But note that all those statement are about the amount of harm in an environment where alcohol is legal, cheaply available in every supermarket, widely advertized, and its consumption socially accepted, even expected.

Can you really say in good conscience that other drugs wouldn't be worse if they became equally ubiquitous?

This was relevant to the parent post as well as your own comment.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210

A UK study led by a panel of experts analyzed a number of recreational drugs and evaluated them across 16 different criteria.

Alcohol was one of the most dangerous drugs and was unique in that it was the only drug that posed more risk to society than it did for the actual user.

This is of course, not definitive proof of the parents assertions but the findings do lend evidence to it.

What is their definition of harm to others? Meth addicts can be very violent yet this study says they pose little risk.

Meth addiction can also really mess with sex drives. In college I had a friend who was a social worker and she said that with the growing meth usage meant increased child sex abuse, basically due to parents getting high and then messing with their own kids. This is secondhand, but she was clearly disturbed by what was an increasingly prevalent issue in our college town.

Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Having drugs being illegal make them stronger, as they have to be transported in secret, and create derivative drugs to fill lower price ranges for long term addicts, such as crack and oxy.

> Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible.

Knowing and doing are two different things. Yes, you'd get fewer accidental overdoses from people getting stronger stuff than they thought. But you'd get more (possibly a lot more) people overdosing from chasing a high despite having built a tolerance, or from doing crazy shit while high, and drug psychoses.

> Having drugs being illegal make them stronger, as they have to be transported in secret, and create derivative drugs to fill lower price ranges for long term addicts, such as crack and oxy.

And with full legalization, you'd have billions of advertizing dollars invested into marketing and research departments by companies trying to convince people to get high from their brand.

Remember, I am not arguing for the status quo or against some degree of decriminalization. I am arguing that the larger observed harm caused by alcohol is not useful evidence that illegal drugs are inherently less dangerous than alcohol.

> And with full legalization, you'd have billions of advertizing dollars invested into marketing and research departments by companies trying to convince people to get high from their brand.

Legal competition is also pushing the THC levels up. The THC levels are definitely not going in a downward trend in legalized states like Oregon, Washington or California. Flower you can easily find 30+% levels of THC and with things like hash and other derivative concentrates you can find over 90% purity.

On the other hand, you can also find strains with high CBD and low to negligible amounts of THC, which I never encountered before decriminilization

You could make advertising them illegal. Also make alcohol and tobacco advertising illegal at the same time.

That's kind of a minimal measure, and already implemented to some degree in many places. Its effects are limited, and it's a cat and mouse game because there are so many subtle ways to advertise.

These are all just speculations - we can take a stance we prefer and expand it ad infinitum. Kind of pointless.

Ie I am pro legalization, and I can't imagine if society had proper education and precise dosing people would go and overdose frequently. Do you often see people who decide to drink 2 litres of vodka in one setting? We all know how bad idea it is without the need to walk that path. Also alcohol is one of few (if not the only) drug that actively increases aggressiveness in consumers.

Its proven numerous times all over the world that legal marihuana pushes away worse addictions, lowers the crime. Even ignoring the tiny details of bringing benefits to consumers (select of various strengths and non-harmful methods of application), bringing benefits to the state (taxation, control over what folks consume) and overall society - taking away massive source of income for organized crime.

At this point it just doesn't make any sense for a rational society to have weed illegal. Shooting in its own foot, ignoring reality of humans and all that.

Psychedelics is another group where at least active research in treatment of various psychiatric disorders should be actively encouraged by state. Potential is massive, by far the best area for improvement in otherwise pretty stale domain of medical drugs development (unless you consider drugging into oblivion anybody with issues with valium et co, which basically no expert does).

> alcohol is one of few (if not the only) drug that actively increases aggressiveness

Why would you write something like this?

Have you seen someone on meth, or any kind of amphetamines?

It's a whole different degree of bad. Not to mention in combinations where someone can be horrendously violent and completely indifferent to it.

But highly regulating drug ads will be a far cry from every NFL broadcast having a Budweiser commercial with people smiling in bars.

> Can you really say in good conscience that other drugs wouldn't be worse if they became equally ubiquitous?

I'm sure that in general people on weed, shrooms, DMT or MDMA are much much less prone to violent aggression and destructive behaviour than drunk people. I'm also sure all of these but the last do much less (if any) harm to your health than alcohol does.

The only drugs I know which can be considered as or more dangerous than alcohol are opioids (except kratom - it's considered opioid but is harmless unless you consume huge amounts regularly for too long), cocaine (if taken chronically), meth (if abused, can change life for good if used properly to treat severe ADHD cases) and bromo-dragonfly. LSD probably is dangerous for people who are borderline crazy - psychos may become more violent after taking it.

Ahem. A couple addendums, if I may: LSD has no measurable long term side effects - the myth that it makes people go crazy came out of the fact that our can make you feel crazy. Kratom is not an opioid. to qualify as an opioid, you must be derived from opium. Cocaine is not nearly as dangerous as alcohol. It is, perhaps, easier to indulge in cocaine to excess, but people on it are not nearly as likely to do things that will kill them. take a look at DUI vs DWI deaths. Also, long term alcohol abuse is more toxic than long term cocaine use.

Generally, though, you're kind of on the right track. Alcohol is the absolute worst. I might also add to the conversation that making something illegal doesn't reduce it's use.

Almost. Opioid means anything that interacts with those receptors. Opiate means derived from opium. It is an opioid but not an opiate.

> LSD has no measurable long term side effects

IIRC it permanently increases the big-5 personality trait Openness

And too much openness may actually make some of violent people more dangerous - they may just become even more open to violence if they have been thinking in that direction already.

One of the core dilemmas to me in this argument is that the way we do it now exports the problem to others who have less resources to deal with the impact. Countries breaking, millions in jail, hundred billion $ spent etc. [1]

[1] https://transformdrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTC-Ec...

For the most part, yes. Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available. For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice. I've even been told of a story where people thought someone was having an overdose and they were told to go home because they couldn't risk calling an ambulance, I was told this story by one of the people telling the person to go home, so I believe it. The crime that comes from heroin comes from people trying to make money to buy heroin. Considering tobacco is more addictive, and we have way less crime to buy tobacco, it seems logical to assume crime would drop if drug addicts didn't have to spend 20-30 a day on drugs. Then you have the violence and anti-social behaviour which for most drugs is non-existent.

" I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal"

Wow, you're not using your imagination well enough to recognize how ubiquitously widespread opioid addiction would be were it integrated into our coffee, soft-drinks, an aperatif with dinner etc.. It would be a massive, ongoing public health crisis.

Combined with the fact that the effect quickly erodes, that users want ever more aggressive substitutes like Fentanyl, it almost guarantees the inevitable OD.

Blaming the 'harm' on systems literally trying to stop the promulgation of what arguably is actually poison ... is a leap in logic.

Tobacco is similarly additive, but it obviously has a completely different set of health effects.

Finally - if Tobacco is really in the same category of addictivity, then ironically, you've made an argument that we really should shut down the opioid industry hard, because while quitting smoking is difficult, it's not existentially hard and the resulting withdrawal does not require medical attention or anything on the scale of 'Trainspotting withdrawal'.

An acquaintance in Prison indicated they call the heroin addicts zombies, because they bang on the doors and yell 3 times a day as they receive their poison, which is slowly killing them. I'd argue that incarcerating people and slowly killing them is a strange punishment for those wanting to 'reduce harm' whereupon the logical thing for their health would be to make sure they had absolutely no access and an opportunity to dry out. I hope that in 50 year we look back on 'free heroin' like lobotomies or shock therapy.

Humans have some control of our faculties and must overcome impulses of all kind - facilitating the total degradation of that control system by administering poison is definitely a form of torture. I'd rather be waterboarded.

> Wow, you're not using your imagination well enough to recognize how ubiquitously widespread opioid addiction would be were it integrated into our coffee, soft-drinks, an aperatif with dinner etc.. It would be a massive, ongoing public health crisis.

That would never happen. People literally wouldn't buy the products enmass because they don't want to sit around drooping all day.

> Finally - if Tobacco is really in the same category of addictivity, then ironically, you've made an argument that we really should shut down the opioid industry hard, because while quitting smoking is difficult, it's not existentially hard and the resulting withdrawal does not require medical attention or anything on the scale of 'Trainspotting withdrawal'.

Everyone seems to be thinking about how bad the withdrawal is and not how long the addiction lasts. The addiction to heroin and many other substances is over in days and weeks. Tobacco as any former smoker who has successful quit will tell you, you have cravings for months, not constant but enough that it's a thing for quite a while.

> An acquaintance in Prison indicated they call the heroin addicts zombies, because they bang on the doors and yell 3 times a day as they receive their poison, which is slowly killing them. I'd argue that incarcerating people and slowly killing them is a strange punishment for those wanting to 'reduce harm' whereupon the logical thing for their health would be to make sure they had absolutely no access and an opportunity to dry out. I hope that in 50 year we look back on 'free heroin' like lobotomies or shock therapy.

You should look into how Portugal has dealt with the drug problem. The free heroin isn't the issue, it's the lack of other support systems to get them off the heroin. Prison is not a place for support.

"wouldn't buy the products the products enmass because they don't want to sit around drooping all day."

Yes they would (!) and we already know why: it's extremely addictive.

We have ample evidence from the ongoing Opioid Crisis that people who get 'too many pills' from an operation can and do become very addicted and 'do it all day'.

Have a look here [1] from the Economist.

What does that look like? It looks like 'COVID explosion' doesn't it?

And consider that we already have restrictions in place for Heroin, what would that 'R0/R1' (aka transmissible social disease) look like without restrictions? It would look like COVID 'without social distancing' aka disaster.

This is happening to Soccer Moms and Patent Lawyers.

And you must be aware that this isn't about 'being high' it's 'addiction servicing' whereby they need the fix to maintain a degree of normalcy.

'Opioids at the Gas Station Checkout' would devolve any society into 'World War Z' within a few months. Only a small fraction of the population affected would overwhelm the medical system.

[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/10/07/america-...

> We have ample evidence from the ongoing Opioid Crisis that people who get 'too many pills' from an operation can and do become very addicted and 'do it all day'.

That's kind of different. So that's people who start taking them for medical reasons and become addicted during the course of taking them for medical reasons. This wasn't they decided to start taking them for fun. This also seems to be mainly an issue in the US as other countries doctors don't hand out these pills that often due to nature of them.

To understand what heroin usage is like you can watch a few seconds of this video that I have at the correct time https://youtu.be/17TbF6n4jI0?t=459. While it's Valium and not heroin trust me that is how heroin addicts act while on heoroin too.

Heroin has been legal repeatedly throughout time. It never brought the world down before.

The thing that caused the opioid crisis was doctors and Purdue pharma. Some folks are bad at handling addictive substances, and they were prescribed these things.

> For the most part, yes.

No.

> Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available.

I fully agree with this.

> For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice.

Even if that is true, the harm that does not come from the fact that it's illegal would be magnified a hundredfold if it became as widespread as alcohol (which is, please keep that in mind, the scenario I was talking about). That's not hyperbole: Accodding to the European Drug Report 2018 (https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/8585/...), the prevalence of injecting drugs (chiefly heroin) is between 0 and 0.9%, which consumption of alcohol is pretty damn near 100%.

> Considering tobacco is more addictive, and we have way less crime to buy tobacco, it seems logical to assume crime would drop if drug addicts didn't have to spend 20-30 a day on drugs. Then you have the violence and anti-social behaviour which for most drugs is non-existent.

Even if that is not exaggerated (which I strongly supect it is), those are not the only kinds of harm: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/hero...

> Even if that is true, the harm that does not come from the fact that it's illegal would be magnified a hundredfold if it became as widespread as alcohol (which is, please keep that in mind, the scenario I was talking about). That's not hyperbole: Accodding to the European Drug Report 2018 (https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/8585/...), the prevalence of injecting drugs (chiefly heroin) is between 0 and 0.9%, which consumption of alcohol is pretty damn near 100%.

With heroin specifically the increase would be nowhere near what alcohol is. Heroin is not a party drug while alcohol is. Cocaine, Meth, and MDMA I would expect to see increase in usage for the party scene but heroin specifically wouldn't see that increase, it would a small increase at first but overall that would go down. Portugal has shown that if you legalise the drug and make it a health issue you then get access to the addicts and you can help them. This means while more people will take it, the number of concurrent users will be lower because the number of people coming off it will be higher.

> Even if that is not exaggerated (which I strongly supect it is)

I'm pretty sure there was a study somewhere but I am lazy. But 1 thing I can tell you, every heroin addict I've met and talked with about the addiction of different things, I've met lots, has said they found tobacco harder to give up than heroin. Heroin it seems has a shorter withdrawal period than tobacco, so once you're over the hump you're for the most part fine. With tobacco from experience, it took weeks to stop taking nicotine gum and months for the cravings to go away.

> those are not the only kinds of harm: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/hero...

Those are envoirmental harm. I've heard heroin is healthier than alcohol but that's just some random heroin addicts so I take that with a grain of salt.

> Heroin is not a party drug while alcohol is. Cocaine, Meth, and MDMA I would expect to see increase in usage for the party scene but heroin specifically wouldn't see that increase, it would a small increase at first but overall that would go down.

Given how strong the heroin high is and how quickly and strongly physical addiction is, I would not be so sure about that.

> Portugal has shown that if you legalise the drug and make it a health issue

Portugal has not, in fact, legalised any previously illegal drug, or even fully decriminalized it. Not even cannabis.

> Given how strong the heroin high is and how quickly and strongly physical addiction is, I would not be so sure about that.

Have taken the drug and seen countless addicts, I can be sure on that.

> Portugal has not, in fact, legalised any previously illegal drug, or even fully decriminalized it. Not even cannabis.

OK, but they did make it a health matter instead of criminal matter. The fact the power is no longer in the criminal justice system means it's decriminalised.

err. have you heard about the opioid crisis? that stuff is to heroin like beer is to vodka. it's the same shit. waaaaaaay more people take opioids than just the heroin users, but there's all part of the same thing. it's the same molecule

But the harm is categorical. Cheap heroin might reduce the impact of crime/family issues, but what about the health of individuals? We'd be back to people wasting away in crack dens.

> Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice

what kind of places? If you become so addicted that overdose is likely, where would you be welcome? Making something illegal doesn't mean it automatically becomes socially acceptable; piss-stained street drunks don't attract lots of caretakers.

It feels like your assuming that people will be able to manage their addictions, and remain functional - I'm not sure this is realistic. Even mildly addictive substances can really wreck peoples ability to function.

Can you provide a source that suggests: "tobacco is more addictive [than heroin]"?

Legalization has not stopped alcohol poisoning. Is there some reason it would stop heroin overdoses?

Because we have data to back this up. Countries like the Netherlands or Portugal have was fewer OD deaths than countries where a hard drugs use is more punished.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/632372/total-number-of-d...

https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portuga...

Thank you. That's very useful to know.

It's not so much it stops them but saving their life if they have one. If you see someone overdosing from heroin and intervene the person can live. Whereas, if they're sat alone in some house they'll die. Saferooms are about watching them and making sure they get medical treatment if needed. But then there is also the purity issue someone else mentioned.

Known purity, quality control, known quantity. If you actually know how much it’ll take you to get high you’re not going to overdose because you coverage got a stronger than average batch. You certainly aren’t going to get fentanyl sold as heroin.

Wouldn’t stop overdoses entirely obviously.

Can't reply directly to SirSourdough because of thread limits.

>I don't think this really address the point though. Alcohol is sold with known purity, quality, and quantity. You aren't going to overdose due to an impurity.

Their argument was never that it would stop everything, only that it would help (and I agree).

How many people have you met that have gone blind from drinking "bad" alcohol? During the prohibition era, this was an actual issue people faced.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/alcohol-history/prohibit...

>A major decline in the risk per use massively outweighed by a huge increase in use over time due to legalization.

There is evidence that decriminalization when paired with other policies can potentially cause decreases in usage as well as a decrease in negative outcomes such as HIV transmission rates and drug deaths.

https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portuga....

I don't think this really addresses the point though. Alcohol is sold with known purity, quality, and quantity. You aren't going to overdose due to an impurity.

Yet dangerous drinking is still very common, and alcohol causes significant strains on our society, perhaps more than any other drug. Why do we think that the situation would be different with legalizing other drugs? A major decline in the risk per use massively outweighed by a huge increase in use over time due to legalization.

if you make something illegal, you don't reduce it's use necessarily, but you do increase the harm done by pushing users into the dark. Compare the harms of alcohol abuse now to the harms of alcohol as an illicit substance during prohibition, with the explosion in organized crime that came with it. Legalizing reduced the harm.

Rat park comes to mind. The issues are not the drugs, but our well being in society.

The drugs have a huge negative effect on well being, and that is not just because they're criminalized (though that is part of it).

Drugs had great positive impact on millions of people as well. You can’t just cherry pick the worst cases without including the others.

I want rat park to be true. It's depressing that it's not been effectively replicated. That said, it's conclusions are sort of common sense; if you give people options and one of them feels better than the rest they will take it, so give them more good options. It's almost as if rats aren't subject to market forces...

And this is what is exactly wrong science. We have had a scientist in NL who claimed that people who eat red meat are more aggressive. Because she wanted it to be true.

And maybe the original researcher of Rat Park just wanted it to be true too.

we are starting to get data on that for weed as it is legalized across the usa

Yes, cannabis is an example where evidence seems to support the idea that full legalization, while still causing some harm, is probably less harmful than criminalization, and might even overall reduce harm if it partially replaces alcohol.

But it's a bit of an outlier in that regard, among illegal drugs.

Less criminalisation inevitably means less drug harm. Any other stance can only be made in bad faith. Just look at relative harm numbers, the stats (especially at something like the EU level) are available publicly.

> Less criminalisation inevitably means less drug harm. Any other stance can only be made in bad faith.

That is in itself an extremely bad faith statement.

> Just look at relative harm numbers, the stats (especially at something like the EU level) are available publicly.

Yes, look at them. They do not support your statement because you are asserting that the corellation is basically linear, but I was talking about an (entirely hypothetical) scenario that is completely outside the data, namely full legalization.

No EU state has legalized heroin or cocaine. The poster boy for decriminalization is Portugal, but they haven't even legalized use, let alone production or distribution. They have merely turned use into an administrative offense rather than a criminal one and are providing a lot of harm-reduction services.

There is a huge difference between that and full legalization where big business spends billions on advertising to market addictive substances - which is the situation we have with alcohol that leads to a lot of harm.

At the end of the day, we have multiple points on a spectrum with related harm levels. If you can't look at that and see a reasonable approach and stance to take, then nothing can be said that will make you do so.

Also, we currently have a real life case study to learn from in Portugal though I haven't been staying up to date with the latest results on that approach with resulted in more decriminalization of drugs across the board.

Portugal has not, in fact, fully decriminalized any previously illegal drug. Not even cannabis.

Quoth wikipedia:

In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to abolish all criminal penalties for personal drug possession

Some people like to argue that "nobody punishes you for it" isn't the same as "it's okay", even though it's not clear what the difference between those is for an actual human being.

That nuance is appreciated. Removing government penalties seems like a "bright line" thing to prioritize, to me.

Also quoth wikipedia: "criminal penalties are still applied to drug growers, dealers and traffickers."

Which is what I meant with "not fully decriminalized".

I’d be very interested to see a report on how that’s going

I think the crux here is that decriminalising/legalising the use of drugs such as heroin would not make them more widespread and ubiquitous. Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access in almost all countries, and most people are well aware of the high risks associated with them. Legalising them would bring users/abusers into a more public sphere where it is far easier to access harm reduction and the state can provide it without legal complications

The laws of supply and demand would indicate otherwise.

If you make something easier to access - either by reduced price, more contact, reduced social stigma - people will consume more of it, straight up.

Think of it like a social disease that has an R0/R1 that communicates itself much like COVID.

Kids how absolutely don't know anyone who's ever done Heroin, are unlikely to ever even have the thought, let alone, try to find out 'where on earth' to buy.

If you have a group of 3 kids in school who are starting to use, the likelihood that they 'infect' other students is very high.

We force people to isolate and take certain precautions when they threaten the community with COVID, why on earth we wouldn't do the same with heroin addiction?

And of course, it's not illegal to 'have' COVID and we are sympathetic to those that have it, so there's that as well ...

the teenage users of marijuana in Amsterdam might argue against that. This sort of simple logic doesn't actually hold up in practice, because the world is complex and not simple.

If you go out of your way to tell people that "drugs are bad and will kill you", and then those people find out you lied (see: every drug PSA ever), they may be inclined to seek proof, whereas they wouldn't have bothered if it weren't taboo

> I think the crux here is that decriminalising/legalising the use of drugs such as heroin would not make them more widespread and ubiquitous.

That is a very ridiculously wrong statement.

> Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access in almost all countries

You apparently have a pretty wide definition of "Very easy". I wouldn't have the faintest clue how to lay my hands on some heroin. Yes, I might start asking around in the vicinity of nightclubs based on hearsay that party drugs are supposedly sold there and the dealers might know someone who sells heroin. That would require navigating some scary situations quite outside my comfort zone. That's a completely different level of availability than alcohol, of which there are shelves full in every supermarket and ads plastered all over telling me how it will make me hip and attractive.

> Legalising them would bring users/abusers into a more public sphere where it is far easier to access harm reduction and the state can provide it without legal complications

You don't need legalization for that, merely decriminalization of use and possession.

I'm surprised you don't get constantly hassled by sketchy people on the street trying to sell you drugs. Also, homeless people everywhere often know who to ask or where to go.

I hope we can agree that there's a significant difference in accessibility for something you can legally buy from the store versus something that you have to seek out illegally from random "sketchy people on the street".

changing accessibility doesn't mean less use.

> Despite being illegal they are still so very easy to access

access isn't the only issue. There is a high risk with obtaining and possessing an illegal drug.

plus there's no guarantee anything you obtain is safe (mixed with shit) or the correct strength, so there's further risk in putting it in your veins.

There's this vid of someone having the shakes from withdrawal that was enough to make me drop alcohol. It's just scary af.

https://amp.reddit.com/r/tooktoomuch/comments/kjnisn/going_t...