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Comment by fluxquanta | Hacker News Reader

I was following along through this article right up until the final line:

>Right now she just wants to hunt down the person who sold Chris his fatal dose. “These dealers aren’t just selling it,” she said. “They’re murdering people.”

Drug dealers are selling the drugs not out of some kind of malice toward the addicts. The users want drugs, the dealers want money. Killing the users does no good to the dealers.

While it's hard to criticize the thoughts of a greiving mother, the focus should not be "let's punish these awful murderers!" but instead "let's find ways to eliminate the demand for drugs".

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I don't agree that we should eliminate the demand for drugs. It's really none of your business what people choose to do with their own minds or bodies, or what substances they choose to use, and you have no business trying to manipulate their desires.

What is needed:

1 - Legalization and regulation like that of regular prescription and over-the-counter drugs to:

1a - Make sure drugs are pure, labeled property and are not mixed with undesired compounds.

1b - Stop imprisoning and killing people over what they choose to do to their own minds and bodies.

1c - Stop the violence and corruption caused by the illegal drug trade.

2 - Much better education about how to use drugs safely and constructively.

3 - An end to the stigmatization of drug users.

4 - A sincere and well thought-through tackling of the issues (like poverty and mental health issues) that lead to self-destructive abuses of drugs and other substances.

The typical libertarian argument, huh? I don't necessarily disagree, but there's no chance this would ever happen with drugs like heroin. Marijuana, sure, but you're dreaming if you think the libertarian treatment of "hard drugs" is possible in our lifetimes.

There is a chance, however, that we can actually tackle the issue realistically and improve the ease of access to mental health services and community programs that decrease the demand for the drugs in the first place, thereby removing the incentive for dealers to sell the stuff. It's literally basic economic theory.

"you're dreaming if you think the libertarian treatment of "hard drugs" is possible in our lifetimes"

Of course it's possible. Some societies have already done it.

Furthermore, many used to think that desegregation would not be possible in their lifetimes, that the Soviet Union and Apartheid would not fall, that the Third Reich would last a thousand years, that a man walking on the moon was fantasy.

They were all wrong. Those, and many other radical changes have been accomplished in the last century.

Addiction, a loss of control in behavior and thought, is very different than an organic desire for a product or service.

If you asked an addict if they want to have to consume a product everyday in increasing quantities, lest they convulse into a fit of pain, insomnia, sweat and uncontrollable bowel movements for a week straight, they'd say no.

Free will and choice do not factor in with this scenario and a laissez-faire attitude towards highly addictive drugs can be damaging.

People turn to hard drugs for a variety of reasons, a good percentage of them out of untreated mental illness or their situation in life. Addressing why people turn to them would eliminate a lot of demand that is not organic.

I totally agree. Drug use isn't a disease to society, it's a symptom with an underlying cause.

(I didn't get that far, I stopped earlier.)

And drug users aren't all idiots that can't dose. It's possible the dealer sold a mislabeled product. Though the blame is on the end user for not doing a test shot to check potency.

Also note how the stats are intentionally skewed. They blame opiates, but then note most of the deaths are due to opiates plus other drugs as a mixture. Yet look around and try to find any safety info on mixing opiates and benzos and there seems to be little to no information.

Every day, how many patients are loaded to the eyeballs with opiates, both in and outpatient scenarios? And they don't have an overdosing "epidemic". It's not like nurses are somehow intrinsically more capable as humans of dosing properly.

The safety information is: don't fucking do it. There isn't a set guideline for mixing potent CNS depressants because there is a fine line between breathing and complete respiratory failure that is unique to every user.

Except users do get prescribed such combos. And users often mix alcohol and benzos and opiates without issues. So taking a prohibition-based approach is good from a CYA perspective, but doesn't provide value to end users.

The focus should be "let's find ways to ensure that people who want to take drugs have safe access to quality products".

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