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Comment by alrighty-then | Hacker News Reader

"why should making a 100% personal decision be a crime?"

Because that "personal decision" has a huge negative influence on a lot of people. Drug use affects your family and friends negatively, it affects your coworkers, your employer, random people that you run over with your car or attack violently while high, and it raises taxes or insurance premiums since it's very costly to treat drug-related issues at hospitals.

Sure, in the beginning drug use may be a personal decision that doesn't affect too many people - but once addiction kicks in - and it does to a very large percentage of users - your drug use has a hugely negative effect on everyone around you, and even strangers.

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Alcohol is a generally legal drug that has all the same issues.

The difference is that hard drugs are a lot more addictive, and the consequences to addiction are a lot more serious.

Ethanol is so absurdly addictive that you can actually flat out die from the withdraw. No opioid is going to do that.

The only reason ethanol is legal to consume and most opioids are illegal is that ethanol has been with human society for thousands of years. There is nothing rational about it.

Furthermore, it's hardly just "hard drugs" that are currently illegal. Even fucking caffeine is more dangerous than THC...

So where do you want to draw the line on this graph?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Rational_...

While I agree with the point you're trying to make, that image is pretty useless without some units on those axis and citations for the studies that determined the numbers.

The graph is designed to convey comparative information and so units are not really important (if the method is sound).

Without units, it doesn't give any sort of scale.

Heroin apparently ranks "almost" a 3 on this graph, the highest shown, but not quite a 3. Why does it fall slightly short? If this is purely comparative then why isn't doesn't the most dangerous drug align with the highest number? And why 3? A scale of 1 to 10 seems like a more common choice for arbitrary scales. And where would something obviously more harmful (like say, draincleaner) fall on that graph? It tells us that Heroin is apparently more harmful than cocaine, but gives us absolutely no indication of how much so. THC ranks as a '1' on this harmful meter. Does that mean heroin is only 3 times as harmful as a substance that nobody has ever overdosed on?

I could construct a similar graph with water, apples, and THC, but it would end up being extraordinarily misleading and just as useless. In fact, the more I think about it, this is probably the worst graphic I've seen in a long time, there are just so many layers to what's wrong with it...

You are so wrong I can't even begin to argue with you about this.

Linking me to the methodology used to create that graphic might be a nice start. At least enough to simply suggest it just wasn't pulled out of somebodies ass...

The point is that it DOESNT MATTER what the scales or methodology was. There is no study or methodology or renumbered axis that will place alcohol to the left and bottom of marijuana. All that matters is that alcohol is above N2O and that heroin is above cocaine and that tobacco is to the right of marijuana etc.

The point I was originally making is that alcohol and tobacco is IN THE MIDDLE of all the illegal drugs in terms of damage and addictiveness and therefore you can't argue that they should be legal or illegal base just on those 2 factors alone.

Here's the study though in case you still want to look at it: ^ Nutt D, King LA, Saulsbury W, Blakemore C (2007). "Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse". Lancet 369 (9566): 1047–53. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60464-4. PMID 17382831.

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#cite_note-97 )

Citation definitely needed on that claim.

Alcohol kills, and so does alcohol withdrawal... The only drug that kills more people per year is tobacco/nicotine, which is also legal.

> Alcohol kills, and so does alcohol withdrawal... The only drug that kills more people per year is tobacco/nicotine, which is also legal. Perhaps alcohol and tobacco should be prohibited too? (I am not really saying that)

If sometime in the future I invented a substance that was very addictive, would cause people to have altered behaviour (i.e. be more inclined to shop for more of the drug specifically at http://meric.com), and ends up being taken by millions so they shop at my website every day, and one day the FDA comes out and says my drug is now banned because it is a form of 'mind control', will you be against that decision because 'it is your right to put whatever you want in your own body'?

I don't see nicotine being much different, instead of buying only cigarettes from https://www.marlboro.com/ they are merely buying more cigarettes from anywhere else.

I can definitely see the point of view that government shouldn't influence people's private lives. That's why I am not so quick to say I support for/against prohibiting mind-altering substances...

Just saying, I'd hate the idea the that anything have influence over decisions I make, no matter if its the government, alcohol or cigarettes. (Anything, not anyone.)

I think we agree: autonomy is the whole point here.

I'm not sure what you're arguing, but it's easy for me to say I'm 100% against the prohibition of any sort of recreational drug.

The reason I mention the danger of alcohol and nicotine is to point out an inconsistency in drug policy, which purports to ban the "dangerous" drugs and (presumably) allow the "safe" ones. ...at least that's how the scheduling criteria are operationalized in the US. Clearly, that's not the way it plays out in real life, and the disaster of this is people believing the legal drugs are the safe ones.

...but I fail to see the point of your argument, because it's not hypothetical at all. There are legal, addictive drugs in wide circulation, and although I hate the fact that my best buddy smokes a pack a day, I would oppose the prohibition of tobacco... and obviously I would oppose the FDA ban in your hypothetical. ...not exactly sure where that leaves us, but I'll upvote you for taking the time to think this through.

True, but asking for intellectual consistency in public policy is expecting too much.

Lots of personal decisions have negative effects on those around you. That's not a rational reason to make all of those actions illegal.

Human beings have been altering their state of consciousness with various substances for all of recorded history and probably for all time. Mostly use of drugs was in an approved social or religious context that provided structure and meaning to the experience. Certainly, there is always the risk of some kind of harm, but history has demonstrated fairly conclusively that the most harm comes when drug use is illegal. When you take away the social, cultural and spiritual support for the experience. When you create an underground market for drugs etc.

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