Drugs are fun. Many of the people who sell drugs are vicious, mean bastards; many of the people who sell drugs are friendly and enjoy making people happy.
Most people are capable of combining the consumption of drugs – whether alcohol, weed, pills or coke – with a happy and productive life. Some people are not. This suggests that they should probably avoid them, and that bad things will probably happen to them if they don’t avoid them.
The existence of the second group is not a sane argument for drug criminalisation, any more than the existence of appallingly bad drivers is a sane argument for car criminalisation.
Yes, some absurdly large percentage of the public want to keep the sale and use of drugs illegal. This merely proves that the public are ignorant and stupid, which we knew already.
"many of the people who sell drugs are friendly and enjoy making people happy."
You make it sound like such an altruistic occupation.
I’ve met a (reasonably) sizeable number of people purveying weed and pills who genuinely believe they’re performing a valuable public service. I mean, obviously they like the cash as well…
There are only a few jobs that give those who do them the right to say they are really helping society. These would include things like nursing, aid work (some) or social work; jobs that people do because they truly want to help others even though they know full well they’re going to get paid shite and work lots. However, the majority of people take jobs that give them financial security, not because they really care about helping others, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
However, no need to push it by claiming you’re some sort of philanthropist and go to sleep with a warm, cushy feeling in your heart.
I think drug dealing can fall pretty easily within the enlightened spectrum of enlightened self-interest. It depends on the individual doing it. And it has the advantage that you don’t have to feel like a philanthropist to be euphoric bedfore you go to bed
"the public are ignorant and stupid, which we knew already": Oh really? So what do you propose instead – dissolving the people and electing a new one, as Brecht put it (ironically)? or setting yourself up as dictator over the poor stupid plebs who aren’t as clever as you? Watch out: it’s surprisingly easy to slip into anti-democratic rhetoric, even with the best of intentions.
As for the specific issue of drugs, yes, the public are ignorant, but it doesn’t follow that they’re stupid, or incapable of becoming better-informed. And the evidence of opinion polls (FWIW) seems to suggest that, on this issue as on others, the public are actually less stupid and less ignorant than the mainstream politicians – which isn’t saying much, of course …
Most people are incapable of combining the consumption of heroine with a happy and productive life.
Oh, I don’t know. I go to the movies frequently and my regular diet of both heroes and heroines has caused me no problems at all.
Wouldn’t touch heroin, though. nasty stuff.