Drugs are bad...mmm'kay

[Blog of Reason]

Discussion thread for the blog entry "Drugs are bad...mmm'kay" by rabbitpirate.

Permalink: http://blog.leagueofreason.org.uk/science/drugs-are-bad-mmmkay/

 

[nasher168]

If government policy on science contradicts what the scientists actually say, then perhaps government policy should change...

Oh and on a completely unrelated note 2009 Golden Crocoduck winner Ray Comfort has used a comment from me as the basis of his latest blog post. That's fairly cool"¦in a weird way.

So Comfort has been on the League of Reason, then? He should have posted! I'm sure we would have made him feel most welcome...

 

[rabbitpirate]

So Comfort has been on the League of Reason, then? He should have posted! I'm sure we would have made him feel most welcome...

Alas I don't think this is the case. The comment he used was one I posted on his blog. Byt hey Ray if I am wrong and you do read this blog please let us know.

 

[xman]

I agree that if there is a recommending body which includes scientists that government should listen to them. This rarely happens with regards to drugs though.

I have always seen the soft drugs as largely harmless, but in her recent video ZOMGitsCriss offers a compelling reason to legalise even the hard drugs.

.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Ecstasy and marijuana are objectively harmful, so let's not pretend otherwise. Drugs ARE bad, and claiming otherwise or playing some sort of weird relativism game doesn't carry much weight with me, since it looks like you're just playing the same propaganda game from the other direction.

Because drugs ARE bad from a medical standpoint, the way that society deals with drugs and especially with drug users needs to be dealt with in a way that fits the medical and social harms. I'm not even slightly convinced that legalization is a good idea, but the way the government plays politics with the issue seems to be based on even worse ideas.

 

[derkvanl]

Living in the Netherlands I can say that our "legalization" of marihuana has done more good than bad. The reason why I put it between the quotes, is because it's not legalized here in the right way. It's been a way of tolerance that grew out to the coffeeshop culture we have here now. It might sound crazy to a lot of foreigners, but here you can still go to a coffeeshop and buy some weed, like someone else would go to a bar for a drink.

The politics however are still making it impossible to have a good legalized cannabis culture. There's quite some trouble, because they tolerate the coffeeshops on one hand, but on the other, they are officially not allowed to grow nor buy their stock. Our politics made it's own troublefull grey area of where they tolerate use and sale in public and on the other hand try to bust the market behind it and not allowing anyone in the Netherlands to legally grow marihuana in order to supply the coffeeshops. Professional growth is taken down by police daily.

When I started to smoke weed about 20 years ago it was a whole different story. You went to some house dealer or a bar with a dealer where you were allowed to smoke and bought some weed. If you would need something else, the same guy could provide you with it. If a 14 year old kid would ask him, he would sell it. 20 years ago here was quite some time, with the coming of acid, gabber house, club scenes and a lot of raves. It actually got out of hand, anyone really could buy anything those times.

About 18-15 years ago a more "healthy" environment, on the case of softdrugs, arose and the coffeeshops also came to the smaller towns and where quite good regulated. They regulated age to 18 (ID mandatory) and above and keeping this very strict it really made things better. The coffeeshops sticked to selling weed and hash, NO alcohol, NO other drugs. The prices where fair, the quality was good. Other benefits also came because the house and bardealers where not a necessity no more and allthough there are still some left, 99% of the people here get there weed from a regular public coffeeshop. The coffeeshops also got limited on what they could sell per person every day (5 grams per customer maximum) and limited to what they where allowed to have behind the counter (500 grams) in stock.

Countries around us have their own drug policy. They don't tolerate drugs, allthough in Germany and Belgium you don't get hunted down, when you get caugh just having some weed (like smoking in public), you 'll probably get a night in jail and some fines. This policy causes a lot of troubles in our border area, where there are/where BIG coffeeshops, because of the foreign market. You can imagine (or can't) coffeeshops in bordertowns having up to 5000 customers a day, selling up to 10 kg every day.

As an example: You still have a lot of drugrunners (Belgium / French here) that "do the groceries" in an aggressive way for the tourists that come from there, they drive aggresively, make profit on what they sell to others, not only sell weed. Picture people coming from a country where weed is mostly illegal being chased on the highway by the drugrunners that aggressively try to sell their stuff before the others reach a coffeeshop. It caused / causes a lot of trouble, accidents, police chases, under influence driving. That combined with the big coffeeshops in bordertowns that attract a lot of people and tourists has quite gone out of hand.

Only now, we are now stuck with a government that blames the coffeeshops for the problems there are. It's not the shops that causes the problem. Shops actually stick to the rules very very well (Way better than most bars here, where you can drink even when you are under 16). The police isn't used to deal with the problems, but are used to make it harder for coffeeshops to exist. A coffeeshop here gets closed 6 months after 1 offence and for good on the second. It also means that if someone 17 years old on the streat near a coffeeshop gets caught with weed from that shop it's closed, if it has more than 500 grams behind the counter it gets closed. There have been police actions that followed coffeeshop employees to the places where the stash was, just to raid it out. People who bought something in a coffeeshop to take it home, where caught 20 meters from the door with the excuse "you can only smoke it in the shop, you're not allowed to bring it anywhere" and so on, I can give dozens of examples of how the dutch government and police fucked up a system that has more benefits than making it illegal. It's just a matter of time here before the housedealers and bardealers are on the streets again, with absolutely no control of what they sell and who they sell it to.

I'm pro-legalizing and I think that all drugs should be legalized. Alcohol and tobacco are still legal. Didn't we learn from America's attempt to ban all alcohol long ago. It didn't work. People will allways find something to "get out of this world"

Legalize it. Educate the people.

 

[suzybrown]

If government policy on science contradicts what the scientists actually say, then perhaps government policy should change...

This is really the problem -- not legalization or decriminalization -- its that the Gov't is picking & chosing what scientific research it will accept & legislate!

That is a slippery slope!!

 

[Josan]

Ecstasy and marijuana are objectively harmful, so let's not pretend otherwise. Drugs ARE bad, and claiming otherwise or playing some sort of weird relativism game doesn't carry much weight with me, since it looks like you're just playing the same propaganda game from the other direction.

Because drugs ARE bad from a medical standpoint, the way that society deals with drugs and especially with drug users needs to be dealt with in a way that fits the medical and social harms. I'm not even slightly convinced that legalization is a good idea, but the way the government plays politics with the issue seems to be based on even worse ideas.

Just out of interest, what's your thoughts on the current status of alcohol and tobacco?

 

[borrofburi]

Obviously, we skeptics should side with scientific evidence.

Also, we were on a weird wave length there for a whole paragraph. I read that sentence "he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy" and did a double-take, then thought of a response, and then proceeded to read that you had already written it all >.>

But I'll come down directly and say: we, as skeptics, should absolutely side with science.

 

[psychointegrator]

Ecstasy and marijuana are objectively harmful, so let's not pretend otherwise. Drugs ARE bad, and claiming otherwise or playing some sort of weird relativism game doesn't carry much weight with me, since it looks like you're just playing the same propaganda game from the other direction.

Because drugs ARE bad from a medical standpoint, the way that society deals with drugs and especially with drug users needs to be dealt with in a way that fits the medical and social harms. I'm not even slightly convinced that legalization is a good idea, but the way the government plays politics with the issue seems to be based on even worse ideas.

Define "bad," if you will.
What do you mean by drugs?
What do you mean by objectively harmful?
They "can" be subjectively harmful and objectively harmful but they also can be the exact opposite.
To say something is objectively harmful says so little that you MUST provide more information.
Water is harmful. I suppose it would fit into subjective only, however, more people have died from drinking water than from using cannabis (not including the laws which punish for them). Since, you know, no one has died from cannabis.

Please provide some research to back up your claims.

If it is shown that sports, recreation, food choices, lifestyles, religion, etc. are equal to or worse than "drug" use, are you then going to handle them in the same way?

Are you aware that professional football (silly sport) for example causes significant brain damage?


Please support everything you are stating as I already have sources and common sense which refute every single claim you make within reason. MDMA does have a VERY minor negative, which is quite negligible in the real world.


It's embarrassing how well propaganda, close-mindedness, politics and religious-faith conditioned societies minds are immune to critical thinking in part or whole.



** Ah, it was saving this message. I kept on hitting submit and it updated each time.

 

[Nogre]

That status quo in public policy has nothing to do with what stance I take on individual issues. They dictate my actions, but not my views by any means. So I side with science. I'm curious. Why would we side with public policy over science in any question of fact?

The question I think needs to be asked with drugs is "Are they harmful to people that aren't making the choice to use them?" Based on that, you can make a strong case against alcohol (driving/domestic violence), at least for hard liquor. The case against anything involving smoke is also very strong because second-hand smoke is a huge problem and exceedingly annoying. I don't care that much if people want to destroy their bodies, but with smoking, I end up breathing in that crap way more than I'd ever want to just because of second-hand smoke. I'm not entirely sure what other arguments you could make against drugs in this case or whether this would be enough, but that's the extent of the domestic issues as far as I've explored the topic.

Beyond this question, I think you have to take a really serious look at the global consequences of whether drugs are legal or not. The entirety of Latin and South America are majorly screwed up by drug cartels largely because of the black markets for drugs in the US and Europe. Legalizing those drugs that these crime organizations make money on would cut their markets out from under them, and go a long way towards reducing the corruptioin in that part of the world. This needs to be considered against the domestic issues in making this decision. My opinion as of now is for legalization because I have yet to see any persuasive evidence that first world countries would suffer more from legalizing these drugs than the harm they prevent by cutting the legs out from under global drug crime.

 

[Eidolon]

I just want to state my opinion.

I have always been against the legalization of drugs outside of legitimate medical research and implementation. So I am very much against the legalization of marijuana and all other drugs. I know that marijuana is much safer as far as drugs go in comparison to alcohol and tobacco, but my opinion is that all intoxicants should be banned including booze and smokes. Drugs have no benefits outside of medical treatment, its well documented and understood. Smoking causes more health problems than any other activity aside of shooting oneself, and alcohol has adverse social effects when consumed even mildly, and severe health effects when consumed heavily. And while marijuana is less dangerous than both of these "legal" intoxicants, I believe that the problem lies not with the politics of drugs, but with the drugs themselves. All drugs need to be rid from society, either through the law, or humans actually being smart about things and not doing them to begin with. However, Since the majority of people are complete fucktards in the most honest sense of the word, we cannot rely on society to make the right choices. So the only practical option is to remove drugs from society through law. I know its not a perfect method for dealing with it, but its the only thing that can be done. General society is just too stupid to make right decisions on its own. Its needs guidance from authority like a child needs guidance from a parent. But if the law is going to take a stance against any drug, it needs to stand against all drugs. Hypocrisy and double standards are the worst enemy of logic and the spirit of law.

This is just my opinion. I have always hated drugs, smoking drinking and general douche baggery so I am very much against legalizing any of it.

 

[borrofburi]

my opinion is that all intoxicants should be banned including booze and smokes.

Do some research on the prohibition era and get back to me (but hey, at least you're consistent).

However, Since the majority of people are complete fucktards in the most honest sense of the word, we cannot rely on society to make the right choices. So the only practical option is to remove drugs from society through law. I know its not a perfect method for dealing with it, but its the only thing that can be done. General society is just too stupid to make right decisions on its own. Its needs guidance from authority like a child needs guidance from a parent.

This is the root of the end of freedom and the rise of totalitarianism: the idea that some people know what's best for everyone. Freedom means the ability to choose incorrectly.

 

[xman]

It should be pointed out that moderate consumption of beer and wine can be beneficial to one's health and that Marijuana is prescribed for chronic injury pain and glaucoma. Over consumption of any of these and other substances can be very harmful and smoking is just bad for you no matter what you're smoking.

Isn't recreation a benefit?

Although I am emotionally against decrimanilisation of hard drugs, having seen what harm they can do, if there is compelling evidence that decriminalising reduces the harm to society and individuals I am forced to reconsider my opinion in light of the evidence.

 

[Eidolon]

This is the root of the end of freedom and the rise of totalitarianism: the idea that some people know what's best for everyone. Freedom means the ability to choose incorrectly.

No, its a way of preserving it. People have the right to fuck up yes, but when a certain fuck up is known and a method to prevent said fuck up is available, then implementing it is not a lose of freedom, but a gain because that fuck up which would normally have been detrimental if allowed to go its normal course, is now no longer an issue. Think of law as a vaccination for stupidity. Granted, its not "freedom" to have a pathogen injected in you, but having an MMR shot keeps you from contracting something that would be very detrimental. Having a law to prevent stupidity is like having a vaccine against it. If its known that certain activities are harmful, then a law prohibiting them is simply a way to keep those activities from becoming an issue. Now granted, it doesn't always work, same with a vaccine, but the benefits of society not having to deal with stupid, ignorant fuck ups, heavily out weigh the small lose of choice in the matter.

(I know the vaccine analogy is probably not the best one, but its the best I could come up with at the moment)

I agree, the issue comes to a point in saying "when is too much too much" how much law can be used before it becomes totalitarian? Well there is no straight answer, that is why its law and not logic, but an issue like drugs isn't that much of a grey area. Drugs are bad, laws to prevent bad things are good, ergo laws banning drugs are good.

 

[borrofburi]

Oh and on a completely unrelated note 2009 Golden Crocoduck winner Ray Comfort has used a comment from me as the basis of his latest blog post. That's fairly cool"¦in a weird way.

Huh, the people on that blog ripped him to shreds... One point I didn't see made is that not only is there plenty more evidence for the sun than there is for god, but also the sun lacking intelligence means it necessarily can't be malicious, but god being ascribed as intelligence *can* be designated as malicious.

 

[psychointegrator]

I just want to state my opinion.
I have always been against the legalization of drugs outside of legitimate medical research and implementation. So I am very much against the legalization of marijuana and all other drugs. I know that marijuana is much safer as far as drugs go in comparison to alcohol and tobacco, but my opinion is that all intoxicants should be banned including booze and smokes.

Hail!
People get high from doing dangerous things.
Shall that be banned as well?
Love makes us crazy as a result of chemicals. Lets make that illegal.

Drugs have no benefits outside of medical treatment, its well documented and understood. Smoking causes more health problems than any other activity aside of shooting oneself, and alcohol has adverse social effects when consumed even mildly, and severe health effects when consumed heavily.

It is not well documented and understood that they have no value outside of medical treatment.
Please back up your claims. I am feeling a bit disheartened to see so many stating all of these dangers which are not accurate.

Smoking -- sure, it's the worst route usually.
That's why there is the option to vaporize. They have e-cigs and vaporizers for cannabis. The DEA loves to only use "SMOKE" in conjunction with cannabis to proclaim harm. They use the negatives that come from smoking to villianize cannabis itself, which is disengenous. Then, there is the fact that smoking cannabis isn't all that harmful in the first place compared to that of smoking tabacco.

Have you read any material on the benefits of drugs outside of medical treatment other than ones that deal with addiction?
Which books? Which drugs?

And while marijuana is less dangerous than both of these "legal" intoxicants, I believe that the problem lies not with the politics of drugs, but with the drugs themselves.

All drugs need to be rid from society, either through the law, or humans actually being smart about things and not doing them to begin with.

We have reached a point where your use of drugs is creating an obstacle.
What do you mean by drugs?
Are you seriously saying that NN DMT+MAOI is a problem and that it is the problem?

However, Since the majority of people are complete fucktards in the most honest sense of the word, we cannot rely on society to make the right choices.

The citizens of the US have not heard the truth from the government on drugs for something like 30+ years.

So the only practical option is to remove drugs from society through law. I know its not a perfect method for dealing with it, but its the only thing that can be done. General society is just too stupid to make right decisions on its own. Its needs guidance from authority like a child needs guidance from a parent. But if the law is going to take a stance against any drug, it needs to stand against all drugs. Hypocrisy and double standards are the worst enemy of logic and the spirit of law.

Are you familiar with the outcome of your mentality?
Look at the war on drugs results on the USA and Mexico.
The unscientific and irrational laws which make cannabis (for example) worth so much are the ones that turns thugs into rather wealthy and powerful chaps.

Example:
Police in Mexico find private zoo at drug cartel's party house
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/3229098/Police-in-Mexico-find-private-zoo-at-drug-cartels-party-house.html

There have been worries from the border patrol that if cannabis was legal in Mexico it would create a drug tourist economy. As in, people going to Mexico to party.
What do we have now?
Thousands dying. Which includes beheadings and nonstop violence.
Have you looked at any of these stats?

This is just my opinion. I have always hated drugs, smoking drinking and general douche baggery so I am very much against legalizing any of it.

I understand that its your opinion but you are for what is destroying so many lives for reasons which are not supported by science or reasonable freedom of choice.

 

[borrofburi]

Hail!
People get high from doing dangerous things.
Shall that be banned as well?
Love makes us crazy as a result of chemicals. Lets make that illegal..

You forgot about eating unhealthy foods, so we should lock people up for eating unhealthily. Also, we should ban most unhealthy foods, especially candy.

my opinion is that all intoxicants should be banned including booze and smokes.

Do some research on the prohibition era and get back to me (but hey, at least you're consistent).

 

[ImprobableJoe]

It's embarrassing how well propaganda, close-mindedness, politics and religious-faith conditioned societies minds are immune to critical thinking in part or whole.

Yeah, and since I'm so embarrassed for you because of how you are close minded to the negatives of drug use, because of the pro-drug propaganda that you've embraced, I think I'll ignore your unseemly demands for information that you clearly aren't interested in knowing about. :facepalm:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Just out of interest, what's your thoughts on the current status of alcohol and tobacco?

My thought is that the question leads down irrelevant paths that bore the pure living shit out of me. :lol:

Seriously, it always leads to stupid people pointing out the harms of some things, while claiming that the harmful things they love are perfectly harmless... like drugs for example. Druggies love claiming that THEIR drugs are perfectly fine, and other drugs are evil and bad. Anyone who claims that alcohol is harmful as a defense of their own drug use is being rather foolish.

I used to smoke and drink, but I don't anymore. At no point did I lie to myself and others about the safety of it, the way people lie about their illegal drug use. And since I'm not an addict, if those things were made illegal I'd get the fuck over it, because getting high or drunk is only important to addicts and losers.