Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
First-time Visitors: Please visit Site Map and Disclaimer. Use"Back" to return here.
I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issuewith any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:
What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?
I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutabilityis one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover,I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determinewhether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games.Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all youhave to do is commit to a criterion for testing.It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-mindedenough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
The latest lifestyle change to save the planet is the Slow Travel Movement. Instead of using greenhouse gas emitting airplanes, take longer, slower, less frequent vacations. This movement is modeled on the Slow Food Movement, which advocates the use of more expensive but healthier and more environmentally friendly foods. And of course there's always not shopping at Big Box megastores. I always find it curious that these proposed remedies are minor inconveniences to the highly affluent who have jobs (or independent wealth) that permit lengthy absences, but serious hardships to the less affluent with limited budgets and shorter vacations.
But there are a host of suggested lifestyle changes that people have been advocating for a long time, to little effect. And many of the people who advocate Slow Travel, Slow Food, and an end to globalization are also among the people who sneer most loudly at these other lifestyle changes. I would venture a guess that a great deal of the indifference, if not outright hostility, that the middle class feels toward appeals to change their lifestyle might be inspired by the fact that the same people who demand changes in consumer lifestyles hurl disdain at other, far more reasonable lifestyle changes.
If we did away with laws against the use of drugs, we could save huge amounts of money on law enforcement, undermine the illicit drug trade, and have more than enough money to deal with issues like rehabilitation. Also, in some alternative reality, we'd make land mines that spewed forth perfume and confetti, jihadists would throw water balloons, and corporate CEO's would work for minimum wage.
In this reality, however, drugs are illegal, and there are enough people who want it to stay that way that things are not going to change very soon. Drugs have absolutely zero social benefits. The medical marijuana business is mostly a smoke screen for making it difficult to enforce drug laws (There are pharmaceutical equivalents of the ingredients in marijuana, and if it turns out there are medical benefits to actually smoking marijuana, it could be done under tightly controlled conditions. After all, every hospital has morphine under lock and key. You just go to the hospital, smoke your joint in a locked room, and go home.) It's notable that people who advocate legalization of drugs always stress the costs and problems of enforcing drug laws. They never point to a single social benefit that would come from the use of drugs themselves.
Then there's the ecological impact. Want to talk about how cash crops like chocolate and coffee disrupt traditional economies? Gee, check out cocaine in Colombia and Bolivia, or opium in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan. Look at all that crop land that could be used for growing food, or merely allowed to return to its natural state.
And of course there's the violence. In this reality, money spent on drugs is used to finance killing. And the curious thing is, it doesn't have to be that way. The Colombian drug trade is so lucrative that any creative drug lord ought to be able to carry it out with no violence whatsoever. The occasional lost shipment or captured henchman, well, that's the cost of doing business. Promise your toady a million bucks and a cushy retirement when he gets out of jail; I promise he'll keep quiet. There is no inherent reason the drug trade has to be violent. It's violent because the people who engage in it choose to be violent. Use a little crack money to help old folks meet the bills, hire private security guards to keep crime down in the 'hood, and I guarantee neighborhoods would fight to get crack houses. The drug trade is violent and antisocial because the people involved in it choose to be violent and antisocial. Or maybe violent and antisocial people engage in drug use specifically because it's illegal.
Want to save the planet? Don't use drugs. First, you'll be in a better position to evaluate the evidence on things like global warming more rationally. You won't be wasting crop land or supporting violence. Then, get 100 per cent behind efforts to eradicate drug use. As long as the situation is out of control, drug legalization is just not going to happen. Once drug use is under control, then, and only then, will there be any prospect of discussing controlled use.
The best argument for keeping drugs illegal is the damage that these two legal drugs cause.
Lots of people are behind zero population growth for middle class families.
Return to Pseudoscience Index
Return to Professor Dutch's Home Page
Created 27 February, 2006; Last Update 24 May, 2020
Not an official UW Green Bay site