On Moral Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use

[Gary Childress]

Is anyone here going to post to defend the continued prohibition of so-called illegal drugs?
If so, on what grounds?

I think some drugs should clearly be off limits, heroine or cocaine for instance. I've heard they can really mess a person up and they are difficult to detach from. Marijuana and alcohol may not be as bad. I suppose alcohol addiction can often be as bad if not worse than marijuana. So if alcohol is legal then perhaps marijuana may as well be legal also.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Is anyone here going to post to defend the continued prohibition of so-called illegal drugs?
If so, on what grounds?

I think some drugs should clearly be off limits, heroine or cocaine for instance. I've heard they can really mess a person up and they are difficult to detach from. Marijuana and alcohol may not be as bad. I suppose alcohol addiction can often be as bad if not worse than marijuana. So if alcohol is legal then perhaps marijuana may as well be legal also.

By what right do you prevent me from taking drugs if I choose to do so.
I understand that skiing and motor-racing can be fatal, but there are still legal.

[Gary Childress]

Is anyone here going to post to defend the continued prohibition of so-called illegal drugs? If so, on what grounds?

I think some drugs should clearly be off limits, heroine or cocaine for instance. I've heard they can really mess a person up and they are difficult to detach from. Marijuana and alcohol may not be as bad. I suppose alcohol addiction can often be as bad if not worse than marijuana. So if alcohol is legal then perhaps marijuana may as well be legal also.

By what right do you prevent me from taking drugs if I choose to do so.
I understand that skiing and motor-racing can be fatal, but there are still legal.

Is it unreasonable to protect others from something that is highly likely to destroy their lives? If you were suicidal, would it be defying your rights to hide all the knives in your house?

Do you think that drugs like heroin and cocaine should be sold over the counter in drug stores (provided a person is of "legal age")? Or how would they be distributed to those who would freely wish to use them?

[henry quirk]

"Is it unreasonable to protect others from something that is highly likely to destroy their lives?"

More reasonable to leave *others to rise or fall as they will and protect yourself from the fallout of their bad choices.









*talkin' about adults here, not kids...adults, I assume to be experientially mature and capable, while kids are temporarily too stupid to live and need directing

[Hobbes' Choice]

I think some drugs should clearly be off limits, heroine or cocaine for instance. I've heard they can really mess a person up and they are difficult to detach from. Marijuana and alcohol may not be as bad. I suppose alcohol addiction can often be as bad if not worse than marijuana. So if alcohol is legal then perhaps marijuana may as well be legal also.

By what right do you prevent me from taking drugs if I choose to do so.
I understand that skiing and motor-racing can be fatal, but there are still legal.

Is it unreasonable to protect others from something that is highly likely to destroy their lives? If you were suicidal, would it be defying your rights to hide all the knives in your house?

That is a piss poor analogy. If you have a desire to go skiing is it reasonable from me to prevent you getting on a plane to Switzerland?
I taken coke, crack, various forms of MJ, MDMA, acid. I have have suffered no harm nor addiction. Why would you have me suffer a prison sentence for making personal informed choices?

Do you think that drugs like heroin and cocaine should be sold over the counter in drug stores (provided a person is of "legal age")? Or how would they be distributed to those who would freely wish to use them?

This solution would end most crime in the USA and empty the gaols.
A great idea.
Making drugs commercially available would guarantee purity and quality.
But even if you think this was a step too far, you might want to redress your solution to de-criminalisation rather than the draconian life-destroying sentences that we now have.

[Gary Childress]

That is a piss poor analogy. If you have a desire to go skiing is it reasonable from me to prevent you getting on a plane to Switzerland? I taken coke, crack, various forms of MJ, MDMA, acid. I have have suffered no harm nor addiction. Why would you have me suffer a prison sentence for making personal informed choices?

I didn't say people should go to prison for personal drug use, maybe some sort of reform program or counseling. Like I say I've heard heroin and cocaine are bad news. Maybe I heard wrong. Just googling cocaine addiction I came across:

Cocaine is so addictive that if you give a mouse a hit of cocaine every time it presses a lever, it will do nothing else but press that lever. It won't stop for a minute to take a sip of water or a bite to eat, and eventually it will die from a cocaine overdose. The only thing that prevents people from overdosing on crack is their bank account. Once people are addicted to crack, they will sell their soul for another hit.

http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/cocaine.htm

Is the above not true?

This solution would end most crime in the USA and empty the gaols.
A great idea.
Making drugs commercially available would guarantee purity and quality.
But even if you think this was a step too far, you might want to redress your solution to de-criminalisation rather than the draconian life-destroying sentences that we now have.

I agree that people shouldn't be punished with life destroying prison sentences for personal drug use. Other forms of treatment would be better such as counseling or other programs. But making drugs like heroin or cocaine more easily available doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Would you be against companies profiting off drug addiction? I can't think of a purer form of Capitalism than a merchant hooking customers on addictive drugs so that they can make a profit off it.

[Obvious Leo]

But making drugs like heroin or cocaine more easily available doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

It isn't. However making such drugs legal doesn't mean that they would be more easily available. There are already hundreds of equally lethal drugs on the market which are perfectly legal but only available to people who have been prescribed them by a suitably qualified medical practitioner. There are many instances where these drugs are also abused but they rarely find their way onto the black market in any substantial quantities for simple supply and demand reasons. Nobody deliberately chooses to become an addict but if the profit motive were to be removed from the illicit drug trade one would expect to see a substantial decline in supply followed over time by a corresponding decline in demand.

Bear in mind that none of the drugs which are now deemed to be illicit presented much of a social problem before they became so. It was prohibition which created the problem because of the enormous profits which were immediately available to be made.

[Greta]

There's no such thing as a free lunch in biology. A human body is the product of 4 billion years years of molecular evolution and any interference in its homeostatic balance comes with a price tag, which is always altered protein synthesis as well as imprecise cellular mitosis. That means we're all gunna die. However deliberately seeking out altered mind-states through various alkaloids and other plant substances seems to be ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom so it also seems likely that this might confer some survival value. Perhaps a swarm of pissed bees can out-compete a swarm of sober ones.

I doubt that drunk bees are going to do too well but the fact is that life can be exceptionally stressful, especially for humans and other mammals living in the wild without the protections and insulation enjoyed by most modern humans (and they find the competition stressful too). Worse, mammals appear to feel the privations especially keenly, more so than, say, reptiles.

How to release that pressure? Sex? Violence? Sport? They might release pressure but don't provide a peaceful oasis. How does a wild-living animal unwind after spending the afternoon being stalked by big cats and having half of its gathered foods scavenged by dogs? Enjoy a compensatory treat and wind down with some beetle nut (or whatever) and let everything settle down.

The modern equivalent is having a wine or beer after work. However, the legitimisation of alcohol and illegality of weed were not decisions made rationally, but racially*. This lack of reason has resulted in an enormous amount of violence and lost neurons. Too much weed makes a person inactive, too much alcohol makes people dangerously and wildly active (before becoming inactive).

At the moment alcohol is being used to release pressures that would be far more effectively dealt with by weed. Meanwhile weed is being used in social situations where alcohol would be a much better choice. Due to the taboos and faux morality associated with what people choose to do with their own bodies, there are constant mistakes being made by people in terms of drug application and dosage, almost flying blind. The consequences over decades in human cost of this reckless enforced ignorance is well documented.

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/ ... =australia

[Hobbes' Choice]

That is a piss poor analogy. If you have a desire to go skiing is it reasonable from me to prevent you getting on a plane to Switzerland? I taken coke, crack, various forms of MJ, MDMA, acid. I have have suffered no harm nor addiction. Why would you have me suffer a prison sentence for making personal informed choices?

I didn't say people should go to prison for personal drug use, maybe some sort of reform program or counseling. Like I say I've heard heroin and cocaine are bad news. Maybe I heard wrong. Just googling cocaine addiction I came across:

You know what your problem is? You are an issue dodger. Let's take your response for what it is worth. Are you saying that people that want to fly to Switzerland and endanger themselves "maybe need some sort of reform or counseling" then? Rather than say exactly how you justify preventing people from making their own choices, you swerve the issue.

Cocaine is so addictive that if you give a mouse a hit of cocaine every time it presses a lever, it will do nothing else but press that lever. It won't stop for a minute to take a sip of water or a bite to eat, and eventually it will die from a cocaine overdose. The only thing that prevents people from overdosing on crack is their bank account. Once people are addicted to crack, they will sell their soul for another hit.

http://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/cocaine.htm

Is the above not true?

I'm not a mouse, and I've had plenty of Coke and have no need or desire to have more. I know lots of other people that like coke but have fallen into addiction. Mice can't understand the dangers. There is a lot of misinformation and dysinformation in the world. Some people do get addicted to things, others do not. Cream cakes, coffee, beer - all can have dangerous effects.

This solution would end most crime in the USA and empty the gaols.
A great idea.
Making drugs commercially available would guarantee purity and quality.
But even if you think this was a step too far, you might want to redress your solution to de-criminalisation rather than the draconian life-destroying sentences that we now have.

I agree that people shouldn't be punished with life destroying prison sentences for personal drug use. Other forms of treatment would be better such as counseling or other programs. But making drugs like heroin or cocaine more easily available doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I said de-criminalised Would you be against companies profiting off drug addiction? I can't think of a purer form of Capitalism than a merchant hooking customers on addictive drugs so that they can make a profit off it.

Companies profit from all sorts of addictions.

[Gary Childress]

Maybe you're right, Hobbes. Certainly criminalizing drugs hasn't deterred people from using them and has resulted in large segments of the population being imprisoned. And if many of the illegalized drugs are not as bad as often purported, then it sounds like there is no need to make them illegal to begin with.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Maybe you're right, Hobbes. Certainly criminalizing drugs hasn't deterred people from using them and has resulted in large segments of the population being imprisoned. And if many of the illegalized drugs are not as bad as often purported, then it sounds like there is no need to make them illegal to begin with.

Yes it was a mistake to make them illegal - a purely 20thC phenomenon, another aspect of Prohibition. Pot laws were enacted to subdue Mexicans in the US. Acid against "hippies"

I always wonder, if the money and resources that are wasted on the prison service to punish poor people, where better spent on social programmes to improve their lives and to educate about the evils of drugs abuse the world would be a better place.
The US has the largest (by a long chalk) prison population (bigger in hard numbers, and per capita). This is a sad indictment of US society.
When you consider that black and impoverished communities get hit hardest by drug enforcement whilst upper class Coke snorters of the professions rarely see a court.

[Gary Childress]

Maybe you're right, Hobbes. Certainly criminalizing drugs hasn't deterred people from using them and has resulted in large segments of the population being imprisoned. And if many of the illegalized drugs are not as bad as often purported, then it sounds like there is no need to make them illegal to begin with.

Yes it was a mistake to make them illegal - a purely 20thC phenomenon, another aspect of Prohibition. Pot laws were enacted to subdue Mexicans in the US. Acid against "hippies"

I always wonder, if the money and resources that are wasted on the prison service to punish poor people, where better spent on social programmes to improve their lives and to educate about the evils of drugs abuse the world would be a better place.
The US has the largest (by a long chalk) prison population (bigger in hard numbers, and per capita). This is a sad indictment of US society.
When you consider that black and impoverished communities get hit hardest by drug enforcement whilst upper class Coke snorters of the professions rarely see a court.

Hmm. Coincidently enough this article was published on the Scientific American site yesterday. Just saw it today as I get email notifications from them. It seems to verify much of what you say above:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -marijuana

“You want to know what this was really all about?” Nixon aid John Ehrlichman told journalist Dan Baum in 1994, according to an article published in Harper’s Magazine in 2016. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Amazing how much evil was created by the Nixon administration.

[Obvious Leo]

I always wonder, if the money and resources that are wasted on the prison service to punish poor people, where better spent on social programmes to improve their lives and to educate about the evils of drugs abuse the world would be a better place.

Although Portugal decriminalised drugs only relatively recently this country is already reaping the social benefits of this radical change in direction. The financial resources which had previously been directed towards law enforcement were instead directed at education and rehabilitation programmes and practically all of the negative social indicators associated with drug abuse are in decline. These include crime rates, rates of blood-borne infectious disease, family breakdown, and a host of other social ills.

In the real world we reap what we sow and if we treat marginalised and vulnerable people like useless pieces of shit then they will almost always live up to our expectations. This is not the world I want my grandchildren to grow up into.

[Gary Childress]

This is not the world I want my grandchildren to grow up into.

One reason why I don't want children at all. The world is too messed up.

[Obvious Leo]

This is not the world I want my grandchildren to grow up into.

One reason why I don't want children at all. The world is too messed up.

I disagree, Gary. There is much to find fault with in the modern world but as I reach my twilight time I know for certain that the world I will exit will be a better one than the world I was born into. Sometimes we just need to step back and take a deeper time view to realise that this is so.