Solving the Drug Problem: Private, Public and Business Usage.
December 8th, 2007 by Kavan WolfeIn the first post in this series, I discussed the essence of the drug problem, and determined that the real problem is a conflict between:
In the second post, I discussed five existing approaches to the drug problem, and found them all lacking, in that each one failed to address at least one component of the problem.
In this piece, I begin explicating a complex systemic approach to addressing the drug problem in western society. This is too long for one entry, so I’ll start with my assumptions and then discuss a key aspect of my drug framework: public vs private vs business use of drugs.
Assumptions
The following assumptions guide my formulation. If you disagree with these assumptions, you probably won’t like my approach. If that is the case, I encourage you to make your own assumptions and write your own approach, and then we’ll talk.
*The whole idea of laws based on what offends people, such as laws against public nudity, is absurd because different things offend different people and the idea of offensive behavior is contrary to freedom of expression and often common sense, and has historically been used to persecute women, children, minorities and other cultures.
Drugs vs. Uses of Drugs
It is pretty easy to imagine a situation in which just about any drug could be useful and sensible to use. Doctors use morphine to dull pain, terminally-ill cancer patients use cannabis to relieve pain, the mentally-ill take anti-psychotics, etc. If a painful death were imminent, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be allowed to shoot up on heroin if it would make the passing less traumatic.
Based on the existence of such situations criminalizing possession of particular substances does not make sense.
However, some uses of some drugs cause serious irreparable harm to people other than the drug user, and are morally indefensible. For example, drinking alcohol while pregnant causes fetal alcohol syndrome. Since scientists have not been able to determine the minimum level of alcohol that can cause FAS, the safe estimate is currently zero. Thus women should not be permitted to consume alcohol while pregnant.
Based on this example, prohibiting certain uses of certain drugs, in particular circumstances, does make sense.
Therefore, in the system I propose, there is no such thing as an illegal drug, only illegal uses of drugs. A major question, then, is what drug uses should be prohibited? I will proceed by working form a situation in which everything is legal, and enumerating the practices that must be prohibited in the proposed drug framework. This piece deals with the first set of prohibitions, based on where a drug is used.
Public Usage
Some uses of drugs harm people around the user while others do not. For instance, drinking coffee while seated at a table in a cafe has no adverse effect on the people at adjacent tables, but smoking a cigarette does. Since everyone has a responsibility not to harm other people, drug uses that harm nearby people should be illegal in public places. This includes all public buildings and properties, such as beaches, parks, roads, bridges etc. By this logic, drinking alcohol in public places should be legal, as should snorting cocaine for that matter. Smoking tobacco, cannabis, etc., however, should not be permitted in public places.
Note that some people may claim that they don’t want people doing any drugs in public because it’s “not decent,” “sinful,” “disgusting,” etc. This argument should be ignored because you have no right not to be offended (as discussed above).
Private Usage
Again, the guiding principle here is that the individual can do as s/he pleases as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Thus, drinking, shooting up, etc. in your backyard is fine, because it is not going to harm anyone who is not in your backyard. Smoking in your back yard, however, should not be permitted because it can harm your neighbor and pollute his or her airspace. You have no right to pollute your neighbor’s property, including the air above his property, so smoking is out. If you live in a multi-family residence, similar rules apply. If your drug use affects people in neighboring apartments, it should not be permitted.
Special case: if you have children, you’re potential drug use will be much more limited. Since exposure to smoke is harmful to the child, parents should not be permitted to smoke at home, or in the presence of their children. Furthermore, given the danger of exposing children to certain drug paraphernalia, such as needles, any recreational drug use that involves such devices should be prohibited within the home. So that leaves coffee, weed brownies, alcohol and most things that one snorts.
(If you’re thinking this is unenforceable, hold that thought; I will get to it. If you’re thinking that snorting cocaine around your children might be unwise, I’m getting to that, too.)
Business Usage
‘If I want to open a bar where people can smoke, why should the government interfere?’ This is a question asked by the many bar owners where smoking bans have been debated. Well, I’ll tell you why: The bartenders were dying of cancer, there were very few non-smoking bars and the whole mess was contributing to social acceptance of second-hand smoke.
Now you can argue that bartenders choose that profession and if they don’t want to take the risk they can get a different job. That may be true in places where demand for workers exceeds supply, but in places where the opposite is true, the options may be job-that-gives-you-cancer or no job. If you scale up this argument to the societal level, a huge percentage of jobs become dangerous, and many workers are forced to suffer the consequences or go on welfare. If one argues that non-smokers don’t have to go to bars, a similar rebuttal applies: if you scale up this argument to the societal level, businesses are no longer responsible to maintain safe environments. Free market enthusiasts will argue that the market will take care of it: that people will pay more for safe environments. Yes, the way they paid more for safe cars in the 70s. Many people do not understand abstract costs like unsafe environments, so the free market is not an effective mechanism to deal with this problem. Didn’t anyone notice that even though a large proportion of bar-goers do not smoke, there was a strange dearth of no-smoking bars. I’m not going to get into this further, because it’s not important for the present discussion.
Now let’s turn this around. Suppose one has a bar with an air-tight smoking room with a highly-effective ventilation system such that patrons outside the smoking room have no exposure to smoke. Further suppose that servers must wear protective masks when entering that room such that risks to their health are neutralized. The smokers in that room are now not hurting anyone but themselves, so there is no reason to prohibit smoking in this context. Sure, the masks might look silly, but so do hairnets on chefs, and no one even notices that anymore.
In sum, if a business wants to permit the use of a drug on its premises, it should be allowed to do so provided it take steps necessary to eliminate harm to its employees and patrons who do not wish to partake in the drug.
This is necessary because, if use of a drug is prohibited in both public and commercial spaces, users are forced to drop their habits or partake at home, which I have already demonstrated is not acceptable in some instances because of the danger to children of the users. By instead promoting a system whereby drug use is done in commercial spaces, some responsibility can be transferred to the business in exchange for its profits.
Next week I will continue explaining and elaborating this strategy, dealing specifically with special treatment of drugs that impair judgment and differentiating drugs based on the level of danger involved. We will see how the idea of drug use in commercial spaces is a powerful tool for mitigating the harmful social consequences of drug use and addiction.
December 10th, 2007 at 9:35 am
“Smoking tobacco, cannabis, etc., however, should not be permitted in public places.”
That’s ridiculous. Now matter where you are, something in the order of twenty percent of the population will be smokers. You haven’t got any reasonable basis to deny this segment of the population access to public space.
There is no health risk to you if you’re in a ventilated public space (e.g. outside a cafe) and smell smoke. You might be offended, but that’s your problem… right?
December 10th, 2007 at 9:44 am
“‘If I want to open a bar where people can smoke, why should the government interfere?’ This is a question asked by the many bar owners where smoking bans have been debated. Well, I’ll tell you why: The bartenders were dying of cancer, there were very few non-smoking bars and the whole mess was contributing to social acceptance of second-hand smoke.”
Haha. You know, for a guy who runs a blog called “The War On Bullshit” you sure do serve up a whole heap of bullshit.
Firstly, you framed this discussion as “the drug problem”, and now you’ve gone on to talk about smoking tobacco. Tobacco isn’t “the drug problem”. Tobacco is a legal substance. When people talk about “the drug problem” it is generally taken to mean the illegal ones. You’ve skimmed right over that to try and run your anti-smoking agenda.
Secondly, your statement above is unsubstantiated bullshit. The fact is that the link between second-hand smoke and related illness is extremely tenuous. As you claim to be such an objective thinker, where is your evidence for the above claim?
Thirdly, what’s wrong with the social acceptance of second-hand smoke? Is this the part where you tell everyone that they’re not allowed to accept it? Why can’t I get a job working in a bar where people smoke? I hate these sterile joints that don’t allow smoking.
December 10th, 2007 at 9:55 am
“Free market enthusiasts will argue that the market will take care of it: that people will pay more for safe environments. Yes, the way they paid more for safe cars in the 70s. Many people do not understand abstract costs like unsafe environments, so the free market is not an effective mechanism to deal with this problem. Didn’t anyone notice that even though a large proportion of bar-goers do not smoke, there was a strange dearth of no-smoking bars.”
Excellent point. You see, the free market *did* take care of it, and people demonstrated that they really didn’t care that much. People who really did care could always stay at home where they were nice and “safe”.
Everyone else in the world recognises that life is full of all sorts of risks, and when they weighed the risk of smoking they decided they really didn’t care that much.
Your position stinks of “people are stupid, and we need to force them to make the decisions that are in their ‘best interests’,” which doesn’t work.
December 10th, 2007 at 10:05 am
“Special case: if you have children, you’re potential drug use will be much more limited. Since exposure to smoke is harmful to the child, parents should not be permitted to smoke at home, or in the presence of their children. Furthermore, given the danger of exposing children to certain drug paraphernalia, such as needles, any recreational drug use that involves such devices should be prohibited within the home.”
Of all your hard-line police state ideas, this one takes the cake.
You are putting forward the position that it’s the state’s responsibility to regulate family life. This is a *very* fine line that you’re walking.
I saw this [1] the other day, and I felt really bad for those kids. The adults in their life are doing them serious harm in my view.
Nearly all the baby boomers were born of smoking and drinking parents, and they turned out OK. Trying to enforce a particular life-style for parents or family life with some wishy-washy tear-jerking “it’ll all be worth it if we can just save *one* life” bullshit argument is, once again, ill advised.
[1] http://www.atheistnation.net/video/?video/00118/atheist/jesus-camp/
December 11th, 2007 at 5:35 am
“I saw this [1] the other day, and I felt really bad for those kids. The adults in their life are doing them serious harm in my view.”
and parents smoking arent?
You are so full of shit John I can smell you here. and here I actually applauded your response to the previous entry about this issue. Now I see what a biased, self-serving jackass you are.
Let me smoke and poison everyone around me and screw everybody else!
December 11th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
“Let me smoke and poison everyone around me and screw everybody else!”
That’s what we call jumping to conclusions.
As far as I’m concerned it goes without saying that one shouldn’t smoke near children, or other non-smokers. I also agree that one should only smoke in designated smoking places.
My being a smoker doesn’t imply that I’m inconsiderate. That’s a failing of your logic, and an example of your prejudice.
My points were that:
1. It’s not for the State the regulate.
It’s easy for a non-smoker not to care if the State tries to regulate what adults can and can not do in their own home when it doesn’t affect them, but where do you draw the line? The level of harm of exposure to second-hand smoke is minor. So minor, you put your kids at more harm feeding them junk food, putting them in the car to take them to school, letting them play contact sport, etc. Are we to ban all those activities too?
Should we just take the children of smoking parents off them, and put them in State schools, and indoctrinate them as anti-smokers? This is effectively the position being espoused.
By the same logic I could suggest that it’s not safe for parents to take their kids from the home to school, so the kids should all go to boarding school. It’s not safe for kids to eat unhealthy food, so there should be a State approved diet which will be provided by the schools (you can’t trust parents!). It’s not safe to play rugby, so kids will only be allowed to play chess. In fact, pretty much all rigorous physical activity can lead to health problems (joint pains, for instance) later in life, so all such activity will be banned. Children should be taken from their parents at birth and raised in a State approved environment.
Oh, and Christians and Muslims are both wrong, and they are totally down-stat. All children will be indoctrinated as Scientologists at State schools, because His Holiness has decreed that Xenu will return to destroy the Earth. If we don’t prepare our children they will all suffer eternal doom! Think of the children!
2. Smokers are represented in the public, and they should be afforded public space.
Smoking is a ritual that is a significant and important component of the life-style of many people. This activity requires regular access to smoking places.
I can’t quite fathom the arrogance of the smartass suggestion that smoking should be banned in public places, and regulated out of private places. I find the sentiment to be exactly the same as denying freedom of religion, or freedom of expression. It’s the same as saying that all temples should be outlawed, or that gay bars are illegal, etc. It’s intolerant regressive authoritarianism.
December 12th, 2007 at 5:21 am
“It’s intolerant regressive authoritarianism.”
No, it’s businesses having respect for the health of the people. Simple as that. Wanna smoke? Do it somewhere where others are doing it or where others want to be exposed to it or do it in your own home. Keep your shit out of the lungs of others.
Why should everyone else spend money to accomodate your filthy habit? You like more taxes? Hey, maybe if we made you all pay for it?
What next? Every drug having their own place and us taxpayers footing the bill for that too?
I have nothing against what anyone does with their own health, but keep it to yourself. Period.
December 15th, 2007 at 10:41 am
@john,
Listen, I appreciate it when you or anyone comments on my site, but maybe it would help if you read a little more carefully. Examples:
“You haven’t got any reasonable basis to deny this segment of the population access to public space” - I didn’t say smokers couldn’t use public spaces, I said they can’t smoke in them. That’s like saying people who like fishing can’t swim in public pools because you can’t fish in public pools.
“Tobacco isn’t “the drug problem”” - I defined “the drug problem” that I was addressing very clearly in the first post in this series, and am discussing the problem as I defined it. If you disagree with my definitions, suggest your own.
“The fact is that the link between second-hand smoke and related illness is extremely tenuous” - I suppose you believe in Intelligent Design as well?
I’m not going through the rest of your comments; I’m sure this gives you the idea.
December 15th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
“I didn’t say smokers couldn’t use public spaces, I said they can’t smoke in them.”
I know what you said. I said this is unreasonable. It’s ridiculous to suggest that there be no smoking in public spaces.
“If you disagree with my definitions, suggest your own.”
It’s not quite as simple as that. You’ve abused language by specialising a generally understood phrase. This is a misleading and subversive practice.
“I suppose you believe in Intelligent Design as well?”
Why did you dodge the issue? Show me where the link between exposure to second-hand smoke and health problems has been established. Show me where it has been refuted. Explain to me the level of risk of harm from second hand smoke (i.e. quantify the level of risk, and contrast it to other risks). You haven’t done that. Instead you’ve resorted to a strawman and ridicule. For a professed objective thinker, that’s pretty poor form.
“I’m not going through the rest of your comments; I’m sure this gives you the idea.”
Sure. The firmest of opinions are held with the flimsiest of information.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
I can’t believe I’m entertaining this silliness, but if you want evidence that second hand smoke causes health problems, particularly cancer, see here for a summary: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS
Why is it ridiculous to suggest that people not smoke in public places when it poisons the people around the smoker? You wouldn’t let people go around shooting people with water guns full of arsenic would you? Just because something is socially acceptable for historical reasons, doesn’t mean it should be allowed.
How the hell am I abusing language? I clearly defined what I mean by the drug problem here: http://thewaronbullshit.com/2007/11/18/drugproblem/
December 19th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
“I can’t believe I’m entertaining this silliness, but if you want evidence that second hand smoke causes health problems, particularly cancer, see here for a summary: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS”
You didn’t answer my questions, and nor does the site you linked to. Telling?
You could read this: http://www.lcolby.com/
I think everyone knows that smoke isn’t good for your health. Then again, lots of things aren’t good for your health. Car exhaust, for instance. Too much of that and you’ll be dead inside an hour.
The question I was asking was “how bad is it for your health?” The answer in the case of ETS is “not very”. You might as well get upset about a car driving past you on the road, as walking through the smoking section of a cafe.
In none of the literature that you linked to was this made apparent. The reason? Pharmaceutical companies and their affiliates do the research into the effects of tobacco smoke, and pharmaceutical companies have a financial interest in doing anything that can raise the sales of their “NRT” products, such as patches and gum. The substitutes are entirely ineffective (90% of users revert to smoking) and are of themselves addictive and poisonous (many people get addicted to the substitutes for years). So… pharmaceutical companies promote this anti-smoking vehemence to drive sales. It’s very upsetting, because it’s all based on hate and intolerance.
The “anti-smoking” reaction, symptoms of which you clearly exhibit, is an overreaction to increasing knowledge of the effects of smoke from various substances.
Smoking just isn’t that big a deal. Really, it’s not. If you don’t smoke, good for you! But… please don’t try and tell me what I can and can’t do with my life, and please stop trying to exclude me from society.
“Why is it ridiculous to suggest that people not smoke in public places when it poisons the people around the smoker?”
Everything is a “poison”, the salient aspect of a “poison” are the doses and the dosage.
It’s ridiculous to suggest that smoking be banned in public places, because public places are held by the *public*, and the public is comprised of smokers, anti-smokers, and everyone else. Smokers and everyone else are happy to know which places people can smoke in; smokers’ lifestyles require regular access to smoking places; and anti-smokers positions shouldn’t be over-represented.
You know as well as I do that if there is no place to smoke, then there is no ability to smoke. I can’t be at my home all day (actually, I *am* at my home all day; I work from home, where I can smoke in my office), and if I can’t smoke when I’m away from home then that creates *massive* impracticalities and unhappiness for me. You know this, and that you haven’t bothered to discuss as much is a testament to your contemptuousness.
“You wouldn’t let people go around shooting people with water guns full of arsenic would you?”
There probably is arsenic in your water supply. Are you worried?
“Just because something is socially acceptable for historical reasons, doesn’t mean it should be allowed.”
When did I say that smoking should be allowed for historical reasons?
“How the hell am I abusing language?”
As I said, you’re abusing language by primarily by specialising an idiom.
The idiom itself is an abuse of language, because it frames “drugs” as the “problem”. Whereas in my view it’s not the “drugs problem” but the “social problems surrounding drugs”. “Drugs” is also a negatively laden word.
So… perhaps you should refer to “the social problems surrounding various substances”, to better describe your theme.
Other examples of language abuse are “NRT”, Nicotine Replacement Therapy. Calling this class of drugs a “therapy” is a deliberately subversive and manipulative practice, because it paints the practice of smoking as an “illness”. That’s a value judgement, and one that I entirely disagree with. That’s the contemporary state of the art in the manipulation of social discourse, however.
If you’d genuinely like to understand how you’ve abused language, you might be interested in reading this [1], which discusses how language works in the embodied mind. That is, how your language functions to manipulate people, and how your choice of words is important in the framing of a discussion.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0226468011
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
@John
I think our disagreement is primarily regarding whether second-hand smoke is sufficiently dangerous to warrant reasonable concern among non-smokers. You think it’s not very dangerous. I don’t know how to be more specific than this:
“The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded in its 2002 Monograph on tobacco smoke and second-hand smoke that that “there is sufficient evidence that involuntary smoking (exposure to second-hand or ‘environmental’ tobacco smoke) causes lung cancer in humans” and makes the overall evaluation that “Involuntary smoking (exposure to secondhand or ‘environmental’ tobacco smoke) is carcinogenic to humans (Group 1).”" (quoted from http://www.ocat.org/healtheffects/index.html)
This is not a pharmaceutical company. It is an independent research agency. The arguments that ‘well everything causes cancer, so it doesn’t matter’ is fatalistic nonsense. The ideal course is to identify everything people do that gives other people cancer, and stop them, not ignore the whole thing as hopeless. You might be willing to take that defeatists stance but I am not.
Furthermore, what’s this abusing language crap. You said, “in my view it’s not the “drugs problem” but the “social problems surrounding drugs.” In your view? This isn’t about you. I wrote a whole post defining the drug problem at the beginning of this string precisely because it means different things to different people. I never claimed that my view is the only view, but I’m trying to solve the problem I see. If you would try to solve the problem you see instead of bitching about us not seeing the same problems, maybe we’d get somewhere instead of arguing.
One last thing: you said, “the public is comprised of smokers, anti-smokers, and everyone else” and reasoned that, therefore, yo should be able to smoke in public. By analogy, since some of the public are child molesters, shouldn’t people be able to molest children in public? I know you’re going to say, ‘that’s different,’ but how is it different? Smoking hurts other people as does molesting. If you think molesting a child is more harmful than second hand smoke, can’t say I disagree, but where do you draw the line, if everything is a poison?
This is the problem with these libertarian assholes: they think that their individual rights are the most important thing in the world. No. We all have a responsibility to our fellow human beings, and that responsibility starts with not hurting each other.
December 24th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
“No. We all have a responsibility to our fellow human beings, and that responsibility starts with not hurting each other.”
Hello, Spiderman.
December 26th, 2007 at 7:58 am
> I think our disagreement is primarily regarding whether second-hand
> smoke is sufficiently dangerous to warrant reasonable concern among
> non-smokers.
No, it’s about much more than that.
I don’t care if there are people who are concerned about the effects of second-hand smoke, just as I don’t care if there are people who have phobias of swimming in the ocean, or flying on aeroplanes. I think that society should cater for those people, just as it caters for people who do like swimming in the ocean, or who don’t mind flying on aeroplanes.
> You think it’s not very dangerous. I don’t know how to be
> more specific than this:
>
> “The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded in its
> 2002 Monograph on tobacco smoke and second-hand smoke that that “there
> is sufficient evidence that involuntary smoking (exposure to second-hand
> or ‘environmental’ tobacco smoke) causes lung cancer in humans” and
> makes the overall evaluation that “Involuntary smoking (exposure to
> secondhand or ‘environmental’ tobacco smoke) is carcinogenic to humans
> (Group 1).”” (quoted from http://www.ocat.org/healtheffects/index.html)
Once again, you’ve failed to quantify or qualify “how dangerous”. There’s some nice alarmist language mixed in there though, well done.
> This is not a pharmaceutical company. It is an independent research
> agency.
I’m having trouble resolving how an “independent” research agency can justify calling second-hand smoke “very lethal” on the same page that links to this study:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/326/7398/1057?view=abstractfp=1057&vol=326&lookupType=volpage
“The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.”
Of course, if one does a study that makes such findings in the present Western world, then one suddenly finds oneself fending off character assassinations:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/327/7429/E266
> The arguments that ‘well everything causes cancer, so it doesn’t
> matter’ is fatalistic nonsense.
I never said that “everything causes cancer”. Nor did I say smoking “doesn’t matter” — I said it doesn’t matter *very much*.
I’m a heavy smoker, and in all probability smoking will have no severe adverse affect on my health. The odds of being harmed by ETS are so small it’s almost difficult to claim statistical significance, even after life-long heavy exposure.
To say that it’s “fatalistic” is to presume that smoking is “fatal” — which it’s not. Smoking is *correlated* with cancer. It’s a *risk factor* in cancer. It doesn’t *cause* cancer. It’s not Smoke Therefore Cancer — not even close.
Also, to say that fatalism is nonsense is to endeavour, childishly, to promulgate a value judgement. I would say that nearly all rational people recognise that they will die. Empirically it’s a reasonable conclusion: by hypothesis everyone dies eventually; no-one has ever been observed to have lived longer than 150 years; therefore the hypothesis must be accepted.
I mention that, because your choice of words in this instance seems to expose your ignorance as to the meaning of the term ‘fatalist’, which I feel is somewhat ironic coming from someone so loose with the term “cause”:
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=fatalism
Admit it, you though that “fatalism” had something to do with “death”, didn’t you? Whereas it regards “fate”, a logical consequence of the concept of “causality”.
I suspect you’re still afflicted by the dogma of reason, which suggests that you still don’t know very much about it. It’s quite Modern of you. (Hint: the rest of us have moved on.)
> The ideal course is to identify everything people do that gives other
> people cancer, and stop them, not ignore the whole thing as hopeless.
So you claim. You will note that I have stood in firm opposition to this “ideal” of yours. The problem lies in your use of the two words “stop them”. You admit that you will rob people of their freedom (in both its positive and negative conceptions); you would force other souls to your will, and manipulate them to your point of view; and you would do so as all tyrants do: by developing fear and then offering “safety” in exchange for compliance.
> You might be willing to take that defeatists stance but I am not.
I think it’s cute how you make yourself sound like a hero. You won’t be “defeated”, will you? Oh, no. Instead you’re going to tell everyone else how they have to live, and you’re going to WIN! Right.
Seeing as how you’re so determined… when you do win, and we all do what you say, what do we get? An extra 2.3 years to live under your rule? I can hardly wait.
> Furthermore, what’s this abusing language crap.
I’ve already made some effort to explain that to you. That you would go on to label it “crap” is almost amusing, given the subject matter.
Of course, it’s a complicated topic, and the onus would be on you to purchase books and invest in learning and understanding. I can recommend just about all of Lakoff’s work, have you read him already?
> You said, “in my view
> it’s not the “drugs problem” but the “social problems surrounding
> drugs.” In your view? This isn’t about you.
Certainly I’m a stakeholder. So, it is about me.
I drew out the “drugs problem” vs. “social problems surrounding various substances” phraseology in order to demonstrate how to apply language so as to preserve objectivism and agnosticism in the presentation of the theme.
> I wrote a whole post defining the drug problem at the beginning of
> this string precisely because it means different things to different
> people. I never claimed that my view is the only view, but I’m trying
> to solve the problem I see.
I responded point-by-point to that post, on its own terms.
I went on to explain to you how your language in the framing of the discussion didn’t leave you with an objective platform from which to have the discussion and arrive at conclusions that would be similar to mine. The language you elect undermines your neutrality and your objectivism. You’ve already taken a position, and you won’t be able to understand mine in your own terms. I can’t argue with terms that suggest by their definition that the problem is something that it’s not.
Whereas I am a smoker, while you are not, you must concede that I have an important perspective to offer in any well-rounded discussion on the issue, seeing as such discussion is to be considerate of relevant conflicting perspectives.
> If you would try to solve the problem you see instead of bitching
> about us not seeing the same problems, maybe we’d get somewhere instead
> of arguing.
Where did you hope to arrive instead of in argument?
Are you here to preach?
> One last thing: you said, “the public is comprised of smokers,
> anti-smokers, and everyone else” and reasoned that, therefore, yo should
> be able to smoke in public.
That’s right. There should be public space for this activity. I’m sensitive to the fact that there is a segment of the population who doesn’t like smoking, or being near those who are smoking, so I accept that smoking places should be designated. I don’t see a need for State interference in such designation, as that seems to me needlessly regulatory in a situation where convention and custom are fair.
> By analogy, since some of the public are
> child molesters, shouldn’t people be able to molest children in public?
There should be some version of Godwin’s Law that covers the use of child molestation in “moral” discussions.
> I know you’re going to say, ‘that’s different,’ but how is it different?
Ah, in one case you rape a child, and in the other case you have a cigarette.
Can’t you see the difference?
To show you how pointless (except in the service of inflammation of moral outrage) your analogy is I can make the child molestation analogy for the contrary position: the primary conception of abuse in the case of child molestation is emotional. That is, in the general case, the ’scars’ of child abuse are emotional rather than physical. While sexual abuse is a physical activity, the things that upset us about it don’t regard physical harm. They regard the disproportionate use of force, the invasion of the body, the loss of innocence, etc. Telling me that I’m *not* allowed to smoke, using *force* to make me comply, confronting me with horrendous images of death, bombarding me with hate and vehemence, making me feel social excluded, and so on, all of which anti-smokers do, function similarly to create emotional turmoil for me.
It’s genuinely upsetting. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here explaining it to you, would I?
Incidentally, do you know much about child molestation? Ever spent much time talking to victims to enquire about how they feel? Or are you just using it as a cliché point of moral outrage?
> Smoking hurts other people as does molesting.
Anti-smoking hurts people too.
Just today, Boxing Day, I went to the movies with my two brothers and my sister, all younger than me. During the commercials at the start of the movie there was a State sponsored anti-smoking advertisement. Now, you know my position on smoking: I think it’s an important aspect of culture, and I think that it’s an important dialogue that’s happening now where the individual’s freedom to choose is being tested against the State’s ability to interfere and dictate.
In this advertisement, the “undesirable” aspects of smoking were listed as:
1. Smoking is expensive
2. Smoking is banned in some places (and creates social exclusion)
3. Something else. I forget. I was livid by this stage.
In regard to 1., smoking is expensive because it’s over 70% tax. That’s the same tax that is funding the advertisement! There is no fair argument for the disproportionate consumption tax on tobacco. It’s taxed because it’s addictive, and thus a lucrative form of taxation.
In regard to 2., smoking creating social exclusion is entirely artificial. It’s the result of things like that ad! The whole anti-smoking campaign is creating its own reality of social exclusion, and then going on to use that as justification of its own position. That’s absurd.
As for the health-risks, ah, yeah, thanks, but we got that message already. What’s the bottom line? Smokers probably won’t die of smoking related illness. If they do (unlikely), it still won’t be until they are quite old.
The thing that really upsets me about this advertisement is that it is being presented to the public, and I don’t have a right of reply. I was sitting there in the cinema with my *family*, and they were being told, basically, “hey, your big brother is an asshole.” By the State, with my cigarette-tax-money, on my time, they were fed a misrepresentation of reality. But what could I do? I couldn’t respond there and then. The message had already been implanted on their neurons before we got out of the theatre. *They* don’t care enough about smoking one way or another to hear what I have to say “for myself”.
It ruined my day. I haven’t seen my family for most of the year. This *is* my life. I only get so many Christmases with my family during the course of my life. Boxing Day 2007 was upsetting for me because of advertising, the goal of which is to estrange me from my own family.
Before you laugh and cheer about that, you should think about how petty that is, and how upsetting it is.
You might like to say: but if I didn’t smoke, then it wouldn’t be a problem! But that entirely misses the point. Can you imagine how upset a Muslim would be if they arrived at the movies with their family to find a State-funded advertisement ridiculing them for praying to Mecca during the day? That’s about how upset I am.
> If you think molesting a
> child is more harmful than second hand smoke, can’t say I disagree, but
> where do you draw the line, if everything is a poison?
How about we draw the line at child molestation?
Curiously, I didn’t see any State-funded “and don’t molest children” advertisements at the cinema today. Nor did I see any State-funded “don’t kill people” advertisements. Nor any State-funded “don’t be Jewish” advertisements. Nor any State-funded “don’t eat red meat” advertisements.
> This is the problem with these libertarian assholes: they think that
> their individual rights are the most important thing in the world. No.
> We all have a responsibility to our fellow human beings, and that
> responsibility starts with not hurting each other.
I agree with you. I think that personal responsibility is important. As is personal freedom. I have no intention of being an irresponsible smoker. I’m happy to stay in my culturally designated areas, but I don’t want to find that there aren’t any. What I want you to understand is that people who hold positions like yours are *hurting me*. You really are.
Please stop hating on smokers, and please don’t support State intervention on this issue. It’s disproportionate; it’s juvenile and petty; it’s socially exclusive; it’s prejudiced; and it’s unfair and unreasonable.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:40 am
>I have no intention of being an irresponsible smoker. I’m happy to stay in my culturally designated areas, but I don’t want to find that there aren’t any.
I know the chance of you ever coming back to read this are very slim, but why do you think it’s my responsibility to foot the tax bill for your “designated area”? How many more people should be allowed to make such demands for their own lifestyle choices? I’m all for you making your own choices (and you not harming anyone else around you), but having me paying for it, when I have no desire whatsoever to partake in it is a completely different story. If your habit/lifestyle choice cannot co-exist with what has already been laid out ahead of time, either pay for the special accomodations yourself, or fuck off.
From what I skimmed from your long assed bullshit post is that cars, etc cause pollution. That may be so but are we to ban cars? The drivers didn’t really make a conscious choice to excrete the harmful smoke from their exhaust pipes. They have no choice. ALL CARS DO IT BY DEFAULT. If it’s too far to walk, how do you get somewhere, fly? You, however, DO have a choice on whether or not you spew out cancer onto others by smoking. Smoking is not a *requirement* for everyday life like a car is. Smoking is a habit. Therefore your argument is bullshit.
> What I want you to understand is that people who hold positions like yours are *hurting me*. You really are.
Oh my god don’t make me laugh. If hurting someone’s feelings were grounds for punishment, we’d all be in jail. Every last one of us. This is the classic argument that people that are pro-drug prohibition use to justify it when we say no physical harm. Alcoholics, and yes, even tobaccoholics cause emotional harm to others. How about people who dump someone else after a relationship goes sour? Want them arrested to?
Your Muslim comment: Comparing your smoking to a religion??? HA!
I feel no more need to write anything further, since you have completely lost any shred of sanity you may have had.
In closing: Cry me a fucking river! Keep your cancer to yourself. Wipe up the tears very well.
March 11th, 2008 at 2:04 am
> Cry me a fucking river!