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[DJ]

Well I guess you just like totalitarian regimes.

[ed boy]

Well I guess you just like totalitarian regimes.

Heavens, no. It's a matter of whether or not people know what is good for them.

[DJ]

Yeah, deciding for people what's good and bad for them is pretty much the textbook definition of totalitarianism.

I mean, fast food, coffee, video games and tons of other everyday things are clearly bad for you, but how would you feel if the man took them all away from you?

And what's good and what's bad for you isn't really a clear-cut issue. You may have a government that thinks that religion is an opiate of the masses and goes on to ban it, or a government that thinks that not accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour will lead to eternal damnation of your immortal soul so they make it mandatory to be a church-going Christian.

[scriver]

Governments have a duty to protect the population

From each other, not from themselves. It's a huuuuge difference.

It isn't that easy. Many things people "do to themselves" effect people around them much more than it does themselves. There is a direct link between alchohol/drugs and (both light and heavy) crime, and I'm not talking about the dealing part.

To sum it up, I don't care much if a man/woman gets drunk in his/her spare time, I care about the partner and children he abuses while drunk. I don't mind a person getting high in his personal space, I mind the fact that he might not stay there, and the fact that if said person happens to be a racist/homophobe/whatever the chance of him assaulting or killing an immigrant/"homosexual"/whatever increases significantly.

[DJ]

You can't punish people preemptively. I mean, every time you sit behind the wheel of your car you might cause an accident involving deaths of multiple people, so should you be banned from driving? And there's an extremely strong link between driving and traffic accidents.

Oh, and I'd like to see some statistics on what percentage of people who drink alcohol commit spousal abuse.

[scriver]

You can't punish people preemptively. I mean, every time you sit behind the wheel of your car you might cause an accident involving deaths of multiple people, so should you be banned from driving? And there's an extremely strong link between driving and traffic accidents.

And I never said such a thing. Maybe you should focus on what I say, and not make things up.

Oh, and I'd like to see some statistics on what percentage of people who drink alcohol commit spousal abuse.

How is that relevant? Of course more people drink alcohol than partner abuse. I'm not sayer that a person who drinks beer = an abuser. I'm saying that the amount - and intensity - of abuse rises with alcohol consumption. When you're drunk, the chances of you beating or insulting somebody rises. Not all "spousal abuse" is physical.

[DJ]

Well you are justifying banning all sorts of things because people *might* do something wrong because of it.

And I'm focusing on what you're saying. Basically, you're blaming the substance rather than the person. I reckon that violent people would still be violent even without any drugs.

[scriver]

Well you are justifying banning all sorts of things because people *might* do something wrong because of it.

This, I am. It's the same reason people should not be allowed to own whatever guns they like without reason (and documentation), and why people are not allowed to start fires in the middle of droughts, or why drunken driving is banned. This, however, is not the same as "punishing people pre-emptively". Frankly, I've clearly said several time that I would not want pre-emptive anti-drug "vaccination", and that such punishment should only be administered when the individual in question have a clear record of drug use-related incidents as well as when s/he has failed to answer to other treatments.

And I'm focusing on what you're saying. Basically, you're blaming the substance rather than the person. I reckon that violent people would still be violent even without any drugs.

Violent people are still violent without drugs. Drugs, however, increases the chances of a otherwise "passive" person becoming aggressive. This is a well established fact. It's part of the whole "loosening up of restraint" deal - it makes you less likely to control yourself and as such less likely to control yourself. Not all drugs to this, obviously, and I'm not saying they are, but you're being blind and ignorant of evidence if you say none do.

[DJ]

You're still not hurting people by taking drugs, you're hurting them by hurting them. Drunk driving is a whole different beast, because alcohol impairs your ability to operate a ton of iron moving at high speeds every single time, whereas the odds of a non-violent person suddenly becoming violent due to taking drugs are about as high as the odds of winning the national lottery. So no, you shouldn't convict people for taking drugs, you should convict them for assault.

[Leafsnail]

whereas the odds of a non-violent person suddenly becoming violent due to taking drugs are about as high as the odds of winning the national lottery. So no, you shouldn't convict people for taking drugs, you should convict them for assault.

Yeah, you may need a source on this.

Although I'd say drugs are far more likely to incite violence in their sellers than their users...

[DJ]

I'd say that the burden of proof is on the people that are asserting that drugs directly cause violent outbursts in normally non-violent people.

[Leafsnail]

Sure, say that then.  But don't attach an arbitrary probability based on wild speculation to it (that implies that someone's actually done a detailed study and shown that one in 14 million drug users are driven to violence).

[DJ]

It's called hyperbole.

[ed boy]

Well you are justifying banning all sorts of things because people *might* do something wrong because of it.

In all matters of whether or not something should be banned, you have to balance the probabilites of each outcome.

If you drive a car (provided that you have passed the driving test), the total benefit of choosing to drive instead of walking is believed to outweigh the negative effects, which is why it is not banned. Although there is a chance that you will hit something/someone, and that is very bad, the chances are sufficiently against it that the benefits of driving outweigh these chances.
If, however, you are under the influence of alcohol, for example, then the risk of something bad happening increases, and after a point the risk outweighs the benefits. At that point, driving is banned.

The above is an instance of banning something because people might do something wrong. If you're drunk and you drive, there's no guarantee that you'll hit somebody. However, there is sufficient chance that it is banned.

And I'm focusing on what you're saying. Basically, you're blaming the substance rather than the person. I reckon that violent people would still be violent even without any drugs.

It's not as simple as "violence is caused by violent tendencies and nothing else". Without drugs violence would still occur, but it would almost certainly be reduced.

I mean, fast food, coffee, video games and tons of other everyday things are clearly bad for you, but how would you feel if the man took them all away from you?

They may have negative effects, but the negative effects are generally believed to be outweighed by the enjoyment that people get from them. These vary from person to person, and there are some people (the biggest example is young children) who it is deemed would have the negative effects outweigh the positive ones, which is why they are controlled (with things such as age ratings).

And what's good and what's bad for you isn't really a clear-cut issue.

That's one of the major functions of a government - to decide what is good for people and what is bad for them, and act appropriately. Governments in developed countries today often won't take any action until they have performed an in-depth study of the issue to weigh up all the factors involved.

Returning to the issue of government vaccinations against drugs, let me know what precise step(s) in the following chain of thought you disagree with:
-people gain short term enjoyment from taking some drugs
-people gain long term disadvantages from taking those same drugs
-for some drugs, the disadvantages outweigh enjoyment is all or almost all cases
-when deciding whether or not to take drugs, some people misjudge the relative value of the short term enjoyment and the long term disadvantages
-therefore, those people take drugs when they should not
-therefore, those people have negative benefit from taking drugs
-the purpose (or one of the purposes) of the government is to maximise the total benefit in society in the long term
-therefore, if an action results in negative benefit, the government must attempt to reduce the effects of this negative benefit until the point where the costs of reducing it further outweigh the amount it would be reduced by.
-people taking these drugs results in negative benefit, so the government must, if the costs of doing so are not outweighed by the long term increase in benefit, do at least one of these three things:
--Increase the enjoyment of the drugs until it reaches the point where the enjoyment outweighs the long term negative effects
--Decrease the negative effects until they are outweighed by the enjoyment
--Decrease the number of people who are taking drugs
-Now, consider a vaccination against these drugs
-By vaccinating someone against these drugs, they do not gain the benefits of taking them
-with the benefits gone, they have no incentive to take drugs
-therefore, even those that are prone to misjudging the effects will not take drugs
-so the total negative benefits will decrease
-so, provided both of the following hold:
--the vaccine works
--the cost of giving people the vaccine is more cost-effective than increasing the benefits or decreasing the negative effects of the drugs-it is logical for the government to try to vaccinate as many people as possible

note that I am only considering those who do not have an addiction to drugs in the above.

[Graebeard]

Drug use causes/doesn't cause things.

Any conversation about "drugs" as a nebulous and unified entity is doomed to failure.  There are just too many drugs.  Each drug causes different effects.  Individuals take different drugs for different reasons, and face different problems in the acquisition and administration of each one.  Some drugs are legal, while posessing/using others are illegal, and the line between them is different in different places and is rarely based upon reason.

Since there is such a diverse wealth of situations in which drugs have an effect, you can basically say "drugs" cause anything (or don't cause it) and you'll be right because there is an example to back you up.  Never mind all the counterexamples.

So how do we intelligently and usefully talk about drug use?  First of all, ditch the essentially meaningless phrase "drugs" and replace that with something concrete.  You can say "stimulants generally lead to more aggressive behavior" or "depressants are linked to a disproportionately high number of accidental injuries," but saying something like "drugs cause social harms" is just about as specific and verifiable as saying "this thing I don't like is bad."

Second, limit your use of universal statements about drugs to things that are truly universal.  For example, we can probably all agree that individuals should not normally have to take drugs involuntarily, whether they're behavior-altering drugs or antibiotics.  We can also say that drug use has a significant impact on modern society.  But saying things like "drugs fund terrorism" or "drugs create a large healthcare burden" is misleading, since you're only really making a claim about a small subset of drugs.  I'm sure the occasional joint my neighbor has from the plant he grows does neither of these things.

tl;dr  This conversation is meaningless unless we use more specific language.