Reply #1: The fly in the ointment... [View All]

[Psephos]

...is that drug addicts usually suffer last, only after those who are dependent upon them, or those who love them, are damaged or destroyed. So when we let drug addicts kill themselves, we condemn a lot of other, nondrug-taking people to serious quantities of misery.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that the WOD is senseless, but for some drugs such as cocaine (and especially its derivative, crack) and crystal meth, the addictive potential is so high that as many as one in eight or ten who try them immediately become abusers and shortly thereafter become virtual zombies concerned only with finding the next high.

Read a book like The Corner for a sense of what happens to those caught up in crack. If legalizing these drugs could alleviate some of that misery, I'd be for it, but I'm skeptical. Is there some evidence (as opposed to theories) that might be true?

There seem to be no simple answers to the scourge of hard drug abuse.

Peace.