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    #51
    La la la. We can't hear you!

    Johnson denies misleading the house...

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      #52
      La la la. We can't hear you!

      Johann Hari talks sense.

      It does happen.

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        #53
        La la la. We can't hear you!

        Happens a fair bit. That's not atypical. Hari always gets a terrible time from Private Eye but one wonders if that's because of some feud going one with one of their contributors?

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          #54
          La la la. We can't hear you!

          (I may have him mixed up, to be honest; I don't get the Indie usually. Apologies Mr H.)

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            #55
            La la la. We can't hear you!

            Ah right, this is why my thread about this got no posts a while ago.

            Hari is often very good.

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              #56
              La la la. We can't hear you!

              I do think the horseriding comparison was a bit silly, perhaps a "let's make undergraduates think" rather than a serious contribution to the debate. I know he was basically only comparing the danger aspect, but there's also the point about what you get in return from the danger. Horse riding is, I presume, good exercise if you don't fall off. Can you make any argument for ecstasy taking providing an objectively positive thing to most people who take it?

              I've got some good memories of lights looking cool and once I thought a black DJ was Brian Blessed, but I don't know if that counts.

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                #57
                La la la. We can't hear you!

                I'd wager there's more exercise in a night of pill-inspired dancing than there is in letting the horse do all the work.
                Not to mention all the water you drink...

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                  #58
                  La la la. We can't hear you!

                  I'm a talker on pills but anyway, how about fresh air?

                  You're going to mention open air raves now.

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                    #59
                    La la la. We can't hear you!

                    Well, exactly, before the government stepped in the E generation was getting its fresh air with its dancing.

                    Horse riding does take a fair bit of effort though.

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                      #60
                      La la la. We can't hear you!

                      Can you make any argument for ecstasy taking providing an objectively positive thing to most people who take it?
                      Well, it's therapeutic for Parkinson's sufferers. Anyway, the point, surely is that we don't require things to be "objectively positive" before allowing people to do them. I really don't see what's wrong with the horse riding comparison, by the way. People are notoriously bad at comparing risks, especially when the absolute risk is low but the damage is high.

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                        #61
                        La la la. We can't hear you!

                        I was being a bit like a professor provoking his students myself on reflection. As a way of understanding the "ecstasy can kill you in one go" argument, it's a fair comparison, and that must be what he had in his sights there.

                        We don't indeed ask for things to be objectively beneficial to be allowed, and I'm a legalizer, as you know, because I think things have to be very bad indeed to be illegal (worse than public schools). But you'd expect law to weigh up the positives as well as the negatives, wouldn't you? It's like this argument's predecessor, the "no worse than aspirin" one. Aspirin makes headaches better, so you're going to cut that more slack in law than ecstasy. We tolerate conditions on the tube at rush hour that we wouldn't anywhere else because of the public good of getting people to work.

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                          #62
                          La la la. We can't hear you!

                          As a way of understanding the "ecstasy can kill you in one go" argument, it's a fair comparison, and that must be what he had in his sights there.
                          It's not so much that as that an ecstasy user is less likely to die as a result of their use than a horse rider is from riding a horse. That's certainly not the impression you'd get from the government's rhetoric, or the media's for that matter.

                          The larger point is that nobody at all is arguing for banning horse riding or rugby or mountain climbing or base jumping or sword swallowing or any number of dangerous activities - and it would never happen. Similarly, alcohol causes far more harm day in, day out than ecstasy and is legal. We don't ban things simply because they are risky, regardless of whether they have benefits. There's always a moralistic and/or pragmatic aspect, which is downplayed by some in the debate. Psychoactive drugs are in a world of their own, legally and politically speaking. On a purely risk based analysis, that's absurd.

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                            #63
                            La la la. We can't hear you!

                            Um, good post.

                            But do you think the law should consider positives? That doesn't seem absurd, even if it doesn't happen.

                            I suppose not the least positive about ecstasy is that people don't drink as much.

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                              #64
                              La la la. We can't hear you!

                              But do you think the law should consider positives? That doesn't seem absurd, even if it doesn't happen.
                              I think the government should take a pragmatic approach more or less, with a very strong bias toward liberty and an emphasis on harm reduction. Which may mean weighing positives and negatives of use, but also means weighing whether the negatives of use/abuse outweigh the negatives of prohibition. In ecstasy's case, and that of many other substances, I think that's absolutely not the case. It's also why I think alcohol should remain legal despite the massive harm it causes.

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