"eventually lose all perspective on any pleasure they might obtain from them"
Yes, that is how drug addiction works. People start it because it feels good, they need more and more, and it fries them up. That's why dealers (legal and illegal) often give the first dose free. They know how addiction works. They create their own demand.
"eventually lose all perspective on any pleasure they might obtain from them"
Yes, that is how drug addiction works. People start it because it feels good, they need more and more, and it fries them up. That's why dealers (legal and illegal) often give the first dose free. They know how addiction works. They create their own demand.
"So what's your obsession with defining and controlling other people"
When people become drug addicts they become a menace to themselves and society. I care about how addiction makes live worse for everyone. They become criminal and dependent. They cost the government a lot of money.
"If someone isn't broken- giving pronounced evidence of a problem for public health and safety- what's with your insistence on forcibly fixing them?"
Coffee doesn't predictably turn people into criminal street addicts with probability X% that is above the threshold at which the substance should be allowed. Meth and other drugs do. I'm not going to give people meth, wait until they destroy themselves and become a burden and danger to society, and then start worrying. If a substance has little benefit a predictable high cost then it shouldn't be allowed. If it has strong benefits in rare contexts (pain killers and back surgery) then they should be tightly controlled and only allowed in those narrow lanes (most hard street drugs don't have benefit in any context).
The same way we don't allow all sorts of things we know lead to trouble. We don't even allow people to drink alcohol after the 7th inning because we know it leads to more drunk driving on the way home from the game.
"has spent over a trillion dollars on the Drug War in the past 50 years"
A trillion dollars over 50 years is not a whole lot. That's why they've got to add it up over 50 years to make it look big. And if you're using the article I googled, they are counting a lot of costs which are dubious to be part of the war on drugs. Is the incarceration costs of everyone with a drug charge in prison a cost of the war on drugs? None of those people would be in prison anyway? When marijuana was legalized it didn't put a dent in incarceration, because people on drug charges are usually violent criminals too.
But let's say the government was spending a lot of money. Would that prove that the government "cares"? The government spends a lot of money on a lot of things and doesn't give a flying fuck about the results. The spending is the point, interest groups are getting paid, not whether it works.
Singapore "cares" about its War on Drugs. That's why it won its war on drugs. I suspect they spend less on their War on Drugs than we do.
The bottom line is simple. Nobody has the "freedom" to destroy themselves.
When they do they inevitably become a problem for themselves, others, and society. Some substances statistically lead to self destruction at unacceptable rates relative to the benefits and thus shouldn't be allowed.
You understand this is a problem, but you can't quite get around this "freedom" hang up. It's why you fly off the handle and call places like Singapore as being like North Korea, or call anyone wanting to stop people from becoming meth addicts of wanting to ban coffee. Freedom to engage in behavior likely to lead to self destruction is just something you think Makes America Great. It's regrettable, maybe something should be done, but we should always air on the side of allowing self destruction and not be judgmental.
I don't. I don't see any freedom in being and addict. I don't see any freedom being victimized by an addict. I don't see any freedom in paying for an addicts public benefits.
I believe in freedom because I want to be my best self, not my worst self.
"eventually lose all perspective on any pleasure they might obtain from them"
Yes, that is how drug addiction works. People start it because it feels good, they need more and more, and it fries them up. That's why dealers (legal and illegal) often give the first dose free. They know how addiction works. They create their own demand.
"So what's your obsession with defining and controlling other people"
When people become drug addicts they become a menace to themselves and society. I care about how addiction makes live worse for everyone. They become criminal and dependent. They cost the government a lot of money.
"If someone isn't broken- giving pronounced evidence of a problem for public health and safety- what's with your insistence on forcibly fixing them?"
Coffee doesn't predictably turn people into criminal street addicts with probability X% that is above the threshold at which the substance should be allowed. Meth and other drugs do. I'm not going to give people meth, wait until they destroy themselves and become a burden and danger to society, and then start worrying. If a substance has little benefit a predictable high cost then it shouldn't be allowed. If it has strong benefits in rare contexts (pain killers and back surgery) then they should be tightly controlled and only allowed in those narrow lanes (most hard street drugs don't have benefit in any context).
The same way we don't allow all sorts of things we know lead to trouble. We don't even allow people to drink alcohol after the 7th inning because we know it leads to more drunk driving on the way home from the game.
"has spent over a trillion dollars on the Drug War in the past 50 years"
A trillion dollars over 50 years is not a whole lot. That's why they've got to add it up over 50 years to make it look big. And if you're using the article I googled, they are counting a lot of costs which are dubious to be part of the war on drugs. Is the incarceration costs of everyone with a drug charge in prison a cost of the war on drugs? None of those people would be in prison anyway? When marijuana was legalized it didn't put a dent in incarceration, because people on drug charges are usually violent criminals too.
But let's say the government was spending a lot of money. Would that prove that the government "cares"? The government spends a lot of money on a lot of things and doesn't give a flying fuck about the results. The spending is the point, interest groups are getting paid, not whether it works.
Singapore "cares" about its War on Drugs. That's why it won its war on drugs. I suspect they spend less on their War on Drugs than we do.
The bottom line is simple. Nobody has the "freedom" to destroy themselves.
When they do they inevitably become a problem for themselves, others, and society. Some substances statistically lead to self destruction at unacceptable rates relative to the benefits and thus shouldn't be allowed.
You understand this is a problem, but you can't quite get around this "freedom" hang up. It's why you fly off the handle and call places like Singapore as being like North Korea, or call anyone wanting to stop people from becoming meth addicts of wanting to ban coffee. Freedom to engage in behavior likely to lead to self destruction is just something you think Makes America Great. It's regrettable, maybe something should be done, but we should always air on the side of allowing self destruction and not be judgmental.
I don't. I don't see any freedom in being and addict. I don't see any freedom being victimized by an addict. I don't see any freedom in paying for an addicts public benefits.
I believe in freedom because I want to be my best self, not my worst self.