A strange phenomenon plagues public discourse. Subtle and largely detached from the culture war, it often manages to evade detection. Can you spot it in each of the following arguments or discussion points? Drugs like cocaine and heroin are bad. They are ruinous to users’ health, and use imposes a large negative externality on society.
I hate to nitpick, but most drugs that produce strong pleasure (heroin, cocaine, etc.) tend to have bad effects on experienced pleasure in the long run. This is an oversimplification, but basically brain chemistry eventuallu adjusts to the presence of the drug, so that instead of feeling normal when you're not on the drug and really good when you are, you eventually end up feeling merely "normal" when on the drug and terrible when off of it. If you are going to live for more than six months, the "direct effects" of heroin and crack cocaine will probably end up causing more misery than pleasure over a lifetime.
Direct effects matter!
I hate to nitpick, but most drugs that produce strong pleasure (heroin, cocaine, etc.) tend to have bad effects on experienced pleasure in the long run. This is an oversimplification, but basically brain chemistry eventuallu adjusts to the presence of the drug, so that instead of feeling normal when you're not on the drug and really good when you are, you eventually end up feeling merely "normal" when on the drug and terrible when off of it. If you are going to live for more than six months, the "direct effects" of heroin and crack cocaine will probably end up causing more misery than pleasure over a lifetime.