i think drug policy could be redone. here are some of the ideas im tossing around. moral basis: drugs feel really good, some of them can be used for meditative or constructive experiences, there isnt anything inherently wrong with feeling really good, in fact, in a sensible world, youd think that would be the best thing. one thing that intercepted this was the rise of big religion across the middle ages. christianity in particular delivered a sort of notion to the world that was quite different than how the ancients had it: the idea of noble suffering, because of jesus and the cross. the ancient pagans had more pleasure cults involved with their religious practices. jesus the man was a cult figure who was inexplicably crucified- seeming to go against the notion of him being from god, unless his suffering was somehow intended by god and was part of the program. so, people came up with the idea that that's what it must've been. from there, remember christianity didnt really spread organically, other than limitedly- a small group of people in rome were christian. an emperor converted, then demanded that everyone convert, since as emperor he could do whatever he wanted. so now you had christianity suddenly arbitrarily installed as a giant religion, and from there it spread. across the middle ages the idea of going to heaven based on the salvation of jesus having personally suffered in repentance for your sins. but also, by a certain time period, you had essentially christians trying to outdo each other to get to heaven better than the others- often by- suffering- just like jesus- you had puritan christianity at somepoint, where the idea was that living an austere life sent you to heaven best. then, for example, you had the prohibition movement in the u.s.- i think this essentially was christians considering "debauchery" unchristian-like. but it turns out, people love to drink. and alcohol's easy to make. what happened next was, it turned out that prohibiting just raised the profit margin exponentially for organized crime to take over. today, it's still like this really- because drugs are not just illegal but scorned, they stay illegal, and because they stay illegal but are secretly loved by a lot of people, they stay the most profitable thing in the world, empowering cartels that use murder and torture to coerce state politics, because they have the money to do so, because, the profit margin of the illegal drugs is enormous (because theyre illegal). it seems to be that keeping drugs illegal keeps organized crime in power, worldwide. i think organized crime has an oversized influence on world politics, to everyone's detriment. i think it would be better to do the following: let people use drugs, but heavily, heavily, regulate the entire process. my idea: you produce the drugs domestically, you sell them cheap (this destroys all drug cartels), but you only sell them through people's pharmacies, just like getting any other legal drug. let's say someone likes hard drugs: let's say they like heroin or meth for example. believe it or not, even hard drugs have a "reasonable serving size": the people who od are really od'ing- theyre really taking nonsensical amounts. it's exactly like considering taking one shot of hard alcohol versus taking twenty shots. one shot is pleasurable and reasonable, twenty shots is gonna be pretty pleasurable for a few seconds and then its gonna hurt and then youre gonna die. a bar is required to cut you off if youre drunk, and theyre not gonna serve you twenty shots. what if we made a rule like this: if youre someone who would want to legally do drugs: you can be entitled to the equivalent of "one shot" (a small, reasonable, single-serving size) per week, and only on friday afternoon, so you can recover by monday. your serving has to be consumed on the premises of the pharmacy, in front of the pharmacist. you cannot drive home afterwards; you have to take a cab or public transportation or walk. thats kinda the rough draft i have going. heres another totally different rough draft: how bout, people can do drugs however much they want, but with the following restrictions and system: nobody is allowed to manufacture drugs for others. no business-scale drug manufacturing. if anyone wants to do drugs, they have to produce those drugs entirely themself. so, if you want to smoke pot, you have to grow your own plants. coke- you have to grow your own coca plants, and then either chew those (the really safe, native-way of using it) or, you can refine it yourself, but, you cannot sell it to others or manufacture it for others (i guess throwing a party where you serve your guests what you made is alright, or you could try to say thats not allowed either). if you like meth, well, you would have to grow your own ephedra plants, and then learn chemistry, and then make it yourself. etcetera. while on drugs you are not allowed to drive. if youre married, or if youre married with kids, your spouse can sue you for being too whacked out too often and neglecting your duties. anyway, making people who want drugs make it themself is i think a fair way of keeping people's use down ultimately (on the whole), because, its really a lot of work to make the amounts of drugs that regular drug users are simply buying. do you smoke pot? do you do it a lot? every day? consider how much work it would really be, if you had to grow and harvest those plants yourself, just to keep yourself in that much pot. and most people dont have the outdoor or indoor space for it. so, that would be a huge limit. so thats another interesting rough draft i have of a total change to not only drug policy but drug thinking. and im working on others. ive tried the different hard drugs and i like them; i found them safe enough in small doses, and i found them societally reasonable enough. i dont think im dancing with the devil by enjoying myself. i think thats sort of an inverted way of looking at it, and what i found is (my research about christianity/religion's influence) versus that apparently the ancient world had drinking cults (dionysus) (which were probably also sex cults), and in general ancient religious shamanism very often involved hallucinogen use. i can add some more thoughts on this topic- the obersvation that, essentially american business tried out giving hard drugs to americans en masse, over the past couple decades. adderoll really is essentially toned-down meth (its amphetamine), and oxycontin was really a little bit of heroin in a flour pill, which hey certainly is a good painkiller, and hey a little bit of meth sure helps anyone focus. notably- the heroin ran people into a huge social problem- which is i think because, in general, meth appeals to thinkers who are a minority, and heroin (a downer) appeals to most other people- they like feeling numbed to relax. like heavy drinkers. anyway i think it turned out that giving a majority who prefers downers a strong downer guised as a non-heroin- where the stigma of heroin wasnt keeping the same people back- this turned disastrous- but maybe if you just called it heroin, these same people wouldve had a lot more respect for it, instead of treating the "oxycontin" like its fricking candy cause thats how it was marketed. meanwhile- the adderoll users have apparently never had horrible problems en masse, and from my own experience thats cause uppers are much more useful/usable/fucntional than downers, and you really can get contructive work out of a little bit of uppers. hey, thats why everyone loves caffeine so much, which is obviously mild but then you have people drinking it all day all their lives. anyway, many thought i have on such reform, but certainly, i do sympathize with the notion that you dont want people having problems with this and id be willing to exercise restrictions to keep people reasonable. it goes with a larger philosophy i have of insisting that crimes like violence theft and lying are the real crimes; pleasure crimes arent, but have been historically problematic, though probably not really tried well enough in the modern age, as discussed...

as for bad decisions, well it occurs to me that people, especially men, have an urge for excitement that borders on an urge for violence and danger. i think this is something we should consider and mostly restrict, though perhaps allow under certain circumstances, as long as no one who wants no part is endangered. let me try to give examples: when two people want to street-race each other, they endanger everyone around them. so you make street racing illegal so that the non-racers arent endangered; do you really care so much though if the two people who want to race each other do it? how bout if no ones paying them or encouraging them, and they just want to do it? what about fighting? what if you made a no violence rule- do you think people would feel too restricted by this? what if you made a rule about no violence against people who dont want it- but- if you and someone else want to fight each other, you can go and fill out a form at your local police station, where the two of you file an agreement that you want to fight each other in private and that then there wont be legal consequences for both of them. im not so sure about that idea id rather have no violence, but in trying to get an entire world to follow a no-violence law, i wonder if making an exception like this would keep everyone happier with such a law and feeling more free. and it would be a restricted regulated way of doing it. other rules: fights like this cannot be televised or turned into spectator sports. the fighters need to call an ambulance first to be on hand, and, if either fighter calls mercy at any point, the fight has to end. this would be in a world where war is intended to be illegalized also. one idea for a the maximum replacement you might allow would be, same rules as the other example, but for small groups. this ones a rougher draft/lesslikely