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sobriqueAl Capone taught us that prohibition doesn't work.
With a little thought, it's quite easy to see why - intoxication can be done in private, and harms no one else. As moral as you choose to be, you cannot easily impose that morality on others, without controlling every aspect of their lives.
And so right from the very beginning, when someone figured out that fermented fruit gave them a buzz, mankind have cultivated 'intoxicants'.
But you know, I don't actually see much of a difference between someone vegetating in front of the latest big brother, and deciding to spend an evening on 'recreational substances'.
I mean, where's the harm if someone's sat in their living room smoking a spliff, or even shooting up on heroine? If you use empirical assessment of substances for use/abuse then you'll find that the legal drugs - caffine, alchol, nicotine - actually end up scoring 'more druglike' than some of the illegal ones.
So anyway. Legalisation? Is it a bad idea?
Well, very simply there's two forms of 'harm' from ... shall we say
'recreational pharmaceuticals'.
The first is medical - most powerful chemicals have side effects. Addictions. Knock on stresses on organs. Increased likelyhood of things like dehydration, because the metabolism is screwed.
And the longer term consequences of use/abuse - white bloodcell counts get screwed over, and organ damage can result, leading to long term medical problems.
At the moment, these are a burden on our healthcare system - we provide
medical support for almost everyone, even those taking drugs. We would increase that burden by making it legal, but I don't think it would
be as linear - better care when someone is experimenting, and better quality of 'raw product' will reduce problems, and allow serious developing issues to be discovered earlier.
The second is social - the harm caused by long term drug use/abuse, and the harm caused by the crime related to the drug trade. Well, this one I think also diminishes if we legalise and regulate - the drug related crime drops drastically, as the reason that it happens at all is because of the huge profit margins involved. Drug dealers aren't stupid - they'll not take a high risk selling something illegal, if it wasn't insanely profitable. Legalise it, and you stop it being a 'gateway' into further criminality - there is now a reason for them to 'stay clean' as it were.
I think the 'drugs trade' will always be a problem, for as long as it's illict - and therefore profitable - and doesn't cause direct harm to others. Legalise, Legislate and educate. It's the only long term solution to the problem.
With a little thought, it's quite easy to see why - intoxication can be done in private, and harms no one else. As moral as you choose to be, you cannot easily impose that morality on others, without controlling every aspect of their lives.
And so right from the very beginning, when someone figured out that fermented fruit gave them a buzz, mankind have cultivated 'intoxicants'.
But you know, I don't actually see much of a difference between someone vegetating in front of the latest big brother, and deciding to spend an evening on 'recreational substances'.
I mean, where's the harm if someone's sat in their living room smoking a spliff, or even shooting up on heroine? If you use empirical assessment of substances for use/abuse then you'll find that the legal drugs - caffine, alchol, nicotine - actually end up scoring 'more druglike' than some of the illegal ones.
So anyway. Legalisation? Is it a bad idea?
Well, very simply there's two forms of 'harm' from ... shall we say
'recreational pharmaceuticals'.
The first is medical - most powerful chemicals have side effects. Addictions. Knock on stresses on organs. Increased likelyhood of things like dehydration, because the metabolism is screwed.
And the longer term consequences of use/abuse - white bloodcell counts get screwed over, and organ damage can result, leading to long term medical problems.
At the moment, these are a burden on our healthcare system - we provide
medical support for almost everyone, even those taking drugs. We would increase that burden by making it legal, but I don't think it would
be as linear - better care when someone is experimenting, and better quality of 'raw product' will reduce problems, and allow serious developing issues to be discovered earlier.
The second is social - the harm caused by long term drug use/abuse, and the harm caused by the crime related to the drug trade. Well, this one I think also diminishes if we legalise and regulate - the drug related crime drops drastically, as the reason that it happens at all is because of the huge profit margins involved. Drug dealers aren't stupid - they'll not take a high risk selling something illegal, if it wasn't insanely profitable. Legalise it, and you stop it being a 'gateway' into further criminality - there is now a reason for them to 'stay clean' as it were.
I think the 'drugs trade' will always be a problem, for as long as it's illict - and therefore profitable - and doesn't cause direct harm to others. Legalise, Legislate and educate. It's the only long term solution to the problem.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 10:49 pm (UTC)http://health.howstuffworks.com/drug-ranking.htm
But not entirely. I'll keep looking
no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 10:52 pm (UTC)However bear in mind that morphine and heroin are almost the same thing, and morphine is used in hospitals, because the long term effects aren't too bad.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 11:13 pm (UTC)"Sudden withdrawal by heavily dependent users who are in poor health is occasionally fatal, although heroin withdrawal is considered less dangerous than alcohol or barbiturate withdrawal"
http://www.nida.nih.gov/ResearchReports/Heroin/Heroin.html
And http://www.peele.net/lib/heroinoverdose.html
"Heroin overdose is almost nonexistent. Rather, heroin users who concurrently take tranquilizers, alcohol, and cocaine are those at risk for sudden death. "
Unfortunately the whole searching for that info process gets polluted by FUD - bottom line though seems to be that heroin itself isn't especially dangerous (although addictive) the reason it's a 'danger' drug is that it's high street value, and variable purity leads to it being 'cut' and combined with other substances such as alcohol.