Comment by rsj_hn
5 years ago
People trying to steal to get drugs could. People high on drugs certainly could. A lot of Breaking and Entering, for example, is to obtain money to feed a drug habit. For the person doing the stealing, all they care about is the cost of the drug, so plans to regulate and tax meth, well, don't necessarily improve that situation.
But we aren't talking about plans to regulate meth; it's already very heavily regulated. We're talking about plans to partly deregulate meth, which we can expect to significantly reduce the cost of the drug, from the US$50 or more per gram described in this article down to US$1 per gram or less like other synthetic drugs with similarly simple synthesis routes. The US$50 a gram isn't the cost of operating the reactors or measuring the purity of the result; it's the cost of hiring an army of foot soldiers to keep drug addicts or the police from stealing the stuff, because you can't trust the police, because it's illegal.
Yeah, people high on meth do crimes. But at least if the stuff is legal they won't do crimes to buy meth.
So the way it worked out with marijuana is the legal stuff is a lot more expensive than the street stuff. Maybe it would be different with meth, but I'm not sure why.
https://www.inverse.com/article/39899-recreational-weed-cali...
Basically the whole legal drug movement is targeted at non-addicts to let them pay a premium for a sanitary, legal, controlled experience. The political justifications for the movement are all about harm reduction. But the reality is that if you are an apothecary in SF, you don't really want junkies hanging out in your lobby, for the same reason that communities don't want junkies in their streets. Mental problems, theft, possible violence, behavioral issues -- it would chase away paying customers, and impose security and liability costs on them.
Those unwilling to pay for that more civilized experience go to the street. One important thing to remember is that legalization did not destroy the illegal market. They are different markets, although there is certainly overlap.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/us/marijuana-california-l...
> Based on a number of California stores they investigated, the cost for an eighth will now range from around $50 to $65.
> told The New York Times in September that the black market price for an eighth of an ounce is around $20.
Just to share some Canadian numbers, in Ontario, CAD$3.57/gram at the low end through the government store. Of course you could purchase $10/gram or $15/gram if you wanted.
On the black market (clearnet) side, you're looking at around CAD$250 for 2 ounces, or CAD$4.45/g for some mix and match specials. I suspect you can sometimes find $99 ounces which is still $3.53/gram.
Can't really speak to quality of course. Not sure why California black market is going for $5.71/gram
The biggest difference between the black market and regulated market in Canada is the potency of edibles, or so I hear. Government wants to make sure nobody can get high if they mistakenly eat a box thinking its candy, which is kinda a problem if you want to get high.
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This is a very CA specific problem cause by the fact that legalization is done at the state level and not federal.
Illegal CA cannabis production supplied a huge fraction of total US demand.
Legalization worked in that it is now harder to smuggle illegal cannabis to surrounding states legalizing (and there might be a stronger push to actually find and catch smugglers now).
Also in a high tax state such as CA a lot of 'black market' prices might be skewed by individual growers selling to their immediate friends, etc. This would not translate to other drugs because they don't grow on uh weeds.
In Canada at least in two provinces I've been to recently the price of mj has approximately neared par with the black market, more or less. You can still find some thats more expensive but you can also find some that isn't. The catch is that you have to buy an oz at a time to get that price - if you buy smaller amounts you will probably pay more than the black market.
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Yes. That requires another specific decision to commit a crime. Respiratory viral infection requires no additional decision on part of the viral vector.
I agree there shouldn't be a blanket decriminalization of drug use because it does alter judgement/motivation and make a theft or even violent crime more likely.
Drugs destroy your ability to make good decisions. They are essentially hot wiring the brain's reward circuits which directly feed back into the brain's decision making processes. Most obviously, it's almost never the case that addicts consciously choose to become addicted.
"Drugs destroy your ability to make good decisions. They are essentially hot wiring the brain's reward circuits which directly feed back into the brain's decision making processes."
This reeks or propaganda based on a little bit of truth. Sure, being addicted to something warps your brain. It doesn't have to be drugs to do this, though. Gambling addiction is a menace for a subset of population too.
Sure, actually being on drugs will affect the way you think for a short time until it wears off. Some drugs might change your perspective on life (LSD and MDMA are common here).
But seriously: It also isn't as bad as you say.
Caffeine and nicotine aren't going to destroy your ability to make good decisions. Drinking moderately won't do that. You probably have worked with folks that were daily pot smokers your whole life without knowing. Some of them were alcoholics (admittedly, it'll warp some things, but a functional alcoholic tends to make good decisions to a point). A smaller number did heavier drugs occasionally: LSD a few times a year, cocaine 2-4 times a year.
And they've pretty much all retained the ability to make good decisions, even if they've made some you don't agree with.
Pretty sure that Erdos said that Dexedrine/variants of amphetamine made him want to do math.
Is wanting to do math a not good decision? Potentially, I guess.
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Does anyone 100% consciously choose anything? If you make a decision after drinking a strong cup of coffee, how much of that decision came from the caffeine, and how much came from your “consciousness”?
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you—addiction is a disease of forces and circumstances, for sure—but the level of “free will” present in any choice (or sequence of choices) is a certainly not amenable to a binary classification.
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But the harm or benefit of a policy is not measured by how many specific decisions are performed, but rather by the overall effect of the policy on the community, no? So let's just talk about that rather than counting steps between A and B.
The overall harm or benefit to the community is certainly related to how many and likely those bad decisions are that result in a specific harm/benefit.
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I personally am for this totally legalization but also giving it out for free. or better yet just have a blanket small minimum universal income so no one can decry that we're paying for someone's addiction.