Libertarians Say, "Legalize Heroin and Cocaine". I Disagree.

[Music]
hey Margaret what's up there's a huge difference between the icon that appears representing you and your actual appearance oh I think I think the change in my appearance is relatively subtle even over the last 10 years but some some people don't feel that way about me I got the the one of the first girls I dated but the girl I lost my virginity with she discovered me on YouTube so obviously she hadn't talked to me for four decades and when she knew me I not only had a head of hair but I also had a beard and she she really said when she first watched my videos she thought he's that the same guy is that the same guy and the only the only time she knew that she could confirm it was me when she heard me laughing she said he still laughed the way you did when you were 16 years old but everything else it's so you know [Laughter] do it well it's it's not a real super private question but it comes up in a lot of different contexts this scarf is a Cambodian scarf when I lived in Laos you know I've never like pretended have more in common with the cultures I study than I do like you know like given exam Crean a jib boy culture I'm not gonna pretend to you like like oh I'm so into hunting Buffalo or you know I mean any there are all kinds of that you know I was in particular example when I was studying created by culture I was invited to go to sweat lodges you know that kind of spiritual ceremony and to say look guys I wouldn't do it for the Catholics either you know what I mean like I remember I said once it was at a cabin a couple different situation but once I said if I was there it wouldn't be a real ceremony you know be a fake it's cuz you know because I'm not there for those reasons right but you know it's it's flattering you invited but one of the things I could participate in in Cambodian culture and lotion culture was the was the scarf thing and it is different in those two cultures so that's that's one part of it the other part of it is you know um I remember running into myself in a mirror in a mall about the year 2000 nad to recognize I'm a scary guy you know soon as you turn in a mall and there's a full line yes no it does like you turn the corner in a mall and there's a full-length mirror that you weren't expecting to be there and you're all of a sudden you're running yourself you go [ __ ] this guy's gonna kick my ass yes I think maybe you don't have this exact for home but I've always looked for ways to kind of make my look a bit more feminine without being effeminate that's a good way to let's go way to put it and I'm not gonna do I mean record of jewelry I'm not gonna wear necklaces and so on but I do think genuinely with a lot of my outfits putting on a scarf it softens the look a bit because you know without wanting to look menacing a lot of people do respond to me as menacing and yeah when you're in Southeast Asia where you're double the body mass of most of the people around you that there might be more of an issue or China for that matter but honestly honestly you know it's more of an issue in Canada people who are real fraidy-cats people who are really the average cambodian probably looks at me and thinks the five of us can kick his ass doesn't matter if he's a bit there's five of us there's only one of him they're not they're not that into me but you know but you know what so these issues do it's not it's not just height it's its intensity you know anyway III make a certain kind of impression on people and I think you've talked about that too though you've talked about well okay in in gender terms you talked about not wanting to be perceived as [ __ ] and the I've seen you talk about in some kind of email back and forth at some point you know the issue of what is the culture of being nice or what is the culture of being perceived as a [ __ ] if you're a woman or maybe an [ __ ] was a man or being demanding or being intimidating and those things so I know I'm sorry I'm from a somewhat different you know from a gendered perspective we're probably fistfights are not the main the main issue I think that's that stuff you handle too but yeah you know it does relate to one of the topics we're going to talk about the because it's true I mean I'm someone who's a demanding person I'm someone who's very open about you know like right now I'm dealing with the University and I'm open about the demands I'm expecting the university to live up to and so on it's like look and you can you do this for me or not and so on and that's it stuff me it's whether you're a man I want me to come across that way and negotiate those things and you don't want to seem [ __ ] and you don't want to seem like a pushover and you want to balance those things and I think about all the time you have you have kids I have kid singular and exactly these kinds of issues I mean I would not describe myself as a perfectionist I think I'm a very sloppy impressionistic sort of person but you know I do have all kinds of moral standards I expect the people in my life to live up to um you know but to give to you a really simple example so when I first got together with my my first wife who's now my my ex-wife you know um she smoked cigarettes I'd say once in a while she wasn't a heavy smoker or something and as soon as she got me she didn't even discuss with me she just knew like this was not gonna be portable some people would say that that makes me a jerk but part of it is you know and she didn't drink heavily or anything but before she got with me my first was she did drink alcohol you know to some extent on occasion socially and you know I don't remember us even debating it or whatever you know she really saw who I was and how I lived and she wanted to be part of my life and so on and she knew that like either alcohol was gonna disappear completely from her life or was gonna be something she drank once a year or something so you know those things now I mean that's people who love each other and want to spend time together the thing is about modern Western society is that it's composed of millions of people who who don't love each other and don't want to spend time together but we don't have a choice we're all struggling to survive on the mean streets of Calgary Alberta no so you're you made a video this morning yeah then that I didn't enjoy very much what you made about intersectional people and tradition and everything like that I was watching it and thinking um it did reflect a lot of the area's we do have more in common right and one of the reasons that I really respect your channel and enjoy your channel the other video that you made about Cory McCarthy what era McCarthy also those are things that we really share so I think that that this is an interesting discussion not just because we're gonna disagree about things but also be growing agree about it I think more than well I can't say that for certain but we agree about some very important things we probably disagree about some very important things as well and I really enjoyed that video because you were talking about how a lot of people find veganism privileged there was actually a report out from Greenpeace today you probably saw it Greenpeace is now saying we do actually need to address animal agriculture but that's kind of a first for them and greater argument all along has been that veganism is too hard for people right that it is not um that it is not a value that can easily be shared by people who are struggling in the developing world and things like that and their families their founders were their founders were East Coast fishermen types you know those guys also did you try to they try to pretend that they are very appealing I think that's questionable but but I did think that was interesting but they really made that that argument for so long I'm moving away from me now I think because they have to but yes but yeah it is a very common argument any one that I don't tend to find terribly convincing and I don't think you do either well Osho is it you were saying it's cuz they were wanting to maybe get down with that proletarian mass culture but the the founders they were pretty proletarian guys they were uneducated blue-collar guys who had worked on fishing boats on the East Coast so they were I think they weren't faking being proletarian they I think those guys were met and spoke to one of them one of the founders of Greenpeace memorable conversation at the foot of the CN tower while members of Greenpeace were climbing the side of the CN tower and hanging a hanging a poster on it but that was actually after he the founder was exiled from Greenpeace which is a typical the left-wing thing there was a struggle to take over the leadership you know that usual story but look you you've said in the past too that you deal much more with the sort of stereotypical social justice warrior category of person with a you know virtue signaling and these things I was searching my own channel I don't think the term sjw's ever been in the title or description on one of my videos before just just give an example yeah it hasn't been as much of what I've had to deal with it as what you've had to deal with it online I think I think yeah I mean I think part of that stew because I love comments my channel and you don't so you might do hearing more those people if you've got people who weren't you know supporters I am I have open email all the time people talk to me I do open live streams you know chatting live chat and take off with several videos just uploading now from that and then also ahead did I mean I did over a year with comments on on the channel you know while it wasn't conveying because that time I didn't have a job and I did have time to run it so there's been a lot of opportunity but maybe I think there were other there were other factors there for why I mean maybe they approached someone like you either because they expect you to sympathize with them or because they think they can win I'm a social justice warrior I've had from people like Charles and then I and then I have other people who think that I am not nearly enough of that sort of person I think social justice important I mean you think social justice is important too I think we consider that very significant right it's one of those things I don't know if I've said it exactly this way in a video but you know when people talk about effective activism the actual phrase effective activism would you want ineffective activism I mean it seems like something nobody can object to but then when you find out what it really means what's behind the mask of this term mean likewise who who doesn't want social justice I mean it's it's a you know it's intersectional because inappropriately applied to white people anyway um but I think that it's you know obviously we all want to look for ways that we can work together and I think that's really all that intersection is like yes we have intersections of our own values so that's that's the kind of work that I think is helpful I think a lot of it is not helpful though and and it's interesting I think when it comes to the political spectrum if I was going to make a statement about the differences between us I would say that we both probably fall fairly similarly lined up on the Left if we're looking at authoritarian libertarian perspective I think that we are probably around the middle somewhere were maybe slightly to the left and I would say that you're definitely lean more towards authoritarianism in terms of values and things that I do leaning more Vegas towards libertarianism although I think we would both fit in with a democratic context we both I think we both support liberal democracy I I definitely um so I've never I've never heard you associate with the word libertarian before and it means different these different peoples and it's guys can open in a question can you give me an example you not drug posts any other example of a libertarian policy you know that you support or that for you evokes wild libertarianism is important to you or some of that broad spectrum but the thing that would probably land me more there not just the drug policy everything related to personal liberty and things I think it's quite important to me I you know and proponent of that and also when it comes to economics and things like that I think I'm actually a little bit more on the liberal in terms of libertarians so we don't get confused with left and right but I think I'm a little bit more that way as well to give an example I assume you do not object to the fact that currently there are taxes on cigarettes that intentionally discourage people from from smoking cigarettes a pure libertarian I think would objective that again I you I definitely know that you are very big fan of taxes to discourage certainly it's okay I mean I I'm not I don't think that they should be a punishing if they are I think there's other ways to discourage people from smoking cigarettes so no I'm not a huge fan of punitive taxes on most things including you know cigarettes drugs alcohol but I mean as vegans we rely on government regulations to give you an example you know in Germany they're very good government regulations just for labeling food so I can see right away whether it's whether it's vegan or not but this is you know government meddling in the free market so to speak and you know I love it I prefer the you know the German system in Taiwan also the government really strictly defines what is and isn't vegan and if food is labeled as vegan then in the factory the factory has to meet up to certain conditions so that the food is truly vegan that's I mean these are just examples of government regulations that directly pertain to vegans involved where broth broadly speaking I mean anything can be done badly but broadly speaking I'm optimistic about all that stuff like great you know we got labeling regulations nothing I think that it's fine I support democracy in the definitions votes decides that they want to put labels on things then they have the right to have the government do that sort of thing I talked to my channel before one thing that I disagree with a lot of lip with libertarians about is the raw milk thing we talked about I talked about that um I do think though that adults if adults want to drink it and kill themselves whatever I mean to me that's totally their choice I do think I think and a lot of people who identify more with that libertarian perspective would also agree that when it comes to children and when it comes to the kind of impact that you're having on other people like the whole you know idea that you know my right to swing my fist and the tip of your nose so I do I do think there has to be some some holding back on on your personal ride we can just be a free-for-all for example speed limits and I assume you generally favor speed limits or would you prefer if I mean it's a real interesting hypothetical how different would society be if there were no speed limits really okay so that's it was okay okay that's a cop between the years 1965 and 1985 when there were no robots would you prefer what that issue a voting comes up really on my channel becomes sadly it comes in very rarely in real life so I'll mention this briefly either I will have a book review coming up it's a book written by one of my professor that I know face-to-face here and the books thesis which is depressing but possibly true is that we're living in an era when democracy matters less and less no I I don't want to believe that the professor also doesn't want to believe that but he's talking about the mechanisms for why he sees that to be the case um but you know it's funny to just hear you say repeatedly well if people vote on this that they wanted what was the last time people voted on anything now if you live in some parts the United States it's always an irony in some pristine estates you do have a local referendum on do you want to build a bridge do you want to raise the fares on the local speed train like sums they do have specific referendums for all goods in Canada we really don't in Canada we only have a referendum when it's about abortion or whether or not Quebec should be a separate country and that's about it we don't have a lot of referendums at in Canada but you know when was the last time direct democracy mattered in any society of and following I just say it is it is very rarely within my lifetime I don't I wish I wish I could say that too but I don't feel democracy gives us an easy answer all these things yeah going I think it would like this is totally less than you think this is really important I've been talking to people a lot lately about the Second Amendment in the US and I feel that a lot of people vastly misinterpret the Second Amendment like your right to bear arms to me defending yourself in the 21st century has so much more to do with your Liberty online your ability to be yourself your ability to have a VPN to to be able to engage in direct the rock closely that way I'd like to be able to directly be able to defend yourself and defend your your freedom of speech and everything else like that I think that's way more important that's something I can get behind a lot more than you know assault rifles for everyone I think it's much more important to be able to have that ability to express yourself and and to protect yourself also from from unwanted invasion of privacy and things like that I think that's a bigger issue and I would like to see more people get behind that because like you say we may not be directly voting and things like that in this day and age but we could all have more of a role in everything we do if we took our online privacy and are on ability to defend ourselves a lot more seriously so that's just a strange thought I but now they shortly put it what one one issue I'll bring it up here under the heading of economies from talking about things we have in common and ways in which we're different I actually I have a list of videos I'm supposed to make and I've had this on the list since the last time we spoke which was on Google Hangouts not Skype but not that long ago a couple months ago and I've had a very eventful busy months since then and you know this is one of the videos you have a kind of technological optimism I would say after this I'll specify more what I mean in just a second that I lack and I just say partly now my lack of technological optimism you could say is linked to actually my having kind of philosophical optimism I do feel optimistic that the same fundamental issues I'm looking at when I read Socrates still matter today when I'm reading ancient Buddhist philosophy still matter today and when I'm in a very primitive and technologically backward part of northern Laos in small remote villages and you know believe me those villages now one by one are coming onto the internet you know in just 10 years the internet literally penetrates the jungle but but be that as it may I don't actually see a stark difference you know most of these issues we talk about obviously you know dating has changed tremendously and that is a real example I met my girlfriend because the inner there are things that have been transformed by the internet but I'm in that sense technologically pessimistic and and philosophically optimistic I see a lot of continuity and a lot of these issues is being fundamentally rooted in ancient and unchanging challenges for human nature so the last time we talked and I've had it on my list but it was supposed to make a video about this and I never at time um you are very optimistic that you know basically for example the development of soy milk I think that's one of your strongest examples look already today soy milk and other sources of protein like soy milk are better than and cheaper than cow's milk of course they have way better ecological impacts you can measure their efficiency in many different ways but efficiency includes what are called economic externalities like water pollution it doesn't just include the price to the consumer but measured in every way including price to consumer soy milk really is better than cow milk and that in this way likewise we should see a cascading effect throughout the free market I think you would say without government intervention or with very little government intervention of a kind of pseudo veganism or or reluctant reduce at arianism sweeping the nation as those technological placements happen and I countered that by just using some examples I said look I think it's true there are some examples that favor your your analysis your leaning but I see I see examples to the contrary also just like the enormous profit to be had by simply taking a lobster cage throwing in the ocean and getting a lobster and I think it's fair to say I mean yes you can make a robot Lobster but there's a very real sense in which you know there is no soy milk equivalent for for lobster and perhaps there never will be I think maybe that's fair to say maybe not and also just in terms the profitability that action throwing at a lobster cage and then reeling it back in a few a few hours later with Lobster in it it has none of those complexities of you know running a factory farm you know you don't you don't buy food for the lobster you don't provide it with shelter you don't you know the person doing the fishing won't feel they're polluting the water they may in reality be oh you know so I just point out there are some examples that challenge that and for me again plug me into a more kind of ancient continuing these problems and not so much a technological optimistic way of looking forward anything with that I guess I would say also no matter how cheap a supply is you need to have the demand and if you have foods that people prefer yes people prefer they say you know I preferred New Wave foods Lobster over over traditional lobster it tastes less fishy or whatever like who knows and people can produce something better than I think that's a problem that will be solved by the market right I would say that there's there's certainly a high potential there and there's also as we move gradually and I guess I am I am very optimistic about the future of humanity of society and I and I do see us moving away from violence and towards a better world and I think that the social pressure to stop a document behaviors is going to increase it we see already you know videos from PETA online for example where they show you know live lobsters being involved on lobsters usually like octopus and things like that being eaten by people you know in in the Far East somewhere and they'll say oh isn't this disgusting missus so you know and and whether or not that's hypocritical which we might not agree that it's it's totally fair to pick on people in Asia for eating living animals um it's something that raises a lot of disgust in the Western world that maybe as I said maybe you buried it's a critical but it is a sign of a changing view of things we tend to view punishments that were considered de rigueur in the 18th century to be completely a bomb today and and I think that that's changing about our abuse towards animals so I don't think it's just going to be the economic factors I think there's also the demand I mean it is reka na mcbutter Sall so the demand issues so that's my my response to that in terms of why I'm still optimistic in spite of examples so this is actually an interesting bridge of several topics I think one disgusting I'm interesting here you say that because I think well you are speaking positively of there apart Li you can gloss it as cultural change but partly it is also shame you know that people should right people should people should feel ashamed to wear a fur for example you know which again come has come about in some cultures not others and in some cultures it's come and gone something just hit a peak around 1988 where everyone was ashamed to wear fur and then for me to come back in the 90s I mean you know it comes and goes but I think one of the differences between myself and the younger generation people say 20 years younger than me am i that old yeah um is that I do in that sense regard shame positively you know there's an old phrase in Latin shame as the mother of wisdom I don't know if anyone coined it or that's you know probably the Catholic Church coin you know yeah I don't know if she's one of those families that has no there's no particular author but you know um I don't you know I'm actually quite comfortable with shame being a part of the vegan movement and you know shame being you've heard me say this on the channel in different contexts one of the reasons why people don't smoke cigarettes is because they don't want to be the kind of person who smokes cigarettes you know the perception of if some guy comes over and he's dating my daughter and my first impression of him as I see him smoking cigarettes in front of my door before he comes in you know smokers often have to do that before they go notice that you know there there is stigma and there is shame and I I'm willing to regard that in that sense you know analytically positively as part of I don't think unless they are harming someone else and you know we decide as a society that is harming someone else hurt lobster that's that's that but um but if you don't feel shame and everyone else does feel shame right I don't think that that I don't think that that's a reason for you to cease your activity you have that ability as a private person and I think that's where we would really differ I it's not that I deny that shame exists are they useful there's some utility to shame I'm not gonna deny that there's really utility to it however just because you don't feel shame doesn't mean you must comply with the prevailing society you don't need to what everyone else is doing just because you don't feel ashamed by something that shames everybody so I'm not really sure what you think the difference is there cuz you said that's that's something where we differ I mean that's the issue that we've been kind of disagreeing with each other about and and I didn't even save early disagreeing I think it's more just that we have a we just have different viewpoints on it but when it comes to drug use I know that you tend to see drug use as a social evil you do believe people should feel ashamed of drug use you do we feel that drug use should be banned which is a little bit different and goes an extra step beyond you know just having people be ashamed of you know cigarette smoking or something like that you think that it should be enforced by the prevailing society that that social norm should be enforced through legislation and I do not mmm okay so where do you think the difference lies in terms of our attitudes towards shame because I think what you actually said was that if someone doesn't feel ashamed then in effect the the consequences of the shame are not incumbent upon them somewhere so I just wasn't sure what was more like we say you know some any action that doesn't hurt other people or doesn't hurt them enough to justify banning it legally you shouldn't have to just go along to get along I think you can okay well I'll tell you this does I mean look there's a difference between descriptive statements and prescriptive statements um what I'm talking with you with Shane is really descriptive it's the way the world actually is not not the way the world ought to be but right now cigarettes are illegal in Canada and every I don't know if there is a country where nicotine is illegal but maybe there is one but you know if you are a medical doctor and you still smoke cigarettes you know you're literally going out into the waiting room or something or your patients see you okay normally here look I'm just going out to here right I see doctors smoking cigarettes a few steps in front of there in front of our offices where the patient's see them okay and they're saying we're going to list of where you're actually smoking my point was you're stepping outside of your office to smoke and stepping back in whether that's in a smoking lounge or a lobby or outdoors anyway so regardless in different places sometimes you can does it into smoking lounge zones you can my point is yes I do think a doctor should feel ashamed of that now should a doctor feel more or less ashamed than another person from descriptives to Chris practice I certainly don't think he should lose his job just because were monks right but but we're not really talking about him losing his job and I think we're talking about the culture of shame and and pressure being on people you know I mean that's I think that you know so you know in that sense I do think the effects of shame or whatever they do impact people they are incumbent upon people they do they do put an onus on people who don't subscribe to them you know you may have a medical doctor I've met some people like this who says oh well I read Friedrich Nietzsche and I don't believe in any of your social values so I can still smoke cigarettes or even I can smoke pot or even can use coke pain and still be a medical doctor and all you people can can you know hang for all I care it hope that maybe his personal attitude but nevertheless I think there will be a very real culture of shame and habla P that that cultivates our and again I not saying my situation where someone could be simply fired most medical doctors whose gonna fire you but this guy's gonna have a reputation is gonna be odium there's gonna be judgment and there are going to be consequences oh okay well alright so let's talk a little bit about harm I mean you know your philosophy as you stated sir I just want to say as a note we have talked about this by email before on most of my discussions people I do know crap by email you know if we just say okay let's meet at this time sorry but I have no idea where the stand well I would point out to you during our email conversation I really found out what your position on on drug legalization was I didn't know that at the beginning so I mean it was it was genuine learning on on my part and I think that's true on your part at least partly I think at least you responded to me with assumptions about both both what I believed and why I believed it that are really not true and that's understandable okay so maybe so maybe you haven't um found that out yet but I thought I you know and and from my perspective I I genuinely didn't know what your position was and from my perspective you were saying a lot of contradictory things some of the may may may still be contradictory but look if you so I've mentioned this example in the gym before in some countries it is legal to drink alcohol openly in a public park and in some it's it's a crime and it's a very commonly enforced crime that no you don't have the ability to drink you don't have the the civil right to drink alcohol in a park but if we believe that people do have that civil right if we're living in one of the countries in Europe most of those I know of where people are allowed to get drunk sitting on a park bench or having a picnic or what have you then everyone has the right then you know your medical doctor can go and get drunk in the park and I don't know a factory worker can do it and your own son or daughter can do it and you have to recognize okay this is this is their their civil right so I mean I do start from the the fundamental perspective that you know this if we're really talking about questions of rights and consequences it has to be equal for all humanity unless there's some really strange reason those are going to desert island scenarios or what-have-you um you know there's reasons why their employers oh well you see I guess I'm really reluctant to even separate humanity into into two classes that way you you've said for example in email they do you think it's quite possible for someone to be a highly effective person you know to hold down their job pay the rent and live a good life while using cocaine more than once a week should we say yes okay so is that possible for a police officer to do vasa for their employer you know and that would be in the case of the state to decide us if that's something they can do um you know I obviously made my employer I I don't believe I don't believe there are two classes of humanity one to whom those standards apply and when it doesn't apply if I believe that's you know incumbent on a police officer for his role then I think it's I think that's a moral rule for myself and for my daughter and for my brothers and everyone else so you know and conversely but you know with a police officer this isn't really a regular employer you know I think it is yeah right you know this is this is a role in terms of the type of alertness and he's a really mental quality story mode some people can't be a police officer because they're disabled they're in a wheelchair yes some people or disqualified there are two different there are many different classes of people for all jobs so we can't say that our rules for society have to be equal I think the ethical rules for our society do have to be the same for everyone in society that that really is my point here I don't look at the world in terms of oh you people it's okay for you people to get stoned and waste your time and waste your brain cells and give yourself brain damage it doesn't that's fine for you but for someone like an airline pilot or a police officer or a medical doctor Oh for those quality people then these higher expectations like I really don't regard society that way to you know have certain certain degrees etc like what exactly so you're saying there's the moral difference it's more dirty for you that is the distinguishing factor between but there should never be a distinguishing factor for people so so the moral qualifications for being a street sweeper should be the same as a lawyer children I'm saying that when up when we're talking within the province of ethical judgments that they apply to all of the society we're talking about equally politics is very much the opposite of that so for example if the ethical judge more talking it is it's irresponsible to use cocaine multiple times per week and then to make important decisions what's the force of cocaine such as being a police officer in your duties you know and again we're not talking about being high while on the job here talking about a theoretical police officer I guess see when it's down time is is using cocaine but you and I both know and we're not X we're not were assuming the audience has some knowledge also we're implicitly assuming here that using cocaine multiple times a week has quite a few different knock-on effects in your life and brings with it certain dangers including the danger of it escalating to being multiple times a day being a being a note addiction so you know that danger being there we recognize I think is irresponsible for a police officer so you so you do think it's okay for a police officer to use cocaine multiplies because I do know people who are able to do very serious jobs that require a lot of work you know all those sorts of things no I so kidding look again much less in flames are examples getting drunk in the park hmm it may be uncomfortable for me to see my own schoolteacher or my own school principal getting drunk in the park but you know genuinely the last time I was in London that was still on the books there you could and it's possible you're walking through the park and there's your school principal your teacher can you drunk it is possible a police officer when he's off duty is putting on a picnic blanket or sitting on a park bench and drinking whiskey if that's a civil right if that's ethically acceptable then it's then it's acceptable for everyone well of course me in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime where they were killing people and according to the law or under Lenin Lenin's dictatorship of the Revolution there are situations in which the law is totally immoral however for the purposes of this conversation I think what we're talking about is exactly the overlap of if you like legislation of morality or public policy Murli I think I just say I think this conversation would be it would be banal if I were to separate them and say well you know the court system being completely corrupt there's no point in discussing that let's only discuss the the ethical rules we follow in our own lives voluntarily I mean but in part I am discussing the ladder I am discussing whether or not I mean look you know Socrates the unexamined life is not worth living I mean what it does but does right now this is descriptive but you know my point is again with some societies it is allowed for you to be in a park drink alcohol and for some it's not but if it is allowed it's allowed for everyone I can't accept that I live in a society there's two classes of human beings and we say some people are the sort of people who drink from alcohol in the park and some are not and we're gonna legislate that so you see why I mean I am talking about exactly the overlap of of ethics and and legislation now you know why is it I mean you know why would you accept that some people can because you have sorry you have stated an email you support cocaine being entirely legal and currently in Colombia cocaine for personal use up to a certain number of grams is legal so it's not a crime and Colombia to have cocaine personal use and you know I mean it comes back to the culture of shame and acceptance that creates a culture in which it is accepted for people to to use to use cocaine it's wrong they may think that it's wrong but they don't feel that it's worth the Greater wrong using the violence of the state in order to prevent people from being able to live their lives as they see fit right here here in Canada right now we use the violence of the state to prevent people from drinking alcohol in public parks it's not terribly violent we use the balance of the state to prevent people speeding in their cars on highways I mean this is the description of study as it actually exists and we use the balance of the states to discourage people from from using cocaine so I take it in a society like Colombia cocaine use is legal you still would not want police officers using cocaine although it's actually their civil right although they they can do so well I you know are they are they currently working things like that just as you had with whether you know if someone who's drinking alcohol how long has it been you know that kind of thing I think that it it's just had more to do with their personal choice when they are not working but okay so so you're fine with police officers using cocaine multiple times per week I think that's something the people of Colombia need to decide but I we're talking about Canada okay let's let's talk about let's talk about Canada you think Canada should have the same laws Columbia has so in Canada where we on this specific issue you think that Canada like Columbia should make it legal for people to use cocaine so if it's legal for people if it's a civil right then it's legal for police officers to use cocaine II multiples a week with oil industry around here at least and with the legalization the impending legalization of marijuana in Canada there is a lot of question about people who work in the oil industry should they be allowed to use marijuana on their personal time and I think overwhelmingly people think that that's probably a good idea to allow them to have the same uses everyone else just kind of like we're talking about but um but then there are questions like you know when they're on the job how do we determine whether they have been consuming too close to the time that they are working and things like that I think those are important questions if we're just trying to find out those those things as with any other drug that inhibits your ability to work for example for myself I can't take any girl I think benadryl I'm out like I can't operate machinery if I had a benadryl at all any time any kind of what are those calls of you know eyelid communication things like that like they really really affect me um so I have to avoid things like that if I'm going to be doing anything and I think it's the same as those we need to define but we also have to understand as you really think you really think that benadryl is similar to cocaine in terms of the effects that it has on the ability to I mean it depends look if we're talking about sin who uses a substance regularly I would say for me I mean like it just depends on the individual um but I would say I show it has similar effects to you know prescription opiate I think it depends on the person though it's very like I'm saying spell argument I'm it's still I'm responsible for my behavior on benadryl it's not the benadryl that's the problem like I'm obviously responsible for my own behavior the same is true of someone who is working in that kind of situation as well it's up to their employer to make those decisions to whether they want to pay them to work when they need so you really think I mean look I do think it's an insincere argument to pretend that benadryl was in any way carpel to again I do think that if you're interrogated by a police officer if you hopefully saw officer investigating a crime in your life you actually really want the assurance that that police officer is not a drug addict and it's not a regular user of a serious drug like cocaine or heroin I think you very much want that I think in reality what you're talking about offloading the responsibility it sounds like states rights arguments I mean saying like okay well the government won't decide what drugs you can and can't use we'll just offload that on to employers well you know the the kind of conflict that that creates in society so now it's gonna be up to do you really want it to be your boss who's scrutinizing your sobriety do you really want it to be the construction company or the factory owner or indeed even your boss on the police force and so yeah I think that in most of those cases that's working out by the free market like hey people are going to learn to work for someone who is has unreasonable demands it really alright look and it's not enough for you not to do drugs or of any and that's today there's a lot of people who work for example import memory and they cannot drink any alcohol when they're working at all they live in camps we're not talking about when they're working and we're talking about whether or not you you sincerely believe that a police officer can use cocaine multiple times per week I'm just arguable cooking I mean cocaine and heroin in Horry no no no I think cocaine and heroin that we both know I just said they're not the same as benadryl I think that's a this is insincere response I think people who are regular users of some of those substances for example people who take ADHD medications like ritalin and things like that those are the same as methamphetamines they are methamphetamines and people who take them for their for the conditions that they have they they function just fine like for someone who does suffer from those diseases they function perfectly normally I wouldn't you wouldn't but they function normally when they are properly medicated I mean I I doubt that there's such a use case for cocaine when I'm just trying to I doubt that also that's why I wonder why you're raising it answers do i I'm not qualified to make the answer to that question but I think that we need to think about it you're not qualified to answer the question of whether or not a police officer investigating a crime and interrogating you should be sober or should be the kind of person or should be the kind of person who uses cocaine multiple times per week so we're both grown adults sorry I don't know your exact age ma'am we're not we're not teenagers I think you know very well the knock on problems in your life as a whole that cocaine use causes I mean to talk about a hangover is our problem okay for the police officer for a person you think my life lack candy cocaine this is what we're discussing we're talking about a theoretical situation in which we passed the legislation you've approved of in Colombia for the future of Canada in which officer can use cocaine multiple times and you don't but we're not talking about back pain medicine we're talking about do you know any human being who could use cocaine multiple times per week and you know you build up Thomas - okay and then you use more it's a downward spiral cocaine has amazing knock-on effects the next morning I assume you know sir you've seen it you've at least seen friends stronger dunk okay I'm sure you have some recognition and old and the type of social circle that brings you into and everything else the kind of bad financial decisions makes you like most rock stars recording artists they talk about the fact that they didn't go grope because cocaine was expensive but when they're high on cocaine they make terrible decisions and they end up losing millions of dollars you know cocaine leads to irrational poor decision-making in your whole life is at least as all these knock-on effects and you're you're really gonna sit here and sustain the argument that you can you can be a police officer or that you you as a citizen will accept having police officers using cocaine multiple times a week as as a civil right I don't think my position here is like Socrates in that in a classical Socratic dialogue you know Socrates's position is not I disagree with you but I really believe you disagree with you I think you've been turning your you've been performing acrobatics to try to avoid in bidding that no this is not desirable no this is not acceptable that no it makes sense to have a rule that's that shows no the type of responsibility contain irregularly their entire lives you know they do it do it two times in one week and never again for five years so those are the kind of things where I I think it would make sense for a police department to make the decision that we don't want our employees to use these particular drugs absolutely so what why why what but that is a carpet why is it the employers choice why do I want my employer you know in the past me gay rights went the other way it used to be that employers would say okay we're not gonna accept you we're not gonna accept schoolteachers if they're homosexual the employers used to be able make all these distinctions and general this has been a big movement saying no the government is taking those decision powers away from employers we don't want your employer scrutinizing your sex life or your alcohol life or anything else that was taken away even from Hollywood Hollywood lost the right to fire people because they were drunk when they were on set it's very interesting legal precedent um you know that that was taken away and the government creates objective standards shared by everyone for basically a human resources departments operate and these kinds of things uh why would the world be a better place if you hand over to employers disability and if you think it is morally possible but your case still is and you stop seem to be saying but we're also diagnosed pilots you've already you've already admitted that pilots also can't use cocaine and flying airplane I mean that's but for some reason you think it's ethical for the employer to enforce that policy as blood and not for the government why why is that better why okay what so you think it's fine if a private business wants to allow its pilots to use cocaine so of course it so you've just said of course it's okay for an airline to decide to allow its pilots to use cocaine multiplied as weak for you as a customer except that you'd accept you'd accept how would you know you don't have the ability you don't have the ability to interrogate the the airline pilot for you in the plane you don't have the ability to Terry the police officer really this is why the government creates and enforces laws is because you and I don't have the power to screw it as a police officer say no you know what this police officer seems to me like a cokehead could you give me another please I've said I don't get that choice I am interrogated by you I don't get to get on the plane I don't get to get on the plane and I do not get to give but what's what's silly about it NSC the reason why we have the government creating and enforcing laws but this is this is for this is for public safety and this is for public benefit so in in Colombia who voted to make cocaine legal no it was a court judgment it wasn't democratically it was a Supreme Court judgment in Colombia okay so Japan right now what percentage do Canadian public do you think would legalize heroin and cocaine which is your position know much about the issues but I but I agree it would be a very small percentage okay so you know the issue of government regulation providing protection for me against the possibility of a police officer being a drug addict against the possibility of a pilot being a drug addict I see that as unambiguously positive and I see it as more ethically positive for the state for the government to play that role than for a private company I see nothing morally positive about I would say the opposite I don't really want Bill Gates and Microsoft or say the owner of Starbucks saying hey you know what we're gonna start drug testing people we're gonna create our own morality police we're gonna start intervenes things I think that is a role for the government and I think it's crucial to my privacy and my freedom talk about libertarianism that my employee you know duly elected representatives of people making decisions about these things okay so look I do think these kinds discussions have to have stakes involved like you know they're not really I've known people whose lives have been destroyed by drug use and I've known people who perceive themselves as if their lives were not destroyed by drug use when in my opinion they were and if not destroyed their lives were at least seriously dented they may not see it the way they may think they're having a great time using cocaine or using heroin or using whatever combination of drugs is they're into but yes my judgment is I look at them from the outside and say jeez you could have done more with your life you could've done better if if drugs were not a part of it um I mean it's interesting I didn't think this is conversation good we'll just based on our primary mail no uh well you know because you it seemed to me that you were really against there being any shame or stigma attached to drug use and now you say the opposite uh sorry it's the opposite to my expectations from the prior email I think it's totally appropriate I mean no I have a million brothers but several of my brothers I'm trying to ban people from disadvantaged people okay well in terms of where this conversation started I thought exactly what you objected to was someone like myself mm-hmm in effect judging drug addicts having a judgmental attitude towards druggist you came out and you I think argued that drug addicts should be regarded as kind of passive victims and not in this case in sense regarded with shame and service no you're making a decision you're making a bad decision well I'll just say I do regard my own brothers that way I'm you know it's not as if someone is close to me I regard if anything I'm more judgmental because I know more about them I know more about the opportunities they had or the opportunity they squandered and I see the drug use in that context the thing to know about their lives but I don't you know I don't really in a sense judge a homeless person who I just happened to pass in the street nor a millionaire drug addict who might happen to pass down at the Millionaire's Club or something who were destroying their drugs they're destroying their lives with drug use because I just don't know that much about them however I just stated that you thought that it was better situation in you nan but in Canada you didn't like seeing drug addicts on the street and things like that but it was you found that very tasteful when I responded that it was because one of the reasons you don't see him on the street and because they do have very draconian drug Brahe and you basically said in the news filling 50 Canadians a year in order to eliminate the appearance of drug addicts on the street that is a false summation of argument but I can see why why you why you took it that way I was basically just questioning the significance of the number 2000 mod vegan presented this number that said well China has executed about 2,000 people per year by the way that's a dramatic decline they had a peak of 12,000 per year and I pointed in response well it's 2,000 people being executed this is for all crimes combined not just for drug offenses and China's population is so enormous if you compare that to the population of Canada that would be the equivalent of Canada executing 50 people here so my point was just this is not tremendous now you know you know it's fine but no there are other moral judgments involved here but that that's that's not one of them um you're in a tiny tiny minority people who support the positions you and you you've you've conceded that um in the minority with you is Milton Friedman so I don't if you know that okay Milton Friedman he this is almost a direct quote but it's like paraphrase he said if people want to kill themselves the government should just sit back and let them now I am I'm not only willing to concede I'm willing to very you know very much discuss and examine the disadvantages of the body-count that's produced by enforcing drug laws now there is a body count and this is one of the reasons why I mentioned speed limits repeatedly enforcing speed limits also as a body count having the cops pursue and stop someone who's speeding creates accidents creates a certain number of deaths per year that would not happen if the cops chose to ignore them and in some jurisdictions around the world they actually have laws to that effect or if they're speeding over a certain level the police are ordered not to pursue to avoid causing more accidents results in big my few words well we're no good to me that seems like an obvious decision like obviously we want to be careful about people driving recklessly but I do god I don't I don't actually that's why they did that on the Autobahn it's kind of a separate story but my point is look I am willing to discuss the body count of enforcing the law and forcing speed limits does create a body count I think the other side if there was someone in this conversation saying they prefer to live in a society with no speed limits you've said you're you said you had mixed feelings on that maybe maybe maybe maybe not but if there was someone saying they'd rather live in a society with no speed limits they must be so I do not see Milton Friedman's position as compassionate I don't can see it as helping people I see it as a policy that will have both a significant body count ie people who overdose or people who just use drugs moderately until they die you know do kind of disappear and very gradually are killed because you know heroin especially people can use for 20 years and die very gradually but they're dead to the world long before that many was mentally they've destroyed themselves long before physically they wither away cocaine is relatively fast death um I I don't think I mean sorry this is my belief or my preferred policy I think that intervention benefits some of those people and I and I concede just like stopping people who are speeding in a car it kills some of them like I don't think let me just say this this is a concession to say I don't think you can justify enforcing speed limits as saving lives that would be too simple enforcing speed limits save some lives and it kills from people having absolutely no speed limits will also kill some people I think you have to concede and this is on a massive scale having both a culture and a legal system that is permissive towards drugs in exactly the sense legalizing cocaine legalizing heroin it will kill people it also has a price in blood people will die and people will have their lives destroyed ruined without actually dying significant numbers of people where a lot of that comes down to I think you're absolutely right when we look at deaths from drug overdoses around the world and things like that it's even very difficult to determine and I often see this is someone who was an advocate of drug legalization for all drugs I do think that when you look at the world if you look at the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy and things like that if you look at the statistics it's difficult to say if really addiction numbers are higher in countries that have draconian drug laws or in countries that don't like those examples like you have like China and things like that were people that we saw there's Russell countries that have very draconian policies like Iran but even Los Angeles or something you know I'm sorry where 14 percent of the adult population or drug addicts right so so you can have her yes that's true every about that I would say that I almost feel that in in my case I would see that the victim of the draconian drug policy is easy access to treatment and things like that because I do think it's a health issue it's a wellness issue it's not a crime issue um I think that that's something that has lost some you have policies but I also will concede I think in your case what you're saying what is lost is morality I think for you and without those more without if you if you legalize drugs you lose morality I think that's kinda what you're saying you don't like that Milton Friedman is not compassionate and perhaps he's not compassionate but he is giving people the right to make those decisions for themselves and he feels that that's more important that their rights to make decisions for them for themselves really supersede thing right of the government to interfere and make those decisions on an individual's behalf and I think that that is an important right that's sacrosanct right that does need to be protected but you're safe for you I'm sure wonderful visual Liberty it's it's the morality of living a world where I don't I don't believe my own brothers have the right to use cocaine or heroin and I do have some brothers if used both and and other drugs besides I don't think they should sorry I don't think they should boast publicly about it and they do I don't think they should feel comfortable I think they should feel ashamed of their past drug use or present drug use that my brothers are older than I am now so some of them have moved on I think living in a culture where shame and fear are attached to that kind of drug use again we're talking about cocaine and heroin here is in many ways appropriate given the nature and consequences of that that drug use for the for the person using themselves and for anyone surrounding them I mean the consequences of your father becoming a cocaine user for the child or unbelief of devastating we know this also with some of the oxycodone some of the painkiller having a parent of a child become a drug addict and what you're saying is we talk about a single mom or something with a mother who doesn't have a job you're you want to remove the role of any possible state agency and taking her and putting into a treatment center or indeed put her into prison so that you you want only you want only the the employer to enforce drug laws although strangely you want them to probably enforce the same standards I want but when I relate to a police officer I need the police or the police officer is in loco parentis mm-hmm I need that police officer to use his authority responsibly to protect me you're just using the word protection parallel yeah why would I accept the police officer using cocaine Melton times a week why would I accept a parent a mother or a father using cocaine I think both are acceptable for the same reason and I don't think we can have cheap glasses of humanity where we say okay parents and police parents and police can't use cocaine Miltonic and everyone else - or some other cause of people can that's a difference is if you're putting someone else in danger if the public police officer if we find if you have evidence that puts people in danger more than you know lipitor then obviously the government whatever I'll give you that but never make a law that the police officers cannot do those things well I understand I I Pro found Li believe that we're equal to police officers and that we are putting other people in danger I think that if I work on a construction site are you no no I mean no I'm fingers embark on diversity let me let me say my professors at University some of my professors have been drug users drug addiction exists amongst university professors and what happens with their authority which is not the authority to physically handcuff people but when professors misuse their authority as unbelievably devastating effects on the lives of their students and is sorry it's a good example no and and and the employer is not interested in enforcing those laws the employer is not interested in the employer is not interested in taking the students side it's not gonna be knit and so you and I probably both have known some examples of professors who were at least alcoholics if not into cocaine and other drugs did you say we're not gonna name names I know examples of that okay I you say you so you've now it sort of conceded a criterion here if it negatively impacts other people whom you have something powerful all of us have that kind of power whether it's me as a parent to my five-year-old daughter so she's turning five soon as does she not 5:00 yet as we're with this whether it's me as a parent to my five-year-old daughter birthday's coming up or it's a professor in his classroom or it's a construction worker and bleeding on construction sites on construction sites JA drugs are are a big issue you know but but but for me I think the unexamined life is not worth living for men for all of mankind I don't look I don't look at a construction worker as inferior it's a great question that's a great question but I've already got I've already got an answer Japan has already done it I don't have to point to some kind of hypothetical paradise scenario countries like Japan have already made heroine illegal and cocaine illegal and they've made some classes of addictive pain pills illegal too this is the University notes okay so that's that's that's a perfectly reasonable counter so that is that is a perfectly reasonable counter-argument but here's my can't argument that so like nicotine also you can argue causes cancer but nicotine and alcohol you know I'm also against sorry for anyone is new to the channel Nick I'm also against cigarettes and alcohol based artists babe could you bring me some water so I have no I have no water my girlfriend's in that kitchen all right oh this has been a discussion with that up without a break for for water if you're getting on an airplane and you see the pilot standing in front of the airplane before he goes in to fly it and he's just finished smoking a cigarette and he stubs out the cigarette mm-hmm that doesn't present the same problem for his competence to fly the airplane as if he's just snorted cocaine I would say without goal without oh no no no no but that is no with with alcohol I think it is possible to drink alcohol multiple times per week and still be a pilot I don't recommend it I think you'd have you know you can imagine what the problems are already I recommend everyone be sober but is it possible for a pilot to drink alcohol on Saturday and be hungover on Sunday and fly an airplane on money it's not only possible it's really happening all over the world pilots are doing that is it possible but by contrast is it possible for a pilot to have or a police officer or a parent to have that kind of habit with cocaine and heroin no I think there are there are significant differences here and that's why I think the people in Japan I don't think the Japanese are perfect believe me I've studied Japan formally new versus Japan has all kinds of political and social problems it's messed up hmm I'm not glorifying Japan but my point is you ask to taught you has to totally good questions first you asked okay well how do you decide what what drugs are leaking once you leave oh I say I already agree with the standard that's there in Japan you know so I don't want something impossible or unattainable and then to you asked well what is the difference between cocaine and heroin and alcohol and I added in cigarettes and I answered I think there really is a difference oh sorry go ahead go and speak I have one more example there are but there are not that many drugs that are worse than alcohol in terms of the effects that they have on people they are used the interesting thing is also when you talk about addiction addiction rates for alcohol are hired more people do become addicted to alcohol and it negatively affects their lives so and we've seen how bad a provision is being I do think that that you know we may want to make a rule that pilots shouldn't drink it all ever and maybe that would be something class of people which I am completely fine with that I know you or not but I I'm fine with having different rules for different people that's on but not a problem for me right I want all of us to be first-class citizens to be second that's it says I want to be I think it leads to exactly the situation where the police see the drug addicts on the street and the CEO that's ok for you people that's ok for those people that's what it that's the attitude of others nobody but we're talking about there's a legal problem and so look you used a couple of terms which are which are totally legitimate terms but they're not part of my approach this issue he talked about the amount of harm he talked about the propensity for addiction I was involved with I've been involved with a couple of museum projects this one I was just a little bit involved with the opium museum in northern Thailand I met the director and founder and planner of that museum and I asked him I had a series of questions for the interview and the final question was were there any exhibits from the museum that were censored the government didn't want you to have in about opium and he said yes one of them was a display he wanted to have kind of an octagonal room with a big portrait of the whole human body showing the nervous system and to show for each of the the drugs what the effects on the nervous system were so you know alcohol nicotine the legal drugs both the illegal drugs and of course it made heroin seem harmless because the effects you know listing the chart lists or the heroin seems harmless compared to these other drugs right my argument is not based on harm and it's not based on propensity for addiction it's based on responsibility it's based on decision making it's based on use of authority and that's why again I talk about a police officer I I don't accept no because for me it's ultimately just philosophical it's about a life that's not worth living okay to make is because we do have evidence I was just reading an article from the the national survey on drug use on health and they were talking about there are frequent users of cocaine so that's why I was yes yeah yeah bring it but there are frequent users of cocaine who are not addicted who go about their daily lives I have no more in my personal life and all right and as you say the cost does eventually become an issue however I would say I mean I'm just talking about people that I've known in Lawton in my own life people was even on the heroin I knew I knew what the University was an ROTC he drove across the border god I hope he's not watching anyway but he drove across the border and and did his RCTC training he was at school in Vancouver he would drive down Seattle and and do a song just Bellingham across the board do his training he was addicted to heroin I would say I mean he might not say he was addicted but he was definitely a habitual user it was something that he did on a regular basis he used the drug regularly I suppose but it didn't interfere with his ability to be a straight-a student it didn't interfere with his ability to be on a student to be involved in a high level within academia at the University to be an outstanding students with ROTC he did very well apparently they did not do regular drug testing in those days but for your life right but for your own daughter that's not good enough as you if your own daughter is using heroin multiple times per week with all due respect that's that's counting out another he's a stellar crackhead that's what he is teacher he certainly didn't abuse his power I can only think of God maybe two people that knew about this buzz but if you helped him quit heroin would that be helping him I'm sane when I look at someone like him I've known also people who use cocaine habitually and until it became a financial issue most of them functioned very well and I while I don't necessarily think those people should become police officers I know police officers who have far greater problems with alcohol it does interfere with their ability to carry out their duties as you stay with your professor example and is long and drawn-out and painful as our argument was about cocaine that is why I stuck to my guns been on that probably shouldn't have but if you stayed in your position that it's acceptable for police officers to use cocaine multiple times per week you can retract it now if if your own daughter says to you in the future mom I use cocaine multiple times per week and it's not affecting me in any way don't worry it's not affecting my life in any way no I I would not even believe my daughter if she just told me dad I've started watching NFL football for ten hours a week a lot of people do that but it's not affecting my life in any way I wouldn't accept that argument for football and watching football doesn't cause brain damage yeah I assume you know about MRI scan and the real effect in the human brain of football that's not debatable either one of these things I would be concerned I would want to you know investigate treatment options and help her but do I think that she should be locked up making it illegal that making forcing her to get on her medication her her medication her these substances on the black market do I think that that would be a better thing for her anything for society I absolutely do not having people buy adulterated drugs that will kill them it's bad for crime it's bad for people as individuals and we see that in Switzerland there was a wonderful program that they've even done I think in Ontario recently where they're giving people on alcohol so this is just for alcohol in Canada they're doing it with heroin in Switzerland but they are doing it with alcohol in Canada for alcoholics everything the amount of alcohol that they need every week and not trying to get them off alcohol necessarily some people have gotten clean thanks to the program because they give them access to information and education um if they can improve their lives that they choose but if they don't they found the difference is none of these people are engaging we're not actually discussing not treatment and harm reduction methods you go to Columbia sometimes in the future in the future your daughter could go to Columbia again you've been to Columbia many times your daughter could go back at any time you have connections to Columbia and in Columbia using cocaine is legal what would be your moral basis for objecting right it's a civil right she can go and buy cocaine legally and apparently morally in Cambodia Seraph I mean in Columbia Cambodia a little slip there she can buy it and use it multiple times per week and you're gonna have to sit and eat this argument that you can still be a stellar student and do just great using hard drugs the reality the medical reality meanwhile the medical reality is that it causes brain damage it causes permanent burn just like huffing glue right but it's perfectly legal so what why is it not okay why is it not okay for your daughter to use cocaine in Columbia multiple times per week but it is okay for everyone else what's the difference between making something illegal whether I'm saying it I want to see people get off of drugs it's not that I think they should be taking drugs that are harmful to them I just think that we need to not so the position of Milton Friedman was if people want to kill themselves government the government should stand back and let it and you agreed but not with your own daughter we're disagreeing the argument that you you said that because the right of the individual to make that decision is of paramount importance so the right of your own daughter to start using cocaine multiple times per week so you see your so your daughter can Huff glue and your daughter can use cocaine Milton's week and that's fine because it's her personal choice and there's no argument as to why a democratically elected government would outlaw a substance that causes brain damage it's not it's not legal to use glue as a as a mind-altering substance is not I'm just mentioning legal use the glue paper but it's not legal to put in your nose yes Freeman was saying in sentence when he was talking yes it was saying it should be just as legal for someone to go and do that with with illicit substances as it is without qahal it does not mean that we don't believe it does not mean that people who advocate drug legalization don't believe that we shouldn't have strategies to help people with addiction to get them out of addiction get them out of drug use I don't think that everyone should be using drugs I don't know how many times I have to say that but I don't want my daughter using drugs I don't want you using drugs I don't want your daughter using drugs but I do think the drugs should be legal I don't think it's up for the for the law to tell people what they can and cannot do I think it's it's in these situations what we want to be doing is working on the harm reduction you're mixing in prescriptive and descriptive facts you you think it should not be for the law to that but it is the law sets a speed limit the law sets an age of consent for sex in some places at 16 in some places it's 18 whatever but but there's a law there's a minimum age there's a maximum speed limit there's a minimum age for consent right those are those are those are the rules we play by yes and something right right right so why this extraordinary exception when there's a drug there's a substance that causes brain damage that destroys people's lives that I think you have to concede your own daughter's life in all probability would be destroyed would be destroyed or negatively impacted by using cocaine multiple times a week or heroin Altimas week why does it suck why does it seem suddenly that the remit of democracy that includes sex and speeding tickets and starting wars that it stops with cocaine and heroin why should those be beyond the reach of legislation there seems to be no coherent argument and it puts you I think in a hypocritical position in terms of a relationship to the police any relation to your professor your relationships your own daughter in terms of authority and both work you're advocating that they should be made legal be legal people should do illegal drugs I I just hope that clear okay can you ask the question and I'm sorry I mean I did ask a question there about you know why would this be outside of the scope of legislation that doesn't make any sense to me oh no I so in this in this conversation I haven't put much emphasis on brain damage I think there is a straight argument to be made just in terms of some things are so unhealthy they should be illegal and brain damage is in a special class and I think actually you agree with me even though it's inconvenient for you to agree with me I'm not gonna I'm not gonna push on that but I think there's just an argument that certain types of gasoline jet fuel type things I'm sorry I don't think Jeff fuel cells in there well maybe it is there are certain types of fuels and chemicals used in industry where there are very strict guidelines about being exposed to it because it'll cause cancer it can cause brain damage and we have those guidelines for this thing I I don't see any reason why we can't just make cocaine it legal because it causes brain damage period that's a completely sufficient reason ah medic medically assisted suicide okay I can say this II in cases where the person is able to express their wish I don't I don't think it's a problem I'm sorry you know I was a member of the Buddhist religion for many years and it's it's actually a really big deal within Buddhism the main problems we get into are cases where the person hasn't been able to speak for 10 years or something so that's kind of different but if you're talking about someone who themselves makes a rational decision to commit suicide no I don't have problem with at with it their their their will has been stated and it's it's clear for example Canada we have the DNR laws because that's what he's saying he's not saying it's a good thing he's saying that it should not be made illegal to end your life if you want to end your life it could endanger your life you have pharmacological hemp hegemony over your own body you have the right you have autonomy to choose what substances go in your body that's what you say I think I think that's a very I think that's a very since insincere argument on your part because if your daughter goes to a nightclub in midday een and someone offers her cocaine where it's legal for to use cocaine they're not offering her an electric chair to kill herself say hey do you want to sit on this electric chair and sign this form so you can commit suicide that's a choice that's a choice your daughter can make and you and I both agree I think in principle that if for some reason your daughter does decide to commit suicide you know she can under certain circumstances like signing a form there's no ambiguity that's okay but she wouldn't know what she's choosing and when you choose cocaine when your daughter goes to nightclubs using pain she's not choosing an electric hair she's not she's ain't choosing a noose around her neck she's choosing a very appealing and socially acceptable and foreign substance that's the greatest harm for people going to nightclubs in Colombia is caused by the fact that they have no idea what on earth do you really believe that you really believe that the low quality of cocaine causes more harm I think I don't know if you're aware of the extent to which your misdirecting the Ahriman here but you're responding my question by saying the consequences for your daughter using cocaine are trivial compared to the issue of whether your daughter uses high quality or low quality cocaine that if your daughter's gonna use cocaine you wanted to use pure good-quality cocaine I find that a remarkable misdirection of of the topic were discussing I mean that that may be a legitimate problem for the coke heads are they're trying to get good okay I wouldn't mind that my daughter would do these things and I just I find that in any sincere argument as well I feel like with all these things I don't want anyone in my life doing it to anything that will harm them the question I've asked you repeatedly which you you have refused to answer you've given kind of growing things was why would legislation end here in terms of the brain damage argument we had a very clear thing we said look so let's say there's some chemical used in industry we can make up an imaginary chemical exposure to this chemical is dangerous it may be causes brain damage or maybe causes other health problems and we have government rules and regulations about using it okay cocaine is dangerous cocaine causes brain damage why is it why are ecological let why is ecologic laws okay why is health and safety legit okay and cocaine yes so I have an answer for you I have an answer for you and it's very closely you said how do I stop my daughter mm-hmm arrest the word the word arrest literally means stop if you live in Japan if you live in a country where drug use is illegal you if your daughter is choosing to use who came you have the power of arrest you can intervene with a police officer and you can take her off to a rehab clinic where she doesn't have a choice we said look guess what this is a choice you leave him and if you're in Cambodia if you're in Colombia now and if you're in Colombia now you're giving that up if in the future Canada has the same laws as Colombia where it's her civil right to have cocaine for a personal use then you can't do that you can't stop her you can't arrest her you can't intervene in this because it's because it's legally permitted if that's the future you want the generalized argument made it's really blows Andros that's the difference between illicit and an illegal and you know the drug is the power of arrest and again you've never answered my questions quite obviously I I think that regardless I mean obviously it's my own child so I have a different attachment to that child that personal individual but they do have right to make decisions for themselves so I just just like anyone else so I think you want me to be really notified in my answer I feel like that's what you're trying to know that for me but I got it doesn't frighten or horrify me I would be pretty sad okay so you come from a school of thought where like Milton Friedman I think you regard the people you're legislating with the kind of callous indifference let let you say things like let the free market decide let them kill themselves let them use drugs today and I look at all of humanity as one class and I think the role of the legislature is to love all mankind as much as I love my own daughter and to say in the same way that I don't want my daughter to live this life I think that the life of a cocaine addict is not worth living for my daughter and I don't think it's worth living for your daughter and his daughter and her son and everyone else I don't want two classes of humanity neither in a lead of people I care about like my daughter nor an elite like police officers I have standards of what makes life worth living and not worth living like slavery and abolishing slavery like addiction to hard drugs like cocaine and heroin and I want to abolish or remove them for everyone not just for my daughter and not just for the police officer but for all mankind so I have a morally consistent position and I do not see a limit to the role of a democratic legislature when it comes to cocaine any more than I do for toxic chemicals used in industry or environmental regulations or health and safety regulations life involves making hard choices and countries like Japan have already done it it's not a joke I would and if I was going to be difficult here I think I think the thing is that when you say that I'm being Callison and you know I think you imagined the role of the legislature that way as counsel but how removed someone's autonomy to decide for them what good I would do that for my daughter and I think you would do that for your daughter also you would say look hon it's right on your daughter's name but look honey I'm just using honey as a placeholder you're here in the slums of Medellin using cocaine multiple times a week you think it's not impacting your life negatively but it is I would intervene if my daughter got addicted to watching NFL football so and there's no brain damage involved and there's no crime involved I'm I'm totally willing to play that role there as they say also you have I think pretended that would be less invasive to have employers playing that role and I disagree I think it is fundamentally less invasive to have the state because the state has checks and balances the state has responsibilities to a legislature into the press and everything else it's a lot more transparent than when Microsoft your employer is doing it or somebody else is doing it right I'm Way more comfortable the police reading my secret emails to find out whether or not I'm a drug dealer then my employer doing it my employer it's probably easier form to remain no these are real differences yes but you did just say I agree with you on something I'm not sure what it is you agree with me I'm not sure but you you said there was something you in fact agree with me on okay when it comes to the daughter example again um I want to be there for my daughter I want to show her that I am there for her when she is ready to get help that I am there that I will offer her all of the assistance that she needs in order to get off of these drugs I will talk to her I will tell her that I think what she's doing is dangerous but I will tell her that it is harmful I will tell her that I am for her mental health and her well-being what I will not do is use force to try and accomplish the ends that I believe are right for her if she's you know over the age of 18 etc if she's she's an emancipated adult I will not do that and I don't expect the state to do that by there um I I think that there is a certain amount of freedom that we have to give people there is to be able to appreciate the lies that they look at Japan they'd only been freedom Japan is full Japan isn't a giant prison people with plenty of freedom it's not a terrible dictatorship unpopular I would say that if I were at to ever be talking about public policy and things like that this is already happening but in Canada I believe that legalizing marijuana is the right way to go I probably would never advocate publicly even though I have made my position known I would probably not advocate publicly for legalizing heroin and cocaine and things like that and I think that there are that is a much greater hurdle to overcome I think that people are not ready for something like that but I do I do hold the beliefs that I hold and I know that you hold the beliefs that you hold um you mentioned that you would rather live in a place like Japan been in your place like Amsterdam on this issue we're not talking about other thing when I think about veganism or something I think veganism is better answer thanks to the prohibitionist attitude they have a very they have a very prohibitionist attitude towards drugs as well so I don't think that Amsterdam is like this drunk paradise yeah but um yeah I hope that I make my my attitude here on my daughter like the the daughter example the government example the government's role is to be there to be telling children that drugs are dangerous to be educating them to help educate the public to be there constantly with free education with free um especially because I think this is a little bit easier to get in Canada than in the United States but I know people in the United States my mom has a very good friend and her son has been addicted to heroin and opiates for God way too many years and and it has destroyed their family financially because they don't have health care and so um so I do recognize that it's very important to offer those treatment programs to make them available to everyone so I agree with you 100% about that needs to be for everyone but voluntary but entirely voluntary because if you're in a country if you're in a carriers you have situations that situations where there's a single mom who uses cocaine multiple times per week and it's raising her kids and it seemed completely her civil right to go on using cocaine multiple times a week where is your kids the state has no ability to arrest her to put her into a rehab facility but that's real and it means there will be police officers who use cocaine multiple times a week and that's their civil right they can go on being a crackhead and a police officer that is exactly the world you're signing up for and I think you know I think you accept in terms of the rates of cocaine and heroin use if they are legal as you say the number of people using them the body count and the number of lives destroyed it will increase I don't think dramatically in the same way you know I think if speed limits are abolished most people will continue to drive the same way most of the time without any speed limits but once in a while there people will drive faster help that they need I think that that that will help address a lot of those issues the ocean is an issue that generally it's really I'm sorry I'm sorry what is your claim here that only crazy people use cocaine that's ridiculous that's ridiculous well why don't you subtract that what rationale you've just been arguing before your card reasons before you argue that highly effective people who still have a job is still go to work make the decision to use cocaine use zero so you can't now play the other card and say oh well anyone who's an addict has most of them have very low inhibitions before they're with legalization it's gonna increase what it's going to increase my claim was if cocaine if cocaine is legal as opposed to illegal more people will use cocaine right and once you have a society where cocaine doesn't have fear attached to it and doesn't have negative stigma attached to it more people will use cocaine some of those people will become addicts some of them will buy drug overdose some of them will they will destroy their lives I'm sorry how can what do you mean we can do how does legal as you gain create a superpower how does it create a superpower or an unlimited budget forgotten see what Japan do you think Japan lacks those things that's a complete lie look you're setting up many things here that are just factually not true but [Applause] sorry that somehow drugs being illegal in Japan makes it difficult or impossible for people to get treatment it makes it more difficult most people who are very who are using drugs seeking help it is a lot easier if there's less stigma attached to it and more people will use the drug this is how we started talking about veganism and stigma and fear so you accept more people use the drug more people who have brain damage more people who have their lives dented and destroyed by drug use and by drug addiction I don't so these are use drugs today's because they start out with have you ever used any of these drugs are you someone who's been so now I've never used any of these drugs I'm referring specifically to public policy so I can't I can't say but we know that people tend to use so you don't think you don't think rational people use cocaine because it's fun oh this is ridiculous I mean on the ward you want to clean not you've never used cocaine no I've never used cocaine that earlier in this conversation you thought cocaine was comparable to benadryl no I that's what that's what's mind-blowing to me let me tell you something let me tell you something the effects of cocaine I have a very hard time you okay you don't think you could use benadryl three times a week without destroying your I think you can I I think you're deeply in denial about many things here including the nature of what these drugs are and what their effects on on people are I mean uh it's it's my I'm going to me I mean you your response your response am I saying people use cocaine because it's fun was well they can find other ways of having fun who you know Nancy Reagan like no sense this makes no sense if cocaine is cheap and legal and available with no impurities which you've said you you deserve so high quality cocaine available at low prices with no stigma and no fear and no law against it more people are gonna use it and it's nothing like signing up to commit suicide which was you're a DNR tag or a P or or does it is nothing like that okay cocaine affects you mentally psychologically sexually it affects your sense of self-esteem your sense of physical strength your endurance your experience of pain cocaine as they say in the province of our times is one hell of a drug and I think the fact that you've never done it I think you've come into this thinking you're the worldly sophisticated one and you're naive as a twelfth grader on this issue I think you have no idea what kind of point out what kind of Pandora's Box you're talking about when when people start using cocaine and that is why they become terrible parents and terrible police officers and why whiskey doesn't really have that dramatic and effect I'm totally against whiskey also but no the effect on your life of cocaine and how it changes the way you perceive everything else in your life including your your relationship with your husband or wife and relationship with your kids yes seeing as we're comparing this to the number zero I have used cocaine infinitely more times than you yes and Anna and I did so this is really in keeping with my character I did so after I just finished reading a significant tome a scientific book it wasn't just about the science and chemistry of cocaine and its effects but it was about the whole history of pseudoscience of misperceptions and misunderstandings of cocaine how it was in first interpreted as a miracle cure went through the whole the whole history of this there were two related books I read but that one in particular really really impressed me and I realized there's something here no I didn't say everyone I'm an example of someone who will never use cocaine again because I have a I have a philosophy I have an idea I will also never watch a football game again I'm a very unusual person that way right but I mean there's there's what's worth living in life and there's what's noteworthy I'll probably also never go downhill skiing there's all kinds of things I think are meaningless and I think they're destructive and bad and they're self-destructive and they have negative impacts and other people that's true but if you I mean do you want to live in a society where 10% of people just to pick a number I think that's a low estimate or cocaine users or would you rather live in a country like Japan where an incredibly small but it's not zero but incredibly small people in the presented people are cooking users for a variety of reasons yes including you know enforcement enforcement and fear and stigma and all those things that's absolutely addiction was a huge problem we did know that's that's quite false again that was covered in that same book I read the period of cocaine being legal and the consequences for it the period of heroin being legal in China leading to the opium wars there was a period when opium was legal in the British Empire made their money growing opium ins and it became a mass epidemic that destroyed Chinese society I can quote the official but surely does that history not matter does the history of what happened and you think you think you can take a hit of cocaine and not go crazy just just a little bit I'm not I'm not taking anything at face value look I remember seeing an official history of China from the the Chinese government in which they said succinctly and they included this statistic that more than one in four adult men were opium users by the by the time the open Mohr's birth there was a level of social addiction was amazing let me just point it also lets let's include a white people example in England in the 17th century the rate of alcohol consumption there nobody drank water everyone including children drank beer three meals a day if they didn't drink wine and whiskey in addition that you had a whole society of drunks so nearly by today's standards are 100 percent alcoholism rate and 17th century history reflects that it's mass addiction is possible and historically its actual it's happened but yes the the outbreak of epidemics of addiction to these drugs you know epidemic levels of the bean disaster I think right now it's not as extremist as trying time but it is it is widely seen that right now the effects of drugs in in Mexico or some kind of disaster Mexico's going through a very tough time why I say that but look so let me right now with with tradition again I just say this you don't think it's a problem when a parent collects their own children because their driving forces abroad of course it's a problem that that's not enforcement that's the problem that's the actual drug use Suman this is a this is a huge problem unfortunately they could be using alcohol okay so in what sense can you dismiss my my position that way of putting things in the closet prohibiting drug use for is going to improve them on that's going to become a drug addict they do that because of psychological issues so you switch between two positions sometimes you claim drug addicts are totally normal people who can hold a job or it can even be a police officer while using cocaine or heroin three times a week and sometimes you claim the only reason why people become drug users or drug addicts is because they have deep-seated psychological arms which would just exhibit themselves anyway in something equally as harmful that's a ridiculous argument I don't accept that not with cocaine I think it's very clear but the great thing about YouTube is you can go back and watch it again um in northern Laos where I did humanitarian work and a lot of research and so on and China over a longer period of time another example when I was up there of course some of my research was in a library but some was actually oh those villages there was a lot of cynicism from left-wing people that what the Lao government was doing at that time in eliminating opium use was pointless because they said what you said you've said it now and you said it email and different context that somehow if you eliminate heroin use opium use etc that some other drug will replace it that's that's just as bad I think that's a totally false argument and I don't think you believe it yourself if your daughter quit cocaine and started drinking beer it's not the same that's just nonsense I just what sir just to finish the issue with with Laos I saw for myself and other people so I remember one guy admitted he was wrong he didn't you know he wasn't happy to him it was wrong but there was a village there's a long history with opium less you know heroin is a reform fun heroin is a reformed meet here who does he refined form of opium um but there in some ways the same drugs and was not they had this long history of it and you know guess what when in that village opium was replaced with alcohol and cigarettes life got better for everybody yes people drank alcohol instead of used heroin you think that's not if they think it's not a difference for your daughter as one individual and her life in her career do you think it's not a difference for a social unit like a village or a nation on a whole it's an unbelievable difference it transforms the whole society you think there's no difference between having a park with a bunch of literal crackheads whether it's cocaine or heroin staggering around the park you think there's not a difference between that and a society like Scotland when I lived in Scotland there were a lot of drunks stagger around Scotland it's different it's a difference worth appreciating it's a difference worth fighting for it does do yes but my point is here there's it there's a tremendous difference between beer and opium or beer and cocaine that everyone else is is willing to admit except you and again you say you've never used any of these drugs maybe that makes it worse I I know what effects whiskey have on me I know what effects cocaine have on me and I know that other people have even less ability to cope with those effects I do know there's a tremendous fundamental difference now that's true on the scale of the individual whether it's your daughter or it's a complete stranger whether it's your employee or your employer having a boss that's using cocaine three times a week your life is hell you don't want to have a boss uses cocaine three times and it's not your choice you can't discipline them the government can the government can arrest them what if it's the owner of Microsoft what if it's your boss what if that's the relationship authority and then what if it's your employee that's a tough spot - okay so I'm the manager on a construction site what am I supposed to do beat up my own employee I can't that's a role for the police it's a role for the government I think actually deep down inside you feel that way you don't really want the employer taking on that that role but whether it's one person your daughter and employee or your boss that's one thing you scale it up on to the village level mmm talk about a village in Laos where all the people with money and power and guns are opium lords or opium teams as opposed to a village where the people have a lot not comparing it's paradise mm-hmm a village where the people with money and power are people who own a bar that sells alcohol and quite possibly a brothel that sells prostitutes I'm again I'm not saying they went from being an opium den town they went from being an opium no I think you'll miss my point in the period where opium was used openly it wasn't a facto legal there was an effect no authority governing it and in some villages in Laos the authorities actually encouraged it and taxed it which is kind of a bit of an open secret so they had a period where what it was de facto legal they also had a period where the whole country had no written law whatsoever so was neither legal nor legal and local authorities allowed so they really as a contrast between it being licit and it actually being stamped out and it was it life changes profoundly you know no I'm also against you know drinking whiskey but again I think you're you're lying to yourself you're lying to others if you pretend that's not a difference whether it's your own daughter drinking if she starts drinking whiskey three times a week that is one thing if she starts using cocaine or heroin three times a week that is something completely profoundly different and you scale it up and that village that village in Laos having sober police officers enforcing the law there as opposed to and this is a huge problem in Afghanistan authority figures who are themselves dopeheads or themselves okay the police officer who just cooked in a few times a week we still get that today but instead of them being able to openly seek help and everything like that they would be fired immediately they would lose their job like there's there's no it's very very difficult to address those problems when you have prohibition I just think I don't think the price is worth the cost I don't think that I don't I don't think that it makes the world a much better place and you said yourself that you don't think that drug use would increase that dramatically if it were legal so that's your own words significant but it won't be dried Oh not you know I'm not indulging in the sort of hysterical view that it's gonna grow absolutely financially and there are examples from Europe and show someone that show modest increase but not society collapsing and everyone becoming I say that also with speed limits if you get rid of speed limits many people well I think I think position is one thing I think the objective you're pursuing something we're seeing maybe that'll wrap up this discussion um in the past and email you I think you you misrepresented or misunderstood or both my position by saying to me you wrote at one point um you know making these drugs illegal is not gonna solve the underlying problems of poverty and racism and another terrible things and my response does look like I feel that's really dishonest I'm not talking about solving poverty solving poverty in Japan is a separate issue solving poverty and allows the different issues alleviating poverty in Canada is if we can talk about that or eliminating racism I'm not talking about underlying issues I'm talking about this issue it's true it's true also but just to keep parallel if we speed limits do not solve the underlying causes for why people drive their cars too fast there are underlying causes which could be addressed by building a better train system public transport may rent cheaper so people can live closer to their piece of place of employments than ought to drive for 45 minutes to get to work there are underlying reasons but if we believe speed limits are a good thing we believe it's a good thing in itself and I'm actually advocating for drugs being illegal as a good thing in itself in getting across that sincerity I think was step one for me is that I'm not sure officers be doing cocaine a couple times a week I you know I'm willing to change my mind about things this is not when you run for mayor I'm gonna quote you that the press the newspaper is gonna say mud vegan is running from there but she says police officers used cocaine three times a week [Laughter] I want to think about it I have yours - I mean it's not it's not it's a big issue I'm sorry one thing I do want to talk about very briefly is it I live right next to probably one of the largest concentrations of homeless in my city yeah and and I know these people I talk to them on a regular basis and and when you talk to them the number one problem for all of them especially the older ones like I guess maybe it's because they're still alive but they're all deeply addicted to alcohol right and um it causes all sorts of problems for them and I think you know there's the people that are addicted to drugs there's the people that are addicted to alcohol a lot of them will do substance crosses their path anything most of them will like they prefer alcohol but if something comes their way they'll do that and it's just it seems really clear to me that's the kind of problem that you were talking about if we return this to the problem that you were discussing in Vancouver maybe you do see more people who are addicted to heroin and things like that but I still remember my grandfather in Texas telling me the same thing when he was growing up in East Texas like in extremely rural poverty those people obviously didn't add drugs you know but almost every single person you knew died of alcoholism like you just thought all the time you would tell me stories of seeing people and it was so interesting excuse it was always saying like you'd see them shaking in the street from alcohol and it was a horrifying him he never drank you just found it completely off-putting and I get it I went to thank whoever do you think I would ever try heroin after seeing some of the stuff I saw they're like no way but on but I don't think that it's necessarily the legality of the substance alcohol ruins people's lives alcohols makes people abusive it does all sorts of things but I think it's because there's underlying issues there but these people that I'm seeing all the time they're not gonna get cured or made worse by the situation I think though if there's two points you could take from this I think you've got to drop the underlying issues thing because in the same way I think it's not kind of fair or helpful to say about speed limits well speed limits aren't gonna solve the underlying issues I don't think it's fair to say this and the second thing is to drop this argument of based on false equivalence because you know I mean as I say it's not the same on one scale if your daughter's doing cocaine three times a week or if she's drinking alcohol their homes it's not the same there is no quotes any many of your arguments rely on saying to me that if people do not use these illegal drugs if they don't use cocaine and heroin then they'll just use something else like alcohol or glue anyway we could make it someone who is addicted to cocaine and someone who is addicted to alcohol cause if you talk I'm talking about I'm talking with all use though I really am but but police officer okay because that's a real thing alcoholism yes to who smells so strong with alcohol nine-month warning so addiction so if we're talking about an addiction then I can very clearly state that the societal arms for both are equal if we're talking about okay so so I don't think you truly believe that and I can I can demonstrate it at both ends of the scale and this is to me like Socrates I think you're making an argument that you do not believe yourself so the three very rapid points that Rab because he already says that one you know that alcohol causes some brain damage it causes some I've made arguments on this channel that people should quit drinking alcohol because of brain damage well Jimmy use distance let me finish this let me finish the levee visitants alcohol causes some brain damage cocaine causes more brain damage I mean you know this I've seen MRI scan that Amiga Lou it's it's pretty awesome but you know I'm interested in all you so I'm interest no use that's one well you know it's not the same I mean you know huh but look it doesn't even matter cocaine huffing glue so huffing glue which in some countries maybe Italy gourds you huffing alcohol causes some brain damage huffing glue causes more brain damage wait it's not the same it's not the same in it you can have an intervention whether it's with your own nobody any level of glue huffing causes brain damage and it causes a lot more than drinking beer or drinking whiskey you know this so it is it is fundamentally false to treat these as equivalent or to say in a resigned way well if people aren't huffing glue they're just gonna drink alcohol and as you you just claimed so the societal damage do the same of course it's not the same of course it's different the issue of addiction they are all relatively the same like if you were going to be an addiction if you I will just say I think even if you had just tried huffing glue using cocaine using heroin you even on that one level of one person you would not claim for an instant that it's the same that's my honest opinion I know you can you can meet people I think you can ask those same homeless people and if they have done all these drugs I think they will agree with me no it's really not the same really it's not the same in many many ways it was like so again I would say with my own daughter it's completely different if it's alcohol versus cocaine whether and she was fine but then when you scale it up when you look at a heavy drinking society like Canada or Russia or Scotland I've lived in both Canada and Scotland I haven't lived in Russia if you were to on that scale if you replaced alcohol with cocaine you don't think there would be a tremendous transformation at all sorry you actually think the social damage if if as the default drug people are using both using and abusing at all levels whether using occasionally or using heavily if you removed alcohol and you made cocaine available and it was used the same levels no but mod you don't see logically that this is very much directly selling you made the claim that the social impact is the same it's not the same you're admitting if you can recognize oh all use if you look at China in the era of the opium wars when opium was the main drug used by everyone when opium was in that society like beer and again in northern Laos just a few decades ago we had societies with that that it is worse being at a village in Laos where heroin is commonly used it is not the social impact is not the same as being in a town full of drunks it's not heroin heroin really is different from alcohol but that is your arguments sway ok can you not recognize that you've just conceded argument without saying it your your argument was that the social impact is the same for alcohol and for these other drugs and that therefore you can make this argument for equivalence and I've just challenged that and I think you are conceding without wanting to admit that you're conceding it that no in fact they're not equivalent they are profoundly different on the level of the individual and the level of a society as a whole whether there's one village or one country your argument was built on these claims your argument has build these clans an L so now you're being it that there really is a difference that there really is a difference yes but but the point is the the harm to society and the harm dividual people would not be the same if instead you lived in China in the air of the open wars if you lived in a society where it was open a most amazing it's a real historical example rather than hypothetical one what am I asking you what am I asking you I'm not no no I'm not no I'm not that's not the question the question the question right everyone they're still drinking alcohol alcohol is still the socially dominant drug your argument I was saying is based on a false equivalence that you've stated in many ways including the statement if people don't have access to these illegal drugs if the government doesn't make them legal at high quality but the government making high quality cocaine and heroin illegal which is what Milton Friedman wanted letting people kill themselves letting people overdose if the government doesn't do that it doesn't matter because you ordered you argued the social impact of drugs is equivalent it will be the same if they can't use that drug and they instead use alcohol and that is completely false like the number of people and I told you already that I believe that alcohol addiction is harmful I know but that's that's exactly what to say alcohol is just as harmful as cocaine is ridiculous you know brain pain so I've already made simple one brain damage to the effects on an individual three the effects and society's whole in aggregate those are the three grounds I point out to you they're all different there is no equivalent so but but you conceded all three grounds but the the brain damage isn't the same you know this you can see to this for any of you well it's true of addiction also but you concede the point other way I mean you can see that brain damage is not the same you can see that the effects on the individual whether it's your daughter or a policeman or a parents or your boss or your employee is not the same and you admit that the effects on society are not the same well so you have completely conceded your argument you're just refusing to admit that you have the same number of people are going to become either way because it is a health issue with the mental wellness issue it is not just a you've already conceded that's not true but maybe 30 minutes ago that no it's not the case that only people with mental health problems use cocaine completely sane hard-working people use okay this is like the notion of Scotsman this is like the no true Scotsman fallacy like what only people with some kind of deep mental problem become drug guys that's ridiculous you and I know normal people who become drug addicts sure anyone can become a drug addict sure yeah I know people I know people who became a drug addict because they were in the hospital and they were put on prescription meds like they'd literally no choice they were strapped down to a hospital bed and they'd become addicted to exposure to no completely people yes yes they do you can become addicted that we're known people it's happen - sure no no they're there in law school for a long time that's the point they're strapped down in hospital bed getting employment and then one day and then when they leave they have to struggle to quit the drug people get addicted to drugs and all kinds of circumstances no it's it's ridiculous for you to say the one in sent simultaneously that perfectly normal rational people can still hold down a job while using cocaine three times a week and therefore it should be a civil right and should be legalized and you claim then whenever it's convenient for you that no it's not possible for the social impacts of cocaine to be worse because if they weren't using cocaine they'd be using alcohol and that's the same like living in a society where it's like whatever percentage it is living in a society where two percent of people are alcoholics or it could be ten percent let's say it's two percent you don't see that as different from living in a society where two percent of people are cocaine addicts or two percent of people are or heroin addicts it's a completely false argument the social impacts are different the brain damage is different the health impacts are different and the effects on the individual are very different in their life they're very different why would they be the same agree with you because this bats and brain damage yeah if two percent of the population are heroin addicts or two percent of the population are are alcohol addicts yes its social impact playing well how absurd so in in what in what sense given all the things you can seed it in again it could be glue huffing why not concede glue huffing really is different from drinking whiskey and cocaine really is different from whiskey why the only argument the only thing is you're claiming false equivalence so you can justify so so so it's not it's not the case that there are dramatically fewer drug addicts in China today than in the era of the opium war it remains the same it's not the case you've even argued maybe even argue that harm reduction you've argued that harm reduction and legalization leads to there being fewer addicts so I don't know an example that but you must have an example of a country where the number of addicts dramatically declined isn't that possible isn't it possible that the number of addicts can dramatically increase in dramatically declined and that we have myriad real historical examples of that that correlate to different drug policies I'm sorry mod your argument is profoundly nonsensical and I hope you watch this video later and see that I can't keep repeating myself but you are actually carding this is profoundly logically flawed I don't want to act like ask yourself and like force you to omit this but like you admit the brain damage is not the same and then you want to turn around say no it's the same you admit the social impacts are not the same then you want to say no it's the same and your reasoning here is that allegedly the percentage of people who are addicts doesn't change but that's not the only issue even if I concede at that point you would still be wrong even if the percentage of people who are addicts were the same in 19th century China and 21st century China which is a complete lie there's a dramatic change in that society and the number of people using opium still even if the percentage of people is the same the point is the effects including brain damage including the effects and what kind of parent you are or what type of a police officer you are what type of pot you are are profoundly different being in a society that normalizes and accepts cocaine use as opposed to one that stigmatizes it is opposed to it and throws people in prison for it really is different and you can see that in again where I wasn't Laos with with heroin you could see it in the same village in two different periods of history that are close together life really changed for people in those villages and as you see when I was in Perpignan so different you I don't think of this as a rich people's issue being poor person unfortunately I wish I could relate to all of these examples I completely accept her examples of Laos and things like that that's that's fine um I with the opium wars from what I've understood it was I it seems like it's very difficult to get exact numbers as to the number of the people that were addicted and things like that I can't say that in Colombia at the same time that you know the drug use is increased and we're not talking indicative but use wala increase crime has dropped dramatically yes but also poverty has dropped dramatically and a lot of things have changed people in poverty is the civil war has ended I'm sorry but look look but do you do you think I mean you know what I've tried to be respectful although trench in German sorry but do you do you think do you think that's actually a reasonable question fine you just asked me you don't you think poverty is related to drug use I mean what's what's the point of your question I think sometimes people have more money they do produce but with the crime I was talking about the crime right the crime and issue was because most of the cultivation was happening in that country now that it's moved out of the country I mean this is someone unrelated but the war its basic turn your point was which is a regional point that drug use has increased while crime has decreased and I said yes poverty has also decreased poverty has improved so that's consistent with exactly that so I mean it's not like you're gonna undermine my argument by saying don't you believe it's linked to this issue you know doesn't necessarily lead as you've been saying like the use of drugs the legalization of drugs does not lead inexorably to higher crime it doesn't lead inexorably to terrible parents it doesn't lead inexorably to all these things like as long as you're in a society where they're attempting to address these issues where they're educating people this is not you know MIT China in the Middle Ages like we're trying to we're trying to educate people we're trying to inform them about things I don't think that it's fair to use historical examples like that when we're making we're making inroads we're trying to help understand people and help them with their issues I think it's a very different situation and I don't think that criminalization helps anyone it just it kicks the can down the road it forces violence and crime in places that are outside of our vision this isn't really solving the world's problems okay III disagree I think criminalization helps everyone so I'm at the opposite extreme on that um why if my own bias you know I'm also totally against alcohol like I think everyone should quit doing out well that's what I think however if you ask me can you be a good cop and drank alcohol three times a week the answer is yes can you be a good parent and drink I'll call three times a week the answer is yes I have to concede that I think you would be an even better cop or a better parent if you quit yoga that's my opinion but I have to concede that I do not believe you can be a good police officer while using cocaine three times a week I do not believe you can be a good parent not or at least maybe for one week you can maybe for one week if you do that but over any length of time over ten years a parent using cocaine three times a week and I think why don't know why you like cocaine so much you never tried it you should you should try it it'll change your whole perspective on this issue I think you would can see how can you be a good parent while huffing glue three times a week there is no equivalence these things are legislated unequally because they really are unequal you believe your argument legalization might increase use of drugs isn't that complex at all it doesn't rely on any difference that's why I'm saying it doesn't rely on any of these these expects postulations some substances cause more brain damage than others same with industrial pollution same with a workplace regulation same with health and safety was same with ecology and everything else my your perspective relies on the assumption any recreational drug is equal to all so either they all have to be legal or they all have to be illegal and you make arguments on that basis from my perspective there is a no no Ison tributed that to you I said you are arguing from a false equivalence here that the damage to society and the damage to people is the same or approximately the same for cocaine heroin huffing glue and drinking alcohol and I'm saying no it is different and that's why we can ensure legislate and the damage to our personal and civil liberties is greater and therefore they should be legal do the people of Japan lack civil liberties right now they lack the ability to be able to use you know marijuana without having current without going to prison correct yeah UKUSA controlling their drugs their drug supply Canadians make a whole lot of money selling drugs to Japan and you know that that's that's one way that a lot of people make a living I don't think that it's necessarily a good thing so that's terrible that people in Japan lack access to high-quality cheap legal cocaine that's having really negative effects in their society you think no but that's Japan we're talking about a real world example so people in Japan people in Japan it's very hard for them and very risky for them to use cocaine and you think that's a that's a bad thing in contrast to Colombia where it's legal and readily available well I [Music] personally personal use of cocaine is legal in Colombia that's the law it's a very liberal oh yes okay we go to a nightclub in Medellin you think it's hard to get cocaine no obviously it's easy and it's over it's overts and it's and there's and there's no Sheamus ooh they don't have to hide it anymore you don't have to hide it I know you didn't go to a nightclub where people using cocaine where people use cocaine openly well unicorn thrown a clubs I mean you realize this isn't something I have to dig deep to get a footnote to prove there are nightclubs in Medellin where people are openly using cocaine and they do so because they're not afraid of being put in prison for using credible documented I didn't say all nightclubs there Ari that's not how it works yeah I think I think I think they do it on a table inside the nightclub and they do it partly to look cool and probably you attract the interest of women so so nobody in Medellin nobody I'd have to look really hard I mean I've already looked at articles before this kind of safer nobody in nightclubs in Medellin is doing cocaine this is what your your let me ask you let me Susan you don't think there are people who show off doing cocaine in the United States of America right now on Instagram oh yeah you don't think there were people who show off using cocaine in nightclubs in Los Angeles cuz it's cool because it attracts because people do it in Medellin also we're all human and it's legal right what I'm saying is that it doesn't increase the amount of people doing it publicly that was your argument in the beginning it is illegal in the United States it is prohibited they can go to prison and the and they boast about doing it anyway they will do it on Instagram they're still doing it anyway and they're not doing it much more visibly in Colombia no it's not try going there I I don't know why so that's your argument your entire argument is that they do it in the US why don't you look why don't you leave if you're talking about that um that the shame is good the criminalization is good like you said like a rest it's good but is it really that good if people are still doing it publicly it is not legal in the United States people are still doing it publicly as you said that is your argument online okay so you really think that is my argument cuz I mean I can I can repeat [Music] in spite of a massive drug war people still do drugs in the United States despite everything you know how does that contradict in any way whatever saying so I mean it is not terribly effective okay so you think drug policy in Japan is not effective um it might be effective in Japan there's other places that have very draconian drug laws like the United States where it is not effective which shows that countries are different yes I'm aware of this I mean this is what my argument is not based on a denial of reality whereas yours is you were arguing that nobody in a nightclub in Medellin is openly and boastfully using cocaine and I countered that by pointing out to you that right now in the United States pardon me this is why I mentioned people using cocaine in Los Angeles people right now in the United States are openly in boastful using cocaine even on Instagram even in nightclubs and they do it partly because it's cool you need to ignore these factors what's right a very very small number of people but drug use especially hard drug use like this is it's fractional to an unbelievable sentiment they've an incredibly low rate of drug use there it is indeed partly because they have a very robust culture of both legislation and shame enforcement and shame there are real around reviews in the United States if you go to so let me let me ask you the opposite it's a very good question but you're asking it with them presumed with with a presume do you do you not think there is a culture of celebrating drug use United States do you not think today I've heard maybe tan rap songs celebrating drug use of something cool and edgy you don't think I listen I listen to real rap music I listen to 50 cent and Lil Wayne and they brag about cocaine and how it helps you get laid with women and how it makes you the cool guy at the nightclub and I think you're dreaming if you think those same factors don't exist in Medellin or in you know all over the world basically those same pressures indeed but they added much much lower lower rate Japan is a very successful example of tour policy pardon excuse me you were just saying that it's glamorization of drug use so they don't ever I mean I don't know you asked the question does America have a culture of shame with drug use that is partly true yes but it's also true that America has a culture of glamourizing drug use no well okay we both know it's it's tremendously different because in Japan they've been much much more successful but indeed if you listen to Japanese right you're gonna find it but it is indeed but it's different sorry sue do you actually think there's no difference between Mexico Colombia Los Angeles and Japan there's a profound difference we both know we've shared the statistics by email before this conversation again I don't really we're trying to compare all these different countries they have different policies every single one of the words that you've mentioned Colonia is only now starting a very becoming 1999 1994 they legalized you know why because they were spending all of their it was a Supreme Court decision yeah but it was they were very and hearing harsh drug laws very harsh drug laws for a very long time right he didn't work they didn't work right so so and you've got the same with if we look at Islamic countries countries that have it your your argument is that the level of drug addicts will be the same anyway that's what you argue although all of these historical examples include including the ones you choose prove that you're wrong the number of dragons can vary dramatically from one period of history to another in China and from one period district other in Laos or in comparing Los Angeles to Osaka Japan or whatever Tokyo Japan of course things like that obviously because you have people using cleaner drugs safer drugs right but but what it doesn't help with is the brain damage does it you're getting this is again this is the the implicit fallacy of talking about underlying problems as opposed to the problem I don't want to talk about the side effects of drugs like oh you use cocaine so me but that's implicitly no no no no no no I no no we're talking about cocaine which argue about heroin but if you if you want to talk about crimes committed by cocaine addicts that's different what your position is is like Milton Friedman you want to say oh just let them kill themselves I I think that is I think that is evil I think that is evil well I think and it is not to prevent them from committing other crimes I've never once said that I have never once said in sermon you're attributing that to me in passing I've never once said we should arrest cocaine addicts to stop them from committing theft I have said I have said coke my objective here this was actually what I was gonna ask the disclosing question is what is the actual objective you you want facility I want to live in a society of predominantly sober people with very low rates of drug use I don't think it's attainable to have zero so that's why I don't say zero Japan in 2018 which has astoundingly low crime rates and they're still getting lower amazingly unlike Colombia unlike Mexico unlike Los Angeles it's a very successful society in that way enforcement is only with crime rates are much lower but now they're lower than Japan right now but the crime rate in Colombia is not preferable to Japan you know the level of human sake we have to acknowledge that we need to base it on you know what it was ten years ago versus what it is today so so right now why do you think your D railing the argument or not I mean you feel like you were talking about like a society of love and everything like that like that's what you want you want a society of sober people I'd like that I think it's unrealistic and I think that making drugs illegal causes untold harm so that's just that's the difference because my harm is what matters to me and so I think but I don't know but this is what so you just asked you just asked why aren't you moving the goalposts and I said no I'm not I'm just talking about the direct brain damage and the direct damage people's lives caused by by cocaine you can't claim that there's less harm because cocaine itself causes harm I think you're the one using an insert that's why in terms of the harm on your brain on your person and on society that three levels have already talked about you can't argue that for huffing glue either so you're you're claiming no no okay hold on please please let me actually respond to you you brought in the issue of crimes committed by people who are cocaine addicts or cocaine users what what have you and I've said you know I'm talking about them actually using cocaine not whether or not they commit crimes to buy cocaine because I actually care as with my own daughter I care that you're wasting your life ruining your life causing yourself brain damage and there are of course other negative impacts on society that society as a whole whether it's the village of the town of the city it is worse off if 10% of people are opium junkies or heroin junkies or coke heads or crackheads society is worse when 10% of people are due to our drugs but I also don't think you you dispute that that has negative impacts on society having having 10% of society people being alcoholics is also maduk but is not as bad and I've probably lived in several societies where 10% of people are alcoholics I mean probably Scotland and cabbage both you know whatever you can certainly be in places where that that exists today and historically different examples of people say but you you use the term harm and this is not theoretical yeah you you think you're reducing on by allowing more people to use more cocaine and higher quality and to not have to commit crimes to get it no you're more people will be harmed by you providing for thinking you'd say this to it you'd say this to a drug dealer to if you met a drug dealer you might say to him you know I understand you're making a lot of money selling cocaine but the sad thing is you're harming people when the government becomes the drug dealer they also are harming people they're providing people with cocaine which causes brain damage just like if I teach someone to Huff glue and I provide them with glue snort huffing glue causes brain damage it's true alcohol also causes brain damage but it is much less there so home your argument is supposed to based on harm but what about the harm to the drug users themselves this society as a whole also but this is the harm to real people the research we have regarding addiction and drug use but if drugs were legalized it would not appreciably increase the number of addicts and it would make them safer it would make society safer okay but so if more people use more cocaine at higher sorry okay all right so look soup mod mod I'm still right even if I can see the point if look please if that's exactly to say if the exact same number of people consume more cocaine at lower prices that is a huge assumption there's no evidence for that you already conceded these points earlier you already complete it you already can see the point earlier that if cocaine is completely legal then more people will try actually we did talk about it because okay so your human is exactly the same number of people yeah using cocaine yes as their civil right but now you can't fire them as a police officer using cocaine three times a week you can't intervene and take their kid away from them because they were parents yes if it's legal if cocaine is legal you want to have it both ways so you're gonna have all the benefits of cocaine being illegal that police aren't allowed to use it and parents aren't allowed to use it so parents and police and construction workers none of them can use cocaine only the people who don't matter only those people get to use cocaine University professors everyone harms people everyone has responsibilities everyone has the potential to lead a meaningful life or a meaningless life and I love all mankind and I don't want to countlessly cut them off and say if all you people kill yourselves that's no problem to me it's a problem there MA the poor in Canada are they not are poor again Emile the drug addicts are they not our drug addicts whose are they no it's not your pan isn't utopia but tell me something cocaine causing brain damage is that or is that not harm that was why I never got to finish my sentence but I was gonna say I can if I can see to you exactly the same number of people using exactly the same amount of cocaine which is ridiculous but they're getting it legally instead of you illegally if magically that que but let me say but if magical that happens there still harm being done precisely because cocaine causes brain damage precisely because cocaine if you help yourself so huffing glue doesn't cause harm you wouldn't say that yes so in the same sense using cocaine doesn't cause harm it causes no it is your decision it is your decision but that is harm that's what we're talking about you're cleaning there is no harm you wouldn't say that about yourself you wouldn't say that you huffing glue or using cocaine cause norm you wouldn't say about your daughter you wouldn't say to a police officer or a pilot or a parent you only say it about those people that it's not doing any harm for them to cause brain damage by using cocaine I think hopefully it's much clearer I think you super clear in the issue of brain damage and all those things if you're making that decision for yourself then that you have that autonomy is it is harm right you are why not just concede the point brain damage is harm there have been several points like this where you'll do anything except admit what's completely obvious it took us an hour for you to admit that a cop doing cocaine three times a week is a problem for everyone the cop himself and the people he informs that the law it enforces the law it's a problem when professors do it it's problems anyone responsibility does and from my perspective I believe in the Equality of all mankind so it's our problem what anyone does it cuz I don't believe in two separate classes of society and elite for whom ethics matter and an underclass through ethics and laws don't matter I regard us as but and now the very simple question is this harm for your own life you're going to connect yourself you feel that it's right to give that authority to the government someone else let them decide because if you might harm yourself you you shouldn't be allowed to do it and that goes back to great great question quick let me ask you a question I'm answer your question let me answer question so you know you know the answer my question but let me let me ask a question with an example out of my first year economics textbook if it's your decision why does the government prevent you from selling yourself into slavery why you may not think it does any harm and yet yes we believe in having laws that are both for your benefit and for the social units benefit that prevents you from selling yourself into slavery even if you feel you have a good deal even if you know what this is ok I'm gonna get a lump sum I'm gonna give it to my ex-wife yes so your question is your question is do I believe you know but I'm doing no it's I'm sorry it's a textbook example you're asking me do I believe that laws should prevent people from making the decisions themselves to give themselves brain damage my answer is yes I believe in environmental regulation against harmful chemicals in the workplace in food in food labeling and making sure there isn't poison things that cause health problems or brain damage in your food I believe it in the workplace I believe in industrial sites and I believe in it with recreational drugs completely consistently that's the same the same kind of harmony and and it's completely consistent with slavery the arguments but it's my personal choice it's not get impacted in whether me guess what I believe that the government has the right to eradicate slavery which includes taking away the personal private choice of slave owners and slave sellers and people who might voluntarily choose become slaves if you had a truly free market this is another argument from false equivalency this is another you you act peak so again before I've had to ask for an hour and you've never met it do you really believe there's no difference between drinking alcohol and using cocaine or huffing glue and you never want to answer honestly that of course is a difference but now now I ask you do you really leave there is no difference between slavery and a mortgage do you really believe that so why make a totally insincere argument you've just claimed that I don't really believe what I'm are going of course I believe of course I'm against slavery and I don't regard it as equivalent to mortgages of course there's a difference you probably have a mortgage right now I don't know but probably baggage what is the baggage oh I think there's a lot of baggage there with slavery that's right what are you baggage baggage it is what it is it's slavery I mean you know ancient Egypt they built the pyramids but I'm against slavery you just you don't have the right to decide for yourself what you're gonna put in your body that's what you're saying I believe that right now if people want to use cocaine legally they do have the right to buy an airplane to get to Columbia I think in a sense you know I mean you do have that right and we don't you know and that's that and you know if you want to use other drugs well I think I should including okay you can go to Amsterdam Amsterdam it's not legal but it's tolerated they're kind of in a gray area on drugs like cocaine heroin I think I think you do have that right but in the other hand I don't play this game that that you play of pretending that somehow the government that the authority of a democratic government stops when we're talking about drugs that go into people's noses or veins or however they take them no I believe the government as we talked about labeling on food I'm really happy that the government forces companies to honestly admit whether or not bread contains l-cysteine whether or not bread contains pork fat or a bunch of the things that's government regulation it's forcing it and there isn't even a health problem with that it's just because I'm a I'm a vegan and I don't want this stuff in my diet I'm so happy with them so happy we have government regulation that makes food and soap and medicine safer and cocaine causes brain damage it causes other personal damage to your life and personal danger and personal harm and on a social unit it causes kinds of problems this is true and I have absolutely no hesitation to you and saying to you in the same way I believe that we can make slavery illegal and use force ultimately use you know ultimately the police or the army has to get involved with preventing slavery from existing and use force to make to abolish slavery or to abolish as much as Japan has abolished the use of cocaine and heroin sure I have no hesitation though because what you have one country just because there are other countries with the same kind of drug laws so you can't say oh Japan managed to get rid of doing drug use and yet these other countries that have similar laws they haven't so I'm not sure you're just saying II like Japan obviously there's a whole lot of cultural context everything else that goes there it's a incredibly ridiculous argument to say like you like Japan because we can't all be like Japan if Colombia we're today to enact the exact same policies that are in Japan it would not be the main argument when we're going back to you have the right to decide what you do to yourself what you do your body is no anyone else but you know that's not reality you don't know that's what you wish reality was but human right even though I may not agree with it I may think that it is harming your body I may think that it's hurting your brain cells obviously okay what is that I've never done any of these things but why is why is cocaine a fundamental human right that's what you you just our time being able to do with your own body when it comes to the drugs that you choose to take whether it's you know an antidepressant lipitor cocaine that's your choice if you're in a reformed adult you need to be able to make those decisions and I think that it's wrong for the state to use two white works why can't I sell why can't I sell bread with battery acid in it why can't I income why can't you are you're creating harm to them oh so I can eat bread with battery acid there's no okay you know you have attributed an argument to me that you know that I don't that I don't have you know it's understandable that you did but you've said Columbia can't do what Japan did I agree with that of course my argument doesn't rely on the idea that Columbia or Los Angeles can achieve what Tokyo achieved you know definitely not in the next 20 years but you could argue never I was just living on the border between no no but listen no your argument is based on a universal absolute your argument is based on the idea that cocaine should be a human right you've just stated that in almost exactly this terms mine isn't mine is based on you further Summa channel before doing the best you can right and saying hey drug addiction is a problem what can we do about it and the answer is gonna be different I was living in Laos and Cambodia the Cambodian government doesn't have the same resources the Japanese government has just in terms of providing people with rehab facilities I want to do the best I can but in the society I don't think we have the right to dictate people what the best they can do is so I think that's just the end of the argument I disagree with you okay I agree well I actually agree with you you said that we can't dictate to people what the best they can do is but precisely will we dictate are the minimum standards they have to meet that if you want to be a police officer you can't use any cocaine if you want to be an airline pilot what you can and can't do whether it's cocaine or maybe even cough medicine there are probably some cough medicines that are not safe for an airline pilot to take I think exactly what legislation is about is creating minimum standards well I see that's interesting you put it that way because I see it exactly the opposite I think your argument is the same standard should be applied everyone because your argument is the cocaine should be a human right for everyone and that's exactly what I would do it so that is one standard applied to everyone whether in a Colombia [Music] even if it's legal you may not get a job as a police officer I'm not against having conflict it may it may lead to as you know what may lead to addiction and whatever may lead to you becoming a prostitute or what have you Billy do you have living a much worse life which there's a lot of literature proving well no I don't I think my vision is much more compassionate than yours because yours is like Milton Freeman which is just let people kill themselves let the free market sort it out and I don't think that's true I think there are people who can intervene and save lives and improve people's lives and help them when they're addicts which improves you can't you can't do that if if it's a human right to use cocaine you don't have the right no you don't have the right to arrest them that is precisely what you wait no but you see how I genuinely do all right I hope that if my own daughter becomes addicted to drugs like cocaine and heroin that she can be arrested ie stopped of course I'd prefer if she goes into a nice rehab facility rather than a horrible prison but arrest and and coercion ayiiia being a mandatory drug rehab i I hope that would happen to help my own daughter I hope that would happen to happen your own daughter but yes arrest is fundamental and you know drug addicts especially when they're high you say oh that will they get help when they want help well you know that could be too late or it could be never never they can waste their lives away and die so my view is more compassionate it is more based on intervention and intervention involves arrest I don't mind saying that you're more compassionate than me I thought that's that's I'm freely willing to admit that and that that vision sounds more compassionate well I think that it is more more important I think that it is more important to people to have the right to do I think see fit I think that's more important they will have to pay the consequences in my world they would pay the consequences and obviously I'm speaking in utopian terms your your vision is what we currently have I just believe that it is more important to give people the right to do that and I think that's just it's just a difference of opinion obviously look it's true way of viewing the world well it's true but you know I think you you know and this is why you you conjure yourself when parents are mentioned we don't really bear the consequence imagine this is an issue with veganism too if someone buys beef they don't really bear the consequences ecologically for example of meat production you know there are but there's no way in which they fare those consequences this is the prop this is one of the reasons why vegans want people stop eating meat you can buy beef and you don't have to swim in the river that's being polluted by meat production it's an externality right you can make the decision for yourself to become a drug addict and you don't bear the consequences of your own children being neglected or raised poorly because you're a draw or just a moderate drug user again for me it's not just being a drug addict you can use cocaine 2 times a week you don't actually deal with really most of the consequences created for other people even if you're not in a really high-pressure job like being a police officer or or university professor there are there are consequences for everyone yourself included that you'll never you'll never shoulder the responsibility for how can you a lot of things that we can't but that's an appeal to futility let's look that's an appeal that's an appeal to futility which you know which is a fallacy but you know there's a difference we can make and it is the difference between Japan even if we make those choices we will not get Japan Japan is Japan so your appeal is to Japan you didn't you don't like you know I have many other examples in terms of what's know for different countries different things are possible Laos is a very very poor country so their methods I mean I think that they obviously should allow people to they should legalize the sale of drugs because it's going to allow everyone to be safer in terms of consumption and everything like that that's my position you know that but if they were to go right now like if we took your vision and we took it to yeah and we said you know what we're gonna have harsh harsh penalties we are going to make sure this is illegal we will punish it I don't think I've ever mentioned harsh penalties once I met you the rest great great question great question great question and you know this is how this discussion began at the very beginning I have a positive example of exactly that which is Yunnan Province China which is right on the border of a long time civil war growing opium and selling opium they also produce methamphetamines and other synthetic drugs drugs like ecstasy so you nan is right on a border which is full of hard drug trafficking also a gun smuggling and a number of other kinds like that and they have an astoundingly high quality of law and order and and quality life of people and yes it is based on thousands and thousands of people being put in prison that is one that's not the whole solution but that is an example of a poor country not as poor as Laos not as poor as Cambodia but poor and they are they are using very serious enforcement which includes collecting everyone's emails in the whole country everyone's text messages and interesting people and they do people who are just addicts that you put into rehab they don't have death penalty for for-4 users they do have drug death penalty for smugglers people smuggled across the border that is part of it and you nan is a very successful example and you know again um maybe a couple dozen people are killed a year due to that policy I don't know in terms than that I completely accept that has some body count and I'm not saying it's great it would be great if we can reduce it I like that body you have to be as close to zero as possible but you know like all things zero is almost never attainable your policy so you just ask me which is a great question you said what would happen in Cambodia if my proposal if my propose were broken I could ask you what would happen in you nan if your proposal was applied and you know that the number of drug users in you nan would increase and we know this factually because the demand is there and it's being suppressed it's being stopped the number of drug users would increase and there would be tremendous social impacts both for you nan and for that Civil War in many ways you nan could descend into the kind of horrible situation Colombia was in in the 1980s if your policies were abiding in yours but you are saying that that would be worse that would be much worse like having more drug addicts and Union policy lib let's say it was a five percent increase in drug use in you nan there's a five percent increase in drug in use in you nan but people are free but that's that's a completely separate issue I'm sorry free you can't possibly claim that freedom of speech is silly and that's why Japan I'm using rock in the China cocaine is not freedom speech freedom of speech is a human right cocaine is not that's my position you believe both are human rights that's just human right crime to me that's human rights in action that is and if it's a five percent increase in drug drug use but I'm willing to accept that because as heartless and uncompassionate is that maybe I would rather have those people with their civil liberties being able to make decisions then have them in prison against their will what don't rhyme of putting something into their body but you don't um you say that the I think this is absolute last thing I'm saying stomach but you know the other thing about speed limits so I've never driven a car once in my whole life I made that choice but if you choose to own a car you choose to give up some of your civil liberties you know there's all these rules of the road and again not everyone can have a driver's license maybe your eyesight isn't good enough whatever it is right so it's it's actually limited and it's unequal and prejudicial and what-have-you we're not all equal as soon as you start drawing the legalization of drugs in the cop but if you if you you know enter into this kind of rage if you accept a rules-based system you know like there are different colleges of the united states some colleges will give you stringent drug tests and force you to learn how to swim is really weird to me in forcing you to take swimming tests and low hi v-- little glues and some people are so eager to say yeah this is the college i want to sign up to and some colleges are incredibly laxed and permissive and everyone is using drugs on campus the other ones using marijuana at least on the drugs openly and some people want to go to that Decco campus but don't you think there's a sense of fair play that people understand what's right and wrong they understand they have a sense of social responsibility and they understand that they're letting people down by using cocaine to letting down their parents they're letting down their kids they're letting down themselves maybe or an expectation what they could accomplish and that in fact there is something wrong but you know like is it oh such a small percentage of people who feel or just in the same way if I'm gonna drive a car I have to make some effort to be a good driver mm-hmm you can think of it as an obligation to society if you want to what do you think about it in other ways but just hey this is a rules-based system if I'm gonna play this game if I'm gonna play this sport even the sport has a set of rules within itself that's different from universal you know human rights are something it's just for this context I don't see this as a simple situation of an oppressive government forcing people to not use cocaine I think there is a sense of a game we play a society where we do take on responsibilities and say hey I know I'm a university professor or I'm a police officer or I'm me I've worked on a construction site but you know what I understand this is part of my responsibility is to know I mean and I understand that using it is a crime between your example and mine is the crime aspect I think that if we look at our society I don't know many societies that totally every all individuals praise drug use I think as individuals most of us fortunately tend to consider um that as letting people down let me tend to consider drug use as letting people down um and as fight because democracy is made up of individuals those individuals make up a society where they believe that drug uses sad and it's letting people down I just think instead of making it a crime we continue to say that it's wrong and to help people with it when they have that problem maybe or anything else instead of treating it as if it's a crime we treat it as an illness we treat even the use of your cocaine that you you enjoy some did you say it's so enjoyable that we treat that is a sad thing and we treated it even even something that makes people happy that we can treat that is something that is concerning we can we can discuss it for what it is without making it a crime in high schools all across America and all cars can in my high school the kids who did drugs do you think they're the cool kids or the uncool kids in my high school in the school I went to in the school you went to really they didn't get it okay sir I'm strangely but then I also grew up in an area where methamphetamine youth I knew many many people and so of course it's the situation and of course like same same deal for my husband where he grew up in Columbia but I grew up in the heart of meth country and the kids I mean you felt so bad for them they got teased mercilessly they were always afraid to tell you anything about their lives they would hide they refused to go to birthday parties they were extremely unpopular and even into high school you know so so well no but that's okay but that's a great contrast but I mean you must be able to appreciate the contrast between that situation and a situation where in high school what's normalized is the guy with drugs is cool the guy with drugs gets laid women have sex with them in order to have access to cocaine in which the cool kids in the high school and the powerful people in society are people using using drugs hard drugs like like cocaine and heroin this is this is why I think you agree with me more than you think you do because if you describe but if you would try to describe the objective you want I think you want everything about Japanese society without the enforcement without the illegal coercion element I think you want to live in a society with low levels of drug use and where the cool kid in high school and OC but just district Lee because there are elements of power are not just being sexy or being cool again in Laos the people who had the drugs gross the people with the guns I mean that's ultimately is an issue of social power they were the people who made decisions like a mayor locally like a village chieftain though you keep then or what have you that's also a problem as drugs being involved with power not just sex and prestige and coolness I think you want the same things I want you don't want your daughter to go to a school where the cool kids are the ones who use drugs and again and you in general don't want to be in a society we are where everyone's daughter is going to school with that but that is the society we're in I think that's very much the crossroads we're at and my own you know I mean my own brother is my own family I've known so many people you know impacted by this I new drug dealers in high school some of my friends were we're drug dealers and of course I knew drug users and you know for me at that age in high school age the only reason to be involved with drugs with sex if you were drugs and alcohol or drugs including alcohol the criminalization element and I have to point out one of my friends who's from Holland she said that one of the interesting things in her experience but I'm growing up in that environment was the drug use was not cool I'm sending that loser tourists went and did at coffee shops but it was lame right it was loser Lee and the people who did it ended up being losers it was not something that she ever aspired to it wasn't that having around in fact the legalization network in her opinion did make it less attractive so I think maybe what you're narrowing down on it the idea that the social norms of course powerful of course of course well I would say that you can say the same about speeding driving too fast probably the cultural because there can't be a cop on every corner it can't just be enforcement it has to be the attitude towards driving that - it's gonna be more powerful so III think that is true however I would not say the effective enforcement is zero neither Russ would say it's a zero you know this is Carter's but you know every society I studied as a scholar tera vaada but as how much it was written more than 10 years so terribad about as I'm really briefly Sri Lanka Myanmar Laos Cambodia Thailand few other little bits of pieces of Yunnan all of those societies had access to opium from the dawn of civilization or earliest records it's been there for thousands of years it was never hard to make your up did - incidentally it's much over looks that we have you know really like key man records with opium land and yet you know the effect of tera vaada Buddhism on the culture a culture that valorizes what I would call hyper vigilance with the idea it's not about being cool it's not being rised it's about being very alert and sharp - manly and to be very I want to tear about it but a Buddhist culture is to be really kind of on point which can be a drag living in those cultures to say most people don't find that aspect of Sri Lankan culture very agreeable but you know they'd probably prefer to be in a culture that's more more laid-back but just the influence of that I remember reading we have no historical records from the pre-modern period of opium being a problem even though the opium poppy grew like a weed and was used definitely as medicine for things like surgery or broken arm broken leg but that was something sick people used so when the elderly used it when they add you know back pain and stuff like that elderly people used it for for various commands that you don't want to be like a sick old man smoking opium so just stigma on the one hand and you know those kinds of powerful cultural perception what it is to be manly and vibrant that can and it apparently worked for a couple centuries no buts about it home I know how long but you know that those things they they can be they can be very powerful and you know you see so there is actually a lot of common ground between our views on that theater because actually the objective for the kind of society we want is the same but what kind of body count of what type were willing to tolerate is is different use the campus throughout throughout world history in unit marijuana was used as a flu remedy but that was it and then it was the dust despised if you didn't have the flu or something like yeah you know things that were pretty extreme but but kept culture and I think what we're both saying here and correct me if I'm wrong but I think one thing that we're both saying is that the power of culture yes it's stronger than than than criminalization the culture can be a stronger influence than than the criminalization and maybe my one my one suggestion here from my perspective would simply be the increasing enforcement like you you hear people like um oh I think it's name is suzet Peter Hitchens Christopher Hitchens brother but if you if you just punish people enough so I don't believe that I mean not a naive if work on the culture part and ignored the legalization part I mean I may think that it would be nice for it to be legal you think it would be nice for it to be illegal we both know we're both be perfectly honest the only drug that I hear it's pretty close to reality the only drug that I really would would genuinely advocate for publicly and ever have this is going on YouTube this is pretty public forever myself but but I've always um I've always advocated for it because I think that it would help alleviate some issues with crime and stuff like that but maybe the one thing that we can agree about here is just that whether you win or I do what ultra may play a bigger role chirpin then because we've seen the laws in the u.s. lots of laws against drugs there are lots of people in prison and it doesn't have the same effect even as Union because if you look at them yes no but there were there are failures there are failures and there are the failures are very but Chicago is a failure Los Angeles there are many many failures no no IIIi and I think it's written but I think I think all of Mexico is a failure in that way also I mean maybe not Vermont maybe in like you know I don't know [ __ ] about her but is a maybe in Vermont things are ok but no it most of those are really examples of profound failure and I think we have to learn from examining the failures and I think we can also learn from examining success like Japan and there are many many elements there you know a culture and otherwise and some of them may be a wealthy country like Canada can learn from an adapt to the Canadian context and maybe for a country like Laos maybe the best thing they can do is to legalize it temporarily I sympathize the decision made by the Colombian government which is basically to drag their feet and allow cocaine to be legalized because I can imagine they got to a point where they say look we've shot so many people and we don't want to shoot people anymore and let's try something new because we know the old way wasn't working and we don't have a budget to imitate Japan so let's try legalization I completely sympathize with what goes what goes into that decision and you know maybe you can even say having a you know having enforcement is a luxury that some countries can't afford and there's a there's a real argument as to you know what is best for Colombia and what is what is best for Mexico and what is what is best for you Nana Japan and so on I'm very open to that kind of you know a pragmatic contradiction on the level of one to one reality but we'll wrap it up I mean don't don't worry I have almost nothing more to say but you know I normally do not base my arguments on compassion you've probably noticed this like within veganism I almost never say to you look at this cow how can you fail to feel you know I it's kind of an easy card to play there are all kinds of reasons why I don't bother to do that but you know we you know compassion is still an issue in our in our ethics in what have you um you know you you you kind of said laughing like oh do you think arresting people is compassionate you know I've known drug addicts you've talked about it this I think does come from Socrates one of those fundamentals ideas of Socrates is you can talk to people and they think they're happy but they're not you can debate with them what is true happiness this is worth debating you know you know people can think they're happy as drug addicts and be arrested and have five days in a prison cell and then two months in a rehab facility and they look back and say wow that was just just having the opportunity to get clean I'm so glad I got arrested how many times does that happen I've read so many interviews where this this kind of thing is is related so no I mean I know you know very different context you're kind of scoffing at the idea that arresting people is compassionate I don't fought at the attitude of someone like Milton Friedman of saying just let them kill themselves in contrast to walking down the street again sorry down the street is prejudicial because as you say it's mostly poor people on the street let's say my own brother had brothers who are at various levels of socioeconomic status but none of them are none of them are living on the street but you know my own brother whose University educated I can call him Richard it's a fake name so my brother Richard I think it would have been a wonderful thing if he'd gotten arrested and even done time for us package past reviews I really do I think it would have been good for him and it would have been good for getting in society and you know that maybe that sounds like an awful thing to say but as I say it's not it's not a deploring it but to me the question of being indifferent to someone being a drug addict whether it's a stranger on the street a little homeless person or your brother or someone who's a wealthy executive or a rock star and saying look you know the word arrest means stop the power of arrest is here so we can stop you you get clean and you know you may you may not have a choice but going to rehab I think neither one of us wants to walk by that person neither one of us thinks but that's the right thing to do um the I think that it it really does have less to do with whether we put that person in prison or whether we put them in rehab I have equalized ation is preferable is because when you look at rehabilitation for addicts especially addicts like the people who do become the addicts the people who get the brain damaged the people who ruin their lives the number of them that are rehabilitated is so incredibly low and you look at I mean I think about my mom's friend her son is my age we were friends growing up his life is totally destroyed he's been in rehab many times he's been in prison many many times and neither one has done any good for him and I you you talk about this a lot there are some issues that are just I wish we had the science I think someday we will to be able to solve those issues but we don't have the science to solve those issues right now we're in this place where we don't know what to do and for him I just think you know for someone like that that is it's gonna be very sad and no matter what and I mean when you look at the stats for Alcoholics Anonymous things like that you see how how often people relapse when they have that severe addiction I would rather see him taking the drugs that he needs in a supervised situation like I've seen what they do in Switzerland his parents would sleep you talk about a parent like I've seen how's mom and dad it both suffered and the kind of impact that it's had on their lives um I don't think this criminalization has helped him in any way or help them as parents and and I just I think you're so right about the cultural issues and how strong those are and I'm very much agree with you and I I'm very pleased to see the people who come with this from different perspectives um I think you again on believing more in the legislation is an answer me believing maybe more in freedom is the answer we can both agree that there need to be serious cultural changes in order to make anything like that work well I think this is a major major struggle for our generation and you know I think it is really possible you and I will both run for Alderman or run for mayor in the future and this this video could come back up well it can be quoted in my whole life I used cocaine once because I read that book you guys didn't guess when I said it's infinitely more than zero the number was one all this can be quoted to to discredit us but I mean you know I do think it's ironic three times a week is okay right four or five we got to draw the line somewhere right but I mean it is interesting like veganism I think it is true that you and I both are engaged with this issue because we are interested in making the world a better place whether you think about that in terms of compassion or harm reduction or you know however you you want to put it and you know I think I mean I hope I still know you 20 years from now I really do but no but this is one of those issues made 20 years from now Iraq could be a peaceful democracy to unhear know you know the world could change in many ways what will Afghanistan be like 20 years from now I'm not recklessly optimistic Cambodia Cambodia could be a well there's if there's if there's one thing if there's one thing for sure 20 years from now this problem will not go away and to use the the locus that started the conversation I don't think either one of us believes that specifically Vancouver Vancouver Canada neither of us thinks that that issue will go away so I think it is a major ethical political and legal issue for our times and Canada Columbia and all the rest of the world is gonna argue with it and we is gonna wrestle with it and I was gonna say I do think you're correct in asking the questions about freedom I really do but just as I don't I don't believe in the freedom that you can poo anywhere you know sewage treatment also involves coercion of saying no we're gonna force you to participate in our government conspiracy to put sewage into pipes and you can't put it here yet it's very specific what isn't isn't well there are all kinds of things worse oh yeah over here we have freedom and then we draw a line and over here there's no freedom and you know that this is a case where you and I draw the line at a different point in the map okay great talking to you Maude great way to spend three hours and okay I'll put I tell you what though you know we may not be that so many people listen the full three hours but a lot of people do listen to the podcast I'm gonna give a link below this video so people can get it download it just as a podcast and list it while they do the dishes you may have thought the first two hours are not useful to you but I'm certain there will be some people in the audience for whom that's that's you know hashing out some issues they'd never thought of before from two very peculiar and very vegan perspectives that maybe the world has never seen before