The problem with that line of reasoning is that addiction inhibits a person's abitlity to reason about these issues. I'm sympathetic to the freedom of choice argument, but drugs are an exception. If you've ever had to deal with an addict, you know exactly what I mean. Drugs rewire your priorities in a big way.

We can treat addiction as a medical issue, but the sad truth is that there really are no effective treatments that can be deployed on a mass scale. The relapse rate of even the best programs is pitifully high. The best treatment is public policy which does not encourage drug use in the first place, or at least, tries to minimize its use.

I largely agree with the point about addiction, but it's worth noting that a lot of banned substances - notably MDMA, Cannabis, LSD, and Psilocybin - aren't particularly addictive.

True. I'm largely sympathetic to the argument for decriminalization. Just on the grounds there should be limits in using government to protect people from themselves. But it's too often proposed as a quick an easy fix. Society does have an obligation to keep people from falling into a pit with relatively modest measures.

> If you've ever had to deal with an addict, you know exactly what I mean. Drugs rewire your priorities in a big way.

Can we do something about money then? I know people who have spent years of their lives arguing over pointless differences in specifications that end up going into the trash bin because it pays them more money than something useful. Lives and years down the tube.

I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, but certain behaviors towards money are discouraged, and in many places... outright banned. For example, the vast majority of states ban gambling outright, except in small sanctioned activities. Nevertheless, gambling takes place anyways, yet you rarely see any push to decriminalize commercial gambling

I can only ask you to try a bit harder then.

Simply because something contributes to a set of behaviours you disagree with doesn’t mean we should attack.

Sadly, for that very freedom we’ll end up with many more mega conferences about UI ecosystems while the world burns. C’est la vie.

But at least in the meantime we made a lot of money and we succeeded in stopping the kids from smoking the damned pot.

So you can't name anything, but want me to?

Behaviors I disagree with include things like flaking on a commitment with friends, forcing your children to do activities they don't want, etc. The effects of drugs are a whole order of magnitude worse, and these effects affect myself, others, and the drug user, in potentially deadly ways. Equating these concerns to simply being things I disagree with is disingenuous.

Name what? My point was made in allegory.

I would argue that obsession with accumulating capital has caused several orders of magnitude more situations like the ones you've named.

So we probably agree that while we're at banning drugs all over again, we should probably do something about mindless capital accumulation as its as harmful an addiction as any other—or more! It has led to the ruin and sublimation of entire nations of people—a far sight worse than a stolen car stereo.

Or if we don't want to get so dramatic, maybe just let the people eat their damned mushrooms in tranquility and stop using such broad strokes to paint over situations.

> The best treatment is public policy which does not encourage drug use in the first place, or at least, tries to minimize its use.

I don't have the exact numbers, but in practice you're talking about public policy which destroys a hundred lives to save one.

I agree with your counterpoints, but I'm still in favor of decriminalization. Heavy drug use does have an effect on families and social institutions like healthcare, and it's short-sighted to think that the effects of drug legalization can be contained to private, individual behavior. That said, we're a half century into the drug war and it's obviously not working. As other commenters have pointed out, Portugal seems to have had success combining decriminalization with policies that actively push drug users toward addiction treatment.

> That said, we're a half century into the drug war and it's obviously not working.

You know... despite what is commonly claimed, Prohibition worked great. During Prohibition cirrhosis was down, deaths from liver disease were down, and deaths due to drunkeness was down. The only thing not working was people wanted to get drunk.

Given that no one here today has lived in a world where drugs available today are legal, how can we honestly claim that what we're doing is 100% ineffective and merits scrapping it? Few people here in favor of decriminalization are contending with the possibility that the situation we have today is better than what it would be were drugs decriminalized. Since no one's ever seen drugs being decriminalized, I don't understand how this claim is made with such confidence.

And no.. Switzerland and Portugal are not comparable because what is being proposed here (and implemented in states like Oregon) are nothing like those countries.

Agreed on these points. I would argue that this whole "war on drugs" is a misrepresentation of the situation. The system does not seem to be wanting to stop drug use - instead it seems to want to ensure that it profits of off drug use (profit can be money, it can also be the desired harm it causes to the population). I see no evidence of the system trying to end illegal drug use - in fact I see the opposite.

It sounds like you’ve never had to deal with an addict in your close personal circle. I’m glad for you.

When addicts cannot find a supply of their chosen drug, they’ll steal from anyone, even those closest to them, to fund their addiction. If they go homeless, you can’t give them money because you can’t trust that they won’t just use it to buy more drugs. This is to ignore the fact that buying most hard drugs directly funds the Mexican drug cartels and the atrocities they commit in many countries.

This is also to ignore the terrible and unrecoverable health effects that many drugs have. Have you heard of meth mouth? Meth rots your teeth no matter how much you brush them [0]. It also causes permanent brain damage but I find that the kind of people pushing to legalize meth find losing teeth to be a worse outcome.

Jail isn’t the best outcome for inmates, sure, but it’s the cheapest. If you’re a Governor of a US state and your voters see that you took money away from schools, the police, the fire department, or the roads to give to addicts instead, you’re not going to get re-elected.

[0] https://www.mouthhealthy.org/en/az-topics/m/meth-mouth

You're conflating multiple issues. Banning drugs doesn't stop their usage, nor does legalizing them, so the negative health effects of drugs are irrelevant. Funding criminals is only a problem because they are illegal. Addicts stealing is less of an issue and getting them help is easier in a system where users aren't criminals.

“Addicts stealing is less of an issue and getting them help is easier in a system where users aren't criminals.”

I don’t think this is necessarily true, and especially not if one area decriminalizes drug possession while another nearby does not. At least that’s been my anecdotal experience in Oregon. Theft of all kinds is through the roof right now. Of course, it’s impossible to disentangle the current situation from the effects of COVID-19, but I see a lot fewer smashed shop windows in Vancouver Washington than I do in Portland.

Drug addiction is a health issue. I have a close family member who was a fairly typical junkie now he is given a nice opiate substitute by state health system and he's a productive member of society.

Most of the harm associated with drug addiction comes from societal demonizing of the addicted.

Rabies is also a health issue, yet that doesn't mean we let rabid people out on the streets to terrorize others. The government is also responsible for the reasonable safety of the public, and psychotic people (regardless of the cause) shouldn't be given free passes to be out in public.

the opiod substitute given to this person's relative made him no longer psychotic

I was responding to the claim that most of the societal harm comes from demonization. No it does not. It comes from the behavior of the addicts.

the behaviour of the addicts is (largely) due to the addiction, therefore anything which impedes the addict from getting treatment (such as demonization) is the main driver of the societal harm which arises due to addiction :)

I say largely because there ARE people who simply will refuse treatment due to other personality issues, or are generally anti-social otherwise.

Agree with most of your comment, but I think "meth mouth" is pretty much debunked. It's the lifestyle of a meth addict that rots your teeth not the meth itself, nothing in your link claims it rots your teeth "no matter how much you brush them".

Should we put people in jail for obesity, smoking addiction or drinking addiction?

The societal costs of these diseases is bigger than any of the illegal drugs.

Handling of ill people should be the job of the health care system, not punitive system.

The logic is that these hard drugs are so addictive that their users cannot stop themselves from committing crimes to acquire more of the hard drugs. Fat-rich food, cigarettes, and alcohol are several orders of magnitude less addictive than the hard drugs we're talking about. I think you're making a false equivalence here.

They can stop themselves, but they need help with quitting addiction, not punishment for their illness.

Also, alcohol is one of the worst drugs, but it is legal.

> In the early 2000s, the monetary cost of alcohol-related crime in the United States alone has been estimated at over $205 billion, more than twice the economic cost of all other drug-related crimes.

> Alcohol is implicated in one quarter of all homicides globally.

> A report released in 2001 showed that 80% of violent crime committed by young people in Estonia has been linked to alcohol abuse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol-related_crime

https://web.archive.org/web/20140504141105/http://www.who.in...

Hm, orders of magnitude less addictive sure, but still extremely difficult for people to stop (especially long-term), and very damaging to their own life and taxing on health systems.

Nobody is arguing that there aren't cases where drugs have negative effects. What's argued it whether banning or allowing them has more negative effects.