Hopefully you also warn them about the opiates that their doctor will cheerfully prescribe.
Frankly, if the opiate epidemic taught us anything it's that there's probably lower risk in your teenagers taking an edible at a party than getting an overly aggressive codeine prescription from their doc after breaking their arm.
I'm not really arguing with you, education of kids is key. But legality is such a poor yardstick. See: opiates, tobacco, and alcohol - super damaging, extremely habit forming, yet completely legal and even culturally acceptable.
Meanwhile, LSD is treated like fentanyl (literally the same Control Substances Act schedule - the highest #1) and is pushed underground where it's adulterated by god knows what, even though a small gov-sanctioned lab could easily produce the entire country's supply of entirely pure substance in a few weeks.
I don't know what the answer is, but surely it's more nuanced than drugs=bad, legal=fine, doctor-perscribed=no-risk. (I'm not saying you're arguing these points, I'm just channelling the zeitgeist as I see it).
I agree with you, and fixing the issues of drugs in society is very complex and difficult. That's why my statement was more of a: I don't use them and teach my kids not to use them. That is what is basically under my control.
It's so hard to get painkillers nowadays that people with chronic pain can't acquire them. The govt listened to this kind of argument and decided to just make everything regulated rather than making everything legal. Not a big surprise honestly
That's why it's illegal, no? If it was up to me, smoking would also be phased out.
Edit: What bothers me most on these HN discussions is how casual some commenters act of taking drugs. Like it's somehow great. Let's not act as if taking drugs is normal or something everyone should try.
Using psychoactive drugs is incredibly normal and has been practiced for thousands of years by humans. In fact it is one of the most human things you can do because many other species don't exhibit this behavior. We should be working in the interest of reducing stigma of drug use to reduce harms associated with it. Drugs are illegal because politicians wanted a way to crack down on communities that didn't agree with their policies, it is simply a form of control. Have you never asked why alcohol is legal and cannabis or LSD are illegal? Fear and control.
The US forced their system of controlling psychoactive substances on the rest of the world through treaties primarily. Perhaps you should learn about the history of drug use and control.
You also didn't answer my question about alcohol. Why is it legal and not cannabis?
Because alcohol is more interwoven into our society than cannabis.
If I had a magic wand and had to pick 1 legal one, I would go for cannabis. I think it has less negative effect on society than alcohol. But here we are, and my standpoint is to no approve new drugs and try to phase out the current ones.
I like my beer, wine and tequila, but I also see youth doesn't flock to it as much as my and previous generations. If properly done, it can be phased out.
By most definitions of the term, yeah, using drugs is "normal", and ancient practice. Strict persecution seems to me to be a recent invention
> everyone should try
Absolutely: not everyone should try all recreational drugs. As radical as saying that no one should try any recreational drug, right?
The discussion here is about meeting in a healthy middle and you seemed to have taken the latter position, which you must agree is radical and out of the question
It is extremely difficult to agree on a healthy middle. If you look at something I think most people consider much safer, we see how hard it is. What is a safe level of high fructose corn syrup that should be allowed as an ingredient of hamburger buns?
At some level, everything we put into our bodies has consequences, but it seems terrifying to me to have discussions about a healthy middle ground of how much meth is ok in a serving of mozzarella. Then again, I have no idea if the fancy chemical names currently listed as ingredients on the labels of food I eat are preservatves or what, and what their actual consequences are to my health.
Nobody is talking about adding recreational drugs to food.
Corn syrup, as bad as it may be to consume in great quantities with a modern lifestyle, is food with calories even if it may lack other more healthy nutrients.
Should be banned? I don't think so. But regulated so companies don't abuse it as a cheap ingredient.
For how legal recreational drugs would work just look at nicotine regulation.
And it already improved since I was young. People would smoke in cafees and parties. The non-smokers just had to live with all the crap. I'm happy my kids can go out now without the terrible smell in their hair, clothes and passive smoke in their lungs. It's getting prohibitted in more and more places, so I'm on the winning side :D.
I don't really have a horse in this race, but it seems to me that making something illegal doesn't always work as expected and stop people from consuming it. See: prohibition in the US.
So, if the actual goal is harm-reduction for the population at large (and not for what seems to be a small sample who wouldn't care either way since they're not into that), maybe instead of outlawing substances, we should make sure that people don't take random crap that will mess them up even worse than what they were originally looking for. Because it seems that people will continue taking drugs.
So maybe, as a society, we should finally accept reality instead of insisting that wishful thinking will somehow work after it has failed miserably for ages.
I think it starts with educating youth, with proper campaigns. Make it clear living as an addict is not something you want.
The legal aspect is a very difficult discussion, and it's more based on opinions than facts.
But at start we need to decide if we want these drugs in our society or not. And I'm always surprised at how the HN crowd is: taking drugs are awesome, we want it in our society.
I think the HN stance is a bit more nuanced: it may depend on the drug. It's pretty clear that not all drugs have the same health risks and addiction potential, so I'm not surprised people don't treat them all the same way.
As an easy example: I don't consider myself an alcoholic and even hate being drunk, yet I would be bummed to never be able to have a drink again.
> I think it starts with educating youth, with proper campaigns. Make it clear living as an addict is not something you want.
Indeed. But I'm not convinced that banning the substances in addition to this education is actually useful.
> But at start we need to decide if we want these drugs in our society or not.
That's a good question. But, like it or not, these drugs are in our society today. I don't see any practical means of getting rid of them. Outlawing them clearly not only doesn't work, but actually has some pretty terrible side-effects of its own: health-related (via adulterants) as well as social (drug-related gang crime).
I'm the same with alcohol. But I've also seen the worst in families where one is an alcoholic, and then you start wondering if it's all worth it.
After the discussion here, I wonder if there would be some middle ground. Make it legal to buy, but very controlled and individual. That way people who want to stop might get the help they need. Or the strict control would be able to prevent excesses. It's for sure a very complex problem, with lots of different opinions.
It would be nice, but it's probably foolish to assume children's compliance.
Roughly 50% of US adults have dabbled in drugs, and that number goes way up if you include legal drugs like nicotine and alcohol.
Education is important, but so are structural protections. It's the C vs Rust debate, you can have safety by being super-duper diligent all the time, or you can have safety by design.
Even then it takes a good bit of luck. Identities change, and kids (and some adults) are rebellious by nature.
My parents did a great job. Sobriety was a core part of my identity throughout high-school and I'd proudly express that I had no desire to use drugs or alcohol. That lasted to the ripe old age of 20, which to be fair was longer than most of my peers.
My parents taught me to stay away from smoking and drugs. It didn't really work. The facade collapsed when I realised that actually a lot of people use all sorts of drugs recreationally with very limited adverse effect. And that they can be extremely, life alteringly fun in a way no prohibition lecture captures.
Obviously there's plenty of downsides too - but the idea that a stern lecture or twenty will stop kids taking drugs is kind of laughable.
I don't lecture my kids. What I do is probably not acceptable by many, but hey, it works.
When we go to hospitals, and those cancer patients are outside smoking, I point out "see, these are the smokers". Every opportunity when marginaal people are smoking, I point out how stupid and marginaal they look. My kids are disgusted by it, the same way I was.
So it's not a "you are not allowed to smoke" or "smoke is bad for you", it's a "you want to be a loser who thinks he's cool? Go ahead and smoke"
Hopefully you also warn them about the opiates that their doctor will cheerfully prescribe.
Frankly, if the opiate epidemic taught us anything it's that there's probably lower risk in your teenagers taking an edible at a party than getting an overly aggressive codeine prescription from their doc after breaking their arm.
I'm not really arguing with you, education of kids is key. But legality is such a poor yardstick. See: opiates, tobacco, and alcohol - super damaging, extremely habit forming, yet completely legal and even culturally acceptable.
Meanwhile, LSD is treated like fentanyl (literally the same Control Substances Act schedule - the highest #1) and is pushed underground where it's adulterated by god knows what, even though a small gov-sanctioned lab could easily produce the entire country's supply of entirely pure substance in a few weeks.
I don't know what the answer is, but surely it's more nuanced than drugs=bad, legal=fine, doctor-perscribed=no-risk. (I'm not saying you're arguing these points, I'm just channelling the zeitgeist as I see it).