How should a society deal with drugs?

[Copernicus]

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If nearly "all" drugs were legalized, what kind of effect would that have on our economy? It seems like it could have a crippling effect on some entertainment industries, such as bars, restaurants, clubs, and any industry that relies on alcohol sales.

Obviously the minority of the population does "illegal" drugs, with the majority of them doing marijuana, but I doubt I and many others would go out nearly as often if there was a limitless supply of green.

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Despite Kaj's usual hyperbolic projections of what you really said, I agree there would be some effect but whether it would be "crippling" or not is certainly speculation.

My concern would be more long term. Even if legalization carried regulation, such as alcohol's age restrictions, there is no question that availability to minor's would increase. The potential for addiction, abuse and the resulting damage is greater with any of the currently illegal drugs than it is with alcohol, and while the long term effects on society are impossible to quantify, that they will be negative effects is certain.

[AlexM]

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Pokerholics don't kill hundreds of thousands of people while driving under the influence.

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So you obviously think alcohol should be illegal?

[ShakeZula06]

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If nearly "all" drugs were legalized, what kind of effect would that have on our economy? It seems like it could have a crippling effect on some entertainment industries, such as bars, restaurants, clubs, and any industry that relies on alcohol sales.

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If that was true it would just mean that free competition of the market provided a better choice for people. Why exactly do you see it as bad if more choices for entertainment existed? The more choices there are the more suppliers must work to put out a good service. It's not like the institutions you named off are entitled to our consumption.

Our economy is improved by more business, not hurt. You're just taking a very small portion of the economy and guessing that it'll be hurt without taking in to effect the rest of the economy that isn't clubs, bars, resturants, and places that serve alcohol. If those places lose jobs, jobs are going to increase to wherever the demand shifted to, all the while getting cheaper prices to the consumer.
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I doubt I and many others would go out nearly as often if there was a limitless supply of green.

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Most people that enjoy smoking weed can already get it whenever they want. Amazingly, most are not social hermits and still frequent the places you named off.

[mosdef]

The only thing (I think) that makes the conversation about drugs interesting (even from the standpoint of the ACist) is the way that drugs distort an individual's ability to act rationally.

Where human interaction is limited exclusively by property rights and transactional contracts, there is a need for people who voluntarily participate in a contract to be able to act rationally when choosing to participate or not participate. Otherwise, their choice to participate doesn't have much meaning in the contractual sense. In my mind, this places a few "issues", such as drug use and mental health, into a special category where you cannot simply turn your back and say "voluntary contracts and property rights will sort his out" in the same way that you can simply turn your back on the issue of setting a price for Coca-cola and say "voluntary contracts and property rights will sort his out".

I happen to think that there are contractual voluntary solutions to these problems, but I think they require more careful thought than "simpler" issues where distortion of participant rationality in the transaction does not occur.

[yukoncpa]

[ QUOTE ]
If nearly "all" drugs were legalized, what kind of effect would that have on our economy? It seems like it could have a crippling effect on some entertainment industries, such as bars, restaurants, clubs, and any industry that relies on alcohol sales.

Obviously the minority of the population does "illegal" drugs, with the majority of them doing marijuana, but I doubt I and many others would go out nearly as often if there was a limitless supply of green.


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Yeah, because if drugs were legal then people wouldn't want to socialize anymore. Men wouldn't want to meet women. People would stop drinking. Sports would end. Oh, the humanity.


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In the 1940's, Mayor Laguardia of New York was an outspoken proponent of Marijuana. He wanted to keep it legal, fearing illegality would harm the New York nightclub business. He even put together a commission, the report of which, was prepared by the New York Academy of Medicine that systematically debunked claims made by the U.S. Treasury Department that smoking marijuana would result in insanity.

[CORed]

I'm no ACist (more libertarian if you want to put a label on my views) but I am absolutely in favor of legalization of all drugs.

My philosophical reason for this is that I do not think it is a legitimate function of government in a free society to criminalize behavior that is harmful primarily to oneself. As far as I'm concerned criminal law should be limited to crimes of violence, porperty crimes, and possibly some laws prohibitig behavior that caries an undue risk of accidental harm to others: DUI, discharging firearms in populated areas, etc. I have no use for mandatory seat belt laws, motorcycle helmet laws, drug laws or laws prohibiting consensual sex among adults, such as laws prohibiting prostitution or "sodomy", however sodomy might be defined.

From the practical standpoint, I think legislating against self-destructive behavior is useless and often counter-productive. Take seat belt laws as an example. Nature imposes the death penalty (selectively and arbitrarily enforced, to be sure) on those who don't use seat belts (or motorcycle helmets). Are we to believe, that given that the death penalty doesn't deter many people from the "crime" of not using their seat belts, or wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle, that a fine of $50 or $100 or even $1000 is going to do the trick?

Drug laws are a similar case. Excessive use of drugs will likely result in one not being able to hold a decent job, one's spouse or significant other leaving, and eventually death, either from overdose or from chronic toxic effects. If that doesn't deter somebody using dangerous drugs, why do we think that a prison term, which the user can probably avoid with a little care and discretion, is going to do what the natural consequences of drug use can't do?

To make matters worse, laws prohibiting sale of drugs create a powerful incentive to criminal behavior. Illegality pushes the price of drugs much higher than it would be in a free market, so that addicts often resort to criminal behavior to support their habits. Furthermore, dealing drugs can be extremely lucrative to those who don't mind breaking the law. Furthermore, a drug dealer has no protection from the criminal or civil justice system. If somebody rips him off, or tries to move into "his" territory, his only recourse is violence. The result is that the drug trade ends up in the hands of the most ruthless and violent criminals around, and a lot of people get hurt or killed by "collateral damage".

To make the situation even sillier, there is no rhyme or reason to what drugs are legal and what are illegal. I'm going to list some commonly used drugs in order of harmfulness. This is off the top of my head and the ranking is certainly debatable. I'm considering addictiveness, health risk and tendency to cause socially harmful behavior here, with probably a little more emphasis on the behavioral aspects, as I see these as being a somewhat better justification for illegality than addiction or damage to the health of the user.

Methamphetamine
Alcohol
Cocaine
LSD
Opiates (heroin, morphing, etc.)
Tobacco
Marijuana
Caffeine

Now, as you can see, one of the most harmful is legal, and one of the least harmful is illegal. Now mind you, alcohol is a drug that I use nearly every day, and I don't plan to quit any time soon. I am suggesting, however, that if society can survive this substance being legal, in spite of the fact that it is highly addictive for some people, has a fairly high risk of fatal overdose, induces violent and irresponsible behavior in many people, and is a significant factor in perhaps as many as half of all fatal traffic accidents, civilization has survived the legality of alcohol. In fact, it is generally acknowledged that our attempt to make it illegal was a dismal failure. However, for some reason few people seem to understand that prohibition of other drugs is just as dismal a failure for the same reasons that alcohol prohibition was a dismal failure.

So, how do I suggest we handle legal drugs? Pretty much the way we handle alcohol now. A license would be required to sell them, sale to minors would be prohibited, driving, flying a plane, or operating a boat under the influence of drugs would be prohibited where warranted. I would also grant a blanket amnesty to all people in prison on drug charges who had clean records on other charges.

People would be held accountable for bad behavior while under the influence of drugs. "I was on drugs" is not an excuse, unless somebody gave you the drugs with out your knowledge or consent.

Legalizing drugs would free up a lot of law enforcement resources to deal with property crimes and violent crimes. Who knows, maybe home burglaries, identity theft and car thefts would get seriously investigated, instead of the perfunctory paper shuffling they usually get now. Maybe some cops and prison guards would have to find jobs in the private sector.

[CORed]

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I am not talking about marijuana here. Stop comparing it to things that can't instantly kill you if you overdose or severely damage your brains etc.

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You mean, like alcohol?

[CORed]

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"Just because you don't prohibit something doesn't mean you're actively promoting its use."

My logic goes like this. We know that many drugs are highly addicting with a lot of negative impacts on our health and we know what that addiction can lead to. In my opinion it seems irresponsible of a society not to be against something that has this affect on us. Why leave it open for others to find out what kind of hell drugs has to offer?

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Because we want to treat responsible adults as such instead of having a nanny-state try ineffectively to protect them from themselves as if they were two-year-olds.

[CORed]

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In Sweden prostitution is illegal. If a women decides nonetheless that she wants to sell her body she will not be punished for it, only the person to whom she sells herself to will be(not severely). What if you were to have the same system on drugs only in reverse? Punish those who sell but not those who buy?

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If you legalize possession for personal use, while making sale illegal, you still have all the problems of a black market: Excessively high prices, violence, strong incentive for criminal behavior, adulterated product of uncertain strength, (more overdoses and more poisoning by adulterants), hazards from manufacturing (think meth labs), and possibly increase the demand (I think the increase in usage even with full legalization would be minimal, but that remains to be seen).

[CORed]

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Psychedelics: Admittedly, it's pretty difficult to drive on acid. Not just the actual driving, but doing the things necessary just to start driving (finding your keys, remembering where the ignition is, figuring out how to work the clutch, etc). If you're having these problems, chances are that you'll just give up and stare at the windshield for a few hours instead. While this could theoretically pose a threat, acid-related highway fatalities have always been pretty low. I've been googling it and can't seem to find anything.

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I've done it and survived, but I can't really say that driving on acid is a good idea.