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Comment by alexasmyths | Hacker News Reader

There is no 'danger' from 'not buying stuff from your dealer' anymore.

I see you've never dealt with a dealer before.

I've known many a dealer in my lifetime, and a distant family member who spent some time incarcerated for 'high level' activity, who gives me long tales of how the business works as well.

Dealers don't assault, endanger or attack random customers who just stop buying.

That's totally absurd, and that someone would suggest it - indicates that they are getting their information from Netflix/Hollywood films or something, not reality.

The vast majority of dealers are actually fairly normal people anyhow.

Well exuse me, I didn't know i was talking to a renneissance man. Addicts wheel and deal with each other, rack up debts to eachother, steal from one another. Some of them buy wholesale from larger distributors, usually with credit, to be repaid with interest or else. They rob, assault, rape and kill eachother over this stuff. I wish i was making this up.

Doctors in emergency rooms usually have instructions to confiscate any illegal drugs they discover on OD-patients, but are faced with the very real dilemma of leaving the patient at their creditors mercy. This can cause real harm (as in "First do no harm") to the patient and their prospects of recovery or harm reduction.

If you don't pay your dealer, that will cause pain, and possibly violence.

But nobody is 'going after' someone who just decided to stop smoking something.

Maybe if that someone was just smoking pot and otherwise paid taxes. This particular group of drug users are not the central point of concern of the UN Special Assembly, even though its part of the wider problem. They are not dying in the streets and they are not socially marginalized. Allthough (anecdotally) i've known several fumb pot-smoking ducks who thought they could finance their proclivity through distribution and wound up several thousand dollars in debt to people who take names and chew bubble-gum.

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