[seanmcdirmid]

It is just really expensive, it would be better if they didn't do drugs rather than just letting them do it and having society responsible for picking up the pieces. If society has to be responsible for paying for these problems, then its no longer a personal decision with personal effect. We as a society have to decide whether we are going to allow hard drug abuse and "pay the bill for that decision" or not.

[truckerbill]

You need to think of it as a system of feedback loops. If you don't stem the input of the cycle of drug abuse by investing a little, your problem gets worse.

It seems people take a moral or 'fairness' based attitude to these social phenomena and that's what causes things like the war on drugs as a form of justice. The idea that everyone is self determined, which in a small way is true of the individual. But if you look at people in aggregate things are more clear, the universe doesn't play by those rules...

[etchalon]

We've tried to stop them from doing drugs through years of state action and penalties. It hasn't worked.

Turns out, drugs are both fun AND addictive and it's hard to combat that with threats of jail time.

[electricmonk]

The point others are making is that it appears to be a zero-sum game, i.e., we're paying one way or the other, so the more compassionate option with better outcomes should win out. As I have seen it stated, the options appear to be to pay for: (i) criminalization and its effects/expenses, e.g., court system burden, incarceration, etc.; (ii) de-criminalization (potentially with legalization/taxation) to offset the cost of keeping cities livable by mitigating its effects/expenses, e.g., treatment and housing for addicts that may become homeless; or (iii) de-criminalization without paying for mitigations, leading to unlivable cities. Your comment reads like you see some way of simply not paying to deal with addicts, while also not having the consequences of a bunch of (potentially homeless) addicts living in society. If that's an accurate description of your point, how does that work? If it's not, then what do you mean?

[Ajedi32]

You can't get addicted to a substance that you don't have the ability to obtain in the first place, or that you could obtain but choose not to because you're afraid of punishment. That's the whole theory behind criminalization: that it's not a zero sum game!

I think you're probably right that the criminal justice system isn't the most effective way of dealing with people who are already addicted, but how do you propose we stop people from getting addicted in the first place if hard drugs are perfectly legal, and the government is actively working to minimize the personal downsides of being addicted to them? Why not become an addict if the only consequence is that it means you get free food and housing for the rest of your life?

[Nursie]

> how do you propose we stop people from getting addicted in the first place if hard drugs are perfectly legal

There are shades of legal and illegal. There's "We're going to lock you up for years for simple possession" and there's "We're giving it away free to kids at the corner store!", and in between those extremes lies a whole multidimensional landscape we could explore.

With harder drugs like opiates, most people are not talking about them being available at the liquor store, but solutions like removing criminal penalties for possession while providing support services, maintenance doses and counselling for those who are addicted.

> Why not become an addict

Is that a life you want? Queuing up outside the medical centre every morning for a shot that keeps the pain at bay?

It's not a life I want.

[jakderrida]

> You can't get addicted to a substance that you don't have the ability to obtain in the first place

If you're saying you can't acquire heroine, given 24 hours, I'm afraid I've lost faith in everything else you've said because it's just based on a flawed perception of what world we live in.

[electricmonk]

Honestly you're making my point. We (as in civilization) tried criminalization, and it is more expensive (and has other added downsides) compared with decriminalization/legalization + taxation and treatment. How do I propose to get people not to think drugs are their best option? Ha. Okay sure, in response to that straw man here's my stab at fixing human society to help reduce the number of people that go that route (since that's what it would take). UBI + free healthcare (including all procedures that may be used to either assisting with a miscarriage or causing an abortion) + free contraceptives + free childcare + additional assistance for parents + free school lunches + free higher ed + strong labor protections / unions (+ -- US specific -- constitutional amendments to allow for regulation of firearms, getting monied interests out of politics, lessening the influence of extremists in politics including ranked choice voting or similar, making public money available to third-parties, I'm sure there's more). I'm sure what I've missed could fill an encyclopedia. My point is that the problem isn't simple, so if you're going to try to "solve" it, you're wasting time debating whether incarceration is better than legalization.

[Ajedi32]

> My point is that the problem isn't simple, so if you're going to try to "solve" it, you're wasting time debating whether incarceration is better than legalization.

Okay, but that debate is what this entire thread is about. I don't think it's a waste of time. We don't have to fix all the world's problems at once.

> We (as in civilization) tried criminalization, and it is more expensive (and has other added downsides) compared with decriminalization/legalization + taxation and treatment

Personally I think the jury's still out on that one, particularly once you ask yourself whether legalization is likely to result in less drug addiction overall, or more. But time will tell.

[amanaplanacanal]

So is your theory is that the drug war was a success, and nobody could get drugs when they were illegal? How do you propose to make them go away? That way was tried, and failed.

[Ajedi32]

A success relative to what? Criminalization of homicide hasn't eliminated homicide either; that's not an argument for legalizing it.

[AlexandrB]

I wonder how the societal costs of tobacco, alcohol, and gambling compare to those of "hard" drugs in this regard.