Doing drugs isn't really a problem. Having a problem with drugs is a problem made worse by prosecution of the problem.

Half of the US is on some form of amphetamine from middle school onwards. We don't have an issue with people taking drugs. We want them to take the right drugs and pay the right companies for them.

You might have a problem with 'drugs' but that's politics.

I'd agree with your premise that having a problem with drugs is the problem, but it's naive to treat all drugs are the same. There are some drugs that have outsized negative impacts on society. Also, what amphetamine is half the US on? Sounds a bit much like hyperbole.

Ritalin, Adderall or any of the other attention correction prescribed drugs

Ah yes, that would explain the enormous raft of benefits that Portugal came into when it decriminalised drug use for personal amounts and would explain why the Prohibition Era was so wildly successful and free from downsides

Which drugs do you draw the line at? Coffee? Alcohol? Nicotine?

It's not clear to me that I should be punished for doing something that doesn't harm or affect others simply because they dislike it. It even seems a bit unreasonable, to be honest.

It does harm and affect others though. Depending on the drug & circumstances. But you can't just pretend that heroin users just carry on their lives like normal without negatively affecting anyone else.

Most heroin users with access to cheap medical grade heroin (medical grade heroin is cheap - we know this because it's in use in healthcare; e.g. the UK NHS prescribes it under the generic name diamorphine for a variety of uses, including post-op pain - in hospital only - in some cases) are perfectly able to carry on with their lives - and hold down jobs. With heroin as with most drugs the criminalisation is what is causing most - not all - of the harm.

To repeat the oldest point in the book.. should we ban alcohol too then? Or does that not affect people depending on the circumstances?

No because it isn't as addictive or harmful as other drugs. Yes it depends on the circumstances, but harder drugs are more likely to cause harm.

Yes I know about the David Nutt report. It's not remotely objective.

I draw the line at heroin in my personal usage too, so we're not of completely different minds. By your logic where should the line be drawn then? Genuine question. Is LSD fine? Ritalin? Coke? Meth?

There has to be an option between locking people up if they're trying to destroy their lives and standing around doing nothing - if not actively helping them.

The people wanting to use drugs would view "punished" as anything that gets in the way of them and their drug of choice. Saying it harms no one is to say that the person using isn't being harmed.

I have (though probably used to have more) libertarian sympathies but it seems like that falls down in a large number of hard cases. I don't want to run other people's lives any more then I want someone else to run mine but there's an extreme version of the libertarian argument that equates any help with control.

It’s a deterrent for some people sure, me included. But it doesn’t make them magically disappear, that’s just naive.

There will be a demand and there will be people fulfilling the demand. It’s much better to have the fulfillers regulated instead of it being a source of money and power for criminal organisations.

Just look at how well prohibition worked in the US.

> This concept that some Nordic countries made all drugs legal and everything was great

Nordic countries are actually rather (in)famously known in Europe as having strict drug laws.

> Making drugs illegal is a major deterrent to doing drugs.

Obviously, but people still do so many drugs, and the numbers are increasing. This is despite relatively very few countries actually even decriminalizing (_not_ legalizing) drugs.

From my own experience living in the Netherlands, weed being legal means tourists come to smoke it, but a lot of the Dutch are just completely uninterested, including teenagers. If you had given me easy to access cheap weed at 16 I would've been blazing all day, but I didn't come from a place where it's legal. Dutch teenagers did. Second order effects such as perception of drugs are a thing that must be considered as well.

No Nordic countries have made all drugs legal. If anything the nordic countries are behind the curve on decriminalisation and legalisation.

As for it being a deterrent, it may be for some, but the measure should not be drug use but harm, and what is abundantly clear is that criminalisation drives up crime, and causes substantial harm up to and including large numbers of deaths.

Keeping drugs illegal given the evidence we have of the harm it causes is deeply immoral.

In germany, using drugs is not illegal. Ownling, trading and producing drugs is illegal, though.

Would you mind providing some supporting arguments?