I can definitely understand peoples’ issues with it being consumed, especially in a political context, but how do yall feel about “weed”? I won’t hide my feelings, I am very much pro-weed, it’s not great that I started in my mid-teens but in my area it’s FAR from uncommon. I don’t smoke daily or anything, I’m not addicted to it (people say it’s non-habit forming but any drug can be addictive with enough frequent usage) but I do smoke and dab w/ friends often. That’s not why I believe in legalization tho, my main thing is you shouldn’t make a naturally occurring plant an illegal substance. I’d point to the DEA’s destructive (legal) burning of thousands of naturally occurring marijuana plants found in nature; This seems eco-fascist to me and to deny the uses of hemp as a production material seems dogmatic to me. The USSR used hemp for industrial purposes during the war and it helped in a major way. I’m sure most of us are familiar with the badge given for Hemp growers. If you have any criticisms, I’m more than open to it, but I feel that marijuana won’t be easy to get rid of in future society and would probably be put to use in different more productive ways.
Ahistorical, the reason why they come down hard on drugs is colonialism.
The truth of drug use is found in this graph, any drug policy that does not consider it is engaging in IDpol, which is liberal.
Source is a PHD holder, David Nutt.
Agree except identity politics aren’t something liberal, they have been coopted by liberalism.
Its bad which ever way you cut it; othering drug users on ‘common sense’ lines ignores the historical reasoning behind the US export of drug laws; trade and supressing black & lefitst voters in america.
In regards to Asias reluctance, just look at the Opium wars; that was the British.
Edit: Also I call it ‘liberal IDpol’ because thats what drug divisions are, a liberal generated form of IDpol that socialist countries accept uncritically; A sociological analysis of the topic always leads to legalization for a reason.
im curious what the definition of harm in this study is because cannabis causing almost as much harm to the user as benzodiazepines and mephedrone is a little bit strange to me.
I’ve included some of this definition in my reply, which you may find useful.
Edit: In sum, it’s not a comparison of the drugs but of the harm caused to the number of individuals and to society (comprised of individuals—it’s a bourgeois paper) in total. As cannabis is more widespread, there is more recorded harm than e.g. benzos. Not to mention that one of the criteria is the harm caused in/by policing; and the police target cannabis users/dealers at a far higher rate than benzodiazepines user/dealers.
mephedrone causes a relatively low level of harm due to it being prescribed by medical professionals, it comes to the user in a clearly defined dose that will be uncut; most heroin addicts die due to accidental overdoses or cut drugs with fent.
I imagine benzos are still the same; and you should note while cannabis is similar to more dangerous drugs its likely only considering smoking.
I know where the OG study is though its avilable to read, I know the conclusions but the methods they use il need to brush up on.
https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News stories/dnutt-lancet-011110.pdf
I understand your point about colonialism but I think research like this raises a lot of questions and doesn’t necessarily support your overarching point. I’ve hidden my critique behind a spoiler tag as the details could be triggering.
The paper is here [PDF]: https://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/News stories/dnutt-lancet-011110.pdf . I’ve only had a quick skim but I can spot some problems. Mainly due to it not being dialectical or materialist. I note in advance that the paper acknowledges many of these weaknesses.
CW: Substance abuse
The authors make a distinction between harm to user and harm to society. There are ‘16 harm criteria’, divided between the two categories. Harm is weighted. For example, mortality is treated as more harmful than damage. Still, to accept the findings means to accept the weightings. I’m unsure if I accept the weightings because of the individualist conception of harm that underpins the entire model.
Under harm to users:
Under harm to others:
This does not seem dialectical. For example, I would not separate ‘community’ from any of the other types. A drug overdose (OD) harms the community as well as the victim, their relationships, and their family. The model must determine how to avoid double-counting these harms.
If an OD is counted in both categories, that’s a methodological flaw. If the model avoids double-counting, the basis must be arbitrary: a liberal will be working off very different premises to a communist, so there will never be agreement between bourgeois and socialist societies about what counts as harm and how to count it.
(On page 1564, the authors admit that they don’t have data for all the sub-categories, either, which causes another problem for comparison.)
Communists would likely reach a different consensus to scientists in a liberal democracy who are not dialectical materialists and who have been trained within a capitalist system where certain ‘realities’ are taken for granted, such as profit-making pharmaceutical and alcohol industries and the tragedy of ‘gang war’ (US ops), etc, in countries where illegal drugs are produced.
The graph shows the actual harm caused by drug use across a UK sample of available data; i.e. this is how much harm actual alcohol consumption has caused. The problem is that there are probably thousands of alcohol users to every heroin user.
The problem with relying on this data to make policy is that the results are determined by the legalisation and strong encouragement to consume alcohol and the criminalisation and taboo of the the others. The authors conclude:
According to the data, you might say that alcohol, heroin, crack, and meth should be prohibited. Or you might say that if alcohol is legalised, then so should heroin, crack, and meth. The latter would be devastating and, apparently (notwithstanding some mixed messages) not what the authors intended:
The problem with the graph comes down to a faulty comparison with all drugs against alcohol. The result can be read in so many different ways to justify a range of contradictory policies.
The problem with comparing anything with alcohol in the abstract is that it forgets the dialectical relation of alcohol to culture. The effects of this will always be skewed. It is incomparable to any other drug. The exception is perhaps tobacco. It would be interesting to re-draw the graph with tobacco counted twice. Once for today and once for before the massive campaign against smoking and the British smoking ban. If ‘old’ tobacco came above alcohol (I’m reasonably sure it would) while ‘new’ tobacco came sixth, the graph would instead show something different. If society suddenly took the same attitude to other drugs, alcohol would fall down the list.
The data could be used to show, for example, as discussed in this thread, that cannabis is ‘safe’ or at least ‘safer’ than alcohol. But the data do not support that. Because these data cannot tell us (a) how dangerous would be cannabis if it were legalised and encouraged to the extent of alcohol or (b) how safe would be alcohol if it were criminalised and as taboo as heroin. It only shows current harm.
Emphasis to indicate the authors’ political economic views, which should highlight why Marxists should treat the thesis with caution:
The paper also warns against the general application of these findings:
The paper ends: “aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy.” Which means the reader is left with the message that the data are not really about relaxing other drug laws so much as tightening alcohol laws. I’d say that’s a mixed message as they are concerned (subtly) with e.g. the connection between drugs and racial policing, which means using the paper e.g. to decriminalise cannabis rather than to campaign against alcohol. I suppose these aren’t mutually exclusive but, then again, when this graph is usually cited, it’s usually in favour of making cannabis legal rather than prohibiting alcohol.
I’m not saying this paper isn’t helpful or illustrative. It has its uses. And I’m not making any claims about what should be legalised. I’m arguing that the graph does not show what the paper argues. While I agree that the paper should be engaged with, its use is limited, and its graphs shouldn’t be detached from the underlying study.
I’m unsure what this means for the broader question of drugs policy under socialism; but I would caution against relying on the graph/paper on the basis that ignoring it is idpol—there are other valid criticisms.
I wouldnt say that suggests tighteing laws, I think they mean by this addressing alchohol addiction and its root causes, not using a auth measure like banning to deal with it but focusing on it via a public health approach.
Thats because it shows relative harm; if Alchohol can easily be shown to be detrimental to society on a factor of literally 100000’s of more deaths attributed too it vs cannabis it makes no sense why its illegal and one is legal.
I agree on your wider points about how a socialist society studying this would likely come to different conclusions, the paper isnt even considering ideological basis but within the scope of it they likely never wanted to try to begin with, as its more of a study done by a chemist implementing sociological methodology without considering ideology.
Also re: there are more booze drinkers than heroin users;
Usage in decriminalized societies and legalized socieities of all narcotics goes down during leglaization. People gain access to medicalized routes of de-addiction rather than thrown in a prison cell with gangsters, murderers and drug dealers.
Also ideally in a socialist society we would ban all advertising, especially for narcotics so people dont get ‘encouraged’ to do anything and instead know how drugs effect you, how to manage them and the risks vs rewards.