You assume many things too. You don't know whose lives addicts are destroying now or will be destroying if they have access to legal drugs. To say that legalized heroin will automatically lead to more lives being ruined is silly; you just don't know that.

To say that it doesn't it silly.

Look at how many lives have been ruined by alcohol -- not just the alcoholic, but his/her family and friends and other victims (violence, DUI, etc).

Heroin and cocaine abusers hurt more than just themselves.

Marijuana abusers, on the other hand, tend to sit around and eat doritos and giggle at nothing and only really hurt themselves mostly.

I'm not saying that heroin doesn't ruin lives; I'm saying that decriminalizing doesn't automatically mean that more lives will be ruined. It doesn't even mean that more people will be using heroin than now.

Heroin was legal at one point in the U.S. Were more people heroin addicts back then? What about the lives that are ruined by people having to go to jail for this?

I think now's a good time to bring up the tomato scare fallacy. Human nature dictates that people focus more on distinctive individual influence than dissipated group influence. More people die from fast food than salmonella outbreaks, yet nobody cares about the former because it is not obvious. People worry more about hundreds of people suffering a lot than tens of millions suffering a little.

In that vein, it's a lot easier to focus on the minutiae of individual relationships over the vague concepts such as fear, organized crime, terrorism, etc. I never liked quoting this guy much, but Stalin once said "one death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic."

So based on the argument that BOTH alcohol and heroin are addictive and destructive (although alcohol is much more harmful physically), and given that we want some semblance of consistency in the law, and given that we favor liberty over criminalization, wouldn't it make more sense to legalize and control heroin instead of criminalizing alcohol use?

People, except the city of Los Angeles, don't care about fast food restaurants because people see that as a choice to eat there. If you turn into a fatass, that's your fault. People do care about the salmonella outbreak because they see themselves as having less control over a staple of their diet.

Tomatoes are assumed to be a safe and healthy product, not so with fast food. Around fifteen years ago everybody was railing against Jack N the Box due to its E. Coli outbreak. That became an issue because people perceived that the food may be high in fat, but that it was nonetheless fit for consumption, when it obviously wasn't.

I think you're on to something there, but I'd argue that it has more to due with control and our inability to assess risk than it does group influence. For example, people are generally far more afraid of flying than driving, even though your chances of getting injured or killed in a car is far greater than in a plane. It is partly because we are largely in control of the car, and also because we have a hard time comprehending the minute risks involved in air travel.

One more example of the dissipated effect fallacy:

Some people disbelieve free trade because isolated American manufacturing jobs are lost, and due to individual instances of labor abuse in developing economies. They fail to take into account the overall effect to the consumer population of forcing American capital into producing goods for which we have no comparative advantage. They also fail to take into account the beneficial effect of foreign direct investment in emerging economies; "fair trade" often forces unrealistic wages upon emerging labor markets, and in the process deny a living to millions of people -- when price is above equilibrium, quantity demanded of labor decreases. Faced with macroeconomic arguments, said arguers trot out anecdotal tales and human-interest stories: one sad story is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.

People believe in what they can relate to. This phenomenon spans all political spectra and cultural trends. A corollary to liberal disbelief in trade would be conservative disbelief in climate change. Just as arcane and difficult to imagine as human capital investment and equilibrium wages, are concepts such as oceanic carbon absorption rates and atmospheric convection models.

This is why it's so easy for politicians to appeal to human stupidity: for a population that mostly don't know what protons are or that light is faster than sound or what causes inflation, a stupid sound-bite is enough to quash any potential for intelligent debate.

While the drug issue is certainly up for debate - and I do not claim to be more correct than anybody - "I knew druggies" human-interest stories aren't particularly convincing.

We will never have consistency in the law; seriously, give me an hour and I can point out hundreds I deal with every day.

Heroin is dangerous and addictive even in small amounts; one can drink alcohol in small amounts and never become addicted. The two are not comparable.

How many more, or less, people will become heroin addicts if heroin is legalized? I would suspect the answer is not as clear-cut as one thinks.

I do not have a problem with government making some things that are just plain dangerous illegal.

I don't mind that there are seat belt laws, or laws restricting who can buy a gun, or laws prohibiting businesses from selling me unsafe foods.

Are we consistent? Of course not; if we were, cigarettes (which are much more cancer-causing than other substances that have been banned) would be illegal too.

But the fact that some things are legal doesn't mean we have to be stupid and say "Well, gosh, we made a mistake before, but we'd better be consistent and keep making it."

Seat belts don't fund terrorism. Spoiled food don't make half our nation's streets war zones.

I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one, Grouchy.

Same here. Good discussion, guys!

Yes, good discussion about tomatoes and lost manufacturing jobs...

Yes, the rest of us must be high or something to not see eye to eye with you...

All this means is that you, personally, have an addictive personality and little self control. As someone who will be buying at least an eighth of pot in the next week and who smoked my way to all As and Bs last semester, saying that weed "just leads" to "worse things" is stupid.

Also, I do know people who do coke and pills but do not smoke pot.

Again, dont be a fool. If you become an alcoholic, you often become mean and abusive and will have way, WAY more problems with relationships and jobs and money and, well, life than a "stoner." The average stoner has no desire to move on to coke because they know that it's dangerous and pot is the best. The average stoner just wants to come home from work and smoke a bowl so that their dinner and their television are much, much more enjoyable.

That makes one of you. I respectfully disagree with Groucho but he was making salient and reasoned points. Your comments were kind of incoherent and illogical and very inconsistent.

I may be speaking out of school, but I think this is also why many closeted homosexuals are so vehemently for anti-gay legislation. They can't control themselves so they want the government to do it for them, even if it means taking rights away from everyone else.

magnus sounded just as coherent as groucho.

I believe it was Lenny Bruce who said something like "People want to ban pot because it leads to harder drugs. Well, my research has shown that everyone who is an alcoholic began by drinking milk. Our only option then is obviously to ban milk!"

That's an insult to Groucho, and I won't have it!

THATS an insult to Magnus

But i'm fine with that. Hes one of my many punching bags here.