Posted on 02/04/2014 2:32:35 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For a magazine that styles itself Reason, it’s surprisingly unreasonable.
Nick Gillespie of Reason attacks Truth Revolt’s Ben Shapiro for writing that “Philip Seymour Hoffman['s] self-inflicted death is yet another hallmark of the broken leftist culture that dominates Hollywood, enabling rather than preventing the loss of some of its greatest talents. Libertarianism becomes libertinism without a cultural force pushing back against the penchant for sin; Hollywood has no such cultural force.”
It’s a point that’s rather hard to argue with. Freedom opens up the arena for individual character to define how people will use it. Freedom alone is a blank slate that allows people to impose order on their own lives.
Gillespie not only argues against it, but makes a thoroughly ridiculous argument. “Shapiro’s implication that libertarianism is the root cause of Hoffman’s overdose isn’t simply churlish and uninformed by anything resembling knowledge of Hoffman’s life, thoughts, or circumstances of death (though it is that). It is plainly nonsensical.”
That’s not what Shaprio is saying, but Reason has its theme, which is what libertarianism is being unfairly blamed for the death of a Hollywood actor and it has the solution…
“If Shapiro thought about it for a minute rather than calling up his outrage macro in Word, he might ask what sort of drug policy might lead to better outcomes. Generally speaking, people have enough trouble admitting substance-abuse problems without also having to admit that they are criminals too. Maybe legalizing or decriminalizing drugs would lead to an environment in which abuse would be minimized along with the ill effects of the black markets spawned by prohibition.”
Sure, we’ll cut down on overdoses by legalizing heroin. The needle park solution always works.
Do Hollywood celebrities abuse drugs because drug laws make them feel like criminals? Would they use less drugs if using drugs was more legally and socially acceptable?
Would Philip Seymour Hoffman have avoided overdosing on heroin if he could have bought it at the local drug store?
Since the addictive mechanism combined with tolerance, which is the effect that causes escalating drug use to achieve the same results, and the emotional cycle of self-medicating, is what causes the escalation of drug use, it’s hard to see how making an addictive drug that chemically diminishes free will is the solution to preventing drug abuse.
It’s like fighting slavery by legalizing slavery. Hoffman wasn’t abusing heroin because it was illegal. He was abusing heroin because it was available.
Ever look at MADD's talking points? The founder quit in the mid 1980s and went on to lobby on behalf of bars and brewers.
People who become suicidal, do so because they are depressed and are ignorant of any good options. And many of them smoked pot for quite a few years, going through the cycles of paranoia and euphoria thousands of times (cycles that later become mania followed by depression).
They didn’t start smoking pot because of depression or a lack of options. Most of them started smoking pot, because acquaintances told them that it would make them feel great and implied that it would make them more desired as a friend. Many started smoking pot also because they were drunk when pressured to do it. Most who use harder drugs were high on smoke, when the harder drugs were offered.
“How the hell does someone get into that anyway? Seriously, how does that work? You’re at a party one night and someone comes up to you and says “Hey Bud, you wanna try some HEROIN?””
That’s pretty much what happens. If you’re moving in circles where drugs are common you see all sorts of things and get all kinds of offers.
Heroin doesn’t have to be injected. The powder can be heated and the fumes inhaled- “chasing the dragon”. And it can be snorted like cocaine. But if someone finds that they like heroin they’ll move on to injecting because it gives the rush that the other routes don’t.
“From what I’ve been reading, it’s now people addicted to pain pills (Opiates) shifting over to heroin because it’s cheaper and more available.”
And even cheaper is homebrewed desomorphine, the nightmare Russian street drug called krokodil. If we’re lucky that won’t show up in America.
Prohibition and drugs have nothing in common.
Alcohol has been a foundation of and for Western Civilization for many thousands of years, in every way, that isn’t true of something like pot, which Western Civilization refused to adopt as an intoxicant during those thousands of years, although they interacted with, traded, traveled and fought the cultures that did use it, getting stoned on pot is a 1960s thing for “Western civilization”, alcohol has always been thoroughly incorporated into the white man’s culture and life, prohibition was a weird American second out of those thousands of years, one that sure would have surprised the founding generations, just about as much as them learning that Americans were taking on the drug of the Arabs.
Right, but my main issue is a deeper underlying principle at work that has to do with a free, healthy, vibrant, and respectful society.
More people die crossing the f’ing street than overdosing from drugs.
Most heroin ODs are caused by drugs of mislabeled potency, or adulterated. Street drugs are dangerous. The main long-term side effects of addiction are related to chronic constipation.
Candy Lightner. Thanks to that bitch a single drink can cost you your drivers license. The end result of protecting people from their own stupidity is a world full of fools.
People who are depressed do not always commit suicide and as far as I know marijuana does not induce the desire to kill ones self.
this is where libertarians lose support and they can’t be trusted to bring along anything rational to the discussion.
pffffftt dude, legalize it man, regulate it and tax it man, wait wut?
Taking a dangerous intoxicant and making more of it available cheaper and more plentiful and produce it with incentive to keep people hooked is not a solution a rational person would make.
yeah man spend the tax money on health services for people that get hooked, to support the children of people that OD and to pay for the funerals.. yea, that’s the solution.
Of course many people get addicted after getting morphine or other opioid pain killers and can't kick it.
Yeah that’s what I read, that ODs happen because it takes more and more to get high, I mean look at him - they found 70 bags of heroin in his apt. SEVENTY! That is freakin’ insane. Who the hell carries around 70 bags of ANYTHING? I don’t even have 70 bags of tea in my kitchen. Either way the guy sounded like a class A schmucko...3 kids and he is shooting up 70 bags of heroin? If I was that addicted I would get myself arrested just to get off it for the sake of my kids , that is ridiculous.
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