JohnnyCool wrote What is a drug?
Hi JohnnyCool,
I go along with all the facts presented in your post, but still most likely end up with different conclusions to yours.
I agree with you about the general level of ignorance about drug matters, and also about the dangers of tobacco and alcohol usage and addiction. I can also understand the arguments for de-criminalising marijuana.
But I'd like to make two points:
First, if something is wrong, in this case illegal drug abuse, then in my opinion it is best to focus on that and deal with it. In only serves to muddy the waters if one tries to bring in external factors, such as other things that are also wrong - tobacco addiction, alcohol addiction - for some kind of comparison. The life ruining problems caused by illegal drug abuse - cocaine, opiates, yaba (now in Thailand) and all the new drugs whose names I don't even know and so on, are not in anyway dimished by bringing tobacco and alcohol into the argument. If tobacco and alcohol abuse are bad (which they are) then that is another matter that can be discussed and analysed elsewhere.
Secondly, it is a feature of human nature that some people will always want more than they are allowed. Some people will always want to cross the line and move into forbidden territory. So, turning to the matter of drug abuse, no matter what is decriminalised, some people will still want to try the forbidden drugs, the new drugs that are being created almost daily, the drugs that are stronger - give a bigger kick, a better high etc - than the legal drugs they are accustomed to use. And so the problem of illicit drug use will remain. De-criminalising marijuana, and maybe some other drugs as well, will not solve the problem, but will merely bring about some changes to it.
That's how I see it. As I said before, I know that huge numbers of folk will disagree with me. But I'd like to think that I'm being logical, rational and unemotional about this here.