The War On Bullshit

In 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.

On to Part 4 –>

In my previous post I explained the true drug problem. I differentiated the symptoms from the underlying pathology by defining “the drug problem” as a conflict between:

In my next post I will propose my own plan for addressing the drug problem. But first, this post discusses five existing approaches to drug policy and explains why they don’t work.

1. Prohibition

By prohibition, I mean making it illegal to import, produce, sell or consume a substance. In the language of my previous post, prohibition explicitly rejects the individual’s right to choose how s/he lives his or her life.

This is the approach of the United States with respect to drugs like Marijuana, Cocaine and Heroin. The reason this doesn’t work comes down to first-year economics. Barriers on the supply chain of a product (i.e. prohibitions on importing and production) increase the difficulty and risk associated with distributing that product. Increased risk drives up profit margins to the point where some people are willing to take the risk (and reap the rewards). Meanwhile, these barriers to the supply chain get pretty sophisticated. Thus, those who would overcome the barriers must become more sophisticated, i.e., more organized. In this way, prohibition creates organized crime (for those non-history buffs out there, this is precisely how the Mafia became so powerful in the U.S. during the dry years from 1920 to 1933). Furthermore, the huge profit margins associated with drug running fund other criminal activities, not to mention expert legal defenses.

In sum, prohibition does not stop drug use but it does provide the impetus and financial basis for organized crime.

2. Libertarianism

By Libertarianism, in this context, I mean legalizing all drugs. In the language of our drug framework, this approach holds sacred the ‘right to choose’ and ignores either the individual’s responsibility not to cause harm to others or the unfortunate reality that use of and addiction to various drugs causes harm to people besides the user or addict, depending on which libertarian you ask.

This is the approach taken by The Netherlands (more or less). On the upside, rates of drug use in The Netherlands are not significantly higher than in Western Europe overall (probably because prohibition doesn’t work, as we’ve already seen). However, this approach has three major problems. Firstly, and most obviously, it does not address social problems linked to drug use. Second, The Netherlands effectively created a safe haven for drug distribution organizations, making The Netherlands a major drug producer and transit center. In other words, the mob moved in. Third, and most subtly, many people continue to slip into life-destroying drug addiction.

Some people argue that a drug addict’s life isn’t “destroyed,” s/he has just chosen a lifestyle that seems strange to us: perhaps an antisocial existence, supported by petty crime and characterized by violent mood swings and mental depravity. Have you ever seen or talked to a crack addict between fixes? “Alternative lifestyle” my ass.

This brings me to a complex point so please bare with me (this goes double for the Ron Paul Mafia who desperately need to get their heads around this idea). The prominence of ‘the right to choose’ is based on a flawed ideal of human cognition. I, for one, think people should have the liberty to decide how they live their own lives. However, said liberty cannot be implemented by simply removing constraints (i.e. the laws against drug use). For a person to have the liberty to choose among alternatives, s/he must have sufficient information regarding the risks and benefits of each alternative and sufficient mental faculties to understand and process those risks and benefits. In a society where children (and adults) are brainwashed, poorly educated, and devoid of critical thinking skills, many lack the liberty to choose, even if society grants them the right to choose. Some legal document granting you the right to do something doesn’t mean you have the slightest clue whether or how to do it. Furthermore, humans are social beings and, especially in youth, are vulnerable to peer pressure and low self-esteem. Many children are incapable of making a sound decisian at precisely the age when they are most likely to get hooked on drugs. How many people do you know who started smoking at 14 and swear they never should have started because now they can’t quit?

This is an often-misunderstood, fundamental point: it is impossible to grant the freedom to choose whether or not to use a drug simply by legalizing it.

3. Education

Many societies attempt to educate children about the dangers of drugs. The idea is that if the populace is aware of the dangers, they won’t partake in the drugs. Note the hidden bias: ‘the dangers of drugs.’ Drug education, as it is normally practiced, is a politically motivated manipulation intended to produce a taboo. It’s attempted brainwashing. It is not giving people the tools they need to make an educated decision. Do you think junior high students have debates about whether it is reasonable to give crack-cocaine to terminally-ill patients as death approaches? How about an honest treatment of the benefits of amphetamines? Not, that I’ve heard of. To decide whether indulging in a drug is worth the risk, a person needs unbiased information, the critical thinking skills to evaluate that information, and the self confidence to make the decision regardless of what some transient social circle thinks. None of these things are high on the priority list of the education systems I’m familiar with.

I am not claiming that education, in principle, is ineffective. I am claiming that “drug education” is a euphemism for an incompetent, politicized, horribly biased, farcical attempt at brainwashing our children. And because more dangerous socially acceptable drugs are tolerated while less dangerous, taboo drugs are not, the whole exercise ignores the right to choose entirely. Bullshit is not lying but a message conveyed regardless of truth.

I am not aware of any education system that provides the necessary skills and knowledge discussed above. If you know of one, please bring it up in the comments.

4. The In-Your-Own-Home Strategy

The number of countries that ban smoking in public places — in bars, restaurants, hotels, beaches, parks, etc. — is growing steadily. This is an approach that recognizes the responsibility not to harm others and the inevitability of harm to others from smoking in public places. It’s only a matter of time before some country bans smoking anywhere outdoors. In fact, I remember reading some report years ago that said Canada’s drug policy was moving toward a situation where citizens are free to do whatever they like, but only in the privacy of their own homes.

This sounds pretty good, unless you actually think about it. If tobacco addicts can only smoke in their homes, they surely will. Guess who else is in their homes? Their kids, that’s who. So to avoid poisoning the general public, society has created a situation in which the addict must kick the habit or poison their children. And it’s not just smoking - this same scheme might well apply to all drugs. It’s one thing to know daddy’s got a drug problem, it’s something quite different to sit on the couch with daddy while he shoots up. Don’t think it can happen? You ever meet a kid who knows mommy’s like Players and daddy like Camels? Extrapolate. Many addicts will choose to poison their children rather than quit.

This strategy doesn’t solve the drug problem, it just concentrates the victims: now they’re mostly children.

5. The Marijuana Party Approach

In Canada, the Marijuana Party is a political party that bases its platform on legalizing its namesake. The primary argument here is denying that marijuana is dangerous. In the language of my framework, they are denying that use of this particular drug causes harm to themselves or others. This is not a viable strategy for Cannabis or drugs in general. First, even if Cannabis is relatively safe, plenty of other drugs are not. Second, whether or not weed hurts its users, it still interferes with the lives of others. I don’t want to walk through clouds of smoke wherever I go. Whether or not it will kill me, marijuana smoke still smells like post-coital sweat from a fat man’s ass. If the look of something offends you, you can just choose not to look at it, but if the smell of something bothers you, you cannot choose not to smell it. Third, even if there is no conclusive evidence that marijuana is hazardous to adults, we still don’t know what it does to children, and legalization does nothing to protect the children.

Thus, while I admit that the weed party may have a point on decriminalization and maybe even legalization, they don’t have anything approaching a comprehensive plan. I mean, just look at this — whining about jurisdiction is not a proposed solution!

Conclusion

This concludes my discussion of existing approaches to solving the drug problem. Did I miss any? Please bring it up in the comments.

On to part 3 –>.

I figured that taking a few shots at the internet’s favorite candidate would draw some criticism, and it did indeed. Here I will address some of these criticism.

First, it’s not that I’m out to get Ron Paul in particular. However, I don’t understand the enormous online support for him compared to other political candidates based on his positions. Lets have a closer look at some of these positions.

Constitutionalism

One of Ron Paul’s major principles is that the ignoring the constitution is bad. This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. My worry is that several parts of the constitution are in dire need of change because it was written a long time ago. So when Ron Paul argues that the US Government has to come back to the constitution, but makes no mention of updating that constitution, I’m duly concerned. Several comments on my last post went on about how the US is a republic, not a democracy, and the constitution represents freedom (hmmm, somebody’s been watching too much propaganda), etc. So what? All I’m saying is that if the legal super-document of your country doesn’t make sense anymore, you ought to change it, and Ron Paul doesn’t seem to be in the fix-the-busted-ass-constitution group. If you don’t think it’s broken, best read this.

Gun Ownership

So summarize, the original rationale for the right to bear arms was because it was necessary for the security of a free state. I argued that this was no longer true, since the US has such military dominance. Mike responded:

“The biggest reason to guarantee the right of people to bear arms is as a defense against democide (when governments mass murder their own people like in the Soviet Union or China). If you think the US couldn’t become a police state then you are dillusional.”

I completely agree that the US could become a police state or a de facto dictatorship for that matter. The question is, do you think that a bunch of rednecks with semis could orchestrate an armed revolt against a leader who controls the military? You know, those guys with the tanks and the F15s and such? You have got to be kidding.

Separation of Church and State

Ron Paul introduced a bill, called the “We the People Act,” which would basically take religious cases (including abortion and same-sex marriage, which aren’t religious in my view but whatever) out of the purview of federal courts. In other words, Ron Paul would let the states decide. Whatever your constitutional take on this, I think its pretty clear that if you let each state make its own decision on something like same-sex marriage, you may not be explicitly screwing the minority group, but you’re letting it happen. As I recall, it used to be up to each state whether slavery was permitted, and that didn’t go so well.

My point is, Ron Paul seems to be in favor of a “robustly christian but tolerant america.” I submit that this is impossible. You want evidence? Look at the latest Pope. Yes, yes, I know not all Christians are catholics but that’s not the point. The point is religions are intolerant, and allowing religious brainwashing in schools promotes that intolerance. Now, if some kid wants to pray in school of his or her own accord, then fine. But anything approach teacher-led prayers has to be banned to protect freedom of thought. It’s a very slippery slope, and many countries have slid down it before.

Gay Marriage

It seemed to me, based on my reading, that Ron Paul was against gay marriage. Based on the comments, I may have been mistaken. Has Ron Paul explained his position thoroughly? If so, where? Please let me know in the comments if you have a source.

In a comment on the last post, Jordon pointed out that “Paul has said that federal officials changing the definition of marriage to allow same-sex marriage is ‘an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty.’” That sounds pretty ant-gay to me…