War On Drugs

I'm sure that's part of the story, but I also think that an important part is simply our sense, in general, of what "NORMAL" is, and the importance of "NORMAL" to us. This goes for both mental and physical states, not just for humans but also for other animals, living, and non-living things.We judge things that are "normal" to be fine, and those as "abnormal" as needing to be "fixed." Like they say, there's a really fine line between genius and insane. That line between what is "normal" and "abnormal" suffers the same problems as being discussed with regards to drug-altered mental states.So I think an important part of this goes beyond just knee-jerk religious pain/pleasure dogma.I'll stop there for now.Ben

What's up holmes... glad I can finally enter some discussion with you. I'm generally impressed by the quality of thoughts you put out there in your posts. Let's see how this goes.This might not be appropriate for this thread, maybe it's better off in the (current) thread on "Free Will". But... I'll start here. I'd submit that there's no fundamental difference between choosing to take drugs and being addicted to drugs. In a word where "free will" simmply isn't an interesting concept (a view that I THOUGHT I scanned in one of your posts there), I think this must be so. At least, as long as such a world applies concepts such as "responsibility" and "blame" to individual beings.In that case, I think it's fine to discuss the merits of taxing drugs. Maybe the case for such a tax falls apart on other grounds; that's another story. But at least when measuring the proposal on the "lame scale," I'm not getting any significant reading over here.Then again, around here, skirts over pants also fail to show a "lame" reading... so who knows.Ben

Holmes,Thanks for the replies. I should have known better than to post a message just before two days of my Japanese final exam... in other words, sorry for the slow response.--------------In writing up a reply to this post, I realized (duh) that both of our points are important. For those with your "religious pressure to legitimatize pleasure," I understand your point, and I agree.I guess my point was that, for those who don't feel that religious pressure, there's still some reason why the drugs in question are considered "bad." Some has to do with "what is normal." Some has to do with pragmatic concerns (i.e. legitimatizing pleasure within the framework of a co-dependent society (i.e. I don't want to work for somebody who is viewed as a "laze", i.e. lazy person)).With that in mind, here's a much shortened version of what I was in the process of writing as a response. I guess my "disagreement" now changes to "view from another important factor in the problem." Please read it as such.----------- I disagree with your example here. The effects of flu medicine are called "side-effects," and are undesired. A cold or flu medicine that works without side-effects would be greatly popular.The idea that pleasure must be legitimaized is a religious one and does not come from human assessments of normality. I feel that that is what is at work here, given examples like the above. But it is a problem. But the side-effects are not deemed "severe enough" (deviant from the normal) to be of concern. That's the (supposed) role of regulation of such drugs, to control the severity of side-effects of drugs available for public consumption. Drugs with "severe" side-effects are illegal to distribute.So in other words, it is a problem. Right. It's sad. The only basis we have for saying "it's sad" is simply that the kids are "not normal." And I think a lot of people don't like it, simply because of that idea. It just depends on what you think the problem is. For those who think "altering the 'normal' state 'artifically', and maybe for those with religious tendencies to legitimatize pleasure, it's bad to give the drugs to kids. So giving them more drugs to 'solve' the problem isn't the solution; it's just compounding the trouble. Best thing to do is to stop giving them drugs.And yes, I realize that's not really your point. And yes, I also realize that the position "altering the 'normal' state 'artifically' is a somewhat problematic position." But there are no non-problematic positions, at least given the thinking I've done so far.