IMO nothing touches opiates as far as addiction potential goes. That shit becomes as important as food, water, and sex to an opiate hijacked brain.
Still, yes I think they should be completely legal. Legalizing these drugs would completely destroy the black market for these drugs and greatly mitigate deaths from shit like fentanyl and carfentanyl.
Alcohol. Not only is it addictive on a chemical level, it at first becomes associated with the good times (hanging with friends, going out on a date etc), creating a kind of false causal relationship (booze-->good times). Until you are drinking by yourself and the good times are in the past. In moderation though--an absolute blast.
Until you are drinking by yourself and the good times are in the past.
I feel called out right now as I'm drinking my beer.
Huh, I'm the other way around. I drink at parties and celebrations and what, but due to association I don't think I've ever drunk by myself in life.
Water 100%. If you don't drink it for too long, the withdrawal can kill you - but first it will drive you to desperation to feed your addiction. I think we should keep it legal but highly regulated, perhaps by appointing one guy to dole it out at regular intervals.
Nicotine is definitely up there. It should probably be legal, I guess. Cigarettes could definitely be made a little safer by removing all the added chemicals in the tobacco and the combination of accelerants and fire removedants in the paper anyway.
fire removedants in the paper anyway
Is there a way to whitelist words lmao
I cannot believe the programmers of this place fell for the freaking Scun7horpe problem in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2021
there's no reason drugs should be regarded as a criminal issue unless you view the pursuit of pleasure as inherently sinful.
I mean, generally drugs and meds are controlled and criminalized because they are considered dangerous or socially harmful.
Like yes. I don't think Krokodil should be available to 5 year olds. And obviously things like the Opium Wars in China showed that drugs can have disastrous effects. But then we rapidly go down the path when we realise that if we ban, say, Meth, we must also ban alcohol on the same criteria.
There are also a whole bunch of things that are bunch of things that are banned despite being only dangerous to user, like riding a motorbike without a helmet. Furthermore some drug can make some people dangerous to other people and that's not talking about social cost and shit.
Like I know that criminalization is generally a bad idea, but there might be other options than "every drug easily accessible to anyone at any time", right?
and idk maybe a bad take but if someone wants to ride a bike without a helmet, ok, it’s stupid and dangerous and might kill them but if they’re fully informed on the risks and it won’t increase the chance of death for someone else, it’s their life.
See this is we disagree. To me those helmet laws are just good policy. They've been proven to save lives and it's not like people are rotting in jail for unpaid helmet fines.
Well, that's how people usually discuss policy, not an absolute thing but quantitative. Is enjoyment people get from a particular extreme sport worth preventable injuries and death? Is enjoyment people get from not wearing the helmet worth the death? I'd say no to the second question...
I dunno, my knowledge of those particular sports is limited so I'm not necessarily convinced they shouldn't be banned or a least heavily regulated. They are at some places.
Next thing we know people we'll come up with a pricey "riding without helmet" licence that requires people to prove they are an expert bike person or something. I don't really care as long as it decreases the incidence.
it's the very self-destructive behavior that comes with addiction that's the problem, the question is whether or not or to what extent you believe a government should protect individuals from themselves
Addiction potential comes from the interaction between specific person and specific drug. I can pick up and put down opiates, but I stay far the fuck away from amphetamines lol.
To each their own, but opiates/amphetamines/benzodiazepines are the three that come to mind from pharmaceutical sources. Caffeine, nicotine& alcohol reign supreme due to legality/accessibility though probably
Heroin isn't the most addictive drug in terms of speed of addiction (though it's up there) the real kicker is that going off it fucking sucks and can kill you. That's why Methadone is ranked fourth (after Heroin, Cocaine, and Nicotine) on dependency even though it doesn't give much of a high making it pretty hard to become dependent on it if you're not on opiates already.
Fun fact, Alcohol is more addictive than Benzos or Speed.
What’s the most addictive in terms of speed of addiction? Nicotine?
Doesn’t heroin push on the pleasure receptors more than Cocaine or Nicotine? I’ve seen charts that out heroin above everything but nicotine in terms of Addictive properties. Do you have a source? Not saying I don’t believe you, but I’m interested for sure. Sounds cool
My source is my molecular bio and drug physiology subjects, but I can definitely find a source or two (There's a famous Lancet paper ranking drugs on several metrics that should come up in a google search.)
How addictive a drug is down to several factors, like delivery, pleasure response, side effects. Heroin is rarely injected initially, usually snorted or smoked (which slows the curve), has pretty severe side effects (severe nausea being the prime one), is expensive and often only available in relatively limited quantities, isn't a social drug etc.
They should all be legalized, though some should be highly controlled.
genuine question voice What's the difference between doing this & only decriminalizing?
Decriminalizing just means you're not going to put someone in a cage for using it. Keeps the black market running, keeps the drugs easily available to children, incentivises spiking drugs with other drugs (or non- drugs) to improve potency, keeps imprisoning drug dealers, etc.
Legal means it is allowed to be provided to you through legitimate avenues, but that doesn't mean there are no laws around it. Alcohol is legalized but it is lightly controlled - you can't just buy it anywhere, you need to be above a certain age, etc.
Because of the severe effects of certain drugs, the level of control for them should necessarily be higher than for alcohol.
For example, where I live if you're addicted to opiates you can be provided with legal, regular doses free of charge that are titrated to your need. These are administered three times a day in a medical clinic with doctors and nurses, and also with other supports like social workers to make sure your needs are being seen to.
This is one example of a drug being legal, but highly controlled. My argument is not that this specific model is used for all serious drugs, but appropriate controls are decided upon for such drugs.
I'd argue alcohol ought not be as freely available as it is either tbh
Sure, maybe. Depends where you live. Many places have pretty severe controls on alcohol.
I don't have strong feelings about the appropriate level of control for each drug, I think there are a lot of reasonable positions and I'm not an expert. I just know I shouldn't be able to walk into a grocery store and buy some methamphetamines because I'm curious and I've had a bad day.
I agree, though it's hard to root out. I would love to see advertising bans.
Really appreciate you taking the time to go over this, thank you!
Yeah, E on it's own is almost fucking harmless, but crackdowns on production meant they started passing other bullshit off and that killed a lot of people. The right wing press of course prevented any testing kits being made available.
Ditto (non-meth) Speed, which lead to Meth becoming more popular when supply dried up and fucking over the unwary.
Yeah not the best link sorry. It's been a political hot potato for years and kids keep dying at music festivals in the meantime
I'm sorry comrade. Testing (and clean product) should be readily available to all who need it. In a better world, maybe
Thank you! So what would that look like for pharmaceutical drugs that people currently buy illegally & use recreationally?
It would look the same as your uncle who makes moonshine in his basement. Kind of weird, definitely dangerous and pretty unnecessary.
They did a study in portugal. Before they decriminalized everything. They let heroid enthusiasts just use clean safe heroin as they could manage. Like, you could get a dui, but you couldn't be fired for failing a drug test. They made sure they had a constant clean supply with no legal issues and the people managed to be productive members of society. Held down jobs, paid rent, proper citizens.
It's not ideal. But it is far safer than any alternative than has been tried.
Turns out the worst thing about drugs are the cops.
I saw an interesting thing that said it's often not just the drug itself you get addicted to but the problems which you tried to escape with drug use tend not to go away and very likely have gotten worse.
This idea comes from the Rat Park studies which are now pretty much considered to be bad science and not possible to replicate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park#Criticisms
I don't think that disproves the principle though, and I can attest to how different contexts rapidly change my desire to use drugs.
No it was something a meth addict said on a tv show I was watching
Elephant opiate. It’s the painkiller they use to kill pain for elephants during surgery and shit
