[chroem-]

I'm a huge fan of Washington State's ban on public smoking, and I wish they would ban tobacco outright.

Why then should I support proliferation of even more addictive and harmful substances? Tobacco smoke is bad enough, but used hypodermic needles laying on the ground is another issue entirely. The trouble with addictive drugs is that a person's free agency is overruled by dependancy on the substance: addicts want to quit but can't. We keep other far less harmful products off the market through regulation, and I don't see how this is any different.

[cortesoft]

Did you read the article? The percentage of people who become addicts after using drugs is actually quite low, even for the 'big four' most addictive drugs (cocaine, heroin, meth, and crack)... so it is NOT true that everyone's free agency is overruled by addiction. In fact, a significant majority do not lose free agency; should they all be restricted because some people can't handle it?

The harmful products we should regulate are ones whose use harms other people; things like pesticides, pollutants, etc. Otherwise, where do you draw the line? Lots of people think playing video games or watching tv 'rots your brain.' Some people eat way too much unhealthy food. Should we ban tvs and Doritos?

[Kurtz79]

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that." "

I think there are enough reported cases of drug addicts resorting to crime and assault to get their fix (and it's not clear how legalizing drugs will change that, since addicts will still have to pay for their dose), not many of people would do the same to get their fix of videogames or doritos, not all addictions have the same strength and side effects.

I'm for decriminalization (still an offense, but not punishable with jail) and investing in treatment more than policing, but I don't think legalization would be beneficial.

[emiliobumachar]

"and it's not clear how legalizing drugs will change that, since addicts will still have to pay for their dose"

How about panhandling for an hour a week?

The street price of illegal drugs is all about compensating everyone in the production and distribution chain for the risk of being arrested or killed.

Legal drugs can be as cheap as we want them to be, weighting risk of violence against barrier for starting users and tax revenue.

The price floor (without subsidies) is dimes per dose. How much does refined sugar cost? Three bucks per kilo? Four?

[warsharks]

this exactly, in my younger years i developed quite the interest in psychoactive substances and went out of my way to try a very large variety of them, far more than your average person could name (134 different substances to be accurate) yet i have never been addicted to anything, i have no criminal record and have never suffered any ill health due to my usage.

if taking drugs was guaranteed to cause problems id certainly have been subject to them and while i am no longer actively searching these things out or experimenting i will dabble from time to time, yet im still a "functioning member of society"

[chillingeffect]

Exactly! Many people have done this as a hobby/personal research project. Alexander shulgin experimented with possibly thousands of substances and had no cognitive impairment.

[lopatin]

It's tough. I think most ppl will agree that wine is great. Weed is great. But both in moderation. And that Heroin is evil. Not even once. Those are the two sides of the spectrum with a crazy amount of gray area and fear in the middle. We're fiddling with that line of what's acceptable for the masses. Now that the war on drugs is widely seen as a ... miscalculation. We're maturing, it's becoming less taboo to speak up and address the issue of mind alteration. It's a debate that can only happen in the context of the experience we've gained by drug use as illicit substances. How could we possibly speak with conviction about the topic without seeing first hand how certain drugs affect society? It would all be hand waving and speculation and would end in the loudest voice winning. We're getting there, starting to come to terms with the hypocrisy of alcohol, but the social progress is understandably super slow.

[wfunction]

> In fact, a significant majority do not lose free agency; should they all be restricted because some people can't handle it?

What's the difference between this argument and "why should I have to pay for the insurance of others who get sick? should we all have to pay because a few can't live a healthy life?"?

[dunmalg]

>What's the difference between this argument and "why should I have to pay for the insurance of others who get sick? should we all have to pay because a few can't live a healthy life?"?

Accepting universal drug prohibition is not anything like accepting mandatory insurance. Mandatory insurance results in nearly everyone being covered by insurance. Conversely, universal prohibition doesn't result in people NOT using drugs, it simply results in drugs being expensive and unregulated. Over a century of of strict prohibition has demonstrated this extensively.

[warsharks]

living a healthy life does not guarantee you a life free of health problems. but fair enough if they must restrict it have a licence system whereby people apply for the substances they wish to use and have to pass a test that confirms their basic understanding of the chemicals, if properly educated the vast majority of people would be responsible just as they are when driving a car

[ProxCoques]

"Why then should I support proliferation of even more addictive and harmful substances?"

Because keeping them illegal does far, far more harm than you probably realise.

Go to Mexico or Afghanistan to see the most obvious effects of the illegal cultivation of raw materials. But also go to any poor neighbourhood in most Western cities to see what illegality does there. The corruption of law and politics, the denial of human rights and the distorting effect of too much money in the wrong places.

It's been estimated that the world narcotics industry is financially about the same size as the oil industry. If alcohol was invented today its use would immediately be criminalised. But it's not because, as the US found with Prohibition, doing so once the demand is there causes the near breakdown of social democracy. When you land at Kula Lumpur airport, the cabin attendant welcomes you to Malaysia and reminds you politely that trafficking in drugs carries a mandatory sentence of death. And as you walk to reclaim your baggage, there are posters of nooses with the words "dadah" beneath them.

That, if nothing else, should clue you that after 50 years of prohibition the situation is utterly out of control.

[noahth]

Nobody shoots up on the sidewalk because it's the best place for that experience; they do it because they don't have a better place to go. The problem isn't the drugs, it's the system that puts addicts on the street, and the legal system is part of that.

[md224]

Amen. To add to this: one of the (many) reasons people end up on heroin is because they lose access to pharmaceutical painkillers. It might sound strange, but our restrictive drug policies are actually making the heroin epidemic worse. We need a better approach.

[pravda]

Well, tobacco use generally affects just the user. Alcohol is the real killer.

Alcohol users drive into school buses and kill innocent children.

Now that we have our first president who doesn't use alcohol, it's time we crack down on the alcohol users. For the children.

[purple-again]

Sorry about the downvotes man. This was a perfect witty post that I guess needed a /s for some people.

[jknoepfler]

I tend to downvote sarcastic posts on hacker news because they are sarcastic in nature, not because I disagree with their content per se. I'd encourage you to consider the idea that people downvoted this post despite understanding it, and perhaps even agreeing with the underlying sentiment. Otherwise intelligent people thought it was inappropriate in this forum.

Sarcasm is generally perceived to be a lazy and ineffective way to make an argument, because it is imprecise, tends to strawman the opposing viewpoint, and lacks precise positive claims. The belief is that if the poster actually had something to add to the conversation, they should state it clearly and precisely, rather than relying on subtext and sarcasm.

As a general rule, I think this is correct. If one can't phrase a sarcastic retort as a concrete rebuttal, one's views are likely less clear than one would like. There generally isn't any interesting reason to prefer a sarcastic variation on a response to a straight-forward one, especially in a forum where non-native language speakers, as well as individuals who do not register sarcasm, are frequent visitors.

This forum caters to a distinctly older and more highly educated demographic than reddit (or whatever), and participants are held to norms that might at first seem strange or alien.

[DanBC]

> but used hypodermic needles laying on the ground is another issue entirely

The criminal justice response to this has clearly failed. How about treating this as the public health problem it is? Give addicts access to clean needles, safe injecting spaces, and needle disposal and you'll get rid of most of the problems of irresponsibly dangerously disposed of needles.

[gurkendoktor]

Smokers already have all that and still can't be arsed not to litter public spaces/nature with cigarette butts.

[Freak_NL]

It takes time to move from a society where smoking was the norm to one where smoking is a private vice enjoyed by few. The general trend is towards smoke-free public spaces, but no matter how you approach the problem, some smokers will feel ostracised and act mulish and defensive, while some people are simply incorrigible. But demographically taken, they are a dying breed, and will (if the current trend in many modern countries continues) simply vanish in a generation or two.

Personally, the amount of cigarette buts littered seems to have decreased in the past decades, simply because fewer people smoke, and those who do smoke often use designated smoking areas.

It takes time, and with drugs it will take time as well.