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by richardthered
2913 days ago
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> The current drug regulation regime strikes me as backwards--it seems that the more appropriate assumption should be to not regulate a substance, until it can be shown to be harmful The problem with this approach is that it would lead to a proliferation of snake-oil salesmen. If the effort to create a new 'drug' is trivial, but the study on efficacy/harm is long and expensive, then there would be a huge number of snake-oil offerings. Take colored water, slap a 'it cures cancer' sticker on it, and start selling it the public. In a couple of years, once there are studies showing that it's just colored water, and does nothing, just shut down the product and make a new one. The regulatory/safety efforts would never be able to keep up. |
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1. In general I don't see the government's role being to police snake oil salespersons. Fraud in the form of inaccurate ingredient lists, etc. but not the snake oil itself (people should be able to sell snake oil, but it should actually be snake oil). I mean, when you have people drinking bleach for various conditions, can you really say the current regime is working? What about physicians overprescribing opioids or other drugs? It's pretty clear it doesn't work, IMHO. People need to be educated, not policed.
2. However, I can see regulating claims at the point of sale without regulating substances. For all the criticisms and controversy over vitamins, I think that's the regulatory regime that should be applied to all substances. Prevent use claims on product, regulate accuracy of ingredient lists but not sale of product per se.
3. We currently have a process for determining ability to consent due to neurodegenerative disease, genetic disorders, psychiatric disorders, etc. This could easily be applied to substance use. It seems to me the better way to approach substances is to assume people know what they're doing, and if their use gets problematic enough, approach it as a loss-of-ability-to-consent issue just like if someone had severe Alzheimer's. Get them assessed by psychiatrists or psychologists, and require it to go through a legal proceeding. That's imperfect, but better to me than just assuming everyone is a criminal.
4. I wish all the money that was going into drug enforcement and FDA regulations would go into research, education, prevention, and treatment. I think we'd have far fewer problems if the FDA were focused on drug use as a public health problem rather than a criminal/regulation problem. Educate, prevent, treat.