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Comment by mrosett | Hacker News Reader

I'm open the idea of various forms of drug legalization, but someone pointed out that the opioid epidemic (which is behind the decline in life expectancy) is arguably an experiment with legalizing heroin. The analogy isn't perfect, but that gave me pause.

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Decriminalization (which is subtly different than legalization) of drugs isn't in conflict with preventing addiction and abuse by treating these as health problems, which is what they actually are.

The opioid epidemic was in significant part pushed forward by the unscrupulous marketing of prescription opioid manufacturers, and further catalyzed by the declining socioeconomic conditions in the areas most affected by the epidemic.

> Decriminalization (which is subtly different than legalization) of drugs isn't in conflict with preventing addiction and abuse by treating these as health problems, which is what they actually are.

It is when you hold the belief that addiction is a moral failing. Most parts of the US seem to be digging out from under that misconception, though. Finishing it off for good could be the one good thing to come out of the opioid epidemic.

Yes, if there's any benefit to the current opioid crisis, it's that American perceptions of addiction are changing as they see that anyone, not just poor/minorities can be affected by addiction and that it's absolutely not a moral failing

It isn't legalizing heroin, or else we'd have nationwide formal public health strategies for harm reduction. What we have is a strategy that seems like it was custom-built to maximize harm to public health.

We should hand over the reins of drug policy to the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and task them with minimizing harm, instead of the abject failure we have now with police running the show.

The main point of drug legalization to me is to get people out jails and into proper support networks where they can get the medical treatment they need for an addiction without throwing their life away.

> I'm open the idea of various forms of drug legalization, but someone pointed out that the opioid epidemic (which is behind the decline in life expectancy) is arguably an experiment with legalizing heroin. The analogy isn't perfect, but that gave me pause.

Not in the slightest, because presumably heroin that you get from your pharmacist at Walgreens wouldn't be contaminated with fentanyl.

Heroin dealers are mixing in fentanyl because it’s extremely dense (in terms of doses per mass) and therefore easy to smuggle. People are ODing on fentanyl because those same properties make it hard to dose accurately. None of this would happen if opioids were legal.

No, it's not. Throwing addicts in prison does nothing to help addiction rates, and proper support systems to help addicts can't be created easily if heroin is illegal.

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