If we really wanted to stamp out drug use, we'd be putting the consumers in jail. We'd stop showing drug use as funny and urbane on television and in the movies.

"Heavens to Betsy! We can't put Junior in jail for smoking a joint!" As a result, Junior's dealer goes to prison and Junior goes to rehab; he "has a disease."

While I applaud the effort to avoid stigmatizing addicts by labelling addiction a "disease," I don't think it's having the effect we wanted it to have. I've seen addicts continue to use and bemoan their "disease" as if casual use without any attempt to stop is an inevitable result of having this "disease."

We did the same thing during Prohibition. We set the machinery of government agents the suppliers, not the users. In doing so, we unleashed a massive wave of corruption and violence. Meanwhile, usage continued unabated.

Perhaps it's time we ask ourselves how serious we are about stamping out drug use. After all, we sit in theaters and at home and laugh as Cheech and Chong or Harold and Kumar toke up. We chuckle when Spiccololi and his Vans-clad friends emerge from the smoke-clouded van or the How I Met Your Mother dad tells his future kids about the "sandwiches" he and his friends consumed in his latest far-too-risque-for-the-kids story.

Perhaps if Hollywood didn't keep giving us the wink-wink-nudge-nudge that drugs are cool, we'd believe those "The More You Know" PSAs that stars of drugs-glorifying shows put out.

So, either Junior goes to jail for smoking a joint or snorting a line or we admit we're not really serious about stopping illicit drug use.

We spend $35 billion a year and we've made nary a dent in the supply of drugs because the demand continues and where there's a demand, there will always be a supply.

As Taleb would say, the drug trade is anti-fragile. The more you beat it up, the stronger it gets.

Prohibitionists do the only thing they know how to do, and just keep strengthening the drug trade by doing so.

Prohibition is the province of evil losers anyway. No one can have the imaginary "authority" to ban what someone else ingests or sells. Only evil losers (such as politicians or those who fawn over such vermin) would imagine they do.

https://www.kentforliberty.com/drugs.html

Conan: So you want to "protect" drug users by throwing them in jail, and making it impossible for them ever to get a good job. Or have you simply forgotten the original goal?

But that's not as bad as actual government agents. Any time we allow them to protect adults from themselves, you will find them harming and even killing the people who disrespected their authority. Denatured alcohol - ethanol with poisons added to discourage drinking it - existed before Prohibition, as a way to exempt ethanol for industrial purposes from the taxes on alcoholic beverages. But when good booze was banned and drinkers began to look for ways to filter out the poison, the Prohibitionists used more and more deadly poisons. Heroin prohibitionists have long argued for restricting access to sterile hypodermic needles, so addicts will die from infections. Marijuana prohibitionists sprayed poison on suspected pot plantations. All prohibitionists work to ensure no one can tell what's really in black market drugs and liquor...

And that's in an open, democratic society, where voters might toss out politicians who "protected" their children by jailing and poisoning them when they find out about it. In a really authoritarian society, often the rulers DO execute drug users. This is not about protecting anyone, but just rage at those that disobey the arbitrary dictates of their masters.

No, MarkM. I'm not advocating executing anyone. I'd rather drug use was legal and regulated. Spend that $35 billion on rehab and education instead of interdiction and up-armoring our police departments.

We're not serious about banning drugs. We pretend to be. We spend a small fortune on interdiction - in other countries. But we do nothing to dent the demand in this country. And, yes, if being busted for drug use carried the penalty of limiting one's socio-economic prospects later, perhaps some potential users might be dissuaded.

We want to fight the Mexicans and Colombians to get them to stop sending us drugs, but we won't fight out own users. We won't stop using them, or portraying the use of them as fodder in our movies and television shows.

Bogata cynics snark that the US will fight the drug war to the last Colombian; and they're not wrong. We're fighting them, but they're just answering our demand.

On the other hand, the problem with regulating legal drug usage is, as California and Colorado are demonstrating, the government loves to tax vices and, by doing so, prices drugs out of reach of too many users, thus encouraging the continuation of the black market with its violence and corruption.

It's helpful to distinguish when you're promoting drug legalization. Do you mean to include drugs like heroin and methamphetamine? If not, you really just want a few less potent and addictive 'social' drugs, like marijuana, legalized. It's special pleading for the drugs you and your friends like.

Also it's apparent that legalization does fund criminal enterprises. California's experience demonstrates this. Illegal dealers compete on price and the opportunity to upsell customers to other drugs. The legal climate makes it much easier and less costly for them to operate and they leverage that advantage accordingly.

You've got to be careful when repeating the claims of drug legalization advocates because they will lie reflexively and promote all sorts of outcomes that are conjectures at best. Again California's experience has demonstrated this.

Marijuana is the first area where the drug warriors are having to retreat, but it won't be the last. The war on pain patients is much more harmful. Opioids need to become available to adults over the counter. And it will happen for the same reason that marijuana legalization is happening -- because courageous people on juries are increasingly refusing to convict anyone for these so-called crimes.

And yes, the fact that nullification is necessary is a very bad sign for the country. But the alternatives are worse.

Don't even worry about rehab Conan. It doesn't work. A complete waste of money. Look up the recidivism rates. It is just a ways for people (especially judges) to say they did something. Didn't have to be something effective, just something.

"And, yes, if being busted for drug use carried the penalty of limiting one's socio-economic prospects later, perhaps some potential users might be dissuaded."

But that's already the case. There are whole sectors of the economy you can't work in if you have a drug conviction, and that's continuing to expand due to the fact that criminal records are one of the few pieces of information that an employer can use to evaluate applicants. None of that has dissuaded any users.

We tried busting the users back in the '80s. It didn't work and it went off the rails really fast, with people having to defend themselves from stuff like sesame seeds that fell off of the bun of the Big Mac that they ate in the car. We got bogus / poorly designed "drug field kits" and "drug sniffing" (read: cued by officers) dogs from that, as well as "I smelled marijuana" becoming the officer's all-purpose bypass of the Fourth Amendment.

It's time to take a step back and figure out what we're trying to accomplish. Addicts are addicts, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, short of a major breakthrough in neurochemistry. As Ben points out, rehab has a near-zero success rate for people who are sentenced to it. (It does have a fairly good success rate for people who check in voluntarily, but first an addict has to get to the point where they are willing to make a commitment. Many of them never get to that point.) The goal should be to limit the number of new addicts. How we accomplish that, I'm not sure.

CD, you're making my point for me.

We're not serious about the so-called Drug War. The Drug War is not about rehab. It's not about whether former addicts can get jobs.

If rehabilitation of addicts is what we want, then let's go after that and stop pretending we're fighting a War on Drugs. Let's rethink what we're getting for our $35 billion a year.

Currently, we're creating militarized police forces, we're turning normally law-abiding suburbanites into felons, we're breeding a contempt for the law into citizens that would normally be the bulwark of the law-and-order voting bloc, and we're not solving any addiction problems. This will not end well.

"It's special pleading for the drugs you and your friends like."

And if you can't discern the difference between marijuana, heroin, and methampetamine, you're too stupid to vote and should be sent to a work camp.

Honestly. We need the leafy greens. Here's a sun hat. Get going.

It's like a lot of things Gog. Someone made a bad decision some time ago or even a decision that was the best at the time but times have changed, and instead of reassessing things on the merits people are dependent on the methods implemented and the old decision continues due to inertia.

By all current medical science Tylenol should be banned. If it was a new drug it would never pass the current FDA requirements. But it was passed long ago and rather than admit the mistake it continues to be grandfathered in.

"CD, you're making my point for me."

Well, the point I'm making is that the drug war is over, and drugs won. Continuing to fight is is like certain Southerners who want to continue to fight the Civil War. It's over. We lost.

"By all current medical science Tylenol should be banned. "

Why? Overall, it's not the most effective NSAID, and it is somewhat more toxic than either aspirin or ibuprofen. But it's by far the most effective for certain conditions, e.g., bladder infections.

"Opioids need to become available to adults over the counter."

Because they're not addictive, and the consumer can completely control her use. Like they do now, when it's TOUGHER to get.

Right. You might already be under the influence. Reasoning Deficit Disorder, isn't it?

Meanwhile, due process is simply not a concern for anyone until THEY have to do something.

Ease of overdose and the consequences from that CD. Around 500 people die each year in the US from acetaminophen overdoses. 2,600 are hospitalized. It has also been implicated in almost half of all liver damage in the US. Essential the effective dose and the damaging dose are too close together for an OTC medicine. Tylenol flat doesn't pass current FDA regulations on safety.

https://www.medicaldaily.com/acetaminophen-tylenols-active-ingredient-kills-nearly-500-americans-every-year-257654

An addendum, Tylenol would pass as a prescription medicine. Not as an OTC one.

"Because they're not addictive, and the consumer can completely control her use. Like they do now, when it's TOUGHER to get."

Radwaste: just like alcohol is not addictive and the consumer can completely control her use, right? Are you a free adult, or a chattel of the state? Who owns your body?

"And if you can't discern the difference between marijuana, heroin, and methampetamine,"

Gog_Magog, you're confusing distinction and difference.

Man at bar to attractive woman: "would you have sex with me for a million dollars?"

Woman: "For that much, yes."

Man: "How about for $50?"

Woman (indignantly): "What sort of woman do you think I am?"

Man: "We've established that; now we're just haggling over price."

It's all the intentional, recreational use of mind altering chemicals. The moral, ethical, and civilizational qualitative implications are all the same; you're fixated on a mere matter of degree.

Sarah:
"Also it's apparent that legalization does fund criminal enterprises."

All you offer in support of this is selective, partial legalization - moving the line from between alcohol and pot to between pot and harder drugs. That's still government telling people what they can put in their own bodies.

"Again California's experience has demonstrated this."

Californa's experience demonstrated nothing, because it was just a tweaking of prohibition.

Cousin Dave:

"criminal records are one of the few pieces of information that an employer can use to evaluate applicants."

Not any more; you're not keeping current on employment law.

"Addicts are addicts, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, short of a major breakthrough in neurochemistry."

There's strong evidence that the addiction has a genetic component, so you could just legalize everything, increase staffing at the morgue and let the addiction gene be rinsed out of the pool in a generation or two. Cue the handwringing by the same secular progressives who've been screaming Darwin at anyone within earshot without considering the larger implications.

What Conan is saying is that you can't have effectice interdiction with only supply-side enforcement - IF you wish to interdict effectively, you must equally criminalize the end consumer. That doesn't mean he favors interdiction - he's portraying the reality of real interdiction to highlight why interdiction is a bad idea.

The reality is current interdiction initiatives aren't intended to stop drug use; they're an excuse to expand the power of government and reduce individual rights - “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against—then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.” - Atlas Shrugged

"There's strong evidence that the addiction has a genetic component, so you could just legalize everything, increase staffing at the morgue and let the addiction gene be rinsed out of the pool in a generation or two."

That thought has crossed my mind... You know what the worst possible outcome would be? That the tendency towards addiction is a reoccurring mutation or recombination that can't be eliminated from the gene pool. I think that if it could, it would have happened a long time ago.

"you're fixated on a mere matter of degree."

And that's why all criminals should be executed.

Whether it's littering or axe murder, it's all just a matter of degree.

Considering the ease with which most drug addicts move from one drug to another the genetic aspect of addiction is fairly suspect. There is a fairly well documented genetic connection to substance abuse for those with native american ancestry. But outside of them you are probably measuring culture and not genetics.

"You know what the worst possible outcome would be? That the tendency towards addiction is a reoccurring mutation or recombination that can't be eliminated from the gene pool. I think that if it could, it would have happened a long time ago."

Evolution wouldn't work if that was likely. That's not how it works. We've developed civilization to the point where we suppress evolutionary pressure - we enable addicts to survive long enough to pass on the gene. Remember, evolutionary fitness is all about the ability to mate and reproduce.

"Considering the ease with which most drug addicts move from one drug to another the genetic aspect of addiction is fairly suspect."

No, that reinforces the probability that the general mechanism of addiction is genetic, rather than the substance itself. For example, just try to find a smoke-free AA meeting. It's the dopamine management mechanism that produces addiction that I'm talking about, whether the addiction is to drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. M brother has cared for patients who have a 40 year history of casual heroin use fewer than 10 times a year - they lack the addiction mechanism. "You probably know people who, for decades, smoke one or two cigarettes a month.

"There is a fairly well documented genetic connection to substance abuse for those with native american ancestry."

Pre-agrarian cultures generally don't have a lot of intoxicants or spare time to engage in addictive behaviors. Over thousands of years, this would allow an addiction gene to spread because it would generally not be that harmful to the reproductive prospects of those who had it.

The problem with addiction being a general mechanism as you describe Bw1 is that such general mechanisms cannot be removed without drastically redesigning the organism. Also they are so universal they apply to most anyone and not to specific population groups. When you do a gene study and find genetic markers you may not find the genes that directly influence addiction. Instead you find markers that designate family groups.

A perfect example of this is all the research done on genetic markers for intelligence. If you do a study in England you come up with a strong correlation for a certain set of markers. Do it in France and you come up with a different set. Do it in Germany, Spain, Italy, ... all of them have strong correlation with specific genetic markers but only rarely will different nations share those markers. You aren't finding the genes that influence IQ. Instead you are finding recessive genes that mark out specific family lines who have a cultural history that promotes high IQ. Genetics aren't the only things we inherit.

And exactly correct on the pre-agrarian issue. Native Americans did have a wide variety of intoxicants. But the supply was so low they were confined to high demand activities, mainly religious ones. Hence the genes for addiction didn't get driven out of the populace by natural selection. They aren't the only group like this. They are just one of the better documented ones. People with a european genetic background have already had all of the easily removed genes for addiction removed.

"is that such general mechanisms cannot be removed without drastically redesigning the organism."

Addiction, regardless of its object, is about how the brain manages and responds to dopamine, and variations in the degree to which that mechanism operates have been found to be genetic.

"People with a european genetic background have already had all of the easily removed genes for addiction removed.'

And then they became explorers and went all over the world, interbreeding with every other population. The problem is, a society that collectively works to shield addicts from the negative evolutionary consequences of their addiction effectively destroys the mechanism that removed them the first time around.

There's a saying in the motorcycle community - helmet laws interfere with natural selection. The same goes for narcan and rehab.