81–90 of 232 posts
As a soon-to-be PhD graduate, I'm perversely curious as to how much these clandestine chemistry jobs actually pay . . .
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I'm generally in favor of drug legalization and/or decriminalization, but I'd draw a line at meth. There is a reason for the "Meth, not even once" PSAs and memes. The drug is really just that addictive that it can ruin people's lives by getting them hooked after just one session. Even if you disagree with my stance, I think it would be a grave mistake to not acknowledge that different drugs have different capacities…
Libertarians tend to take potential solutions to the extreme, but seldom is anything so ideologically pure. Still, the idea that government can protect people from themselves is a noxious one. Drug legalization is an attractive one for that reason alone, but there are limits. Drug addicts are by definition not rational actors.
I have a friend who, fortunately, escaped the drug world and is happily recovered now. One of the many interesting things I learned through talking to him and his friends is the pervasive idea among addicted that street drugs were always better in the past. Everyone vividly remembers their drug being much better when they first got into drugs, with steadily declining effects over the years. Many of them had elaborate…
Is anyone attempting to harm-reductively try meth?
What if instead of all the money poured into law enforcement and prosecution we instead make treatment for addiction completely frictionless, effortless and guilt-less. Like walking into a supermarket easy. Of course progressives have been begging for that to happen with mental health in the USA for decades, so all this is a fantasy to try to help people in society.
It's a fantasy because it has no chance of working even before you consider the enormous amount of resources it would require.
I strongly suspect the same about just letting people do copious amounts of legal drugs and then trying to fix addictions they develop.
Stepping in after the damage is done is usually both much more expensive and way less effective. Ounce of prevention and all that.
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I encourage you to actually do some research on alcoholism - both the number of people it affects as well as the way it prevents itself. You're dangerously uninformed on the topic to be presenting these kinds of opinions.
Most =/ all. For some it doesn’t work this way and that is very costly to us all. Hence the great deal of damage that it causes. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make, is alcohol too dangerous therefore we must legalize more drugs?
Either we should accept a certain threshold of danger around drug use and allow all drugs under that threshold to be used (with appropriate regulation), or we should not accept the use of dangerous drugs and should outlaw them.
Right now, US drug policy is that a fairly dangerous drug (alcohol) is not legal, while other clearly less dangerous drugs (marijuana, most hallucinogens, MDMA, etc.) are not legal. It should be changed to be a rational policy in which everything less dangerous than alcohol is legal or a policy in which alcohol is not legal.
It's interesting to note that as methamphetamine and amphetamine were more regulated in the 50s and 60s, it became more prevalent. Then in order to stamp out illegal production, the precursor chemicals were monitored. So what happens? Production becomes more dangerous. Solution: Just make every kind of drug legal to produce, but regulate the purity. Be very explicit about the dangers. The only thing prohibition does…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good
Methamphetamine wasn't the only drug being regulated in the '50s and '60s. The other stimulants, like cocaine, were restricted at the same time. But methamphetamine is by far the hardest drug to regulate, so its relative prevalence increases.
>Solution: Just make every kind of drug legal to produce, but regulate the purity.
This is suboptimal. Recreational stimulants are not all the same level of dangerous. (Which would be an incredible coincidence.) The better solution is to find the safer stimulants (possibly variants of methylphenidate) and allow those to be used recreationally, hopefully cutting into the demand for the really bad stuff.
What if instead of all the money poured into law enforcement and prosecution we instead make treatment for addiction completely frictionless, effortless and guilt-less. Like walking into a supermarket easy. Of course progressives have been begging for that to happen with mental health in the USA for decades, so all this is a fantasy to try to help people in society.
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Humanity has a long history of self-medicating distress. At first this was mostly with alcohol. America's prohibition efforts started in the early 1900's: prohibition, Harrison Narcotic Tax Act, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream#Background_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#20th_century
Is any regulation considered an act of 'war'? I pay taxes, do you call that a War on Income? If so, when did it start?
I have a friend who, fortunately, escaped the drug world and is happily recovered now. One of the many interesting things I learned through talking to him and his friends is the pervasive idea among addicted that street drugs were always better in the past. Everyone vividly remembers their drug being much better when they first got into drugs, with steadily declining effects over the years. Many of them had elaborate…
> an alarming trend of young people reading “harm reduction” material online and assuming they know the full picture of the risks of drug use Is anyone attempting to harm-reductively try meth?
The “harm reduction” websites are full of information about things like: Dose ranges for beginners, what effects to expect at different dose levels, routes of administration, and so on.
This information is targeted at beginners or drug curious people.
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Harm reduction itself isn't a bad thing, the problem is if it displaces other forms of help for drug users, or ends up encouraging more drug use. e.x. skip to 2:00 in this video https://twitter.com/sav_says_/status/1603512522509668352
I think your comment is an example of an important discussion we need to have around what are the consequences to our drug policies, whether they are tough-lovish or harm-reductionist. I can see value in both, in different circumstances. However, the video you link to is from a notorious far right propaganda outlet. I don't think people will get an honest perspective from TPUSA, who clearly have an axe to grind (and…