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I think the US got it right on tobacco. You can still purchase tobacco if you really want to, but we have gotten consumption down to a much more manageable level than most other rich countries, and without any sort of particular egregious rights violations.

The key point, is that at no point when I was being educated about tobacco did I feel like I was being lied to and I had to check it out for myself, which is very different from how marijuana is treated in health education in the US. Reefer madness and whatnot.

There is a wide spectrum between completely illegal and absolute free access and while I would Position most drugs on the liberal side of the spectrum, there are good reasons to manage access in some ways, I.e. age limits, legal settings for consumption, etc. and of course I think a low cost/free and universal health system is a prerequisite to manage the fallout of drug consumption, no matter of legal or illegal.

It's tempting to argue in favor of personal freedom here, but two special characteristics of certain drugs make them different from pretty much anything else: 1) users often heavily affect people around them, and 2) these drugs change people's brain chemistry in such drastic ways that the people who exercise their freedom to start consuming end up losing their freedom to stop consuming.

Tobacco and Alcohol have similar issues, but we don't have to make the addictive substance problem even worse than it is today. Drugs like Heroin have supersized versions of Alcohol and Tobacco's problem traits.

In other words, I think I'll be there to participate in the revolution against this Benevolent Dictator! :)

I'm not arguing from a personal freedom perspective. That's idiots shadow boxing, ignoring the main point of my original comment to jump on a "drugs r bad" train.

The real thrust of my original comment was any harm legalized drugs would do is less than what the war on drugs/cartels do. And frankly you have to be an idiot to suggest some addicts AND the cartels are worse than just the addicts.

You like the word "idiot", I'll avoid using it in my reply.

In my opinion, it's actually hard to say that "just the addicts" is better than the "cartels plus the addicts". I think the opioid crisis gives us an idea of how "just the addicts" would look like and, I have to say, it doesn't look good. So many deaths that the life expectancy for males in the US actually dropped as a result.

But a true "just the addicts" scenario would have Oxycontin being sold by multiple vendors competing in potency and price and selling their wares at Wal Mart. How would the US look like if literally anyone could walk in a nearby store and buy Oxycontin practically at will?

Sorry for the use of idiot, you're right. It's frustrating otherwise smart people be so reactionary and puritanical instead of analytical. I seriously can not imagine how "addicts + cartels" could ever in anyone's mind be better than just the addicts. Couple things there.

>Oxycontin being sold by multiple vendors competing in potency and price and selling their wares at Wal Mart

Again, from my very first comment on this thread I've never suggested limitless legal use. Daily limits, licensed taxed sellers only, could even have a licensing system. For the harder stuff could make counseling a requirement or something.

>How would the US look like if literally anyone could walk in a nearby store and buy Oxycontin practically at will?

More addicts than now is the answer you're looking for, and I'd agree if all we did was legalize drugs. but seriously consider my side for a minute. I do not want to stop at legalizing.

Consider the benefit of nearly limitless funding for rehab and counseling and other sociologically sound ways to reduce addiction. 5% of global trade $ wise cartels are responsible for. All that money turned to rehab. And you think we'd end up with MORE addicts?

I am seriously struggling to see how that even sounds logical to you.

Not to mention as a socialist I'd argue the real root cause of addiction is an alienation from our labor and the fruits of our labor. Ie: fix poverty, fix most fixable addiction.

I think the distance in our way of thinking is too great for a HN thread.

I see your argument and admit the possibility that you are right. I just want to point out that you are not only struggling to see how it sounds logic to me, you are struggling to see how this sounds logical to a vast number of people, including policymakers. The fact that very few countries in the world adopt a liberal view on any and all drugs should tell you that even if there is truth to what you are proposing, implementation will likely be very, very slow and difficult.

>you are struggling to see how this sounds logical to a vast number of people, including policymakers

I don't struggle to understand them. They're just machiavellian. Policy makers are bought by the capitalists, sorry, the lobbyists who benefit from billions in funding to the DEA and border control and prisons - and so they are not looking for the solution that helps constituents, they're looking for what enriches them personally thru super PAC donations or LE budgets.

It's the educated voters' positions, looking at the wealth of evidence showing prohibition is a failure at best, and a moral show put on for the puritanical more realistically, that baffles me.

People like you falling for something there's pretty much infinite evidence refuting the value of. Has the war on drugs helped ANYTHING? Anyone??? Stopped anything? It's never been easier to get drugs.

On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence that shows treatment centers safe injection sites and further, reductions in poverty do more to reduce addiction than moral policing.

It's most analogous to abortion policy. Abortion isn't reduced by banning it, it's reduced by better sex ed and access to contraceptives.

So counter intuitively to the simple minded, it may seem as if "pro choice" advocates don't also want to reduce the number of abortions. When in fact, they just use reason to solve the issue rather than a fkin harry potter book written 2k years ago they take as absolute truth.

>implementation will likely be very, very slow and difficult

Agreed, but the quicker we dispel the anti scientific notion that cartels + addicts > addicts... The quicker we may see progress.

I did time for shake I didn't even know was in my car, if I wasn't wealthy and white I would probably still be in jail rather than law school. So this is personal to me. Sorry for getting so heated

>in aggregate, unconstrained drug abuse and addiction can and does have devastating effects

I ask again, a cost greater than the impotent war on drugs and the cartel violence? I say of course not. I'd rather have some addicts in rehab centers than drug cartels with 5% of the global economy, and frankly I question the judgement of anyone who can't do that math.

I think they are about even in social costs, tbh, but I would rather have the social devastation associated with freely available drugs than the social corruption associated with prohibition, if I must choose between the two.

>unconstrained drug abuse and addiction can and does have devastating effects on societies as we see today and historically

1. Who said unconstrained. I sure as hell didn't. I literally said taxed (licensed) facility that has daily limits.... So...shadow boxing.

2. No one said they didn't. Shadow boxing again. For the fifth time in this thread, I ask any of you engineers, please, just briefly try to remember your sociology elective.

Do you think drug cartels and the racist war on drugs (minorities get locked up for longer for same crimes) have a higher or lower cost to society than measured licensed legal use that funds treatment centers and clean injection sites would have?

People simply want to get high, be it to forget their lives, or have an intense trip to neverland and back. Heck, animals enjoy getting high from alcohol to the point of becoming alcoholics if unchecked.

I think its about time we accept this as part of our humanity and act like grown ups, not this childish banning which clearly does much more harm than good. There are endless states between ban and having it thrown at everybody for free.

You're being unnecessarily defensive. My comment was neither a criticism nor attempt to refute your point of view.

It seems like you and I mostly agree. I mean nothing patronizing when I ask: do you know what inalienable means? It's a great word. I believe the right to do drugs is inalienable: a government does not have the moral authority to tell you not to if that's what you want to do. A law that forbids it is illegitimate. Illegal, even.

> Who said unconstrained

Me. I did. Believe it or not, my perspective was once even far more... radically laissez-faire, so to speak: stick to the principles of each according to their conscience and let the chips fall where they may. Anything less is an unconscionable and illegitimate encroachment on personal freedom. Society would adjust.

Talk about "shadow-boxing". With respect, that's you. You are shadow boxing.

I seem to have replied twice to your comment and missed a different reply. The octal client for hacker news struggles with comments sometimes. Sorry about that.

To the rest of your comment, yeah I recognize we mostly agree thus I'm not even replying to you directly, I'm defending against all the other people in this thread who go "but dur addicts bad" and can't think past that when it comes to drug policy who may be reading by adding context to your comment from my pov. Sorry about that too.

It's not about being libertarian, it's more utilitarian for me. Prohibition is horrible for everyone but the ultra wealthy and dangerously criminal. I threw out every argument against prohibition kinda all together in my anger at the silliness from engineers on a forum I respect.

There's the math, it's cheaper to sell them taxed drugs and use that money to help addicts than unsuccessful policing, it's more moral than allowing cartels to operate, more humane, etc. There's no argument against it other than being moral police. Prohibition does not do anything other than filter money to waste on cartels and law enforcement.

I agree. I likely never will argue for prohibition, given that I have believed in the principle of an inalienable right to drugs ever since I could ponder these matters.

My perspective on public drug policy has become more nuanced over the years, in that I have come to recognize that those who fear legalization have actual, legitimate points that need to be addressed. For me, that was kind of a huge shift.

But, yes, clearly, charging taxes on drugs to monitor quality and mitigate the social effects of drug use is far more efficient use of our resources than the endless escalation of violence and corruption we have now.