Why Buying Cocaine Is Like Donating to the Nazi Party

[Eddie Teach]

Siege is absolutely right, we need to act more like the third world.

[Siege]

Siege is absolutely right, we need to act more like the third world.

[Valmy]

Siege is absolutely right, we need to act more like the third world.

Yep.  No drugs there.

[Valmy]

Siege is absolutely right, we need to act more like the third world.

Um didn't you just say we need to be more like the Muslims?

[Neil]

Siege is a closet Muslim.

[Malthus]

Seems a bit unfair to put all the blame on consumers.  Surely the Latin American governments have responsibility to maintain law and order in their respective countries?

The problem here is that the governments are sometimes simply overwhelmed by the criminals, who are well-funded by the drug trade. Look at Mexico.

For myself, I put the lion's share of the blame on the prohibition itself. It has had the same effect as booze prohibition, in encouraging crime and corruption.

Yup, legalize it and hand to profits over to governments and corporate interests where they belong.

The problem is that, in some places in the third world, the drug mafia has more resources than the existing government - their penetration of what government exists is so total via corruption, that they basically are the government. So the current state of affairs is about the same as handing the profits over to government and corporate interests - only corporations and governments of a very primitive sort (that is, more like feuding chiefdoms than traditional governments and corporations), totally unaccountable and uniterested in the typical or traditional welfare-state roles of governments (providing services) and corporations (paying taxes, abiding by legal restrictions on behaviour).

An interesting popular account of this is McMafia:

http://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Underworld/dp/1400095123

[Malthus]

This is an interesting example of an attempt to create a scientific basis for drug regulation.

Here's a link to a PDF of an article entitled "Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs
of potential misuse", which was an attempt to create some sort of science-based assessment of harms caused by various drugs:

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F6424313_Development_of_a_rational_scale_to_assess_the_harm_of_drugs_of_potential_misuse%2Ffile%2F3deec520f867c02046.pdf&ei=hRPHUuTvB8LbyQGes4DYCw&usg=AFQjCNEsKv7i0ODBso6_LW9L7NIIsBcghg&bvm=bv.58187178,d.aWc


If the link doesn't work, google the title.

On page 1051 of the article there is a table summarizing the results. Experts were surveyed (physicians and psychiatrists) to rate each drug for "physical harm", "dependance" and "social harm" with a rating scale from 0 (no risk) to 3 (extreme risk). Each of those broad categories are split into three - for example, "dependence" is split into "pleasure", "psychological dependance" and "physical dependence".

The results are interesting. The mean for "dependence" for pot is 1.5. That places it well below tobacco (2.2) and alchohol (1.9). Of that, only a very small percentage is "physical dependance" (0.8) in contrast with tobacco (1.8) and alcohol (1.6). Pot is simply not very physically addictive compared with legal drugs, although it can create psychological dependence.

According to this scale, as the authors note, alcohol should rationally be treated as a "hard drug" along meth, barbituates, cocaine and heroin:

So, if a three-category classification were to be retained, one possible interpretation of our fi ndings is that drugs with harm scores equal to that of alcohol and above might be class A, cannabis and those below might be class C, and drugs in between might be class B. In that case, it is salutary to see that alcohol and tobacco—the most widely used unclassified substances—would have harm ratings comparable with class A and B illegal drugs, respectively.

[The Brain]

On page 1051 of the article there is a table summarizing the results.

Don't rush me. I'm gonna read this fucker carefully.

[Neil]

According to this scale, as the authors note, alcohol should rationally be treated as a "hard drug" along meth, barbituates, cocaine and heroin:

So, if a three-category classification were to be retained, one possible interpretation of our fi ndings is that drugs with harm scores equal to that of alcohol and above might be class A, cannabis and those below might be class C, and drugs in between might be class B. In that case, it is salutary to see that alcohol and tobacco—the most widely used unclassified substances—would have harm ratings comparable with class A and B illegal drugs, respectively.

Somehow I suspect that alcohol's problems are not that it is so terribly addictive and harsh compared to other drugs, but rather that it is more widespread than the others by at least an order of magnitude, due to social acceptability.

[Malthus]

On page 1051 of the article there is a table summarizing the results.

Don't rush me. I'm gonna read this fucker carefully.

The actual article is a whopping 6 pages long. 

[Malthus]

According to this scale, as the authors note, alcohol should rationally be treated as a "hard drug" along meth, barbituates, cocaine and heroin:

So, if a three-category classification were to be retained, one possible interpretation of our fi ndings is that drugs with harm scores equal to that of alcohol and above might be class A, cannabis and those below might be class C, and drugs in between might be class B. In that case, it is salutary to see that alcohol and tobacco—the most widely used unclassified substances—would have harm ratings comparable with class A and B illegal drugs, respectively.

Somehow I suspect that alcohol's problems are not that it is so terribly addictive and harsh compared to other drugs, but rather that it is more widespread than the others by at least an order of magnitude, due to social acceptability.

Read the article. That's not what the survey of docs and shrinks said.

I suspect it is a bit the other way around - we are just used to alcohol use and alcoholism, so we don't rate the harms from either in the same way as those from other drugs.

If someone came up with a new drug that groups of teens commonly used until they vomited or passed out, and whose use was associated with violent crimes, and that commonly lead to addiction so severe that many addict's lives were ruined, it would be banned instantly. Because we are used to booze, and it is socially acceptable, these things tend not to phase us - binge drinking, for example, is often seen as a bit of a rite of passage.   

[Neil]

The problem is that I don't trust the docs and shrinks to be able to think rationally about the problem.  It hard for me to take them seriously when they talk about treating drug policy scientifically, and their data points are the opinions of various quacks on a three-point scale.

[garbon]

The problem is that I don't trust the docs and shrinks to be able to think rationally about the problem.  It hard for me to take them seriously when they talk about treating drug policy scientifically, and their data points are the opinions of various quacks on a three-point scale.

Okay but just look at what Malt said. Seems pretty reasonable.

[Malthus]

The problem is that I don't trust the docs and shrinks to be able to think rationally about the problem.  It hard for me to take them seriously when they talk about treating drug policy scientifically, and their data points are the opinions of various quacks on a three-point scale.

Fair enough. It is difficult to rate such things as comparable harms.

Though as a method, a survey of expert opinion is far from the worst one could do. It does accord with a lot of anecdotal evidence about the risks of alcohol use.

[Razgovory]

Is anyone seriously talking about legalizing coke?

Why not?

I don't particularly like the idea, but clearly prohibition isn't working, at least the way we're going about it now.  Plus, there's a part of me that feels that if tobacco is legal, there isn't any recreational drug that should be illegal.

Cause we have enough trouble with drunk drivers?