[eric_h]

Alcohol is a very social drug, and thus has a fair bit of social self-reinforcement as a habit. Heroin is basically the opposite of social. Ever hung out with someone while they were on heroin (and you weren't)? They're no fun at all, though I'm sure they're having a great time (not that you can tell from the outside).

Of course that doesn't cover the other dangerous ones, like crack and meth (dangerous primarily for their potency), or the less dangerous ones like all (most) of the psychedelics.

Even though I've been internally debating it for ~20 years - I'm still not sure where I fall on the debate. Certainly our current policies are far too draconian for substances that we can show demonstrably to be less dangerous than drugs available legally, but where do you reasonably draw the line?

What does a real world, all-drugs-are-legal marketplace look like?

[pm90]

I see your point but have you met people with alcohol dependency? They aren't very social. Sure, most people do use alcohol in moderation as a social lubricant. But the people with alcohol related disorders frequently drink alone .

But your other question is interesting. I think it is an idea worth exploring and experimenting with, if only because the current ways of dealing with this don't really seem to be working. But what I would prefer even more is massive investment in medical sciences around research in addiction/drug use, and developing a somewhat more scientific approach to dependency problems than something like AA, which seems like religious horseshit. Instead of using all those resources to put people through the criminal justice system, if only we could use those resources for treatment and research....

[eric_h]

> I see your point but have you met people with alcohol dependency? They aren't very social.

Fair enough but the scale from buzzed to antisocial is vastly shorter on heroin than alcohol. From my observations of others, the desired pleasurable dose of heroin takes you out of the conversation pretty much immediately. Thankfully I've never chased that dragon...

[code_duck]

Heroin also has a therapeutic side, though. People sometimes start out taking milder opiates like oxycodone or hydrocodone for pain, from a prescription or friends/family/black market, and then end up using black market opiates because they're addicted, still in pain, or both and can't get a legal supply.