[mc32]

I know we have a few advocates for legalization.

How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground?

I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.

[el_nahual]

Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear!

So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather:

1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs?

2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs legal and repurpose those rents for education, health, and harm reduction purposes?

Legalization doesn't mean you can buy crystal meth at the local 7-11, it just means you don't buy it from a drug lord cum human trafficker.

[cassianoleal]

It also means when you do have problems you can seek help and talk openly about them instead of diving further down the hole, afraid of getting caught.

With illegality there's no hope. With legalisation there's at least a shimmer of it.

[retSava]

1) safer for those stuck in consumption patterns, yes. And safer on a whole by reducing the number of new consumers. An endorsement and social acceptance via legality is the wrong way I think. Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side.

2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices, do things that ethics otherwise hinder, etc. They will do this by, as today, move drugs outside of the system to avoid taxes, cut the stuff with other substances, etc.

I think the 2) is such a strange argument. Following the 2) argument, are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans?

Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc.

[luckylion]

> Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side.

I don't believe that's a thing. Look up Research Chemicals when you have a minute. They're variations of existing drugs with pretty much the same properties, but not necessarily illegal, e.g. 1P-LSD. Governments react by making them illegal at some point, but you have quite a while until they actually are. Still, we're not seeing things like 1P-LSD in every household, because, most people don't avoid LSD for legal reasons.

[roughly]

Is there research on how the legalization of weed has affected the existing criminal sales & distribution networks?

[nickik]

> 2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices

That's why we have all those traffickers and the mafia running super markets and bakeries, they are so good at running business that they can beat any capitalist enterprise.

And if you are simply referring to normal business, that do tax fraud, its the same problem as literally every other business. Are you against all business because people try to avoid taxes?

> are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans

No, rather not give them a trade where being the worst nets big profits where there is opportunity for a lot of extra crime because the job is already criminal, so why does it matter.

> Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc.

What % of the cigarette market is that? Likely less then 0.1%. How many super rich successful black market cigarette millionaires are there?

[mc32]

How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction?

Ok, so I don’t get adulterated drugs, that still doesn’t do anything for the addiction.

Are we then going to actively discourage people from doing drugs? If so how? What effective form does that take?

[elmomle]

Legalization is one key part; destigmatization is the other.

Those who understand addiction, either first-hand or through research, understand that the root problem is not the drug/habit; the drug/habit tends to be the addict's best known way to sooth immense psychological pain. Shame drives addiction in deeper. So to actually help addicts, one needs to destigmatize the conversation, allow people to say "Hey, I'm in a bad place and I need help" with minimal fear of being judged (the addict tends to already hate their self pretty profoundly). And given how human nature works, destigmatization depends on legality.

Stopping addiction isn't about judging addicts; it's about understanding the root cause of their problem (which tends to be intense emotional trauma) and giving them empathic help to start building healthy relationships.

[mc32]

I’m not saying we punish the user, but rather find a way to minimize availability.

Also, trauma is not always a cause for addiction. Lots of people suffer trauma and don’t get addicted, conversely we also have people with little trauma who get addicted.

[nickik]

> I’m not saying we punish the user, but rather find a way to minimize availability.

In 200 years history of drug suppression literally everything has been tried.

And yet, even in a high security prison, drugs are highly available.

If it can't be done in a max-security prison, how do you think it can work for a whole society?

What method of restricting supply has not been tried. The US has literally invaded other country to try to destroy supply bases. The military as whole division, billions spent on intercepting submarines.

Absurd high cost have been put on a dealer that is captured.

What is your solution to actually restrict supply in a meaningful way?

[drran]

Webcams reduced regular crime a lot. Artificial nose can do same for drug addicts.

[elmomle]

https://silvermistrecovery.com/blog/2018/09/2019-guide-the-l...

It isn't a 1:1 causal link--virtually nothing is. But there's very strong evidence that unprocessed trauma is one of the core drivers of addiction.

It's constructive to think of drugs and addictive behaviors as emotional crutches. You don't help people with problems walking by making crutches illegal; you do so by focusing on treating the root cause, which may include taking the crutch away in a properly supportive therapeutic environment.

I'd also point you to the experiments dubbed "Rat Park" (https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-tea...). Addiction is ultimately a social/emotional disease; the drug/habit is the symptom.

[mc32]

I’m sympathetic to your POV.

However, sometimes there is no root cause other than “Hyacinth had me try sniffing some glue and I got hooked”.

Sure, some kids can say “no”, but many give in to peer pressure and after a few times there is no going back.

I do agree with a good therapeutic environment, but relapses are common, so it takes vigilance and follow up and so on.

[el_nahual]

Again, drugs exist and are available now. So you shouldn't think of the options as "drugs are legal and available vs drugs are illegal and unavailable". They are available in either case!

Making drugs legal means that one can control the points and conditions of distribution. So one could require licensing, education, or even controlled application. Sure, you can take good, cheap, heroin, but you have to take it here.

Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal drugs, the more appealing illegal drugs become, so there's a safety -maximizing point somewhere along that integral.

[tremon]

To draw a parallel with filesharing:

"Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal movies, the more appealing illegal downloads become, so there's a profit-maximizing point somewhere along that integral."

We've all witnessed the war-on-piracy that the powers-that-be have been pursuing a few decades ago, and we've all seen it fail spectacularly. Similar to the drugs story, by going after the Napster-type filesharing systems, they created a much more lucrative black market where criminals made millions by being the first to crack protection schemes.

What reduced the problem to a manageable level? Apple Music/Spotify/Netflix. By making it legal to do entertainment in the confines of their own home, the harm to society at large was much reduced. And even better, because everything is legal now, production companies have much better insights into their market, and can better produce content that their users actually want.

[mc32]

If we look at entertainment we see that ease of access has increased viewership (consumption). In terms of drugs we want to wean people off of addiction. Of course making drug use less dangerous is better than not, but it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances.

[tremon]

it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances.

The experiences of Portugal and The Netherlands show otherwise:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-a...

https://drugpolicy.org/blog/america-take-note-three-lessons-...

[drran]

Why we should care about drug addicts? They care about their drug only instead of our society.

[baq]

or maybe the addiction is so strong that they can't not care even if they try. some of them are quite unhappy that they can't quit, because withdrawal is so strong they need to be high to not suffer greatly, or in case of alcohol, even die.

yes, addiction is bad. fix the root cause of drug use instead of pretending you can fix the world with inefficient laws.

[drran]

The root cause of drug addiction is hard to find. It looks like the root cause is the DNA of our bodies and our own brain. How to fix that?

[ch4s3]

Decriminalization and legalization brings peoples addiction out of the kind of hiding that prohibition requires. This makes it easier and safer for people to seek addiction services, and easier for their loved ones to spot their problematic use earlier. Portugal is testament to this.

Also consider places like the Netherlands or various states in the US where cannabis is legally available. What you see there is that other drug use shifts to cannabis which is relatively safer than alcohol or opioids. You also see declining rates of use among teenagers as it become less mysterious and dangerous but rather common and uncool.

[btilly]

Do you have any evidence that using law enforcement is reducing drug use? I sure don't!

As for actively discouraging people, we are actively discouraging people from using tobacco. And it seems to be working pretty well.

I recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk to challenge your assumptions on this. (Retired police captain arguing against the drug war.)

[thisisbrians]

Better educating the masses about dosing and risks prevents some of the worst outcomes (like overdoses). Fostering a culture where the risks are discussed openly in society might help folks make better decisions and avoid addiction in the first place. Additionally, having the option for medically supervised detox (and the drugs required to do that safely) without fear of prosecution is a complete game-changer. Really, I think this represents a shift in mindset from punishing individuals for their addictions to handling it as a societal issue that needs a comprehensive solution.

Here's a good read on how Portugal has handled things (to quite some success): https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalizatio...

[tonyedgecombe]

Cigarettes are legal yet many Western countries have been successful at driving down their use.

[mc32]

Do you think if we made them illegal use would go up or go down?

[tonyedgecombe]

Did people stop drinking alcohol during prohibition?

[mc32]

That wasn’t the question, but rather, did consumption go down? I believe the answer was yes, it did go down but alcohol is so ingrained in society for so many millennia that prohibiting it will not shut off consumption.

[luckylion]

> How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction?

It's easier for a 15-yo to buy weed than to buy alcohol (where weed is illegal, I should add).

[hemloc_io]

I"m a pretty strong advocate for legalization.

The most concise counterpoint would be that addiction is not really hampered by criminalization, outside of edge cases like Singapore which is an island. Criminalization doesn't create less addicts it just creates more addicts in jail. Criminalization is also not zero sum, b/c it comes with all the issues of black markets, issues with the police who need extra power to enforce these laws.

Treatment does create less addicts, but less people will be addicted if you fix problems in society in the first place. Which are the real issue. In this example Iraq doesn't have a meth problem because meth is the problem, Iraq has a meth problem because of mass poverty.

EDIT: Also look at alcohol prohibition for what happens when you create a white market out of a black market. Lower potency products, that are safer and actually productive for society.

[monkeybutton]

>In this example Iraq doesn't have a meth problem because meth is the problem, Iraq has a meth problem because of mass poverty.

The article does paint a bleak picture of life in Iraq and I understand how a lot of youth can end up addicts. Taking drugs is something they can do feel better for a while and is something they actually have control over in their lives unlike the rest of the country's problems.

Morally, would it be wrong to ship in tons of anti-depressants and give them away free to make people feel better about their shitty situation?

[penagwin]

A large part of the issues from drugs are contaminations and inconsistent dosing. Prohibition also pushes people to make/use higher concentration drugs, and forces people to use drugs they can get vs drugs that are safer (meth vs addaral). And forces them to use unchecked (and often untrustworthy) sources.

The idea is that legalization should bring addiction resources, harm reduction, education, and cleaner drugs.

This removes the infamously dangerous "drug deals", "bad batches"/lacing, removes stigma and legal barriers that prevent addicts from recovery, and should make it easier for users to recover.

[dls2016]

I think most pro-legalization people recognize that drug addiction is largely the result of trauma, and that legalization is but one component of a holistic approach which also treats the underlying trauma (through therapy, other medications, housing and job access).

[fighterpilot]

Legalize less damaging alternatives. The cost and risk of the legal alternatives will drop and people will have an incentive to do something other than street meth.

[api]

We shouldn't legalize meth. We should legalize moderate doses of time-release amphetamine (not methamphetamine, basically adderall). It would displace meth in the marketplace to a great degree if it's readily available, and while it is somewhat dangerous if heavily abused it is far less addictive and dangerous than meth. Making it time release would also somewhat reduce abuse potential. Yes you can crunch it up and snort it and some people would do that, but those are the same people who will snort meth and snorting 50mg of clean pharmaceutically pure amphetamine would do less harm.

Highly concentrated and dirty street meth is what the incentive structure of prohibition gives you. It's significantly more potent than regular amphetamine, so it's easier to transport larger quantities. It's also a lot easier to make with off the shelf materials and precursors. Amphetamine isn't really more complex to make chemically but it's harder to make it with materials you can buy from a trip to a regular hardware store. Hell there's a "one-pot" meth synthesis around that you can do in a two liter bottle in a single step if you don't mind a filthy product and a chance of blowing yourself up. There's nothing that easy for amphetamine.

Note that amphetamine is more common in Europe where prohibition is somewhat less strict. In the USA it's all meth. Regular amphetamine is rare.

[shawnz]

It's likely the abuse potential of methampetamine is similar to amphetamine (see e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3475187/)

So, the chemical is probably not the problem. It's also likely methamphetamine performs better for medical use cases. See: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-amphetamines

EDIT: Otherwise, though, I thoroughly agree with what you are saying here in that having access to smaller, cleaner, time-release doses would do well to curb addiction.

[api]

I don't have first-hand experience, but I know people who do. Every single person I've spoken to who has had an issue with drugs has said that methamphetamine is "different."

But of course that's not scientific. I'm not sure how many reliable studies have been done. It could be a result of the potency of street meth rather than the chemical.

[shawnz]

I've taken both and I think they are basically indistinguishable (besides strength per dose and maybe duration). So there is a counterpoint for you.