I think legal drugs exist more harmful than Meth.
There are pain killers sold (on a prescription only basis) that are about as addictive as heroin, pain killers so powerful and addictive you might as well be prescribing heroin (heroin and cocaine used to be prescribed regularly, and Freud for one went Cocaine-nuts, prescribing the stuff like a cure-all. Sherlock Holmes injected coke and told Watson, "....transcendentally stimulating").
I'd also like to make it illegal to force adults to take medication unless you can prove they're a danger to other people if they don't. And it would be nice if doctors would stop eagerly over-prescribing patients just to make a buck. Mental patients, for instance, are given an ambiguous diagnosis and encouraged to believe that if they don't take some medication never proven to be effective anyway for the rest of their lives something catastrophic will happen.
My opinion on the issue being discussed is not set in stone. A few months ago, here's what I had to say on the subject:
I'm designing this for users, abusers, sober pro drug people, sober anti drug people, and legally intoxicated people (for instance, alcoholics).
In Aldous Huxley's Utopian Novel, Brave New World, a fictional society relies on a strictly structured life and a mind-numbing drug to induce social peace and happiness. This is a false utopia because the happiness created by the drug is temporary, highly addictive, and produces mental idiocy and complacency. Also, the caste system, the government of this society, is so strict few liberties, few choices exist at all.
Many false utopia fictionalizations present a society where kinds of real happiness are often obtained at the price of freedom. I would like drug addicts to consider whether, by taking mind-obsessing and mind-numbing drugs, you are surrendering your freedom for a temporary kind of incomplete happiness.
Sex is an addictive drug most of the world is on, having been born with nervous systems designed to self-obsess later in life. Consider whether it would be worthwhile, were it possible for you as a person, to transcend lust-as-desire, and if you decide it might be, perhaps research ways to safely do so.
I personally do not consider it worthwhile to take drugs that seem to me more likely to hinder intelligence and freedom than to promote my mental progress, even if I am happier on the drug than I am sober. I feel like this kind of a high is similar to a "false utopia" - freedom is sacrificed for a kind of temporary happiness that leads to misery sometimes, and other times merely keeps me from a greater happiness that is independent of need and obsession and chemically-inspired stupidity.
At the same time, what gives any individual the right to say to another full-grown, independent human, "This substance is forbidden,"? There is a certain attraction to forbidden objects. Also, humans tend to rebel against being told what to do by doing the opposite. And it seems to me treatment for drug addiction might be a whole lot easier if you weren't risking jail time just by talking openly about your addiction.
If drugs were legal, individuals could find safer settings to use them. Violence in relation to wars between drug lords would probably be about as nonexistent as violence between competing legal producers of pharmaceuticals such as antidepressants. Drugs would be safer because there would exist ways to regulate them, such as to prevent poisoning and disease. Major gangs would probably go out of business, or at least suffer significant loss of power. Jail populations would be significantly reduced. Law enforcement could focus on only investigating and arresting crimes that directly interfere with the lives of others, such as rape, murder, and theft.
I do not believe the United States of America is ready for legalized heroin. Because of the situation we are in, I consider legalization of all drugs a dangerous step toward more addiction and violent crime. Yet I do not believe you have a right to put a junky in jail just for being a junky, if no other crimes are proven to have been committed.
Would sterilizing the population of the lust impulse significantly decrease crime? We as a society have the technology to extract sperm and artificially duplicate the reproductive process without sex. If that didn't work, we could create a caste of superior genetic stock to keep their lust, breed and perpetuate our society's steady forward evolution. No children would be molested in church, no women or men would be raped and tortured because of sex, venereal diseases would no longer exist. The men might become less aggressive and more kind-hearted without their ball juice. Instances of inferior genetic material would be rare. No more public debate about gay rights and monogamy and all that stuff, we as a society would have far more time and concentration to think about real problems and their solutions, instead of always focusing on how to get laid.
Heroin addicts are quite often if not exclusively (in my opinion) untrustworthy and prone to commit heinous crimes. They seem to me to be far too addicted to that heroin to avoid cheating friends and family to get more. I think our society should work on getting rid of heroin completely, to totally chuck "heroin" out of this world. Taking heroin is like succumbing to the Devil for easy bliss, because that heroin is grate... if you'r careful? Maybe you could quit after one try. Saying things like this is an attempt to prove to yourself you'r superman so you can go ahead and try something strange and forbidden.
I believe marijuana used responsibly to be a safe drug that can promote enjoyment of life without encouraging addiction, and can even be used to enhance such things as creativity, deep thinking, and meditation. There have been documented health benefits. Marijuana can be eaten so as to avoid the long-term physical harm of smoking. In the modern world, vaporizers exist to provide a method of inhaling marijuana without causing significant long-term harm to the human lungs.
I believe other drugs exist that are stronger than, and therefore also more dangerous than, marijuana. A great deal of legitimate scientists have attempted to prove psychadelics can be used to significantly enhance human intelligence without risking insanity by choosing a proper setting, grounding yourself in psychology and self-analysis, and using sitters of a professional level of intelligence to promote the safety of experiments. The argument that a trained psychiatrist might need to attend use of the drugs is a valid one, but it seems to me absurd to fight human progress where such a powerful tool exists to enhance it. Should human intelligence suffer because of a few delusional individuals?
Should profound tools toward enhancing human evolution be forbidden because of (unless I'm exaggerating) the profound dangers of accelerated, higher-circuit brain activity? I see the situation similar to the situation of space exploration. If you, without any research or training, crap together a rocket ship, you'r risking the lives of everybody because you might crash into them! But if you find a way to migrate into outer space, to build a sustainable colony outside of the earth's atmosphere, because you are so competent and devoted to your work, . . . This is a very inaccurate picture of what I'm trying to say, but I think what I'm trying to say is important enuf to inspire brains to think hard enuf to git it!
If you are reading this and decide it is worthwhile to promote drug freedom, try to be a responsible user if you use at all. Show society you can be productive, constructive, and proactive.
There are many arguments I haven't covered but I feel this essay is useful toward inspiring deeper thought into the issue of drug use/abuse and legalization.
