The purpose of a drug policy is not to reduce consumption rates. Consumption is not intrinsically bad. My use of the dangerous and potent drug known as theobromine (translation: I eat chocolate) is not itself the problem. A higher rate of consumption of pure and unadulterated drugs with active health and rehabilitation initiatives is preferable to lower consumption but with autistically intervening in people's self-ownership through use of the police and penal apparatus, disincentivizing health treatment as a result, bringing about organized crime and making addiction more dangerous because of tainted drugs that are peddled by unreliable black marketeers.

Paternalistic and destructive nonsense through and through.

(You did say illegal, not criminalized. Latter would be more humane in being a fine, but still unacceptable.)

> A higher rate of consumption of pure and unadulterated drugs with active health and rehabilitation initiatives is preferable to lower consumption but with autistically intervening in people's self-ownership through use of the police and penal apparatus

I'd absolutely agree with this, although I'd argue that a higher-rate of consumption is not in and of itself beneficial. If you're telling me that a teenager deciding to try heroine is "individual rights", then that's crap. Addiction differences between various compounds are well known ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_dependence#Risk_fact... ).

Are you saying there's no potential at which a drug should be illegal? A 100% addictive drug? A 50% addictive drug? 25%? 5%?

Imo, there's a point where socially we can absolutely say, "No, that thing is too dangerous to let you have without precautions." I'd be in favor of allowing people to sample those substances if they went through a course to earn the right to do so. You want to try heroin? Fine, but let's as a society make sure this isn't an impulse action and is something you're sure you want to do (and are aware and willing to accept the consequences of).

If you're taking individual rights umbrage at my support of a drug control policy, then look at it this way: if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to? Hint: Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Merck...

Do you really trust them to freely market a compound that has 10%+ addiction capture rate?

I should have said effective drug policy. Focusing on consumption rates is indeed what most people do, and it's completely wrong.

Are you saying there's no potential at which a drug should be illegal?

Hypothetically speaking, no. In practice, all attempts at providing classifications for which drugs to ban and which to keep legal are based on purely subjective and unscientific slippery slopes. With such a variety of narcotics, it's practically inevitable to see such regressions.

My example of theobromine in chocolate is a good one, I think. Nobody thinks anything of it even though strictly speaking it's quite toxic (though obviously negligible in the dosages it's consumed).

As such, if not legalize everything, legalize some of the higher profile psychoactives and stimulants and just decriminalize (levy a fine for) all the rest.

if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to? Hint: Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Merck...

Oh, so you'd rather they go to Los Zetas and Sinaloa Cartel?

Do you really trust them to freely market a compound that has 10%+ addiction capture rate?

We already do so for a variety of psychotropics, analgesics and so forth. The difference is we think of it as "medicine" rather than "drugs" and as such our perceptions are distorted. Yet the cost of vulnerable people getting high off over-the-counter drugs is pretty negligible. It takes no effort for a teen to dose themselves off DXM in cough syrup.

You have no problem with wide-scale organized crime networks who engage in brutal acts of terror controlling the drug enterprise, nope. It's the evil capitalist producers exploiting the stupid proles with their advertising. Horrifying. No, the cartels don't have options of using legal protections because the illegal ones are much more effective in terms of securing obedience, and destructive.

If your only criterion of a drug's adverse effects is addictive potency, then your criteria are critically flawed and next to worthless. Something not inducing a physical dependence doesn't mean psychological addiction does not exist, though of course I oppose bans on either grounds. Addictive potential is but one factor of many.

I'm becoming convinced your opposition to legalization is not at all based on a cost-benefit analysis of the public welfare, but rather on a kneejerk fear of capitalism and voluntary association. Your use of the word "deregulate" as somehow being a scary detriment seems to corroborate this.

It's quite disgusting that you denigrate and despise voluntary association between consenting individuals so much that you'd prefer cartels slaughtering and burning villages just so mean scary capitalists with their evil advertising rays of doom don't influence the opinions of the public, whom you clearly regard as morons incapable of critical thought. It is then unsurprising you advocate what you do if that's where you come from.

Though I think it's clear you believe in copious use of intervention against individuals and have a hatred or fear of capitalism and free association in order to make such a batshit argument as arguing for cartel violence and regional destabilization because the prospect of corporate profits terrifies you so much.

EDIT: Scanning your post history, you make a reference to "the final solution to the capitalist bourgeoise swine". You might have been facetious at that time, but I believe it reflects a general attitude you hold that is spiteful. I hope you at least do not believe in discredited economic doctrines such as tendency for the rate of profit to fall, or labor theory of value.

EDIT #2: You also believe that free market players are purely profit-maximizing "with behavior only moderated by applicable government regulations". This is plain false, even by a left-leaning Post-Keynesian analysis. You also again do not understand public choice theory in the slightest and how endogenous regulations emerge by transaction costs and private property (e.g. Coase theorem).

You hold a lot of fallacies.

You can also buy a knife and stab yourself. You can choose to do harm to yourself in numerous different ways. Some of those ways include manipulating your own mind.

You can also engage in other self-destructive behaviors that won't directly kill you, but will likely ruin your life to some degree. For instance, spending sixteen hours a day on Internet forums to the exclusion of all else. Or eating 6000 calories a day. Or never exercising. Or spending money you don't have on things you don't need. Choosing to exercise willpower in several of those situations involves combating intentional psychological manipulation to convince you otherwise.

Your life could probably be better organized, more productive, longer, and possibly even more fun for you if someone else made your decisions for you. Want to let them? Do you think everyone should be forced to?

> , there's a point where socially we can absolutely say, "No, that thing is too dangerous to let you have without precautions."

"And if you don't agree with that, then we'll throw you in jail". Doesn't sound as good when you complete the thought, does it?

If you harm others, or even risk harm to others, then absolutely. For instance, other people didn't agree to sharing a road with someone with impaired senses and reaction times.

If you want to go teach a course on how to develop and exercise willpower, and how it's one of the single biggest controllable factors that helps determine your success in life, by all means do so. I'm not being sarcastic; that would genuinely be wildly useful and a major improvement to society.

> if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to?

Anyone capable of growing or synthesizing them. They're generics by definition. (Not that businesses wouldn't come up with "designer" versions, too.)

Do you see major drug companies flocking to states that have legalized pot?

> You can also buy a knife and stab yourself. You can choose to do harm to yourself in numerous different ways. Some of those ways include manipulating your own mind. You can also engage in other self-destructive behaviors that won't directly kill you, but will likely ruin your life to some degree.

The difference if we're using metaphors is that knives aren't addictive in the same way that some drugs are. I have no problem with people altering their mind using whatever substance they choose -- if it's below a certain addictiveness threshold. With threshold arguable as to what point is socially dangerous enough to merit special treatment.

>> Imo, there's a point where socially we can absolutely say, "No, that thing is too dangerous to let you have without precautions."

> "And if you don't agree with that, then we'll throw you in jail". Doesn't sound as good when you complete the thought, does it?

Yes, it still sounds pretty good compared to the alternative. Obviously, I'd prefer not to use incarceration as a penalty, as I think we (the US) have shown that as currently practiced it's a terribly ineffective way to promote social good.

But generally? If you feel that there are certain things that should be agreed and enforced via laws (I do), then there are going to be consequences to breaking those laws. And those consequences are going to be unpleasant.

I don't like incarceration or support it as a policy, but banned addictive substances -> illegal suppliers. I don't know of a magic bullet to solve that without a threat. :\

>> if addictive drugs were legal and fully unregulated, who do you think the majority of the profits would go to?

> Anyone capable of growing or synthesizing them. They're generics by definition. (Not that businesses wouldn't come up with "designer" versions, too.)

> Do you see major drug companies flocking to states that have legalized pot?

Really? :p Just like freely-growable tobacco profits don't accumulate with large corporations?

And no, I don't see major drug companies flocking to states that have legalized a substance that is still criminalized at the national level.