Legalize drugs, part 1

"I'm a pill popper. How you feel is just chemistry. I'm addicted to weed, but I pop different kinds of pills depending on what I have to do"
-some dude I work with

This man's assertion that "how you feel is just chemistry" is totally correct. You can get more alien feelings by running a marathon or depriving yourself of sleep than you can by using most drugs. So why the bias against something that more directly alters feelings? All drugs do is provide a direct route to however you would like to feel without all the lifestyle changes and hemming and hawing. In addition, this mans admission of "I'm a pill-popper" is like nothing I'd heard before. Who admits to being a pill-popper? Someone who recognizes the physical reality of drugs and holds no preconceptions about form. Currently, the preconceptions are:

Drugs you can drink: something that's socially acceptable to use occasionally, as a celebration or another extreme.

Drugs you can smoke: Something you will have to use every day for maintenance and is addicting, though can be used functionally.

Drugs you shoot: you're a junkie and useless.

Drugs in pill form: Should only be taken when taken Ill or possessing tangible personality disorders. Taking for fun is a "slippery slope".

Though the absorption is different for these different methods, they're all drugs, and they all do the same thing- whatever the user is desiring.

"He got fucked up, there was nothing wrong with him. This is america and you should be able to get as fucked up as you want. We should legalize everything. It would cause total chaos, but we should still do it".
-some dude I work with.

This man presents an interesting point- even if you agree drugs are destructive, that doesn't by extension mean they should be illegal. If you consider consequences in regard to ethical decisions you are engaging in realpolitik- which is for twelve-steppers and sadists, exclusively. It's not about 'what would happen' if we did something, but 'what is right'.

The speaker expresses too a seemingly perverted but actually legit patriotism in his statement; The united states is interested in freedom primarily. So as long as it doesn't interfere with basic human rights and dignity, everything ought to be allowed. Because absolutely all drugs can be used responsibly(there is still no drug that makes you attack and harm people as a certainty), they ought to be legal.

As far as the "caus[ing] total chaos"; Not only should that not matter to an american who is more interested in liberty than safety, it's a temporary condition. Drugs are not poison necessarily, and not all drugs are equal. If they've been marketed and used for a long while, they are legitimate. It's like capitalism; competition. There's a reason the most common drugs in the world are caffeine, alcohol and nicotine, and why no one is taking low doses of arsenic to get fucked up. If and when all drugs are legalized, the most useful and effective drugs would be used by more people and the least useful and least effective drugs would be used by fewer people.

It would/will be a slow process of selection.