And prohibition of alcoholic beverages was a smashing success. Not the legalization has been great, but at least we have moved in the direction of treating alcoholism as a disease.
Criminal charges are still a pretty big deterrent for people when they’re making the decision to do hard drugs or not. I feel like legalization is an easy way out and basically invites people to start using. I am sure there are others that are attracted to the stigma of something taboo too that start using simply because it’s edgy, but I’d wager it’s much fewer than those that are deterred by the illegality. I specifically have never even been interested in trying hard drugs simply because I have been scared to death of the potential legal repercussions much more than the negative effects of the drugs themselves.
It’s very noticeable to me how legal weed in Illinois changed behavior. Moved away in 2021, about a year and a half after it was legalized. Big fan of legalization at the time, btw, as I’ve been a casual user of cannabis for 10-12 years. But now every time we go back and visit, it seems every public space smells like weed/weed vape. The gas station. The hotel elevator. The subway. ThePAMan’s tailgate at the Illini football game. That pretty much tells me that there’s been a significant uptick in usage since legalization, especially compared to neighboring states where it isn’t for sale everywhere and public spaces don’t smell like weed.
I am on the fence a little on how to classify these things. Yes, a lot of people have problems and begin to self-medicate which becomes an addiction that ruins their lives. A lot of other people are simply thrill seeking and living recklessly and getting addicted and ruining their lives. Other people have chronic pain and a licensed doctor (and doctors and scientists know more than everyone, per Tempo) prescribes hard drugs and they get addicted and it ruins their lives.
There’s this reductionist school of thought that addiction/drug abuse is a disease and is an inevitable outcome, like a certain percentage of people getting ALS or whatever. The people that argue for legalization of hard drugs on this basis are also the same people that tend to argue for gun abolition. What ruins more lives, guns or hard drugs? Hell, throw alcohol in there for good measure. The drugs and alcohol usually ruin lives behind closed doors, get kindly labeled as a disease, while shootings get headlines everywhere.
So that’s the conundrum. We can’t trust people with guns, so we need to eliminate them. But let’s trust people with hard drugs because it’s just a disease and all they need is a social worker and a warm place to sleep. They might not go out and kill 15 people with those drugs tonight and make the news, they’ll just go on with the slow grind of ruining their own lives and those of everyone that loves them.
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