(November 2, 2010 at 9:57 pm)LastPoet Wrote: I agree that those things would be beneficial, but regarding a drug of heroin's caliber I am very cautious about legalizing that. But since I have a personal bias about it, I might be wrong. If it goes legalized, I wouldn't oppose that really, I wouldn't return to it despite how gooooood it feels, and some falls, one has really to fall to be able to discern how hard it is to get up again.
There would definitely need to be a cost benefit analysis, however any standard that precludes Heroin and Crack and allows Alcohol will be a tricky criteria to reach, and may have to become rather arbitrary, like "tends not to be injected". If we set standards that perchance preclude alcohol then the chances of it getting upheld are Nil.
Essentially we need a standard by which we can effectively judge harm as well as the general impact on society, and in that case Alcohol and Heroin do similar harm, however the benign aspects of Alcohol are much greater than Heroin, so I think you could justify Alcohol as a maximum standard of harm, compared to it's benignity.
Alcohol is more benign in more circumstances than tobacco, for instance, and thus you could justifiably outlaw tobacco while keeping alcohol legal.
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