What a horribly judgemental view of those who take recreational drugs. I think that that is far more immoral than the act of taking recreational drugs.

Oh, it is you, the one with great views...... :) me and you had a great exchange of views, I thought we were not going to comment on each other's posts?????

plus a few seconds of the 5th (that scene in the Simpson's where the whole town gets up to leave the symphony after 5 seconds of Da Da da Daaaa nails it). — ZhouBoTong
Haha, that's brilliant. I didn't know of that scene. — S

The Simpsons are full of great little scenes like that. I can't even tell you what episode that was from because the whole scene was only about 10-20 seconds.

Can you guarantee to control your drug use and it's effects on you and others? — tim wood

Can you guarantee to control your emotions and their effect on you and others? One might say that people don't choose to be emotional where as they choose to do drugs. However, anyone that has ever practiced controlling their own emotions would say that we do in fact choose our emotions (to a limited extent), and everyone who has a laissez faire attitude about emotions is just contributing to the problem.

I can guarantee that any drug use I partake in will be FAR less harmful than many actions that result from unrestrained emotion.

Just like emotions, one should not assume that all drugs affect all people the same. Even hard psychedelic drugs - some people will be aware they are on drugs, no matter how intense the effect - if one is aware they are on drugs, they will limit their actions. If I just stay in my house the whole time, what is the worst that can happen?

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Assuming your answer is yes, does your taking illegal drugs do your community any harm? Answer: of course it does. — tim wood

excuse me? how so?

And what about my emotions analogy?

I can re-word:

Question: Are you a member of a community? Assuming the answer is yes, do your emotions do your community any harm? Answer: of course they do. Question: the people you hurt, is it all right for you to hurt them? Is it all right with them? Did you get their permission?

Seems harsh, but the situation is harsh. The fact, for fact it is, that some of the harm is not so visible and sometimes seems unimportant as is often used as an excuse, but is in fact no excuse whatsoever, and is, IN FACT, a hallmark of the manipulative behavior of those who lack emotional control. "But it's my life, my choice! Leave me alone its none of your business," cries the emotional addict! If only. But it is everybody's business will they or nil they. As such, mindfulness training makes a lot of sense. But I have to wonder if the emotions in question are just too powerful.

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Answer: of course it doesn't necessarily, and even if it does to some extent, the community isn't everything. It is pretty mindless to just assume that the right thing to do is to just submit to the status quo, as reflected in the community.

The community says, "Drugs are bad, mmmkay", and the individual is just supposed to respond, "Oh, alright then".

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MIndless if done mindlessly. Not mindless if done not mindlessly. It appears you might be on the mindless side. Are you? — tim wood

Maybe, but I'm having fun.

does your taking illegal drugs do your community any harm? Answer: of course it does. — tim wood

You say this as an assertion, without any form of justification. Is there any justification, evidence, or anything like that?

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Are you arguing that "emotions" are somehow comparable with taking illegal drugs? — tim wood

I thought I actually provided evidence of their similarities. Oh well.

"Taking illegal drugs is like having emotions because..." — tim wood

both can lead to potential harms if they are used irresponsibly

That was easy. Next question?

Really? Are you for real? Around here we call it the opioid crisis. Where are you from?

From a .gov, "National Drug Overdose Deaths—Number Among All Ages, by Gender, 1999-2017. More than 70,200 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids—a 2-fold increase in a decade. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving all drugs from 1999 to 2017." But gosh, that's just the ODs.

So, yes, I assert that taking illegal drug harms your community. Any argument with that? — tim wood

Does this even begin to address the points people have been making in this thread? I could similarly pull statistics to show that processed sugar has and does kill far more Americans than opioids. But I would NEVER pull those statistics as evidence that ALL sugar should be banned at all times.

You seem to be arguing that if we can identify anything as POTENTIALLY harmful, it should be eliminated. And yet you ignore that most human activity has some harmful component if you look close enough.

I guess I don't see your point.

I might as well ask again in this thread...

When does a drug have some utility? When it's bestowed by some authority behind it and has some social good to promote?

Here in the US, we have Schedule I, II, III, and IV drugs. Schedule I drugs have no conferred utility according to authorities. Yet, according to people behind research institutes like MAPS, there's some utility to be had behind the use of certain Schedule I drugs, like LSD or psilocybin.

Anyway, I think, some drugs, like LSD or psilocybin have some utility, where other's don't, even if they are legal.

For example, methamphetamine is a Schedule II drug, that can be prescribed by psychiatrists, as Desoxyn. Does that mean that it should be a Schedule II drug? Seemingly so.

To self-negate (or propose a third alternative), I don't think there's any utility in viewing drugs as conferring some purported utility. Yet, I'm not so hot on the idea of legalizing them, as much as decriminalizing them.

Question: are you a member of a community? Assuming your answer is yes, does your taking illegal drugs do your community any harm? Answer: of course it does. — tim wood

Can you justify your claim that taking illegal drugs necessarily harms the community? On the face of it, that seems like a ridiculous statement.

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But perhaps this way: can you indicate a community of which the user is a member that is not harmed? — tim wood

I still don't understand why you think any community, let's consider just the immediate family, for example, is necessarily harmed by one of their members taking illegal drugs. Are you talking only about addictive drugs? All of the addictive drugs? Also, what about legal drugs? Are you saying that the user's community is harmed when she or he uses any drug at all? If not, then what precisely would it be about the illegality of a drug that makes it necessarily harmful?

And the harm of illegal drugs — tim wood

yes yes "illegal." I noticed your focus on that earlier and figured we were on a philosophy site so we were above such considerations (isn't this debate, in a practical sense, about whether or not the drugs SHOULD be illegal?)

Used? Human beings have emotions; they don't use them. — tim wood

This implies a COMPLETE lack of control over emotions, and that is exactly the problem I am referring to. Either you use your emotions, or they use you. And yes "control" is a much better word than use, but close enough for the analogy.

Seem to me you do not know what a category error is. Sugar is dangerous? Maybe sugar should be banned? Every thing is dangerous. Shall we ban everything? Or the reverse, everything isdangerous, so everything is ok? These are all implicated by your form of argument. — tim wood

That is exactly what your argument looks like to me. That was the point.

And your focus on "illegal" seems puzzling. While I am not trying to equate the 2, wasn't much of the Civil Rights Movement "illegal" and "harmful" to society? Should it not have occurred? Or would you just say IN THAT CASE the pros out-weigh the cons? With drugs being illegal, can't we EASILY say the CONS out-weigh the pros?

(1) Shopping causes waste in the form of garbage and contributes to the destruction of the environment.
(2) If we want a healthy environment, then shopping should be illegal.
(3) We need a healthy environment to survive.
(4) Thus, shopping should be outlawed.

In conclusion, the community doesn't really know what is good for itself.

Let them eat drugs!

Substitute "consumerism" for "shopping" if that makes the argument more compelling.

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Would most of these harms to the community be wiped out if certain illegal drugs were decriminalized? For example (and this is just an example, not something I have encountered), take the person who uses magic mushrooms to help ease her anxiety and depression. As long as the person is doing it in their home and not operating any heavy machinery, and all of their daily responsibilities have been taken care of (never mind that many people can still perform duties while "high" on this drug); is the use of magic mushrooms harming the community given the drug is no longer criminal?

You could substitute a number of illegal drugs for magic mushrooms. I tend to agree with you, however, that herion is a hell of a bad drug.

Seem to me you do not know what a category error is. Sugar is dangerous? Maybe sugar should be banned? Every thing is dangerous. Shall we ban everything? Or the reverse, everything is dangerous, so everything is ok? These are all implicated by your form of argument.
— tim wood

That is exactly what your argument looks like to me. That was the point. — ZhouBoTong

Yeah, that's pretty funny. You asked him whether all sugar should be banned because his bad argument could lead to that conclusion, and then his response is to try to turn that on you, as though it was an implication of your argument instead of his.

Does the harm only ensue on account of the drug being illegal?? If so, explain why. Also, you didn't answer my question re alcohol. Let's deal with these questions first so that I can ascertain just what you are thinking here.

There's really no escaping it. The taker of illegal drugs betrays all of his communities. And even if he abandons his community and they forced to think it best, but the loss is still a harm. — tim wood

Is it taking drugs that is the problem or is it that these drugs are illegal that is the problem? If some drug was legal in one country and illegal in another would the (im)morality of taking it depend on which country one was in?

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That’s fair. It seems rational to me.