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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

A victimless crime - unless you think we should be locking up all of the alcohol sellers? Alcohol addiction is a sad, sad affair.

I would rather someone be addicted to pharmaceutical grade opioids than street heroin laced with fentanyl and other junk.

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> A victimless crime

One should note that addicts do commit all sorts of crimes to continue their addiction. There probably needs to be some form of back attribution of said acts to those who leech off of addictions

IMO $277M (the value of the bitcoin) should be confiscated as possible and redirected to help victims of such crimes ...

That is a side effect of prohibition.

People commit crimes to acquire all kinds of legal things, why wouldn't an addict do so to acquire legalized drugs?

If you are an addict and want to get clean, there are very few resources at your disposal (unless you are wealthy). Many addicts start out being prescribed drugs by a legitimate doctor, but are left without resources to break their addictions when the prescription runs out. Most if not all addicts do not want to be addicted. While there may be some small group of people who commit crime for fun to go buy drugs, typically it is an act of desperation. Nobody ever says "I want to be a junkie when I grow up".

When we're talking about agencies whose entire existence is about ensuring the War on Drugs continues (I know the article is about the DoJ, but talking about the DEA works too), they don't care of the morals, only the law. Things like the DEA need these kinds of busts to justify their budgets and show they're worthy of an increase come next fiscal year.

> I would rather someone be addicted to pharmaceutical grade opioids than street heroin laced with fentanyl and other junk.

The two addictions are more or less the same. Someone addicted to street heroin can substitute pharmaceutical grade opioids. Someone addicted to pharmaceutical grade opioids can substitute street heroin. This is largely a class discrepancy, as the higher tolerance a person has the more expensive the pharmaceutical grade opioid use is compared to street heroin.

I don't believe I commit any crime when I put any substance of my choice into my own body, regardless of what the state says.

Right!?! Legalizing drugs would solve a lot of issues and let people actually address and talk about the real problems which is often mental health, however there are a lot of things like mushrooms and LSD that may cause people to "wake up" and not want to be a slave to the system anymore and I think that is mostly what they fear. People realizing they have more choice and power than they've been led to believe.

If you actually care about the human behind the addiction, pharmaceuticals are vastly less likely to land your child or loved one in a morgue. Addicts recover all the time, if they live long enough.

However, given the choice you would choose the pharmaceutical grade right? You are even asserting it is associated with social class. The Costa Rican doctor is actually making safer drugs available to a broader market. In that light, I think you could interpret the Doctor's actions as moral as he is simply meeting a market demand and is providing the least harmful product to meet that need.

Street oxy is super expensive. Heroin is a lot cheaper. 5-6 times cheaper where I’m at.

Why’s it expensive? Because of the ridiculous war on drugs.

It's inconsistency of dose that kills opioid addicts, that's one of many reasons why legalization is preferable.

> The two addictions are more or less the same.

Except pharmaceutical grade opiods are less likely to be cut with deadly shit like fentanyl.

If someone expects heroin but is then given heroin mixed with another chemical, they can overdose quite easily, especially with fentanyl and carfentanyl

Well your desire is paradoxical because people who get addicted to pharmaceutical pain killers are the ones that end up consuming street heroin when they cannot get pharmaceutical opioids anymore.

Right! So let’s ensure pharmaceutical grade opioids remain cheap and abundant for those who desire them. I don’t see why we need to throw them on the street(?)

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