April 25, 2012 at 3:04 am
david.wright-948385 (4/25/2012)
With alcohol you end up with a hangover, cumulative damage to your liver, maybe some cuts and bruises and a few thousand dead brain cells. With some drugs you end up with an altered personality. Neither are good, but surely the latter is worse?
You're massively underestimating the issues alcohol causes there. How many people die every year from alcohol--either directly, due to liver problems or just having an accident while drunk, or due to being mown down by drunk drivers? I'd also say that the heavy drinker's personality will often change while they're under the influence. It's this that makes alcohol worse than heroin in Professor Nutt's analysis, I think, because drunks cause much more damage to other people than they do to themselves!
April 25, 2012 at 3:14 am
david.wright-948385 (4/25/2012)
We have a problem in the UK with binge drinking - in effect drinking until you drop. Just about all age groups are affected. Alcohol is legal, so it's possible to do that. It's (a) difficult and (b) expensive to do the same with drugs.
It's not difficult to get very wasted on drugs, I've seen it a lot. And many of them are actually much cheaper then alcohol, precisely because they're illegal and untaxed. I went through my experimental stage when I was young, don't touch anything but booze now, but I know from people who do and articles in the papers that the prices are pretty much the same as they were 20 years ago, a considerable drop in real terms, and they were already cheaper then booze when I was at college (part of their appeal, it has to be said).
April 25, 2012 at 3:29 am
So in a legalised system the price of the legal stuff is going to be higher because of tax. But supply and demand means cheaper (tax free) stuff will still be there and there'll be a market there for it simply because it's cheaper. In fact the illegal market could be enhanced because the higher price of the legal stuff will allow them to raise their prices, and hence profits. Minimum prices go up a bit overall, but the supply is improved, so the ability to get wasted is pretty much unchanged. Legalisation just make it easier for those who can afford it, or who don't have access to an illegal supply. If legalised drugs aren't taxed, the black market will disappear, but demand will increase due to increased availability. Somewhere in between you still lose the black market and gain tax, but you increase availability and only slightly increase cost.
April 25, 2012 at 3:37 am
david.wright-948385 (4/25/2012)
So in a legalised system the price of the legal stuff is going to be higher because of tax. But supply and demand means cheaper (tax free) stuff will still be there and there'll be a market there for it simply because it's cheaper. In fact the illegal market could be enhanced because the higher price of the legal stuff will allow them to raise their prices, and hence profits. Minimum prices go up a bit overall, but the supply is improved, so the ability to get wasted is pretty much unchanged. Legalisation just make it easier for those who can afford it, or who don't have access to an illegal supply. If legalised drugs aren't taxed, the black market will disappear, but demand will increase due to increased availability. Somewhere in between you still lose the black market and gain tax, but you increase availability and only slightly increase cost.
If you legalise them with a high tax, then yes, that would happen. If I were doing it I would set the initial tax level so that the price matched the current market. The prime aim has to be to destroy the black market. Then you gradually raise it a few pence a year. That is what we do with alcohol and tobacco in the UK, and there is no substantial black market in either. Both are considerably more expensive then they were twenty years ago (over 200% in the case of cigarettes.)
As for people not having access to illegal drugs.... Where is that true? Certainly not in London, or pretty much anywhere else in the UK. Can't believe it's much different in the states. Prohibition has completely failed to restrict the supply of illegal drugs. They are incredibly easy for anyone to get hold of.
April 25, 2012 at 4:05 am
Freddie-304292 (4/25/2012)If you legalise them with a high tax, then yes, that would happen. If I were doing it I would set the initial tax level so that the price matched the current market. The prime aim has to be to destroy the black market. Then you gradually raise it a few pence a year. That is what we do with alcohol and tobacco in the UK, and there is no substantial black market in either. Both are considerably more expensive then they were twenty years ago (over 200% in the case of cigarettes.)
As for people not having access to illegal drugs.... Where is that true? Certainly not in London, or pretty much anywhere else in the UK. Can't believe it's much different in the states. Prohibition has completely failed to restrict the supply of illegal drugs. They are incredibly easy for anyone to get hold of.
You know anyone who does home brew?
As soon as you legalise, you increase the number of people using. Instead of sneaking around in the local bar/pub, you pop round the corner to the local drug dive. No more looking over your shoulder or dumping your gear when the old bill turn up.
Prohibition isn't a complete success, but it isn't a complete failure either.
April 25, 2012 at 4:14 am
I have to assume, David, that you think the entire population of the Netherlands (where cannabis has been legal for something approaching 20 years now) are out of their heads on it all the time. Is this actually the case? All the information I can find suggest usage rates among young people in that country are actually about average, and in fact are LOWER than in most other European countries--doesn't seem to square with your idea that legalisation automatically leads to an increase in usage.
April 25, 2012 at 4:44 am
April 25, 2012 at 4:59 am
The British example you cite fails to point out that specially-licensed medical practitioners are still allowed to prescribe heroin to addicts, even today--the problem in the 60s was that any GP could do it, and many (especially in the London area) did so without much care for the people they were giving it to. Plus, of course, the rate of drug taking in the 60s massively increased in all countries, not just the UK; the overly-eager prescription certainly aggravated the problem, but it didn't create the massive boom in drug-taking all by itself. Lastly, the actual number of heroin addicts in the UK in 1960 was in the low hundreds, so any sort of increase would be very large in percentage terms!
April 25, 2012 at 5:12 am
paul.knibbs (4/25/2012)
The British example you cite fails to point out that specially-licensed medical practitioners are still allowed to prescribe heroin to addicts, even today--the problem in the 60s was that any GP could do it, and many (especially in the London area) did so without much care for the people they were giving it to.
I can't see legalised drug outlets caring who they sell to.
paul.knibbs (4/25/2012)Plus, of course, the rate of drug taking in the 60s massively increased in all countries, not just the UK; the overly-eager prescription certainly aggravated the problem, but it didn't create the massive boom in drug-taking all by itself.
That's difficult to prove either way, but it would be difficult to argue that it made no contribution at all.
paul.knibbs (4/25/2012)Lastly, the actual number of heroin addicts in the UK in 1960 was in the low hundreds, so any sort of increase would be very large in percentage terms!
I find that very difficult to believe: I'd be interested in your sources on that one. In my experience drug use in the 60's was pandemic. It was the done thing. It was celebrated. It was normal. Also there seems to be come inconsistency here... above you said:
the overly-eager prescription certainly aggravated the problem.
April 25, 2012 at 5:33 am
No inconsistency at all...I said the number of heroin addicts in 1960 (not the 60s as a whole) was in the low hundreds. Therefore, assuming that increased to a few thousand over the next seven years, that would be an enormous percentage increase even though the actual number of addicts was still relatively low. (I believe the equivalent figures for 2011 show there were more than 50,000 heroin and crack addicts undergoing treatment in England alone, so it's a worse problem today even though the law is stricter than it was in the 60s).
April 25, 2012 at 5:50 am
and my other points?
April 25, 2012 at 6:01 am
If you mean, my sources, this is a good one:
http://www.drugslibrary.stir.ac.uk/documents/heroinpapers.pdf
Your other two points seem to be a matter of opinion, and note I never said that the prescription had *no* effect on the number of addicts, merely that it couldn't be taken in isolation and assumed to be the entire reason for it--especially since the same policy had been in place for 30 years before 1960 without any noticeable increase in addiction levels.
April 25, 2012 at 6:38 am
I love the fact that a discussion about Facebook has morphed into an argument about legalizing heroin. Somehow, it feels completely sequitur.
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April 25, 2012 at 6:57 am
Legal outlets would be just as indescriminate in who they sell to, if not more so.
You haven't addressed the European drug policy link, which shows increasign use in NL.
There is no evidence that the overall effects of drug use will be any better with a legalised system even though it has been given plenty of chance to succeed. There is evidence that use will increase and hence the effect will increase.
Sure, illegal activity will reduce because it will no longer be illegal, but is a reduced effect on those willing to break the law enough to justify the effect of the increased number of law abiding users?
Like I said: the current system isn't perfect, but legalising isn't proven to be any better.
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