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Mps1213's avatar
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Mps1213
1538
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Topic
#3887

All drugs should be legalized

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The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
12
3
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
4
4
Better conduct
3
4

After 4 votes and with 8 points ahead, the winner is...

Mps1213
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RationalMadman's avatar
17
RationalMadman
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Description

In this debate I would like to show why all drugs, from cannabis to fentanyl should be legalized and sold in dispensaries across the US.

Round 1
Mps1213's avatar
Mps1213
Pro
#1
This argument is controversial for some reason that I’m not too sure of. I think it has to do with media, bad science and awful journalism. Drugs are inanimate objects, conglomerates of Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen.  They are not some object that hops out of their bag and into our bloodstream. Drugs are not the cause of the 91,000 deaths we saw in America in 2020. 

When we are talking about drug deaths it’s important to ask many questions. 1: how many substances were in the system? The average number of psychoactive substances found in drug deaths in 4-6. The next question needs to be: do any of these substances bring greater risks to the user when combined? 3: was the person aware these substances were risky to combine? 4:  did the person even know they took so many substances. 

These questions are of serious importance, the last 2 being the most important by far. Let’s say this person who died was being completely irresponsible and combining multiple substances at once and he didn’t know what was dangerous to mix. That is 100% an education issue. People use drugs every day without dying, in fact most drug users do not even have addiction. That has been proven by the work of a chairman on the National Institute of Health, Dr. Carl Hart from Columbia university. His work came to the conclusion that 80-90% of drug users in the US do not have addiction or use drugs irresponsibly. He himself an accomplished pharmacologist uses heroin and I open about it. He’s able to use heroin safely because he is very educated on how the drug works, how not to develop addiction, how to stay safe. All the way back in the 1890’s there were studies done with diacetylmorphine (heroin), heroin is simply a modified morphine molecule to have acetyl bonds at the top left and bottom right of the molecule. Making it more polar, which leads to higher potency. NOT higher addictiveness. I’ll touch on that in a second. 

drug users like Dr. Carl hart and myself would never mix an opioid with a benzodiazepine or alcohol or antihistamines or any other CNS depressant. Because it is well recorded that mixing opioids with depressant greatly increases the chances of respiratory depression and death. if someone is not educated in that they can get into trouble quickly. 

Now let’s talk about question 4. Not many people are aware of this. There is a website called Drugsdata.org You can send your drug sample into their lab and they will test it and put the results on the website. Keep in mind there is a lot of bias in the results simply because the drug users sending their samples in for testing are very very responsible drug users and not junkies who don’t have the money to spend on these tests. 

I’m going to list the results of the first 3 samples tested for heroin that pop up. 

Sample 1:
Heroin
6-Acetylmorphine
6-Acetylcodeine
Morphine
Codeine

all of these are powerful mu-opioid receptor agonists than can cause respiratory depression when combined or taken in high doses. But the lethal dose for the average participant (LD50) of drugs drop dramatically when combined with other substances. Making these drugs illegal and forcing people to buy off the streets, causes this. Making drug use infinitely more dangerous than it should be. 

Here is sample 2

  • Fentanyl
  • 4-ANPP
  • Phenethyl 4-ANPP

This was sold as heroin. I’m gonna break this down very simply. The IV LD50 in mice is 21.797mg/kg. It is not as simple as taking that at applying the mg/kg to your own body weight a conversion must be done to account for different metabolic rates and surface areas. The conversion factor with mice is to divide the dose by 12.3, or multiply it by .081. This will put the LD50 for humans at 1.77mg/kg.
For a 150 pound person they would have to take 122.4 mg of heroin to reach the lethal dose for the average user their weight. To put that into perspective even the heaviest users consider 25mg injected a heavy heavy dose. So essentially no one is taking that dose. But, that lethal average dose drops dramatically when mixed with other substances as I said early but that’s not the point I’m making right now. 

After the conversion is done the human LD50 for fentanyl rests at .47mg/kg. Compared to heroin’s LD50 by IV sitting at 1.8mg/kg it’s easy to see why this would be an extremely dangerous combination. An average 150 pound male only has to take 31mg of fentanyl to reach lethal doses. I said earlier a heavy dose of heroin is 25mg. Some addicts take more. When mixing these two substances the LD50 for both drop significantly making it only take one bad batch to kill people. 

The other two substances in that test are precursors to fentanyl that are used for synthesis which brings me to another point. Street chemists do not know what they’re doing. Do you remember the famous Krokadil drug scare? A drug in Russia people injected and it caused profound necrosis. Well it turns out, as it always does, that the drug was not the problem. The problem was street chemists not getting the chemicals used for synthesis out of their final product. One of the chemicals used for synthesis of the drug desomorphine (the drug krokadil actually was which is still used medicinally all over the world) is phosphorus. So we weren’t looking at the effects of any drug but instead the result of injecting phosphorus into your veins. Professional chemists do not make these mistakes. 

The third sample is more likely what you would find if you went and bought heroin. 

Heroin
Tentative Identification - See Note
Fentanyl
6-Acetylcodeine
Procaine
4-ANPP
6-Acetylmorphine
Phenethyl 4-ANPP
Acetylfentanyl
Caffeine
Diphenhydramine
Xylazine
LidocainE

How can someone responsibly and safely use this product? It’s impossible. And again we see the street chemists left precursors in the final product 
Xylazine is a veterinarian analgesic usually used on felines. 
Lidocaine is a topical pain killer and derivative of cocaine. 

If anyone used this product they likely died. 

So this brings me to my final point. If we legalized all substances you would be able to go into a dispensary and buy pure heroin or any other drug you like to use. It would also get rid of close to 75% of people in jail on simple possession charges. Drug use is dangerous, to say that’s not true is to lie, cannabis has risks, caffeine has risks, heroin and fentanyl have risks. But our government is actively making it more dangerous by their laws and enforcement. Danger isn’t even the point in my opinion. Adults in this country are free to do all sorts of things, shoot guns, race cars, cliff dive, sky dive, etc. we just assume adults embarking on those tasks are aware of the risks before hand and are making their own decision to do these activities. Drug use should be no different. There will still be addicts and still be idiots who kill themselves. But if we re design our drug education to not be about abstinence from drug use and actually tell young people bad adults about what makes them dangerous and how to lower the risks as much as possible a lot less of that would happen. If we treat drug education like modern sex education which is basically “we know you’re going to have sex, this is how you do it safely” it would save many lives. 

Drugs are not the problem, our government is the main issue because they actively make drug use more dangerous. This is my final statement. Our government not only makes them more dangerous laws but even have a history of poisoning drugs to scare people away from them. For example the government killed 10,000 people during alcohol prohibition by paying bootleggers and giving them freedom to sell alcohol as long as they left the highly toxic substance methanol in some of their products. Under Raegan the United States poisoned cannabis plots in Georgia and Mexico with a neurotoxin called Paraquat which induces Parkinson’s disease. Luckily and funnily enough they didn’t go to any chemists before doing this be wise Paraquat has low thermostability and would break down when lit on fire. 

Our government is the reason drug deaths are so high and the reason peoples lives get ruined by their father or themselves being in prison for wanting to get high. 


RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#2
My opponent is basically running a very strange case that has nothing to do with the debate but appears to on a surface level. This debate is clearly about recreational legalisation of all drugs, no matter how brutally harmful, addictive and life-destroying for the family members including innocent babies, toddlers, children and teens under the guardianship of the addicts. What my opponent is arguing is that certain chemicals in certain legal prescription or even over-the-counter medicinal drugs are harmful if taken in the wrong way and unhealthy dosage. Maybe Pro's case is that medicine always has to warn about side effects and it seems my opponent is trying to then argue that all drugs are to be open to usage in medicinal things but that is a blatantly unfair interpretation of the resolution and furthermore just because something as disgustingly harmful as herion and meth can somehow in one context be very slightly useful in a medicinal way doesn't mean either is remotely optimal enough to legalise vs other treatments for the very same things.

I don't think my opponent grasps another issue about legalising all drugs; feasibility of keeping gang-filled regions tame and safe. If the US in particular were to suddenly legalise all drugs, the gangsters depending on the illegality of it giving them dominion, would suddenly be without money and power and would brutally compensate without any doubt.

Let's just understand how harmful the drugs in discussion are, since Pro doesn't even begin to touch on that and instead tries to distract you with a case for outlawing precription and over-the-counter medicine.

What are the immediate (short-term) effects of heroin use?
Once heroin enters the brain, it is converted to morphine and binds rapidly to opioid receptors.11 People who use heroin typically report feeling a surge of pleasurable sensation—a "rush." The intensity of the rush is a function of how much drug is taken and how rapidly the drug enters the brain and binds to the opioid receptors. With heroin, the rush is usually accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and a heavy feeling in the extremities. Nausea, vomiting, and severe itching may also occur. After the initial effects, users usually will be drowsy for several hours; mental function is clouded; heart function slows; and breathing is also severely slowed, sometimes enough to be life-threatening. Slowed breathing can also lead to coma and permanent brain damage.12
Opioids Act on Many Places in the Brain and Nervous System
  • Opioids can depress breathing by changing neurochemical activity in the brain stem, where automatic body functions such as breathing and heart rate are controlled.
  • Opioids can reinforce drug taking behavior by altering activity in the limbic system, which controls emotions.
  • Opioids can block pain messages transmitted through the spinal cord from the body.
What are the long-term effects of heroin use?
Repeated heroin use changes the physical structure13 and physiology of the brain, creating long-term imbalances in neuronal and hormonal systems that are not easily reversed.14,15 Studies have shown some deterioration of the brain’s white matter due to heroin use, which may affect decision-making abilities, the ability to regulate behavior, and responses to stressful situations.16-18 Heroin also produces profound degrees of tolerance and physical dependence. Tolerance occurs when more and more of the drug is required to achieve the same effects. With physical dependence, the body adapts to the presence of the drug, and withdrawal symptoms occur if use is reduced abruptly.
Withdrawal may occur within a few hours after the last time the drug is taken. Symptoms of withdrawal include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps ("cold turkey"), and leg movements. Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 24–48 hours after the last dose of heroin and subside after about a week. However, some people have shown persistent withdrawal signs for many months. Finally, repeated heroin use often results in heroin use disorder—a chronic relapsing disease that goes beyond physical dependence and is characterized by uncontrollable drug-seeking, no matter the consequences.19 Heroin is extremely addictive no matter how it is administered, although routes of administration that allow it to reach the brain the fastest (i.e., injection and smoking) increase the risk of developing heroin use disorder. Once a person has heroin use disorder, seeking and using the drug becomes their primary purpose in life.

Please click bolded blue links inside the quoted excerpts for further sourcing.

The key aspect here is 100% guarantee of it. A very slim minority of people experience the severe side effects possible with legalised medicinal drugs. Also, other than opioid painkillers, standard painkillers are actually not physically addictive, you can not get addicted to ibuprofen etc, you can quit it overnight and only feel strange due to your stomach and blood perhaps feeling a little different (it thins the blood slightly but not as much as aspirin and makes the stomach digest worse/differently due to the same parts of it that force the body to reduce inflammation on top of pain). I am guessing that Pro maybe means something like cough syrup but the point is that the pros outweight the cons for a severe majority of users who stick to the dosage and don't have DNA and bodies that react severely to the drug in a negative way.

With heroin and meth it always has severe effects. I can even bring less severe drugs that are still terribly addictive and detrimental like cocaine+crack and ecstasy. I can also look into acid/LSD and psilocybin (better known as magic mushrooms). The latter (LSD and psilocybin) are actually arguably useful in the treatment of severely mentally unwell people as the 'distortion' and hallucination journeys can in bursts actually undo some trauma and perhaps 'set right' what is already 'insane' in a person's mind. I am not against those trials for that niche usage but when it comes to severely addictive, brutally destructive drugs like heroin and meth or even other really nasty ones like date-rape drugs that are basically only ever used for kidnapping and rape, we need to seriously consider what possible reason it would be worth legalising them at all.

These drugs don't just destroy the individual, they lead to trauma but more importantly most people aren't only responsible for themselves even if they are single and live alone. We have to consider the future of them, these people will in a loving society end up jobless, homeless and if saved dependent on the state or on a charity patching a gap in the welfare system. In an uncaring society, these people will stay that way perishing and being wasted away when they could have been happy and useful to society infinitely more (yes, infinitely more vs the useless unhappy shell they become).

Short-term Effects of Meth
  • Even taking small amounts of meth can cause harmful health effects, including:
    • Increased blood pressure and body temperature
    • Faster breathing
    • Rapid or irregular heartbeat
    • Loss of appetite, disturbed sleep patterns, or nausea
    • Erratic, aggressive, irritable, or violent behavior
Long-term Health Risks of Meth
  • Chronic meth use can lead to many damaging, long-term health effects, even when people stop taking meth, including:
    • Permanent damage to the heart and brain
    • High blood pressure leading to heart attacks, strokes, and death
    • Liver, kidney, and lung damage
    • Anxiety, confusion, and insomnia
    • Paranoia, hallucinations, mood disturbances, delusions, or violent behavior (psychotic symptoms can sometimes last for months or years after meth use)
    • Intense itching, causing skin sores from scratching
    • Premature osteoporosis
    • Severe dental problems 

It is not just the addicts at risk. Drug addiction affects those close to them too!
1. Impact on Children
Studies show that 1 in 5 children grow up with a parent who abuses drugs or alcohol. If a parent is battling an addiction or substance abuse problem, the effects of that disorder are more than likely going to play a role in the child’s development. This is especially serious in single-parent households where the children have no one else to turn to.

When a parent has an addiction, they’ll be too busy looking for and using their substance of choice, which distracts them from their responsibilities. As a result, they won’t meet the needs of their child. This irresponsibility ranges from not taking care of basic needs, such as providing meals and keeping the child clean, to secondary needs like ensuring their child is getting an education and social life.

Moreover, there is a correlation between addiction and an increased risk of child abuse. Research has revealed that abused children have a higher chance of getting into substance use and addiction later in life. Even if the child doesn’t end up abusing substances, growing up in such an environment will compromise their emotional and mental health. This will impact their self-confidence, health, and social development.

2. Loss of Trust
Addicts aren’t likely to follow through on their agreements or promises, and this causes further strain in their relationships. It’s worth noting, however, that most addicts usually mean to honor their commitments but the effects of the substances make them unable to. Thus, if they’re in a relationship, their significant other is going to be frustrated due to the addict’s inability to meet their obligations.
They’re also likely to forget about the promises they make to their children. If this becomes a trend, the child will have a hard time forming bonds with other people since they don’t know how to trust. This loss of trust often results in broken marriages and dysfunctional children.

Round 2
Mps1213's avatar
Mps1213
Pro
#3
So I’ll ask you a couple questions to try to dig into why you believe what you believe. What Exactly in terms of pharmacological and chemical differences makes heroin more harmful then morphine? Because according to your own evidence and quotes heroin is metabolized into morphine before it ever reaches the brain? The only differences structurally are two acetyl bonds on the morphine molecule. What about those two bonds makes heroin always detrimental? And where are you getting this evidence that it’s always detrimental?

So what exactly makes heroin more dangerous and addictive and harmful. You say these words “distinctly harmful” without ever actually explaining how they are harmful. I’m not saying they’re not, I’m just saying you’re wrong that every time someone uses heroin it goes badly. Because you can’t tell me what “makes it more dangerous” than drugs used in hospitals around the world. What exactly makes heroin more dangerous?

You also brought meth which is good. Methamphetamine is basically amphetamine. You don’t know much about pharmacology because the claims you made do not hold up. 

Desoxyn is the name brand for methamphetamine and it is still prescribed to this day for ADHD. So are you sure it’s as detrimental and 100% damaging as you said? What about meth makes it more dangerous than adderall? Specifically. 

You pointed out some risks to using heroin, idk if you noticed but you kept citing things that said “repeated use.” Which is very important. Can you point me to any risks of periodic use or single experimental use? Of course all drugs have risks, but that isn’t the point. Nothing needs to be perfectly healthy and be risk free to be legal.  Why should that be legal, the biggest preventable cause of death in the US? But drugs that are rarely used and rarely abused should be illegal and you should be locked in a cage for possessing it? What about alcohol? It has every potential risk you can name for any other substance. That doesn’t mean we should ban alcohol. It also doesn’t mean we should ban other drugs.  Dangerous things already are legal there’s no point in stopping with drugs. 

I agree there would be gang violence at first, but there already is gang violence. Just because people do bad things doesn’t mean I should lose my freedom to do things as safely as possible.

And what you said about it ruining children’s lives and stuff like that. I understand I have people very close to me in my life, won’t say who, who’s lives have been damaged severely by addicts.  If we legalized all drugs, it would still be illegal to abandon your children. Or abuse your children, or hurt other people. There are already laws in place protecting people from that behavior whether the person had drugs in their system or not. The vast majority of drug users are not addicts and take care of their children. Why should they run the risk of getting tainted substances and being thrown in a cage simply because they enjoy a drug other than nicotine and alcohol?

Also You’re making some critical errors in how you look at addiction. This is legitimately pharmacology 101. If you take 15 different drugs, no matter their mechanism, besides 5-ht2a receptor agonists (psychedelics), they all have the same addiction potential if they fully agonize the receptor they have affinity with. I’m not saying cannabis and heroin have the same addiction potential. But I am saying that K2 and heroin have the same addiction potential. Because they fully agonize the receptor in question. There is nothing special about the cannabinoid system that makes drugs that activate it less addictive. THC only partially agonizes the CB1 and CB2 receptors. So it is much less addictive than drugs that fully agonize other receptors. But if you take a drug like mitragynine which is a very potent opioid that only partially agonizes the MOR (mu-opioid receptor) It is has the same addictive potential as cannabis. So there’s also nothing especially addictive about the opioid system it’s just the drugs we currently use fully agonizes the receptor in question and that’s what causes severe addiction. Now cannabis is addictive and so is mitragynine just not as bad. 

Cocaine is not more or less addictive than heroin. Heroin is not more or less addictive than alcohol. Alcohol is not more or less addictive than meth.  The number 1 determining factor for addiction is mental health disorders. Not the drug itself.  So why do the responsible drug users, myself included, deserve to run the risk of prison? 

If we look at other reasons for drug abuse and addiction it also doesn’t revolve around the drugs. It revolves are recessions, Job loss, traumatic events, etc. it’s never the drug. Which is why people can and do form addictions to literally anything that changes your brains chemistry. 

You also brought up cough syrup and NSAIDs for some reason. I’m talking about psychoactive substances. And what I’m saying is that if I gave you methylphenidate, Adderall, and then gave you methamphetamine I guarantee you that you couldn’t tell me which is which. And all 3 of those substances are used medicinally for a reason. Desoxyn is the name brand for methamphetamine as I said earlier, and it is still prescribed to treat ADHD and taken orally by people all around the country every day. So it is obvious the drug is not the reasons addictions form or every single person who has even taken adderall or desoxyn would become lifeless awful people. But instead their functioning members of society who just benefit from changing their brain chemistry with psychoactive substances. 

It is also not fair to the people who simply enjoy taking psychoactive substances to risk tainted substances or going to prison for years and years, missing their kids grow up, losing their jobs etc. simply for possessing personal use amounts of any substance. 

You asked what possible benefit is there to legalization. Well I gave you the most obvious one. Less people would die. A lot less. Also less families would be ripped apart by their parents going to prison simply for possessing drugs. I’ve done cocaine,  amphetamine, MDMA (ecstasy),Ketamine, hydrocodone, I’ve done everything you could name. And guess what? I’m not an addict, I’ve experimented and enjoyed some weekends, and then gone back to work, took my kids to school, done my job as a citizen. If you were to decide you wanted to try alcohol, you have the privilege of going into a store and buying your drug of choice with 100% confidence there is no contamination that could literally end in your death. And 100% confidence that If you get pulled over on the way home and they see the unopened bottle of alcohol, you will drive away a free man. I didn’t get those privileges when I wanted to go try those drugs. I had to spend hundreds of dollars on testing equipment, waste product on tests, etc. Why do you deserve that peace of mind and safety but not me? People ruin their lives and others with alcohol all the time, but you guys get to be as safe as possible with your dangerous and risky endeavors, but illicit drug users do not?  

So only 20,000,000 people out of well over 140,000,000 drug users are addicts, and that’s a huge issue?  Why does that mean I have to risk going to prison for enjoying drugs? Or risk dying from something out of my control completely like contaminated substances? 

Why don’t we look at countries who have decriminalized/legalized everything. 
Portugal has decriminalized all drugs their drug overdose death rate per 1,000,000 is 6 
The EU’s average? 23.7
I’m Scotland which has some of the strictest drug laws in the world: 300
That should be very telling, but that’s not all. 
“Portugal has some of the lowest usage rates in Europe among those between the ages of 15-34.17. In the first five years after drug policy reform, use of illegal drugs rose slightly among the general population but fell again in the following five years. Use among 15-24 year olds fell throughout the decade, and among the general population was lower in 2012 than in 2001.” 

If you want to protect people from drugs you legalize and educate, not ban and scare. It doesn’t work. It’s never worked once. It’s a failed experiment we keep doing over and over and again expecting different results. 

And you made a lot of incredulous claims that you have no evidence for. Just to make sure you at least try to address them I’ll copy and paste them and give you my answer. 

The key aspect here is 100% guarantee of it. A very slim minority of people experience the severe side effects possible with legalised medicinal drugs.

What about the minuscule changes on the molecule between hydrocodone and heroin make one 100% damaging 100% of the time. These two drugs are absorbed by opioid receptors and cause a release of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphin. That’s it. So why is one way of releasing that neurotransmitter cocktail mostly safe that has rare side effects and the other completely destructive 100% of the time?

It is not just the addicts at risk. Drug addiction affects those close to them too!

While this is true there’s also a large flip side to this. I can say personally that drug use makes me a better person. Use of opioids makes me feel very empathetic to my fellow humans. It makes me a better human, parent, student, son, etc.  So many parents use cannabis, and become better parents. So many parents take amphetamine in the morning and are better parents for it. For all of this I’ve stated above. Drugs should be legal for me to pick up and use whenever I use, no matter what. If I end up harming someone while under the influence there are already laws in place protecting that person from the harm I caused them. There is no need to criminalize drugs, just criminalize criminal acts.  Drugs are not the problem. I shouldn’t have to risk prison or death for liking drugs. Neither should anyone else.














RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#4
So I’ll ask you a couple questions to try to dig into why you believe what you believe. What Exactly in terms of pharmacological and chemical differences makes heroin more harmful then morphine? Because according to your own evidence and quotes heroin is metabolized into morphine before it ever reaches the brain? The only differences structurally are two acetyl bonds on the morphine molecule. What about those two bonds makes heroin always detrimental? And where are you getting this evidence that it’s always detrimental?
In excess, morphine is a terrible drug.

However, I will answer to you:

Morphine is a naturally occurring substance derived from the opium poppy plant often used to alleviate pain and other physical ailments. The U.S. classifies it in Schedule II, which means the federal government has determined that it has potential for misuse and dependence, but also has accepted medical use and can be prescribed to patients.
Heroin is processed from morphine. It is classified as a Schedule I substance, which means the federal government has determined that it has no currently accepted medical use. However, heroin (diacetylmorphine) is available medically in some limited circumstances, particularly in Europe and Canada. In the U.S., almost all heroin comes from the unregulated market.
Oxycodone and Hydrocodone are semisynthetic opioids derived from the opium poppy plant, are chemically similar to morphine and are used to treat acute and chronic pain. Unlike illicitly produced heroin, their production is regulated, which means they have consistent effects and can be made available in specified doses. OxyContin is a controlled release form of oxycodone so it is released gradually over a period of time. Oxycodone and hydrocodone are Schedule II substances, which means that the federal government has determined that it has accepted medical use.
Fentanyl is one of the most powerful opiate-based painkillers, used to treat chronic pain patients who have developed a resistance to other less powerful opiates such as morphine or oxycodone. Its effects are active at much lower doses than other opiates, so its non-medical use is riskier due to its increased potency. Like morphine, fentanyl is a Schedule II substance. In recent years, much of the U.S. heroin supply has been mixed with synthetically created illegal fentanyl, leading to skyrocketing overdose death rates. Illegal fentanyl is not regulated and is often mixed into heroin, with or without the user’s knowledge, which has led to increased overdose deaths since 2013.
Methadone and Buprenorphine are opioids that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as medications to treat opioid dependence. They act on same receptors in the brain as other opioids.

However, Pro knows all too well that the key in harm of the nastiest drugs out there isn't specifically only one chemical different I can instantly name as the culprit. The magic of why certain drugs are so utteryl brutally more addictive, harmful, dangerous and severe to users than others is simply down to honestly a 'magic', it's why different people can be very different types of drunks from the same alcoholic beverages and doses relative to their body-weight.

Pro is trying to tweak the topic to be one where we always assume the best and split all drugs into their subchemicals meaning if Pro can find that particular chemical in an emergency and/or niche legalised use in a different format entirely, we must then feel we ought to legalise what we know to be harmful and rip lives, families and entire neighbourhoods apart via drug epidemics.

I remind you of the cold, calculating reason on top of caring one that some drugs should be outlawed; in a caring society, the government or local councils has/have to waste taxmoney and resources saving the drug-addicted over and over again in a vicious cycle as they usually stay unemployed, do crime and then become drains on the prison system. In a cold, calculating society, they're left to rot but are fundamentally useless to the nation and make terrible parents (and childcare, foster care and adoption schemes are all much worse and prone to neglect as well as abuse under a callous severely anarchic/libertine system of nihilism and hedonism).

What I don't understand is how this is vague. Like what exactly is helped by a government allowing a drug to be legal that over 98% of the time ruins lives. Where's the cut-off point? I dont know as I admit it's perhaps not clear but Pro has not showns us any benefit at all legalising drugs. It would anger drug dealers and suppliers and drive them all into a new crime wave.

Drugs being legalised overnight helps nobody nor does a long-term plan to eradicate the taboo nature attached to them. Pro talks about how all drugs may be somewhat addictive, let me elaborate what happens when you try to quite heroin:

Fever
Body temperature varies from one individual to the next, as well as factors like time of day and menstrual cycle, but generally, a temperature of 99–99.5 F (37.2–37.5 C) is considered to be a fever in adults. A fever is one way your body fights illnesses or infections, but when you are going through heroin withdrawal, the fever is not serving a useful purpose in fighting infection, so there is unlikely to be harm in taking steps to control it.

Seek medical assistance immediately if your temperature goes above 103 F (40 C), and doesn't come down with treatment; if you have a serious medical illness, such as a heart problem, sickle cell anemia, diabetes, HIV, or cystic fibrosis; or if you have a seizure.

Heroin Cravings

Most people who are withdrawing from heroin experience a strong desire to take more heroin.1 This is known as experiencing cravings and is common among people withdrawing from many addictive substances. Part of the craving is driven by the wish to reduce the symptoms of heroin withdrawal, and part of it is the desire to re-experience the pleasure of the heroin high.

Mood Changes
Feeling depressed, anxious, or irritable, also known as having a dysphoric mood, is a normal part of heroin withdrawal.1 Even without a traumatic past, these mood changes would be expected, but many people who use heroin experience long-suppressed feelings related to past trauma or abuse when they come off the drug. This is one of the reasons it is important to have emotional support while you are going through withdrawal.

Although these feelings are often intense during heroin withdrawal, they tend to become less intense once the withdrawal stage is over. If you are withdrawing in a treatment facility, make the most of the support offered, and try and have support arranged in the community when your stay is over.

If the feelings of depression or distress do not pass, you should see your doctor for appropriate treatment.

Aches and Pains
Part of the way heroin works is to block the body's pain pathways. When you withdraw from heroin, there is a rebound effect, and you feel achy, particularly in the back and legs, and feel more sensitive to pain.2

Excessive Bodily Fluids
As you go through heroin withdrawal, you may experience an overproduction of bodily fluids, such as sweat, tears, and a runny nose.2 You may also notice your hairs standing on end. As with other physical withdrawal symptoms, these responses are part of your body bringing itself into balance.

Diarrhea and Stomach Pain
Diarrhea or loose, watery, and frequent bowel movements are also common with heroin withdrawal.2 These symptoms may be accompanied by stomach pain caused by spasms in the digestive system. The discomfort of diarrhea stomach pain and fears about having "accidents" may make it difficult to go about your regular routine.

Nausea and Vomiting
Although these symptoms are distressing, nausea and vomiting are normal aspects of heroin withdrawal.2 It wears you out, makes you feel very uncomfortable, puts you off your food, and keeps you close to the bathroom.

Restlessness and Sleep Problems
People going through heroin withdrawal often experience restlessness, which, coupled with anxiety and insomnia, can make you feel agitated. Heroin withdrawal often causes sleep problems, particularly insomnia (having trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep). Yawning is also common.3

That's only if you give it up.


Meth:
Long-term effects may include:
  • addiction
  • psychosis, including:
    • paranoia
    • hallucinations
    • repetitive motor activity
  • changes in brain structure and function
  • deficits in thinking and motor skills
  • increased distractibility
  • memory loss
  • aggressive or violent behavior
  • mood disturbances
  • severe dental problems
  • weight loss
Round 3
Mps1213's avatar
Mps1213
Pro
#5
Again you are showing me that you have no education as to what drugs do and what drugs are. So morphine is bad if taken a lot, I agree. You saying that makes it safe for me to assume that you believe it is not bad if taken responsibly and periodically. Why is it any different with heroin? 

Also I can't believe you actually said it boils down to a form of magic. Could you be less scientific about this please? No magic is not the reason people can take the same relative dose of alcohol and behave differently. Psychology and the setting and rarely genetics are the only factors that cause that to happen. Its a well known phrase called set and setting. If you think alcohol will help you sleep and drink it to help you sleep, it will. If you drink because you think it makes you euphoric and do it with other people who drink it for the same reason, it will do that as well. How you view your drug use can change the experience dramatically and it has nothing to do with magic. If you drink alcohol because you're angry and hate your life, you will become angrier the drunker you get. That applies to every single drug on the planet. It has nothing to do with magic at all. 

I'm not trying to say "this drug can be used in this niche setting. therefore we must legalize" If you believe I'm saying that you either can not comprehend the complexity of this topic or you are not reading what I'm saying. I'm saying that I am an adult. I should have the freedom to do whatever I want to my body, put whatever I want in my body, and do whatever I want to my consciousness, as long as I'm not hurting someone else or preventing them from doing the same. If I do hurt someone else, I still get in trouble whether I am high or not, we don't have to add more laws to that equation.  

I have no arguments for drug addicts being a net negative to society, but that doesn't mean I should have to lose my freedom to purchase drugs. Also you have once again ignored main points I'm making and just copy and pasted negative effects of prolonged abusive drug use that no one denies. What about Portugal? You conveniently neglected that point I made. Since it decriminalized all drugs in 2001, Portugal has seen dramatic drops in overdoses, HIV infection and drug-related crime. It was once one of the worst countries in Europe in terms of its overdose statistics. Now it is one of, if not the best. They decriminalized use and possession of personal amounts. their highest year of overdose deaths was 72 since that happened. 

You again made this claim, that there is absolutely 0 evidence for. I asked you to give me evidence for it in the last argument I made, you failed to do so. 
drug to be legal that over 98% of the time ruins lives. At the most 20% of heroin users are addicts. Even then heroin is not to blame for that, at all. The blame falls on the illegal drug market. Heroin is not more addictive than morphine, oxycodone, or any other opiate. All opiates are derived from morphine or codeine. Slight modifications are made to the morphine molecule to make these other substances. Heroin is slightly more potent than morphine, potency does not determine addictiveness. State of mind, state of life, setting of the drug use, that is what determines addiction. So say you're homeless, broke, and a drug addict. You have a few choices, buy a couple grams of heroin for $100-250 that'll last you a couple weeks. Or buy the same amount of morphine for $300-400 that won't last as long because you need to take more to achieve desired effects. I wonder which one you'd choose. 

That doesn't mean heroin is more addictive, it means it's more available and cheaper, that shouldn't be hard to understand. Again your entire argument is 1: completely missing the point and 2: uneducated and misinformed. 

Drugs are dangerous if abused. again, not a single person will ever argue that, if they do argue that, they are stupid and lying. I'm not arguing that, stop using that as your only argument because your arguing with the wind. 

I dont know as I admit it's perhaps not clear but Pro has not showns us any benefit at all legalising drugs.

I have given you many benefits to legalizing drugs, you just refuse to engage with them, because I'm starting to think that you know you're wrong or at least too uneducated to counter the arguments I've made. So you make the same argument three times in a row and refuse to acknowledge the points i've made. So I will lay them out again. 

up to 98% of drug deaths have more than 4 substances in the system. That means one of two things 1: the person was ignorant to what they could and couldn't combine safely. Because our drug education system is awful, which all revolves around drugs being illegal and the 'just say no' campaigns. 2: They were sold something labeled as one thing but it really had a different substance(s) in the product. Which makes it impossible to take safely. If someone could just go into a dispensary and buy pure drugs that would go away. 

Another reason is that families would no longer be ripped apart simply because one member of the family had personal amounts of an illegal drug on them. That ruins lives just as quickly as addicts. I also realize you have yet to acknowledge the work of Dr. Carl Hart, who as I've said before is a NIH chairman and a professor of psychology and pharmacology at Cambridge university. His work studying addiction for over 35 years has shown that 80-90% of drug users are not addicts. So why do those 80-90% of people deserve to risk dying for enjoying drugs or risk being thrown in prison and having their families ripped apart? 

Portugal has proven all of this to be true. I will cite their statistics again for you. 

In 2001, Portuguese drug death rates were very similar to the EU average. While rates fell in Portugal following reform, they increased across the rest of Europe in the same timeframe. From 2011 onwards both Portugal and the rest of the EU have trended similarly, rising until 2015/6 — however, the gap between the two remains considerably wider than it was pre-reform. In real terms, drug death rates in Portugal remain some of the lowest in the EU: 6 deaths per million among people aged 15-64, compared to the EU average of 23.7 per million (2019). They are practically incomparable to the 315 deaths per million aged 15-64 experienced in Scotland, which is over 50 times higher than the Portuguese rates. By the way Scotland has some of the strictest drug policies in the world, I don't think that's a coincidence. 

Are those benefits not valid to you? Addictions rates lower, death rates lower, HIV by needle rates lower. 

You're only argument has been "drugs can be bad" no one disputes that. And sure there may be more crime at first, but you realize the same thing happened with alcohol correct? There was a ton of crime at the end of prohibition. Did that stop us from making alcohol safer? No it didn't. 

Another reason I do not like the government having control over this is because of their history of abusing users or illegal drugs. During Prohibition the government killed 10,000 people by poisoning alcohol, trying to scare people away from using it. In the 80's Raegan used American helicopters to poison cannabis plantations in Mexico and Georgia to scare people away from using cannabis. They will not hesitate to do that now, and I'm not convinced they aren't with the sudden spike in fentanyl deaths. They would rather us die than get high, and for what? I want to reverse your question, who does it help keeping drugs illegal? Parents still abuse and abandon their children, children still have their parents ripped away and put in a cage, is that any better? People still die because their drugs are contaminated and made much more dangerous due to that fact. Who does it help? 

Again you brought up meth without addressing the main point I made about the substance. It is used medicinally all the time, so how can it be 100% harmful when it is prescribed to be taken daily by thousands if not hundreds of thousands people in the country? Also everything you posted has a key word you seem to be looking right over. Every single thing you posted said "Heroin use CAN cause..." "Meth use CAN cause..." It doesn't say meth use always causes because that is patently false because thousands and thousands of people use those drugs daily and do not encounter those bad effects because they are using them responsibly and safely. 

you also didn't acknowledge the point about cigarettes, why should they be legal? They're the leading preventable cause of death in the country. Imagine if that was cannabis, there's no way it would be legal. Why do cigarettes and alcohol get a pass but nothing else does? 

The last thing I'll say about the downsides of drugs being illegal is that police officers use drugs as an excuse to implement police brutality on people they believe are high. Then in court they use drugs to excuse their behavior. George Floyd is a perfect example. He was clearly high on something, an amphetamine if I had to guess. The officer can be heard saying "I'm afraid he's in an excited delirium." He used the fact he was high on drugs to do whatever he wanted to that man. Then in court they brought up he had fentanyl in his system. They said he had lethal doses in his system. There is no one lethal dose, it changes with body weight and tolerance, and they're not toxicologists. When you die the amount of drugs in your system begins to raise immediately after death due to the fact no more blood is circulating to clean out the drug. So he most likely did not even have that much fentanyl in his system, and he was a large guy. So our government constantly uses drugs being illegal to abuse people and that is just wrong. 



 
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#6
up to 98% of drug deaths have more than 4 substances in the system. That means one of two things
1: the person was ignorant to what they could and couldn't combine safely.
There is nearly nobody in existence who can safely have class A and B drugs without wanting more with severe side effects if withdrawing and detriment if they have more.
Because our drug education system is awful, which all revolves around drugs being illegal and the 'just say no' campaigns.
No. Unlike safe sex, there is no such thing as a safe high of the opioid variety and it's only justifiable for medically significant purposes in the form of morphine and such.
2: They were sold something labeled as one thing but it really had a different substance(s) in the product. Which makes it impossible to take safely. If someone could just go into a dispensary and buy pure drugs that would go away. 
What you are saying is someone can't safely take a prescribed medication as a recreational high substance. This is accurate and by design.

They ruin bodies, psyches and families and the only way you are trying to justify it is by completely ignoring how much more widespread absolutely everything bad about drugs would be if the worst were legalised.

The only aspect that would end up reduced is the gang violence after a burst of gang violence surges in anger at the monopoly criminals had being lost.

That's it. That's weighed against making it as legally difficult as possible to get hold of life-destroying substances.

Round 4
Mps1213's avatar
Mps1213
Pro
#7
Again, you refused to engage with 90% of my argument. And just repeated the same thing you’ve said in every argument now. Without presenting evidence for what you say.

There is nearly nobody in existence who can safely have class A and B drugs without wanting more with severe side effects if withdrawing and detriment if they have more.

What is your evidence for that? I’ve asked you for it three times and you haven’t given it once, because there is none. However there is loads of evidence showing the opposite of your claim. Again I will bring up the work of Dr. Carl Hart, a chairman of NIH who’s studies have shown 80-90% of drug users including heroin, meth, etc, are not addicts and do not have a drug problem. You have yet to counter that with anything other than your personal belief that you formed with no evidence. 

Even though you have failed to present evidence even once for this claim, I’m gonna provide evidence as to why I do not believe it to be true. This whole use until death or addiction 100% of the time comes from a very flawed, decades old, study done on rats. In this study they stressed the rats out and put them in very small cages with no food or water unless given by the experimental team. The were given a button that could administer heroin for some rats and cocaine for others. All of the rats administered the drugs until they died. Hopefully the flaws are already obvious but I’ll spell them out just in case. 

The only button in the cage, the only reward they could get, was to administer the drugs. They were also very stressed, and had no access to attractive alternatives. So another study was done that put them in bigger cages and gave them three options. A button for sugar, a button that opened a door to a sexually active mate, and then one for the drugs heroin for some cocaine for others. Only a couple rats hit the drug button more than twice. None of them administered until death. Or formed an addiction. They hit the sugar and sexually active mate buttons more often and more consistently. 

So that raised some questions and we began conducting similar experiments on human beings. Addicts and drug users. Dr. Carl Hart led the most well known of these studies. He went to addicts and drug users in New York City and offered them $5 or a hit of their favorite substance worth more than $5. With this set of variables about 50% of the participants chose the drug. He then came back another day and offered the same people $20 or a hit of their favorite drug worth more than $20. Over 90% of test participants chose the money. This isn’t exactly the anything for a hit behavior you claim exists with 98% of heroin users. Heroin meth and cocaine were the three drugs administered and when offered an attractive alternative, they almost never took it. 

This is why you see cities with the highest drug addiction rates are cities with massive job loss, limited recreational activities, and poor education. When you go to towns with lots of employment opportunity, lots of recreational activities, a big night life. Drug use doesn’t drop so much, but drug addiction drops significantly. Once again proving that drugs are not to blame for addiction nor the cause of addiction. It’s the state of life the drug user is experiencing or mental illness. Those are the determining factors for drug addiction. Not the drugs themselves. You failed to ever address that point.

No. Unlike safe sex, there is no such thing as a safe high of the opioid variety and it's only justifiable for medically significant purposes in the form of morphine and such.

What is your evidence for this? This is always a problem talking to people about drugs they think their experts but have 0 evidence for their claims besides how they feel. I bet you’ve never heard of Mitragynine, an opioid that can be more potent than heroin depending on ROA that has the same addiction potential as cannabis and does not cause respiratory depression and death when overdosed. It also has been shown to help people ween off more addictive and dangerous opioids. What’s unsafe about that? I bet you’ve never read the studies of giving heroin to dozens of people and only 2 of them experienced withdrawals after the study. Or the fact that Dr. Carl Hart and many other chemists, psychologists, pharmacologists, etc use heroin regularly and don’t become lifeless people. How is that possible if what you say is true? Is it possible your wrong and have no idea what you’re talking about? 

How is it that I and many of my closest friends have used every drug under the sun essentially and not formed an addiction? And still go to work, and still pay our taxes and still do everything we need to? All I’ve been trying to do is for you to cite me any evidence at all for 98% of opioid users going down this road, you haven’t done it once. Because there is no evidence to support that insanity. 

What you are saying is someone can't safely take a prescribed medication as a recreational high substance. This is accurate and by design.

No I’m not saying that and I’m not sure what made you think I was. I’m saying that you can’t take anything safely if you don’t even know what you’re getting. I’ll use the alcohol analogy again. If you go buy alcohol you know for certain there is no methanol in the bottle, which could blind and kill you. Other drug users do not have that confidence when buying their substances. That’s the reason probably 75%+ drug deaths occur in our country. 

This statement also doesn’t make any sense considering the medically used opioids are derived from the same thing heroin is derived from. They also do the exact same things to the brain. They’re the same drug, with the same activity. One isn’t safer or better or less addictive than the other. If you had the slightest pharmacological knowledge that would be a boring fact. 

You also completely ignored Portugal again. 

You’re also holding onto the gang violence. Which I have agreed with you. Yes there would be a surge at first, but that shouldn’t impede on my freedoms. There was a surge with alcohol that is now a distant memory that doesn’t matter at all and now alcohol is infinitely safer than it was during prohibition. 

No one is saying there won’t be risks involved. There is always risk with freedom. There’s risks to owning guns, which are literally designed to kill. There’s risks to sky diving which we are free to do. Solo rock climb, mountain biking, skiing, etc. all of those things carry inherent risks and have the potential to destroy your body and mind. 

You took this argument because you felt like it was an easy and skin deep argument where you could say “but they’re bad!” And win. It’s not that simple, you know nothing about drugs, and that’s abundantly clear. You don’t know the pharmacological actions of any substance you’ve talked about. You’re trying to have this debate about a topic you know absolutely know nothing about. That became clear when you didn’t engage with a single point I made about Portugal, contamination, addiction potential, addiction statistics brought forth by studies done by a NIH chairman, the mindset and setting phenomena you called “magic” when it’s very well understood. You addressed nothing challenging and just stuck to the age old “drugs are bad!” Argument. You also made dozens of claims that you had 0 evidence for, and never presented it. You never gave me an answer as to what allows morphine to be a good drug if taken properly but heroin is not. You never addressed the risks of the government controlling drug policy due to their history and willingness to poison us drug users. You never addressed the fact the police force uses drug policy to excuse their brutality carried out on drug users as well as the courts ability to scapegoat drug use for all horrible acts. You never addressed the many benefits all of these drugs have, like improving mood, depression anxiety, etc. you never addressed anything at all actually. You also never addressed the question of why cigarettes and alcohol should be legal but other drugs shouldn’t.

I would respect you a lot more if you admitted that you don’t know much about this topic and want to learn about it. I started this debate solely because I was hoping to find another educated person on this topic and have a good discussion with them. Instead I got someone who’s only point was violence and risks, which already exist and will not go away. I have no delusions on that front. There would still be addict parents who abuse and abandon their children. There would still be violence.  That shouldn’t mean I can’t have freedoms to drug use. The key to all of this is making sure that drugs are as safe as possible and as legal as possible so much less people will be dying and much less people will go to prison. If we do not have the freedom to change our consciousness and make our own decisions as to what we put in our body, we are not free in any meaningful sense. It’s not about safety or benefits, it’s about having the freedom to do what we please with our bodies as long as we do not hurt anyone or prevent anyone else from doing so. 

You also failed to address that whole point which is really the basis of my entire argument. There are risks, but free people are allowed to take risks. 

If you actually have interest in trying to gain a deeper understanding in this topic start with Dr. Carl Hart and Hamilton Morris. Hamilton is a PhD chemist that specializes in synthetic chemistry and the pharmacology of psychedelics and NMDA receptor antagonists like Ketamine and PCP.  Dr. Hart is an expert in opioids and stimulants. You could learn a lot and hopefully you’d take it seriously enough to see our country and whole world really right now is tyrannically enforcing their unfounded and misinformed beliefs on the people they rule over. And it’s destroying way more lives than it is helping.

Good debate. 
RationalMadman's avatar
RationalMadman
Con
#8
Let us be very analytical here...

Pro keeps saying 'but they are in legal prescription drugs' to justify legalising what we all know will devastate and destroy communities and families, not just individual lives.