Cocaine Destroying Rural Ireland

There are examples throughout the world and history that supervised and legal use of any addictive substance does not end up with chaos or civilizational collapse. Heroin was at some point completely legal and mankind did not experience some catastrophic events with everyone getting high and killing each other. Netherland does have cannabis legalized for a very long time and we do not consider them a zombified nation where everyone is constantly stoned.

Crime associated with illegal addictive substances is a consequence of them being illegal in first place, while we happily overlook simple fact that there is much more crime happening around use of government sanctioned addictive substances like alcohol.

I understand that everyone who drink regularly does not think they are addicts because alcohol is state sanctioned intoxicant but people who drink regularly are no different form any other drug addicted users. They just picked up different poison than you.

I wouldn't call it "habitual" - but same question: if someone consumes a drug on an occasional basis, doesn't OD or act like a jerk in public, enjoys themselves and the experience and never feels the NEED to do it - how does that make it "irrespeonsible"? How does it make it "habitual"?

I take you point about the cartels and frankly its one of the reasons I don't do it often, but twice a year and I'm not the one paying for it is hardly keeping cartels in business. The most common drugs I do are legally produced (I'm in Berlin) and that only leaves psychedlics, one of which does not have cartels and the other grows naturally in forests.

There is really no need to compare Ireland with USA and think we are going to face some fentanyl epidemic. I would be more concerned about crack than fentanyl use.

According to latest stats there are approximately 36 alcohol related deaths vs 18 drugs related death per million (in the EU).

As for Ireland 4 people die a day attributable to alcohol vs 1 attributable to drugs. So that is 4 to 1 with one state sanctioned drug vs all of the other illegal drugs combined.

Sorry but there is no such thing as social or responsible drinking. These are constructs only to make state sanctioned addictive substance use to appear semi-normal.

You either drink, snort, inject, inhale or you don't.

If we go by known and well documented example there is simply minimum risk that

"a huge amount of the population doing drugs and all the problems that causes and the trauma that gets passed down generation to generation"

scenario is ever going to happen. I understand the fear of it but it seems to be just subjective thing not based on any evidence.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/599683/cannabis-usage-in-the-netherlands/#:~:text=Less%20than%20a%20quarter%20of,edible)%20in%20the%20last%20month.

Oh, so nothing to do with the assassination of Franz Ferdinand or a complex network of treaties and alliances….?

Yeah... you're still miles away from establishing a connection there. Correlation is not causation.

You could just as easily say it aculminated in the Easter rising.

It's a biit more than correlation if you know your history and you're not even defending your owm point at this stage.

Back on topic - drugs in modern Ireland not the causes of WW1.

I think the level of alcohol that is harmless/socially acceptable is a lot lower that what the vast majority of people believe.

Habitual low level alcohol consumption (say 7 pints spread out over the week, be it 2-3 sitting or 7 sittings) will increase

*your cancer risk by between 4-10% per 10g of alcohol

*lead to increased baseline cortisol production(i.e. increased stress level) in the medium to long term

*decreased mood

Heavy drinking under the age of 25 leads to substantial increased risk of alcohol dependance in later life

I write as someone who loves alcohol, whether consumed socially, at home solo, with food etc etc. While it doesn't get a free pass it certainly gets an easy time when you examine the total harm in causes in society.

As to why cocaine is more popular; south American drug cartels saw Europe as an untapped wealthy market and strategically targeted it. Hence Europe in general is awash with cocaine and it is accessible almost anywhere and most areas of Europe have seen increased use and consumption.

The major issue I'd have with taking cocaine rather than say alcohol/prescription drugs is that with cocaine I putting my well being in the hands of a line of (unts from Colombia to my local supplier who could have added anything to it along the way. With regulated medicines/alcohol I know exactly what I'm getting.

And you should thank whatever deity you believe in if any that we don't have a fentanyl epidemic like the US. I've been following the opioid crisis in the US and those things are just straight up devastating communities. From rural regions like West Virginia and New Hampshire, to places like the Kensington district in Philadelphia, the latter of which is as close as we have in the Western world to being a post-apocalyptic zombie hellscape.

Anyone comparing alcohol or cannabis - the latter of which has documented health benefits to people with some serious conditions - to any of these harder drugs (especially synthetic opioids) cannot be taken seriously.

If cocaine is sold legally usage will go up

If illegal drugs are decriminalized and sold legally the black market continues

For better or worse the above statements are true.

Darkweb prices for cannabis in US are about half the shop prices . Government adds tax etc

Less effort from law enforcement after decriminalization and legalization

There's a key difference here between decriminalization and legalisation though.

There's going to be a section of society who would buy a drug if it was as easy as walking into a shop and getting a known quantity that has some levels of quality control about it, who simply won't buy that same drug if they need to go through the hassle of finding a drug dealer.

I'd be one of those people. There are certain recreational drugs that are currently illegal in this country that I'm not going to try and find. However if I could buy them in some sort of dispensary or shop (like you can in Amsterdam) then I would, on occasion, do that.

Similarly if alcohol was made illegal I'd give up drinking it rather than try and source some from a bootlegger.

The point I'm making is - I wouldn't expect the number of heroin users to have gone up in Portugal after they decriminalized it since that's a drug that's not very attractive for new users and besides they'd till need to find a drug dealer for it.

However I suspect that there were an increase in the numbers of users of cannabis in places that legalised it. I'm thinking specifically of middle aged people, who might like to buy some cannabis on the odd occasion but wouldn't know how to or want to find drug dealers.

I agree. But then some of these people (me included) may find that it is not what they thought it would be and that would be it for them. As I said usage may spike a bit after legalization but then it would settle around pretty much the same numbers as it is now. Perhaps a bit higher but nowhere close to something alarming. Stats from Netherland show that despite availability very few people actually participate and somewhere I even read that if not tourists more than half of the shops and cafes would have to close.

Heroin is different thing but these people gave up on life long time ago. They do it because it is easier for them than deal with life and take pleasure from other things. Same go for crack users but cocaine is completely different and I would say that most of it is connected with alcohol consumption. At least that is what I see on weekends when people from pubs go round the corner and whip out small bottles with tiny spoons while still holding their pints on. And these are not junkies you see on the street asking for spare change for the hostel. These are neatly dressed people in all age categories man and women alike. It become some sort of a culture to go for a pint and some of other stuff and when you ask them why do they do it they look at you like you came from the mars.

When I was talking about dealers, I was thinking more in the line of trusted connections for safety, but yeah - I'd well believe you with regards to sources finding the punter.

The war on drugs didn't fail - prohibition failed; but prohibition never works anyway. As for trying something else, well - it depends on what you see as the goal.

Bear in mind, the whole purpose of the "war on drugs" was to criminalise black people and hippies because they were the main opposition to Nixon politically.

“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

(John Erlichman - Nixon aide)

EDIT - add quote