This is still circular reasoning. Once you concede that drug use is ethical and acceptable, if you continue to prosecute drug users for purchasing drugs (and thereby contributing to organised crime), you are treating the symptoms of a problem that the law itself has created. It's a non-issue.
I'm not arguing whether they should be prosecuted, I'm arguing that their actions are not morally right, and thus they have not acted ethically in all respects. If we woke up tomorrow and somehow, oranges had been outlawed, then I am not absolved of all moral responsibility when I kill a guy to get an orange because "it was the only way I could get one".
Limited access to supply of something does not regulate the lengths to which it is morally acceptable to go to acquire it; Need of that something does. Aknowledging that there is nothing unetical about use is not a moral carte-blanche to acquire it.
Here's an analogy: If you steal the only car in a five mile radius to drive your pregnant wife to the hospital, then that is a different moral scenario from stealing the same car to get to this really hot party 2 hours earlier.
(And I think willfully exposing yourself to the equivalent of a mental illness is ethically questionable.)
Changing needles back to off-the-shelf is very simple and will probably end up costing less than restricting them as we do now.
Some states are allowing behind-the-counter sales of limited quantities of needles. You have to ask a pharmacist, but you can't get them. I think Washington State does this, IIRC? But, yeah, I agree.
BTW, one thing I find interesting is that needle exchanges in the bay area stock intramuscular needles in addition to intravenous needles, because IM needles are used by transgendered people who buy hormones on the grey market.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Changing needles back to off-the-shelf is very simple and will probably end up costing less than restricting them as we do now.
Some states are allowing behind-the-counter sales of limited quantities of needles. You have to ask a pharmacist, but you can't get them. I think Washington State does this, IIRC? But, yeah, I agree.
BTW, one thing I find interesting is that needle exchanges in the bay area stock intramuscular needles in addition to intravenous needles, because IM needles are used by transgendered people who buy hormones on the grey market.
I didn't even understand why needle sharing/re-use was a problem in the first place until a Parademic co-worker of mine told me the background. TX has a serious meth problem and he worked down there for some time. People could at one point purchase needles off-the-shelf, then it moved to behind-the-counter which could be gotten by asking, and then they needed medical notes to justify it. Once it hit that point, people shared and re-used needles. It's so bad that once a needle is too dull to use anymore, people will scrape the needle across concrete until it's sharp enough to use again.
It's callous to refuse to readily sell needles to anyone who asks because those dirty, filthy drug users might get their hands on them.
Focusing on the financial side of things would really benefit the discussiona s well, and would be something I'd love to read from some of you google wizards/statistics majors, as I've always had a hard time vetting most of the info linked in threads like this.
I'm under the impression that the war on drugs is the most costly war our nation has ever involved itself, and is the leading contributing factor to the overcrowded Departments of Corrections, and the red ink on the budgets is the only reason rehabilative sentences are an option; they're also notoriously Jim Crow-lite, if you understand the ludicrousy of the mandatory crack sentences, and compare them to equitable weights of cocaine and their users respective demographics. There was an op-ed from CNN linked about the hazards of ignorant pothead teenagers ruining their lives, and preventing them from getting their hands on marijuana justifies the sinkhole that is the War on Terror, and in a similar vein the medical marijuana markets that're similar to California/Colorado/Washington (pre-legalization) are viewed as a sort of litmus test; that since they're screened by a doctor it'll protect those most at harm at losing themselves to the vices. In reality, it just bolsters the black markets reach, while discriminating against minorities or knowledge light consumers. The latter is the reason why possession is so frequently decriminalized outright in many municipalities (as opposed to with prescription). These draconian measures to firewall fragile citizens from becoming addicts simply marginalize, and have an unforeseen side effect with regards to the knowledge gap..
I agree that (obviously) drugs are primarily a health issue, and it's the lack of a centralized health system in the US (Canada and Britain are slightly more enlightened, being less prohibitive and with one-payer systems, but they, too, have ludicrous drug recidivism rates.), as well as the general attack/propaganda against personal liberty and states rights hyped through the Conservative left/Hollywood since the beginning of the temperence movement during Reconstruction, and not to mention the gross federal welfare state that our Justice system has become, is why legal progress is so obstinate. Now, a historical argument would only get us so far, with crystal methamphetamine and Heroin being created in the 1880's, but I think there's a lot to be learned from the ulterior motives of those that were within the Temperance movement (I.E. Opiates were widely used by the teetotalers within, and doctors boisterously encouraged their use over the evils of alcohol; As well as increasing these 'patients' addictions to the doctors, and allowing doctors to lobby for the first rudimentary drug scheduling system, and the modern idea of doctors prescriptions.). Another interesting factoid is that a lot of the moneyed interests backing Sufferage and the 18th ammendment (Hearst comes to mind) were using it as sanctimonious cover to get the liquor tax off the federal books, in hopes of a quicker ratification of the 16th , or possibly a national sales tax.
I agree that if there was a decriminalization the markets for these goods would need to be heavily regulated, and a staggered or EXTREMELY localized legalization system/regulation would need to be done, and again, it would be a states right issue (surprise surprise). I also think proper drug education (Think bio-chem, not dare) is paramount to making any real progress in our citizenship.
5) My view, Lemarc may differ, is that this is only an argument about recreational drugs. Drugs that aren't recreational would continue to be covered by current law. Dual use drugs would probably be covered by what is least restrictive, again to avoid a black market or seeking of a criminalized behavior.
There's also the possibility that you don't necessarily need to completely open the sale of a drug to reduce the prevalence of a black market. Some drug habits are - for lack of better terms - fungible, or convertible. Part of the reason meth is so prevalent is because it's easy to manufacture, but I also think that people just like stimulants and the most powerful stimulant freely available is caffeine. How many potential meth users might be diverted from meth if Adderall were easier to obtain? Or even khat? I don't know - I don't have an answer to that.
On this point: if you are willing to make opioids, amphetamines, or analogues to cocaine available, why not just restrict sales to weaker, more easily manageable versions of those drugs? So instead of heroin, maybe you have hydrocodone, and instead of methamphetamine you have adderall, like you suggested. This eliminates the difficulties resulting from routes of administration (its probably preferable that IV or IM routes of administration are not made entirely acceptable socially for recreational purposes for health reasons), and also limits the abuse potential and likelihood of overdose somewhat.
That said, those substances are still dangerous in some senses, and its entirely possible some people may become unhappy with anything less than their drug of choice. I feel like the best solution would be to come up with new recreational drugs that are more tailored (less potential for abuse, higher ratio between acceptable and dangerous dose), rather than repurposing medical drugs.
The nightmare that is Krokodil, russian bath-tub desomorphine, is a thing because codine was widely available. Those weaker versions of drugs tend to just be a handful of atoms away from the very scary strong versions. I am not sure if making their precursors more readily available will prevent usage the nastier drugs. The restrictions on meth precursors has actually been somewhat effective in preventing it's manufacture.
On the other hand, my opium is my favorite Opioid, I greatly prefer canabis to other drugs that play with canabinod receptors, and lots of folks prefer cocaine salts to it's freebase forms. So, ehhh... I don't know.
We need to just give everyone copious amounts of antidepressants like A Brave New World.
But what about all of the casual sex and overt social classes? Your table needs more then one leg to stand on, son.
RedTide on
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
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Tor_HershmanTor Hershman, The Universal Toilet CleanerRegistered Userregular
Hey, you can't plant a Samuel Adams' tree, now can you?
Criminality gives the status quo a GREAT stash-cash-cow.
The most I ever use is, occasionally, a green tea but mostly decaf.
Man, that dude was like, Time Cube crazy.
So uh, there's one pro-prohibition argument.
Aioua on
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
0
ShivahnUnaware of her barrel shifter privilegeWestern coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderatormod
BTW, one thing I find interesting is that needle exchanges in the bay area stock intramuscular needles in addition to intravenous needles, because IM needles are used by transgendered people who buy hormones on the grey market.
Whoa, really?
We are the coolest.
Also I totally didn't know/forgot that you don't inject hormones IV.
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
You ask a hard question, with what I must admit is a difficult answer. I do believe that the behavior you describe is unethical in that it is an unpunished violation of law, and so undermines the rule if law more generally, but I don't think that is enough on its own to recommend people abstain. This is really a mistake of the government which has made a "bad" law. I know that there are parallels to drugs, and I actually favor legalization of marijuana for this reason, even though i would favor total prohibition if it were possible.
I think you might be oversimplifying the situation slightly. The law is not monolithic – a lack of perceived enforcement in the area of, say, traffic violations doesn't necessarily increase people's tendency to commit arson and murder. If drug prohibition laws are themselves undesirable, then anything that undermines their legitimacy could be viewed as having a positive effect.
What do you mean by "total prohibition"? Alcohol, nicotine, caffeine?
But people disobeying traffic laws does reduce my ability to reasonably rely on other people to follow them. I'm not sure what category violations of a law against homosexual sex would bleed into, but there is always something. To be clear, I am not assigning a high ethical value to following the law in all cases, but there is also at least a modicum of ethical weight in all choices to violate the law, imo.
On choices of prohibition, my ideal would probably be everything we currently prohibit, plus alcohol and tobacco, and a ban on putting additives like caffeine into something, but I would not object to naturally occuring caffeine, like in coffee or tea. I know it isn't a clean line, and I'm ok with that. I think that, like pornography, I know it when I see it, may be the acceptable standard.
Ah okay, I understand @spacekungfuman's position (on lawbreaking) a bit better now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're kind of looking at the gross ethical value of lawbreaking when you say it is always unethical, but it can be balanced out because of reasons.
So, say, break a law (-1 ethics point) to oppose tyranny (+25 ethics points) is a net ethical good. (+24 points! yay!)
While I think most people see the net good and would therefore see breaking the law as ethically good.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Ah okay, I understand @spacekungfuman's position (on lawbreaking) a bit better now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're kind of looking at the gross ethical value of lawbreaking when you say it is always unethical, but it can be balanced out because of reasons.
So, say, break a law (-1 ethics point) to oppose tyranny (+25 ethics points) is a net ethical good. (+24 points! yay!)
While I think most people see the net good and would therefore see breaking the law as ethically good.
Yes, that is right, but with the caveat that in most cases, the hit for breaking the law is probably greater. Your split seems like a civil rights civil disobedience scenario.
Ah okay, I understand @spacekungfuman's position (on lawbreaking) a bit better now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're kind of looking at the gross ethical value of lawbreaking when you say it is always unethical, but it can be balanced out because of reasons.
So, say, break a law (-1 ethics point) to oppose tyranny (+25 ethics points) is a net ethical good. (+24 points! yay!)
While I think most people see the net good and would therefore see breaking the law as ethically good.
Yes, that is right, but with the caveat that in most cases, the hit for breaking the law is probably greater. Your split seems like a civil rights civil disobedience scenario.
Yeah. Okay. I'd agree that (in the US at least) most laws are just, and can't really be ethically broken.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Changing needles back to off-the-shelf is very simple and will probably end up costing less than restricting them as we do now.
Some states are allowing behind-the-counter sales of limited quantities of needles. You have to ask a pharmacist, but you can't get them. I think Washington State does this, IIRC? But, yeah, I agree.
BTW, one thing I find interesting is that needle exchanges in the bay area stock intramuscular needles in addition to intravenous needles, because IM needles are used by transgendered people who buy hormones on the grey market.
I don't know if this constitutes a problem, but there is also a grey market (or more like a drug swap) for fertility drugs which require intramuscular injections. I give my wife an intramuscular injection every night (and she also does a sub-cutaneus injection every morning) and if the pharmacy didn't give us free needles, I have no idea where you would get them. Sometimes one of her friends runs out of needles and we give them some (the pharmacy sends a ridiculous number of them).
Changing needles back to off-the-shelf is very simple and will probably end up costing less than restricting them as we do now.
Some states are allowing behind-the-counter sales of limited quantities of needles. You have to ask a pharmacist, but you can't get them. I think Washington State does this, IIRC? But, yeah, I agree.
BTW, one thing I find interesting is that needle exchanges in the bay area stock intramuscular needles in addition to intravenous needles, because IM needles are used by transgendered people who buy hormones on the grey market.
I don't know if this constitutes a problem, but there is also a grey market (or more like a drug swap) for fertility drugs which require intramuscular injections. I give my wife an intramuscular injection every night (and she also does a sub-cutaneus injection every morning) and if the pharmacy didn't give us free needles, I have no idea where you would get them. Sometimes one of her friends runs out of needles and we give them some (the pharmacy sends a ridiculous number of them).
Licensed pharmacies, health care facilities, and health care practitioners who can otherwise prescribe hypodermic needles or syringes may register with the New York State Department of Health to sell or furnish up to 10 hypodermic needles or syringes to persons 18 years of age or older.
Persons who are age 18 years or older may legally obtain and possess hypodermic needles and syringes through ESAP- without a medical prescription.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I'm guessing you mean specifically criminalization of civilian possession, not necessarily criminalization of production.
Part of the problem here, to me, is that the word "prohibition" harkens back to the 18th amendment, which specifically made production illegal, not possession.
In Portugal, possession of illicit drugs is still technically illegal, it's just an administrative punishment rather than a criminal one (kind of like a jaywalking ticket). However, production of illicit drugs is still a criminal act in Portugal.
Speaking of marijuana specifically: Portugal's liberal marijuana policies are more analogous to 1920s alcohol prohibition than the US's marijuana policies. When we criminalized possession of marijuana, we went a step past prohibition into super-mega-Raichu-prohibition.
Consequently, if you say "we should end prohibition!" I'm not sure if you mean decriminalization of possession or complete legalization of amateur manufacture and distribution. This is a huge difference. (Technically speaking, a nation can't legalize amateur production of cannabis, cocaine, or heroin without running afoul of the UN Convention Against Trafficking of Illicit Drugs anyway, which is a pretty enormous political hurdle to jump.)
I mean both possession and production (hence why I don't consider Portugal a good example), but I am in favour of restricting production to only licensed manufacturers. So not total decriminalisation, in that sense. I'm also not opposed to fairly strict regulations on sale and distribution, so long as it's not so strict as to lead to the continuance of the black market - i.e. users must be able to get access to their drug of choice from legitimate sources.
I believe firmly that the burden of proof should be on those who want to restrict drugs to demonstrate why we should have those restrictions.
I also believe that we should have licensed and regulated manufacture, and limited but legal sale, of certain low-risk drugs like marijuana, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, etc. And I think we should allow therapeutic use of MDMA.
However, for certain drugs that are particularly dangerous to the individual or to the community, particularly addictive, or particularly known to promote aggressive or otherwise dangerous behavior then I have no problem with significant restrictions both on manufacture and possession. This would include meth, all opioids, gabapentin (due to its tendency to cause self-harming impulses), drugs with relatively narrow windows between desirable effects and overdose (medications like warfarin or recreational drugs like 2CT7), drugs where community overuse could promote disease (antibiotics, immunosuppressants).
I agree, but with the qualification above.
I don't think that it should be necessary to point to a real-world example of legalization to effectively argue that legalization would be dangerous. I think it's sufficient to point to the negative effects of the drug itself. Just as a low-controversy example: it's not a huge leap of logic to say that if antibiotics were sold over-the-counter in supermarkets, we'd have epidemics of antibiotics-resistant staph and tuberculosis, therefore we shouldn't sell antibiotics over-the-counter in supermarkets. Similarly, I really don't want to live in a world where people can buy meth at gas stations, because I think that even in the absence of a black market, meth use would still cause criminal and aggressive behavior.
I don't want you to point to a real-world example, but I would like to see some compelling real-world evidence. There's a certain point up to which nearly everyone can agree (meth should not be sold in convenience stores), but beyond that you should present some kind of evidence that your preferred level of restriction will have the benefits you say it will. You specifically aren't really who I'm addressing, since you're already a lot more liberal than the current drug policies.
I'm not arguing whether they should be prosecuted, I'm arguing that their actions are not morally right, and thus they have not acted ethically in all respects. If we woke up tomorrow and somehow, oranges had been outlawed, then I am not absolved of all moral responsibility when I kill a guy to get an orange because "it was the only way I could get one".
Limited access to supply of something does not regulate the lengths to which it is morally acceptable to go to acquire it; Need of that something does. Aknowledging that there is nothing unetical about use is not a moral carte-blanche to acquire it.
I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make. I concede that purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical, I just don't see how it's relevant. My premise was that using drugs is not unethical, and that is the act the laws are intended to prevent. The ethicality of you killing a man over an orange has no bearing whatsoever on whether oranges should be legal, except as a possible negative consequence of fruit-based sumptuary laws.
I'm also not opposed to fairly strict regulations on sale and distribution, so long as it's not so strict as to lead to the continuance of the black market - i.e. users must be able to get access to their drug of choice from legitimate sources.
...
I don't want you to point to a real-world example, but I would like to see some compelling real-world evidence. There's a certain point up to which nearly everyone can agree (meth should not be sold in convenience stores), but beyond that you should present some kind of evidence that your preferred level of restriction will have the benefits you say it will. You specifically aren't really who I'm addressing, since you're already a lot more liberal than the current drug policies.
Yeah, I suspect our opinions are more similar than different.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Can you provide some kind of evidence that regulation of the items you buy in order to make meth has been effective in keeping people from manufacturing it? I think all it's really done is keep the price stable. I don't think that anyone that would have made meth has really been prevented from doing so.
Can you provide some kind of evidence that regulation of the items you buy in order to make meth has been effective in keeping people from manufacturing it? I think all it's really done is keep the price stable. I don't think that anyone that would have made meth has really been prevented from doing so.
That's because they all steal methylmine now. It's a great plan, just stay out of ABQ.
+2
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It's callous to refuse to readily sell needles to anyone who asks because those dirty, filthy drug users might get their hands on them.
Callous may be the wrong word. While I don't think this is particularly effective policy, one could say that the risk of infection is a feature of drug policy, in that it makes using drugs riskier and so acts as a disincentive. One could go even further and try to increase exposure to such risks, or otherwise inflate the risks of drug use (such as by cutting drugs with poison and selling them on the street) as a means of decreasing use (or users). Reprehensible, perhaps, but not incoherent as a policy.
For the record, I do NOT endorse any such policy.
0
Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
Can you provide some kind of evidence that regulation of the items you buy in order to make meth has been effective in keeping people from manufacturing it? I think all it's really done is keep the price stable. I don't think that anyone that would have made meth has really been prevented from doing so.
That's because they all steal methylmine now. It's a great plan, just stay out of ABQ.
They don't play around down there. I was in a home depot this one time buying supplies, and this hard as fuck geezer is giving me pointers on match heads like it's some sort of bio lecture or shit. So I freak out and bail, but he follows me out to the parking lot and is all "STAY OUT OF MY TERRITORY".
one of the big objections to needle provision stems from the concentration-of-social-ills mentioned earlier
picking a site for the distribution of said needles is highly unpopular
That's actually part of the impetus behind limited-sale laws like the ones in New York and Washington State. They're a lot lower-profile than opening up a safe injection site or a needle exchange, and don't suffer the same problems with NIMBYism.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Related to NIMBYism, if something bad happens in a good area, people brush it under the rug fast. A store owner was found to be distributing heroin out of his store in a town near me a few years back, and noone even made a big deal about it, because the town was affluent and extremely low crime. I suspect the reaction would have been different if it happened in a "bad" area and so reinforced everyone's perceptions of that area, instead of creating dissonance.
I suspect the reaction would have been different if the heroin buyers had been from out-of-town and non-affluent.
The ones who were caught in the arrest were, and that was by far the biggest talking point. Similarly, there was a pharmacy robbery in the area pretty recently, and instead of talking about prescription drug addiction or other things like that, all anyone talked about was the scum bag criminal coming from the poor area to commit a crime in a place that doesn't have bullet proof glass around the pharmacy counter.
5) My view, Lemarc may differ, is that this is only an argument about recreational drugs. Drugs that aren't recreational would continue to be covered by current law. Dual use drugs would probably be covered by what is least restrictive, again to avoid a black market or seeking of a criminalized behavior.
There's also the possibility that you don't necessarily need to completely open the sale of a drug to reduce the prevalence of a black market. Some drug habits are - for lack of better terms - fungible, or convertible. Part of the reason meth is so prevalent is because it's easy to manufacture, but I also think that people just like stimulants and the most powerful stimulant freely available is caffeine. How many potential meth users might be diverted from meth if Adderall were easier to obtain? Or even khat? I don't know - I don't have an answer to that.
On this point: if you are willing to make opioids, amphetamines, or analogues to cocaine available, why not just restrict sales to weaker, more easily manageable versions of those drugs? So instead of heroin, maybe you have hydrocodone, and instead of methamphetamine you have adderall, like you suggested. This eliminates the difficulties resulting from routes of administration (its probably preferable that IV or IM routes of administration are not made entirely acceptable socially for recreational purposes for health reasons), and also limits the abuse potential and likelihood of overdose somewhat.
That said, those substances are still dangerous in some senses, and its entirely possible some people may become unhappy with anything less than their drug of choice. I feel like the best solution would be to come up with new recreational drugs that are more tailored (less potential for abuse, higher ratio between acceptable and dangerous dose), rather than repurposing medical drugs.
The nightmare that is Krokodil, russian bath-tub desomorphine, is a thing because codine was widely available. Those weaker versions of drugs tend to just be a handful of atoms away from the very scary strong versions. I am not sure if making their precursors more readily available will prevent usage the nastier drugs. The restrictions on meth precursors has actually been somewhat effective in preventing it's manufacture.
On the other hand, my opium is my favorite Opioid, I greatly prefer canabis to other drugs that play with canabinod receptors, and lots of folks prefer cocaine salts to it's freebase forms. So, ehhh... I don't know.
I don't know enough about russia to really talk about this definitively, but wouldn't social issues and attitudes / a lack of treatment be as much responsible for something like Krokodil as availability of precursors? Making it easier to produce widens the pool of people who might be willing or able to make things like that, but it's always possible to produce drugs.
I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make. I concede that purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical, I just don't see how it's relevant. My premise was that using drugs is not unethical, and that is the act the laws are intended to prevent. The ethicality of you killing a man over an orange has no bearing whatsoever on whether oranges should be legal, except as a possible negative consequence of fruit-based sumptuary laws.
The point is that "3. A person who has behaved ethically in all respects is innocent of wrongdoing." is not true for people who've bought cocaine, because they have not behaved ethically in all respects. Going to a party is not morally wrong. Stealing a car to get there is morally wrong. Joe steals a car to get there. The statement "All partygoers are acting in an ethically appropriate manner by going to a party, because going to a party is not morally wrong" is then false.
Don't get me wrong, if I got to design these laws they would be more liberal than they are today, and it'd be a whole lot more pragmatic than the current laws. But this particular avenue of attack is a bad one that relies on absolving people of moral responsibility for their actions in a way that we find unacceptable if reframed to a broader class of scenarios.
The point is that "3. A person who has behaved ethically in all respects is innocent of wrongdoing." is not true for people who've bought cocaine, because they have not behaved ethically in all respects.
That's correct. But how is it relevant? It doesn't invalidate any of my premises. The argument I put forward was that there should not be laws punishing people for using drugs, since using drugs is not in itself unethical (although a good utilarian argument would get around that). It didn't address, reference, or rely in any way on the ethicality of purchasing illegal drugs. Explain to me clearly the chain of reasoning that takes you from your point, "Purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical", to your disproving my point, "Using drugs should not be illegal."
Maybe this will help: suppose you and I are building a society from the ground up, and writing all the laws ourselves. I argue that we shouldn't have laws against drug use, with the reasoning I've already given. What's your response?
Going to a party is not morally wrong. Stealing a car to get there is morally wrong. Joe steals a car to get there. The statement "All partygoers are acting in an ethically appropriate manner by going to a party, because going to a party is not morally wrong" is then false.
Stealing the car is morally wrong. The act of going to a party is still not morally wrong per se, whatever unethical means people use to get there. Joe could be prosecuted for stealing the car, but he could not be prosecuted for going to the party.
The point is that "3. A person who has behaved ethically in all respects is innocent of wrongdoing." is not true for people who've bought cocaine, because they have not behaved ethically in all respects.
That's correct. But how is it relevant? It doesn't invalidate any of my premises. The argument I put forward was that there should not be laws punishing people for using drugs, since using drugs is not in itself unethical (although a good utilarian argument would get around that). It didn't address, reference, or rely in any way on the ethicality of purchasing illegal drugs. Explain to me clearly the chain of reasoning that takes you from your point, "Purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical", to your disproving my point, "Using drugs should not be illegal."
Maybe this will help: suppose you and I are building a society from the ground up, and writing all the laws ourselves. I argue that we shouldn't have laws against drug use, with the reasoning I've already given. What's your response?
Going to a party is not morally wrong. Stealing a car to get there is morally wrong. Joe steals a car to get there. The statement "All partygoers are acting in an ethically appropriate manner by going to a party, because going to a party is not morally wrong" is then false.
Stealing the car is morally wrong. The act of going to a party is still not morally wrong per se, whatever unethical means people use to get there. Joe could be prosecuted for stealing the car, but he could not be prosecuted for going to the party.
You're agreeing with a statement that says one of your premises is false, and then you're saying it doesn't invalidate any of your premises?
And my point isn't that "using drugs should not be illegal" is generally false, my point is that it does not follow from "The prohibition of drug use entails the deliberate incarceration and punishment of innocent people", i.e. the moral innocence of those punished under existing laws. I'm not objecting to the conclusion (well, not at the moment), I'm objecting to trying to get there by maintaining that prohibition hurts innocents who just wants some cocaine by throwing them into jail after buying cocaine.
Because in the vast majority of cases (homegrown/picked mushrooms being two obvious exceptions) they are not actually morally innocent, because they provide material support for criminal organizations.
(Though I would argue that we should have laws against drug use, because chemically undermining people's ability to make free choices is bad, but they would be less strict than current laws, because there are drugs that are currently illegal that do not actually undermine people's ability to make free choices, and those drugs should not be illegal.)
You're agreeing with a statement that says one of your premises is false, and then you're saying it doesn't invalidate any of your premises?
I was glossing over your somewhat inaccurate wording to try and help the discussion along. The statement "People who have bought black market cocaine have behaved unethically" doesn't actually invalidate the premise "A person who has behaved ethically in all respects is innocent of wrongdoing."
And my point isn't that "using drugs should not be illegal" is generally false, my point is that it does not follow from "The prohibition of drug use entails the deliberate incarceration and punishment of innocent people", i.e. the moral innocence of those punished under existing laws. I'm not objecting to the conclusion (well, not at the moment), I'm objecting to trying to get there by maintaining that prohibition hurts innocents who just wants some cocaine by throwing them into jail after buying cocaine.
Because in the vast majority of cases (homegrown/picked mushrooms being two obvious exceptions) they are not actually morally innocent, because they provide material support for criminal organizations.
I think I see the source of the confusion. My argument isn't that drug users are, as a group, morally innocent. My argument is that drug use is not in and of itself unethical, and that, barring other considerations (such as social harm), people should not be punished for ethical behaviour, since they are - again, barring other considerations - innocent of wrongdoing. Drug use is not inherently unethical. The fact that purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical is not a valid consideration, because any argument made on the basis that users must purchase their drugs on the black market presupposes the existence of the very law that I'm arguing against.
The logic from the opposite side looks something like this:
1. Drug use is unethical/harmful.
2. Therefore the use and sale of drugs should be illegal.
3. Because the sale of drugs is illegal, purchasing drugs necessarily entails the use of the black market.
4. The use of the black market funds unethical behaviour.
5. Therefore, purchasing drugs is unethical.
If you remove point 1, which is the point under argument, 2-5 cease to apply. My claim is that drug use is not unethical, and that the harm it causes has not been shown to outweigh the harm caused by prohibition. Point 5 is therefore not relevant - if I'm wrong, it's superfluous, since the use of drugs is unethical anyway and should be prohibited in its own right; if I'm right, it actually supports my argument, since it's a consequence of 2. In no case can 3-5 cannot be used to support 1, since they are reliant on 2, which is itself reliant on 1.
Back to the car theft example: if the only way to get to a party were to steal a car, you could prohibit parties on the basis of reducing car theft. But you couldn't prohibit parties on the basis that they're unethical, because they aren't. It's not a negligible distinction. If you punish someone for an ethical and non-harmful act then you are punishing an "innocent" person, regardless of what other crimes they may have committed. It's not okay. You wouldn't frame someone for one crime in lieu of convicting them for another.
Or, back to you and me on a desert island: if you look at it from the opposite perspective, i.e. the question of criminalising drug use where it was not illegal before, the problem doesn't exist, since there is no black market.
(Though I would argue that we should have laws against drug use, because chemically undermining people's ability to make free choices is bad, but they would be less strict than current laws, because there are drugs that are currently illegal that do not actually undermine people's ability to make free choices, and those drugs should not be illegal.)
I'd be open to hearing such an argument, if you want to make it. Although I'd still like to hear from someone who actually supports the current laws.
If you really want to engage in the high philosophy, I suppose I'll point out that "no, you have to prove that it is harmful", as a general principle, has some perverse incentives on the pursuit of creative ways to complicate this proof. With finance being a prominent example.
And all law enforcement is costly. If you want a illegal-graffiti-free society, you have to ban far more than the act of illegal graffiti itself for the enforcement to be practical. Bans can be quite non-intuitive, even (hence my 'chewing gum' bait above, which I'm surprised nobody took). It is not self-evident that the ethical obligation is to pursue the contrapositive, and give up the aim, although that is what Western states frequently do. Either route imposes some suffering upon innocents.
(if Feral is a progressive libertarian, I suppose that makes me a progressive authoritarian in comparison!)
I don't think you'll find any defendants of American drug policy as it currently exists. But all legislation is the product of the sausage-factory, not high principle. You would hardly argue that the flaws of American tax policy render all taxation unethical.
I think I see the source of the confusion. My argument isn't that drug users are, as a group, morally innocent. My argument is that drug use is not in and of itself unethical, and that, barring other considerations (such as social harm), people should not be punished for ethical behaviour, since they are - again, barring other considerations - innocent of wrongdoing. Drug use is not inherently unethical. The fact that purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical is not a valid consideration, because any argument made on the basis that users must purchase their drugs on the black market presupposes the existence of the very law that I'm arguing against.
The logic from the opposite side looks something like this:
1. Drug use is unethical/harmful.
2. Therefore the use and sale of drugs should be illegal.
3. Because the sale of drugs is illegal, purchasing drugs necessarily entails the use of the black market.
4. The use of the black market funds unethical behaviour.
5. Therefore, purchasing drugs is unethical.
If you remove point 1, which is the point under argument, 2-5 cease to apply. My claim is that drug use is not unethical, and that the harm it causes has not been shown to outweigh the harm caused by prohibition. Point 5 is therefore not relevant - if I'm wrong, it's superfluous, since the use of drugs is unethical anyway and should be prohibited in its own right; if I'm right, it actually supports my argument, since it's a consequence of 2. In no case can 3-5 cannot be used to support 1, since they are reliant on 2, which is itself reliant on 1.
You could have just said that "If drugs are ethical, then purchasing drugs is ethical" =p
However, I have to disagree with your statement that drug use is ethical. One of the criteria I utilize to determine if an action is ethical is if it causes harm to others. Drugs fail this criteria, including both legal and illegal drugs.
For example, tobacco. This drug has been demonstrated to significantly increase risk of cancer, heart disease, and a host of other health issues. This harms others, because to treat these side effects utilizes health care and pharmaceutical resources that could have been focused on others, thus depriving them of aid that they may need. It also adds stress, with it's negative effects, to your loved ones, family, and friends.
I think smoking is an unethical decision. And I'm a smoker, who generally considers myself to be an ethical person.
1. The act of ingesting a drug (be it aspirin, caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, or heroin) is not unethical per se.
2. The act of breaking the law is not unethical per se, i.e. the law is not self-justifying.
3. A person who has behaved ethically in all respects is innocent of wrongdoing.
4. To deliberately harm an innocent person is unethical.
This is a tautological argument. It only works if you accept the above definitions. I disagree with the first three points made.
1) Please see my previous post regarding ethics of drug use.
2) There is a social convention that we all follow that includes following the laws. Part of our ethical makeup is compliance to this social convention, and failure to follow this convention by others is often perceived as unethical. By deciding not to follow the law, you may put someone else at risk, and thus fail the criteria of "do no harm to others".
I would say that the vast majority of laws are written following ethical guidelines, but the laws themselves are ethically neutral. The act of breaking a law, however, requires a conscious decision on our part, and is unethical because it goes against our social convention.
3) "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
If you really want to engage in the high philosophy, I suppose I'll point out that "no, you have to prove that it is harmful", as a general principle, has some perverse incentives on the pursuit of creative ways to complicate this proof. With finance being a prominent example.
And all law enforcement is costly. If you want a illegal-graffiti-free society, you have to ban far more than the act of illegal graffiti itself for the enforcement to be practical. Bans can be quite non-intuitive, even (hence my 'chewing gum' bait above, which I'm surprised nobody took). It is not self-evident that the ethical obligation is to pursue the contrapositive, and give up the aim, although that is what Western states frequently do. Either route imposes some suffering upon innocents.
(if Feral is a progressive libertarian, I suppose that makes me a progressive authoritarian in comparison!)
I don't think you'll find any defendants of American drug policy as it currently exists. But all legislation is the product of the sausage-factory, not high principle. You would hardly argue that the flaws of American tax policy render all taxation unethical.
All criminal law theoretically exists for the good of a society and the people in it. I don't really think it's "high philosophy" to expect laws to be ethical, or to discuss the ethics of a law if not everyone is in agreement about them. The sausage factory is just a compromise of different people's opinions of what's ethical. It does seems self-evident that if a law fails at its intended purpose, it should be changed, abandoned or replaced. It also seems self-evident that a law should have a reason to exist, and that it's the responsibilty of the proponents of that law to provide the reasoning. If the connection between law and effect isn't immediately intuitive, that makes your task slightly harder, but it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility. Basically, while what you've said is all true up to a point, none of it shifts the burden of proof of the shoulders of the prohibitionists.
I'm not talking about American drug policy specifically, but it makes as good an example as any. Obviously, while there may not be any defendants of the policy exactly as it currently exists, there are those who are in favour of prohibiton being as strict as or stricter than it is now, hence the compromise. Those people have an obligation to show their reasoning and supporting evidence, we can't just make things illegal on their say-so.
Posts
Limited access to supply of something does not regulate the lengths to which it is morally acceptable to go to acquire it; Need of that something does. Aknowledging that there is nothing unetical about use is not a moral carte-blanche to acquire it.
Here's an analogy: If you steal the only car in a five mile radius to drive your pregnant wife to the hospital, then that is a different moral scenario from stealing the same car to get to this really hot party 2 hours earlier.
(And I think willfully exposing yourself to the equivalent of a mental illness is ethically questionable.)
Some states are allowing behind-the-counter sales of limited quantities of needles. You have to ask a pharmacist, but you can't get them. I think Washington State does this, IIRC? But, yeah, I agree.
BTW, one thing I find interesting is that needle exchanges in the bay area stock intramuscular needles in addition to intravenous needles, because IM needles are used by transgendered people who buy hormones on the grey market.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I didn't even understand why needle sharing/re-use was a problem in the first place until a Parademic co-worker of mine told me the background. TX has a serious meth problem and he worked down there for some time. People could at one point purchase needles off-the-shelf, then it moved to behind-the-counter which could be gotten by asking, and then they needed medical notes to justify it. Once it hit that point, people shared and re-used needles. It's so bad that once a needle is too dull to use anymore, people will scrape the needle across concrete until it's sharp enough to use again.
It's callous to refuse to readily sell needles to anyone who asks because those dirty, filthy drug users might get their hands on them.
no bueno
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm under the impression that the war on drugs is the most costly war our nation has ever involved itself, and is the leading contributing factor to the overcrowded Departments of Corrections, and the red ink on the budgets is the only reason rehabilative sentences are an option; they're also notoriously Jim Crow-lite, if you understand the ludicrousy of the mandatory crack sentences, and compare them to equitable weights of cocaine and their users respective demographics. There was an op-ed from CNN linked about the hazards of ignorant pothead teenagers ruining their lives, and preventing them from getting their hands on marijuana justifies the sinkhole that is the War on Terror, and in a similar vein the medical marijuana markets that're similar to California/Colorado/Washington (pre-legalization) are viewed as a sort of litmus test; that since they're screened by a doctor it'll protect those most at harm at losing themselves to the vices. In reality, it just bolsters the black markets reach, while discriminating against minorities or knowledge light consumers. The latter is the reason why possession is so frequently decriminalized outright in many municipalities (as opposed to with prescription). These draconian measures to firewall fragile citizens from becoming addicts simply marginalize, and have an unforeseen side effect with regards to the knowledge gap..
I agree that (obviously) drugs are primarily a health issue, and it's the lack of a centralized health system in the US (Canada and Britain are slightly more enlightened, being less prohibitive and with one-payer systems, but they, too, have ludicrous drug recidivism rates.), as well as the general attack/propaganda against personal liberty and states rights hyped through the Conservative left/Hollywood since the beginning of the temperence movement during Reconstruction, and not to mention the gross federal welfare state that our Justice system has become, is why legal progress is so obstinate. Now, a historical argument would only get us so far, with crystal methamphetamine and Heroin being created in the 1880's, but I think there's a lot to be learned from the ulterior motives of those that were within the Temperance movement (I.E. Opiates were widely used by the teetotalers within, and doctors boisterously encouraged their use over the evils of alcohol; As well as increasing these 'patients' addictions to the doctors, and allowing doctors to lobby for the first rudimentary drug scheduling system, and the modern idea of doctors prescriptions.). Another interesting factoid is that a lot of the moneyed interests backing Sufferage and the 18th ammendment (Hearst comes to mind) were using it as sanctimonious cover to get the liquor tax off the federal books, in hopes of a quicker ratification of the 16th , or possibly a national sales tax.
I agree that if there was a decriminalization the markets for these goods would need to be heavily regulated, and a staggered or EXTREMELY localized legalization system/regulation would need to be done, and again, it would be a states right issue (surprise surprise). I also think proper drug education (Think bio-chem, not dare) is paramount to making any real progress in our citizenship.
The nightmare that is Krokodil, russian bath-tub desomorphine, is a thing because codine was widely available. Those weaker versions of drugs tend to just be a handful of atoms away from the very scary strong versions. I am not sure if making their precursors more readily available will prevent usage the nastier drugs. The restrictions on meth precursors has actually been somewhat effective in preventing it's manufacture.
On the other hand, my opium is my favorite Opioid, I greatly prefer canabis to other drugs that play with canabinod receptors, and lots of folks prefer cocaine salts to it's freebase forms. So, ehhh... I don't know.
PSN: rlinkmanl
But what about all of the casual sex and overt social classes? Your table needs more then one leg to stand on, son.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Criminality gives the status quo a GREAT stash-cash-cow.
The most I ever use is, occasionally, a green tea but mostly decaf.
So uh, there's one pro-prohibition argument.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Whoa, really?
We are the coolest.
Also I totally didn't know/forgot that you don't inject hormones IV.
But people disobeying traffic laws does reduce my ability to reasonably rely on other people to follow them. I'm not sure what category violations of a law against homosexual sex would bleed into, but there is always something. To be clear, I am not assigning a high ethical value to following the law in all cases, but there is also at least a modicum of ethical weight in all choices to violate the law, imo.
On choices of prohibition, my ideal would probably be everything we currently prohibit, plus alcohol and tobacco, and a ban on putting additives like caffeine into something, but I would not object to naturally occuring caffeine, like in coffee or tea. I know it isn't a clean line, and I'm ok with that. I think that, like pornography, I know it when I see it, may be the acceptable standard.
So, say, break a law (-1 ethics point) to oppose tyranny (+25 ethics points) is a net ethical good. (+24 points! yay!)
While I think most people see the net good and would therefore see breaking the law as ethically good.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Yes, that is right, but with the caveat that in most cases, the hit for breaking the law is probably greater. Your split seems like a civil rights civil disobedience scenario.
Yeah. Okay. I'd agree that (in the US at least) most laws are just, and can't really be ethically broken.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I don't know if this constitutes a problem, but there is also a grey market (or more like a drug swap) for fertility drugs which require intramuscular injections. I give my wife an intramuscular injection every night (and she also does a sub-cutaneus injection every morning) and if the pharmacy didn't give us free needles, I have no idea where you would get them. Sometimes one of her friends runs out of needles and we give them some (the pharmacy sends a ridiculous number of them).
Are you in New York state?
You can buy needles at certain pharmacies there (this is similar to the WA state law): http://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/aids/harm_reduction/needles_syringes/esap/overview.htm
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I agree, but with the qualification above.
I don't want you to point to a real-world example, but I would like to see some compelling real-world evidence. There's a certain point up to which nearly everyone can agree (meth should not be sold in convenience stores), but beyond that you should present some kind of evidence that your preferred level of restriction will have the benefits you say it will. You specifically aren't really who I'm addressing, since you're already a lot more liberal than the current drug policies.
I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make. I concede that purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical, I just don't see how it's relevant. My premise was that using drugs is not unethical, and that is the act the laws are intended to prevent. The ethicality of you killing a man over an orange has no bearing whatsoever on whether oranges should be legal, except as a possible negative consequence of fruit-based sumptuary laws.
Yeah, I suspect our opinions are more similar than different.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Can you provide some kind of evidence that regulation of the items you buy in order to make meth has been effective in keeping people from manufacturing it? I think all it's really done is keep the price stable. I don't think that anyone that would have made meth has really been prevented from doing so.
There's the 8-> chewing gum 8-> thing too, that might amuse skfm
That's because they all steal methylmine now. It's a great plan, just stay out of ABQ.
Callous may be the wrong word. While I don't think this is particularly effective policy, one could say that the risk of infection is a feature of drug policy, in that it makes using drugs riskier and so acts as a disincentive. One could go even further and try to increase exposure to such risks, or otherwise inflate the risks of drug use (such as by cutting drugs with poison and selling them on the street) as a means of decreasing use (or users). Reprehensible, perhaps, but not incoherent as a policy.
For the record, I do NOT endorse any such policy.
They don't play around down there. I was in a home depot this one time buying supplies, and this hard as fuck geezer is giving me pointers on match heads like it's some sort of bio lecture or shit. So I freak out and bail, but he follows me out to the parking lot and is all "STAY OUT OF MY TERRITORY".
Shit was IN-TENSE
picking a site for the distribution of said needles is highly unpopular
That's actually part of the impetus behind limited-sale laws like the ones in New York and Washington State. They're a lot lower-profile than opening up a safe injection site or a needle exchange, and don't suffer the same problems with NIMBYism.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The ones who were caught in the arrest were, and that was by far the biggest talking point. Similarly, there was a pharmacy robbery in the area pretty recently, and instead of talking about prescription drug addiction or other things like that, all anyone talked about was the scum bag criminal coming from the poor area to commit a crime in a place that doesn't have bullet proof glass around the pharmacy counter.
I don't know enough about russia to really talk about this definitively, but wouldn't social issues and attitudes / a lack of treatment be as much responsible for something like Krokodil as availability of precursors? Making it easier to produce widens the pool of people who might be willing or able to make things like that, but it's always possible to produce drugs.
No no, it's because it made those uppity negroes crazy*
*please note the above is tongue in cheek in reference to the horseshit peddled in the days of yore and not an opinion I actually hold
Don't get me wrong, if I got to design these laws they would be more liberal than they are today, and it'd be a whole lot more pragmatic than the current laws. But this particular avenue of attack is a bad one that relies on absolving people of moral responsibility for their actions in a way that we find unacceptable if reframed to a broader class of scenarios.
Maybe this will help: suppose you and I are building a society from the ground up, and writing all the laws ourselves. I argue that we shouldn't have laws against drug use, with the reasoning I've already given. What's your response?
Stealing the car is morally wrong. The act of going to a party is still not morally wrong per se, whatever unethical means people use to get there. Joe could be prosecuted for stealing the car, but he could not be prosecuted for going to the party.
And my point isn't that "using drugs should not be illegal" is generally false, my point is that it does not follow from "The prohibition of drug use entails the deliberate incarceration and punishment of innocent people", i.e. the moral innocence of those punished under existing laws. I'm not objecting to the conclusion (well, not at the moment), I'm objecting to trying to get there by maintaining that prohibition hurts innocents who just wants some cocaine by throwing them into jail after buying cocaine.
Because in the vast majority of cases (homegrown/picked mushrooms being two obvious exceptions) they are not actually morally innocent, because they provide material support for criminal organizations.
(Though I would argue that we should have laws against drug use, because chemically undermining people's ability to make free choices is bad, but they would be less strict than current laws, because there are drugs that are currently illegal that do not actually undermine people's ability to make free choices, and those drugs should not be illegal.)
I think I see the source of the confusion. My argument isn't that drug users are, as a group, morally innocent. My argument is that drug use is not in and of itself unethical, and that, barring other considerations (such as social harm), people should not be punished for ethical behaviour, since they are - again, barring other considerations - innocent of wrongdoing. Drug use is not inherently unethical. The fact that purchasing illegal drugs can be unethical is not a valid consideration, because any argument made on the basis that users must purchase their drugs on the black market presupposes the existence of the very law that I'm arguing against.
The logic from the opposite side looks something like this:
1. Drug use is unethical/harmful.
2. Therefore the use and sale of drugs should be illegal.
3. Because the sale of drugs is illegal, purchasing drugs necessarily entails the use of the black market.
4. The use of the black market funds unethical behaviour.
5. Therefore, purchasing drugs is unethical.
If you remove point 1, which is the point under argument, 2-5 cease to apply. My claim is that drug use is not unethical, and that the harm it causes has not been shown to outweigh the harm caused by prohibition. Point 5 is therefore not relevant - if I'm wrong, it's superfluous, since the use of drugs is unethical anyway and should be prohibited in its own right; if I'm right, it actually supports my argument, since it's a consequence of 2. In no case can 3-5 cannot be used to support 1, since they are reliant on 2, which is itself reliant on 1.
Back to the car theft example: if the only way to get to a party were to steal a car, you could prohibit parties on the basis of reducing car theft. But you couldn't prohibit parties on the basis that they're unethical, because they aren't. It's not a negligible distinction. If you punish someone for an ethical and non-harmful act then you are punishing an "innocent" person, regardless of what other crimes they may have committed. It's not okay. You wouldn't frame someone for one crime in lieu of convicting them for another.
Or, back to you and me on a desert island: if you look at it from the opposite perspective, i.e. the question of criminalising drug use where it was not illegal before, the problem doesn't exist, since there is no black market.
I'd be open to hearing such an argument, if you want to make it. Although I'd still like to hear from someone who actually supports the current laws.
And all law enforcement is costly. If you want a illegal-graffiti-free society, you have to ban far more than the act of illegal graffiti itself for the enforcement to be practical. Bans can be quite non-intuitive, even (hence my 'chewing gum' bait above, which I'm surprised nobody took). It is not self-evident that the ethical obligation is to pursue the contrapositive, and give up the aim, although that is what Western states frequently do. Either route imposes some suffering upon innocents.
(if Feral is a progressive libertarian, I suppose that makes me a progressive authoritarian in comparison!)
I don't think you'll find any defendants of American drug policy as it currently exists. But all legislation is the product of the sausage-factory, not high principle. You would hardly argue that the flaws of American tax policy render all taxation unethical.
You could have just said that "If drugs are ethical, then purchasing drugs is ethical" =p
However, I have to disagree with your statement that drug use is ethical. One of the criteria I utilize to determine if an action is ethical is if it causes harm to others. Drugs fail this criteria, including both legal and illegal drugs.
For example, tobacco. This drug has been demonstrated to significantly increase risk of cancer, heart disease, and a host of other health issues. This harms others, because to treat these side effects utilizes health care and pharmaceutical resources that could have been focused on others, thus depriving them of aid that they may need. It also adds stress, with it's negative effects, to your loved ones, family, and friends.
I think smoking is an unethical decision. And I'm a smoker, who generally considers myself to be an ethical person.
This is a tautological argument. It only works if you accept the above definitions. I disagree with the first three points made.
1) Please see my previous post regarding ethics of drug use.
2) There is a social convention that we all follow that includes following the laws. Part of our ethical makeup is compliance to this social convention, and failure to follow this convention by others is often perceived as unethical. By deciding not to follow the law, you may put someone else at risk, and thus fail the criteria of "do no harm to others".
I would say that the vast majority of laws are written following ethical guidelines, but the laws themselves are ethically neutral. The act of breaking a law, however, requires a conscious decision on our part, and is unethical because it goes against our social convention.
3) "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
All criminal law theoretically exists for the good of a society and the people in it. I don't really think it's "high philosophy" to expect laws to be ethical, or to discuss the ethics of a law if not everyone is in agreement about them. The sausage factory is just a compromise of different people's opinions of what's ethical. It does seems self-evident that if a law fails at its intended purpose, it should be changed, abandoned or replaced. It also seems self-evident that a law should have a reason to exist, and that it's the responsibilty of the proponents of that law to provide the reasoning. If the connection between law and effect isn't immediately intuitive, that makes your task slightly harder, but it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility. Basically, while what you've said is all true up to a point, none of it shifts the burden of proof of the shoulders of the prohibitionists.
I'm not talking about American drug policy specifically, but it makes as good an example as any. Obviously, while there may not be any defendants of the policy exactly as it currently exists, there are those who are in favour of prohibiton being as strict as or stricter than it is now, hence the compromise. Those people have an obligation to show their reasoning and supporting evidence, we can't just make things illegal on their say-so.