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Is drug dealing unethical/immoral?

swilow

swilow

Sr. Moderator: AADD, CE&P, TD
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First off, I am not asking for myself, I do not sell drugs. But, obviously I know people who do and I've always been torn between appreciating the service and wondering if these people are being parasitic and 'preying' upon others' 'weakness' , etc.

(Its a different matter for things like cannabis, which is relatively harmless and should be legal IMO. But I've considered that people selling addictive drugs, like opiates or amphetamines, are indeed profiting off a compulsion of others).

I do believe in self-determination; no one is going to make you take drugs, that is your choice- but addiction makes a person vulnerable and I feel somewhat uncomfortable with the notion that others are able to gain from this vulnerability.

This can be extended out to companies that profit from things like gambling, or the selling of alcohol I suppose.

What do you guys think? Is drug dealing immoral, or is it merely a neutral service being provided because governments across the world refuse to deal with the drug issues of society?
 
The act of selling drugs is not inherently wrong. No more wrong than being a bartender or working at a package store. You can hold yourself to a certain standard in any line of work, or you can be completely reckless. That in particular has a huge impact on the morality of what a person does. Also, as you said, you can't manage other peoples' lives. Someone working at McDonald's shouldn't lose sleep at night if a morbidly obese person orders 5,000 calories worth of food and they have to cook it for them. A person that legally sells someone a knife or a gun shouldn't feel responsible if the buyer chooses to use it irresponsibly.

We live in a big, wild world where a lot of bad things happen.
 
I was a dealer for a long time. I wouldn't consider it immoral, people are going to get these drugs if they want them. I personally tried to take care of customers and I would say that's better than them going to someone who doesn't care. It's really how you go about it that decides the morality.
 
I think inherently it's a morally neutral activity but I think with certain substances there are no doubt a lot of immoral people who are indeed preying on the vulnerability of others... and the continued criminalisation of drugs and drug users by governments no doubt does contribute to this by pushing drug use into an underground and sometimes dangerous world where, for many reasons, some complex, some not, morality may just not be a priority for many people.

That said, objectively, as far as such a term makes sense when applied to morality, I think it is an interesting question how much responsibility the supplier of anything that might be harmful has for the safety of their potential customers. I would argue, for example, that the supplier of a nuclear bomb or a potent biological weapon has a very high degree of responsibility as far as choosing their customers wisely, and simply turning a blind eye in the name of profit or some timeless law of supply and demand is, in this case, not morally excusable... I would think that most people would agree, so there clearly is a line somewhere.
 
I think it's not moral or immoral to sell drugs. If it is not immoral to use drugs, then it would make no sense for it to be inherently immoral to sell them; after all, someone has to, if they're going to be used. I've known people who sold drugs who were great people and just made a profit without ever doing anything bad to anyone.

However I do think that, due to the illegal nature of the drug dealing game, and the fact that with some drugs, you tend to count on a desperate user base, a lot of people do it in immoral ways.

Immorality often accompanies drug dealing, but it is not inherent in the action.
 
I don't see morality as a relevant part of it. Someone's gonna fill that market. So if you decide to do it and do it in a way where people get what they pay for I see no moral problem.

Which isn't to say I've never had moral issues with my money going to organized crime in the basis of other activities it ultimately ends up supporting. But at the end of the day I figure... I'm not the one who created this situation. And the people in power, the people I argue with who insist we have to continue the war on drugs. They are the ones who created and maintain this situation. The blood is in their hands, not mine.
 
As a previous poster stated I suppose it depends on the way you go about your business. Some dealers simply answer calls and supply what is asked for but I have two older siblings who are both addicts and constantly receive texts from dealers like'in your area Now' etc . That for me is where you are crossing a line but I suppose they could argue that they are simply marketing just like any business but to repeatedly tempt vulnerable addicts is imho on the wrong side of the moral compass.
 
^Yeah, I'd agree that that crosses a line.

I guess the answer is context dependant.
 
As I told my ex, when he wanted to beat the crap out of whoever had sold it to me’they’re stuck in the same hell im in’ so no.
 
Trazodon't said:
As a previous poster stated I suppose it depends on the way you go about your business. Some dealers simply answer calls and supply what is asked for but I have two older siblings who are both addicts and constantly receive texts from dealers like'in your area Now' etc . That for me is where you are crossing a line but I suppose they could argue that they are simply marketing just like any business but to repeatedly tempt vulnerable addicts is imho on the wrong side of the moral compass.
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swilow said:
^Yeah, I'd agree that that crosses a line.

I guess the answer is context dependant.
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This sucks. I get it, you are in sales, you have to make money. Hence "pusher-man", etc.

When the love of your life is trying to get clean though and out of the blue gets a text saying "they've got ********" it's really frustrating.

I know how hard it was for me to kick without people putting it right in front of me.


In general selling drugs is pretty much neutral - neither good nor bad.

It's when you start doing shitty things (which is very easy to do as an addict with a large supply), like selling at exorbitant prices to people you know are dope sick - just because they will pay whatever and you are the only one in town with what they want or that they can get ahold of.

Using drugs as a way to sexually exploit someone seems pretty shitty to me as well.

Selling to moms/dads that should be spending the money on food for their starving kids... even though they are going to buy from someone else... If you know that is the situation I think it makes a bad thing to do...


It's easy to judge people too - but we don't know them - these might be bad things that good people do because it is all they know, all the system/family/school has provided for them.

You can also be a benevolent drug dealer - selling party supplies at fair prices to healthy, reasonable, people - giving back to the community and being a positive influence to others in your community.

For instance in some very shitty places drug dealers will buy sports equipment for kids and not allow kids showing promise in school/sports/arts to get involved in the game but will provide them the money/sneakers/supplies they need to get out of that shitty situation.
 
I don't think it's the activity itself that's immoral, it's certain people who do it. In other words: context matters.

Even for the hard drugs with real addiction, if the laws were different the market would probably not be as predatory.

Also, as much as I have compassion for addicts, there are many who put themselves in a bad situation too. Most people in recovery will own their part of the responsibility. Yes the system is fucked but so is what a lot of people will do to feed their addictions.
 
JessFR said:
I don't see morality as a relevant part of it. Someone's gonna fill that market. So if you decide to do it and do it in a way where people get what they pay for I see no moral problem.
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And so if I start dealing child pornography, that's OK, since someone would fill that market anyway; and I just sell it to people who fap to it, I don't produce it.
 
^Something of a false analogy Scrof. Child pornography is objectively immoral.... isn't it?
 
Is it? You could argue that the cocaine trade results in more torture, death and suffering . . .
 
Well, I do think there is some validity to his point actually.

But probably not in the way he meant.

The problem here is that child pornography, the kind that depicts actual abuse anyway, is inseparable from the abuse of children. Drugs on the other hand have no such innate problem.

So keeping it purely to child pornography that depicts a actual abuse of actual children, it's creation can not be separated from a behavior that is about as objectively immoral as you get. That's the big difference here.

Well, one big difference. Another is that there are most likely far fewer pedophiles than people who do or would enjoy recreational drugs. Which makes the feasibility of actually killing the drug market far less than child pornography.
 
Child porn can be made once and then copied forever for new consumers. You could deal porn without a single new instance of child abuse.

But each use of cocaine requires a fresh batch, and an industry that tortures and murders to produce it. You can't say it doesn't matter just because Colombian drug lords don't HAVE to kill their rivals. In the present they do, and we participate knowingly when we buy a gram or two.
 
Scrofula said:
Is it? You could argue that the cocaine trade results in more torture, death and suffering . . .
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I would argue that the cocaine trade employs a huge number of people who wouldn't have a chance at a living otherwise. And it's the government that causes that violence by prohibiting those substances.
 
Scrofula said:
Child porn can be made once and then copied forever for new consumers. You could deal porn without a single new instance of child abuse.

But each use of cocaine requires a fresh batch, and an industry that tortures and murders to produce it. You can't say it doesn't matter just because Colombian drug lords don't HAVE to kill their rivals. In the present they do, and we participate knowingly when we buy a gram or two.
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You’re kind of missing the point. No matter what extreme you take this analogy to, selling drugs will never be as bad as producing or distributing child pornography.

If I sell cocaine or weed or whatever, I have the ability to do so according to my standards. And as we all know, the vast majority of these people are not the evil caricatures society makes them out to be. You are supplying an adult, or at the least, a person who is perfectly capable of making their own decisions, with a product. That person then decides how things play out after that. If you are going to pin every bad thing that happens before or after the product is my control, have fun going after literally every other industry out there.

Child porn is inherently wrong because children are incapable of consenting to such an act. The “product” is rotten from the very moment it is created. It is impossible to dream up a scenario where it isn’t wrong.
 
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