbesmirched track record of the worlds major auditing, accountancy, and credit firms has demonstrated beyond doubt that private enterprise can truly be trusted to handle these matters in a manner that puts society's needs at the forefront.
Since we're already laughing, I propose we go further! Privatising the military would unleash the inherent good and efficiency only found within corporations. A free market of privately held armies, competing against one another for the benefit of society. Federal taxes would drop drastically, what could go wrong?
The argument is that they're more efficient than the alternatives:
> People being defrauded, injured, poisoned, and dying must be much more efficient
> I'm sure an inability to trust the safety, quality, and accuracy of the things one buys wouldn't have any negative effect at all on a market.
And that private business is not an alternative, having given rise to the need for such an agency in the first place and a demonstrated inability to oversee, audit, or classify honestly:
> The illustrious and unbesmirched track record of the worlds major auditing, accountancy, and credit firms has demonstrated beyond doubt that private enterprise can truly be trusted to handle these matters in a manner that puts society's needs at the forefront.
That's not to say that the public agencies responsible couldn't be improved but the idea that privatisation of these matters leads to increased efficiency is farcical.
What makes you think consumers have the bandwidth to do that for every single product they consume? What makes you think that requiring every single person does this contributes to a healthy economy? As a simple counterargument, how many children are you willing to let die due to contaminated raw milk in order for this absolute "freedom" to be honored, and what makes you think those values make sense at societal scales?
1) Government bans nothing, citizens are expected to do their own research for their protection
2) Business models are developed to communicate reliable, trustworthy products.
3) Unscrupulous businesses lie about the benifits of their products, and sue the other businesses doing (2) for libel. The courts, already overwhelmed, back up, and these bad businesses can take their money, disolve, and vanish before their cases finish, leaving consumers harmed and misled with no recourse.
There are companies that are rather efficent at coming into existance to bring a few products, and then vanishing, for whatever reasons.
Have you seen the thread yesterday where someone was complaining that they are dying and the government is preventing them from trying an experimental treatment? You guys should talk :)
And there were so many comments lamenting the total lack of sense of forbidding certain treatments....
As in many situations, there is a balance to be struck. It's just so sad seeing so many people, presumably smart people, complaining about how an opinion opposed to theirs can't possibly make any sense whatsoever. This is why we can't have nice things.
We can't have nice things because people ignore nuance in order to make bad faith arguments :)
There is a difference between "we don't know the effects of this treatment, there is reason to believe it could work but we have no statistics, so the risk is on you" and "we know the negative effects of this product, we have plenty of statistics on the empirical risk, so we made a decision to limit the behaviors of those providing the product".
> Could those consumers just go for pasteurized milk and let others have the choice they want?
People can have the choice they want. It requires that you shoulder the risk yourself, rather than having it pushed on you by someone who is financially benefitting from it.
No, through painful experience we have arrived at a system where people can go to a store and purchase food without needing to develop the expertise and expend enough time to be reasonably confident that it won't kill them.
For the same reasons we also restrict the sale of expired meat or adulterated baby formula.
> Raw milk products are routinely consumed in France, I've never heard of someone getting sick from it.
Raw milk itself is not routinely consumed though. Apparently, 95% of the milk used by consumers is UHT[0]. People do get sick from unpasteurised end-products as well:
> In France over the last decade, 34%, 37% and 60% of outbreaks of salmonellosis, listeriosis and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) infections respectively have been linked to the consumption of raw-milk cheeses.[1]
April this year[2]:
> Five people are sick in France, two seriously, and one in Belgium after drinking a brand of raw fermented milk.
In 2019[3]:
> The Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O26 outbreak was from March to mid-May. In total, 19 cases were identified, with 18 confirmed, of which 17 had HUS and were hospitalized. One child and an adult only had diarrhea. Of HUS cases, eight had neurological complications.
Sounds more like inadequate testing than any deficiency in raw milk. It’s still absurd to deny people who want raw milk from obtaining it. Gatekeeping of the worst kind.
People are prohibited from selling it. You may obtain all you'd like, no one's stopping you shooting it straight from the teat.
An ice cream maker and husband of a dairy farmer puts it better than I could[0].
> My wife is 53 and has drunk raw milk pretty much daily all her life. However, we know the hygiene of our cows and of our milking process, and we know our herd is free of TB and MAP.
> I am NOT a raw milk advocate for the simple reason that these health and safety issues are tough, and serious. So I would not drink the raw milk from another farmer’s cows. There’s simply too much risk.
> "That no law shall be made preventing an informed and consenting adult from consuming whatever substance they so please."
That seems reckless, it includes medicines and pharmaceuticals, creatine, steroids, HGH, lip-fillers, stimulants... So either you effectively abolish the FDA and pharmacies, or downgrade them to mere advisories which people can ignore.
Cigarettes are killing more people than all the substances you mentioned.
Also the fact that you include "creatine" among those substances is extremely ridiculous, creatine is available OTC and present in many foods, it's obvious that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Lip-fillers are not substances that you ingest or inject in your bloodstream, they're part of surgeries.
The FDA should be here to say this is recommended for this and that purpose. Here are the recommended dosages.
Not to forbid you from using something.
Every dangerous substances should have warnings on them like "this could kill you/give you cancer/mental illnesses" or even "not meant for human consumption".
Your ad-hominem is unacceptable behavior; I clearly listed a fairly obvious mix of things (some OTC, some prescription, some FDA regulated) which are sometimes misused or excessively used. I didn't even bother mentioning opioids or benzodiazepine because presumably we would think of those first.
Lip-fillers are not "part of surgeries", they're non-surgical procedures; their use is regulated by the FDA [in the US]. Noone claimed you "put them in your bloodstream". Just stop misrepresenting in bad-faith.
> Cigarettes are killing more people than all the substances you mentioned.
We know that. Red herring: so is bad nutrition (sugar, HFCS, salt, for example).
You're sidestepping grandparent's point about abolishing any legal limits on pharmaceuticals. How would such a world work? Prescriptions would be pointless since consenting adults could just sell/trade them.
The tone of your comment seems to indicate you think this is obviously a bad thing?
Prescriptions would just be doctors recommendations in this case. There could still be mechanisms to softly encourage only this usage, like insurance only covering doctor prescribed drugs.
Is your concern about painkiller addiction and abuse or about people hurting themselves by taking drugs without good understanding of them or something else?
>Prescriptions would be pointless since consenting adults could just sell/trade them.
A good chunk of the population operates this way right now. Also why pay a $150 kickback to doctors just to write something on a pad that probably shouldn't require a prescription in the first place?
That's an American complaint about an American problem. Basic healthcare in the rest of the developed world functions ok, unlike the US.
And why the US created that setup (between the 1960s-80s) is a political discussion.
We're straying from the general premise here about about abolishing any legal limits on pharmaceuticals. Or else, we're changing the topic to an argument-from-consequences based on the idiosyncrasies of US healthcare and its costs.
What’s wrong with this? A prescription would just be a doctors recommended amount of a substance and not a license to have an otherwise illegal substance as it now
The raw milk debate is odd to me because we have factory food recalled all the time due to deaths. The factory food outbreaks cover a wider area than a raw milk dairy farm.
Wish granted, but I just discovered a substance people can drink that sends them into a blind rage where they shoot everyone they can see for the next five hours, because it feels very good to them. People are getting addicted to the good feeling of shooting people while on stuff. Don't you think we should ban it?
You could also easily just slap liability to the seller of known harmful substances (see the sibling to your comment) or enforce warning labels as on tobacco products (eg "this product makes you shoot people and shooting people will get your thrown in jail").
But this thread is about how the cure is often worse than the disease with prohibition. See: 18th Amendment, War on Drugs. Concocting a hypothetical scenario where the drug is Disney-villian evil and enforcement is not an unmitigated disaster is hardly a decisive rhetorical victory, wouldn't you say?
1) The scenario proposed seems...outlandish. I could argue for a host of provisions in law or the Constitution based on the possibility of widespread development of bulletproof skin, but I fail to see the utility of doing so.
2) Even within the hypothetical, it is possible (I would argue probable) that banning the evil rage drug would simply make the situation worse than alternative solutions, in which case the proposed amendment would be a positive.
Edit: You could argue that the above amendment is also ridiculously unlikely to pass and isn't worth debating either. You'd probably be right.
1) I hope you aren't basing your policy positions on situations that involve completely hypothetical substances.
2) No I don't think we would need to ban it. Allow people who want to use it to lock themselves in a cell for 12 hours and rage against some padded walls. There probably would be a thriving market for that sort of thing [0]. We let people drink and if you drink and drive someone will probably die - the solution is not to let people drive after drinking. You're basically describing a strong form of alcohol. We already tolerate this sort of risk.
If you want to argue that a substance exists that is so terrible that people who consume it need to be locked up, you should name the substance and provide some argument for why it is so bad. The present state is locking people up for no obvious reason.
Treating raw milk like a drug was the basis of a Portlandia sketch that was pretty amusing, but unfortunately I'm having trouble finding the entirety of it on youtube at the moment to link
"That no law shall be made preventing an informed and consenting adult from consuming whatever substance they so please."
As a side tangent: Tennessee prevents the sale of raw milk. I can not go to a dairy farmer in TN, watch him produce a pail of milk, and pay him for the pleasure of considering that pail of milk to be mine. Why? This is probably the stupidest prohibition I have yet to see. If you want to prevent the general public from unwittingly consuming raw dairy, that makes sense. But why can I not purchase raw dairy that I know to be raw and produced in good condition? There is a work-around to this, where you are legally entitled to consume the dairy of any cow you own... and so some dairy farmers sell "shares" of their cow, which entitles you to its milk. I'm not wholly against such an arrangement but it does seem rather farcical in its mandatory character.