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Comment by smegel | Hacker News Reader

It really is a difficult problem. Sweden legalized heroin in the 60s and it was a disaster. On the other hand, enforcement only has a moderate impact, but comes at a huge financial and social cost. And while I don't support it, the only country with a measure of success seems to be Singapore, where you just hang anyone who has more than single dose in their possession. Maybe the grim reality is hanging a few hundred people a year would cause less social harm than letting drugs fester away at society taking how many thousands of lives a year, not to mention the countless lives destroyed by mass incarceration and the financial burden to society.

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I had no idea about your Sweden claim so I looked it up. From [1] the only similar thing I can read is related to The Legal Prescription Program, which IMO is very different than "legalizing drugs (or just heroin)". Basically, they gave doctors the ability to give prescriptions to drugs such as morphine and amphetamine (without limitations, apparently) to addicts in the hopes that this would result in lower crime rates. This obviously lead to these drugs ending in users other than those participating in the program, which ended the program itself. Quite an obvious outcome IMO. This approach I think not only is flawed and very different than legalization of drugs (for everyone), but also let's be honest here, both society and our understanding of drugs and abuse in the 60s and now are very different. Maybe what wasn't possible then is possible now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Sweden#The_Lega...

> Sweden legalized heroin in the 60s and it was a disaster.

I can't find any source for this. What I can find is information about legal prescription from '65 to '67 to a limited number of addicts, who were able to get sufficient doses that they in effect became a source of drugs for drug dealers.

So they continued to have the same problem of dealers, but with substantially increased supply.

Note that many countries today have legal prescription of proscribed drugs to addicts. Prescription of heroin is legal in the UK, for example (and, in fact, it is not only prescribed to addicts, but also used for post-op pain management in hospitals), without the problems Sweden ran into, because the amounts are strictly controlled.

It seemed the Swedish government managed to get the worst of both worlds by continuing to fight drugs while turning themselves into a cheaper, safer source for dealers.

Not sure how you're claiming prescription heroin is not a problem in the UK. It is a big one.

Prescribing heroin to addicts seemed to work quite well for society

http://www.badscience.net/2006/11/methadone-and-heroin/

Unlike our former business of selling the stuff to China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_opium_in_China

Singapore is somewhat unique in that it's a country with very restricted freedoms, which have been given up in exchange for security/safety. It's extraordinarily rule-bound, and, in many ways, is the antithesis of the United States, in which freedoms reign. In such a structured, government controlled and monitored society, all sorts of rules can be laid down, and enforced through strict punishment. I wouldn't try and use it as a model for other countries.

But - hey, might be worth executing anybody who uses drugs to see what happens. But I hope you're going to start with the really destructive ones, like Alcohol and Nicotine before you start looking at the less harmful ones such as cannabis.

> is the antithesis of the United States, in which freedoms reign

Perhaps compared to Singapore, but my main reason for leaving the US after just 1 year, was the police state feeling that country gave me.

So many draconian rules and heavy fines and penalties. So many aggressive cops who will go after people for the smallest things: under age drinking, jaywalking etc.

American border controls are like an imaginary communist police state. Ironically old east block countries aren't like this presently.

In America there are just rules for everything. I went to an American university and compared to a European one they are total control freaks: no drinking on campus. Boys and girls can't mix. I mean they even got people patrolling the dorms to make sure rules are upheld. It is like some nazi kindergarten for adults.

I left for University in the Netherlands. Instead I got a bar on campus right outside my flat. We lived boys and girls together and nobody was walking around monitoring us.

I even heard from American high schoolers coming on exchange that public display of affection is not allowed. I had never even heard such an expression before. So kissing, hugging etc apparently isn't allowed in American high schools.

Although that sounds so crazy I am willing to believe that is a gross exaggeration.

>in which freedoms reign.

Really? Looking beyond what is drilled in to the population from birth and the US is very rule bound in my experience compared to Europe. Whilst over there I got ticketed for parking at the wrong angle, crossing the road in the wrong place. Granted not a rule, but got questions by police for walking and many other situations I forget.

Perhaps European countries have this many rules / laws but I have never experienced them being enforced

As a habitual rule-breaker since birth, I can confirm that the US is actually very rule-bound. In fact most rule-breaking is punished, even in places that supposedly encourage breaking the rules. And this has gotten even more so since 9/11. Want proof? Just look at the evolution of university computer networks. I've spent a lot of time in university (doing nothing mostly) and the networks are locked down compared to the atmosphere of open experimentation that was prevalent in the 90s. There are many, many examples to back the claim made by the parent. The US is not as free of a nation as everyone says.

>really destructive ones, like Alcohol and Nicotine

Alcohol is inherently harmful, but nicotine itself is a relatively safe drug; The harms associated with nicotine are overwhelmingly caused by the delivery mechanism of smoking.

We have alternative delivery mechanisms for nicotine that are drastically safer than tobacco smoking. E-cigarettes are most prominent, with around 95% lower harm than smoking[1], but snus is also a relatively low-harm product[2].

This principle is very important to the broader drug debate. We must be careful to separate the innate harms caused by a drug and harms that can be managed through good harm reduction policy.

[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-le... [2]http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/12/4/349.long

> But I hope you're going to start with the really destructive ones, like Alcohol and Nicotine before you start looking at the less harmful ones such as cannabis.

Well, to be fair, I wouldn't mind executing alcoholics and smokers. But you can have the best of both worlds - provide help and healthcare to ones who have fallen in drug use and execute the ones who can't complete rehab.

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines.

"The only country with a measure of success seems to be Singapore"

So, completely discounting the massive improvements in Portugal since decriminalisation?

Note that manufacture, import and sale of drugs is still illegal in Portugal.

I find it hard to understand why so many people in the US want to switch drug policy from one extreme of the spectrum to the other. It's a rash social experiment with consequences that are hard to predict.

Well it's certainly not because they want to be able to order their heroin online, have it delivered next day, and mainline it in the safety of their own homes. Because they can already do that.

I don't know about the people in the US, but I can tell you why I want to completely legalize drugs. I see only benefits (less organized crime) with no downsides (I don't think drug usage will increase, as drugs are extremely easy to get even now). Note that the prices don't need to drop - the government could still tax drugs even higher than they tax alcohol and tobacco now - so there's no economical argument why the demand would increase.

While I'm very glad we did so, I have to point out that decriminalization of possession of small amounts of drugs is very far from legalization.

Also, it didn't really fix the drug abuse problem. It did help a lot with the social consequences of abuse by removing obstacles to seek help (or provide help).

The drug abuse problem was not completely fixed but at least it shifted the principal caretaker of the problem from the security forces to the social security.

In my view these were the main factors for the relative (and undeniable as per [1]) success of the Portugal approach:

- Decriminalizing the use and possession without the intent to distribute (the measure that gets all the credit)

- The harm reduction program [2] with measures like needle exchanges, safe rooms for drug injection (popularly known here as "salas de chuto", roughly "kick rooms"), methadone clinics

- Relocation, requalification and housing programs to vacate popular drug hotspots like, for instance, Casal Ventoso (before [3], after [4])

It is interesting because in the span of one generation heroin consumption turned from "cool, rebelious and chic" (like in Kate Moss heroin chic) to a bums drug, provided by the government to the ones that lost their ways.

This change in perception helped to break the cycle of graduation from light drugs (like cannabis) to hard drugs (like heroin) in the youth and most likely is a significant factor in the success of the portuguese approach.

Kids won't touch the hard stuff because they can see very clearly based on who ends up in "salas de chuto" or in the methadone centers the harmful effect of the drug.

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decr...

[2] http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/country-data/harm-reduction/Port...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7lOXcR05_E (graphic, drug use, in portuguese)

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqIUU80W60M (in portuguese)

The US incarcerated very significant percentages of its black male population under the guise of the "war on drugs" and I'm not sure if it made much of a difference. Drug use in the US is certainly not lower than in comparable countries, so I'm not sure if you could conclude that removing people from society in order to address the "drug problem" is necessarily an idea backed by solid data.

This is a common misconception.

Only 20% of state and federal prisoners (those serving more than a one year sentence) have drug crimes as their most serious conviction.

80% of prisoners are serving time for violent (47.7%), property (17.1%), or public order crimes (13.8%) that no one would argue are victimless.

While some of the other crime is related to drugs, the point is that 80% of the prisoners in the US have grievously victimized our fellow citizens and residents and are not innocent "[people removed] from society in order to address the 'drug problem'" as the parent comment stated.

Source: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...

Presumably, at least some proportion of that 80% is related to the legal status of drugs. E.g. robbery to support payment of inflated black-market prices, protection of production operations, etc.

>US incarcerated very significant percentages of its black male population under the guise of the "war on drugs" //

You think it was a government backed conspiracy against black males?

It's usually not a good idea to assume the parameters and dynamics of a small totalitarian island state can/will/should apply to other populations.

>And while I don't support it, the only country with a measure of success seems to be Singapore, where you just hang anyone who has more than single dose in their possession.

Success being what? People not doing drugs? Who said that's what people want?

Even if hanging drug users is effective, it certainly isn't a conscionable solution. However, I really don't believe that would work anyway.

Drug users should be left alone and drug abusers should have access to treatment.

And of course hanging drug users is effective: You necessarily reduce demand if you're brutal enough. Want 100% effectiveness? Pre-emptively hang everyone. War on drugs won...

It misses the fundamental point, which is that the goal isn't - or shouldn't be - a drug free society. But to reduce harm. Including to the drug users.

Accepting that ruining drug users - addicts or not - lives doesn't reduce harm needs to be the first step, because we seem all too willing to lock them up and ensure their prospects of making a living in any other way than through crime is removed, without considering that these people are also part of the community we are supposedly trying to save from harm.

We already know effective anti-epidemic measure: isolation of infected until they all will die. At high level of drug use, hanging of drug users is the only answer.

Singapore has a thriving methamphetamine ("ice") problem: http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Crime/Story/A1St... http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/young-well-edu...

>the only country with a measure of success seems to be Singapore

I'm sure they also hang people for chewing gum in Singapore, or whip them or whatever, doesn't mean that we should imitate them.

Who wants to live in a society where people are treated like that?

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