#readwise # Why Aren’t All Drugs Legal?  ## Metadata - Author: [[People I (Mostly) Admire]], [[Carl Hart]] - Full Title: Why Aren’t All Drugs Legal? - URL: https://www.airr.io/episode/61eb822d83ba79000e831bfe ## Blurb The Columbia neuroscientist and psychology professor [[Carl Hart]] believes that recreational drug use, even heroin, methamphetamines, and cocaine, is an inalienable right. ## Highlights - One of the most important factor is the promise of the country. The original promise that is laid out in the Declaration of Independence, that each of us have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So long as we don't prevent other people from enjoying their rights. And so as part of that, it's incumbent upon any nation that claims to be as free as us to make sure that these things are legally regulated otherwise. How can you be preventing people from putting what they want in their own parties if they're not bothering anybody? ... We give thousands of doses of these drugs on a yearly basis without incident. And if these drugs so dangerous, we wouldn't be permitted to do the thing. That's a fact. If you look at the scientific literature. But I wanted people to think about what it meant to be an american. I mean, you see these people with these damn lapel pins and their flags, but not understanding what it means to be an american, and that's the original promise. That's the original document. So when people say it's a libertarian argument, but it's not a libertarian argument, it's an american argument. ([Time 0:06:34](https://www.airr.io/quote/63cbeeb203f0b543d8bb107a)) ^9yy268 - Let's say we followed your plan. We legalized all these drugs in a regulatory environment. And let's just say to make it simple, the price was basically zero. Close to zero so that you don't have to worry about black markets and violence related to black markets. How many americans would you guess? So now we're out of facts. Were educated guesses. How many americans do you think would be abusing or addicted to drugs in that world? And how many drug related deaths would you predict? What happen in the USA to? Speaker 2: Well, I think that are drug related deaths will go down definitely because many of these deaths are caused by tainted drugs and ignorance. And also people will be less likely to feel embarrassed or the stigma associated with drugs would also be decreased. And so people can seek information and then we would require our medical community to be better informed because the medical community is part of the problem here in terms of their own ignorance about these things. So I think the numbers of overdose deaths related to the recreational drugs will go down. Speaker 1: Okay, let me stop you there. Because I think that's really interesting because that's a case where if we asked one of your rivals in your discipline, they'd probably say no use might be five times greater and so deaths might be five times greater Now. I'm sure that would be an exaggeration. But it's one of those questions we don't really have. Maybe we do express you do we have any way other than introspection to get Insight into this? I guess Portugal's that's right. An example of Portugal decriminalized. I think all drugs, it must have been almost 20 years ago. What's happened in Portugal Speaker 2: That's exactly right. The overdose rate dropped significantly in Portugal when they implemented decriminalization. People sought treatment. All of these pro social things increased. ... Speaker 1: everything we've talked about so far. If I take an unbiased view literally everything we've talked about, it supports your argument. The one big chunk in the armor that I see is those numbers you gave about addiction and abuse because I think people who are against legalization, they're just going to say, look right now, 30 million people use drugs if you legalize it every 10 years, going at least try drugs and People don't have a very good idea of who's going to get addicted or not. And so a bunch of kids, 10% of all the kids in America are going to end up addicted to these drugs and ruin their lives. Do you have a good counter argument to that? Speaker 2: That's some stupid this notion that we should somehow ban an activity because we're afraid of kids engaging in that activity. We should ban cars because we're afraid of kids driving cars or sex because of the sexually transmitted infections. That's a really ridiculous notion. But we all play into it. Parents still have the parent and these drugs are still illegal for kids to use and purchase. ([Time 0:14:34](https://www.airr.io/quote/63cbf09303f0b543d8bb451b))