1. Marijuana has been researched extensively and its health effects are at worst similar to alcohol, at best significantly less bad for you. In that context it makes sense to think of marijuana as a consumer product, and it makes sense that requiring a consumer product be sold in a dangerous and unregulated way would reduce demand for that product. Under these conditions we can expect legalization to increase demand, and it has.

2. Portugal's policy is decriminalization not legalization, and its success has not really been about soft drugs, it's been about hard drugs. People who do not have some kind of mental illness do not use hard drugs frequently for the same reason people without mental illness do not drink bleach: it's bad for you and if you care about yourself self-preservation is important. Portugal's solution is about the people who don't or are unable to care for themselves, and recognizing that the drug use is a symptom of that, and that you cannot fix the underlying mental issue by putting people in cages. Their solution is not "stop doing anything and fully legalize," it's "require people to be treated" instead of "require people to sit in a cage." Under these conditions we can expect decriminalization to decrease demand, and it has.

Edit: Also, I do very much agree with your larger point re: overconsumption, and I'm not saying we should ignore that problem either. Mental health in this country is a disaster, I just don't think putting people in cages is the solution.

Number "2" adds useful distinctions regarding the Portugese approach, but I don't think there is any basis for your statement that "People who do not have some kind of mental illness do not use hard drugs frequently". This is tautologically true if you define addiction as mental illness, but would you really claim that no one regularly uses heroin because they became addicted to after starting with prescription painkillers, rather that they use it regularly only because they have an underlying non-drug related mental illness?

Arguing with those is a total waste of time, and one reason why HN is so good is that they get downvoted to oblivion in no time.

Double-hop to the most popular/ancient official endorsement via related discussions: https://hn.algolia.com/?type=all&query=117171

I wish everyone in every debate ever could read what is written above. People not doing the above is the one major problem with public discourse today.

If I up vote when I agree with a post, then I down vote when I disagree. We should have an "off topic" flag for off topic posts and hide the off topic posts, not unpopular ones.

I think the thing OP's post was missing is that the distinction is important: we wouldn't expect the same trend to carry over to things that are not "benign," like hard drugs.

> This is tautologically true if you define addiction as mental illness, but would you really claim that no one regularly uses heroin because they became addicted to after starting with prescription painkillers, rather that they use it regularly only because they have an underlying non-drug related mental illness?

So, yes, this does happen, but no I don't think it's really a significant cause of drug addiction in the United States: https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/a3z98b/big-pharma-didnt...

Otherwise, yes, I am arguing the vast majority (or maybe all?) people who are drug addicts have some underlying mental illness, and I don't disagree that is tautological: that's kind of the point. Truthfully I don't think we have the data but I also wouldn't be shocked to see a large portion of the people who become addicted to prescribed painkillers and then end up using heroin afterwards come into the injury and prescription with some kind of mental illness which predisposes them to addiction. Ie: you are a construction worker, you are depressed, you hurt your back, you get on painkillers and it escalates from there. But the vast majority of people prescribed these drugs do not become addicted to them and I think that's telling.

But really, that doesn't matter to me, the only thing I'm really looking for is a classification of people who are addicts, however they got that way, as "sick" instead of as "criminals." Again: let's not put people in cages unless we absolutely have to.

Which brings me to the other distinction number 2 adds which is that Portugal's approach is decriminalization not legalization, like with Colorado and marijuana.

So there are at least two distinct ways in which the Colorado Marijuana situation don't apply.

Instead of forcing them to hide, prosecuting, incarcerating and labeling them as undesirable members of society, you can create infrastructure and programs that could help many of them deal with their issues over time.

Sometimes the hardest part of exiting addiction is that the only people who understand or tolerate you are other addicts, creating a very hard to escape circle.

What happened to the overall DUI rates, though?

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Push_Things_Forward

> Detrimental effects of cannabis use vary in a dose-related fashion, and are more pronounced with highly automatic driving functions than with more complex tasks that require conscious control, whereas with alcohol produces an opposite pattern of impairment. Because of both this and an increased awareness that they are impaired, marijuana smokers tend to compensate effectively while driving by utilizing a variety of behavioral strategies. Combining marijuana with alcohol eliminates the ability to use such strategies effectively, however, and results in impairment even at doses which would be insignificant were they of either drug alone. Epidemiological studies have been inconclusive regarding whether cannabis use causes an increased risk of accidents; in contrast, unanimity exists that alcohol use increases crash risk. Furthermore, the risk from driving under the influence of both alcohol and cannabis is greater than the risk of driving under the influence of either alone. Future research should focus on resolving contradictions posed by previous studies, and patients who smoke cannabis should be counseled to wait several hours before driving, and avoid combining the two drugs.

While hard drugs will never be good for you as such, we can do a lot to reduce the consequences of taking them by ensuring addicts have access to drugs of farmaceutical quality.

A legal dealer/grower is expected to follow certain laws and provide a safe product. In return for a high demand product they have to follow licensing rules and have a safe product.

An illegal dealer has the incentive to make as much money as fast as possible because of the risk of future prosecution. It is more beneficial for the illegal dealer to switch you from $100 of weed per month to $2000 worth of heroin per month. It has a much worse health outcome for you, but a better financial outcome for them.

None sold heroin, as far as I know.

I would expect drug usage to increase when legalized.

It feels kind of awkward to try to ban cigarette while promoting cocaine use at the same time.

That being said as a libertarian I am of the opinion that it’s not for the state to tell people how to live their life, and if they aspire to become junkies, let them live.

Isn't that a desirable thing from a government standpoint? More tax income from legal sales? The point to legalize something is that you put some controls in place to know where and how, and at what quality it's being sold, not to have its consumption decrease.