you didn’t bore me at all. You did great work in tackling the problem in a very humble and fair way. Of course, you didn’t find an answer.

To my mind, the problem can’t be tackled in the usual way. Not in the way like Pullman supposes it, not in the way some posters here are eager to have it.

Of course, people should be free to do with their bodies what they like. But, are you free to become unfree? What if everybody takes the freedom to become unfree, meaning to become an addict here? If you tackle it form that side, you always will fail.

There is a principal problem behind that: You can’t have everything! It somewhat disappoints me that Pullman failed in recognizing that. Maybe he was drugged then.

What if we would be able to build the Republic of Heaven without drugs? — That would be really terrific!

Of course, I also feel very uneasy if the state would build a park from drug money and things like that. Pullman simply argues dishonest or just blindfold if he wants drug money for the treasury. (I really like Pullman and Northern lights, but I don’t follow him on every way unreflectedly.)

Actually, the state already is (indirectly) in the position of some kind of drug producer/dealer/distributor, see the links I provided:

Psychatry is drugging people legally, if a judge considers that necessary, at least. (But is a judge really able to make a fair/approbriate decision, here? It’s just a formal act to maintain the pretence of a democratic process.) Psychiatry is legal, so are psychiatrists. Do some research on the origin of psychiatry. Psychiatrists play an important role in terrorism/are behind of many terrorist attacks and wars. Psychiatry is used to muzzle people who are agaist the regime. If drugs would be legalized, the addicts would come closer to psychiatry sooner or later. They wouldn’t just loose their freedom to the drug, but to the state, too.

Drugs are not about recreation, drugs are for manipulation!

I think the only way to tackle the problem is to be honest, to others and to yourself.

Why starting with drugs? Just to know how it feels? Because it’s something special? If you make an institution out of it, you can make the people think so. That’s manipulation! But drugs are merely a chemical way of disturbing the way your neuronal system works. This isn’t special, this is just harming yourself.

Just to have some drug induced fantasies? Don’t you have fantasy by your own? Do you need drugs for that? Are you that boring?

Do you need drugs for getting friends? To find friends is very very hard, I know, so what kind of ‘friends’ do you get this way?

Do you need to manipulate yourself by using drugs? Where’s your self-esteem? Note, this is not only about fun drugs, that’s about every drug including some ‘medicaments’

Ok, if you need surgery, you need to get some drugs to calm down the pain etc., but that’s the only exeption.

I respect pullman very much, but something about what he said here feels uneasy with me. but i can also see his sense.

I find myself somewhat at a loss of what to do about drugs. because as everybody has said, they are there and being used, illegal or not, and they are and will be used regardless.

but does legalizing them really truly change anything.

As human beings we should indeed have the right to take our lives into our own hands and make our own choices about what to do with our bodies….. But the thing is we already do! its just we have to also choose if we want to become criminals by using drugs. if they were legal that moral dilema is removed. does that therefore encourage or at least make easier the choice to use drugs? i dont know.

similarly as intelligent human beings do we not also have a responsibility to each other to intervene, forbid, prevent behavior thats distructive? again i dont know but i feel like we should do this, but it contradicts the ideas of free will and free choice :S

What i do think is crime exists not because people use drugs but because there are people who will do anything for money, for glory, for a thrill. Drug lords have found a superb trait in humans to manipulate. that of addicition. legalising drugs isn’t going to stop drug lords. they will simply turn thier hand at something else, or rather some other way to manipulate a system for thier gain. piracy for example. or striking deals with the ‘legal suppliers’ to supply drugs.

I dont really use drugs. i have used a bit of canabis in the past. but i have never bought it. and why? because one, i had no idea where to get it. Two, the idea of doing shadey awkward deals with unknown people put me off. and three, what if i got caught!!! it could effect my career, embarassment to my family. and thats canabis. the thought of trying to go for harder drugs scares me further.

The important thing i recognise here is that these fears arent related to the effect of drugs, they are related to the many hurdles i have to get over to obtian the drugs.

so if drugs were legal, i wouldn’t have these hurdles to contend with. just the question do i want to do this to my body? I dont want to now…. but there was a time…

would young naive curiosity make me take that step. and then what? do i try again and again?

who knows. but i know they wouldnt scare me as much as they do now. and i am sure many others would be put into that dilema.

The other things that occure to me are….

if we supply legal drugs, they still have to be obtianed….can they be obtained fairly, humainly, and without the involvement of criminals?

by doing so they must also be paid for. you supply something legally you have to then have a legal industry, paying people to harvest and create the drugs. this is most expensive.

the drugs would then be taxed. this would make drugs extreamly expensive…. well great! that might deter people…. however we all know….like piracy, there will be those who do it anyway, and wont want to pay that for it, and so we are back to square one with people obtaining drugs for the cheap from dealers….only now the consequences are less, because its not necessarily illegal.

Also the governement making money from such addictions makes me unhappy…almost as much as criminals making the money. they are already doing it with alcohol and smoking. two HUGE killers. that still makes me feel awkward and i kinda want to government to ban cigarettes.

I just hate the thought of ”come on kids, lets go a play in the park thats been built with the money taxed from the drugs that killed your mum”. i hate the thought that society is ‘improved’ with money made from peoples cigarette and alcohol addictions/weaknesses.

i sometimes thing the governements think – ‘Great! this kills thousands of people. but they keep smoking it so lets make as much from it as possible! – just like petrol, there are alternatives to help ease poulltion…subsidised public transport, less pollutant fuels…but they are not as lucrative to the government… and yet they say they care about the envirnement….but not as much as making money. would this mentality apply to drugs… ‘oh look another gravy boat’…but it kills people… ‘ Yes but imagin the tax we make!!”

here in england they intrdouced 24 hour licensing laws…in theory being able to be open all night so your customers can drink all night would stop people panic and binge drinking…..well its failed catastrophically. because people dont binge drink because the pubs are closing. they binge drink because thats what they do, having more time to do it, has meant more poeple drink more for longer, causing a rise in alcohol related crime, and health problems. thankfully this is now being addressed.

would this happen with legalised drugs?

again i dont know. but the thoughts occure to me.

Something in me feels that legalising hard drugs will not solve anything, the problems might change slightly but they will still be there.

So what can we do.

In truth i dont have the answer. If i did maybe i would be in politics.

But a big part of me wonders if maybe the law needs to be stronger. many people are not afraid of prison, or breaking the law. the consequences are just not strong enough….i mean, many prisons have xboxes, internet, etc.

for many criminals, as recently pointed out in a tv series with Danny dyer….doing time in jail can actually make you respected and popular within the criminal world!!

The thing is, if there was nobody selling drugs, there would be nobody buying them. you prohibit the selling of them you might tackle the problem. of course thats what illgal drugs is all about…selling them is already illegal.

BUT! the thing is the dealers and the users feel that the risk is still worth it.

what if they thought the risk simply WASN’T worth it! then you might tackle the problem.

I dont know these are just all the thoughts that pullmans comments made me think.

thanks for letting me bore you.

Chris

“You never will be able to deal with a problem intelligently if you constantly ignore the facts.”

Apt.

You just showed us the history of all humanity: discord.
We will obviously get to nowhere as long as there are different ways of thinking, and there will always be.

To begin with, who decides what’s good or what’s bad? Why are people so afraid of dying?, we don’t even know if someone is making us a huge favor by killing us, since with don’t really know what’s next. But that’s clearly not the point, and I won’t argue about the value of life because it’s something completely subjective and… really fishy as well.

About Pullman needing to get a grip, sorry, but I just couldn’t disagree any more, in the end he’s just doing what we are doing right here, expressing his very own opinion, and he totally has the right to do so; and if his purpose is “to make a statement, always trying to see who he can outrage next”, well, I don’t think there’s a better way to spend time! That’s the kind of thing that makes people like us think and feel the need to expose our thoughts.

I also think that drugs must be legalised, but I just think that way because I consider myself a responsible person, and I know I wouldn’t consume them since I don’t smoke or drink that much either. But that’s the whole thing, not everyone is capable for such a mature step (and I’m not saying I’m all that mature), I just think that society is not prepared enough to accept and take responsability over this matter, there is a kind of mind chaos. If there’s a chance to get drugs legalised, then, there must be a change of mentality as well, but it won’t happen in a couple of decades; so, yes, I think that drugs should be legalised, but I also think this is not the right moment. But when will it be anyway? And who is going to decide it?

Anyway, I respect Pullman even if he is “up his own arse”, going against the masses in the present, assures you a place in the future, that’s what the past geniuses have taught us; you’ll be dead though, haha, just like them…