Well, if it is Marijuana now, then what's next in line? I'm afraid to see the day when some people will start demanding the legalization of other harmful drugs, pulling "the science says" card out and rationalizing the possible usefulness of certain drugs that really should be out of everyone's hands...
Well, if it is Marijuana now, then what's next in line?
This slippery slope argument is decades old and isn't borne out by experiences with decriminalization or legalization in other countries. I'm not and never have been a user, but I see a lot more harm in criminalization than in legalization.
pulling "the science says" card out
Science is a trump card because science trumps. Seriously, people wouldn't constantly perform science if it didn't work.
Portugal did NOT legalize drugs. They changed personal use and possession of less than a 10 days personal supply so that these were no longer criminal offenses. They become administrative offenses.
Producing, distributing, and selling remain criminal offenses.
In too much of an indignant hurry in my reply. Yes, it was decriminalization not legalization. But the point stands that reducing impediments to drug use isn't going to cause civilization to crumble.
Anybody who brings up the issue of the damage done to society by drug use has to then take into account the damage done by drug prohibition. It's clear (to many) that the latter is far more harmful.
Most drugs aren't harmful anyways. Heroin is whispered as if it's terrible, when some leaders of the world were lifelong morphine addicts, with no damage in their performance. LSD is also referred to as a "hard" drug, yet has essentially zero deaths associated with it.
But that shouldn't be the argument. Bleach is very harmful, but I'm not stopped if I decide to go drink some. The constant reduction in personal liberty by deciding what chemicals people may possess.
I can only hope someday this is viewed as backwards and horrible as governing what kind of sex consenting entities engage in. (In fact, this is still a problem, as sex with consenting adults of other species is still illegal in many jurisdictions. In fact, to my shock it seems this is going in the opposite direction, as The Netherlands recently criminalized such sex. I wonder how such laws handle cases where an animal rapes a human.)
> I wonder how such laws handle cases where an animal rapes a human.
At one time, the animal might have been given a trial in a court, just like a human. Google "animals on trial" and you'll find some interesting articles about specific cases and the practice in general, mostly from a "let's make fun of our idiotic ancestors" perspective, but there is one from Slate in there that takes a more nuanced look at why they did it.
There is an early 20th century book about animal trials and punishment called "The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals" by Edmund P. Evans. It is available [1] at Project Gutenberg.
I really never enjoy this slippery slope argument, when arguably the most harmful drugs [1, 2] are already very much legal (sometimes the drug is controlled, but at least studies can be done, and those who can benefit have access).
Heroin and opiates in general simply are not very harmful, referring to the actual medication. Apart from acute respiratory depression (OD'ing), there isn't much except constipation. Overdosing is dangerous for many drugs - more people end up in the hospital from misuse of Tylenol and ibuprofen than from, say, Oxycontin.
So it's very unfair to allow only certain people access to basic medications, especially when the medicine itself isn't particularly dangerous. The study you linked has a rather expanded definition of "harm".