8 Bit Philosophy: Are Psychedelic Drugs Good for You? (Kirby + Aldous Huxley)

tzimize

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I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
 

Neurotic Void Melody

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I have the doors of perception and it's inseperable sequel/afterthought (whatever it counts as) somewhere at home. Certainly a recommended read, whether you like cacti fueled journeys or not.
 

kimiyoribaka

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I can see how experiencing being ego-less can be a very invigorating thing and can clear the mind of many of life's doubts. However, I very much doubt that doing so actually gives anyone a better understanding of the universe. I've heard of many things that people claim will give a realization of an objects real essence or beauty or whatever, including just trying to draw it over and over, but they're usually just changing how an individual looks at the object from one subjective view to another equally subjective view.

There is one exception though: studying math and physics way too much. Apparently one eventually starts seeing beautiful abstract formulas in everything around them. That could also be seen as another equally subjective view (especially if the formulas are wrong), but when you get to the point of being able to tell how deep a well is within so many decimal places just by dropping a rock down it, I think you've gotten a good understanding of how things relate.

tl;dr: I trust the opposite of Huxley's method a lot more.
 

mad825

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kimiyoribaka said:
I can see how experiencing being ego-less can be a very invigorating thing and can clear the mind of many of life's doubts. However, I very much doubt that doing so actually gives anyone a better understanding of the universe. I've heard of many things that people claim will give a realization of an objects real essence or beauty or whatever, including just trying to draw it over and over, but they're usually just changing how an individual looks at the object from one subjective view to another equally subjective view.
Well, you are missing a point that was made. The idea behind "ego-loss" is to remove all pre-convinced motions that are created by your subconscious and to see things how we would never see them as. Let take a knife for an example, most will associated it to be a weapon, tool, cooking utensil, gray, sliver, black and so forth but lets say a tripper would see it to be a key, a reflection of ones self or third hand. The former example are words, descriptions of what we are taught of what it is and how it applies to us in daily life but the latter is spontaneous thinking. Your views are quite pragmatic.

There is a paradox, While sober we like to think we have total control of ourselves though while on drugs we like to think we have no control at all.
 

WhiteTigerShiro

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mad825 said:
Well, you are missing a point that was made. The idea behind "ego-loss" is to remove all pre-convinced motions
Just a quick note, but the word you're looking for is "notion".

Anyway, as someone who's always been of the opinion that all drugs should be legal, this was an interesting video. Though my opinion was always more along two views: firstly that we should be allowed to make our own decisions, good or bad; and secondly that the legalization of drugs would mean that there's accountability. By which I mean that you don't need to worry about whether or not the stuff you're taking is any good or not. With drugs being illegal, anyone can mix-up anything, and there's not much you can do if it was a bad batch. If drugs were legally sold, then a company would legally liable if they released a bad batch, so there would be incentive to make sure that everything they put on market is good to go. Then there's the case of something like Heroine (I believe) where the level of purity can make a huge difference in how much you take. If it's too pure, a person can too-easily OD even if they take less than they usually do, and if it isn't pure enough then a person will barely feel the effects no matter how much they take. Again, if drugs were legal, then it'd be easier for companies to just label each package with it's purity so that people can know exactly what they're taking.

I'm aware that there are some potential cons in legalizing drugs, but I've always been of the opinion that the pros would out-weigh the cons, and that really not much would change at all. People who use drugs now are using them regardless of legality, and most people who don't use them would continue to not use them even if they were legalized. It's the kind of thing where, for the most part, either you want to take them or you don't, and if you want to take them, then you're probably already using.

Anyway, got off to a bit of a tangent. Point is, it was an interesting video because it was something in support of what I always believed (that drugs aren't necessarily bad), but it approached it from an angle I never really considered (that they could actually be good).
 

Razorback0z

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Having "experimented" quite a bit over the years with various natural and manufactured hallucinogens, Id say its pretty obvious they are not "good for you" physiologically speaking.

However as an experiential substance, they are definitely transformative. I have changed my ways of thinking about topics after a "trip" and felt as though I unlocked aspects of knowledge on topics that I may not have been able to understand without the experience of drugs.

I would not encourage anyone to try them as the unregulated nature of the manufactured substances and the difficulty associated with estimating dosage with natural substances usually weighs the danger over the benefits. But for myself Im glad I did them and I wouldn't change anything, though I no longer partake these days.
 

medv4380

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Make you a better person? Sorry, but that is an unsupported claim. I have Zero examples of drugs used for the purpose of getting high making someone a better person. Alcohol, a perfectly legal drug has destroyed far too many lives. Alcohol is a great antiseptic, and perfectly fine when used in a medical setting for treatment. There is certainly a case to be made for MJ, but it's not that people become better people when they take it. Rather like Alcohol it has legitimate medical uses, and it's effects aren't nearly as bad as other pain killers on the market today. Lets not pretend, or suppress the fact that both Alcohol and MJ will inhibit your ability to stop yourself from driving a car, and lets not pretend that they're not going to increase the risk of you creating an accident. The last thing anyone needs is to have a "bad trip" with the higher end hallucinogens while driving, and because it ain't just poor reaction speed like Alcohol and MJ will cause, but rather "hey monster" causing you to swerve into oncoming traffic isn't going to be worse over all. Ignoring, and suppressing facts that run counter to your "philosophical" argument creates a fallacious argument.
 

zumbledum

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"anyone whose dropped acid before a dentist visit" oooo mmmmy god why would you do that!?!?!

medv4380 said:
Alcohol, a perfectly legal drug has destroyed far too many lives. Alcohol is a great antiseptic, and perfectly fine when used in a medical setting for treatment. There is certainly a case to be made for MJ, but it's not that people become better people when they take it. Rather like Alcohol it has legitimate medical uses, and it's effects aren't nearly as bad as other pain killers on the market today. Lets not pretend, or suppress the fact that both Alcohol and MJ will inhibit your ability to stop yourself from driving a car, and lets not pretend that they're not going to increase the risk of you creating an accident. The last thing anyone needs is to have a "bad trip" with the higher end hallucinogens while driving, and because it ain't just poor reaction speed like Alcohol and MJ will cause, but rather "hey monster" causing you to swerve into oncoming traffic isn't going to be worse over all. Ignoring, and suppressing facts that run counter to your "philosophical" argument creates a fallacious argument.
true enough but he does state "Psychedelic Drugs" which they are not. were talking about LSD mescaline acid that sort of thing. so perhaps reading the title and responding to the actual issue rather than writing your stump speech might be a thing /shrug

Make you a better person? not sure on that i will say it gets you to notice things again and a fresh perspective is always useful.
 

thedoclc

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Mildly related aside: you don't have to be into the hippie-dippy and ascientific. Huxley actually drew a completely false dichotomy between being a rationalist and believing there is some sense to what users of psychoactive substances are saying.

The field of neurotheology is the study of brain function during religious and spiritual experiences. There is some evidence that essentially the effect of a deeply religious or spiritual experience and the effect of taking certain substances look extremely similar under fMRI. This seems to hold regardless of the particular religious discipline; Sikhs, nuns, and meditating Buddhists all produced very similar patterns. Additionally, the mechanism of action of mescaline and LSD both effect serotonin receptors (specifically 5HT2 variants). Guess which ones seem most affected by religious and spiritual experiences.

Note also that ego-loss is commonly part of the description of spiritual experiences and in some cases an intended goal of certain practices, such as Zen.

One Brief Review [http://www.issr.org.uk/latest-news/neuroscience-and-religious-faith/]
Light NPR Fluff Piece [http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132078267/neurotheology-where-religion-and-science-collide]
 

Flutterguy

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Ego-loss comes from the mind feeling a certainty for ones own swiftly approaching death. Psychedelics have a way of making your mortality very plain to you, but they are not needed to accomplish this, in fact I find they lessen the effect because your thoughts are incoherent and are more likely to roam to the paranormal for an explanation.

They are, however, useful for artistic, linguistic, inventive and scientific thinking as they allow your brain cells to communicate to cells further away then normal. This causes not only hallucinations but abstract thought, improvement in speech, and being distracted/transfixed very easily. They also allow you to see the darker side of the things you cherish, many relationships have ended because a couple decided to take them together. The effects are temporary, and they will not make you any smarter, no one has to do these to become 'enlightened', that whole mess is just the opinion of people who place too much value in them.

I'm not posting this to advocate their use, I hope a random person online doesn't have that much sway over you or anyone else, I'm just stating what I've observed because psychedelics are the topic of discussion. I hope I've demystified them in some way.
 

Strazdas

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tzimize said:
I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
I wish people had enough common sense to not do blatantly harmful things so there would be no need to make them illegal.
 

tzimize

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Strazdas said:
tzimize said:
I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
I wish people had enough common sense to not do blatantly harmful things so there would be no need to make them illegal.
Silly statement. Define harmful. Do you want to forbid sugar? Fast food? Its not in any way healthy, and plenty of people have very serious health issues stemming from it. What about tobacco and alchohol? Want to forbid that? What about knives? People do a lot of bad stuff with knives? Where the hell do you draw the line? And why should YOU be the one to draw it?

I would like some personal freedom. There are plenty illegal narcotics that are a lot less dangerous than tobacco and alchohol, and still they are illegal.

There are plenty of different kinds of narcotics, used for VERY different reasons. Smoking a bowl or eating a hash brownie a friday night should be just as legal as drinking half a bottle of wine.

What about LSD for example? Why should it be illegal? It is not in any way addictive, and the body builds up resistance to it very fast so its actually impossible to "binge" it. Why would you be against legalizing it?

People do harmful things all the time. Hell, LOVE is probably one of the most harmful things there are. How many murders havent been made in a jealous rage, should we outlaw marriage? I wouldnt be surprised if marriage has killed more people than LSD or marihuana.

People do drugs for 2 reasons. Recreation/relaxation or self medication. Neither of these needs to be outlawed. Outlawing drugs accomplishes 2 things.

1: Filling up prisons and ruining lives of people who ventured a bit outside the norm and ate a hash brownie at some party, and thus introducing them for real to the criminal element...it can be hard to get out of such an environment again

2: Stigmatizing people who are already lowest on the social ladder. The ones using the hardest drugs are often victims of abuse of some kind. What do these people need? The condemnation of society? Prison? No. They need help. Prison or fines doesnt help, and neither is it a deterrent for people struggling with serious pshychological trauma.


I wish people had enough common sense to think for themselves and not blatantly make harmful posts so there would be no need to debate them.
 

Olas

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tzimize said:
Strazdas said:
tzimize said:
I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
I wish people had enough common sense to not do blatantly harmful things so there would be no need to make them illegal.
Silly statement. Define harmful. Do you want to forbid sugar? Fast food?
Sugar? Yes, or at least put substantial restrictions on it.

Fast food? Depends on what the food is. I order from a Mcdonalds drive through several times a week since it's the only cheap place I can get food to on my lunch break. But I only order salads with low fat dressing.

tzimize said:
Its not in any way healthy, and plenty of people have very serious health issues stemming from it. What about tobacco and alchohol? Want to forbid that?
Tobacco? Yes

Alcohol? Not necessarily. but more needs to be done to prevent drunk driving and help addicts.

tzimize said:
What about knives? People do a lot of bad stuff with knives?
Is that a question? I don't consider knives to be nearly as harmful to society as the above products, especially in a nation like the United States where it's so easy to get guns. Anyway, in my state it's illegal to carry a knife more than 3 inches long in public and I'm fine with that.[/quote]

tzimize said:
Where the hell do you draw the line?
When the harm that something causes outways the benefits.

tzimize said:
And why should YOU be the one to draw it?
I don't believe anyone in this thread is arguing that they should single handedly write all the laws themselves. That's what elected officials are for.

tzimize said:
I would like some personal freedom. There are plenty illegal narcotics that are a lot less dangerous than tobacco and alchohol, and still they are illegal.
Then say what they are. Perhaps some of them should be legal.

tzimize said:
There are plenty of different kinds of narcotics, used for VERY different reasons. Smoking a bowl or eating a hash brownie a friday night should be just as legal as drinking half a bottle of wine.
Ya, so? There are places where it is and soon it will be everywhere. If the only freedom you want is the freedom to get high then you have my sympathy, poor persecuted stoner, but you'll get your way soon enough.

People do harmful things all the time. Hell, LOVE is probably one of the most harmful things there are. How many murders havent been made in a jealous rage, should we outlaw marriage? I wouldnt be surprised if marriage has killed more people than LSD or marihuana.
You've got to be kidding me. Really? Aside from the dramatically different sample sizes of people who get married vs people who regularly do recreational drugs, you have to weigh the potential harm of something with the BENEFITS. Car accidents probably kill more people every day than all the drugs in the world combined several times over. The difference is most people living outside a major city depend on automobiles all the time for daily life. Now I'm no fan of marriage myself, but don't tell me that people's freedom to get fucked up on LSD is as necessary as the ability to drive an automobile.

tzimize said:
I wish people had enough common sense to think for themselves and not blatantly make harmful posts so there would be no need to debate them.
 

Strazdas

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tzimize said:
Silly statement. Define harmful. Do you want to forbid sugar? Fast food? Its not in any way healthy, and plenty of people have very serious health issues stemming from it. What about tobacco and alchohol? Want to forbid that? What about knives? People do a lot of bad stuff with knives? Where the hell do you draw the line? And why should YOU be the one to draw it?

I would like some personal freedom. There are plenty illegal narcotics that are a lot less dangerous than tobacco and alchohol, and still they are illegal.

There are plenty of different kinds of narcotics, used for VERY different reasons. Smoking a bowl or eating a hash brownie a friday night should be just as legal as drinking half a bottle of wine.

What about LSD for example? Why should it be illegal? It is not in any way addictive, and the body builds up resistance to it very fast so its actually impossible to "binge" it. Why would you be against legalizing it?

People do harmful things all the time. Hell, LOVE is probably one of the most harmful things there are. How many murders havent been made in a jealous rage, should we outlaw marriage? I wouldnt be surprised if marriage has killed more people than LSD or marihuana.

People do drugs for 2 reasons. Recreation/relaxation or self medication. Neither of these needs to be outlawed. Outlawing drugs accomplishes 2 things.

1: Filling up prisons and ruining lives of people who ventured a bit outside the norm and ate a hash brownie at some party, and thus introducing them for real to the criminal element...it can be hard to get out of such an environment again

2: Stigmatizing people who are already lowest on the social ladder. The ones using the hardest drugs are often victims of abuse of some kind. What do these people need? The condemnation of society? Prison? No. They need help. Prison or fines doesnt help, and neither is it a deterrent for people struggling with serious pshychological trauma.


I wish people had enough common sense to think for themselves and not blatantly make harmful posts so there would be no need to debate them.
Harmful, adjective

causing or capable of causing harm; injurious:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/harmful

of a kind likely to be damaging
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/harmful

I did not say i want to forbid anything. i said that i want people to be intelligent enough to avoid harmful substences (within reason) so there would be no need for such regulations to begin with.

Do i want people to stop eating sugar in excess? yes. Fast food? same. Alcohol and tabacco, personally i would like to heavily lower the amount of alcohol consumed (in small doses it is not harmful, btw) and would like to never see anyone smoking again. I dont use either personally. Knives have a useful purpose as cutting tools and is therefore acceptable risk with exception of knives that are meant to harm only.

I never said i should be the one to draw any lines. I said i want people to be smarter about whats harmful to them and draw the lines themselves, closer to "less harmful" that they do now.

I agree that the situation of narcotics being banned that are less harmful than those that are legal is a bad one. alas as per this forums rules i cannot advocate anything illegal therefore i cannot expand on it. I do not believe consumption of narcotis should be left to personal freedom though.

If your knowledge about LOVE comes from movies, perhaps you think so. In reality however Love has a necessary benefit of continuation of our species and thus ouweighs the harms that the chemical imbalance causes. Marriage has not killed anyone though. People in marriage sometimes killed one another, ironically, often when they are on harmful substances.

Note once again, that i did not argue for outlawing drugs, but for people to use them less on their own so no outlawing would be necessary to begin with. I also think that prison time for drug use is silly idea.

Perhaps those people are the "lowest on the social ladder" BECAUSE they are using drugs. but no, everyone's at fault except the person killing himself.

I wish that too, but thats neither here nor there considering neither of our posts were harmful.
 

Trunkage

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tzimize said:
Strazdas said:
tzimize said:
I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
I wish people had enough common sense to not do blatantly harmful things so there would be no need to make them illegal.
Silly statement. Define harmful. Do you want to forbid sugar? Fast food? Its not in any way healthy, and plenty of people have very serious health issues stemming from it. What about tobacco and alchohol? Want to forbid that? What about knives? People do a lot of bad stuff with knives? Where the hell do you draw the line? And why should YOU be the one to draw it?
I have three friends in mental institutions and two that are dead from drugs. I would be fine if this didn't affect me emotionally and financially, but it does. I keep paying my taxes not because I want drug enforcement but I don't want any of those guys out of any mental institutions. (One day one turn up at my door - its the scariest thing that ever happened to me, and I had neighbours threaten physical abuse to me before).

They're decisions affect me, and I haven't seen them in five year. Just like sugar affects me as it makes all my hospital visits dear, irrelevant of whether its paid by the government or through private actors.

PS I also lost my dad to tobacco. But his cancer was short lived and mostly paid by him, so I find that more acceptable.
 

tzimize

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trunkage said:
tzimize said:
Strazdas said:
tzimize said:
I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
I wish people had enough common sense to not do blatantly harmful things so there would be no need to make them illegal.
Silly statement. Define harmful. Do you want to forbid sugar? Fast food? Its not in any way healthy, and plenty of people have very serious health issues stemming from it. What about tobacco and alchohol? Want to forbid that? What about knives? People do a lot of bad stuff with knives? Where the hell do you draw the line? And why should YOU be the one to draw it?
I have three friends in mental institutions and two that are dead from drugs. I would be fine if this didn't affect me emotionally and financially, but it does. I keep paying my taxes not because I want drug enforcement but I don't want any of those guys out of any mental institutions. (One day one turn up at my door - its the scariest thing that ever happened to me, and I had neighbours threaten physical abuse to me before).

They're decisions affect me, and I haven't seen them in five year. Just like sugar affects me as it makes all my hospital visits dear, irrelevant of whether its paid by the government or through private actors.

PS I also lost my dad to tobacco. But his cancer was short lived and mostly paid by him, so I find that more acceptable.
Strictly speaking you pay taxes because you dont have any say in the matter :p But that's another discussion.

While I feel for you, prohibition is stupid. It creates only 1 thing, criminals.

As I said earlier, there are 2 kinds of substance abusers.

1: Recreationals. These are the people that might want to smoke a bowl or drink a few beers on friday night. No recreationals will do heroin. Its impossible to not be aware of the danger and extreme addictiveness of it, so recreationalists will not use it. Even if it was legal. These will not be a problem if we legalize everything, since the only substances they will use are the "safe" ones. Every narcotic comes with a risk, but that should be up to each person to take.

2: Self-medicaters. These are the people for whom drugs are an escape. From themselves or from the world. They do not need prison, they do not need the added social stigma of being criminals and it costs a whole lot of money while not helping them AT ALL. Rather the opposite. They get even more entangled in criminal relationships and aquaintances, and they get no help with whatever they are struggling with.

Some time back I read an article in a local newspaper, where one girl heavily "addicted" to marihuana warned about it publicly. It was a sad story, both because it was stupid and because she and problably not the newspaper had any idea what they were talking about. One does not get addicted to MJ, one gets addicted to tobacco. She wasnt addicted to the high, she was addicted to the wonderful break she got from her extreme ADHD (the article told her whole story, also about her illness).

Society leaves us with a lot of responsibilities. In my garage I have a car. A car is a horrifying weapon. Each day I drive around in this huge metal colossus able to kill and mangle whole families of people. But other people trust me to not drive like a maniac, or not drink and drive et cetera. In the store I can buy beers, or booze. If I drink a lot of this, it'll be dangerous for me, and possibly for people around me, but society lets me do it, because they trust I can use it more or less responsibly. Why the hell should it be any different with for example marihuana, or shrooms, or any number of psychedelic drugs?

I like personal freedom. I take responsibility for my own existence. I'd like to be able to do more or less what I want, as long as it doesnt hurt other people.

I'm pretty sure you'll come up with some sob story about how drugs or alchohol or whatever has hurt plenty of families...and they probably have...but imo the drugs are as little at fault as a gun is in a murder. A gun can be a tool for entertainment, hunting or murder. The person chooses the purpose. I'd like the freedom to smoke a bowl or eat some shrooms in the comfort of my own home without being branded a criminal.
 

Trunkage

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tzimize said:
trunkage said:
tzimize said:
Strazdas said:
tzimize said:
I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
I wish people had enough common sense to not do blatantly harmful things so there would be no need to make them illegal.
Silly statement. Define harmful. Do you want to forbid sugar? Fast food? Its not in any way healthy, and plenty of people have very serious health issues stemming from it. What about tobacco and alchohol? Want to forbid that? What about knives? People do a lot of bad stuff with knives? Where the hell do you draw the line? And why should YOU be the one to draw it?
I have three friends in mental institutions and two that are dead from drugs. I would be fine if this didn't affect me emotionally and financially, but it does. I keep paying my taxes not because I want drug enforcement but I don't want any of those guys out of any mental institutions. (One day one turn up at my door - its the scariest thing that ever happened to me, and I had neighbours threaten physical abuse to me before).

They're decisions affect me, and I haven't seen them in five year. Just like sugar affects me as it makes all my hospital visits dear, irrelevant of whether its paid by the government or through private actors.

PS I also lost my dad to tobacco. But his cancer was short lived and mostly paid by him, so I find that more acceptable.
If someone murder someone else (generally) they will pay by going to jail.

Part of the taxes I pay, pay for some idiot who shouldn't be using it as it destroys their mind. Also notice that I didn't say anything about legality. I don't want to pay for someone else mistake (looking at you TARP/financial sector and HEMP/housing sector) I understand that no one can know who that would be before they use it, so I have a different proposal. Legalise it, then put a levy on each sale to which goes into a pool which will fund most of the health problems caused by any drug (health promotion could come from here too). Most government do this for cigarettes and alcohol but they don't put it into a separate fund for this purpose.

This means it doesn't affect me, and idiots can do what they want
 

tzimize

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trunkage said:
tzimize said:
trunkage said:
tzimize said:
Strazdas said:
tzimize said:
I wish everything wasnt so fucking illegal and that we could actually choose how to live our own lives :|
I wish people had enough common sense to not do blatantly harmful things so there would be no need to make them illegal.
Silly statement. Define harmful. Do you want to forbid sugar? Fast food? Its not in any way healthy, and plenty of people have very serious health issues stemming from it. What about tobacco and alchohol? Want to forbid that? What about knives? People do a lot of bad stuff with knives? Where the hell do you draw the line? And why should YOU be the one to draw it?
I have three friends in mental institutions and two that are dead from drugs. I would be fine if this didn't affect me emotionally and financially, but it does. I keep paying my taxes not because I want drug enforcement but I don't want any of those guys out of any mental institutions. (One day one turn up at my door - its the scariest thing that ever happened to me, and I had neighbours threaten physical abuse to me before).

They're decisions affect me, and I haven't seen them in five year. Just like sugar affects me as it makes all my hospital visits dear, irrelevant of whether its paid by the government or through private actors.

PS I also lost my dad to tobacco. But his cancer was short lived and mostly paid by him, so I find that more acceptable.
If someone murder someone else (generally) they will pay by going to jail.

Part of the taxes I pay, pay for some idiot who shouldn't be using it as it destroys their mind. Also notice that I didn't say anything about legality. I don't want to pay for someone else mistake (looking at you TARP/financial sector and HEMP/housing sector) I understand that no one can know who that would be before they use it, so I have a different proposal. Legalise it, then put a levy on each sale to which goes into a pool which will fund most of the health problems caused by any drug (health promotion could come from here too). Most government do this for cigarettes and alcohol but they don't put it into a separate fund for this purpose.

This means it doesn't affect me, and idiots can do what they want
I wholeheartedly agree with this. In the same vein I am a supporter of different taxes on different products. Alchohol, tobacco, sugar and similarly harmful substances should be taxed heavily enough to pay for a lot of the healthproblems involved. While healthy products, fruit/vegetables should enjoy tax benefits. That way promoting healthy living, while not actually forbidding people from eating a chocolate or drinking a soda if they really want to.

That said, decriminalizing drugs would be a huge help. Imagine, all the resources police spend on petty criminals, small sales of MJ, arresting addicts that are stealing to cover their use, investigating drug rings, not to mention imprisonment of all these people...all those resources could be used for rehabilitation/detoxification.