TL;DR:
- Alcohol $7.8b
- All illicits: $1.8b
- Meth: $0.365b
I wanted a figure for cannabis and found this from 2020:
- 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.
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.
Pretty sure the police aren’t saying let’s sell meth at dairies, rather they are asking for more funding for alcohol harm reduction.
Check which community you’re in. We have our own police problems but tanks aren’t one of them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cops wanting more people to arrest.
Just the same as Elon promoting right wingers so he can make more money from defense contracts.
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.
