171–180 of 196 posts
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From a public health perspective, Prohibition was a success. The main reason it failed as policy is chemistry. You can make ethanol from anything—even a cactus, as Mexico has taught us.
so if alcohol weren't so easy to make, like say it had to be imported from the Golden Triangle, it would have never been smuggled (in massive quantities) past the border ?
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> Making something super risky does, believe it or not, deter people. Not all the people, but deters quite a lot of them. Sure, it deters one chunk of people, but at the same time encourages a large amount of, arguably more risk prone (think teenagers rebelling) , people due to the allure of forbidden fruit. The people you manage to discourage are likely the people that wouldn't have had issues with drugs in the firs…
Addiction is less a symptom of rebellion and more of a symptom of despair, boredom, lack of options, loneliness, depression etc. Not easy problems to fix.
Addiction is a whole different story, my point was related more to kids partaking in "sex drugs and rock and roll" to piss off their parents, fit in, and be "cool/edgy".
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I find it hard to believe that there's some sort of conspiracy to keep police, lawyers, and prisons funded via laws against selling drugs. Have you considered that these laws are still in place simply because it's the status quo? Politicians voting on laws and drafting new ones must ultimately answer to their constituents. While the vast majority of things fly under the radar, "pro-drug" support is enough of a charge…
And many Americans believe that drugs being illegal means that: they're harder to get, they're used less than they would be if they were legal, and that the public is being saved from DANGEROUS HORRIBLE drugs. All of which is false, but is perpetuated by those in powers - both by outright propaganda, and by (selective) enforcement of these laws.
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Any time I read anything about legalizing all drugs I am struck by how that opinion would change if they tried to function with a heroin addiction.
It's not that hard to function if you have legal access. Opiates are stupidly cheap. With clean equipment, no illegality, no difficulty buying -- it simply would not be that big of an issue for many people. Remember that many (millions) of people are on opiate therapy and manage to function. The heroin junky stereotype is usually for people prevented from obtaining medicine via legal channels. Indeed, even the hygien…
Needles aren't illegal, are they? Can't people just buy them?
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Why have you never tried heroin? I am struck by how often the response to that question is not "because it is illegal".
Is this your actual experience? I have talked with few friends about this and all of them pretty much said: "I don't want to destroy my life"
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Any time I read anything about legalizing all drugs I am struck by how that opinion would change if they tried to function with a heroin addiction.
Does making something illegal reduce its rate of use? I'm not convinced that it does.
Really?
All other things being equal, you'd have to agree that it does, wouldn't you?
Going to jail is definitely a disincentive. Otherwise the people who choose to do illegal drugs would just do it out in the open, with no regard for the threat of incarceration.
I don't think that many people would do something with the only reason being because it is illegal. Would you? There has to be some other incentive, for example the drug makes you feel good, or is an interesting or novel experience? Otherwise, why do it?
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First off if it were legal how would there be an increase in illegal activity? There probably would be an increase in drug use if that is what you mean. The government could still fight it, but it would be a health and human services problem at that point. Which means a lot less high stakes do anything to not get caught crime going on. It could be paid for by taxes on the drugs. There would be fewer deaths from drug…
> First off if it were legal how would there be an increase in illegal activity? There probably would be an increase in drug use if that is what you mean. I think the hypothetical here is that illegal activities could rise in search of money to feed drug addiction. This would come in the form of theft, robbery, etc. It's not as if no one ever stole money to buy food.
Couldn't reverse tracing work? A fed poses as a customer, and uses a PO Box to receive goods, but also registers this in the Fedex, USPS, UPS databases, such that if this address appears anywhere on a package, it is traced to determine the origin. Build a network over time, repeat.
They could build a Physical Onion Router. Send package to a node, which opens it to find a smaller package already addressed to another location. Similar to TOR each hop will increase security at the expense of resource utilization.
Also those nodes would be an obvious place to use extra resources monitoring.
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It's not that hard to function if you have legal access. Opiates are stupidly cheap. With clean equipment, no illegality, no difficulty buying -- it simply would not be that big of an issue for many people. Remember that many (millions) of people are on opiate therapy and manage to function. The heroin junky stereotype is usually for people prevented from obtaining medicine via legal channels. Indeed, even the hygien…
Indeed, even the hygiene part could use some open innovation. Right now IV users mostly have to repurpose insulin needles (interchangeable thin needles (like 30G)) are rare. Long-term IV use is geared towards hospital use. Needles aren't illegal, are they? Can't people just buy them?
In some places it's illegal, as it's "drug paraphernalia". In the UK there was even a story about a kid being denied buying teaspoons since he was underage (patients often cook drugs in a spoon before injecting).
So IV patients right now have a very hard time. If they are lucky, they can convince a pharmacy they are diabetic and need insulin needles, in some cases.
Legalizing would mean stores can sell and make money, and would start to reduce the stigma.
Couldn't reverse tracing work? A fed poses as a customer, and uses a PO Box to receive goods, but also registers this in the Fedex, USPS, UPS databases, such that if this address appears anywhere on a package, it is traced to determine the origin. Build a network over time, repeat.
The sellers drop the packages off in mailing boxes, ideally far from where they actually live. This would render your idea less worthwhile. There have been arrest of sellers and buyers, primarily due to noobish mistakes. All told, the risk for the seller is much lower than dealing with a variety of forces in the street in their local jurisdiction. Therefore your idea becomes a war of attrition for law enforcement. Wh…
Gwern lists at least 20 active Darknet markets: https://www.gwern.net/Black-market%20survival - I don't think law enforcement will ever get rid of Darknet markets.
The important point is that every time law enforcement removes one marketplace, customers are forced to visit the next one that's still online, thus increasing their revenue, effectively strengthening the strongest competitors every time they make a bust. The weakest marketplace is wiped out by law enforcement - leaving behind increasingly resilient markets - and new ones appear all the time, adding to the number of markets at the same time they're growing more resilient.
It's a fight against evolution that I can't possible see anyone winning.