Drug Illegalization/Legalization and the Ethical Life
Out of all ethical questions, for some reason there has been one question that has been the most remote and difficult to answer, but also one of the most fascinating. The question is, "What shapes our attitudes towards banning and allowing the use of certain recreational drugs?" I'm sure this has been discussed here before. The number of subjective responses are nearly infinite, with the question almost certain to draw answers shaded by cultural ideologies and empirical beliefs.
I hope instead of discussing pros and cons in a purely utilitarian manner, you can respond to the more general question of whether there is something about recreational drug-use behaviour and cultural effects on the moral-citizen role - not only what citizens vs. authorities think about it - that tends to oppose the popular will as it is actuated in culture. Why a simple and seemingly private individualist mental life in the form of altered state of consciousness, a willful change of subsections of society into sub-groups, exaggerated and distorted neural pleasure-pain or libidinal-aggressive functionality at the social level, moral dislocation from the mainstream role-playing game, has been represented and actualized in society to be aligned or opposed to a proper ethical way of life?
I hope instead of discussing pros and cons in a purely utilitarian manner, you can respond to the more general question of whether there is something about recreational drug-use behaviour and cultural effects on the moral-citizen role - not only what citizens vs. authorities think about it - that tends to oppose the popular will as it is actuated in culture. Why a simple and seemingly private individualist mental life in the form of altered state of consciousness, a willful change of subsections of society into sub-groups, exaggerated and distorted neural pleasure-pain or libidinal-aggressive functionality at the social level, moral dislocation from the mainstream role-playing game, has been represented and actualized in society to be aligned or opposed to a proper ethical way of life?
Comments (35)
The reasons why governments dont want everyone to turn into a junkie are obvious as these things are pretty addictive and peer influence can create an epidemic of drug use was it to be fully legalised for all of society. The widespread effects would be catastrophic imo yet at the same time they also conflict with individual freedom as to how one should live their life, so there has to be a balance somewhere which is hard to do for strongly addictive drugs.
How so? I observe the point that governments don't want individuals addicted, but there must be more to it than that. After all, the decisions in government give and take from the collective will or collective unconscious. If that were the only case, why deal out punishment that is so harsh compared to the severity of the crime? After all, there isn't much wrong with being addicted to something if that something is socially acceptable. We not only deter drug use, but we systematically brainwash youth to avoid it. That is pretty severe for 'I don't want people to enjoy it too much.'
The effects of widespread drug use could mean it would mean loss of productivity in a capitalistic society where almost everyone would be chasing a high and not to mention overdosing and a strain on the health systems if theyre nationalised like in the UK.
Generally speaking though the legality of drug use is of concern to governments for another reason specially for controlled substances which cause great damage to the human body despite deregulation the government has a duty to protect these individuals from such self harm.
Of the natural psychotropic drugs, only alcohol started out as recreational. Cannabis and opium were used medicinally and psilocybin or magic mushrooms had, I believe, primarily spiritual uses. Even tobacco was a substance of ritual significance in American native cultures.
Why modern society tries to control or ban these substances is that they alter the individual's mindscape. They promote non-standard, idiosyncratic perception, response and behaviour. IOW: people taking drugs are unpredictable.
A society of unpredictable people becomes difficult to control, to police, to hold to a production or payment schedule, to recruit for national service and international conflict, to maintain communication with, to collect taxes from, to enforce any kind of law over. A stoned society would be unstable and incoherent.
As you make it sound as if this concern is almost totally obsolete and void. After all, in the future society - even current society - being unpredictable, rebellious, and individualistic will be a pro and not a con. The techno-individual expresses masculinity as a type of consumed power of physical and mental ability; individualist and anti-objective. In a war-less and class-less society, individual feats of preparedness are the value structure of belonging. How else can strong and weak be discerned?
If so, why is unpredictability still to be avoided? We presently give money to YouTube entertainers for their unpredictability.
I think there are several reasons:
There is a general contempt for drug users, especially among the upper class, in part because primarily the lower class is drawn to them. This contempt finds expression in punitive laws.
There is a fear of neuro-atypicals, especially among conservatives, who demand and take comfort in conformity. Drugs mechanically induce atypical thoughts and behavior, which must seem fearful to the conservative mindset.
Kids are especially intrigued by drugs, and prone to abuse them if they get the chance. This provides a fertile ground for moral panic, for the dirty chemicals and their users defiling their pure children.
There is the well known fact that the war on drugs was consciously formulated to punish Nixon's leftist enemies. This war was exported by the US to the rest of the world, and other autocrats have taken note and emulated it.
There is the institutional corruption surrounding drug prohibition, where local governments and other actors profit from its harsh enforcement.
There may even be an element of harm reduction, though this is likely the weakest reason, especially as drug prohibition is well known to fail at this, and it doesn't apply at all to psychedelics and weed.
Because the stuff in the previous paragraph is nonsense.
I don't. And a 10-minute performance for the camera, however surprised the audience may be, doesn't prevent the performer going to their job, feeding their kids, crossing on green lights or paying their taxes.
True, but this is only half of the story. There are some who take comfort in normal behaviour, but honestly isn't this point a little old fashioned now? You can do pretty much anything nowadays and get away with it more or less. If atypical behaviour were unacceptable to this group, people would be arrested for perversion, indecency, or funny dress. There would have to be an overwhelming majority of individuals who think this way to keep drugs illegal, so there must be some sort of real harm done or else they wouldn't care.
What you seem to be saying is that drugs are made illegal because they make people act strange, but honestly isn't that sort of normal now without drugs?
OK, it sounds like what you're saying is that drug use should not be illegal, but drug addiction should be. So anyone should be free to do drugs so long as it does not spread addiction. It is then a moral rule, configured by judgement and subjective viewpoint. We, as a global society, have no problem with the sorts of ideas that drug use perpetuates, such as the idea of excess, lust, gluttony, self-indulgence, hedonism, etc. ?
Some religions use psychoactive substances. Some religions condemn them. I'd say that if we're talking about an ethical impulse towards drugs then we're dealing with religious desires.
So the opposition to drugs is religious. In the Big sense the religious acceptance of drugs might also be religious (it's not like the religions which use drugs are recreational, any-time hedonists) -- but in the usual sense of most religious believers it's because of a religious impulse: it's just bad, and that's that.
But that's what I'm most interested in. The 'that's that.' When something reaches pure independence, it is where the reasons are the most strong and solidified. So there is strong ideological difference between the two, which is defined to be something undefined and obscure. But it seems we always just leave it there and go no farther.
I think this is somewhat true now, but not true when attitudes against drug users hardened.
What about my other points?
No, I haven't said of the kind. I outlined what various harms could come to a society with wide-spread use of psychotropic drug. That is, attempting to answer the question:
Quoting kudos
There is no "we" or "global society". There are separate, quite different societies with rules based on very different belief-systems and moral principles. And most of these societies do have problems of various magnitude with various kinds of drug use.
It doesn't seem that complex. A certain drug has neurological effects that span gender, race, and personality. For one, they instill a sense of the transcendence of self between conscious states. I can choose a state and yet still remain myself, representing the idea of a permanent and absolute self. Outward-facing exposed libidinal activity overtakes a restrained self-obscured type.
Another, would be that the brain has parts that interact in complex ways and sometimes makes use of the same parts for different things. For example, a part used in aggression may also interact in sexuality, and this complex shared framework may change with drug use. It then becomes difficult for my libidinal representations to be understood by others. Activities like going to bars, enjoying certain types of stories or products in society are no longer communicable and ritual experiences.
But if these are also the effects of globalization. Drug use seems more or less small fry by comparison when this is sort of considered normal life now.
If there is no reason why the content of drugs should be avoided, why spend all the effort brainwashing children and teenagers to avoid them? It really doesn't sound like a big deal to anyone so long as they don't spread addiction. I'd like to ask you what you think causes the ethical problem for these so-called 'uptight conservatives.'
Are you okay with the pilot of your plane or your surgeon taking recreational drugs at work?
Assuming you are not, then you agree with society (through the government) regulating the consumption of recreational drugs. At this point it's just a question of what sort of regulations a particular jurisdiction should enact, not whether there should be regulations.
My guess is that most of the pull towards prohibition is aesthetic rather than moral or ethical. At any rate, there is hardly an ethical principle in prohibition. Its just that they do not like the look or the thought of people using drugs.
But a mixture of cynicism and authoritarian spirit shapes the attitude towards prohibition, while trust and permissiveness shapes the attitude away from it. Id prefer the latter, myself. I say this because, as Spooner wrote, vices are not crimes. If one is not allowed to do what he wants to his own person and property, there is no such thing as right, liberty, or property. So to legalize would be the ethical thing to do, to maintain some semblance of human rights.
On the selfish front, if I think about who Id rather share my community with, the authoritarian or the drug addict, Id much prefer the addict. At least they can overcome their conditions, or die from it, one or the other.
That being said, does the state have any duty to guide citizens into a life of satisfaction, fulfilment, and happiness, or should we agree simply to submit that the exceptions are the rule? I mean, how many drug users do you know whom you would call satisfied and fulfilled individuals ( be honest)?
Prohibition is merely the most extreme example of regulation.
Except, we have both been arguing, convincingly I believe, that it is not a moral issue, prohibition has no moral basis.
Quoting kudos
Whether or not the state does, prohibition is punitive, and hardly guides its victims to "a life of satisfaction, fulfilment, and happiness". Quite the opposite, lives have been ruined. If the state were as benevolent here as you presume, it would be oriented towards treatment rather than punishment.
Quoting kudos
I divide drugs into a spectrum between "pleasure" and "insight". Abusing pleasure drugs (i.e. opiates, dopaminergic stimulants, alcohol) can clearly trash a life. Whereas you will find many users of insight drugs (psychedelics being the purest example) reporting increased life satisfaction. These days I just smoke weed, which favors the insight side of the spectrum. My life has its ups and downs, but overall weed has had a positive impact.
Quoting LuckyR
So what is your point? I am against the extreme regulation of drugs. But there must be at least some regulation, as your pilot example shows (although weakly, as it seems at least as much a regulation of pilots as drugs).
Thanks for the historical examples. Very interesting.
I dont think the state should involve itself in the moral lives of its citizens because I believe the state is an inherently immoral and anti-social organization. Following this, I do not believe the state ought to have any duty or power to guide citizens into a life of satisfaction, fulfilment, and happiness, whether it works or not.
It is simply not up to them. Their power doesnt satisfy these two questions: is any man fit to be another mans master? and is their authority over other men legitimate? The answer to both is no.
Its probably true that the level of satisfaction and fulfillment is entirely absent among drug users. But these levels and these terms are not up to some praetorian guard to define, let alone enforce.
You have to understand that such laws protect the youth from mental decay. :wink:
Im not sure why the strong should determine what the ethical life should be. The point is that no person or group of persons has the right to determine what the ethical life should be. They may have the legitimate authority to instruct one in ethics, to act as an exemplar, or to outline the expectations of this or that society, but never the right to determine them or anothers conduct. All of that, in the end, is left to the moral agent, the person who acts, both in fact and in principle.
Quoting kudos
Quite a few, but they tend to be wealthier and therefore do not experience many ill effects of their substance use. Many of the ill effects of substance use are a byproduct of their illegality, not their properties. But most foods and substances can be abused - from Coca Cola to cocaine. The impact drugs have on people is often more about why they take them and how they take them.
What more personal property do you consider yourself to own, in the subjective viewpoint, than your own mind? And yet this question seems to transcend pure subjectivity. Drugs are considered the cause and not the agent, because as a whole we believe there is an effect of drugs on the mind that tends to wrong.
What is the basis: tradition, experience, data, speculation, envy, hate?
Its a big statement to say history and politics dont follow reason. Care to unpack that one?
And why, do you think, they do take them?
Is there anything much to unpack here? Look at the trajectory of most political and historical decisions. This demonstrates that what dominates is not a free process of careful reasoning, but a variety of other factors that impose on decisions - power, vested interests, strategy, improvising, realpolitik, accident, etc. My point is the process isn't following some grand narrative of reason and discernment.
Quoting kudos
Why do people go to movies, read novels, play sports, go to circuses, seek thrills, etc? The salient question is why do some people transcend recreational use and misuse substances, or become dependent? Usual explanations are situational difficulties and trauma. That's certainly what I have seen. Hence the term self-medication.
If we take reason as the logical thought process of an enlightened individual, then yes. While I agree, that historical and political decisions are mostly driven by corrupt ambitions and necessity, this in itself does not constitute an antithesis to reason a priori.
Enlightened subjectivity is never without internal contradiction of being classed as reason. Reason is characterized by that contradiction rather than through it. Its not reasonable for you to wish to defeat your enemy and for your enemy to wish to defeat you. It is reasonable that you and your enemy will wish to defeat each other, both for itself and in itself. This is not my idea, of course, but comes from my interpretation of German idealism of the eighteenth/nineteenth century.
So Id tend to disagree about the statement that the flow of history is unreasonable. Even our very notion of reason has its origin in the endless bloodshed of politics and history.
My point (perhaps requiring clarification) is that the reasoning behind why some drugs are legal and others are not, is an unsystematic historical legacy of confusions and the work of interest groups. Like many things in history. I wasn't intending to explore the extent and limitations of reason as a metanarrative. :wink:
I don't really have a dog in this fight. I'm perfectly happy with the legal status of drugs where I live.
And so being reason as it is, what are some of the ways this is taken in itself? What were these confused people really trying to do in these subjective 'mistakes' that they made? They were, I suppose acting in the interests of themselves, their families, the ideas that constituted their free world of religion, thought, and love. All of the ways in which they sought their own freedom were in the relinquishment what would transform their own, their families, and their fellow citizen's ideology.
They did violence to those who thought and believed in the opposite, but it was more than just a war of hearts and minds. Some of those freedoms were were valid in themselves. There was real pain in women taking drugs and being sold into prostitution, or drug-induced neglect of addicts families, real pain in those who were subject to blind and draconian rules that would lead them to reject adult life for being told they could not use drugs or go to specific parties and affiliate with certain peers, etc. It was elevated above their own subjectivity, because it was recognized as above and beyond the typical and ordinary causality of the enforcers, pushers, and common interest groups.
Can it be taken into a subjective point of view to say, 'They should legalize because of this' or 'They should make it illegal because of that,' and completely set aside the whole historical and political context because it is against the subjective enlightenment of the elites?
I'm saying the policy is confused - for instance it never made much sense for cannabis to be illegal on the grounds of harmfulness, while alcohol was legal. Not sure who the 'people' you are referring to might be. I see this issue more as a case of the participation and influence of multiple stakeholders: governments, law enforcement, voters, media, corporations, lobbyists, people who use substances.
Quoting kudos
'Subjective enlightenment of elites' sounds like a right wing talking point. I have not mentioned right wing lobbyists in my discussion, but some have certainly played a role in spreading fear about substance use. I don't know who elites are meant to be. Many of the people who want drug law reform are actually social workers, police officers, users of substances and parents of users who died of overdoses or are in jail. They can see first hand that prohibition and current but outdated thinking doesn't work for what is essentially a health problem.