[lbo-talk] drugs & deaths

[Daniel Davies]

Lots of back 'n' forth on this one; what I don't understand, though, is the
implicit assumption (Michael D appears to be making this a lot, but he's not
the only one) that if opiates and other drugs are "only" dangerous to health
because of the prevailing social and economic conditions then they are in some
way not "really" dangerous; that only things which are actually poisonous are
properly dangerous.

The social conditions we have are the social conditions we have, and they don't
really look like changing particularly fast.  If something's dangerous to
Americans in the current American economy, then it's very dangerous to half a
billion people and that ought to be enough to be going on with.  

I suspect that it is probably "stoner propaganda" to assume that the mere
legalisation of currently illegal drugs would bring about enough of a social
and economic change to make dangerous drugs undangerous (and suspect that the
example of alcohol confirms this), but if something's dangerous in the here and
now, it's dangerous.  An unshielded nuclear reactor is only dangerous to
someone without the resources to buy lead underpants.

best
dd

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