It's a slippery slope to pick one drug as OK and another as not. Putting substances into your own body should not be illegal, regardless of the substance. We would do a lot better if we focused on education, addiction, and rehab than focusing on prohibition.
As things stand today, drugs need to be whitelisted one at a time, and this campaign focuses on two drugs that are safe and could have real benefits for many people. Incremental changes are the only ones with any chance for success.
I myself used to see it as a "slippery slope", but many laws and rules exist as gradients. Using "slippery slope" is reductive - it forces everything to black and white.
If one of your goals is to cripple the thriving black market and all of its accompanying ills (mainly violence) then you can't continue with prohibition because it allows the black market to continue to thrive by generating scarcity.
Drug prohibition has been poisonous to social harmony, civil rights, and the rule of law since its inception. It was never a good idea; and it is time to admit that and move forward.
I am relaying what I have learned as an experienced layperson, but I think you must say that these drugs are "relatively safe". Putting chemicals with noticeable medical effects into your body is something that is rarely 'safe' in an absolute sense.
Many drugs can be used safely, but there are very few drugs that cannot be used dangerously. There are even medicines that cannot be used safely that are nonetheless used in situations where they offer better odds than the alternative.
All drugs are either excreted renally (by the kidney) or metabolized (and possibly excreted) by the liver. Both of these can cause damage to the organ involved if the cumulative load of chemicals that need processing exceeds safe limits; the former is especially serious. In some cases with the latter, there can be cascading consequences due to the toxic nature of the metabolic products (as is dramatically illustrated by the metabolization of methanol).
This is why recreational drug use poses a quandary for regulation. If one is placed in the position of being responsible for determining that a substance is "safe enough" for unregulated use, it is very hard to determine a standard for making that decision. Ethanol, for instance, is clearly not "safe enough" for unregulated use. It is toxic, addictive, socially destructive, and causes thousands of deaths a year. Articulating a standard whereby one should, on one's authority, permit that people should be able to get themselves killed using some chemical one has never heard of: this is a difficult task. A regulatory structure that leans too heavily on authority --- rather than precedent, tests of merit, and community consensus decisions, for instance --- is destined to produce extremely conservative results.
I think that what these people are doing is great, and it is possibly a huge boon to large areas of psychiatric, neurochemical, and psychological research. It is clear at this point that some traditionally 'recreational' psychotropic drugs can have therapeutic effects in some situations. This will allow researchers to develop concrete evidence about specific protocols.
However, I am not sure that this is a first case for stepwise liberalization of drug policies: these are drugs that are medically interesting because of their specific effects, rather than due to the misrecognition of their actual harm. In my opinion, North American society is still at a point where we are just beginning to discuss marijuana seriously in term of harm, and the meaning of noticeable psychedelic & sensual effects are being mooted. There is already a cultural framework available for understanding and accepting recreational drug use, but it needs a lot of poking, prodding, and testing before it will be adapted by society at large. In order for drug policy liberalization to occur, there would need to be significant structural changes in policy, regulatory bodies, societal doctrines of use, and the social systems that deal with the social consequences of drug use, self-medication for dysphoric personal experiences, and non-self-supporting individuals.
For the record, have used and did enjoy psilocybin: based purely on the subjective experience, would use again, but it would be medically unadvisable for me at this time.
I agree but idea of legalized drugs does not fit well with capitalism. As we know wherever there is market there is profit to be made. Companies will pop up advertising whatever drug they are selling. And as we know companies are always interested in increasing their customer base. If a substance is addictive enough it will reach millions of people very quickly and destroy society in the process. However if we keep the drugs away from capitalism that would be the way to go.
Lots of drugs are legal. Alcohol, tabacco, and thousands more that are sold over-the-counter. Plus, all the other ones you can get with a proper prescription (eg: Morphine).
I do agree that education and rehab are of extremely high importance, but if we have that, ilegalizations stops making any sense.
Judging by the abuse of prohormones, legalizing steroids would be a terrible idea. You can recover from cocaine, crack, heroin, etc. but damaging your HPTA can ruin your life not to mention rendering you infertile. And that is just one class of drugs.
Steroids as medicine is already in use. IIRC they're also use in medicinal skin cream.
Steroids abuses are rampant in the Bodybuilding world already. Hell, they talk about it so casually in BB forums and in the subreddits as if it's common.
This just highlight the fact that even if it's a ban substance they're still going to use it regardless.
I actually interpreted it as the parent comment. For instance if you have a really bad poison oak they prescribe prednisone ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prednisone )
Opiates can have massively positive value and transform people's lives. Addicts include Howard Hughes, an impressive engineer, and Hermann Göring, a rather successful politician and decorated commander. Oxycontin is massively prescribed, and not all of it is going to highly-visible junkies. It's powering lawyers, doctors, engineers, and many other people that derive high value from it and make valued contributions to society.
While not as physically safe as LSD, opiates have essentially no serious long-term health effects other than constipation. The major downside is the highly visible acute respiratory depression after overdose.
Edit: Speed is used by tons of people, and Paul Erdos said it gave him inspiration (though methamphetamine might have more downsides than other amphetamines, similar to how barbiturates are rather outclassed by benzodiazepines - but that's hardly reason to outlaw it). Many artists have used cocaine to their benefit. I'm all for psychedelics, but don't pretend that other medicines don't have plenty of value.
Was Howard Hughes addicted to opiates when he was building/developing most of his things? I was under the impression that addiction only really set in once he became a recluse.
Fair enough, it seems that was after his most productive parts. (The same isn't true for Goering, even if his productivity was in the opposite direction to our preference.) Though part of my point is that it's not just broken junkies using. Opiate treatment can provide positive value to even the richest, most powerful people, and they are not persecuted.
Perhaps another example is Keith Richards, who says heroin helped him and he doesn't regret it (and then, do we measure the positive impact such music has on other people?). Although dipping into artists for drug use is perhaps too easy of examples.
Goerig and Hughes? Hughes became seriously addicted after his plane crash and spent the rest of his life a recluse, no doubt fueled by a combination of drug use and mental illness. This is an individual who wouldn't bathe for weeks (or more) at a time, peeing in bottles and other quite unusual behavior. I think it is fair to say only his enormous wealth shielded him from being a 'broken junkie' as you say.
Goering was forcibly institutionalized for six months due to his morphine addiction. During his institutionalization he was strait-jacketed due to his violent behavior to the staff. He was already a leader of the NASDP that this time, having been injured during the Beer Hall Putsch.
He gained an enormous amount of weight and his behavior was viewed as increasingly bizarre and erratic over the course of his 'career'. He didn't quit until be was forced after his arrest and imprisonment at Nuremberg, where I believe he quickly lost 80-100 pounds.
It is really unclear how either of these individuals represent an example of the positive power of opiates. At best they seem to have managed to hang on despite their addition to opiates.
The information that I had read years ago was that the ____amphetamines essentially bundled multiple amphetamine molecules into a single molecule for more rapid transit across the blood-brain barrier, and that the non-amphetamine breakdown products were extreme vasoconstrictors and possibly had other neurotoxic effects. This information is extremely dated, but is probably still valid.
They also have an enormous downside compared to the other 'bad drugs' in that they leave you essentially non-functional for 3-24 hours depending on the drug. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of hallucinogens, but essentially all recreational drugs have a downside.
If you mean drugs like LSD leave you unable to work for 8 hours, this is probably true - although it depends what sort of work you are in (heavy machinery is out, painting is probably in). However, the same thing can be said for a day spent in a ski resort with your cellphone left behind.
The term "non-functional" has a pejorative connotation and implies humans have some teleological purpose beyond personal goals and desires. Recreation is subjective; it's not appropriate to call this a 'downside'.
I think it is appropriate to call it such. In all the times I've taken mushrooms I would have been completely unable to respond to an emergency situation. The same with LSD. No other drug I've taken would have left me that incapable, with the exception of extreme amounts of alcohol.
I'm not saying it's not fun or worthwhile, just that hallucinogens leave you impaired in a way other drugs don't.
I would tolerate a statement like "unable to respond to an emergency situation" - although, this varies substantially with the substance, quantity, person, and nature of the emergency. And the recognition that there are plenty of non-pharmacological situations that render you equally unfit for dealing with certain kinds of emergencies - good luck dealing with a back injury while skiing off-piste.
However, throwing out a statement like "drugs make you nonfunctional" does not help the discourse.
Eh... that's relative as well. Some people would argue these "bad drugs" have positive value. And others would argue what you are calling "positive value" is anything but. And in specific cases, all these arguments might be correct.
Drugs don't have to have positive value to argue for them being legal.
For example, cheap distilled spirits have little or no redeeming value. But it would be more harmful to make that illegal than otherwise. Methamphetamine (Desoxyn) is used to treat obesety and ADHD, and similar treatments for ADHD have similar potential for recreational use/abuse. But the whole Drug War is so harmful, it doesn't matter if there are therapeutic or harmless recreational uses of a drug. It would be less expensive, more effective, and more compassionate to treat addicts than to continue the Drug War, even if more people became addicted.
Sorry for being a bit off-topic, but re: heroin for palliative care, I was reminded of The Barbarian Invasions. Just a movie rec for you HN'ers, it's really great (IMHO).
Yes... there certainly is much medicinal value from cocaine and heroin. Which is why they were initially developed... for medical uses.
In addition, one might argue they pick a person up when they want to be up and relax them when they need to relax and abuse, not use is the problem. I'm not saying this argument is correct, but these drugs, like other drugs, have their uses. Which is why people use them.
> Putting substances into your own body should not be illegal
Why is this so? By axiom?
Any parent will forcibly forbid her child to put any substance in his body. We make things illegal exactly because we recognize that a sufficiently large portion of the population is unable to handle a certain freedom. Now what exactly made you conclude that a sufficiently large percentage of the population can handle their use of drugs?
Because arguably, the reason you shouldn't put these substances in your body is because doing so can be unhealthy. Criminal charges and prison are definitely unhealthy.
Making a person's diet a matter of law just goes against the values of many people. I'm well aware of the fact that some compounds lend themselves to addiction/habituation but so do many legal ones. You don't see people throwing winos and pack-a-day smokers in prison unless they otherwise break the law in a way that infringes the rights of someone else.
Likewise, if someone fails to use intoxicants or other recreational drugs responsibly and develops a debilitating habit, it makes more sense to do as we do for people who want to quit drinking or smoking, not as we do for people who rape and murder.
> Likewise, if someone fails to use intoxicants or other recreational drugs responsibly and develops a debilitating habit, it makes more sense to do as we do for people who want to quit drinking or smoking, not as we do for people who rape and murder.
Does your scheme involve coercion of any kind? If not, then why is not working already? People are already free to seek help for their drug addiction.
> Criminal charges and prison are definitely unhealthy.
Making someting illegal does not mean you have to put people in prison. You do understand that we can forbid a drug and try to stop the sale of drugs, and still provide support for people who develop drug habits?
Funny that you mention cigarettes. I'm quite sure that cigarettes will be made illegal at some point in the future.
Actually, it basically does mean you have to put people in prison. What else are you going to due if its illegal? Fine them? Great, they'll never pay the fine, do more drugs. Now what? Fine them some more? Okay...it only goes on so long until they go to jail.
Any punishment oriented consequences are simply going to either be too harsh, or too lenient.
According to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, yes. The rights belong to the people, not the government. It's the government that gets the restricted set. One group of people shouldn't be able to tell another group what to do if it's not violating anyone's rights.
I'm not saying everyone can control themselves. I'm saying trying to prohibit is less effective and more destructive than education, rehab, and prevention. I for one do not want a society entirely engrossed in recreational drug use but prohibition is not the answer. When you prohibit heroine you get krokodil.
Should we make fast food illegal? Since there are probably more people harming themselves with unhealthy food than drugs. It's a dangerous precedent you set when trying to restrict people's freedoms based on perceived use of them.
