Drug

From RationalWiki

Drugs are natural or synthetic chemicals that affect biochemical processes in living organisms. They differ from food in that food usually tastes better.

Drugs are generally divided into two categories - the ones your mother gives you (which don't do anything at all), and the ones a hookah-smoking caterpillar offers you (and you know you're going to fall).^[1] The latter are frequently illegal, or at least heavily regulated.

Drugs are bad, m'kay? Just say no. Or, say yes, but only if you're really bored.^[2]

Contents 1 Drug liberalization 1.1 In practice 1.2 Against liberalization 2 Examples 2.1 From (or for) mommy 2.2 From da caterpillar 2.3 From the corner store 2.4 From within 3 See also 4 Footnotes

[edit] Drug liberalization

"Drug liberalization" refers to elimination of laws prohibiting the sale or consumption of drugs. More realistically, the legal changes come in the form of relaxation of laws, or at least relaxation of the enforcement of the laws, or expansion of special cases. Such examples are when marijuana was reduced from "Class B" to "Class C" in the UK, or in parts of the US where it has been legalized for medical use.^[3] Arguments presented on behalf of drug liberalization are:

• Consumption of non-lethal or semi-lethal drugs in limited quantity is not harmful; thus, complete prohibition of drugs does not make sense.
• Consumption of non-lethal or semi-lethal drugs in limited quantity is a personal matter, i.e., what you stick into your own body is your business; thus, State interference in that matter is a violation of property rights.
• Legalization will expand the legal, taxed economy.

[edit] In practice

Whether total legalization would work in practice is certainly unknown, research into what effect laws have show only that drug use (or misuse) isn't simply correlated with how stringent the laws are.^[4][5] Even in places like Amsterdam, long reported as being excessively liberal on drugs, drugs aren't encouraged or fully legalized.^[6] Actual double-blind and controlled experiments to see if such a system would work are practically non-existent, mostly because the entire concept of legalization is opposed from the start by social conservatives. Given a lack of the ability to "experiment" with this sort of idea, we can look at historical perspectives for a comparison. A few hundred years ago, in Victorian England, opium based drugs were fully legal and often quite socially accepted and even encouraged.^[7][8] Of course, such a system didn't "destroy the world". However, drug addictions, including alcoholism (time restrictions on alcohol sales weren't introduced until the First World War, a few decades after this time), were much, much higher in the current era. This is very contrary to claims made by proponents of the War on Drugs, who try to pass on the message that "things are worse than ever".

The - mostly libertarian - idea that if currently illegal drugs would "self-regulate"^[9][10] if legalized may be on shaky ground. Alcohol and cigarettes are most certainly legal in most parts of the world, but these in no way have, overall, self-regulated into light, recreational use - most likely because excessive drinking and smoking kills you slowly.

[edit] Against liberalization

Most arguments against liberalization revolve around variants of "drugs are bad, m'kay?". That said, the idea of chemical addiction to certain drugs does take away the choice of the user to do drugs, replacing the choice with an uncontrollable instinct - removing the informed consent of the drug intake. If drug use was always a conscious and informed choice, as is the mostly conservative belief, then rehab centers would either A) not be needed of B) have a much higher success rate. Chemical addictions can be developed very easily and quickly with drugs such as nicotine (tobacco). Thus the left-wing argument against legalization is that a government, with a duty to protect its citizens, should protect it against these dangers by keeping the drugs illegal and the public informed of their dangers.

[edit] Examples

A few well known drugs include:

[edit] From (or for) mommy

• Cough syrup (particularly ones containing codeine)
• CiaL1s
• V1agra
• Midol
• Pro!zac
• R1talin

[edit] From da caterpillar

• Cocaine
• Codeine
• Heroin
• LSD
• Marijuana
• Methamphetamine
• Methaqualone
• Peyote
• Magic mushrooms

[edit] From the corner store

• Alcohol (Beer)
• Caffeine
• Ephedrine
• Tobacco
• Purported legal highs

[edit] From within

• Adrenaline
• Meditation
• Endorphins^[11]
• DMT^[12]

[edit] See also

• War on Drugs
• Medical marijuana
• Portugal (which has decriminalised all personal drug use)

[edit] Footnotes

1. ↑ Apologies and thanks to Jefferson Airplane and Grace Slick, White Rabbit.
2. ↑ Okay, actually, don't. They're usually not worth it and quite overpriced.
3. ↑ Although growing it, even for this purpose, remains an offense at the Federal level.
4. ↑ PLoS Medicine: Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys
5. ↑ Eric W. Single - The Impact of Marijuana Decriminalization
6. ↑ World66 - Drugs
7. ↑ Victorian Substance Abuse
8. ↑ BBC - Sex, Drugs and Music Hall
9. ↑ This view was sort-of espoused on Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, where they claimed that people who were dumb enough to go overboard on drugs would die off, almost like a form of natural selection, leaving only the people capable of doing it in safe moderation.
10. ↑ You could possibly refer to this as "Libertarian Eugenics"
11. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on endorphin.
12. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Dimethyltryptamine.