thinking about psychological addictions and avoidance behaviors

[kanzeon_2040]

So why am I not anti-drug? I've been close to several people who I believed were suffering from drug problems -- even people who destroyed their lives with drug abuse -- yet I'm a libertarian when it comes to drug laws

Comments

[matrixmann]

Just saying: Conversations with Russians about drugs are always a bit special when regarding the events through the 90s, where the Moscow police used to be more afraid of the drug cartels than the other way around

[kanzeon_2040]

Yeah, I was thinking after I posted this about how we have people using street drugs to regulate their emotions, and we also have psychiatrists prescribing corporate drugs to regulate their emotions ... so what's the big difference ...

And, sure, there are communities that are destroyed by rampant drug abuse and criminal gangs, and we'd like to police that -- but policing that doesn't really work either. As you wrote, in much of the world the cops are afraid of the drug cartels, and for good reason. So ... I don't mean to say drugs are great we should do nothing about them, but it seems policing has no real effect except maybe to lock people up. But offering people medical treatment won't help the communities that are destroyed by rampant drug abuse and criminal gangs.

[matrixmann]

The acutal question in this would be, I guess: How to take that business sector back out of the hands of the cartels?
'Cause, if all of these criminal structures wouldn't be there, if you could go to the pharmacy and purchase your bit of whatever you want, just like it is with alcohol (for example), then there was way less noise about it.
The rest of the drama then would fall onto "crime in order to obtain money to buy new drugs or finding a cheaper way to get them" and "problems when drugs are used beyond the point of semiluxory food".