Portugal legalized ALL drugs 14 years ago. It costs 7 tiers; cops,courts, judges, prosecutors, defense, jail and guards and prohibition does not work. Colorado MADE $160? MILLION buy legalizing Marijuana the first year, how much did they save and there was less crime. mrpresident2016.com

The people have been brainwashed for so long that they have come to accept the limits and controls imposed by the government as normal. They no longer have any concept of the true meaning of freedom, and how the country was meant to work as the founders envisioned it.

David Friedman did a good piece on prescription drug law in one of his books. Basically, there was thalidomide, which caused birth defects in the next generation, so a bunch of lefties shrieked and pushed through laws which make new-drug approval ten times more expensive and slower -- yet still would not have caught that problem (nobody tests multiple generations). And nobody in Washington has figured out that this is the main reason health care is so expensive now. Idiots, the lot of them.

Adults should be allowed to sell or use any substance they want, so long as they tell the truth about what's in it.

Although exceptions might legitimately be made in regard to children.

The initial cost of developing a prescription type drung is astronomical. much of which is caused by government regulation. The cost of recreational drug production is, as you indicate low in comparison to its eventual street price

Just as with booze, the real cost of producing drugs is tiny. Do-gooders delude themselves into believing that raising the price will deter use. Instead, it only leads the people who want to use into crime. Therefore, we will start seeing substantial reductions in crime in states that legalize drugs only if and when the price to end-users is allowed to fall dramatically. (Which it will unless the law prevents it.)

And for the same reason, our punitively high taxes on booze need to fall. On the other hand, there are workarounds. Carter made it legal to brew up to 200 gallons/year of your own beer or wine.

I think you are not disagreeing with Objectivism on this. I don't think anyone who is an Objectivist would want to ban anything unless coercion is involved.

There are many ways to kill yourself inadvertently. Overdosing is one, alcoholism, though slower can do the job. But as you point out so can water. If we are to regulate things that can kill us, then we must regulate everything, which is the perfect socialist state. Big Brother is not just watching you. He's taking care of you -- like it or not.

In my teens, alcohol was the drug of choice. I tried it. I hated being so out of control. I stopped. As an adult, I drank modestly and savored it. Now, I'm not supposed to drink any alcohol. (I cheat on rare occasions.)

Or putting out candy with a sign: "Do Not Touch." Whereupon a guy in a trenchcoat comes by, opens up the coat and there are all the candies on the inside of the coat. Sure they cost a little more, but here's a free sample kid.

Hello Herb7734,
The 18th and the 21st amendment...
Lessons lost?
Regards,
O.A.

I do not mind labels and warnings. Correct labeling is necessary for a rational decision.

Jan

I wonder sometimes how someone saying you CAN'T plays into your mindset? Like putting out candy all over the place but hiding the Fruit!

I just wonder if a resulting, bulging population of addled drug addicts from legalization would be a new Democrat voting block. That's my only real problem with legalization.

I know many people who've struggled with drugs and/or booze. We all do. For the life of me, I've never figured out why people do that to themselves. It's like hitting your fingers with a hammer on purpose...

let's see. . opiates are used for pain control. . all drugs,
from beer to fentanyl, are abused. . you can kill yourself
by drinking too much water and bursting your stomach.
those who think that these drugs should be legalized
have probably been studying the lottery. . about two-thirds
of the money spent on the lottery goes to the government
in taxes. . Colorado and Washington are raking in tax bucks
over marijuana legalization. . we might think that the
black market folks are just circumventing taxation,
which could be praised. -- j
.

This is one of the areas where I disagree with Objectivism on principle. As far as I'm concerned, an adult human being's view of his own good is by definition true (or at least the rest of us morally must treat this as true). David Friedman calls this principle "consumer sovereignty."

Therefore I would not prohibit or regulate any drug someone wants to use, and I would not inform on a drug seller or maker, nor (on a jury) vote to convict one -- with some narrow exceptions. (1) If you're selling to juveniles, all bets are off. (2) Something like date rape drugs, where the end use is very likely to be non-consensual, should be controlled enough to at least make the stuff traceable if it happens.

Of course. What enterprising merchandiser hasn't given out free samples? I was hooked on cigarettes for 25 years, and I remember getting free samples of Salem (5 in a little box).

My reading (no personal experience) is exactly as jlc puts it. The human response to pharmacological substances is not simple, it depends on mood and expectation as well as the chemistry. I recall there was a big study on US military returnees from Vietnam, of those deemed as addicts, in new circumstances nearly all dropped drug use without apparent effort.
Seems to me the case for prohibition is poor on grounds of pragmatism, when considering property rights and individual liberty the conclusion is a clear no.
But should there be compulsory labeling and warnings? I am not decided but tend to think otherwise.

Back in the 1960's, Consumers Report wrote a book that reviewed recreational drug use. The authors admitted in the Intro that they expected it to be an open-and-shut case against drugs. They were surprised to the contrary.

What they found was that for the majority of illegal drugs (including heroin) the major negative repercussions of drug use per se were...nothing. Nothing at all. All of the 'negative repercussions' of the use of most drugs were due to the illegality of the drug and not to the use of the chemical itself.

Heroin was the example they used most frequently. Apparently, if you become addicted to heroin you have to keep using it for the rest of your live - kinda like oxygen. So you keep a container of it on the door of your refrigerator, next to the orange juice. Taking it no longer gets you high; you just need it in order to live. So it is not good but it does no damage.

Hepatitis, STDs, prostitution, crime...these are the results of the illegality of drugs, not of drugs themselves.

Consumers Report did make exceptions for PCP and for LSD (which would be illegal or restricted to constrained use), and they did define normal social limits of drug use as that which was evidenced by alcohol consumption - so if you were on a drug that induced change of consciousness, you could not drive.

My take away from reading the book was that the authors had their beliefs overturned by having been part of this study and that the drug bandwagon was yet another vehicle driven by Mr Social Hype.

Jan

I see your point but did not the pusher fraudulently create that demand? Did the end user know this would be a lifetime demand on his part.
Even under the simplicity of Mark Hamilton's Prime Law, they would be guilty.

Note: I am no fan of the present system...I prefer suggestion, knowledge, ethics and morality over initiatory force.

But, aren't the crimes due to the expense which is driven up by the restrictions which put criminals in charge of distribution? If dope was able to be purchased over the counter at a modest price, wouldn't that alleviate much crime, and further push out the criminal element?
As to the ethical question, when you come right down to it, aren't the "criminals" just supplying a demand? The consequences are on the users for the most part, and if the drug commodity could be picked up at your local pharmacy, wouldn't that eliminate most of the criminality? If the main criteria was health, we'd have to close up all the McD's and similar enterprises as well. I think the onus is on the user and the government more than the supplier.

It's not the alcohol that 'destroys' lives. It's the abuser performing 'slow motion suicide' and his enablers.