<story><title>What Historians Wish People Knew About Drugs, Part II: Isaac Campos</title><url>https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/what-historians-wish-people-knew-about-drugs-part-ii-isaac-campos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iamcasen</author><text>I always find it funny how polarized the world is about drugs. Why is nearly every culture against it, with the exception of mostly indigenous tribes?&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t really imagine it&amp;#x27;s for any other reason than to have a firmer control on the population, or an excuse to imprison people or criminalize them in a convenient way.&lt;p&gt;People are always going to take drugs, and by and large, they are harmless. I wish we could collectively just... get over it already.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jlos</author><text>Appropriate punishmments, which drugs should be illegal and under what circumstances is a totally different area of discussion but the general attitude of most societies to the recreation use of more powerful drugs is quite sensible. Drug use is also nearly universally accepted in medical circumstances so we aren&amp;#x27;t really all that polarized.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Why is nearly every culture against it&lt;p&gt;Sobriety and self-control are essential to a functioning society and especially a liberal democracy. Freedom, to the extent we have it, requires that we can govern ourselves.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; People are always going to take drugs, and by and large, they are harmless&lt;p&gt;This is an argument that has never made much sense to me. People are always going to commit every crime. Laws exist because people will break them. And laws are effective deterents if the penalties are appropriately harsh. Consider that alcohol consumption took almost a generation to return to its pre-prohibition levels (around the 60&amp;#x27;s-70s&amp;#x27;).&lt;p&gt;And most illegal drugs are demonstratively not harmless, to the point its almost axiomatic.</text></comment>
<story><title>What Historians Wish People Knew About Drugs, Part II: Isaac Campos</title><url>https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/what-historians-wish-people-knew-about-drugs-part-ii-isaac-campos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>iamcasen</author><text>I always find it funny how polarized the world is about drugs. Why is nearly every culture against it, with the exception of mostly indigenous tribes?&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t really imagine it&amp;#x27;s for any other reason than to have a firmer control on the population, or an excuse to imprison people or criminalize them in a convenient way.&lt;p&gt;People are always going to take drugs, and by and large, they are harmless. I wish we could collectively just... get over it already.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattnewton</author><text>I imagine its more acceptable to prohibit or demonize affectations of a minority culture than it is to prohibit the culture itself. The original American war on drugs has testimonies to suggest it came from a desire to persecute blacks and anti-war protesters.&lt;p&gt;Anecdotally, where I live the city has passed ordnances against selling or displaying wire-wrap jewelry on the streets, and I can&amp;#x27;t think of a reason to single that out except that, because the materials are cheap it is a common source of income for transient populations. You can&amp;#x27;t make them illegal directly, but you can make all their activities illegal and arrest them when they inevitably break the law.</text></comment>