TL;DR:
- Alcohol $7.8b
- All illicits: $1.8b
- Meth: $0.365b
I wanted a figure for cannabis and found this from 2020:
- All illicits: $1.9b
- Meth: $0.824b
- Cannabis: $0.911
I notice that the per kilograms measure for harm is also useful to account for volume of usage, but think that per ‘dose’ would be better.
- Meth: $1.1m per kg with 743kg consumption
- Cannabis: $0.35m per kg with 58000kg consumption
These figures include ‘associative crime’ as harm. So it apparent counts the cost of buying it as harm, it also counts the tax loss of that expenditure, so IMHO it skews unfavourabley to higher expenditure. But put that aside.
These figures show that all illicit drugs combined are less harmful to society than alcohol, and tautologically the harm is inflated by illegality.
I promise you that meth would cause far more problems if it was consumed anywhere near the frequency of alcohol. Anyone who has watched someone destroy their lives with meth knows just how dangerous and damaging it is. The scariest part is the speed at which it can happen. People destroy their lives with alcohol too, but it usually takes decades. I’ve watched people become hollow shells of their former selves, completely unrecognizable, and standing on death’s doorstep, within six months of their first usage of methamphetamine. It’s a destructive, dirty, dangerous drug.
Pretty sure the police aren’t saying let’s sell meth at dairies, rather they are asking for more funding for alcohol harm reduction.
Statement retracted because I’m in the wrong community.
Check which community you’re in. We have our own police problems but tanks aren’t one of them.
Also are Russian and Chinese police as famous for gunning down their citizens as the US? That comment was just all over the place, and I’m still not sure what country TexasDrunk was referencing…
TexasDrunk was drunk and didn’t check the community. Statement has been retracted.
I’m not certain that’s better. We would like to hear your reasoning so that we can understand other communities better.
Our police don’t shoot drunks they just beat the shit out them.
Especially the homeless and homeless veterans.
The core of the argument is that we should be spending proportionate amounts on harm mitigation or prevention.
Yeah, the US has known for a long time that alcohol is involved in the vast majority of violent crime. We deal with it by having corrupt politicians write the alcohol laws so that no one is ever very far from lots of booze.
They tried banning alcohol. It didn’t work.
Even worse, now we have NASCAR
Yeah, but that gave us Comrade Dale Earnheart
Yeah, but to be fair a lot of things in the 1920’s US politics didn’t work.
Also the whole criminalization aspect to substance abuse is finally being talked about openly as a major failure in policy.
Banning things in general should be an absolute last-ditch effort, not the go-to response that it is today. We’re supposed to be a free society, and I think a lot of citizens have lost sight of what that means.
More than that I think society still doesn’t talk about addiction in a useful, healthy way very often. Alcohol being so ingrained in many cultures that it’s basically invisible to many people.
I think tighter regulation’s a good thing.
For a start I would love to prohibit alcohol aimed at kids. In my student days I participated in a lot of market research groups and there were so many groups about late teens taste-testing insanely sweet gross RTD alcohols or discussing which alcohol bottle design was more “fun” “feminine” “flirty” etc.
Cops wanting more people to arrest.
Just the same as Elon promoting right wingers so he can make more money from defense contracts.
Good for you guys, hopefully they do something about it because it really is problematic (alcohol certainly ruined my childhood!).
They did try to outlaw it in the US over 100 years ago, right after women got the right to vote. Among other things, part of the rational was women getting beaten by alcohol abusing husbands. Unfortunately it takes a lot more than an amendment to stop something so pervasive though.
This has been a known thing since the early 2000s, if not earlier.
The general awareness that alcoholics tend to do far more damage to their lives and people around them than potheads do, that goes back a very long time.
Even if we weren’t looking at raw data, common sense and basic powers of observation let us draw solid general conclusions.
Not that I love meth but I suspect if people could buy it in shops and bars the costs would be equivalently high.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
I feel like you’re right, but perhaps not for the reason you might be implying.
Meth causes a tiny fraction of the harm of alcohol because there isn’t a legal meth store on every corner with meth companies sponsoring rugby games. Police are talking about where their efforts should be placed rather than suggesting it would be better if meth was legal and alcohol illegal.
However, in my view meth should be decriminalised, because the justice system is the wrong place to treat heath problems.
Removed by mod
Decriminalisation is the start, the first step.
Once use of drugs is no longer a legal problem and solely a heath problem then it’s safer for everyone.
One cannot just sell booze or tabacco out the boot of ones car either, neither should any other drug dealer. There’s already precedent for how to manage legal drugs.
How does the Scandinavian model work? Something about the govt providing the drugs?
I know Portugal did it with a huge success.
Yeah I was just reading up on it but it seems they didn’t go full legalisation, but had authorisations for addicts. In addition they made addiction treatment much more available.
From my understanding they didn’t really legalise drugs, but instead tried to send addicts to rehab instead of prison.
Heard an interesting perspective from a criminal lawyer on this. They think we should copy the Portugal model because meth is attracting the cartels like Sinaloa, and cartel presence normally corrupts police.
We have a tendency to use prison to handle all behaviour we don’t like, when realistically each behaviour has much more effective interventions, but it’s different per behaviour so it’s harder to organise and coordinate, and especially campaign on. It’s easier to just build more prisons, even if it’s not effective.
Removed by mod
Hmm I did some reading but didn’t find anything about any countries that have made much progress towards lagalising all drugs.
You seem keen on legalising all drugs, did you have a view on how that would work?
Removed by mod
What does legalising mean to you compared to decriminalising? Could I buy meth at the local bottle store?
There is definitely a place for legalization of some drugs; but there also needs to be an understanding on what the side effects would be of massive increases in usage.
Meth is some very addictive shit, look how hard we were working to get rid of smoking. I don’t think introducing another massively addictive substance into the mix is a great idea.
By most accounts meth is less addictive then tobacco or alcohol . We don’t think of it that way because people usually know a lot of people who drink responsibly but we often only see problematic meth users mostly because it’s usually people with problems that use meth. If normal healthy people had access to meth they would probably fall into similar use patterns that they have with alcohol, some people using it only on occasions, some more frequently and some that become full on addicts. That’s horrible for the people that do become addicts but if they have the genetic and emotional disposition for addiction they’d probably become addicted to something any way, whether that be illegal meth, or some other legal or illegal substance. Prohibition does not stop addiction because addicts will find some way to get there high.
This isn’t to say that it should be sold by just anyone and go by the rules of capitalism, as capitalism and addictive substances do not mix well. It should only be sold in non-profit or government run stores to remove profit motive, and there should be non-discript packaging with no advertising allowed FOR ALL ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES not just meth. The main problem with a lot of these drugs is capitalism looking for endless growth at the cost of human lives.
Removed by mod
Agreed.
But the situation is more nuanced than simply saying everything is up for grabs.
Weed should be fully legal, controlled quality and trusted. Tax revenue would help pay for health complications from the usage.
There needs to be a harm based assessment of each substance.
Removed by mod
Every comment you’ve made here has been completely devoid of nuance, insight, or intelligence, and quite frankly, you sound like a bit of a moron.
Methamphetamine is an incredibly addictive and harmful substance, with drastic health risks to it’s consumption, and making it easier to access is a terrible idea.
Removed by mod
Hahaha
Heheh.
Seriously though I wish professors didn’t say stuff like that. It’s bad pedagogy.
If you’ve genuinely been to university, this shows that intelligence and education don’t always follow one another.
What is this massive increase of usage you assume would happen? All drugs could be legalised without offering them for sale with minimal checks like alcohol currently is.
I’m not sure there are huge numbers of kiwis just itching to get a meth habit, if only it were legal.
I don’t think there is anyone out there, who is not starting a meth habit because it is illegal.
But lowering of social stigma, no chance of a criminal record and knowing you will get clean product; all will put upward pressure on usage numbers.
As legal as alcohol at least that is.
