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.
A surprisingly large amount of arguments against drugs are circular:
Addiction is bad -> make it illegal -> look at all the legal trouble addiction causes -> Addiction is bad.
And most of them get even sillier if you replace the drug being demonized with the word alcohol.
pretty different! Both the addiction, how easy it is to get addicted.
I've got a challenge for you, start using heroin, then decide to stop, like a casual drinker. Report back your experience!
But yes, don't mess with your GABA system unless you like seizures; and don't mess with your opiod system unless you like being miserable.
First time you do heroin, dose once everyday for 3-7 days and you've got yourself a very painful withdrawal ahead of you. Once you're no longer heroin naive, it could take only 2 doses in a week's time to send you back into withdrawals.
Just because it's easy for you to refrain from drinking alcohol does not mean it is easy for everybody. Some people have a serious problem to the point where the only way to guarantee they don't abuse it is to not even be in the same room or house as the stuff.
His point remains: Heroin is intrinsically different from alcohol, given the ease with which a new user can become addicted after a just a few uses. We should be careful of false equivalencies when discussing how the law should treat these two substances.
Bringing up those people who've already reached the level of 'serious problem' that you describe doesn't address his point.
While it feels like the easy way out, do not confuse drug legalization as supporting the abuse of hard drugs.
There's two or three of us left, yeah.
that just see the destructive effects of an incredibly addictive dangerous drug as a problem you could solve using the free market.
That's not really an accurate view of what (most) libertarians believe. I don't feel like writing a huge monologue here, but I'll say this:
1. Libertarians are, in general, opposed to the initiation of force to achieve social/political/whatever ends, because we consider initiation of force/violence to be immoral.
2. Within that framework, most libertarians also support a free market approach to economic issues for a variety of reasons, both moral and consequentialist.
3. The goal of libertarian approaches isn't to "solve problems" like drug addiction using free market techniques, or anything else. The goal is to eliminate the use of initiation of violence. Whatever else happens as a result of removing initiation of violence from the equation is seen as being either a. acceptable, and/or b. a problem that needs solving through whatever means can solve it without initiating force/violence.
Now, libertarians will argue, quite rightly, that the free market does provide the best solutions to many issues. But we don't actually claim that the free market is the be-all end-all that magically solves all problems. We just think a world based strictly on voluntary cooperation, despite whatever other problems might endure, is a better world than world predicated on use of force/violence.
I'd like to nitpick the word "requires" (vs "is best served by")
> everyone would agree drug addiction is a problem that requries some government intervention.
Personally, I believe that it is absolutely theoretically possible to address our societies drug addiction problems without any government intervention, if only we as a culture were willing to do so.
Look at obesity rates.
People get addicted because their life sucks. How can the government make their life not suck?
I think drug use is more like payday lending. Payday lending a shady industry, people who take advantage of it are often not too well off, and sometimes people make terrible decisions and screw up their lives, to the profit of the lenders. (or drug dealers.) But people are always going to want to borrow money for short periods of time just like people are always going to want to use drugs. No government policy is going to make everyone in the world happy, but we can try to minimize the number of miserable outcomes with some careful intervention.
Case in point: school lunch in Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vwC51FxP10
I have an eery feeling that something like this will never fly in the US. People will complain about 'muh freedom'.
Nobody has said that here. So until one of those libertarians comes in and comments, let's keep the discussion to what has actually been said?
Remember, opiates are legal now, with a prescription.
I wonder, hypothetically if there was a drug where the effects were as pleasurable as I assume heroin must be, but with no physical addiction or nasty side effects, would people still be against it?
What if, in the future, your cellphone could emit a frequency that generates pleasure in your brain, but as soon as you turn it off, you are back to normal. Would that be made illegal?
Could it be simply a moral objection to unearned pleasure that people are really against?
It seems kind of hypocritical to me to say it's acceptable (or at least not illegal) for people to consume drugs, but not protect them by giving them any ability to know what it is they're actually taking, because they would still have to buy drugs of unknown strength from shady characters, manufactured in dodgy underground labs from ingredients of unknown origin.
Maybe decriminalization of consumption, as well as government testing labs that can identify unknown substances for people? That opens up it's own can of worms, of course.
It's a difficult conundrum, but our current system is the worst possible option. Almost anything would be an improvement.
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.
Removing the medical industry gatekeeping of who gets to use opiates would blow open the marketplace.
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.
If there's any better evidence that the drug wars have nothing to do with public health or safety, I haven't heard it. That's bananas.
Treating opiate addiction as a public health, not criminal justice, issue requires some of the tens of billions spent on the war on drugs to be diverted to health and social care.
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?