this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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TL;DR:

  • Alcohol $7.8b
  • All illicits: $1.8b
  • Meth: $0.365b

I wanted a figure for cannabis and found this from 2020:

PDF https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/the-nz-illicit-drug-harm-index-2020-10-feb.pdf

  • All illicits: $1.9b
  • Meth: $0.824b
  • Cannabis: $0.911

I notice that the per kilograms measure for harm is also useful to account for volume of usage, but think that per 'dose' would be better.

  • Meth: $1.1m per kg with 743kg consumption
  • Cannabis: $0.35m per kg with 58000kg consumption

These figures include 'associative crime' as harm. So it apparent counts the cost of buying it as harm, it also counts the tax loss of that expenditure, so IMHO it skews unfavourabley to higher expenditure. But put that aside.

These figures show that all illicit drugs combined are less harmful to society than alcohol, and tautologically the harm is inflated by illegality.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I promise you that meth would cause far more problems if it was consumed anywhere near the frequency of alcohol. Anyone who has watched someone destroy their lives with meth knows just how dangerous and damaging it is. The scariest part is the speed at which it can happen. People destroy their lives with alcohol too, but it usually takes decades. I've watched people become hollow shells of their former selves, completely unrecognizable, and standing on death's doorstep, within six months of their first usage of methamphetamine. It's a destructive, dirty, dangerous drug.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (7 children)

Pretty sure the police aren't saying let's sell meth at dairies, rather they are asking for more funding for alcohol harm reduction.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

The core of the argument is that we should be spending proportionate amounts on harm mitigation or prevention.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, the US has known for a long time that alcohol is involved in the vast majority of violent crime. We deal with it by having corrupt politicians write the alcohol laws so that no one is ever very far from lots of booze.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

They tried banning alcohol. It didn't work.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Even worse, now we have NASCAR

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yeah, but that gave us Comrade Dale Earnheart

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, but to be fair a lot of things in the 1920’s US politics didn’t work.

Also the whole criminalization aspect to substance abuse is finally being talked about openly as a major failure in policy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Banning things in general should be an absolute last-ditch effort, not the go-to response that it is today. We're supposed to be a free society, and I think a lot of citizens have lost sight of what that means.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

More than that I think society still doesn’t talk about addiction in a useful, healthy way very often. Alcohol being so ingrained in many cultures that it’s basically invisible to many people.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

I think tighter regulation's a good thing.

For a start I would love to prohibit alcohol aimed at kids. In my student days I participated in a lot of market research groups and there were so many groups about late teens taste-testing insanely sweet gross RTD alcohols or discussing which alcohol bottle design was more "fun" "feminine" "flirty" etc.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Cops wanting more people to arrest.

Just the same as Elon promoting right wingers so he can make more money from defense contracts.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Good for you guys, hopefully they do something about it because it really is problematic (alcohol certainly ruined my childhood!).

They did try to outlaw it in the US over 100 years ago, right after women got the right to vote. Among other things, part of the rational was women getting beaten by alcohol abusing husbands. Unfortunately it takes a lot more than an amendment to stop something so pervasive though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This has been a known thing since the early 2000s, if not earlier.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

The general awareness that alcoholics tend to do far more damage to their lives and people around them than potheads do, that goes back a very long time.

Even if we weren't looking at raw data, common sense and basic powers of observation let us draw solid general conclusions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Not that I love meth but I suspect if people could buy it in shops and bars the costs would be equivalently high.

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