I found the question come up on both communist and anarchist subs, and the difference in responses was quite striking.
As a longtime PTSD sufferer who self-medicates to the hilt just to do simple things like fall asleep or leave the house, the idea that I would either lose access to, be forced underground, or prosecuted for my recreational habits terrifies me.
I understand the rationale is in a functioning communist state, I would no longer feel the need for those drugs. Does it follow the science of recreational marijuana, psychedelics, ADHD, anxiety, depression, etc.? Or is the ambition to ween everyone off? And does that apply for all manner of distraction and entertainment as well?
Communism101 is populated mostly by joyless middle class book clubbers who would never be let within 10 miles of actual power
"Everything I don't like is bourgeois decadence, and my dad being a senior manager at Globocorp inc. Has nothing to do with anything!" but unironically
This is one of those things that I don't think we can even conceive of because of the systems we are currently born into.
There won't be any regulations, but I think education around these topics will be much more holistic. If you're obsessively doing something, whether its taking drugs or pursuing entertainments non stop, chances are you are just trying to escape something in your life.
But on the other hand, a very close friend of mine medicates with weed. She says she prefers its side effects to anti-anxiety / anti-depressants, though I could never imagine smoking as much weed as her myself.
I think a good communist mantra is "know thyself"
One thing to keep in mind is the effect criminalized drugs have on crime and policing. Hate cops and all the ridiculous shit they can get away with? An enormous amount of the harm they do comes from pursuing drug crimes and all the powers we've given them to do the same.
Prohibition doesn't work; we should have learned that a century ago.
Not at all. If you want to regulate ppls access to drugs you're a scold, fuck you
Nah. I think there are limits to this. For example, I don't want people to have access to carfentanil. This shit is 100 times as potent (in terms of effect per unit mass) as fentanyl. It's more a bioweapon than a drug, but it's very much both.
The therapeutic ratio for both fentanyl and carfentanil are considerably higher than more conventional opioids, making them actually safer when administered with the right equipment and techniques.
you’re a scold
when your level of socio-political maturity is that of a 12 year old
"we're gonna take away your drugs" is gonna win exactly 0 people over to the left but good luck
It's not even about some strategic posturing for me. I'm a communist because the exploitation and alienation our society is built upon is wrong, and we need to transition all of humanity to a system without those components. Marky Marx and Lenin describe the only workable way I see to do that, and that is right, so that's what I believe. Imagine being so white (or white on the inside 👀) that you want to continue a war on drugs built around facilitating exploitation. That's wrong, so I don't believe it. I don't know how anyone can. 🤷♀️
Depends honestly. Weed is legal and widely used in DPRK but highly illegal in Cuba. Drugs are very much a part of the culture in North America, I see no reason why laws should be strict.
Recreational drugs should be freely available to the degree that the community's health apparatus can catch and correct addiction. If people have a monthly checkup then we need to carefully regulate any drugs strong/addictive enough that someone can spiral into addiction and harm themselves/others within a month.
Games, art, and entertainment should be the ultimate goal of communism. They're not the top priority - that's food, shelter, medicine, education, etc sustainably for everyone - but those aren't bottomless needs. Eventually once those are all solved, we can turn fully towards producing entertainment.
(And for a particularly wild thought - there's only a finite amount of entertainment hours a person can consume per day, and our production can exceed that. The final scarce resource is human attention span to pay on each other's art projects.)
😱
From the last time we had one of these stupid threads (many users literally renounced communism when they realized drugs would be banned...) I’m locking it after I post this so our resident liberals don’t swarm with their expertise:
“This thread is swarmed with liberals who think communism is a utopia of "individual liberty and fulfillment" where you get to sit around and smoke weed all day. Why do you people keep speculating? Does the thought of studying what socialist states that actually existed did, and is doing presently even enter your mind? Or do those solutions not satisfy you because deep down you find them "oppressive"? No one cares about your desire to smoke weed or buy crack at convenience stores. And when the oppressed peoples of the world think about communism this is definitely not the first thing that enter their mind. Questions like this just screams First World petit-bourgeois consciousness. I despise you people. Anyway, we don't know how a future communist society would handle drugs, but we do have a glimpse of the future. Under socialism "hard drugs" are obviously banned, and if you try to trade it you will get shot. Addicts will be sent to rehabilitation centers, where they will receive free job training, get educated about the harmful effects of drugs and perform rehabilitative labor. The ultimate goal is to re-integrate them as fully functioning members of society: http://en.qdnd.vn/politics/editorials-features/part-1-the-facts-expose-distorted-information-488802 http://en.qdnd.vn/politics/editorials-features/part-2-second-home-and-opportunities-to-reintegrate-into-community-488835 As for what you consider "recreational drugs", it obviously depends on the historical conditions of each nation. In Vietnam for example, "thuốc lào" - a traditional form of tobacco is not banned, but if you try to grow/use cannabis, you will get in trouble. Perhaps the latter isn't much more "dangerous" compared to the former. But while the former is a part of daily life for the peasantry in rural areas, the latter is considered by the masses to be a sign of comprador decadence, as marijuana is mostly brought from the united $tates. On the other hand, under a future socialist state of the Black nation, I'd imagine drugs like marijuana wouldn't be banned, since marijuana for many years was used as an excuse to justify mass incarceration of Black people. In the end though, I'm an outsider so I'm also speculating here, which is why I won't comment any further (just wanted to give an example so you understand the historically contingent nature of these issues).”
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/b6w2e5/how_do_drugs_work_under_communism/ejpxmfo/
“No. Communism will not soft peddle to your white middle class privilege, you will have to give up every activity that is premised on the oppression of a vast, invisible pool of labor and the imperialist division of the world. That includes drugs, pornography and prostitution, video games and whatever other idle activities you think grow on trees. If you can imagine a totally different economic system but can't even imagine not sitting around smoking weed and playing video games, or accurately this is when it stops being "fun" and starts to sound scary, you are the problem. If you don't like it, communism may not be for you, though I imagine anarchocommunists would be more than happy to keep lying to you about some fantasy world where you can have your cake and eat it too (as long as we don't mention where the cake is made, who makes it, who delivers it, who serves it, who throws out the waste, and who enforces the transaction as law). if you think this is harsh the op was banned for advocating total legalization and deregulation of drugs as communist and is now merely restating their opinion in the form of a question. They will keep asking the same question until they get the "right" answer, I specifically brought up those things because that is where the mask of petty-bourgeois radicalism comes off and the full-on middle class white male redditor emerges. I'm using this thread to weed those people out, I have no illusions anyone will change their minds.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/hqu0np/what_is_the_communist_stance_on_drugs/fy0abg6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Unlike you liberals I have all the trust and respect for the working class as a suburban WASP mother has for their 15 year old failson. You think you're slick, wanting to be a functioning adult who can both work a job and do drugs in your free time like tens of millions of laborers manage under an oppressive capitalist system? Nice try pal, I know the only reason anyone would want satan's cabbage legalized is so they can sit around and play video games and shoot up mary jane in between their toes. Now if you'll excuse me I need to listen to some Phil Ochs records backwards to make sure the proletariat aren't listening to any subliminal satanic messages.
/bit
If there's one thing you can take solace in it's knowing that none of these dorks making these proclamations will be in charge of anything more significant than a subreddit.
Love to end the war on drugs so I can do a war on drugs.
Both of them seem pretty pleased to mention that this horseshit has literally turned people off to communism. Just like a real communist would.
Is this a bit? I keep switching between yes and no after each sentence.
Workers will not cater to the rich white class by slaving over making luxury goods for them. They work or else
r/communism101 is fucking weird. It's absurdly ban-happy and full of some of the most dogmatic MLs I've ever encountered. I got banned for asking how drug use is unique to capitalism and why it would be wrong to let people grow weed on their own time. I think it might have been in one of those threads lol. The drug policy of present-day socialist states leaves a lot to be desired but I hope people don't get the impression that all MLs are like this. u/whatsunoftruth is a real piece of work based on his posting history.
These posts annoy me so I feel like going at them line-by-line:
This thread is swarmed with liberals who think communism is a utopia of “individual liberty and fulfillment” where you get to sit around and smoke weed all day
What does this shit even mean? How does being able to smoke weed imply that you would literally only smoke weed? How does this not extend to alcohol or tobacco?
Why do you people keep speculating? Does the thought of studying what socialist states that actually existed did, and is doing presently even enter your mind? Or do those solutions not satisfy you because deep down you find them “oppressive”?
Ridiculous dogmatism. No socialist state is perfect, and drug policy is one area where former and current ones are lacking (though this is absolutely not unique to socialist countries). Honestly, I think the histories of these countries' experience with drugs used as tools of imperialism, along with generally culturally conservative attitudes toward drug use (as inherently bad, as a moral failing rather than a health issue, as something best combated with criminalization, etc.), can explain why they have such harsh drug policies - see the Batista dictatorship in Cuba being a narco-dictatorship, CIA heroin trafficking in Vietnam and Laos, and the Opium Wars in China. I can understand why they are the way they are, but I think it's fair (and perfectly in line with materialism) to critique them as inefficient, counterproductive, and needlessly harmful.
As for the actual dogmatism, the reasoning he's using is: other socialist states did it this way, therefore it must always be this way under socialism. Which is pretty obviously bullshit; you could just as easily make the same argument against gay marriage. But beyond that, total prohibition is at odds with the medical and scientific consensus.
And when the oppressed peoples of the world think about communism this is definitely not the first thing that enter their mind.
Obviously irrelevant; no shit the priority is feeding people and liberating them from the oppression of capitalism and imperialism, but that doesn't preclude consideration of progressive drug policy.
Questions like this just screams First World petit-bourgeois consciousness.
There are both many, many drug users in the global periphery and many, many oppressed people within the imperial core who are disproportionately hurt by the war on drugs. Try saying this to the millions of slaves, mostly Black and Latino, in the US prison system because of drug laws, or to Bolivian coca growers.
I despise you people.
Yup, this was the thread I got banned in.
Under socialism “hard drugs” are obviously banned, and if you try to trade it you will get shot.
Jesus.
Addicts will be sent to rehabilitation centers, where they will receive free job training, get educated about the harmful effects of drugs
Sounds ok, although it depends on the drugs we're talking about, and there's no mention of mental health treatment.
and perform rehabilitative labor.
What the fuck? The solution to drug addiction is forced labor?
Perhaps the latter isn’t much more “dangerous” compared to the former. But while the former is a part of daily life for the peasantry in rural areas, the latter is considered by the masses to be a sign of comprador decadence, as marijuana is mostly brought from the united $tates.
So the actual effects of the drugs don't matter, just what they're "considered a sign of"?
On the other hand, under a future socialist state of the Black nation, I’d imagine drugs like marijuana wouldn’t be banned, since marijuana for many years was used as an excuse to justify mass incarceration of Black people.
So, because marijuana was used as an excuse to justify mass incarceration of Black people, under socialism it will be used to justify the incarceration of Black people???
Communism will not soft peddle to your white middle class privilege, you will have to give up every activity that is premised on the oppression of a vast, invisible pool of labor and the imperialist division of the world.
How the hell is all drug production premised on imperialism? Are we just gonna ignore that people can grow or produce their own drugs, or how people in the global periphery frequently do make their own drugs? Are we going to ignore the literal millennia of drug use that occurred outside of imperialism?
That includes drugs, pornography and prostitution, video games and whatever other idle activities you think grow on trees.
I can't even begin to understand what point this person is trying to make. Almost goddamn everything that's used or consumed in the world is produced under conditions of imperialist capitalism. Under socialism, we wouldn't rely on superexploitation of workers in the global periphery to produce things for us, but we would still have things because we would produce things ourselves or exchange what we produce under equal terms with the rest of the world. There's more than enough labor and resources already to produce more than just the bare minimum in every country; there would be video games just like there would be books and alcohol and toys for children. Less, sure, but not none. Tetris was invented in the USSR for fuck's sake!
If you can imagine a totally different economic system but can’t even imagine not sitting around smoking weed and playing video games, or accurately this is when it stops being “fun” and starts to sound scary, you are the problem.
Not only is he assuming that when we talk about being able to smoke weed or play videogames we mean literally 24/7 without doing anything else, he's also feeding into the anticommunist narrative that communism is dystopian drudgery where all you do is work. In every socialist country now and throughout history there has been leisure - there are pools and water parks and ski resorts in the DPRK. Every socialist country has alcohol and music and books and movies and TV shows, and every socialist country lets workers take days off of work.
They will keep asking the same question until they get the “right” answer, I specifically brought up those things because that is where the mask of petty-bourgeois radicalism comes off and the full-on middle class white male redditor emerges. I’m using this thread to weed those people out, I have no illusions anyone will change their minds.
Yes, it's literally just middle class white male Redditors who want more than just bare subsistence. Also:
smokeuptheweed9
🤡
Note to self: Never let Sam_Hyde (?) be in charge of anything.
I don’t see why they need to be regulated much, there are already countries where drugs like mushrooms are legal and it doesn’t seem to cause much of a problem.
For psychedelics (including Cannabis, even it's a very lightweight one in that respect) at least, the only regulation should be prohibiting their sale to minors. Doubly so since those specific drugs have spiritual/religious use.
with the exception of marijuana which is popular with wealthy and middle class people and so progress has been made on that front.
Why is nobody trying to legalize cocaine then?
Didn’t the Soviet Union literally have medals for people’s who grew cannabis? Or were those fake
Unsatisfyingly, the answer is probably 'it depends.'
I think ideally there would be room for society to decide for itself whether or not to get off those drugs and distractions. Yes there would be better health services and people wouldn't be so alienated. But then they might still choose recreational drugs and play video games all day. So the state would have to be open to that possibility and governing around that. But if people eventually lose interest in those things and ween themselves off, then the state should be accepting of that too. It could also be that those drugs are used to make medications that aren't stigmatized and are deemed medically safe. So doing psilocybin may be as easy as picking up a bottle of mushroom pills from the pharmacy and then having follow up psychiatry/MD appointments. So recreational wouldn't mean anything anymore.
I seriously think that most people if liberated from capitalism will occupy their time in a fulfilling way and we'd see a huge reduction in pathologies. There would be a few, probably more in the transition who haven't known any better, who will sit around all day and do nothing. That's fine, and shouldn't be illegal. But it's also important to tell those people that it's ultimately bad for you. You're not supposed to lay in bed all day and post online or play video games. It's objectively bad for your body. Blood pressure goes up, resting heart rate increases, fluid pools in the limbs, risk of blood clot increases, weight gain, reduced muscle mass, circulation problems. So it would be prudent to help those people come down off bad habits. Not outlaw those activities.
I think society has to ween itself off using law as a bludgeon for every problem. As law enforcement is one of the last remaining functional aspects of society we tend to look at everything in terms of banning and then enforcement. People drink too many sodas? Ban them. People vape too much? Ban. We just don't have a mindset of solving the real problems, banning is much easier. Plastic straws aren't a problem because they're allowed. They're a problem because for the past 40 years we've let fast food places run amok and do whatever they want. Children vaping cotton candy clouds is only an issue because of our kid glove treatment of tobacco companies. It's easier to put the burden of responsibility on the consumer rather than the businesses. So once we move to communism we're going to have to get out of that mindset, that in order to accomplish a deterrence you have to initiate a ban. We wouldn't have to do that in a communist society. There would be enough direct action by the people and enough state help to attack the real source of the problem. In the case of sitting around all day that could be mental illness. Rather than banning video games.
I wanted to elaborate on the entertainment bit:
As a musician, would it require my music be evaluated by a tribunal of sorts before I could upload it to soundcloud? Would there be a restriction on topics, lyrics, styles, etc.? Like whether it's Tool, or Godspeed You! Black Emperor, or 100 gecs, or Shania Twain, would there be mandates on what's allowed to be played or listened to?
I think that the sheer amount and accessibility of music and other artistic media makes pre-screening censorship a complete fool's errand. You can't just regulate a finite amount of printing presses and broad cast stations these days.
That being said, there'd probably need to be some sort of mechanism to remove/restrict certain types of content. I'm talking about overtly fascist/racist/reactionary media.
there’d probably need to be some sort of mechanism to remove/restrict certain types of content. I’m talking about overtly fascist/racist/reactionary media.
So like, book and vinyl burning? Also, would this mechanism seek to be objective or would it invariably lean more on the subjective?
Under communism, vinyls would be outlawed as wasteful bourgeois decadence, per the dictates of the Lossless Audio Gang.
Anyone who tries to sell you an "objective" system is trying to hoodwink you. As long as people are involved in any system, it is subjective to a large degree.
That being said, like in any decision, you can construct the decision making system to try to mitigate shitty decisions. For example, an elected council of people's representatives making the decision is better than an unexpected head censor making the decision.
Labor made the Internet, labor democratized information and opinions. Why the fuck is labor censoring shit? I imagined the left crushing the need to appeal to advertisers on YouTube. Freeing people from having to appeal to anyone as they upload without needing to consider if it will get monitized. The means of production are already there, it's not like you need to recreate the infrastructure.
Actually tool, gy!be, 100 gecs and Shania twain are the only allowed music in a true communist society. Marcs said so
I imagine it would just be uploading to Soundcloud as your final option, unfortunately, which is one shitty thing about communism: you see it with the above comment that implies everyone should be doing art, which ignores that 90% of people just don't possess the creativity for good art. They can be great engineers, scientists, etc., but my friend who thinks "never break my heart" is a deep line ain't never gonna write Ozymandias.
The traditional leftist argument ignores that there are already sites that you can upload to "without need of financial incentive": they're called webnovel sites, and no adults read them because 99% of them suck & there's absolutely no curation nor even external attempts to sort through it, precisely because it's so unrewarding. I doubt that would change under communism, but it doesn't matter because my economic needs outweigh my artistic ones: one doesn't actually need to make the free art argument.
Anyway, labor voucher where my mouth is, read my work Urasaria Academy, see if it's 99% or 1%.
Is not the whole damn point of eradicating capitalism to free us from the perverse commodification of every aspect of human life? Like I don't know about you folks but I thought the whole goal is to live in a world where we can create art independent about whether it is good or not (and I mean the idea of objectively good art is pretty sus), but entirely because its enjoyable to create.
communist state
under communism the state will wither away. are you asking about under a transitional socialist state, or after material needs are uniformly met and necessary labor is shared by all who are able?
As a longtime PTSD sufferer who self-medicates to the hilt just to do simple things like fall asleep or leave the house, the idea that I would either lose access to, be forced underground, or prosecuted for my recreational habits terrifies me
I'd imagine that in a communist society, self medication would be extremely rare and purely optional. Everyone would have free access to medical and psychological assistance that would be more effective than taking recreational substances by one self.
That said, it's hard for me to personally imagine no control over drugs. As an extreme example, something would have to be in place to stop young children from doing heroin or other opiates. However, the major difference would be that such regulations would not be criminal punishments in all but the most extreme cases (e.g. producing and selling kiddie heroin specifically targeted at children).
In the end though, I think this is more of a practical issue than an ideological issue. I'd imagine that even most anarchists would agree that if the problem became like China after the Opium Wars, and a quarter of the population was hooked on debilitating drugs, some sort of centralized legal measure would have to occur if education alone was not enough to prevent mass harm.
tbh i doubt that. self medication can be done after getting a prescription once so you dont have to waste time talking to a doc. i do this sometimes due to an anxiety+ptsd combo.
also, theres no guarantee the revolution will be trans friendly and i might have to self medicate.
breadtube video about this: Consumer Identity = Cultivated Identity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Lf1GcG5M4&feature=youtu.be
