On the topic at hand, using heroine to intoxicate one’s self is very victimless. Injection needles are sharp and carry disease. Alright, but scissors are sharp, sex carries disease and heroine was initially introduced and prescribed as a pharmaceutical. Social and economic externalities of drug use is highly subjective and difficult to isolate, which is among most rational arguments for legalization. Drugs always both solve problems and create new ones. Each situation is more than likely drastically different and impossible to readily comprehend, involved with and conflated with mental health, legal systems, moral judgements, embarrassment, fear.
Results of approaches actively considerate of this complexity (Portugal’s controversial policies come to mind) tend to suggest that the economic and social problems you mention may moreso be a result of simplistic accusations like the factory analogy.
I have never used it, but have lost friends to it. How am I not a victim?
Not that I wouldn't want to engage in a discussion of the merits of drug legalization but here I'd want keep the thread that "victimless" can simply be conceived of as a "how" question concerning a particular kind of act without recourse to asking the question of "whether" the act should happen.
In the crimes usually described as victimless, the main thing is that all the individuals "actively involved" are seeking to make the act happened. To say this is not to claim that those who might be effected once the act happened aren't harmed, scared, victimized, etc. We would thus distinguish "active victims" (those mugged, murder, robbed, etc) and passive victims (relatives, friends, society...). So we could perhaps distinguish "active-victim-less" crimes and say all crimes have passive victims - for those who want this set of value judgments.
Can I get more clinical?
Losing friends to drug overdoses is terrible and not to be devalued. I’ve lost 2 close friends to drug overdoses: one heroine and another prescription painkillers, both while I was off at college. I really understand.
If we map an event chain to the tragedy, things get existential fast. We have to ask why they used the drugs. Maybe it was peer pressure, maybe depression, self-esteem. My cousin is addicted to painkillers prescribed to him for a back injury from his best friend hitting him with a jet ski. My point is just that things are usually very complicated. Naturally, we want someone to blame, but let’s be cautious, lest we create new problems.
Concluding we are victims of the substance makes sense in numerous ways, but doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and has failed outright as a solution to the problem (see war on drugs) and I think we can do better.
If we intend to prevent it from happening again to you and others, we want to look at the causes with an open mind.
You've got some good points, but your 'victimless' assertion is highly questionable.
The illegality of (for example) heroin drives: * uncertainty of quality/content of drugs purchased --> higher risk of harm/overdose from use * often, reliance on crime to fund --> financial and/or criminal impact on families/friends, and/or wider society * social exclusion of users --> emotional impact on families/friends
If heroin was legal, regulated, freely/cheaply available, and then became no more socially unacceptable than (for example) alcohol or cannabis, then most of the current 'victims' would cease to be victims any longer.
‘Victimless’ is a subjective term, and maybe too much to justify it’s use.
For example you might have a land owner and a factory, and both parties involved are perfectly happy for the factory to pump toxic waste straight into the ground. Neither party wants the police involved.
The economic exchange is between two mutually cooperative parties, but... they are often not the only ones affected by the trade. Which is why we regulate pollutants.