Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Why All Drugs Should Be Legal

Yesterday, I posted about the positive and negative effects of LSD (mostly the positive) and concluded by saying that all drugs should be legalized. This may seem like a very bad, radical idea. While I admit it is a very radical statement, I have reason to believe that it is a good idea.

To begin with, all drugs have their own positive and negative effects. Psychedelics can make people extremely creative, but it can also cause them to become schizophrenic or develop HPPD. Opiates can be very addicting and bad for your health, but they are great painkillers. Marijuana can make people lazy and uninspired, but it also acts to increase some people's creativity, help some people relax, and help some people with depression. There is very little chance that the negative effects will show if these drugs are used very minimally, however. Some people may use these drugs circumstantially to maximize their benefits and minimize their negative effects. Even more people would do this if they were well educated on each substance.

Of course if every drug was legalized, people would abuse certain drugs and receive many of these negative effects. But they already do this, whether the drugs are legal or not. I think it's safe to assume that these people would not accomplish very much in life, anyways, and that they would form the lowest class of society. Everyone would not go out and get addicted to heroin. Would you abuse heroin if it was legal? A lot of current drug use comes from the taboo of the act, adding an extra factor of the drugs being "cool". If all drugs were legalized, it is more probable that drug abuse would be reduced due to this fact alone, not to mention that the population would receive accurate, unbiased information about the drugs that they can freely use.

My views are a bit conservative, and I do believe that social Darwinism is the healthiest, most natural system for a society. It is an obvious fact of life that certain members of the ecosystem must be lower and inferior to others, and that some are also superior to others. For an example, look at any animal tribe in nature. The weaker animals are caught by predators or disease and are killed, while the stronger ones survive and reproduce. This is how evolution works in nature and in society. If you take a moment to consider the successes of communism, you will understand that such a system of equality simply does not work.  Imagine a group of deer being chased by a lion, and one of them breaks its leg. The Marxist says that the deer who broke its leg deserves to live, even if it means that the rest of the deer must die as well trying to save it, while the Darwinist says that the deer with the broken leg deserves to die while so that the rest of the deer can live (this is also what actually happens in this situation). This analogy may seem odd, but do not forget that we are still animals. If you take a close look at human nature, we hardly act differently than animals in the wild. While it may seem that there are no more "lions" chasing humanity anymore and communism may be a good option just to keep everyone happy, there are actually many threats to our existence. There is the commonly mentioned threat of global warming, and many others such as the threat of an energy crisis, and the threat of water supply. If we do not advance at a fast enough rate, our existence is at a risk.

The fact of drugs being illegal is enacting a form of communism. Instead of some people receiving their negative effects and some maximizing their positive effects, our governments want everyone to be on an equal, communistic playing field. Imagine the kind of science we could develop if our scientists could freely use psychedelic drugs. Not only would they be able to study the effects of the drugs themselves, but they would be able to use their creativity enhancing effects in order to better theorize. Is the fact that some people would abuse drugs and have their lives ruined a terrible enough fact that we can forego this advantage? Human morality derived from Christianity tells us so, that we should help the poor, but it is this mindset that inhibits society the most. Countries that legalize all drugs would surpass countries that don't.

It is important that all drugs be legalized, not only the ones that we deem helpful to society. If you give someone the power to make any substance illegal, then more and more of them will slowly become illegal again until we're in the shitty state that we're in today, where only one drug (alcohol) is legal in most places.

And some more obvious benefits of drug legalization: purer, cheaper drugs; drugs would no longer be cut with dangerous substances to maximize profits; and taxation of drugs. People are going to get drugs whether they are legal or not. The fact that they're illegal just allows gangs and mafias to take control of the market. Do you trust these kinds of people to manufacture and sell chemicals that you intend to ingest? Also, every drug purchase that anyone makes would only be further supporting and funding these organizations. Please let me know what you think about this by commenting.

11 comments:

  1. I agree with the fact people will get drugs whether legal or not but I don't think making heroin legal would help anyone, in my opinion that drug is too addictive to be available to anyone. The fact it's illegal means that the majority of people can't get it, where as if it was legal they might buy it to try it and get addicted.

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  2. There are very good arguments for legalizing drugs. The people over at mises.org (austrian economics) have a very good article about the subject.

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  3. A very interesting line of reasoning, I agree in part,
    because in some countries like mine have big problems with the control with which these drugs enter and leave the country by illegal means and even the legalization help stop this awareness we do not have enough yet,
    I think this must vary from place to place.

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  4. i agree, and the proof is in Amsterdam. the decriminalization of drugs has decreased overall use. a far more effective policy than the oppressive policies found in the USA

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  5. Lightning never strikes twice in the same place

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  6. I hate all kinds of drugs. I'm just personally against the concept.

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  7. That's a really good post, very interesting. But I don't think we should legalized all drugs, some of them are too dangerous. I knew people who were addicted to drugs and it just destroyed there lifes. If all drugs are legalized it will just increase the number of addicted people.

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  8. well, as soon as drugs become legal the more kids are going to consume them aswell ... I am totally against that!

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  9. For all the haters in the comments: Portugal did this ten years ago and it worked. Abuse and deaths shrunk, and the country is healthier as a whole. Look it up if you don't believe me.

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  10. I'm not sure about all drugs...some of them really do fuck you up and when that happens it brings down the people around you. Weed should be legal but opiates and hard shit like that is not good for anyone. I mean how good can meth or heroin be for society?

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  11. Interesting points, perhaps all drugs should be legal. If they legalized them now, perhaps in 20 years society wouldn't be so different but accept them. But if they were legalized today can you imagine the mad dash of people trying to get into the industry? Hundreds of new companies overnight fighting with each other to get an edge on the competition, guess it could stimulate the economy though haha.

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