The merits of legalization as harm reduction?

[bcubed]

Now, I know this might be a touchy issue, especially with the nature of this site and its mission, but I'd like to know if an answer is even capable of being determined.

One very true statement pro-legalization and -decriminalization proponents use is that, "The two legal drugs (alcohol, tobacco) kill more than all illegal drugs combined."

However, I can see the corollary that prohibitionists could use: "Well, that just goes to show what happens to the death rate when you make a drug legal!"

One obvious effect (to anyone who's thought about it) of criminalization is that use becomes more dangerous (outside the law, questionable quality, etc); the other effect is that TOTAL usage is reduced (both from increased price and legal consequences). As someone who's always identified more strongly with those who use anyways, I care more about lowering risk among users...plus the added ideological beliefs about choosing what one will/won't put into one's body.

But, from a "public policy" sense, you'd have to weigh the two, opposing effects: lowered usage, but what usage remains is more harmful.

What I'd like to know: is it possible to determine the risk of negative outcome (which could be any number of things, but let's just keep it simple and deal with fatalities) PER USE?

I mean, more people use alcohol and tobacco as drugs (in the US,at least) than any other, and they may well use it more often with more opportunity. Since legality makes alcohol and tobacco use look "safer" than they otherwise would, if the probablilty of death PER USE is higher than certain other drugs, then they are uniquely dangerous, because the risk is already skewed in their favor.

If, on the other hand, the high death toll is due chiefly to widespread use, then it's possible that the increase in use outwieghs the decrease in per-use risk--meaning that criminalization is not necessarily counter-productive (in this narrow sense).

How would one go about determining per-use risk? The gov't certainly wouldn't want this data known, even if it tended to support prohibition, because it'd make the trade-offs public knowledge.

[HandyMan81]

Just think how many ppl will be without jobs. cops, dealers and suppliers etc. etc. E.T. thinks tolerating drugs is more effective. only for own use like in holland where E.T. lives. its not legal, but when the amount of dope doesnt exceed a own use amount (bout 1,5 of any type of drugs) they can still fine you, but dont seem to think its worth the paperwork. Some ppl say make it as cheap as sugar and put it in supermarkets. This idea can work both ways. Yes suppliers couldnt profit from it but it will create more addicts and even will be available to kids. Why alcohol is legal E.T. doesnt know, he feels like thats the worst drug of all. Most addicts, most deaths and most easy to get.

The act of banning something will only make people want it more. Why is it that so many teenagers drink and smoke so much? Because they are being constantly told that they can't have those very things. So E.T.s country's toleration law can work both ways too. Yes it saves the ppl who like to rebel against law and are easy influenced by peer presure, but will eventually gain more users (addicts even) because of low prices and easy to get.

[Scag]

if you look back to prohibition when they made alcohol illegal, there was a dramatic increase in murder, armed robbery, crime in general really.

then after alcohol was legal again it dramatically decreased....

if we are to look to the past id say it's a safe bet that making drugs legal would not only cut more than half the problems associated with them, but also generate more revenue (tourism)

[TheFamousSpacewhale]

I think legalization and regulation would see an increase in casual use of most drugs but not much of an increase in addicts; coke and crack (more likely true freebase after legalization) are the only ones that worry me, I think open availability of those drugs might lead to an increase in problematic use. I've been thinking of a financial incentive against chronic use of those drugs in the form of a rebate received after a set period of abstination.

For example, you'd obtain a prescription from a doctor which would allow you to trade it in for 1 gram of pure coke at 25$ and a new slip from a pharmacist with the date and amount purchased which you could later trade in to make another purchase or wait out a set duration of abstination to trade it in for a 15$ rebate. The rebates would be cumulative to offer more and more incentive to abstinate as chronic use progresses.

Of course someone could take advantage of the system by selling the coke he gets to addicts at 20$ (who could then claim they've been abstaining since they haven't been buying from a pharmacist to receive their rebate), receive a 15$ rebate, and make 10$ that way but if we set the regulations (set a limit on the amount of coke one can buy in a week, even at an O someone could only make 280$ per week) just right I think we could prevent this from becoming a widespread problem; I don't think criminal organizations would waste their time doing this.

...back on topic: I think by regulating we could address the more problematic users (as per the method explained above for example) and thus reduce total harm by a significant amount. The dangers of casual use (mostly O.D. - which could be reduced by putting recommended dosages on packaging along with the LD50 - and driving under the influence - instead of wasting law enforcement ressources on prohibition we could focus on this specific issue - ) are pale next to those of chronic use. Even though casual use may increase it's hard to predict whether total harm from casual use would increase, decrease, or remain about the same.

[Joe-(5-HTP)]

I think it is useful to talk about percentages when dealing with drug fatalities and i think looking at them could shed some light on the matter. It is pointless to say things like "alcohol is worse than ecstasy because it kills more" because this doesn't take into account the fact that more people are alcohol users.

So what you do is you take the number of alcohol users: 40,000,000(UK) and the total deaths p.a 5,000-40,000(UK) and divide the deaths by the users x 100 and you get 0.0125% to 0.1%. This percentage tells you the percentage of users who die each year as a result of using. For ecstasy, it is 0.0054%(UK again- 500,000 users, 27 deaths p.a)

Using these percentages, we can broaden from the half a million users(UK) to the general population and see that if they used ecstasy instead of alcohol there would be less deaths overall. If the 40 million UK alcohol users changed to ecstasy, only 0.0054% of them would die every year instead of 0.0125 - 0.1%.

Of course, when a drug becomes widespread, like alcohol, other factors come into play such as social attitude and subsequently the amount of responsibility and precaution the users take and so on. Whether these factors would be able to increase the death of ecstasy to the level of alcohol is hard to discern.

Of course, that is just ecstasy: many other drugs have a much higher death rate: Heroin (UK) is 0.2333%, Cocaine (UK) is 0.0274% and Tobacco is 1.14%

Some are lower: Ketamine (UK) is 0.001%


*All statistics are taken from a BBC horizon documentary: "Is alcohol worse than ecstasy?"

[aerozeppelin123]

I agree with TheFamousSpacewhale about coke/crack being the most problematic to regulate legally...much more so than opiates as they are more directly harmful to the body and arguably just as addictive. But I think the argument of "Well, that just goes to show what happens to the death rate when you make a drug legal!" is weak for two reasons:

1. It is not that way round: it is BECAUSE they are widely used and accepted that they are legal, not that they are used more because they are legal (IMO). Holland allows cannabis use and it can be bought in coffeeshops, yet they have a lower rate of use than many other countries that have strict penalties - cannabis, and probably most other drugs, simply are not (and never have been) anywhere near as ingrained into Western society as alcohol and tobacco are, regardless of law, so will always be used much less. This was the case before laws against any drugs were made anyway.

2. It does not make ethical sense to have a situation where laws are made on an abitrary basis, where some groups just happen to be discrimated against legally (in this example alcohol and tobacco users vs. users of other drugs) for no other reason than quirks and traditions in our culture or history. Law should be applied fairly to everyone. Either the prohibitionists should argue for a ban on ALL mind altering substances out of priniciple, or accept an evidence-based approach to drugs where their individual properties are considered before making laws.

[Herbal Healer 019]

Originally Posted by bcubed

However, I can see the corollary that prohibitionists could use: "Well, that just goes to show what happens to the death rate when you make a drug legal!".

Actually the rate of alcoholism during alcohol prohibition rose 300% compared to what it was when alcohol was legal. In addition to that a drastic increase of fatal overdoses was attributed to either overconsumption of alcohol or consumption of poorly manufactured aka poisonous alcohol during alcohol prohibition; the same is being seen with illegal drugs.

Originally Posted by bcubed

the other effect is that TOTAL usage is reduced (both from increased price and legal consequences).

Not at all true. Look at the statistics; before prohibition when heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, marijuana, etc.. were legal and over the counter, America had 1/10th the drug use it has today. Also if you look at the statistics before Nixon proposed "the war on drugs" the rates of drug use were much lower than they are today & the availability of drugs was much lower than it is today.

Drugs need to be legalized PERIOD. I could go on to state the reasons why but if you really think about it you can figure it out...

PS... Nice cobalt lol

[JAMINTHEDAM]

The netherlands is the only country that has even the slightest clue about progressive drug policy, it differentiates between drugs that cause detrimental effects on society and those that are relatively safe when controlled. It is not stuck in denial and has amongst the lowest death rate caused by drug use and addiction. The reason why this works has a lot to do with the liberal nature of the dutch when it comes to personal choices. In countrys that attempt to control society such as the usa this would be unworkable unless major changes were made to culturual opinions and it is likely that if the netherlands drug policy was instituted it would have very different effects. The same argument that can be used for the legalisation of soft drugs cannot be used for hard drugs as drugs such as heroin have a very negative effect on society. However there are many people who will get addicted to hard drugs regardless of the law and these people need to be helped but would legalisation do it? Personally