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tweet by Johann Hari: The core of addiction is not wanting to be present in life, because pour life is too painful a place to be. This is why imposing more pain or punishment on a person with an addiction problem actually makes their addiction worse.
I can agree with that. I think that all drugs should be legal if doctors responsibly and in good faith believe that they are necessary.
Yeah, because this system of “I know this is a life-saving medicine. But if you don’t come have a physical and pay my copay, I’ll cut you off and let you die” works wonderfully now.
I prefer the Home Depot variant of drug sales. If you’re sure you know what you’re doing, you can go in and buy that mainline electric wire to install your own panel without once showing them a license. You don’t need to be trained if you buy a chainsaw despite the fact it will absolutely kill you if you screw it up. Pharmacies should be the same way. If you know what Xgeva (random drug name) does and are 100% sure it’s for you, you can buy it with or without a prescription. But the rest of us would go to a doctor first just like you go to an electrician.
But if you’re on something long-term, and you have no reason to go to a doctor, it shouldn’t be a contingency. I had a friend told she wouldn’t get diabetes meds if she didn’t get her annual female exams.
People aren’t responsible enough to go in and buy weed and only use it for medicinal purposes.
If we did that, Trump supporters would use it to get ivermectin for their kids.
People aren’t responsible enough to go in and buy weed and only use it for medicinal purposes.
People aren’t responsible enough to not drink enough water to kill themselves, too. What’s your point? Are you planning to have the government regulate food intake as well? Ban hamburgers?
Luckily you can’t OD on weed, and the psychosis rate even at high dosages is extremely low compared to other drug acute reactions (like coffee). If we’re going to legalize anything, it should be weed. Even before fried food.
If we did that, Trump supporters would use it to get ivermectin for their kids.
I’d rather they give their kid ivermectin (with a pharmacist telling them they shouldn’t) than them giving them a spoonful of lysol. Or are you suggesting we stop people from being able to buy lysol and bleach?
We cannot stop a bad parent from having access to things that harm their kids, we can only educate them and take the children from them if they are unfit to parent their child.
You can’t stop people from doing stupid things, but you can make it harder. We also don’t give in to emotional blackmail when hedonists threaten self harm to get their way.
I used to support legalizing weed, but I’ve seen how damaging it is to the type of vulnerable people who think it’s a miracle drug.
We already have governments that are passing laws against junk food. I don’t think that’s appropriate, but I think it would be acceptable to impose government intervention on people who demonstrate that they are incapable of taking care of themselves. Food stamps should not cover junk food.
I support extensive welfare, but only for people who are productive with it. If you have big government, then that government will come back and tell you what to do.
You can’t stop people from doing stupid things, but you can make it harder. We also don’t give in to emotional blackmail when hedonists threaten self harm to get their way.
We have centuries of evidence that banning drugs doesn’t make it harder to get. It makes it easier to get.
And I’m not sure what you mean by emotional blackmail. You’re saying you don’t care that the Drug War is a net harm because you “think it’s right”? Or something altogether different.
I used to support legalizing weed, but I’ve seen how damaging it is to the type of vulnerable people who think it’s a miracle drug.
They legalized weed where I live. Here’s what it did:
- Dramatic economic improvements
- A lot of people from being criminals who couldn’t get jobs to being successful professionals because the weight of “possession” in criminal records went down for them
- Similarly, a lot of people went from being deadbeat addicts to functioning members of society because they could get jobs despite failing marijuana tests
Factually speaking, states (I’m in the US) where pot is legal are overall better off than demographically similar states where it is illegal. And states that chose to legalize pot improved in many ways with virtually no negative side-effects except gen-Xers complaining “I can’t go anywhere without getting a whiff of someone that smells like they smoke pot”
It sounds like you are happy to make a million people suffer because of a few so-called “vulnerable people” who disagree with you on the medicinal value?
We already have governments that are passing laws against junk food. I don’t think that’s appropriate, but I think it would be acceptable to impose government intervention on people who demonstrate that they are incapable of taking care of themselves. Food stamps should not cover junk food.
Agreed with everything but the last part. That’s just an opening to politicize what is “junk food”. Well, actually, I think I’m a bit concerned with “demonstrate that they are incapable of taking care of themselves” on the topic of junk food. Are you suggesting monthly weigh-ins and anyone over 10lbs overweight gets put in jail?
I support extensive welfare, but only for people who are productive with it.
Translation - your idea of welfare is to give big businesses more power by forcing the poor to work for them? I think I’ll avoid responding further on your “extensive welfare” point because that’s just not what this topic is about and I’m getting tired of the anti-evidence stance most people take on the topic.
then that government will come back and tell you what to do.
Ironic. Since everything above this point, you are encouraging the government “come back and tell us what to do” wrt drug laws. You seem to want to have your cake and eat it, too? Is the hypocrisy of that lost on you, or do you embrace it willingly?