Opiates can have massively positive value and transform people's lives. Addicts include Howard Hughes, an impressive engineer, and Hermann Göring, a rather successful politician and decorated commander. Oxycontin is massively prescribed, and not all of it is going to highly-visible junkies. It's powering lawyers, doctors, engineers, and many other people that derive high value from it and make valued contributions to society.

While not as physically safe as LSD, opiates have essentially no serious long-term health effects other than constipation. The major downside is the highly visible acute respiratory depression after overdose.

Edit: Speed is used by tons of people, and Paul Erdos said it gave him inspiration (though methamphetamine might have more downsides than other amphetamines, similar to how barbiturates are rather outclassed by benzodiazepines - but that's hardly reason to outlaw it). Many artists have used cocaine to their benefit. I'm all for psychedelics, but don't pretend that other medicines don't have plenty of value.

Was Howard Hughes addicted to opiates when he was building/developing most of his things? I was under the impression that addiction only really set in once he became a recluse.

Fair enough, it seems that was after his most productive parts. (The same isn't true for Goering, even if his productivity was in the opposite direction to our preference.) Though part of my point is that it's not just broken junkies using. Opiate treatment can provide positive value to even the richest, most powerful people, and they are not persecuted.

Perhaps another example is Keith Richards, who says heroin helped him and he doesn't regret it (and then, do we measure the positive impact such music has on other people?). Although dipping into artists for drug use is perhaps too easy of examples.

Goerig and Hughes? Hughes became seriously addicted after his plane crash and spent the rest of his life a recluse, no doubt fueled by a combination of drug use and mental illness. This is an individual who wouldn't bathe for weeks (or more) at a time, peeing in bottles and other quite unusual behavior. I think it is fair to say only his enormous wealth shielded him from being a 'broken junkie' as you say.

Goering was forcibly institutionalized for six months due to his morphine addiction. During his institutionalization he was strait-jacketed due to his violent behavior to the staff. He was already a leader of the NASDP that this time, having been injured during the Beer Hall Putsch.

He gained an enormous amount of weight and his behavior was viewed as increasingly bizarre and erratic over the course of his 'career'. He didn't quit until be was forced after his arrest and imprisonment at Nuremberg, where I believe he quickly lost 80-100 pounds.

It is really unclear how either of these individuals represent an example of the positive power of opiates. At best they seem to have managed to hang on despite their addition to opiates.

No comment on Keith Richards :)

The information that I had read years ago was that the ____amphetamines essentially bundled multiple amphetamine molecules into a single molecule for more rapid transit across the blood-brain barrier, and that the non-amphetamine breakdown products were extreme vasoconstrictors and possibly had other neurotoxic effects. This information is extremely dated, but is probably still valid.

They also have an enormous downside compared to the other 'bad drugs' in that they leave you essentially non-functional for 3-24 hours depending on the drug. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of hallucinogens, but essentially all recreational drugs have a downside.

If you mean drugs like LSD leave you unable to work for 8 hours, this is probably true - although it depends what sort of work you are in (heavy machinery is out, painting is probably in). However, the same thing can be said for a day spent in a ski resort with your cellphone left behind.

The term "non-functional" has a pejorative connotation and implies humans have some teleological purpose beyond personal goals and desires. Recreation is subjective; it's not appropriate to call this a 'downside'.

I think it is appropriate to call it such. In all the times I've taken mushrooms I would have been completely unable to respond to an emergency situation. The same with LSD. No other drug I've taken would have left me that incapable, with the exception of extreme amounts of alcohol.

I'm not saying it's not fun or worthwhile, just that hallucinogens leave you impaired in a way other drugs don't.

I would tolerate a statement like "unable to respond to an emergency situation" - although, this varies substantially with the substance, quantity, person, and nature of the emergency. And the recognition that there are plenty of non-pharmacological situations that render you equally unfit for dealing with certain kinds of emergencies - good luck dealing with a back injury while skiing off-piste.

However, throwing out a statement like "drugs make you nonfunctional" does not help the discourse.

Eh... that's relative as well. Some people would argue these "bad drugs" have positive value. And others would argue what you are calling "positive value" is anything but. And in specific cases, all these arguments might be correct.

Hmm... not really, is there any value - medicinal or otherwise - from heroin, crack, meth or cocaine?

Drugs don't have to have positive value to argue for them being legal.

For example, cheap distilled spirits have little or no redeeming value. But it would be more harmful to make that illegal than otherwise. Methamphetamine (Desoxyn) is used to treat obesety and ADHD, and similar treatments for ADHD have similar potential for recreational use/abuse. But the whole Drug War is so harmful, it doesn't matter if there are therapeutic or harmless recreational uses of a drug. It would be less expensive, more effective, and more compassionate to treat addicts than to continue the Drug War, even if more people became addicted.

> Heroin

Palliative care, for one.

> Meth

FDA-approved to treat ADHD and obesity. Lots of people use amphetamines to great effect when working/studying.

> Cocaine

Used as a local anesthetic in nose surgery.

Sorry for being a bit off-topic, but re: heroin for palliative care, I was reminded of The Barbarian Invasions. Just a movie rec for you HN'ers, it's really great (IMHO).

Yes... there certainly is much medicinal value from cocaine and heroin. Which is why they were initially developed... for medical uses.

In addition, one might argue they pick a person up when they want to be up and relax them when they need to relax and abuse, not use is the problem. I'm not saying this argument is correct, but these drugs, like other drugs, have their uses. Which is why people use them.