I like this post but I think it would be substantiated if it dealt head on with the issue of addiction. I’m not a neurologist, but I’ve seen brain scans showing neural architecture of those who are addicted and those who aren’t, and it seems many of these “victimizers” are on substances that mean they can’t really reason like a “normal” person.
I’m not saying this means we can’t embrace your plans, but that this is going to be a “go-to” argument against you.
Part of the question is, if drugs were legalized, would the same sorts of drugs still be commonly used, in the same way?
During alcohol prohibition, hard liquor became popular. After prohibition was repealed, things gradually evolved to the point where people were drinking wine coolers and lite beer. Ending drug prohibition might show a similar pattern. Most obviously, it seems likely that fentanyl use would become much less common, or at the very least, people would learn to control their dosages, making overdose less common.
"During alcohol prohibition, hard liquor became popular."
Prohibition was mainly pursued because of the use of hard liquor. Whiskey was especially popular before prohibition. Beer got in the crosshairs near the end because anti-german war sentiment was what got prohibition pass nationally.
A lot of people thought prohibition would limit alcohol content to 3%, not the 0.5% that ended up being written into the Volsted act.
If all drugs were legalized I suspect that designer drugs made for maximum addictiveness would be developed and aggressively marketed.
I can’t verify is the mix changed, and the transport thing makes sense. Overall drinking went down.
It’s also not clear is crime increased. Organized crime in the cities increased, but domestic violence went down. So it depends on the crime in question.
My point was, if drugs were legalized, would the same sorts of drugs still be commonly used, in the same way? Alcohol prohibition and the history sense is evidence (not overwhelming) that things tend to change when legalized.
It seems very likely to me that under a legalization regime, either no one would use fentanyl, or deaths would be greatly reduced due to more reliable dosage. Few people want to overdose. Overdoses are caused primarily by the uncertainty regarding what they are actually taking. Remove the uncertainty, reduce overdoses.
Sure an addict's brain has rewired itself, but there were irresponsible choices to abuse that were made before that rewiring that led to the addiction.
But does X increase that dramatically with permission? The aforementioned irresponsible choices aren’t all linked to drug legality, and some of those paths to abuse are removed when drugs are available through legitimate sources.
Of course, many people are going to argue these individuals are addicted. I would question this idea of addiction strongly. Are these people really physically compelled to steal bikes, and, in so doing, plan the theft, hide the bikes, avoid the victims, etc., by the drug, in order to acquire it, I doubt it. Only consider all the addicts who do not do this to see these thieves have free will. Hence, I would argue for the rigorous treatment you propose. Sometimes tough love is best.
Are any legal penalties reduced because of addiction?
I’m unaware of any laws that say you can steal only if you’re an addict.
The issue is that we let people steal.
Enforcement against stealing simply becomes more difficult as the number of criminals increases and our tools for deterrence have limited effect.
Drug addiction predictably increases criminal behavior and also leaves one with fewer effective options for deterrence. Addicts have little self control and little to lose.
Let us all remember that we had a national freak out because George Floyd, a drug addict who was high at the time, would not comply with police officers trying to arrest him for a crime.
Yes, this. Thank you for articulating a view I've come to over the last year.
Many of the arguments against are that abusers and addicts don't have rational faculties and aren't effected by incentives. I don't buy this, because all incentives work on the margin but they still work. Punishing bad behavior as soon as it shows up is probably a better tool to re-shape those brains than anything we do today.
Firstly I agree we should legalise addictive substances and prosecute people for petty crimes (I think the lack of prosecution is more due to resourcing than sympathy). I also think we should regulate these industries very carefully to ensure they don't take advantage of addicts while still being able to cater from recreational users. And I think we should provide support to addicts.
I think your view of homeless addicts as not being victims but instead being 'victimizers' is wrong. In my opinion they're both. (Like how child abusers were usually abused as a child.)
I think people end up in this position due to a mixture of mistakes on their part, various societal reasons (such as not having access to education/jobs/affordable housing) and due to not having a fallback net. I think in particular it's quite easy to forget how important having someone to fall back on is. Despite being university educated and highly qualified, I failed in my first attempts at a career, and had to move back in with my parents for a few months while I got back on my feet - if I had no family I could easily have ended up on the street.
I think that once someone is homeless, it's very hard to get back on your feet. People in desperate situations often turn to drugs and alcohol, which obviously makes things much worse. Turning to crime is natural for people who have nothing to lose and very limited options available to them. Also I think that starvation and lack of shelter, and obviously the effects of addictive substances make it difficult to make good long term decisions and lead to mental illnesses that just make everything worse.
Interesting. I tend towards prohibitionism personally, as I haven't been a libertarian for well over 20 years, but this approach that still works to prevent abuse makes some sense. I think it still ignores addiction will go up if legalization happens, but one could argue that those people would be addicted to alcohol or porn or something else.
Not sure that we can really enforce the needed laws if we do follow the legalize use, criminalize abuse thing, though.
Can you give me a quote? I see nothing like that in the last two paragraphs and I don’t remember anything like that from my first reading. Sorry, I’m a bit too lazy to read the whole thing over again.
> And unless you oppose the very existence of public property, you can also consistently favor enforcement of laws against trespassing on, vandalizing, and defiling public property. Enforcing all of this doesn’t precisely make abuse illegal, but it comes close.
Yes, I read that but I didn’t get what you’re getting.
To the extent that abuse correlates with crime, enforcing criminal penalties has the effect of penalizing abusers. That seems a long way from “legalize use criminalize abuse” to me. To criminalize abuse, you have to. criminalize abuse. Valid criminal law regulates what people do to each other, not what they do to themselves. According to this idea, if you’re not victimizing other people, you’re not abusing.
You like prohibition because it prevents addiction? This isn’t practical, since, as you stated, addiction is a personal failing when alcohol or porn addiction is a substitute for drug addiction. If you want to use laws to prevent anyone from being addicted to anything, you will need to ban lots of things that many people use responsibly (social media, chocolate, lotteries, vaping, caffeinated drinks, sugar, video games) as well as drugs, alcohol and porn.
Er, what part of "I'm in favor of prohibition" wasn't clear? I'm well aware. But if the argument is a binary between "a society full of addicts" and "lots of stuff is banned," I have picked a side. Bryan has made a case for a position that isn't one of those two, but I hate addiction way more than I hate banned stuff.
Until the question, "What do you do with the addicts" is answered with something other than "they're just hurting themselves", I'm gonna say I don't think those questions are that interesting at all.
Huh? How can you answer that big question without answering the subordinate questions? Without those answers, the choice is a society full of addicts with prohibition, or a Society full of addicts without probation.
You have fewer addicts with prohibition. You can argue that the side effects are worse than that benefit, but don't try to tell me that the issue of addicts isn't going to increase catastrophically with legalization.
"For a utilitarian, the obvious solution is to (a) legalize production, (b) legalize use, and (c) harshly punish abuse. You can manufacture and sell opioids. You can buy and use them. But you can’t live on the streets begging, much less create a tent city of bicycle theft in the town square. If you try, you go to jail."
Huh? Imprisoning people is expensive (guards, facilities, food) and highly unpleasant for the imprisoned - hardly a *utilitarian's* first choice. A utilitarian would look very favorably at solutions that help abusers live more virtuous lives *without* imprisoning them. Why does your post not even *consider* the progressive strategy on this problem?
Of course, there are punishments that are cheaper to administer than long imprisonment. But if you're advocating for caning, cutting off hands, or executing bicycle thieves, be forthright about it.
In fairness I think Bryan is in favor of corporal punishment (as am I).
But he ought to be honest about the prospects of that outcome. What would the Summer of Floyd look like if he had been tied to a post and whipped? Try to imagine the symbolism.
Imprisoning thieves would be less expensive than imprisoning drug sellers. We would open up a huge amount of space by releasing the people arrested for drug offenses.
There simply is not some big contingent of non-violent drug offenders out there, and whenever we legalize a drug we don’t see a drop in crime or reduction in the prison population.
Except that was exactly the effect when alcohol was legalized.
The only other drug we’ve legalized is marijuana, and that has been such a piecemeal, haphazard, over-regulated mess that the black market is larger than the legal one even in states where it is officially legal.
In the one case, alcohol, where we’ve actually tried full legalization, it has been pretty successful in reducing crime, particularly violence.
If nobody uses a drug none will become abusers, and then enforcement will not be necessary because addiction based crime will not happen.
This depends if course on what the costs of drug prohibition are relative to the costs of addiction based abuse, but that’s a pragmatic question subject to empirical debate. It can’t be determined from first principles.
Bryan seems to imply that the reason that we don’t enforce laws on addicts is because of societal sympathy for addicts.
But maybe there is no societal sympathy for addicts or that isn’t driving the lack of enforcement.
Maybe the problem is that enforcement is ugly and expensive whether the person is an addict or not.
George Floyd is what confronting criminal addicts looks like. Such confrontations will inevitably lead to violence and sometimes death.
I’m ok with that, but clearly our society isn’t.
It would be easier if there were fewer addicts, and then there would be fewer instances that required such intervention. That’s the stance actual law and order societies take on this.
I agree with your sentiment, but not your prescription.
1) The more criminals there are, the harder enforcement gets. Addiction makes more criminals.
We all just lived through the Summer of Floyd. Propertyless addicts have nothing to lose, and only physical force can deter them. Law enforcement is given little incentive to take action and big disincentives anytime things don't go to script. The more of these interactions the more likely for inciting incidents.
2) I don't really think there are a ton of upsides to "moderate" vice. It might not be *worth* stopping because enforcement costs are too high, but it's not some positive good either. In fact it's probably a negative overall.
The answer most societies have come up to moderate vice is a mix of regulation, tax, and shaming. Moderate vice receives moderate societal sticks.
Finally, even people that don't commit crimes, when they self destruct, become wards of the state. They end up on Medicaid. They pay less tax. Moderate versions of this have a moderate impact on the state. The same happens to their family.
3) There are lots of examples of effective prohibition regimes. We don't see Singapore or most of Asia falling apart.
In fact I can't think of any societies today that are "soft on drugs, hard on crime". There are "soft on both" and "hard on both" but not the combination you are proposing. Even Bukele hasn't repealed drug laws, if anything that are being prosecuted harder. There is something about this equilibrium.
4) There are tons of restrictions and taxes on alcohol in the west and they haven't created a black market, people just accept them and the cost and inconvenience reduces drinking especially problem drinking.
I used to live in a state that didn't sell alcohol at the super market or 7/11, now I do. I didn't notice any alcohol cartels in my old state, people just sometimes didn't drink because it was less convenient to purchase.
5) Anyway, some drugs are always going to be illegal to some extent. If it was anything goes someone would eventually have drug companies putting the most addictive shit they could invent into candies in the super market checkout line.
America has all the problems that the rest of the western world has, but worse because of blacks, and, more specifically, the aversion of the overwhelming majority of people to arresting blacks who don't want to be arrested. The only way Caplan's proposal can possibly work at all is if the general public can see a video of George Floyd taking his final breath and shrug their shoulders. One way of doing that would be promoting colour-blindness, but that's very unrealistic. A far more realistic way would be promoting racism, so what is Caplan's plan to promote racism?
“ lots of examples of effective prohibition regimes. We don't see Singapore or most of Asia falling apart.”
But which is the cause and which is the effect? A society that doesn’t really need prohibition can implement it at low cost, as a mostly symbolic measure, a signal from people who don’t use drugs that they won’t tolerate drug use.
I’d be more interested in an example of a society that desperately needed prohibition, and implemented it successfully without catastrophic costs. Maybe China under Mao? Not really. That would only work as an example if we completely disregard the welfare of the addicts themselves, and the cost to ordinary persons of the severe regimentation of post revolutionary China.
"A society that doesn’t really need prohibition can implement it at low cost"
Nearly all of Asia was hooked on opium at one point. We fought wars to hook them on the substance for our own gain.
Drug prohibition won't work if a majority of the society doesn't support it. If the majority does support it then it might work, depending on the context.
Prohibition largely failed in the cities, where it had little support to begin with.
Large swaths of Protestant small town America had implemented local dry laws for decades before national prohibition, and it didn't seem to cause many problems there.
Prohibition was an imposition on small town America against cities and protestants against catholics. What got it over the finish line anti-german war fever during WWI. Without that we might never have gotten national prohibition, but the patchwork of local dry laws with greater levels of natural public support.
“ Nearly all of Asia” is vague. I am familiar with China. Do you have other specific instances? Can you describe them? What was the transition like for them?
You seem to be reasoning as though abusers were rationally making bad decisions, so that if we changed the foreseeable consequences of those decisions, they might rationally choose to do something different. It seems to me that the problem is rather that the consequences are hitting a different person than the one making the decision, ie, the future self of that person rather than the present self. While many people think of “sin taxes” as a revenue scheme, I think it’s better to use them as a way to align the preferences of the person who is making the decision (ie the present self) with the person who feels the effects of the decision (ie, the future self). Making things even harder on the future self isn’t going to do that - you need to find some way to make the present self pay the price.
Rational decisions depend on preferences, which are not observable. What you describe is compatible with the rational agent model in the form of time preference. Translating your conclusion into this sort of language, you need to find a way to change the agents' time preference. I think there has been some speculation about that, but I should probably not pretend I can summarize it. Perhaps that makes the rational agent model seem tautological and therefore less useful, but it is not incompatible.
Ordinary businesses use advertising and other means to promote sales of their products. I might prefer that this didn’t happen in the case of legalized drugs, gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Is there a libertarian improvement on the status quo answer of having the government strictly regulate or ban promotion of such products?
How many people do you think become addicted because of advertising? I don’t see any advertisements for fentanyl even in San Francisco. Also, in addition to first amendment concerns, as someone who gets cravings when I see people drinking on TV, do you also want to strictly ban that also? I guess smoking now gets movies an R rating, but that is voluntary, not government regulation.
Please reread my question a bit more carefully. You seem to have made some unnecessary assumptions. Then, if you have an answer, please respond.
“ How many people do you think become addicted because of advertising?”
I have no idea, and I am not sure how it is relevant, unless we could be confident it was zero. Then we could dismiss my concerns.
“ as someone who gets cravings when I see people drinking on TV, do you also want to strictly ban that also? “
No. I would prefer not to ban anything. I am wondering if there are any clever alternatives that would have the desired effect without coercion.
What exactly is the desired effect? That’s hard to say, isn’t it? Obviously, it would be better if people acted like adults and didn’t indulge in things to the degree where they harm themselves and their families. That is an ideal that might be approached, but never reached. What strategy is best for approaching it?
Another idea would be instilling enough personal responsibility in everyone that advertising would not have that much of an effect on them. I’m not sure whether this is possible either, but certainly would be desirable. Some people are able to do these things safely, while others are not. What do we do about that? On a purely personal level, we try to avoid harming ourselves. Is there something we can do beyond that? I am asking.
Perhaps if all advertising was unregulated, society would eventually reach an equilibrium where people were resistant to it . This is arguably what happened in Britain when the process for distilling cheap gin was invented. London supposedly went on a bender for several years, but then people adjusted to it, or at least those who had not already died. This sort of “shock treatment“ is the obvious default alternative to regulation and prohibition. Are there any less drastic possibilities?
Direct to consumer advertising of *legal* drugs is big in the United States and very controversial. It’s not allowed in most other developed countries.
There are also lots of laws surrounding incentives and steering of patients in the medical sector. Pharma isn’t supposed to pay docs to get them to change the diagnoses and prescribing, but it tends to happen indirectly.
The opioid crisis happened in part due to advertising and incentives used to get people on the stuff.
There is something particularly insidious about a trusted figure like a doctor misleading patients. A lot of people that would normally never try “drugs” got on opioids because an authority figure with a certain incentive advised them to.
When I was much younger I might have agreed with you. I still have some sympathies in that direction but I'd argue the position is deeply flawed.
Some of the best anecdotal evidence suggests very adverse consequences are likely to result from your approach. it seems clear that an increased availability of opioid prescriptions (not even unlimited access) contributed significantly to pain and suffering from increased addiction. It was and is a seemingly unavoidable consequence of increased access. This has been a massive harm to many individuals and families. While it's far from the only contributor to addiction and the consequences of addiction, the current problems of which you speak (homeless camps, theft, etc.) also in part result from that increase in availability of opioids. I don't see how that wouldn't get much worse if there were no restrictions on opioids, despite your increased focus on the abusers.
(1) It is unknowable in advance who will become a drug addict, and who merely a user.
(2) Drug addicts are generally highly impervious to normal incentives, and even somewhat impervious to extreme incentives.
(3) People who are not yet drug addicts, however, react to incentives more or less like anyone else. If they are worried that a single act of drug use could ruin heir entire life, they are less likely to do it. Similarly, they are unlikely to go significantly out of their way to find drugs if supply has been successfully interdicted.
(4) No-one really needs drugs. Imagine meth had never been invented. Who would seriously argue that the world would be in any sense a worse place?
So, while libertarians will disagree, the rational utilitarian policy is to have massive first-time penalties for drug use or possession.
This is pretty much hwhat I was thinking. I describe myself as "libertarian~ish" cause I would say that libertarian prolly accurately describes most of my views, but the problem with the liberty movement is the lack of "True Scotsmen!" and hwhen I get tarred with that brush, I am much more willing to say: "Fine! Then, I guess I'm not _really_ a libertarian!" than try to defend my libertarian credentials.
Anyway, I live in Ottawa, Canada. Near a "Safe Injection Site". I'm not gonna tell y'all more than that.
Stalkers! 😛 Despite the hope of "internalizing" the problem, the problems spew out: Junkies sitting on and blocking the sidewalk, lots of litter, frequent shoplifting, junkies going in the middle of the road and dancing their little junky-dance, public urination and defecation, people still shooting up and OD'ing outside, discarded needles, etc. The other day, there was a lady in line, ahead of me at the convenience store. Clearly stoned out of her mind! She actually did have money and paid for her stuff. But then, stood at the cash doing her little junky dance, talking to imaginary friends, etc. as the clerk begged her to leave. I'm not sure why all these externalities are not more contained. I suspect cause they don't let them wait inside. Especially during CoVid. I swear: this experiencing is turning me from a YIMBY to a NIMBY! haha.
I think there are plenty of things the cops could nab them for, but don't. As the only thing Canadian cops are good at is shutting down protests that our Dear Leader doesn't like. I'm not sure what is the answer. But I lived for a year in the Philippines. I noticed that drug addiction does not seem to be nearly as bad there. For some reason... 😛
I'm not sure, exactly, what is the solution... I thought of a few ideas:
1. War on Drugs: It worked for Singapore and the Philippines... But my major issue with this: I don't think people should go to jail for TRYING drugs. It is reflective of Openness to Experience. That is a good thing! I noticed that Singapore, a few years ago, tried to encourage extreme sports like Base Jumping. I think they realized: Adventurous/Curious people are more creative and people hwho are willing to take risks, get higher rewards. These types of people are good for the economy! Now, I know that first time drug-users are RARELY caught, let alone charged, convicted, jailed, etc. BUT, still, the law allows for this. Imagine, you smoke weed ONE TIME and you're like "Well, that was interesting. But, not my cup of tea. I'm not gonna do it again." How much did that one time really ruin your life? Not much. Now, imagine, you happen to get caught by a SUPER NARC cop, then you get a SUPER NARC prosecutor and a SUPER NARC judge. In Texas, for example, it's a class B misdemeanor. You can get up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. You can apply to have it expunged from your record after a year. But that might still affect your career opportunities for the rest of your life! Even if they cannot see it on your record, you would have prolly lost your job at the time and have a big "resume gap" to explain. It might also affect immigration. Many countries ask whether you have EVER been convicted of a crime. Not whether you currently have a record. If you tell the truth, you're prolly not getting in. If you are caught lying, you are almost certainly not getting in. Now, tell me? hWhich did more damage to your life? That one joint? Or that conviction?
2. Declare war on the externalities! But, don't we all publicly urinate, jay-walk, act weird or litter once or twice? Seems a little harsh.
3. Two-strike system: You can do drugs or litter once with little to no penalty. The only thing is that you would get some sort of a police record so they know your second time isn't your first time. This would also have to be VERY CAREFULLY GUARDED from the public, employers and other countries. That's hwhat I'm afraid of. It's one thing to say: No penalty if you smoke weed once. But there still is a penalty if it gets leaked and it could affect your career, marriage, ability to travel, labour mobility or lead to blackmail, etc. The other problem I see with this: We wanna encourage a safe supply. But addicts are dealers' bread-and-butter. I would think you would get still get criminal gangs killing kids in South America and lacing cocaine with fentanyl selling to addicts in America. But there would be simply no interest in a safe, ethical market for American hobbyists. But, then again, there are industries that survive with very few repeat customers: like skydiving!
Speaking of "addicts", I've got some thoughts on that, too. But I think they would be more appropriate for another post.
Apologies in advance to any addicts. I used to smoke. I used to smoke when I was a teenager and poor. It was very addicting, and while I was not driven to any serious crime, I did go to great lengths to secure my next pack, such as "borrowing" money from my parents when they weren't looking, and hiding my bad habit even when it was legal.
As deadly and gross and harmful as smoking is, we should be free to do it, but addiction changes people and vastly increases the likelihood of poor choices. And addiction affects people differently, some worse than others--some will end up as homeless thieves, while others sit next to you in church. In my view, addiction's negative effects are a sort of externality which occasionally needs a little collective response.
The campaign against smoking was incredibly successful. We made it a complete social taboo and taxed the heck out of it, and it worked in drastically lowering use.
I wish we could apply the same stigma to other drugs as we applied to smoking. Instead, libertarians launched a multi-decade campaign to make pot and other drugs "cool".
Let me open with: I am a lifelong teetotaler kook. That said, the epidemiological evidence asserts that drinkers live longer, healthier, happier lives than non-drinkers, and I believe it. That said, there is a small percentage of the population who really shouldn't drink; maybe a majority of the US's 2 million prison population. We gave Prohibition a fair try and it turned out to be a *terrible* idea. The thought of punishing criminals for violent and property crimes seems like a reasonable approach to the problem to me.
There isn't solid evidence that people who drink live longer because they drink. Rather, any observational study comparing drinkers with non drinkers is inevitably comparing two very different populations for which it is almost impossible to control for all the confounders.
- Drinkers are richer than non drinkers
- Some current non drinkers are former alcohold abusers which may have already reduced their life expectancy
According to Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health, published by WHO in 2011, close to half of the world's adult population (45 percent) are lifetime abstainers. The Eastern Mediterranean Region, consisting of the Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, is by far the lowest alcohol consuming region in the world, both in terms of total adult per capita consumption and prevalence of non-drinkers, i.e., 87.8 per cent lifetime abstainers.
In 2016, a meta-analysis of 87 studies investigating alcohol use and mortality risk was conducted. The studies analyzed had shown the largest mortality risk reduction in moderate drinkers, but these studies did not correct for confounding variables common with certain abstainers, such as previous alcoholism, and chronic health issues. After adjusting these studies for abstainer biases, no reduction in mortality risk was found for low-volume drinkers. However, there have been individual studies that show abstainers and heavy drinkers have an increased mortality of about 50% over moderate drinkers after adjustment for confounding factors in individuals above the age of 55.
1. I don't believe meth or fentanyl can be used casually. I am in Oregon and see the effects of partial legalization daily. (In practice, in Oregon, it is almost full legalization.)
2. Would legalizing drugs mean lifting age limits? Alcohol is illegal under the age of 21, but most addicts begin using long before that age.
3. Can we afford the increases in police and prisons that taking a hard stance on minor crimes would require?
4. What would be a punishment (commensurate with the crime) that would actually prevent people from committing thefts/vandalism in the first place? Addicts don't seem to give it a lot of thought before defecating in your bushes or stealing packages off your porch.
5. If this were enacted, wouldn't all or prisons turn into rapid detox stations? How is this different from arresting people for drug use?
6. The increase in cigarette prices has been a deterrent to smoking. How would lower drug prices be a deterrent to excessive drug use?
I am appreciative of your arguments, and pleased that varied opinions seem to be welcome here. I do feel like a victim of addicts (my local park is now a tent city.) I have lost most of the sympathy I used to have for these abusers.
I like this post but I think it would be substantiated if it dealt head on with the issue of addiction. I’m not a neurologist, but I’ve seen brain scans showing neural architecture of those who are addicted and those who aren’t, and it seems many of these “victimizers” are on substances that mean they can’t really reason like a “normal” person.
I’m not saying this means we can’t embrace your plans, but that this is going to be a “go-to” argument against you.
Part of the question is, if drugs were legalized, would the same sorts of drugs still be commonly used, in the same way?
During alcohol prohibition, hard liquor became popular. After prohibition was repealed, things gradually evolved to the point where people were drinking wine coolers and lite beer. Ending drug prohibition might show a similar pattern. Most obviously, it seems likely that fentanyl use would become much less common, or at the very least, people would learn to control their dosages, making overdose less common.
"During alcohol prohibition, hard liquor became popular."
Prohibition was mainly pursued because of the use of hard liquor. Whiskey was especially popular before prohibition. Beer got in the crosshairs near the end because anti-german war sentiment was what got prohibition pass nationally.
A lot of people thought prohibition would limit alcohol content to 3%, not the 0.5% that ended up being written into the Volsted act.
If all drugs were legalized I suspect that designer drugs made for maximum addictiveness would be developed and aggressively marketed.
It remains the fact that hard liquor became more popular during prohibition. Hard liquor was easier to transport than beer.
I can’t verify is the mix changed, and the transport thing makes sense. Overall drinking went down.
It’s also not clear is crime increased. Organized crime in the cities increased, but domestic violence went down. So it depends on the crime in question.
My point was, if drugs were legalized, would the same sorts of drugs still be commonly used, in the same way? Alcohol prohibition and the history sense is evidence (not overwhelming) that things tend to change when legalized.
It seems very likely to me that under a legalization regime, either no one would use fentanyl, or deaths would be greatly reduced due to more reliable dosage. Few people want to overdose. Overdoses are caused primarily by the uncertainty regarding what they are actually taking. Remove the uncertainty, reduce overdoses.
Sure an addict's brain has rewired itself, but there were irresponsible choices to abuse that were made before that rewiring that led to the addiction.
It would be better to think about this statistically.
If you allow people to abuse drugs, X% will predictably become addicts. You can’t tell who they will be beforehand with certainty.
But does X increase that dramatically with permission? The aforementioned irresponsible choices aren’t all linked to drug legality, and some of those paths to abuse are removed when drugs are available through legitimate sources.
Of course, many people are going to argue these individuals are addicted. I would question this idea of addiction strongly. Are these people really physically compelled to steal bikes, and, in so doing, plan the theft, hide the bikes, avoid the victims, etc., by the drug, in order to acquire it, I doubt it. Only consider all the addicts who do not do this to see these thieves have free will. Hence, I would argue for the rigorous treatment you propose. Sometimes tough love is best.
Yes, it’s not clear why addiction would be a reason for reducing penalties.
Are any legal penalties reduced because of addiction?
I’m unaware of any laws that say you can steal only if you’re an addict.
The issue is that we let people steal.
Enforcement against stealing simply becomes more difficult as the number of criminals increases and our tools for deterrence have limited effect.
Drug addiction predictably increases criminal behavior and also leaves one with fewer effective options for deterrence. Addicts have little self control and little to lose.
Let us all remember that we had a national freak out because George Floyd, a drug addict who was high at the time, would not comply with police officers trying to arrest him for a crime.
Legalize all drugs to protect individual rights. Abolish public schools to protect the mind from govt.
Yes, this. Thank you for articulating a view I've come to over the last year.
Many of the arguments against are that abusers and addicts don't have rational faculties and aren't effected by incentives. I don't buy this, because all incentives work on the margin but they still work. Punishing bad behavior as soon as it shows up is probably a better tool to re-shape those brains than anything we do today.
I disagree completely but also agree.
Firstly I agree we should legalise addictive substances and prosecute people for petty crimes (I think the lack of prosecution is more due to resourcing than sympathy). I also think we should regulate these industries very carefully to ensure they don't take advantage of addicts while still being able to cater from recreational users. And I think we should provide support to addicts.
I think your view of homeless addicts as not being victims but instead being 'victimizers' is wrong. In my opinion they're both. (Like how child abusers were usually abused as a child.)
I think people end up in this position due to a mixture of mistakes on their part, various societal reasons (such as not having access to education/jobs/affordable housing) and due to not having a fallback net. I think in particular it's quite easy to forget how important having someone to fall back on is. Despite being university educated and highly qualified, I failed in my first attempts at a career, and had to move back in with my parents for a few months while I got back on my feet - if I had no family I could easily have ended up on the street.
I think that once someone is homeless, it's very hard to get back on your feet. People in desperate situations often turn to drugs and alcohol, which obviously makes things much worse. Turning to crime is natural for people who have nothing to lose and very limited options available to them. Also I think that starvation and lack of shelter, and obviously the effects of addictive substances make it difficult to make good long term decisions and lead to mental illnesses that just make everything worse.
Interesting. I tend towards prohibitionism personally, as I haven't been a libertarian for well over 20 years, but this approach that still works to prevent abuse makes some sense. I think it still ignores addiction will go up if legalization happens, but one could argue that those people would be addicted to alcohol or porn or something else.
Not sure that we can really enforce the needed laws if we do follow the legalize use, criminalize abuse thing, though.
“ legalize use, criminalize abuse” is not really what Brian suggested, is it? He said, enforce laws against theft, trespassing, etc.
His ending suggested that while it wasn't "mandate certain limits", it was still functionally virtually criminalizing abuse.
Can you give me a quote? I see nothing like that in the last two paragraphs and I don’t remember anything like that from my first reading. Sorry, I’m a bit too lazy to read the whole thing over again.
> And unless you oppose the very existence of public property, you can also consistently favor enforcement of laws against trespassing on, vandalizing, and defiling public property. Enforcing all of this doesn’t precisely make abuse illegal, but it comes close.
Yes, I read that but I didn’t get what you’re getting.
To the extent that abuse correlates with crime, enforcing criminal penalties has the effect of penalizing abusers. That seems a long way from “legalize use criminalize abuse” to me. To criminalize abuse, you have to. criminalize abuse. Valid criminal law regulates what people do to each other, not what they do to themselves. According to this idea, if you’re not victimizing other people, you’re not abusing.
And I reject the argument that drug abusers only victimize themselves.
You like prohibition because it prevents addiction? This isn’t practical, since, as you stated, addiction is a personal failing when alcohol or porn addiction is a substitute for drug addiction. If you want to use laws to prevent anyone from being addicted to anything, you will need to ban lots of things that many people use responsibly (social media, chocolate, lotteries, vaping, caffeinated drinks, sugar, video games) as well as drugs, alcohol and porn.
Er, what part of "I'm in favor of prohibition" wasn't clear? I'm well aware. But if the argument is a binary between "a society full of addicts" and "lots of stuff is banned," I have picked a side. Bryan has made a case for a position that isn't one of those two, but I hate addiction way more than I hate banned stuff.
“ if the argument is a binary between "a society full of addicts" and "lots of stuff is banned,"”
The question is, is it actually that by binary, or is it something else? If we begin with that assumption, the interesting questions don’t get asked.
Until the question, "What do you do with the addicts" is answered with something other than "they're just hurting themselves", I'm gonna say I don't think those questions are that interesting at all.
Huh? How can you answer that big question without answering the subordinate questions? Without those answers, the choice is a society full of addicts with prohibition, or a Society full of addicts without probation.
You have fewer addicts with prohibition. You can argue that the side effects are worse than that benefit, but don't try to tell me that the issue of addicts isn't going to increase catastrophically with legalization.
"For a utilitarian, the obvious solution is to (a) legalize production, (b) legalize use, and (c) harshly punish abuse. You can manufacture and sell opioids. You can buy and use them. But you can’t live on the streets begging, much less create a tent city of bicycle theft in the town square. If you try, you go to jail."
Huh? Imprisoning people is expensive (guards, facilities, food) and highly unpleasant for the imprisoned - hardly a *utilitarian's* first choice. A utilitarian would look very favorably at solutions that help abusers live more virtuous lives *without* imprisoning them. Why does your post not even *consider* the progressive strategy on this problem?
Of course, there are punishments that are cheaper to administer than long imprisonment. But if you're advocating for caning, cutting off hands, or executing bicycle thieves, be forthright about it.
In fairness I think Bryan is in favor of corporal punishment (as am I).
But he ought to be honest about the prospects of that outcome. What would the Summer of Floyd look like if he had been tied to a post and whipped? Try to imagine the symbolism.
Imprisoning thieves would be less expensive than imprisoning drug sellers. We would open up a huge amount of space by releasing the people arrested for drug offenses.
This is one of those myths that won’t die.
There simply is not some big contingent of non-violent drug offenders out there, and whenever we legalize a drug we don’t see a drop in crime or reduction in the prison population.
Except that was exactly the effect when alcohol was legalized.
The only other drug we’ve legalized is marijuana, and that has been such a piecemeal, haphazard, over-regulated mess that the black market is larger than the legal one even in states where it is officially legal.
In the one case, alcohol, where we’ve actually tried full legalization, it has been pretty successful in reducing crime, particularly violence.
Legalization reduces at least one crime.
Punishing the few abusers harshly is still a lot cheaper than punishing abusers, moderate users and producers, which is what the status quo does.
If nobody uses a drug none will become abusers, and then enforcement will not be necessary because addiction based crime will not happen.
This depends if course on what the costs of drug prohibition are relative to the costs of addiction based abuse, but that’s a pragmatic question subject to empirical debate. It can’t be determined from first principles.
"Yet the bipartisan position is that archetypal abusers are victims who deserve general sympathy and taxpayer assistance."
You omitted the support for this statement.
If it is false, that means more people already agree with his position, and so don’t need to be persuaded..
Bryan seems to imply that the reason that we don’t enforce laws on addicts is because of societal sympathy for addicts.
But maybe there is no societal sympathy for addicts or that isn’t driving the lack of enforcement.
Maybe the problem is that enforcement is ugly and expensive whether the person is an addict or not.
George Floyd is what confronting criminal addicts looks like. Such confrontations will inevitably lead to violence and sometimes death.
I’m ok with that, but clearly our society isn’t.
It would be easier if there were fewer addicts, and then there would be fewer instances that required such intervention. That’s the stance actual law and order societies take on this.
I agree with your sentiment, but not your prescription.
1) The more criminals there are, the harder enforcement gets. Addiction makes more criminals.
We all just lived through the Summer of Floyd. Propertyless addicts have nothing to lose, and only physical force can deter them. Law enforcement is given little incentive to take action and big disincentives anytime things don't go to script. The more of these interactions the more likely for inciting incidents.
2) I don't really think there are a ton of upsides to "moderate" vice. It might not be *worth* stopping because enforcement costs are too high, but it's not some positive good either. In fact it's probably a negative overall.
The answer most societies have come up to moderate vice is a mix of regulation, tax, and shaming. Moderate vice receives moderate societal sticks.
Finally, even people that don't commit crimes, when they self destruct, become wards of the state. They end up on Medicaid. They pay less tax. Moderate versions of this have a moderate impact on the state. The same happens to their family.
3) There are lots of examples of effective prohibition regimes. We don't see Singapore or most of Asia falling apart.
In fact I can't think of any societies today that are "soft on drugs, hard on crime". There are "soft on both" and "hard on both" but not the combination you are proposing. Even Bukele hasn't repealed drug laws, if anything that are being prosecuted harder. There is something about this equilibrium.
4) There are tons of restrictions and taxes on alcohol in the west and they haven't created a black market, people just accept them and the cost and inconvenience reduces drinking especially problem drinking.
I used to live in a state that didn't sell alcohol at the super market or 7/11, now I do. I didn't notice any alcohol cartels in my old state, people just sometimes didn't drink because it was less convenient to purchase.
5) Anyway, some drugs are always going to be illegal to some extent. If it was anything goes someone would eventually have drug companies putting the most addictive shit they could invent into candies in the super market checkout line.
America has all the problems that the rest of the western world has, but worse because of blacks, and, more specifically, the aversion of the overwhelming majority of people to arresting blacks who don't want to be arrested. The only way Caplan's proposal can possibly work at all is if the general public can see a video of George Floyd taking his final breath and shrug their shoulders. One way of doing that would be promoting colour-blindness, but that's very unrealistic. A far more realistic way would be promoting racism, so what is Caplan's plan to promote racism?
“ lots of examples of effective prohibition regimes. We don't see Singapore or most of Asia falling apart.”
But which is the cause and which is the effect? A society that doesn’t really need prohibition can implement it at low cost, as a mostly symbolic measure, a signal from people who don’t use drugs that they won’t tolerate drug use.
I’d be more interested in an example of a society that desperately needed prohibition, and implemented it successfully without catastrophic costs. Maybe China under Mao? Not really. That would only work as an example if we completely disregard the welfare of the addicts themselves, and the cost to ordinary persons of the severe regimentation of post revolutionary China.
"A society that doesn’t really need prohibition can implement it at low cost"
Nearly all of Asia was hooked on opium at one point. We fought wars to hook them on the substance for our own gain.
Drug prohibition won't work if a majority of the society doesn't support it. If the majority does support it then it might work, depending on the context.
Prohibition largely failed in the cities, where it had little support to begin with.
Large swaths of Protestant small town America had implemented local dry laws for decades before national prohibition, and it didn't seem to cause many problems there.
Prohibition was an imposition on small town America against cities and protestants against catholics. What got it over the finish line anti-german war fever during WWI. Without that we might never have gotten national prohibition, but the patchwork of local dry laws with greater levels of natural public support.
“ Nearly all of Asia” is vague. I am familiar with China. Do you have other specific instances? Can you describe them? What was the transition like for them?
You seem to be reasoning as though abusers were rationally making bad decisions, so that if we changed the foreseeable consequences of those decisions, they might rationally choose to do something different. It seems to me that the problem is rather that the consequences are hitting a different person than the one making the decision, ie, the future self of that person rather than the present self. While many people think of “sin taxes” as a revenue scheme, I think it’s better to use them as a way to align the preferences of the person who is making the decision (ie the present self) with the person who feels the effects of the decision (ie, the future self). Making things even harder on the future self isn’t going to do that - you need to find some way to make the present self pay the price.
Swift & certain punishments work on people who irrationally discount the uncertain future hyperbolically.
The line between a moderate user and an addict is also unknowable in advance. All we really know is that x% of users will be come addicts.
Rational decisions depend on preferences, which are not observable. What you describe is compatible with the rational agent model in the form of time preference. Translating your conclusion into this sort of language, you need to find a way to change the agents' time preference. I think there has been some speculation about that, but I should probably not pretend I can summarize it. Perhaps that makes the rational agent model seem tautological and therefore less useful, but it is not incompatible.
Ordinary businesses use advertising and other means to promote sales of their products. I might prefer that this didn’t happen in the case of legalized drugs, gambling, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Is there a libertarian improvement on the status quo answer of having the government strictly regulate or ban promotion of such products?
How many people do you think become addicted because of advertising? I don’t see any advertisements for fentanyl even in San Francisco. Also, in addition to first amendment concerns, as someone who gets cravings when I see people drinking on TV, do you also want to strictly ban that also? I guess smoking now gets movies an R rating, but that is voluntary, not government regulation.
Please reread my question a bit more carefully. You seem to have made some unnecessary assumptions. Then, if you have an answer, please respond.
“ How many people do you think become addicted because of advertising?”
I have no idea, and I am not sure how it is relevant, unless we could be confident it was zero. Then we could dismiss my concerns.
“ as someone who gets cravings when I see people drinking on TV, do you also want to strictly ban that also? “
No. I would prefer not to ban anything. I am wondering if there are any clever alternatives that would have the desired effect without coercion.
What exactly is the desired effect? That’s hard to say, isn’t it? Obviously, it would be better if people acted like adults and didn’t indulge in things to the degree where they harm themselves and their families. That is an ideal that might be approached, but never reached. What strategy is best for approaching it?
Another idea would be instilling enough personal responsibility in everyone that advertising would not have that much of an effect on them. I’m not sure whether this is possible either, but certainly would be desirable. Some people are able to do these things safely, while others are not. What do we do about that? On a purely personal level, we try to avoid harming ourselves. Is there something we can do beyond that? I am asking.
Perhaps if all advertising was unregulated, society would eventually reach an equilibrium where people were resistant to it . This is arguably what happened in Britain when the process for distilling cheap gin was invented. London supposedly went on a bender for several years, but then people adjusted to it, or at least those who had not already died. This sort of “shock treatment“ is the obvious default alternative to regulation and prohibition. Are there any less drastic possibilities?
Direct to consumer advertising of *legal* drugs is big in the United States and very controversial. It’s not allowed in most other developed countries.
There are also lots of laws surrounding incentives and steering of patients in the medical sector. Pharma isn’t supposed to pay docs to get them to change the diagnoses and prescribing, but it tends to happen indirectly.
The opioid crisis happened in part due to advertising and incentives used to get people on the stuff.
There is something particularly insidious about a trusted figure like a doctor misleading patients. A lot of people that would normally never try “drugs” got on opioids because an authority figure with a certain incentive advised them to.
When I was much younger I might have agreed with you. I still have some sympathies in that direction but I'd argue the position is deeply flawed.
Some of the best anecdotal evidence suggests very adverse consequences are likely to result from your approach. it seems clear that an increased availability of opioid prescriptions (not even unlimited access) contributed significantly to pain and suffering from increased addiction. It was and is a seemingly unavoidable consequence of increased access. This has been a massive harm to many individuals and families. While it's far from the only contributor to addiction and the consequences of addiction, the current problems of which you speak (homeless camps, theft, etc.) also in part result from that increase in availability of opioids. I don't see how that wouldn't get much worse if there were no restrictions on opioids, despite your increased focus on the abusers.
The logic for general prohibition is as follows:
(1) It is unknowable in advance who will become a drug addict, and who merely a user.
(2) Drug addicts are generally highly impervious to normal incentives, and even somewhat impervious to extreme incentives.
(3) People who are not yet drug addicts, however, react to incentives more or less like anyone else. If they are worried that a single act of drug use could ruin heir entire life, they are less likely to do it. Similarly, they are unlikely to go significantly out of their way to find drugs if supply has been successfully interdicted.
(4) No-one really needs drugs. Imagine meth had never been invented. Who would seriously argue that the world would be in any sense a worse place?
So, while libertarians will disagree, the rational utilitarian policy is to have massive first-time penalties for drug use or possession.
This is pretty much hwhat I was thinking. I describe myself as "libertarian~ish" cause I would say that libertarian prolly accurately describes most of my views, but the problem with the liberty movement is the lack of "True Scotsmen!" and hwhen I get tarred with that brush, I am much more willing to say: "Fine! Then, I guess I'm not _really_ a libertarian!" than try to defend my libertarian credentials.
Anyway, I live in Ottawa, Canada. Near a "Safe Injection Site". I'm not gonna tell y'all more than that.
Stalkers! 😛 Despite the hope of "internalizing" the problem, the problems spew out: Junkies sitting on and blocking the sidewalk, lots of litter, frequent shoplifting, junkies going in the middle of the road and dancing their little junky-dance, public urination and defecation, people still shooting up and OD'ing outside, discarded needles, etc. The other day, there was a lady in line, ahead of me at the convenience store. Clearly stoned out of her mind! She actually did have money and paid for her stuff. But then, stood at the cash doing her little junky dance, talking to imaginary friends, etc. as the clerk begged her to leave. I'm not sure why all these externalities are not more contained. I suspect cause they don't let them wait inside. Especially during CoVid. I swear: this experiencing is turning me from a YIMBY to a NIMBY! haha.
I think there are plenty of things the cops could nab them for, but don't. As the only thing Canadian cops are good at is shutting down protests that our Dear Leader doesn't like. I'm not sure what is the answer. But I lived for a year in the Philippines. I noticed that drug addiction does not seem to be nearly as bad there. For some reason... 😛
I'm not sure, exactly, what is the solution... I thought of a few ideas:
1. War on Drugs: It worked for Singapore and the Philippines... But my major issue with this: I don't think people should go to jail for TRYING drugs. It is reflective of Openness to Experience. That is a good thing! I noticed that Singapore, a few years ago, tried to encourage extreme sports like Base Jumping. I think they realized: Adventurous/Curious people are more creative and people hwho are willing to take risks, get higher rewards. These types of people are good for the economy! Now, I know that first time drug-users are RARELY caught, let alone charged, convicted, jailed, etc. BUT, still, the law allows for this. Imagine, you smoke weed ONE TIME and you're like "Well, that was interesting. But, not my cup of tea. I'm not gonna do it again." How much did that one time really ruin your life? Not much. Now, imagine, you happen to get caught by a SUPER NARC cop, then you get a SUPER NARC prosecutor and a SUPER NARC judge. In Texas, for example, it's a class B misdemeanor. You can get up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. You can apply to have it expunged from your record after a year. But that might still affect your career opportunities for the rest of your life! Even if they cannot see it on your record, you would have prolly lost your job at the time and have a big "resume gap" to explain. It might also affect immigration. Many countries ask whether you have EVER been convicted of a crime. Not whether you currently have a record. If you tell the truth, you're prolly not getting in. If you are caught lying, you are almost certainly not getting in. Now, tell me? hWhich did more damage to your life? That one joint? Or that conviction?
2. Declare war on the externalities! But, don't we all publicly urinate, jay-walk, act weird or litter once or twice? Seems a little harsh.
3. Two-strike system: You can do drugs or litter once with little to no penalty. The only thing is that you would get some sort of a police record so they know your second time isn't your first time. This would also have to be VERY CAREFULLY GUARDED from the public, employers and other countries. That's hwhat I'm afraid of. It's one thing to say: No penalty if you smoke weed once. But there still is a penalty if it gets leaked and it could affect your career, marriage, ability to travel, labour mobility or lead to blackmail, etc. The other problem I see with this: We wanna encourage a safe supply. But addicts are dealers' bread-and-butter. I would think you would get still get criminal gangs killing kids in South America and lacing cocaine with fentanyl selling to addicts in America. But there would be simply no interest in a safe, ethical market for American hobbyists. But, then again, there are industries that survive with very few repeat customers: like skydiving!
Speaking of "addicts", I've got some thoughts on that, too. But I think they would be more appropriate for another post.
Apologies in advance to any addicts. I used to smoke. I used to smoke when I was a teenager and poor. It was very addicting, and while I was not driven to any serious crime, I did go to great lengths to secure my next pack, such as "borrowing" money from my parents when they weren't looking, and hiding my bad habit even when it was legal.
As deadly and gross and harmful as smoking is, we should be free to do it, but addiction changes people and vastly increases the likelihood of poor choices. And addiction affects people differently, some worse than others--some will end up as homeless thieves, while others sit next to you in church. In my view, addiction's negative effects are a sort of externality which occasionally needs a little collective response.
The campaign against smoking was incredibly successful. We made it a complete social taboo and taxed the heck out of it, and it worked in drastically lowering use.
I wish we could apply the same stigma to other drugs as we applied to smoking. Instead, libertarians launched a multi-decade campaign to make pot and other drugs "cool".
Let me open with: I am a lifelong teetotaler kook. That said, the epidemiological evidence asserts that drinkers live longer, healthier, happier lives than non-drinkers, and I believe it. That said, there is a small percentage of the population who really shouldn't drink; maybe a majority of the US's 2 million prison population. We gave Prohibition a fair try and it turned out to be a *terrible* idea. The thought of punishing criminals for violent and property crimes seems like a reasonable approach to the problem to me.
There isn't solid evidence that people who drink live longer because they drink. Rather, any observational study comparing drinkers with non drinkers is inevitably comparing two very different populations for which it is almost impossible to control for all the confounders.
- Drinkers are richer than non drinkers
- Some current non drinkers are former alcohold abusers which may have already reduced their life expectancy
...
According to Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health, published by WHO in 2011, close to half of the world's adult population (45 percent) are lifetime abstainers. The Eastern Mediterranean Region, consisting of the Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, is by far the lowest alcohol consuming region in the world, both in terms of total adult per capita consumption and prevalence of non-drinkers, i.e., 87.8 per cent lifetime abstainers.
In 2016, a meta-analysis of 87 studies investigating alcohol use and mortality risk was conducted. The studies analyzed had shown the largest mortality risk reduction in moderate drinkers, but these studies did not correct for confounding variables common with certain abstainers, such as previous alcoholism, and chronic health issues. After adjusting these studies for abstainer biases, no reduction in mortality risk was found for low-volume drinkers. However, there have been individual studies that show abstainers and heavy drinkers have an increased mortality of about 50% over moderate drinkers after adjustment for confounding factors in individuals above the age of 55.
Even if the mortality risk is the same for low-volume drinkers and abstainers, the benefits of drinking make it worth doing.
I average less than 1 drink per day and have no interest in giving it up.
1. I don't believe meth or fentanyl can be used casually. I am in Oregon and see the effects of partial legalization daily. (In practice, in Oregon, it is almost full legalization.)
2. Would legalizing drugs mean lifting age limits? Alcohol is illegal under the age of 21, but most addicts begin using long before that age.
3. Can we afford the increases in police and prisons that taking a hard stance on minor crimes would require?
4. What would be a punishment (commensurate with the crime) that would actually prevent people from committing thefts/vandalism in the first place? Addicts don't seem to give it a lot of thought before defecating in your bushes or stealing packages off your porch.
5. If this were enacted, wouldn't all or prisons turn into rapid detox stations? How is this different from arresting people for drug use?
6. The increase in cigarette prices has been a deterrent to smoking. How would lower drug prices be a deterrent to excessive drug use?
I am appreciative of your arguments, and pleased that varied opinions seem to be welcome here. I do feel like a victim of addicts (my local park is now a tent city.) I have lost most of the sympathy I used to have for these abusers.