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Comment by mheiler | Hacker News Reader

Making drugs legally available in pharmacies would lead to: (1) organised crime looses a large chunk of its business, (2) no need for dealers to advertise to new users, they won't get the business anyways, (3) drugs would have medical-grade quality control and likely be cheaper than on the black market, (4) drugs can be taxed and this money can go into prevention and medical care, (5) users are less likely to need to commit crimes to support their habit, (6) resources in law enforcement get freed for other things.

The ethical question is if drug use would go up and thus a legalise-drugs policy would be guilty of leading people down a bad and potentially deadly path. If the article is right that won't be so.

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>The ethical question is if drug use would go up and thus a legalise-drugs policy would be guilty of leading people down a bad and potentially deadly path. If the article is right that won't be so.

Historically it's worth remembering that governments are notorious for drug dealing.

Iran-Contra is the poster-child in the US (see also Gary Webb) but I'm not sure how many people know that the British Empire had significant funding from state-sanctioned narco-terrorism. See the history of the opium wars for details.

Some people claim the links are still there today. It may or may not be a coincidence that imports of Afghan opium increased after the US/UK invasion. The usual justification is that local warlords make most of their money from opium sales, and the West has to accept that if it wants to keep them on as mercenaries and political allies.

Bottom line is that prohibition doesn't seem to be applied consistently at nation-state level.

Meanwhile at US state level, prohibition brings obvious financial benefits to owners of privatised jails.

So given the history, I find it difficult to be anything but cynical about the supposedly moral basis for prohibition.

Clearly psychoactives are far less corrosive socially than - say - alcohol. But recommendations for rational scientific management of addictions are routinely ignored in favour of juvenile rhetoric about 'tough' action in public, and - not impossibly - profit in private.

I don't believe that there is any evidence that implicates the US government in "drug dealing". The Kerry Committee concluded that the CIA had looked the other way when its Contra clients smuggled drugs. That's a very different claim than the one you seem to be making, which likens US actions to the British Empire during the opium wars. Even Webb himself said that his story "doesn't prove the CIA targeted black communities. It doesn't say this was ordered by the CIA."[http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/storm.htm]

How about "drug trafficking"? If you're an organization with no real oversight, unfettered global access, and are above the law, why not pick up extra cash for special projects?

http://boingboing.net/2008/09/05/update-on-cia-drug-p.html

Organised crime would target the legal-drug supply chain. Counterfeit medication making its way into legitimate supplies is already a problem.

When you tax something you create a space for the illicit market. See the UK for one example where very many cigarettes are counterfeit. And criminal gangs don't just sell real but untaxed product; they produce counterfeit product which can be more dangerous than the actual product. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-16786358

(I am strongly in favour of decriminalising all drugs)

I think there's already a problem with low-quality, impure product being sold on the street w.r.t. illegal drugs. If the drugs were legalized, people would at least have the alternative of buying them legally from a large drug store with a reputation to protect. I imagine the problem you describe would not get worse under legalization.

(Found one source on street drug purity: http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/faqs/faqpages/how-pure...)

That's a great point: I would much rather buy 5% amphetamine 95% sugar from a licensed seller than whatever the hell I'm getting on the street. While contamination with rat poison is mostly a myth contamination can produce nasty results.

Anthrax in injecting heroin users: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18981196

Glass microbeads in cannabis: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/638...

It's more than that though. Not just licensing, but motive to self-regulate.

You don't buy "(Cartel X) branded (drug of choice)", so there is no reputation to protect by it; if one batch is bad, meh, no big deal.

Whereas if it's available at a drugstore...CVS and Walgreens compete, and have reputations to maintain. Any contamination not only would have federal implications, but also would have direct economic ones, such that they are incentivized to self-police. To ensure their entire supply line is coming from reputable sources, is randomly tested for contaminants, and anything that slips through leads to a recall. Otherwise, they face a loss of business to the competitor.

I don't think he meant an import tax, or a special sales tax on the drugs. But rather, the "now legal" drug would form part of the normal taxation framework (profit, income, whatever flavor your country has).

The problem with the fake cigarettes sort of scenario you cite is one that is caused by a special sales tax. The sales tax, as I'm sure you already know, artificially increases the value of the product. It also creates a larger "price" differential between regions/countries that encourages illicit smuggling and counterfeiting.

If you ask me, such a targeted tax is a cruel double-tax on the individuals we are "punishing" for doing something "we" find morally-offensive, and have post-justified as a health-concern. On the one hand, they pay more for the product, and on the other hand the state has now created a potentially harmful/lethal market of that product. Triple-taxed, even, if you consider that the higher cost reduces accessibility of this product to the poorer members of society, driving them to crime/desperation to get it, or resorting to the fake-alternatives created by the new black market.

(I am strongly in favor of legalizing all victimless crimes, and allowing individuals full control over their own bodies.)

#Edit, added extra sentence.

> If you ask me, such a targeted tax is a cruel double-tax on the individuals we are "punishing" for doing something "we" find morally-offensive, and have post-justified as a health-concern.

Citation? There was no _public_ issue (moral or medical) at all with smoking and cigarettes until the late '80s/early '90s. As far as I'm aware, the public concerns since then have been entirely based on increasing acceptance of the medical problems, as the smoking industry's efforts to manufacture doubt and controversy over the link finally began to wane. At least enough for the lawyers to be confident enough that they could defend against anti-business charges with clear medical facts that would actually stand up as a defense.

I'm also not aware of any actual moral threats that have been attributed even in the most tenuous possible way to smoking - I've not heard it claimed that it will make you more promiscuous, or likely to neglect your kids, or cause you to fail to hold down a job, or in any way hasten the moral downfall of civilisation. Not ever.

As for "punishing", I think it's more of a nudge[0]. The government just wants to make it as attractive as possible for people to stay healthy, without actually banning anything.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory

"On June 12, 1957, then-Surgeon General Leroy Burney 'declared it the official position of the U.S. Public Health Service that the evidence pointed to a causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer.'" (see following link), and that 1964 saw the publication of Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_and_Health:_Report_of_...).

I was born in 1960; let me assure you there were strong and effective campaigns against smoking based on health through the time I went to college in 1979 and stopped paying so much attention to this sort of thing. I cannot recall a single person denying that smoking was unhealthy (arguments for it were much more nuanced).

Sorry, the cigarettes were an example related to the OP's post. But I was more referring to drugs when talking about a "proposed" tax for them, rather than cigarettes/smoking.

> The ethical question is if drug use would go up and thus a legalise-drugs policy would be guilty of leading people down a bad and potentially deadly path.

I suspect you'd see recreational drug usage go up, but drug addiction go down. Legalization would decriminalize (obviously) and destigmatize addiction, which should lead to higher availability of treatment.

God that makes me sick. Can you picture the horror ? people having fun. This is morally innaceptable.

Addiction is not all fun.

We can't say all the harm from drug use is because of the illegality. Look at the carnage caused by alcohol. (At least, in the UK.)

If the objective was to help addict we would help them instead of throwing them in prisons.

Furthermore, alcohol is not forbidden because some people are addict.

Ultimately, I would add that drug abuse by itself is not the problem. The problem is that some people are self destructive. drugs / alcohol is simply one of the ways to do it. We should help them.

I forgot to add that I am strongly in favour of decriminalising all drugs.

I understand that the argument that drug legalization would bring additional tax revenue to the state is effective.

That is, however, a sad state of affair when hundreds of thousands are jailed or have their lives ruined for a victimless crime.

It is not unlike defending abolitionism on the ground that the freed slaves would contribute to the income tax.

It is an argument that is effective in getting opponents of drug legalization to see an upside, though. The sort of person that tends to be in favor of prohibition and jailing of violators would likely respond to an appeal to the jailed with something along the lines of "well, then how would we keep those dangerous criminals off our streets?"

There is very much a stigma among many baby boomers that drug users are violent, dangerous criminals who need to be locked away for their own good and ours (it's hilariously sad how many of my parents' friends casually equate pot usage with CSI-style psychopathic crackheads). The idea that they could be allowed to use without consequence is horrifying to them.

However, "Yeah, this can fix your tax revenue problem" is a difficult upside to argue against; at that point, it's an argument of downsides vs upsides, rather than an argument about the virtue of taxing sales.

> The ethical question is if drug use would go up and thus a legalise-drugs policy would be guilty of leading people down a bad and potentially deadly path. If the article is right that won't be so.

Why not pass a law with a clause stating that the legalization of drugs will be reversed if drug use goes (significantly) up?

Because it makes an implicit assumption that drug use is a bad end unto itself. The problems with drugs(/alcohol) aren't that some people get high(/drunk), the problem are the people who operate heavy machinery while impaired, whose abusive tendencies exhibit themselves under reduced inhibition, who commit criminal acts in order to feed an addiction, or who are self-destructive and use drugs/alcohol/sex/video games/whatever to destroy themselves.

I would wholly expect drug use to go up under a repeal of drug prohibition. I would also expect a whole litany of dangerous behaviors and side-effects currently associated with drug use to be reduced.

Then have the law reverse if the side effects and dangerous behavior go up.

My general point is that, when there's uncertainty as to the outcome of a change in the law, you could just have a clause in the bill saying it'll be reversed automatically if things go south. This could be applied to anything from drug laws to gun control to lower/higher taxes. Rather than sitting around guessing what might happen, just run an experiment, and reverse it quickly if things don't go well.

So we are taxing drugs to go into medical care, which will be increased from all of the health-reltated problems due to increased drug use? If all drugs are legalized, drug testing should be mandatory for medical coverge/insurance. If you test positive, your rates are increased accordingly.

Before any of this happens, we ned to have tort reform. You can't sue a company for getting addicted or dying from the now legal drugs that they sell.It has been known for 50 years that smoking causes dancer, yet people still use the it, bad, cigarette companies.

In New York, they have had soda bans and in most parts of the country, there is a sin tax on cigaretts. Why are we so worried about these, yet even more addictive drugs re now going to be legalalized an fine?

In a now more health conscience society, the logic doesn't make sense. Hell, people here have even called McDonalds evil for selling fatty foods. Somehow selling heroin is a-ok.

You have some very strange and unfounded beliefs on all this.

There is no evidence to suggest medical costs will increase as a result of legalisation. In every instance of drug legalisation or decriminalisation recorded, drug use has spiked in the short term and then fallen back down to either pre-change levels, or actually seen a long-term drop. Deaths and serious illnesses will decrease massively as a result of increased ability to provide care and safe usage conditions for drug users, as well as controlling drug quality and dosage.

You'll get a whole bunch of people out of the overcrowded and SUPREMELY expensive prison system. It's not just the cells and food while they're there, it's the lost productivity from that person while they're in prison, and it's the exorbitant administrative cost of arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning a citizen.

Why would medicare providers test you for legal drug use when healthcare costs do not scale for soft drink consumption, obesity, smoking, exercise, or any one of a thousand legal things that could affect your health? Should office workers pay more for medical care considering the adverse health effects of their living conditions?

I can't respond to any of the rest of your post because I didn't really understand it. That might be my fault, I apologise that I failed to comprehend it. I took a look at some of your other posts on this matter and it doesn't look like a once off so we may be coming at this from fundamentally incommunicable positions.

Please read the article at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8541424 which shows that prohibition does not affect rates of drug abuse.

> The ethical question is if drug use would go up and thus a legalise-drugs policy would be guilty of leading people down a bad and potentially deadly path.

Depends on the drug. Drugs can be objectively ranked based on the harm they do to users and others. For example, heroin is worst, alcohol is the second worst (so I've heard Dr David Nutt proclaim), crack third.

If less harmful drugs are used as substitutes for more harmful drugs -- cannabis in lieu of alcohol, for example -- the path will be 'good' and less deadly.

Alcohol related deaths each year are around 3 million, in the UK. Tobacco related deaths around 6 million...

I don't believe there's any amount of evidence that would move the current UK government on the legal status of cannabis et al. The only way drugs less dangerous than the current legalised drugs will be made legal is if most of the world legalises them first; thus, highlighting Britain's current draconian stance.

Alternatively, a political party such as the Liberal Democrats could come to power (unlikely!).

There's an 'interesting' logic used with drug such as cannabis, in Blighty:

* Illegal drugs are dangerous. * Cannabis is illegal, therefore cannabis is dangerous

On marijuana legalisation, I'm looking forward to the upcoming second wave of votes in the US.

If you get a chance to vote, please do! It has consequences not just for your state, but for the rest of the world.

By "3 million, in the UK" do you actually mean "2.5 million, worldwide"?

https://ncadd.org/in-the-news/155-25-million-alcohol-related....

Tabacco is also only 5 million worldwide. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_...

(I'm not trying to undermine your point at all, and I don't blame you for just going with what you remembered, I just prefer statistics with sources)

Worldwide, yes.

WHO estimates it to be 6 million[1], for tobacco.

And around 3 million[2] for alcohol.

If you're going to correct me with statistics, please do so with more than the first couple you come across! It wouldn't have taken much to conclude that the 5 million isn't the only stat on the subject! The same goes for the 2.5 million, and alcohol.

[1] http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/

[2] http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/facts/alcohol/en/

Are you really complaining that Tenobrus used a slightly lower estimate than you when correcting your two orders of magnitude misstatement?

Tenobrus corrected me on two accounts: 1/ UK vs. worldwide 2/ The exact figures

I'm saying the figures are correct, and said plainly that it should have been worldwide, not the UK.

OK, fine, statistics are important, but if you're going to make statements espousing the importance of statistics, then you better have the right ones -- or at least be aware of them --, and not just copy 'n paste the first few from your search engine of choice!

It takes some knowledge to put together a commentary on the current situation with drugs. Any idiot with an AOL connection can Bing some stats -- badly.

Edit: Changed the search-engine-as-a-verb to 'Bing', from 'Google'.

>Tenobrus corrected me on two accounts: 1/ UK vs. worldwide 2/ The exact figures

I disagree. It looks like one simple correction to me, and isn't meant to be an excessively precise number.

And you keep acting like his number is wrong. It's not. It's right next to the number you intended.

You're being picky and pedantic because someone corrected you, and it's ill-becoming.

Correction #1:

> By "3 million, in the UK" do you actually mean "2.5 million, worldwide"?

Correction #2:

> Tabacco is also only 5 million worldwide.

Note the use of the word 'also'. It means in addition to.

> It's right next to the number you intended.

Why bring it up, if the numbers are right next to each other? Who's being pedantic?

> And you keep acting like his number is wrong.

His numbers are wrong, if the point being my numbers were wrong. If he knew about both sets of figures, would he have still quoted 2.5/5 million? No!

I've not tried to make the figures out to be larger than they are. I made a mistake with where they apply.

Just because I didn't link to a set of figures (can't link to everything), doesn't mean they're not correct.

People are acting like I pulled the numbers out of my ass. And apparently I'm prone to hyperbole (see nagrom's comment).

> Tabacco is also only 5 million worldwide.

The dude can't spell 'tobacco'. That's nitpicking!

You clearly state in your original post that your 6 million and 3 million figures are in terms of deaths in the UK. The GP was pointing out that you were wrong: they are worldwide figures, and not UK-only figures. A little less stridency in the tone of your reply would have boosted your credibility and made you seem a lot less prone to hyperbole.

> You clearly state in your original post that your 6 million and 3 million figures are in terms of deaths in the UK. The GP was pointing out that you were wrong: they are worldwide figures, and not UK-only figures.

I've said that's correct.

You're conflating the UK vs worldwide statement with the numbers given.

If there's a call for stats and sources, then would it not be fair to treat them with rigour? Or should what I said be examined in fine detail, but not the reply?

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