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Comment by dsmithatx | Hacker News Reader

Checkout Denmark. They had a huge problem with robberies and started giving legal pure Heroin shots to users. They also helped them find jobs. No more deaths and no more black market for Heroin. Hence burglaries also went away.

It looks like our current President is looking at cracking down on pot again though so, I don't imagine we'll have a sensible drug policy anytime soon. Only one motivated by profits.

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Which Denmark is this? Doesn't resemble the one I live in. Neither the robberies problem nor the legal pure heroin, and most certainly not the disappearance of burglaries - not statistically, not anecdotally, and not according to the several people of my acquaintance who have had it happen to them.

http://sciencenordic.com/heroin-clinics-improve-addicts-live...

>Reduced the number of days spent on crimes to a third

Not all crime is committed by heroin addicts so the programs won't stop burglaries completely but they have been shown to dramatically reduce the amount of crimes committed by participants.

http://www.citizensopposingprohibition.org/resources/swiss-h...

>Crime Issues: 60% drop in felony crimes by patients (80% drop after one year in the program). 82% drop in patients selling heroin.

In the USA, there's a fantasy Denmark that exists in the media.

In the fantasy Denmark, there's no crime, all the women are hot blondes who never get fat, there's cheap weed every where (and apparently free clean heroin), the furniture is sleek, all the men are feminists who never objectify women (there's no porn), the school system is fantastic (every child is good at math), the healthcare is free and high-quality, education is universal, free and high quality, and there are plenty of jobs for everyone (and high quality ones too!).

Pretty much like the rest of fantasy Europe.

    > the healthcare is free and high-quality
    > Pretty much like the rest of fantasy
    > Europe.

Isn't high-quality healthcare that's "free at the point of use" available in most of real Western Europe too?

Well, as long as you are willing to wait about six months for knee surgery, yes, it is free.

Or for any other type of intervention.

There is a 3 month gurantee. If they have not diagnosed you, and started treatment within that periode, you're free to go to a private clinic or hospital, free of charge.

At least in wife's case there was an additional 4 month gap between "starting treatment" and actual surgery.

And with expected times like that, you are entirely free to use a private hospital/clinic. Both myself and my wife have done so twice.

for certain conditions 3 months wait can be very serious.

Yes, but this is a general trentment gurantee. If you get cancer the times have to be shorter, and are shorter usually messured in weeks. It's better but still not good. If there is suspected cancer, you should get diagnosis started the same or next day, and treatment/surgery within a week.

Vs in the US where specialists just tell you that your problems are chronic, are pre-existing so not covered by insurance, and that nothing can be done for you.

and prescribe you Oxy for the pain...

Both chronic and pre-existing conditions are now covered by insurance.

Granted, a large number of the chronic conditions people face are caused by lifestyle choices and doctors don't have the power to make people want to change how they live their lives.

Not smoking, eating less crap and exercising more would drastically reduce the amount of chronic health conditions Americans face.

High blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, COPD and a host of other problems would drop dramatically if people lived healthier.

Uhh, hate to break it to ya, but even with insurance its not all roses and sunshine in the USA, you can easily go 6 months waiting for a knee replacement here. Watched a family member go through 4 over the past decade, and its a slow process no matter the insurance provider.

Plus, hospitals here on the West Coast have amped up doing a bunch of skeezy stuff recently, you could easily end up with a non-functional leg at a place like Swedish or Providence (two major hospital systems):

https://projects.seattletimes.com/2017/quantity-of-care/hosp...

How does one person need 4 knee replacements in 10 years?

Because American health care payments are based on quantity and not quality? ;-)

Partially, the upstream vendor (Stryker) made some defective knee replacement joints that wear out prematurely, causing pain and issues walking. Opening the knee back up and replacing most of the parts with better designed parts is what has to be done after a decade, then you get to sit there for months and heal.

Poor post-op care for the initial two, combined with Stryker making some very low quality knee replacements. Thus why you'd need another knee replacement after a decade

That's devastating :(

Aggressive rheumatoid arthritis could be one reason.

Maybe, but I've never heard of someone being told that their treatment is not covered, while in US insurance companies always try to weasel their way out of paying for treatment if they can.

You're right. That's totally the way we perceive Denmark, and pretty much the rest of Europe.

The number of burglaries is the lowest in 20 years (http://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/nyt/NytHtml?cid=20879), so you're just trying to make an argument you have no basis for.

But robberies and pickpocketing are on the rise.

I am responding to the "burglaries went away" statement. Nowhere have I claimed that the numbers couldn't have fallen. Your downvote (my assumption) is uncalled for.

That is entirely dependent on interpretation. Taking a comment saying "burglaries went away" at face value to mean ALL burglaries for all causes is just... diametrically opposed to any meaningful debate.

Its obvious that it means drug related burglaries went away, which is a claim we have fairly good evidence to support.

Some supervised injection sites are also able to test the drugs to make sure they're not adulterated in some way that could be harmful. That means fewer trips to the emergency room, less police paperwork, not to mention there's an opportunity to mitigate drug use with therapy and treatment.

Trump should be taken to task for illogical stands, but you're dreaming if you think things would have been better under Hillary. Pharma was paying her to help keep pot illegal. At least Trump is capable of bending since he serves no one but Twitter.

The key to that is where you said they gave them jobs. That goes a long fucking way to reduce robberies.

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