1. Matt’s post referred to the wrecked lives of abusers of these drugs. That doesn’t imply that an increase in use must per se translate to an increase in abuse. It is often tacitly assumed that for heroin etc. using implies abusing, but this is disputed by e.g. Jacob Sullum in Saying Yes.

2. the various regulations that make smoking more inconvenient may well be intended by their proponents to achieve the paternalistic purpose of reducing the harm to smokers themselves, but they are rarely justified by that alone. Even quite obvious and noxious paternalists of the Stanton Glantz type find it necessary to lean heavily on the externality argument, i.e. the claim that the key benefit involved is the reduction of the alleged harm done by secondhand smoke to innocent, unconsenting nonsmokers. No such argument can be advanced in favor of jailing hard drug users.

This abstract says it more clearly, but is older.

Here’s a study that deals more explicitly with the with/without tobacco issue. the MS and MTS (marijuana only and marijuana-tobacco groups) both show more DNA damage to lung cells than the Non-smokers (whereas, perhaps interestingly, smoking cocaine in the absence of tobacco does not have the effect).

An opinion without specific knowledge, but I would expect that (smoked) cannabis harms the lungs, in much the same way that most other substances, smoked, harm the lungs. I make this guess because tobacco’s harm to the lungs is not unique; people who work in heavy, direct smoke frequently have lung damage very similar to that of smokers.

Actually, it is harmful. It harms your lungs, and although there is an ongoing debate about the degree and severity of this, it is implicated in the emergence of psychotic illness. See e.g. here

Consider the practice in many US states, where beer can be sold in, say, petrol stations, and wine in supermarkets, but anything stronger than 20% a.b.v. is the sole purview of somewhat grotty state-regulated booze emporia. That appears to be done, at least to some extent, because of the assumption that Bud Light is a gateway drug to 18-year-old Macallan, in the sense that if the two were sold in the same place, the drinker of Anheuser-Busch pisswater might gravitate to a mellow Speyside malt. Which would be a bad thing.

Then there is ‘gateway’ in the sense that simply drinking Anheuser-Busch pisswater would naturally lead the drinker to seek out 18-y-o Macallan. Would that it were so, but I suspect otherwise.

You’ve jumped from cannibis to heroin as if they are the same thing. Cannibis isn’t harmful in its illegal form – though you need to know a drug dealer to get it, and hence it acts as a “gateway” – but heroin from a drug dealer is often harmful. If I recall correctly, there have been positive results in giving heroin addicts prescribed herion, which lets them lead normal lives, with a sharply decreased risk of poisoning and overdose. (Some info here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin )

Of course, that suggests some obvious measures for dealing with drug problems, none of which will happen any time soon since the war on drugs is not really about helping people in any meaningful sense.

A British specialty: making finely graded distinctions between classes since god knows when.

I have to agree with this…I’d much rather buy a “Grow Your Own” kit from the local big-box store than whatever shit they choose to sell.

Companies supplying drugs would presumably innovate, after a great deal of research, to provide a range of products that deliver various experiences to the customer, some associated with much harder drugs on the market today than cannabis. Presumably this research would focus on how to minimise the extreme negative effects of these hard drugs (which, in so far as these effects are inseparable from the chemical process that generates the desired effect, might leave space for an illegal market, presumably far more marginalised than today’s).

The corporates supplying the products might end up playing a gateway function, but their legal exposure, transparency and longer-term focus would be a powerful discipline upon them to do it in a much less dangerous way than illegal drug dealers, who, as Freakonomics showed, have an extremely short-termist approach to their business.

All of this is an uncomfortable prospect, for sure, but much less so than the reality that is today’s illegal drugs business.

Is this sarcasm? I can’t tell. But I trust my pot dealer far far more than I trust Philip Morris Corporation.

What is need is full scale legalization which allows “customers” to grow cannabis in their own gardens.