I am genuinely surprised that AI has not already been used to discover countless drugs all with chemical properties that are different and not illegal. It will come of course at some point likely before the end of the decade but who knows. I suspect that there will be some pretty awesome drugs that have e lower side effects and or there will be counter measures discovered to offset negatives etc.
The internet is full of designer drugs. Opioids are pretty basic, not thst hard to produce, and available on a mass market scale, though, you don’t need new development for those.
Party drugs, like MDMA, have tons of “experimental” formulae and are available online wherever local laws aren’t prepared to ban them. The side effects are usually the thing people are taking the drugs for in the first place. You want to mess with certain receptors inside the brain, that’s the whole point, and for healthy people, normal doses won’t even have side effects that severe. Whatever drug you may design, people will become resistant to it, start taking more, and overdose.
I don’t think AI is necessary for any of this. The hard part isn’t designing drugs, it’s more about setting up efficient production facilities.
I do not disagree that there are already designer drugs as they have been in the news for over a decade or more. I am more meaning that AI has the ability to instantly discover a whole lot more. I only say this as I have read several papers now where researchers used AI to discover new chemicals (not drugs per se) and they have found more with AI than all the traditional research to date. It is really opening the doors as discoveries are tedious and time consuming which are two areas that AI excels at. I am certain we are going to see a flood of designer drugs that are on another level. I agree though, I would not personally touch them at all as who knows the long term impacts. That said, we are all encountering countless chemicals in the environment that are new and also not well tested so even if you do not do the latest designer drugs, you are still consuming unknown chemicals. That is the harsh reality.
We don’t need AI, we’ve had those chemicals for decades. They’re called Research Chemicals and some countries (like the UK I think) preemptively ban them, while in others they have to be explicitly banned. It’s an ongoing cat and mouse game, but if you asked me I’d rather take a well known compound and not some random crap that was invented last year and like 6 people took.
The awesome drugs with lower side effects are the well known ones, like LSD.
Exactly. What are the LSD equivalents that are not illegal.
I did a research chemical that was supposed to be like LSD, called 2C-P.
May or may not be legal depending on where you live, but I’d be weary of doing it again. I overheated like a motherfucker. And although it was potent, it didn’t feel like a clean high you get with LSD.
I agree with the other poster. I’d much rather do drugs that have a long, proven history as opposed to something that is relatively unproven.
This user is just on a roll with stupid takes.
Not really unpopular. Most Scientists and even some politicians agree that the war on drugs only made things worse and that prohibition is not working.
Actual unpopular opinion: people obsess over legalization models for everything because they have bad enforcement models to base their data off of
Law enforcement in the US distributes drugs. Corruption has turned “informants” into a system where the police are essentially gangs which monopolize both criminal activity and the law. Our air force got caught cooking MDMA on a nuclear base in the Netherlands. We have a base here in Texas that changed names because they keep having suicides mass shootings and sweeping SA allegations under the rug. Two of the soldiers got caught with a middle schooler man. There’s so many goddamn drugs
Anyways my point is sociologists studying the US actions will assume it is impossible to make anything illegal without causing havoc.
There are ways to eliminate issues like prostitution and drug abuse without locking up prositutes or giving people possession charges or locking up street dealers making less than minimum wage. That kind of criminalization does absolutely nothing other than ruin lives
Which ways, can you detail them?
You go after the pimps and distributors, to begin with. Help get low level members of these orgs out and back into society. Genuine rehabilitation is not the goal of our prison system, just slavery. To state the obvious you prolly know.
I am not a huge fan of the Nordic model but it is miles better than trying to get the UN orgs to call pimps “sex workers” ugh
I’m curious what you’d think would be better than the Nordic model; to my current understanding it’s the path the evidence best supports as leading to rehabilitation.
That said, if we just imported the Nordic model and made no other societal changes, I don’t think anything would meaningfully change. Pimps and dealers exist because there is an economic place for them. Even if you arrest people and then treat them with kindness, understanding, and education, it doesn’t remove the incentives that pushed them into that role in the first place, and it won’t stop someone else from moving into the vacuum that arrest creates.
Ah yes, the Nordic model… Like Sweden and it’s obsession with drugs, to the point where the doctors will rather you suffer than get you help because if they give you something that can be perceived as addictive, you’ll just become a degenerate addict.
How about the zero tolerance part on having or being on drugs, the one where they will literally ruin your life and any future prospects if they find you with a banned substance in your blood…
You know where that’s led to? It’s led to Sweden having the highest drug related death rate in Europe.
I don’t get why governments get to tell people what they can and cannot take tbh. I love smoking weed, if I have the right strain it decreases my anxiety by 80%,but some fucker in government only understands “drug bad”, so fuck me and my anxiety.
Weed should just be legal tbqh but still controlled like booze but some drugs should always be strictly be medical imho there should not be recreational sedative markets really.
Alcohol is bad enough and weed at least doesn’t cause respiratory depression but idk about recreational benzos or whatever. Opiates. That’s medical shit.
But what about all the shareholders who have a stake in the prison-industrial complex?
They can go to rehab for money addiction.
I think we should legalize and hand off distribution and production to major colleges. Have a lot of the profits go toward lowering tuition that way we can elevate our citizens to a higher standard where we can eventually lessen the use of drugs for escapism.
Do you really want what has happened with unrestricted tobacco to happen with meth?
Legalized ≠ unregulated
Like by prescription only like opiods or like no advertising like tobacco?
Regulations come in many forms.
It all depends on the type of drug and what is dangerous about it.
UNPOPULAR OPINION: popular opinion
Kinda but you would need to limit corporations abusing addiction for profit like they already do with things like nicotine
Portugal. They’ve essentially been doing this for years.
Drugs are decriminalised and in themselves legal.
It’s still technically a crime to use them but generally you are treated as a patient with addiction. Not a criminal.
There’s still a massive body of criminal law around supplying, and producing them.
So they are not dismantling controls on drugs but targeting the issues drugs cause instead of criminalising users needlessly.
Not perfect there but certainly lessons to be learnt.
Shouldn’t be all that unpopular. Drugs have existed for most of human history, and plenty of them have origins in religious/healing purposes.
More effort should have always been on the treatment of addiction side than enforcement.
The whole drug system should exist in its own perpetual economy.
Sell drugs legally, all profits go towards treatment and prevention.
Make all illegal drugs legal and nationalize all pharmaceuticals, then keep making money on all of it but use the profit to change all drug use into an actual benefit to humanity rather than another way to monetize abusing people and profiteering from their misery.
The way civilisation views both legal and illegal drugs is to think of it as a business and money maker, rather than a product to help people.
Drugs have existed for hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of years before humans. Peyote, poppies, cannabis, mushrooms, coco, and many hundreds of other plants just happen to have chemicals that make monkeys feel good.
There are several entire countries that give the death penalty for just possessing small amounts of certain drugs.
I get what you’re going for here, but I don’t know that it would actually work in practice. How many people in the world have never tried heroin or meth only because it’s illegal? I feel like a lot of people would become drug addicts specifically because it would be legal, which in their minds would mean it can’t be that bad.
You have no idea about how addiction works. I never mentioned my opinion would ever “work”. What do you even mean by “work”?
It’s legal to drink bleach, but everyone seems to understand that it’s that bad and avoid it anyway…
If it got you high people would do it
It’s legal to smoke tobacco, many people understand it’s that bad and still do it.
Funnily enough, you’d need to drink some pretty strong bleach for it too cause anything more than an upset stomach. Bleach isn’t that harmful.
funnily enough, you’d need to shoot some pretty strong heroin for it too cause anything more than an upset stomach. heroin isn’t that harmful.
I mean, I know how addictive and dangerous heroin and meth are. I’m not avoiding them just bcz they are illegal.
I don’t smoke or drink alcohol, even though it’s legal.
But most people do.
Not most people. But a significant number.
Using no drugs for entertainment is so niche, it has its own groups name called Straight Edge.
But have you tried it once?
Not smoking
In places where drugs have been decriminalised across the board the opposite happened.
Of the drugs are free then it’s a problem that solves itself.
Meh, having everything instantly legal would be too much especially without the funding for care centers where addicts can get help. As well as preventative systems for addicts.
Decriminalization is a step better but it doesn’t solve the problems of dealers lacing fentanyl into things people dont expect.
That said, it’s absurd to not already have things like psychedelics/weed/kratom decriminalization and small amounts of party drugs. The fact that the punishment for doing drugs far more harmful than the dugs themselves is mind boggling.
Poisonings and overdoses skyrocket.
And those people get proper medical care instead of revolving door prisons.
If drugs are produced with the same requirements as pharmaceuticals poisonings go down massively. That is usually due to it being cut with other shit.
I was talking to OP’s opinion, which is different from yours.
Because right now everything is dandy, right?
By treating addicted users as criminals instead of people in need of help, they don’t get the help they need and it creates a taboo around the issue, just like it was a few years ago for mental health or sexual orientation.
At the strict minimum, decriminalize and controlled access is a good stop gap.
I was talking to OP’s opinion, which is different from yours.
What are you talking about?
My point still stand because I agree with OP’s post.
People already do loads of drug and prohibition never stopped that since the dawn of time.
If the government give access to safe and clean drugs, they can make tax revenue from the sale of the drugs, and put in place rehab programs where addicts are not treated like criminal.
Thus my point, the strict minimum should be decriminalization of users, with a way to provide them with clean and safe drugs.
Decriminalize or legalize? Decriminalize sure. But you really want stores selling fentanyl or krokodil?
Sure. Would Walmart start selling fentanyl? Would people buy it?
You do understand how small amount of that can kill right? The massive problem that it is already?
Again I’m all for decriminalization. These people shouldn’t be being locked up because they have a problem. But the more crazy drugs like that? We shouldn’t make access even easier.
I’m all for legalization of a lot of them. But all? That would lead to literally thousands upon thousands of deaths just with fentanyl alone.
So you’re saying it’s a massive problem already… and it’s illegal? Damn, must not be working too great.
What’s the upside to making fentanyl even easier to access for the general public? How does this improve the situation in your eyes?
Known dosage and purity. People die of overdoses, and of adulterated doses. A vast amount of the horror of krokodil is the production method leading to impurities, and much of the demand for it comes from the lack of other drugs and the ability to cook it up in a garage.
People seem to be accessing it just fine. I’m not saying my opinion would improve the situation, but it would definitely change something.
I…what. so… Your entire opinion about how we should legalize all drugs has nothing to do with improving anything? You just want to do this because it would be a change? You just… Want to do things differently for the hell of it?
I have a legitimate argument against making certain drugs legal, only the extremely dangerous ones that can kill when you take barely any of it. And your only argument for giving the general public extremely easy access to it is… It would make things different?
I’m sorry but, you didn’t really put any thought into this opinion of yours did you?
Yes.
Because the reason there are overdoses is because no one has any idea the strength of any of the drugs they take. Knowing exactly the dose of the drug you’re taking because it’s legally purchased is a gigantic benefit
If some massive junkie is shown the numbers he would never overdose? Seeing the dosage would teach them self-control? 2,000 micrograms of fentanyl can kill a person. And you people want this in Walmart?
A gallon of bleach can kill people, and we sell that in Walmart. People don’t want to die, they want to get high. If you can buy 20, 100 microgram doses, why would you take all 20 at once unless you wanted to die, and if you wanted to die, well, there are more guns than people in the US, trains exist, razors exist… Are we to wrap the entire world in bubble wrap?
Disclaimer: if we have an aligned AGI I may well be for some version of wrapping the world in bubble wrap, but I’m almost certain alignment includes allowing people who truly want to die, to die, but having very few such people because of treatments for depression, a world that doesn’t suck, etc.
Yes and yes
Checking in for the struggling sober. Controlled access and decriminalisation need to go hand in hand with
he ded rip
Yeah kinda my point we cant just consider the criminal impact like OP is doing with blinders on
