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Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

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Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#201

Post by otakucode »

Drugs were not made illegal because they're bad for your health and they don't remain illegal because they're bad for your health. Poisons are generally not illegal. Drugs are illegal because they make people feel good or make them happy which offends the Protestant Work Ethic. The Protestant Work Ethic says that the only legitimate route to happiness is through physically difficult labor which causes you to suffer. The greater the suffering, the greater the virtue and the greater the happiness you 'deserve' as consequence. The PWE is not openly advocated or consciously held much any longer, but it was a large part of US history and its effects stick with us.

Aside from just the people who have bought into the scaremongering about drugs, there is a significant contingent of people who see it as 'unfair' that anyone could use a drug and get even temporary happiness. Nothing offends Americans (I simply don't know how prevalent this is in other countries) more than the idea that someone else might be having an easier time than themselves. It's why many would prefer companies to go without substantive punishment for harming many people over having one person receive a large punitive judgement in court cases. The McDonald's coffee lawsuit is usually the canonical example. If McDonald's had only paid the lady actual damages, they would have simply continued their practices and harmed more people. But that is preferable to the situation where that one lady got a 'payday'. Apparently nothing is worse than the feeling that someone else has had it easier than one has had it ones self.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#202

Post by theptip »

alexasmyths wrote: post #98
ekianjo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But it will increase usage. Not necessarily. When people really want something they will eventually find a way to get it anyway, it's not because you criminalize it that its usage drops. Just like IP infringement has not significantly dropped since they can put people in jail for it.

"Not necessarily. When people really want something they will eventually find a way to get it anyway," No, not true at all. Supply and Demand. The 'cost' of doing drugs in society right now is pretty dam high. Social stigma, the possibility of going to jail, various professional licences lost. The 'free market price' of synthetic heroin and other drugs would be as cheap as sugar. Walk down to the local store and buy…

It's true that at the margin, increasing supply and making it easier to obtain drugs will lower the price, and cause some number of users to try drugs that didn't before.

Another feasible description of the world is that this marginal effect is very small, and almost everyone who wants to do drugs does already.

We don't need to speculate on how significant these factors are; we can look at places like Portugal that fully decriminalized drugs, and extrapolate from there.

> It's just one of those things - some people can handle their drugs - most people can't and fall down the slippery slide.

I sympathize with your point about losing friends to drugs; however I'd suggest that "most" isn't the right quantifier to describe the proportion of individuals that "fall down the slippery side". Some people are susceptible to mental health issues, and drugs can trigger episodes that might not otherwise happen. But the harms those individuals would experience from a general increase in prevalence of drug use are dwarfed by the harms that are currently inflicted on the drug users who do not abuse or otherwise have problems with drugs.

(And note that if we didn't spend as much money incarcerating drug users, we'd have a lot more money available for helping individuals with mental health/addiction problems.)

While would be nice to wave a wand and do away with all of the harms discussed here, the current drug policy proves that attempting to reduce drug usage through prohibition adds more harm elsewhere in the system than the harms that it attempts to prevent.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#204

Post by dalbasal »

pjc50 wrote: post #160
jeffdavis wrote: post #28

"scientific consensus" I am very troubled by this phrase -- it's almost an oxymoron. Science is not democratic, and scientists aren't anointed arbiters of facts. Anyone can be a scientist simply by following the scientific method and collecting data in good faith; and a lone outsider with new data can challenge 100 years of "consensus". Obviously they are subject to challenges themselves, or if it's unlikely enough t…

> think tanks I'm not sure what you think a think tank is, but they're basically either (a) PR organisations, especially the ones with opaque funding or (b) some guy with a letterhead and skill at getting articles published. They certainly aren't impartial in any way. I'd much prefer my policy research to be done by civil service bodies which might at least nominally be impartial. I don't think it's feasible to impos…

Because of the effect of politics on intellectual honesty.

Once a debate triggers our "political" brain, it seems to scramble the kind of intellectual honesty science requires. An even more insiduous cousin of the maxim:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

I think the use of the phrase: "scientific consensus" indicates to jeff (it does to me) that we are having that kind of a conversation, and its likely to be quickly misused to the point where it makes reaching a political/societal "consensus" even more difficult.

I don't think it's possible to seperate science and politics either, but I think "Science" needs to be wary of speaking for science, instead of speaking as well informed and interested individuals.

It's fine to speak for science on purely scientific matters. When it comes to policy, especially social policy like this, it's preferable if they don't push the boundary towards rhetorical cheating.

For the record, I agree with this article and most others on the "scientific consensus" side.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#205

Post by todd8 »

spaceseaman wrote: post #49
brndnmtthws wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drinking coffee is unhealthy? You sure about that? > Studies have shown that coffee may have health benefits, including protecting against Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease, including liver cancer. Coffee also appears to improve cognitive function and decrease the risk of depression. http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-he...

The high caffeine intake is still quite bad for your heart. And it's bad for your teeth. Just googling shows that the scientific results have been quite mixed. By that I mean that scientists have found some positive correlations, and some negative ones. From my layman's perspective, I would think a doctor would say there isn't a consensus on whether coffee is holistically healthy. In other words, it's good for some t…

> I would think a doctor would say there isn't a consensus on whether coffee is holistically healthy.

Not even one doctor I've talked to has said this to me about coffee. Several have remarked on the interesting results of recent large studies. (See moozilla's comments here, in particular one study said: "Moderate coffee consumption was inversely significantly associated with CVD [cardio-vascular disease] risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day.")

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#206

Post by otakucode »

slamdance wrote: post #161
piva00 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a follow-up, even though Nixon expanded treatment shouldn't we still blame him for the rhetorics that aggravated the "war on drugs" for the rest of the planet? It's after Nixon "war on drugs" stance that we begin to see harsher and harsher penalties for possession, criminalisation of usage (and this still applies here in Sweden, it's not only illegal to buy, sell or possess drugs but also to take them, if it's det…

why does it have to about who we 'blame'? Why not go back to the CIA and how they wanted to undermine the social & political revolutions of the 60s & 70s? why not go back to 'reefer madness' and the how it was based almost solely in fear and racism, or how William Randolph Hearst's paper & publishing 'empire' was threatened by hemp? does any of that matter? Not really. We have a problem now that we need to fix. We do…

Blame in itself doesn't have a great deal of use, and is usually not a solvable problem. You'll always face some contributor or condition that came before which, had it been different, feels like it could have changed things. Would Hitler have gotten widely known and ended up elected if Germany had not banned the Nazi newsletter after the Beer Hall Putsch which led most Germans to seek out the newsletters? Probably not, but that can only be a guess. Blame as such is mostly just an emotional thing, something that our brains want to make situations easier to understand due to how our brains process everything as associations.

BUT, blame does have an important side as well. Recognizing the possible or likely contribution of Nixon's actions, for example, informs us of the possible dangerous consequences of authoritarian approaches to drug policy. While it can't definitely establish a causal link, it can serve at least as a basic 'this approach can lead to X' or 'this approach was tried and did not prevent X' lesson. Hopefully, it can enable us to have a better discussion and teach us about the realities of the situations involved. Often things can look great on paper, but when implemented on large numbers of varied people they fall apart. Learning what works on those large groups of varied people can really only be done phenomenologically. You have to try things and observe the result. If the result is bad, but the 'on paper' form looked (or felt) really good, it's always a fight to change things. We see this with drug policy, supply-side economics, anti-sex moralism born with the Industrial Revolution, all kinds of things. Knowing where it started, and how people were convinced of things can be useful to show how people might be convinced differently or at least what to be afraid of when you see similar tactics being used in other arenas.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#207

Post by grondilu »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #141
grondilu wrote: post #127

Imagine a old dam. It's in poor condition, with cracks here and there, letting some water through. Its maintenance is extremely expensive and seemingly useless, since for ever crack that is fixed, a new one appears. Now some guy shows up and says "this dam costs us too much and we are failing to fix it. Let's just blow it up!"

So the problem with blowing up the dam is that there's a large amount of water behind it that will flood out dangerously if they blow up the dam. I guess? So what's the analogy here? You think there's a large amount of potential drug users who will suddenly start abusing as soon as drugs are legalised?

> You think there's a large amount of potential drug users who will suddenly start abusing as soon as drugs are legalised?

The opiod crisis already is quite severe. And yet most opioids are illegal. I doubt making them legal will decrease usage. Also, if they were legal, big pharma companies would see them as business opportunities. Things could get ugly fast.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#208

Post by microcolonel »

majewsky wrote: post #137
microcolonel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as much as I agree with the policy position, I detest the "scientific consensus" speak. It's exactly the slimy approach to engaging the public which has made something as straightforward as climate change controversial.

The thing that made climate change controversial is the interests (and deep pockets) of the fossil energy lobby. Science communication can be improved, but you can't reasonably blame it for this.

I actually think they're one and the same. Al Gore is literally being paid by Al Jazeera, the state media for the world's largest oil exporter pretending to be a country.

I suspect that the biggest influence big oil has had is in making overblown, unconvincing, scaremongering communications which ultimately make people more suspicious than convinced.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#209

Post by blubb-fish »

sooheon wrote: post #186
lima wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you compare weed consumption with number of schizophrenic diagnoses then the idea that weed causes schizophrenia can be easily falsified That's not how it works. There are many potential triggers for psychosis in general (and schizophrenia in particular), and there are reputable studies which show that cannabis consumption is one of them. > but - of course - any psycho active substance can and will impair the mi…

So what? It is perfectly legal for me to choose to sit in a cubicle and rot away the best years of my life, a fate little better than as clinical psychosis. Let people do the things they want with their own lives.

of course you are downvoted by the cubicle victims here. but bottom line you are right. even alcoholism and liver zirrosis is considered socially more acceptable than admitting you are vaping a bud once a week.

Re: Top medical experts say we should decriminalize all drugs (2016)

#210

Post by KozmoNau7 »

chrisan wrote: post #195
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not, but the heroin addicts will no longer have to resort to robberies and other crime in order to fund their addictions, and it will become easier to offer them help and treatment.

> the heroin addicts will no longer have to resort to robberies and other crime in order to fund their addictions How does decriminalization of the possession and use lead to increased money for addicts that they will no longer have to resort to illegal acts to fund addictions? Less jail/court fees = more money in pocket to buy drugs?

To be clear, I'm a proponent of full legalization, not just decriminalization.
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