Play deprivation is a major cause of the teen mental health crisis

The largest assumption that seems to be behind your position is that society should not have recreational drugs. Is this correct?

not necessarily. as alcohol was/is still very common where i grew up, it doesn't mean that the mere availability is a problem in itself. it was more the attitude about it. but i also suspect that most kids there still had mostly intact families and reasonable role models. all of which can be significant risk factors when missing. effectively the thing is that being a good role model as a parent is something i can influence. maybe with a healthy family responsible use is fine, but for a stressed single parent, the same use becomes a problem, and avoiding drugs or alcohol becomes important to counter the other negative effects from the childrens experience. it's relative, how much risk do we see, and how much do we as parents need to do to reduce that risk.

compared the risks of horseriding with MDMA and found that MDMA was safer

safer for whom? the issue here is that apart from personal injury, horseriding has no side-effects or longterm consequences. it's like flying. on average flying is safe. but if something happens it is usually fatal, therefore we need very strict rules on flight safety. if drug use goes out of hand, like it can become an addiction, the consequences can affect a lot of people. horseriding just doesn't go out of hand, or become addictive. like skiing or some other sports. you just can hurt yourself, that's all.

It could be the biggest cause of drug use is stress; people just trying to cope.

absolutely. i think stress is a huge risk factor. and that's where avoiding drugs and alcohol completely brings its benefits. i am in a stressful situation now, and i find my ways to cope, but because i grew up without alcohol and never tried it before i am not at all tempted to try it now.

the same goes for any potentially addictive behavior like gambling. but since it was mentioned in the initial question, i'd like to talk about phone/internet addiction a bit.

first of all, like horseriding, the side effects are minimal. it becomes more dangerous if you start spending money. i work in IT, so i may have a hard time to distinguish between working hard and being addicted to the internet. maybe i should evaluate how much i participate on hacker news ;-)

now when it comes to educating kids about it, it gets difficult. not using the internet in order to be a positive non-internet using rolemodel becomes practically impossible. more so for me since i work at home. now during school holidays kids see me on the computer all day. i don't know yet how i can teach them to not spend so much time on the computer when i am spending even more time on it.

on the other hand i don't use social media and i can keep my kids from it as well. so that at least reduces the dangers coming from that direction. i also don't let the kids spend money on games. by never even enabling payment options the risk that kids spend money out of control is practically eliminated.

but i don't know what they will do when they get old enough and are able to spend their own money.

> and where we were generally educated in school to avoid that stuff.

I'm uncomfortable because you're trying to make up other people's minds for them.

i want to give kids good rolemodels, and show them that drugs or alcohol are not needed to have a good time. i am not making up their mind, but i am giving them additional information so that they can make up their own mind.

if as a society we want to reduce the number of people affected by alcohol or drug abuse, we need to educate our children to that effect. that's the schools job. to educate according to social consensus. when there is a tendency for abuse to grow if unchecked, then education needs to counteract that. more so if we want to reduce it. of course doing this right also requires relying on facts and true statistics and not allow hardliners to push their agenda by fearmongering and exaggerating the actual damage.

also, you wouldn't jump on a horse or do any other risky sport without proper training. what would be comparable training for alcohol and drug use if not education in school?

Do you allow there could be benefits to recreational drugs used appropriately and in moderation?

i do, but i still believe the risks outweigh the benefits. unlike horseriding where the benefits outweigh the risks, even though statistically there is a higher risk of injury.

approximately nine out of ten soldiers who used heroin in Vietnam eliminated their addiction nearly overnight

i think the key here is that it is very clear what causes the stress, and that being back home that stressfactor is gone and will never come back with 100% certainty.

most of us do not get this certainty. stressfactors reduce, but they never completely disappear, and they may come back any time. people vow to give up drinking, it works for a while, then something happens, and they are back. veterans know that they are done for good, and that they will never have to make that experience again.

if there's one drug I would really like to make illegal it's cigarettes, and I would very, very much like to see the end of all and any advertising of alcohol.

i am fully with you on that. i am also very happy to see that in the past decades we have made progress in creating a smoke free experience in most public indoor areas. and that i see a lot less smoking in public compared to a few decades ago.

i am not sure. if there is evidence that the risks are at least as low as those of alcohol, maybe. but, even for alcohol i consider the risks to high still. drunk driving, domestic violence and many other things are potentially caused by drugs or alcohol, and reducing these requires reducing the use of alcohol or drugs. however banning them is not effective, and so i see other measures such as better education as important to address those problems.

> the issue here is that apart from personal injury, horseriding has no side-effects or longterm consequences.

The whole point is about personal injury! And how that can ripple out to affect others.

If you objected to drugs, it has to be on a rational basis of risk, and by that measure the papers point was, we are not measuring and responding to risk proportionately.

but that's the big difference. horse riding accidents seldom have a ripple effect, drug and alcohol use almost always do. my focus in on the latter. i don't care what someone does to themselves, but i do care how it affects others.

your personal freedom ends where it starts to restrict my freedom. if my partner comes home drunk and starts beating me or the kids, and if banning alcohol is the only way to stop that, then by all means, i'd rather ban alcohol than give you the freedom to drink. (that's assuming that such a ban would work, which is questionable in itself)

the risks from drug use have to be minimized. but i also see the need to make some drugs legal in order to better control the quality and steer people away from bad quality drugs that are even worse.

if it was possible, i'd rather eliminate drugs and alcohol (and smoking) completely. since that is not possible i'll settle for whatever solution has the least negative effects on society (not on the individual).

do you think [avoiding alcohol] is the correct decision for everybody?

alcohol and stress do not mix. so yes. if you are stressed (severely and continuously), you should avoid alcohol as a way to seek relief. but the point for me is that never having consumed alcohol is what is protecting me from trying it to relieve stress now. that's not a decision i made, but something i could only learn from my parents, and i have to thank them for that.

I have a delightful range of physical and mental health problems, and when I go out, which is sadly not often, I really need to make it count, to stop myself deteriorating further mentally

i don't want to try to diagnose, or propose how you should deal with your problems, but i wish that there would be more resources available to you than just self-medicating with drugs or alcohol. i do accept that likely there aren't any other options for you though, so i understand your choice here. but that doesn't mean that legalizing drugs is the best answer to these problems, but it's unfortunately probably the cheapest.

are you willing to project and enforce that attitude onto other people?

project and teach people that alcohol and gambling are bad? absolutely. but enforce only when it actually (provably) helps to reduce harm on society.

the problem here generally is that many people want to code their preferred attitude into law, when in many cases that is not useful. instead they should share and teach (without pressure), but allow everyone to make their own choices.

But what should be the social consensus, your position or mine or something else?

social consensus should be whatever has the most benefit and the least harm for society as a whole.

What I'm saying is that as a society we either forbid things or make them legal then go bloody mental in abusing them. My currently rather liberal position on drugs will have to contend with this kind of stupidity if we do legalise.

exactly, that's a problem we are facing. the only way out is better education. i think we are pretty much in agreement here.

What are the benefits of horseriding, if exercise then there are other safer ways of getting that. If it's the responsibility of looking after an animal, get a cat or a dog (and that option is much more widely available than owning a horse – we could never have afforded it). What are those benefits?

as i mentioned before, i am not at all concerned about the risks to the individual partaking in an activity of their choice. i am only concerned about risks to others. that makes horseriding almost risk free. in fact, since my wife was always afraid of dogs due to a childhood incident, to her, dogs are more dangerous than horses. dogs can bite, cats can scratch, horses can throw you off or kick you. etc. different animals have different temperaments, and which animal or activity is right for someone is very individual. you can easily construct a scenario where horseriding is simply the most practical choice, compared to other options a person has available. horseriding is just one of many options on a large spectrum, and does not even stand out in risk for the individual as there are other even riskier activities.

as an aside

"I suspect most people will be surprised that riding is such a dangerous activity"

i am surprised that people are surprised. i haven't learned riding, but i have rode on a horse once or twice. you are so high up and horses are so strong that to me the potential for injuries is no surprise at all.

>> if the risks were mitigated (can never be eliminated) you would be okay(-ish) with drugs other than alcohol being used?

> i am not sure. if there is evidence that the risks are at least as low as those of alcohol, maybe. but, even for alcohol i consider the risks to high still.

You might be surprised that alcohol is not a low-risk drug by some measures. I certainly don't consider it to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_harm_assessment_...

Note that MDMA and LSD are considered considerably less dangerous than alcohol here. I would tend to agree with that, given my limited experiences with LSD, and fairly long experience with MDMA. Mind, any prat can abuse any drug.

> however banning them is not effective, and so i see other measures such as better education as important to address those problems.

I don't want anyone to feel they should be legalised because banning them won't work; I want them to be considered for legalisation based on relative harm. Again, see the above link.

>> The whole point is about personal injury! And how that can ripple out to affect others.

> but that's the big difference. horse riding accidents seldom have a ripple effect, drug and alcohol use almost always do. my focus in on the latter. i don't care what someone does to themselves, but i do care how it affects others.

First up I completely agree with you "i don't care what someone does to themselves" and "your personal freedom ends where it starts to restrict my freedom" but where I can't find agreement at all is "horse riding accidents seldom have a ripple effect". The example of the woman with brain damage, or my mate with a broken back, these very definitely have a high cost to society and that is the ripple. Motorcycle accidents can be horrible even when they don't kill, and they do. Many other things. I'm afraid we may have to remain apart on this.

(edit: by 'how it affects others' you might mean at a strictly personal level eg. direct violence against another. To me, any cost even on people who've never met the foolish drug user/unlucky horse rider, counts)

> if my partner comes home drunk and starts beating me or the kids, and if banning alcohol is the only way to stop that, then by all means, i'd rather ban alcohol

I don't know if we can ban alcohol on an individual's rather than societal level ("touch the booze again, Fred, and you go to prison"), but that might work. I'd also like to add from experience that violence without alcohol is very doable. And ditto the converse.

> alcohol and stress do not mix.

Alcohol for some can be a very good stress reliever for short-term stress. Not me though, but certainly some.

> so yes. if you are stressed (severely and continuously), you should avoid alcohol as a way to seek relief.

Agreed, but some people don't have that option.

> I have a delightful range of ...

> i don't want to try to diagnose, or propose how you should deal with your problems, but i wish that there would be more resources available to you than just self-medicating with drugs or alcohol.

One takes one's crutches where one can find them, the world isn't perfect. And frankly, I did just plain enjoy them when things weren't so crap.

> but that doesn't mean that legalizing drugs is the best answer to these problems, but it's unfortunately probably the cheapest.

That is not an argument I would support for legalising drugs, you might be surprised to hear.

> project and teach people that alcohol and gambling are bad? absolutely.

I'm not comfortable with that statement, they are not inherently bad. They most certainly can be bad, but they are not automatically bad – well, that's my opinion anyway!

> but enforce only when it actually (provably) helps to reduce harm on society...social consensus should be whatever has the most benefit and the least harm for society as a whole.

Agreed.

> exactly, that's a problem we are facing. the only way out is better education. i think we are pretty much in agreement here.

snap

> as i mentioned before, i am not at all concerned about the risks to the individual partaking in an activity of their choice. i am only concerned about risks to others. that makes horseriding almost risk free. ... and does not even stand out in risk for the individual as there are other even riskier activities.

Again, we're going to have to remain separate on this. The damage caused by MDMA is statistically very low, and could be greatly reduced almost to nothing by education and quality controls. It does feel that you're a little more lenient on one activity because it doesn't involve drugs, and less so for the other because it does. Well that's my impression. And either way, that's your position and I respect it, and maybe it's me seeing it through the wrong end of the telescope.

I'm very happy with this discussion, and I really want to thank you for taking the time and giving me a thoughtful and measured response from the other side. That is what I really want from HN, and don't often get it in this area! That really was excellent and the world feels a tiny bit saner now.

I never had nightmares at all until I had kids. Now nightmares consist of cars, Amazon trucks, parking lots and the occasional lake or pool drowning.

Anyway, without full context of what was going on in that family's life you saw, I'm not sure if anyone is able to make a fair judgement on what was more considerate, even handed, or whatever. Five minutes before you saw them they could have almost been hit by a car or something.

IMO situations that require yelling should be extremely rare, but anything involving death or getting maimed is a definite candidate.