The New World: Drugs

Drug law causes drug crime.

It amazes me that we tolerate drug law given the lessons of prohibition.

By outlawing drugs we've created a criminal enterprise the likes of which the world had never seen.

This is all old hat, the debate is well established and the figures are there for anyone who knows how to use google. For me people fall into three categories with regard to drug law. Those who are ignorant, those who profit from the drug trade in some way (DEA or dealer), and those who are for across the board legalization.

This post is about how the future will look with regard to drugs.

Desktop manufacturing is going to change the world. And one of the first things people are going to do with the ability to craft items from the molecule up is create their own drugs.

Enforcement will be impossible and the drug trade will vanish. This will have two seriously positive side effects.

1. Drug law, and the related expense of enforcement will go with it, from the culture of drug testing, to the absurdly over crowded prisons.

In the face of a truly impossible job, the government in its infinite pragmatism will pretend social progression. As I said the data to do this today is already available, so it will be worlds easier in the future.

2. The Criminal empire funded and created by the drug trade will wither and die along with all the related violence and heart break.

Where's the profit in growing cultivating, refining shipping and manufacturing heroin when the future equivalent of a toaster oven can churn it out for 1$ a pound?

And don't try to tell me they'll sell the machines, because the machine will make the machines. You'll have as much luck reglauting them as you do MP3s.

We already have rapid prototyping devices (the grandfather of True DM) that can replication up to 50% of its own components.

Drug use will become a health care issue, and a pretty unimportant one at that. future historians will look back and realize a huge part of drug use was the anti establishment culture, just like in the 60s. Once drug law vanishes, once the government makes it clear it no longer cares, drug use even in the presence of perfect availability will drop off, for the very same reasons many people don't smoke or drink despite availability.

Anti drug posters and after school specials and the like cause drug use in an adversarial and smart ass teen crowd. D.A.R.E. To make weed cooler than it is.

Stick it to the man, smoke a joint, right? What happens when the man doesn't care.

People are not stupid they are just easily mislead. the simple fact is drugs are primitive. They are a chemical reflection of our ignorance. They are a neurological sledge hammer. Once drug use becomes fully a health care problem drug use will drop off to nothing. the only thing that will remain is functional addicts and drug hobbyists. The cannabis cup crowd and the people around you that are on drugs that you can't even detect.

Mark my words, drug law's days are numbered.

Very soon, despite The Company's aspiration for total control, we will enter an era of unprecedented personal freedom and wealth as the need for centralization drops away.

Robots and DM, will redefine what it means to be wealthy since the service and consumer economies will vanish.

"The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades."