The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: Legalize all drugs

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

2020 was a deadly year for North America's substance abusers. Over 6,000 Canadians and 93,000 Americans died from opioid related deaths, a significant increase from 2019. And while cannabis recently became legal in Canada and parts of the US, many believe that the only way to solve the current crisis is by legalizing all drugs, especially opiates. Supporters say legalization will reduce crime, free up police resources, and generate millions in tax revenue that can be used to rehabilitate addicts instead of punishing them. Regulating drug sales would make them safer to administer and thus curb overdose rates. Legalization would also solve existing racial disparities in drug enforcement that unfairly target and imprison black men compared to their white counterparts. In a free society, they argue, adults should be free to do what they choose provided their actions are not causing harm to others. Critics of legalization are raising red flags. Increasing access to drugs and normalizing their use will increase the abuse and addiction associated with these powerful opiates. We would see a substantial rise in consumption, the decay of our moral fabric, and a rise in health care costs needed to treat deadly addictions. And finally, critics point out, one need to look no further than America's deadly opioid crisis to see that legalization will not curb addiction or death. Indeed, they argue, it will do just the opposite. Arguing in favour of the motion is Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Arguing against the motion is Theodore Dalrymple, English cultural critic, retired prison physician and psychiatrist, and Dietrich Weissman Fellow of the Manhattan Institute QUOTES: NATHANIEL ERSKINE-SMITH “From drugs to sex work to assisted dying, there are so many different examples where when we push something underground, the problems get so much worse. THEODORE DALRYMPLE “The current American opioid crisis started with perfectly legal prescription by incompetent, naïve, or corrupt doctors influenced by dishonest promotion.” Sources:  CNBC, BNN, CHEK News, PBS, NBC, ABC, Newsy The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Reza DahyaBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I distinctly remember hearing someone yell, stop that van. From CBC podcasts, an investigation into how young men are being recruited and radicalized on the internet. And she asked me if I was friends with a guy named Alec Menassian. By a new supercharged form of hate. On Facebook, police say he wrote the incal rebellion has already begun. A dark online subculture that's spilling over into the real world. Boys like me, available now on CBC Listen and everywhere you. you get your podcasts.

There are options, and that's why we need to take this opportunity seriously. How way you can prevent global warming unless China is part of the solution? This is not normal male behavior. This is predatory behavior. We don't know how bad this bug is. We don't know what this bug does. All of that was thrown away in those eight minutes and 46 seconds, and that's the moment that I became an abolitionist. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Welcome to the Monk Debates. On every episode we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issue of the day

to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved, legalize all drugs. Drug overdoses. They're killing a stunning number of Americans. The CDC says that 100,000 people died of drug overdoses over the past year. That is a 30% increase from the year before and an all-time high. Well, there is a health crisis in Canada that predates the pandemic. And in the province of BC is currently more deadly than that pandemic.

It is facing new deaths, 107 in the month of May alone from opioid overdoses and toxicity related to illicit drugs. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. Well, 2020 was a deadly year for drug users in North America with 10,000. of thousands of recorded deaths. On the back of cannabis, recently becoming legal in Canada and parts of the United States, many believe that the only way to resolve the current public health crisis is by legalizing all drugs, especially opiates. Supporters of legalization say that it will reduce crime, free up police resources,

address racial disparities, and generate millions in tax revenues that can be used to rehabilitate addicts instead of punishing them. Here's British Columbia's chief coroner, calling for the federal government to change their drug policies as record numbers of fentanyl deaths continue unabated. We know that decades of this punishing and stigmatizing approach have brought us to the devastating place we're in today. Let's work towards eliminating the medical crises,

the social disorder, the pain, the loss, and the death by changing our approach from one of the first. punishing and blaming to one of supporting and healing. Critics of legalization are raising red flags. Increasing access to hard drugs and normalizing their use will increase the abuse and addiction associated with the powerful opioids that are ending up on city streets. They argue legalizing hard drugs will lead to a substantial rise in consumption, family breakdown in psychological trauma,

and soaring health care costs associated with, treating addiction to hard drugs. On this installment of the monk debates, we challenge the essence of these arguments by debating the motion, be it resolved, legalize all drugs. Arguing for the motion is Canadian Liberal Member of Parliament, Nathaniel Erskinezkin Smith. Arguing against the motion is Theodore Dalrymple, an English cultural critic, retired prison physician and psychiatrist. He's also the Dithwick Weissman Fellow of the Manhattan Institute. Nathaniel, Theodore, welcome to the Monk Debates. Thanks for having.

Hello. Thank you. Excellent. Looking forward to today's debate. It's a perennial one, but one from a policy perspective that I think has taken on increased urgency and saliency around the world, at least in most developing countries, as governments grapple with this question of what to do with drugs in society. They are part of our reality. We need to address and assess them from a perspective of personal harm, personal choice, and the opportunity to kind of think some bigger thoughts with both of you today on the topic of drug legalization is an invaluable opportunity and exercise.

So on behalf of the Monk Debates community, thank you so much both for being part of this conversation. Our resolution simple to the point, be it resolved, legalize all drugs. Nathaniel, you're arguing in favor of the motion. Let's have your opening statement, please. Well, first, everyone should be aware if they aren't already that the war on drugs has completely and totally failed. That despite the massive outlay and expenditure on law enforcement to reduce the consumption and production of drugs, we have failed to reduce the consumption and production of drugs. we have failed to reduce the consumption and production of drugs. And the answer here is not a free-for-all, and legalization scares some folks I know.

Legalization really, though, means the responsible control of drugs. It means regulation and education. And we have to push back against efforts that want to foster and defend prohibition policies, fail prohibition policies, because we know the harms that they bring to bear on our society. They increase the power of organized crime. That means violence in our neighborhoods because of turf wars, but it also internationally means increased corruption because of international organized crime, and it actually destabilizes regimes and democracies and the rule of law around the world. We see a massive death toll

here in Canada. There were 6,000 deaths in 2020. In the United States, over 90,000 deaths because of overdoses, poisoning, infectious diseases related opioid use alone. That's not counting other drug-related deaths. It hinders access to medicines because we have a shortage of adequate drug treatment and pain relief, it's collateral damage because of this effort to eradicate drug supply around the world. And we see racial injustices as we see the disproportionate impact of prohibition policies on racialized Canadians, Americans, overcrowded prisons, a negative impact on the ability to integrate in society. The answer is regulation. The answer is respecting personal choice. And the answer is tackling problematic drug use where we can through

a public health approach and through education. And we know there's a better way because we do this all the time. So many drugs are already legal and regulated from caffeine to alcohol to penicillin. We know that there's a better way and it's really a question of categorization, not prohibition. Which drug are we talking about and how are we going to deal with it? And the more harmful and the greater risks that a potential drug might pose, then we want to regulate its availability very strictly, whereas a drug like caffeine, for example, would be readily available. And so it really becomes a question of categorization, strict regulation, and education. Thank you, Nathaniel. Okay, Theodore, your opportunity to come in on the other side of our motion today, be it resolved,

legalize all drugs. You're arguing from the con perspective, so let's have your opening statement please. Well, there seem to me to be two main legs to this proposal, the first philosophical and the second practical utilitarian. And I'll disregard what precisely is meant. by legalization, for example, the production and commercialization of, say, crack cocaine, like the production and commercialization of chocolate. The philosophical argument would be fundamentally that of John Stuart Mill, that the state or public power has no right to decree what citizens choose to put into their own bodies. I can sympathize with this point of view, but the problem is that those who demand the freedom

and also usually demand assistance from others when things go wrong. Moreover, it's simply not true that we have or at least unless we are hermits in the Syrian desert to take whatever intoxicant we like, when we like. For most of our lives, in fact, in modern society, we have no such right. We can't drive drunk or otherwise intoxicated. We don't want train drivers or pilots or the teachers of our children or our doctors to name only a few. to be intoxicated by anything. So the question of prohibition of the use of drugs

is one of degree and judgment and not one of abstract million principle. As to the utilitarian argument, it's often alleged that the evils of drug abuse and drug use arise solely or mainly from prohibition. And I don't think that this is really so. There's evidence to suggest that the degree to which drugs are taken and desisted from

depends on price, both financial and others, including legal price. The current American opioid crisis started with perfectly legal prescription by incompetent, naive or corrupt doctors, influenced by dishonest promotion. But I repeat, it started with legal prescription, even if the crisis now escapes its origins. As to the relation of crime to drug taking and supply, it's more complex than not often imagined. To give only one example, prisoners in Britain who are addicted to heroin had long criminal records before they ever took heroin. So the common trope, they commit crimes to pay for their drugs, is simplistic. Thank you, Theodore. And let's now have a round of rebuttal so we can get deeper into this debate. So Nathaniel, your opportunity to react to Theodore's opening statement.

I would say a few things. One, I think the comparison and the analogy of chocolate to crack cocaine is too flippant by far because, as I said in my opening, we would regulate drugs according to their respective harms. And there are five models, really, we could talk about. There's a medical prescription model for the riskiest drugs. They would be prescribed by qualified medical professionals. You have a specialist pharmacy model for licensed, trained professionals like pharmacists as gatekeepers. That's like, like, like retail sales of cannabis in Uruguay, for example. In Canada, we have licensed retail cannabis. We have licensed premises, obviously, pubs and bars, and obviously unlicensed retail for coffee and I mentioned caffeine. So there are many different models we might bring to bear, and chocolate obviously would not be treated the same as crack cocaine. And no one is suggesting that one would simply get to use whatever intoxicant whenever one would like. And I find it interesting the comparison to drunk driving. Is my colleague really suggesting that we ought to

criminalize alcohol because of drunk driving? I think the answer is no. We criminalize the conduct that ought to be criminal, which is the wrong. And drinking alcohol on a Friday night, having one or two glasses of wine, that ought not to be criminal. And no more criminal than someone recreationally using cannabis or psychedelics for therapy or so many substances. MDMA going to a party. I mean, there's so many substances people can use recreationally and safely, but they can't use it as safely today because they are illegal and the quality control is not there and people are dying because of a toxic poison drug supply. Thank you, Nathaniel. Okay, Theodore, your opportunity to react to Nathaniel's opening statement or what you've just heard? Well,

the idea that something fails because it doesn't work completely is, of course, wrong. I mean, the war against murder for 2,000 years has not worked in the sense that we still have a lot of murders in some places more than others. I don't really see how crack cocaine and many other things are going to be regulated very well. It doesn't sound plausible to me and we are dealing with every kind of drug, not just the drugs mention. In fact, heroin addiction took off in Britain because heroin was legally prescribed by doctors for addicts. And it escaped the control of the doctors. And in the 1950s, for example,

there were, at most, a few score heroin addicts known in Britain, and there was reason to think that they were known because they could get their heroin free from doctors. But doctors, I'm afraid, some of the doctors started selling the heroin, and it soon escaped the control of doctors so that 50 years later there were 300,000 addicts, 150,000 of them injuring. If we take the city of Amsterdam, which has long had controlled, a sort of controlled, hypocritically controlled cannabis, it is the most, unexpectedly, it's the most violent city in Western Europe. So I, I, I, I, I, I,

don't think that by, that any miracles may be expected by this proposal. And I think that the, the ease of getting drugs will devastate, could devastate even more the communities which are most likely to use them. Of course, not everyone will use them and not everyone will abuse But nevertheless, I think there's a distinct possibility of this. And as I said, historical example suggests we should be prudent perhaps or careful. Thank you, both gentlemen. Our debate today that we are involved in unpacking as be it resolved to legalize all drugs, my opportunity now to kind of join the conversation and think up some questions that are top of mind for our audience members.

And Nathaniel, let me come to you first. And I want to hear a bit more from you about what the tragedy, frankly, of Oxycontin and the large-scale legal provisioning of whole sections of our society with powerful opioids in the form of a pill. What that says about this debate, because some people would argue that the tragedy of oxycline. OxyContin and Purdue Pharma and the Slackler family is a powerful proof point that legalization has caused an immense public harm here. The Sackler family is so wealthy. There's a wing at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art named after them. They own Purdue Pharma, the maker of one of the most widely prescribed and abused painkillers in America, OxyContin. We now know that Purdue and Sackler family were pushing. for the strongest possible dosage to be prescribed because they made more money.

In a sense, society was unable to provide these drugs to people in safe ways. With all the strictures and controls that you've talked about, pharmacies, doctors, we've ended up with tens of thousands of deaths at the hands of legalized opioids. Well, I would say a few different things because I think it mischaracterizes the debate in some respects. Because what we saw, in fact, is, yes, a problem with a legal marketplace, largely because of the excessive commercialization of drugs. And Anthony and I may well agree that in any setting we want to avoid the commercialization of this marketplace. And certainly when we see the success of reducing the consumption of cigarettes and tobacco,

we see an embrace of public health and evidence and a push-back. against commercialization and pushing back against commercial packaging and advertising, etc. So I think it is a failure unquestionably of that particular legal marketplace. But the deaths you're recounting are largely a consequence of the illicit marketplace today and the poison drug supply. People are dying because their drug supply is laced with fentanyl and fundamentally poisoned. And they don't have access to a safe supply. A synthetic painkiller 100 times more powerful than morphine. As a street drug, it's far more potent than even the purest forms of heroin.

Fentanyl is taking the opioid epidemic to a new level of urgency. I've lost constituents in my community who were consuming cocaine and had no idea there was fentanyl in it. It was their first time trying cocaine. And if there was a legal, regulated supply, they would be alive today. And so, yes, of course, there was a failing, an excessive commercialization, a failing of doctors and overprescribing, a failure of the big pharma in terms of pushing that particular painkiller. But the answer isn't prohibition, which we know comes with all of these additional costs, which we've heard from experts for years now that the harms of prohibition outweigh the very

harms of drug use that we are proposing to solve. But if we want to solve those harms, we don't solve. it through prohibition, we solve it through strict regulation and education. And if the regulation has failed, then we improve the regulation. From drugs to sex work, to, you know, assisted dying, and there are so many different examples where when we push something underground, the problems get so much worse. Thank you, Nathaniel. So, Theodore, you know the old adage. There's, you know, the world as we wish it and the world as it is. I mean, come back to Nathaniel's point that we have a reality. These powerful opioids are out there. They're in our society. We might wish that they're

not, but we need to reduce the incredible harm that they're causing, the deaths of despair that are washing over so many countries in profound ways as a result of, yes, maybe people starting out with a legal prescribed opioid, but then moving on, as Nathaniel said, to street drugs manufactured with precursor chemicals from China, assembled by Mexican cartels who have anything but the end user's best interests at heart. Yes, but what this motion is proposing is that what has been done with opioids should be done with all other kinds of drugs. And there are other examples that I could cite. For example, in France, which has quite a large opioid problem, an enormous amount of subutex was prescribed for French drug addicts. And the result of that was that there started to be

a problem with subutex on the streets of Helsinki, and in particular, 5% of the population of Georgia became addicted to their subducts. So I think this is a very dangerous motion, if carried, and I think that the history of the opioid epidemic would suggest that we should be very careful. Can't just stop it now by stopping the illegal production of or prescription of OxyContin. But that is how it started. And what is being suggested is that, we should go down that road with lots of other drugs, for example, methamphetamine.

And I don't think that this is really practical. I think many people listening, especially here in Canada, where, as you say, we have retail cannabis and other things, would, in their minds, separate drugs out into different categories and would say that there are, quote, recreational drugs. and then another class of drugs like opioids, heroin, methamphetamines, and others, which have a level of addictiveness, which just makes them qualitatively different and requires a separation, a classification of those drugs in a completely different way than the recreational drugs that others might feel could benefit from legalization. So I want to hear a bit more about why you think. that all drugs could be subject to legalization when we know from the science just that how

powerfully addictive these new generation especially these synthetic drugs are and their effects of fentanyl on the user and you know the the horrible consequences of lifetime addiction that can result from very mild or occasional exposure to these incredibly powerful substances i would say a few few different things, but at first, the evidence certainly when Canada and parliamentarians and the Senate hearing in particular a number of years ago took a look at this, certainly found that these statements around the addictive properties of drugs, yes, certain drugs are more addictive than others unquestionably, but generally speaking, there is a fear that doesn't accord with the evidence. And so it's not to suggest that someone tries a substance for the first time or twice,

and oh, they're addicted for life. It simply doesn't work that way. And so, yes, absolutely, we should be very concerned about very, you know, potentially harmful drugs. And I don't deny the fact. I've said it already that some drugs have greater risks than others. And so there is this risk availability gradient that we should look to to say where there is a really great risk associated with a drug and heroin would be an example, then the availability

is incredibly restricted. But on the other end, and cannabis is a very good example. The fact of the matter is, we've legalized cannabis. The sky didn't fall. We addressed externalities associated with prohibition, and we're treating Canadians like the responsible adults they are. And so when it comes to the riskier drugs, yeah, obviously we want to restrict the availability, and then there would be a medical prescription model.

And I guess my question back is to simply say, there is no perfect here. So the answer is either you have a medical prescription model to restrict access, but to have a safe access and a regulated safe access. And education becomes the way you address problematic substance use. And we know that that works, you know? And the last and Al-Sayas, I suppose, is on education, we saw 50 years ago over 50% of Canadians smoked tobacco. And that number is under 15% today.

And we threw nobody in jail. It's been a legal substance, but we've taken a public health approach. And so when you're faced with a medical prescription model where we know we can save lives or continued failed prohibition that comes with all of the negative consequences I outlined at the front. I think you have to be willfully blind to continue on the path we're on. So Nathan, just to help me here, when you say, you know, medical subscription model for these very powerful drugs like fentanyl, heroin, opioids, how is that legalization? I just want to try to understand how it wouldn't be, in a sense, a barrier to use and consumption.

Of course it's a barrier. The intervention of the state between the individual and, I would presume your view, that they have a right to consume the drugs of their choice. Well, of course, it's a barrier. But we have any number of legal products where there are barriers. Penicillin is a legal product. But you can only obtain penicillin from a prescription by a qualified medical professional. And so if you take legalization seriously, it means taking regulation and education seriously, and you're talking about regulated control.

You're not talking about a free-for-all of all substances, you know, discounting and disregarding their potential risks. No, you bring to bear a proper framework of regulation taking into account the evidence and the associated risks. And what we have instead, by the way, under prohibition is we have a completely unregulated marketplace. And that can't possibly hold in the long term if we care about saving lives and we care about addressing all these negative externalities of prohibition.

And so I don't think any serious person who has looked at this, and I take the Global Commission on Drug Policy as the preeminent sort of organization made up of scholars and made up of world leaders who have presided over governments that have fought the war on drugs and failed and recognized far too late that this is something they should be reforming, and then they've spent the rest of their lives reforming these laws. And they have said time and time again that legalization, yes, but legalization through regulated control. So, Theodore, you've had a career as a doctor, as a medical practitioner.

What do you think of this model of, I guess, legalized, subscription-based, medically supervised use? of, you know, power, let's say in this case, because it's been the focus of this debate, powerful kind of opioids. Is that, is that a scenario, a situation that you would welcome?

And if not, why not? Well, it didn't work in Britain in the 1960s. And actually, when I started, there was still a legal requirement when you came across as a doctor, a heron addict, to register him, with the Home Office, that's the Ministry of Interior,

or whatever you want to call it. And, of course, very shortly afterwards, it had to be abandoned because there were so many. And as I said, it started off with precisely this medical model. But I'm glad to be able to agree with Nathaniel in an important respect. And this is that addiction is not what is often claimed to be. You don't take one dose of heroin and then become addicted. And as the expression goes, you're hooked.

On the contrary, the evidence suggests to me that people hook heroin. If you take the average injecting heroin addict, he's taken heroin on and off for 18 months before he becomes physically addicted. And when you think about what he has to learn and have to. to do to become a heroin addict. He realized that actually he wants to be a heroin addict. There's something attractive about the way of life. After all, he has to learn where to get the heroin. He has to learn how to prepare it. He has to learn how to inject himself. Most people are really rather reluctant to inject themselves. He has to overcome the unpleasant side effects of heroin. In other words, he is determined to become a heroin addict. And it's not that he becomes a

a heroin addict out of ignorance. In the areas where there's a lot of heroin addiction, it's often the case that while people are extremely badly educated, but one thing they know about is heroin addiction. And the idea that they're going to be educated out of it is, I'm afraid, I think, a little naive. And I really don't see as a doctor, I can't see doctors prescribing methamphetamine for their patients or crack cocaine for their patients. or PCP for their patients, or many other drugs. So I go back to the motion of this debate, which is that all drugs should be legalized.

And this just doesn't seem to me to be very possible or likely. Hi there. If you're enjoying this episode of the Monk Debates podcast, be sure to check out the Winter 2022 Monk Dialogues. The Monk Dialogues are in-depth one-hour conversations with some of the world's brightest minds and sharpest thinkers. The Winter 2022 Mug Dialogues focus on the topic of rationality. Why do we think the way we think?

Can we learn to think in better ways individually and collectively? We unpack it all with six experts on rationality, featuring big names like Stephen Pinker, Ian Hercie Alee, and Daniel Dennett. You can get more information on the Winter 2020-22 Monk Dialogues by visiting our website, triple w monkdebates.com forward slash dialogue. Now back to our program. So Nathan, let's talk about how this could actually unfold in a little bit more detail. You know, Theodore brings up an interesting point there. I mean, which, what medical practitioner is going to

prescribe crystal meth to patients? I mean, isn't the reality that there's going to be all kinds of drugs, powerful drugs that will still exist, that for empirical reasons of medical practice and science, the medical establishment is going to be completely unwilling to administer in the kind of supervised and highly regulated and accountable fashion that you would like. So we are now rightly in the conversation around categorization, because if we talk about prescription pharmaceutical grade heroin, doctors do prescribe that. So this isn't a situation where you would go, well, I can't imagine a doctor prescribing heroin, but they do.

And they do so in order to save lives, where people are so addicted that they aren't going to be able to wean themselves off the substance. Canada is trying a controversial new way to deal with its opioid abuse problems, prescription heroin. New Canadian drug regulations allow doctors to provide a small amount of legally obtained pharmaceutical-grade heroin to patients who have a chronic heroin dependency. And so it's to help them basically enjoy the best health, both mental and physical that they can in light of their condition. And some people end up going through treatment and they don't need to have, they don't need to rely upon the substance in any way whatsoever. And some people continue to rely upon it, but in a way where they can manage and control that use and the use is no longer problematic. Do we have moonshine anymore in the same way we did during the era of alcohol prohibition? No, we don't because we have a regulated supply and a regulated safe supply where dosage and the ability to manage and control that dosage is properly controlled in an accountable and evidence-based way.

And so when I go to buy my legal cannabis, I know that I'm going to get a safe product number one, but I also know that the dosage is regulated and I know how many milligrams I'm getting in that gummy or that tea packet or that drink or. or that joined. I mean, we see substitutions all the time in the drug market, and that's exactly what we would see in a legal marketplace. We would see any number of drugs come to the fore that are safe, that are low dosage, and that would be used for recreational purposes without the same problematic effects that we've seen from other completely unregulated substances. And I have to get back to this. I mean, what are our options here? The idea behind prohibition presupposes that you can stamp out drug use, and that is a fiction. And so how do we best manage this? Well, we best manage this through a public health framework that is focused on saving lives, that is focused on education, and that is focused on responsible regulation. And to pursue prohibition of any substance, we see it go underground, we see lives lost, we see organized crime empowered, and on and on it goes. And I guess I wonder what the proposal is in the alternative, is the proposal to say, you know, let's not even

bother trying to manage this question of categorization is the proposal. Let's just continue with completely and utterly failed prohibition. Because if that's for proposal, I'm not signing up for that. So I'd like to know what the alternative is to the motion. Great. That's a nice interjection. So, Theodore, we have to surely do something here, simply sitting back and as Nathaniel has painted of this picture of allowing dangerous drugs to circulate in our society, causing immense harm, exacerbating all kinds of issues related to family wellness, structure, public safety. What is the alternative prescription in your view? Well, I think continuation in certain respects, after all, no one suggests that you can

stamp out anything by law. You can't stamp out even murder by law. You can't stamp out anything by law. So it isn't a proposal to stamp out things. And I return to the simple fact that the motion is legalize all drugs and the model is contained prescription of things like crack cocaine. And I don't see how that can possibly work so that the only will. alternative is some legal prescription of it and then to control it legally.

That may not be true of all drugs, but it's true of some drugs. And after all, as I said, logically speaking, we're dealing with this debate, and the motion is, all drugs, and I presume all drugs to be found in the future also, should be legalized. Before we go to closing statements, I just want to have you both reflect on one other aspect or element of this debate. And Nathaniel, I'll come to you first. And, you know, obviously you've gone into a career of public service to help people, to help your constituents. And I'm just wondering how one squares a view of legalizing all drugs with a notion, a belief in helping people kind of realize. their full kind of human potential.

And I'd be interesting to hear from you a bit more about why maybe in your view there's not a tension between allowing for, you know, the consumption of illicit drugs, possibly powerful illicit drugs in a more easy, safer, and available fashion. And the effects that that has on individuals to make rational, conscious, sober decisions about their lives and their choices. How individuals don't lose a sense of agency and self-actualization through greater availability and access to, as we've been discussing on this program,

to powerful drugs like heroin and opioids? Well, first on the question of realizing one's potential. I mean, there are any number of people in our society, 250 million people around the world consume illicit substances, and around 10% of that use is problematic. So the idea that over 200 million people around the world, and I include myself in this until we legalize cannabis, are criminals and should be punished by the criminal law, should be threatened or, yes, incarcerated, should have a record follow them throughout their lives. lives, yes, we ought to be concerned about problematic substance use. There's no question. We ought to be making sure we put practices and rules and policies in place to reduce that problematic substance use in an evidence-based way. I said all the time when I spoke in support of legalizing cannabis,

that we ought also to treat Canadians like responsible adults, but it also means in doing so that we responsibly talk about what the real risks are associated with cannabis use, that you ought not to drive when you've consumed cannabis, that you ought not to go into work after having consumed cannabis, that there are ways of using this substance in a responsible way. And that kind of responsibility is something that we should teach and encourage unquestionably, but based on and grounded in the evidence around the real risks. And I mentioned cigarettes as the example,

but I'll tell you on a personal note, I've never smoked cigarettes, and I've never smoked cigarettes because I grew up. up in a way where I was educated that they were harmful from a public health perspective. And we've taken measures to limit the commercialization and advertising, to limit the public consumption of them in public spaces. And it has demonstrably worked that series of public health interventions. And so when you look at how you can ensure people live full lives, yes, let's bring to bear education, let's bring to bear regulation. But let's also understand the consequences of failed prohibition policies that undermine that sense of flourishing for so many.

Thank you, Nathaniel. Well, look, let's go to closing statements. So, Theodore, your opportunity to react to what you've just heard from Nathaniel around this question of encouraging kind of human wellness and flourishing, obviously something you've thought long and heart as a doctor and a medical practitioner. But also just to leave our audience, Theodore, with your final thoughts opposing our resolution today, be it resolved, legalize all drugs. Let's have your summation. I agree perfectly with Nathaniel that people, millions of people, take drugs of all kinds,

and flourish. And that includes heroin, incidentally. In fact, in the 1920s and 30s, people took heroin mainly from middle classes and were able to go to work and so on and so forth. So many of the harms to individuals don't come are not purely pharmacological. However, I would be realistic about the harms that are done, particularly to the most vulnerable people in our society. And I worked in a slum in Britain where I saw the devastation caused. by drugs and it was not caused by their illegality because actually in practice very little attempt was made to interrupt the supply and taking of drugs. They were in fact legalized already day factor. My experience suggests, and as I described heroin addicts, I don't think that

education is the solution nor do I think the idea that we have treatment is necessary. reasonable. In fact, when it came to heroin addiction in Britain, which is now receding a little bit, I'm glad to say. But when it came to that, the very idea of treatment, the idea that something could be done for or two people to stop them doing what they wanted to do was part of the problem and one of the reasons they didn't stop. So when it came to treatment, as many people, almost as many people were dying of the treatment because we're dying of the original condition. So I'm much less optimistic, Nathaniel. Incidentally, I would like to end on a point that I hope he would agree with that it is not the function of politicians such as he to make sure that people flourish,

only to make sure that they can flourish. And I'm not sure that having doctors prescribing crack cocaine or crystal meth for their patients is the way to help people to flourish. Thank you, Theodore. Well, Nathaniel, you've been arguing in favor of our motion today, be it resolved to legalize all drugs. So as per debate convention, we're going to give you the last word in today's conversation. Well, I appreciate having this conversation. And first, I would point out a few clarifications.

When we talk about education, I'm not suggesting. that we are going to educate people who are already severely addicted and all of a sudden they will get better. But I am saying we can bring to bear education efforts to ensure that people don't become addicted in the first place. And this idea fundamentally that people, they basically equate legalization and regulation with condoning drug use. And my point around education is that simply is not the case. And we know it's not the case because we have legal substances and tobacco is the case in point where we do not condone its use as a society in the same way that we did 50 years ago. And the results show. And we threw not a single person in jail. We threatened nobody

with incarceration. We did not increase profits for organized crime. We did not destabilize South American, Latin American regimes. We did not increase corruption around the world. We did not kill people through overdoses, poisoning, infectious diseases. We did not hinder access to medicines. We did not impact racial communities in a completely disproportionate, unfair, and unjust way. And so we know that there is a better way when it comes to controlling the harms and managing and reducing the harms that are associated with drug use. And we know this because we have done this throughout our history with other substances that we now know as legal. And we've done it in very different ways. And I'm not suggesting I'm going to map out all of the answers in the course of our 45-minute conversation.

But I am saying it is unquestionably true that the war on drugs has failed, that we need a better way, and that we have different models of regulation that we already deploy around different substances. I was told the sky was going to fall up and down by conservative colleagues around the legalization of cannabis. And guess what? It didn't. And we know that the legalization and regulation of alcohol has been the right thing to do and that prohibition was an abject failure. So these are lessons we need to continue to learn, I suppose, but the evidence is overwhelmingly clear. Prohibition has failed. What's the answer? Not unfettered legalization, but controlled and managed responsible regulation. Thank you, Nathaniel. And thank you, Theodore, a really interesting, timely debate. I feel like I've learned a lot. So gentlemen, thank you so much on behalf of the Mug's Debates Community for coming on the program today and debating the legalization of drugs in our time. Thank you. Thank you. While that wraps up today's debate, I want to thank our participants, Theodore and Nathaniel, for a terrific discussion.

They gave us so much to think about. We'd love your feedback and reflections on what you've just heard. So please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. Here's a note from Brian about one of our recent Monk members-only podcast with Janice Gross-Stein. Again, that podcast comes out every Friday. Brian writes, Dear Rudyard and Janice, on Saturday mornings, I sit down with my laptop, earphones, and a coffee with great anticipation to listen to and make notes on your Friday podcast. I really enjoy your discussions, especially the different aspects of each issue that you bring out.

Very insightful. Please keep Janice going for as long as possible. Well, thanks, Brian. I think it's more a question of, can I keep going? Can I keep keeping up to Janus? She is irrepressible and a real national treasure, as all of our listeners of our Friday, Monk Members' podcast know. If you're not a listener to the podcast, you can be. Simply sign up for a free basic monk membership at monk debates.com forward slash membership.

Go to your member profile, scroll down to your member benefits, and click on the Monk Members Only podcast. You get all of our episodes fresh each Friday afternoon. Thank you for lending your time and attention to our efforts to restore the art of civil and substantive debate in our time. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, your host and moderator. The Monk Debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gurwitz are the producers. The Monk Debates podcast is mixed by Residia. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

and if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.