Good. Putting people with addiction issues in jail was the wrong approach.
Perhaps the addicted can seek help in other ways without the fear or risk of being incarcerated.
Perhaps the addicted can seek help in other ways without the fear or risk of being incarcerated.
It decouples the interests of drug traffickers from those of users making users more likely to cooperate with law enforcement, frees up social workers and medical professionals from the risk of criminal liability for associating with drug users in possession of or using drugs. It also makes it easier to address incidental associated health issue such as infections from dirty needles. Treating it as a health issue destigmatises it making it easier for users to talk about it and seek help.
This is not theoretical, this is from actual findings from countries like Portugal the Netherlands and Norway where trading in hard drugs is still illegal but possession and use are treated as public health issues. This is a policy that works.
Why not? Do you support criminal cartels making lots of money off of them or do you think that the War on Drugs will actually get rid of that criminal element which profits from them at some point?
I don't see a problem with anyone putting anything they want into their own body. Arrest them when they commit an actual victim-ful crime like stealing but not before that.
To that end, I say sell them with regulation just like Alcohol. Keeping sales illegal means questionable sources, questionable quality and enormous profits for criminal gangs.
criminalization should be reserved to actions which cause harm to another person who didn't agree to the respective interaction.
If an adult decides to take a drug - fine. If another adult sells a drug to another adult - where's the problem?
OTOH I'd like to see the concept of mitigating circumstances removed in criminal justice. If somebody takes a drug and commits a crime - full responsibility.
On the one hand there is a considerable culture around alcohol that is difficult or impossible to expunge. Banning it simply isn't practical in a democracy where alcohol is popular across all sections of society. Hard drugs like cocaine and heroine simply don't have the cultural and social context that alcohol has, there isn't a consensus that it's acceptable.
Arguing that, well alcohol is dangerous too is a bad argument. We do this bad thing so therefore we should also be allowed to do this other bad thing doesn't follow at all. Ideally we shouldn't do either bad thing. Both alcohol and hard drug use impose considerable costs on society. If society has chosen to accept those costs in one case but not the other (while fighting to limit them) well, making such decisions is what democracy is for.
Ultimately I think the libertarian argument works for decriminalising uses, but fails at decriminalising the trade. There's no inherent right to make a profit whatever the cost to others or society.
> why not just introduce age limits like alcohol
Because they don't work..
On the high side, only 30% of people who try heroin get addicted https://www.livescience.com/62701-odds-of-heroin-dependency....
Nicotine has a higher addiction rate
If there was a guaranteed safe supply chain for recreational drugs that are currently illegal, things would be a lot safer too.
I would amend your analogy: "people comsuming alcohol to get drunk". Lots of people enjoy a glass of wine or a beer or sipping whiskey or whatever, not because it makes them drunk, but because they enjoy the flavor (e.g., wine pairings, etc). I'm pretty sure almost everyone who does drugs does so to get high. Note that I'm not arguing that alcohol is better than drugs, only that I think this distinction is important.
Munchies ritual became part of my trips when I used to smoke, since such an experience in regard of taste can't be provided by any michelin star restaurant, no matter how hard they try (although they do provide great experience in other forms). Its unhealthy, its practically impossible to just nibble, rather devour a metric ton and some more.
Let's stop pretending people do drugs for anything but drug's effect on them. Wine is no different, plenty of folks who are alcoholics run purely on wine, albeit on different quantities than small glass of red. Try drinking half a liter of red wine every days for few years though, where it will lead you.
psychedelics are widely used for micro-dosing, which isn’t about being high - its meant to be sub perceptible dosing.
Also for therapy and mental well being.
This is not the case. I know people who use them to manage chronic pain. It's not all that different from getting a Vicodin prescription, but without shifting most of the cost to society.
Of course you will take a substance for its effect... the real distinction is wether you are addict / overconsuming, or not.
Alcohol is definitely not more harmful to society than most prescription opioids, tobacco, meth, heroin, PCP, etc. The harm of each drug needs to be assessed on a per capita by user basis.
The fact that alcohol is legal and generally socially acceptable of course means that it's also the most consumed recreational drug by far, which no doubt contributes - but it can't be denied that alcohol is addictive, and alcoholism is a huge problem.
Per capita, back home, and in many many places like russia, it is by far the deadliest substance. Because its legal and +-accepted.
Its not because almost no one takes heroin and that it kis no one that its not dangerous.
How dumb is that reasoning..
There are drugs that, if you use them, you should be encouraged not to.
Incredibly toxic? Hardly--it actually has a quite good safety profile when used as intended.
Highly and immediately addictive? About 5 weeks ago I had a close chemical cousin of heroin. 3 times in fact. Addicted? I never felt the slightest desire for it once the cause of the pain was gone and I certainly didn't like what it did to my digestive system. (Morphine, given by a doctor for a kidney stone. Heroin is basically two morphine molecules stuck together.)
Easy to overdose? The extremely limited medical use of heroin means we don't have good data, so lets look at morphine instead as it should be similar. The therapeutic index is 70. (This is the ratio between the proper dose and the dose that might kill, the higher the number the better.) For comparison, the therapeutic index for acetaminophen is 3--and yet it's over the counter!
Heroin overdoses are common because of two issues:
1) Unknown purity. Users deliberately go close to the limits to get the biggest high, if they get heroin with a higher purity than they expect they can go over the edge. In a world where you bought your heroin from a pharmacy rather than the street such deaths would pretty much not happen.
2) Jail. Someone has been in jail for a while and not using, they get out, they take what they're used to taking--but now they aren't habituated. Now the dose is lethal. This one could certainly be reduced by having a required class for all druggies about to be released from jail--explain the problem and warn them that their usual dose is probably now a lethal dose.
There are some other combinations that can cause similar trouble too (alcohol plus benzos, alcohol plus opiods).
Accidental overdose can also happen after relapse, most easily if avoiding the substance rather than receiving medical addiction treatment. Or if taking combinations of drugs that combine to impair judgement.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/14/drugsandalc...
Either way, a public health approach is the only rational way to keep people safe and battle addiction.
In this USA and some other countries, this is normally called acetaminophen. It's the active ingredient in Tylenol.
Yes but how does throwing someone in jail and giving them a felony record thus destroying their life help?
There are drugs (crack cocaine, bath salts, maybe meth) where I think dealing should have severe penalties, but most of the people who are using these drugs are doing so because they are already struggling with life issues. Putting them in prison is almost certain to cost taxpayers a ton of money and utterly destroy that person's life.
Rather, that decriminalizing is good for some, but I'm glad we haven't legalized all of them.
cite?
> highly and immediately addictive
Depends on the person. Crack wasn't interesting for me. Never used H but a proportion of people who can use it safely, like I would have a drink and know when to stop is ~50% (figure from memory from a letter in newscientist which I've been unable to find).
> and easy to overdose
What's the safe range? I think you are saying something I and many ohters could agree with but they need backing up.
Drugs legal and illegal might be a ticket item BUT the health issues are still the same, even if they are "non-addictive."
I recently read an article about the popularity of '/r/justiceserved' type forums (the original tagline of this subreddit was "Now with 40% more police brutality" but was changed as it became more popular). I can't for the life of me find the article, but it was a fairly ambivalent account of how this kind of forum taps into a deeply innate arousal from visceral punishment. Something that the author decides, sadly, appears to be in all of us.
> lock them up and throw away the key
The "empathy gap" rears its ugly head.[1]
Soon after it was discovered that a lot of American and British tourists were not doing this out of fear for getting arrested.
The Amsterdam government had to add a specific part to the signs (in English) saying you wouldn't be arrested if you called for help.
Creating a atmosphere of fear costs lives.
Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/02/you-w...
Sign: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://... (Bottom part)
A big problem is that addictions are expensive and people are willing to commit crimes to feed addictions when they run out of money. Anecdata of 1, but one of my friends in high school got addicted to heroin, and he ended up in jail not because of possession of heroin, but because he started stealing so he could come up with the money to buy more... so in that sense decriminalization won't necessarily help, but I agree that possession of drugs for personal use should not necessarily result in jail time.
The drugs themselves would be cheap if legalized.
Drugs will only be cheap if:
- they are legal to commercially manufacture and distribute (not merely decriminalized)
- they aren't taxed excessively
Cigarettes, for example, are cheap to manufacture, but still expensive due to high taxes in a lot of places (up to $10+ per pack).
If you are already committing crimes every day buying and possessing something, then committing crimes to feed the habit isn't a big jump. Conversely, if you haven't done anything illegal yet, most people will pay a hefty premium to avoid having to do anything illegal.
Alcoholism isn't expensive.
Tell that to someone who spends most of their money on those cheap russian vodkas.
If you don’t have a good family or friend support system homelessness is easy to fall into.
There seems to be this false equivalence in the minds of some folks between hard drugs and e.g. pot. This has no basis in reality. Pot won't fuck you up. Meth most definitely will.
No.
Many/most overdoses happen because the illegal supply has very uneven strength. If the new batch is twice as potent as the previous one, you won't know until you wake up dead.
When you get your Heroin at Walgreens, this never happens.
this is true, but opioids in general have a low therapeutic index (ie, the ratio between an effective dose and LD50 is rather low). even with a known dose, the risk of OD is among the highest of commonly abused drugs. in fairness, I should note that the therapeutic index for most opioids is close to that of alcohol. people die of alcohol poisoning every year (though far fewer than OD on opioids) despite the proof being printed clearly on the bottle.
I do think inconsistent supply is a larger contribution to OD risk than the relatively tight TI, but this is hard to study properly partially because of criminalization.
I'm glad you brought up paracetamol as well. I find that people often overestimate how dangerous illicit drugs are, while at the same time being totally blase when it comes to stuff you can buy off the shelf at any pharmacy. frankly, I find tylenol kind of scary and try to use it only when absolutely necessary.
That said, criminalising drugs has absolutely made the situations around and with them worse for more people. Those with the greatest gain in the current situation are the warlords in South America, the commercial jails and politicians stoking fear of drug use.
A great number of people can and have used a wide range of drugs successfully, peacefully, creatively, introspectively and with joy for 1000s of years. The current predominant legislation doesn't seem to reflect the will of a huge number of people. I don't have stats to say "a majority", but it wouldn't surprise me, especially if you include alcohol.
The problems exist. Better methods need to be sought to deal with them than criminalisation.
And a great number of people have died because of this use. I mean, are you really going to argue that it is possible to have a "normal" life and take heroin or meth at the same time? I'm not saying taking heroin should be a felony, but selling it definitely should.
Thousands of people are high functioning and doctor-prescribed amphetamine users (Adderall) in this country and we don't bat an eye. As soon as you call it "meth" people get weird about it.
But I am going to argue that a VAST number of people take caffeine, alcohol, cocaine, MDMA, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, sugar, 2CB, DMT, ayahuasca, amphetamine and many others in a wide variety of settings with largely positive results. As such, the general trend of legislation around the world against (most) of these chemicals seems grossly at odds with on-the-ground opinion and practice.
And in Oregon, it still is, presumably because the people agree with you?
This isn't true. Quick google search says only 25% of people why try it will become addicted.
A better comparison, assuming legal pharmaceuticals, would be: What percentage of people who try Oxycontin become addicted?
I don't know that number, but I suspect it is relatively low.
Decriminalization in combination with rehab and community service programs sets those people up for a far better chance of overcoming addiction.
I'm sympathetic to your point and to all who are subject to any drug or alcohol addiction. But I feel compelled to comment that incarceration is not always the inhumane dead-end that it's painted as. It's one of many tools that can be used to rehabilitate those in need.
That would be "rock bottom" in your anecdote.
Consider how PTSD used to be treated back when it was "shell shock" and considered a personal moral failure. People were told there was nothing wrong. Many of those people "recovered," too. But was that the right way to treat people facing real problems?
We don't have to guess, there's a lot (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1745-9125....) of evidence (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004727270...) that locking people up for drug use isn't _very_ effective (isn't very effective != completely ineffective) at reducing crime or recidivism, and great evidence that decriminalization (i.e. portugal https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1464837) sends crime (AND drug usage) downward, as well as a host of drug-related medical conditions.
(^ first page of google scholar results people)
If the goal is rehabilitation, then let's talk about how to best do that.
It's good that your family member finally had success fighting their addiction, but at what price?
The way incarceration impacts people is extremely different.
My guess is that incarceration for non violent drug offenders has way more negative outcomes vs positive outcomes. I used to work out at a boxing gym and there were quite a few people whose possibility of finding an ok job was almost zero because a marijuana or cocaine conviction had put a negative mark on their background checks. This is especially true for poor neighborhoods where families don’t have the financial ability to support other family members who have problems.
Most of Europe has compulsory treatment options instead of incarceration, but due to abuses in the past it's a non-starter in the US.
Of the two examples the former is obviously better, even though a third, hybrid option that no one talks about is likely the best; a kind of reform complex/community akin to boot camp of the past broken people are broken down and rebuilt into new, functioning adults. For anyone who knows anything about the military, especially of the past, will know that in treatment of people, the bootcamp model is the very best option. It builds character, it shatters bad habits and compulsions, it builds support structures and deep bonds, it creates a pathway to hope, success, and achievement, it uses sticks and carrots to set people on a graduated path. It's literally everything that drug addicts need if one actually cares about them getting the devil off their back, and is not just interested in trying to feel good about themselves.
I’m sure there are some public safety issues that we should deal with for the various “hard” drugs decriminalized here, but I also find it fascinating how much social desirability affects which drugs we decide are a problem that require special treatment, since I’ve never seen anyone recommend house arrest or curfews for alcoholics.
So criminalize alcohol abuse as well. Not jail-criminalize it, that's too expensive for taxpayers. But I sure would love if the streets are clear of drunk, violent people fighting. Impose curfews and cameras in their homes.
> Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_Stat...
I want to criminalize alcohol abuse, not alcohol.
> I want to criminalize alcohol abuse, not alcohol.
As leetcrew we already have laws in re: most of that, including "disturbing the peace".
> Because I watched cops do absolutely nothing...
If they're not enforcing the law in the first place, how does adding another law help?
My point about Prohibition is that this thing is cultural: Alcohol and tobacco are "in", pot and oxy and the others are "out". If you live in an area that tolerates drunken hooliganism you're gonna have a bad time with drunken hooligans.
I see violent people on the street. They are a danger to me. I want safe streets. House arrest costs taxpayers very little.
If there was an angry bear on the streets threatening people it would probably be relocated, tagged, and confined to the forests as well. Not much different.
How about, they either go to prison, or agree to have their home fitted as a prison. Is that less dystopian?
The cameras would come off once their house arrest term is over.
House arrest is better than prison for certain kinds of non violent offenses.
I am opposed to some dude getting drunk and roaming the streets waving around a steel bar threatening to hit people, which I have witnessed (in LA).
Being drunk in public is a safety hazard to others and should be at least a misdemeanor, IMO, unless you are on your way home or to medical help.
> some dude getting drunk and roaming the streets waving around a steel bar threatening to hit people
this is already clear cut assault. why do we need yet another charge to pile on?
Because I watched cops do absolutely nothing, because although it was pretty goddamn dangerous with mothers with children around and whatnot.
At the very least, then, make hate speech and threats on strangers ground for arrest. Make wielding any object as a weapon ground for arrest. If they make threats while drunk, they don't necessarily need to be jailed, I'm happy if they're just escorted home and required to stay home for the day.
I feel like we almost agree? the issue is not that we don't have enough laws already, but rather that perfectly good laws are not actually enforced.
Keeping it criminalized, but as a summary offense with the punishment being an educational presentation/course on rehab options might provide some better outcomes. There are some tangentially related things to consider here too, like drug convictions preventing addicts from buying weapons.
How is it necessarily a health issue? Not all drug users are addicts.
Edit: And perhaps the most obvious support for it being a criminal issue is that the first time someone does the drug it would only be a criminal issue and could not be a health issue since they had no prior exposure to become addicted.
1. If you are a drug user, not even necessarily an addict (in which your need to consume the drug gets in the way of other life functions), then society is already accepting. Cocaine use, for example, is far less stigmatized in the US and UK.
2. If you step back from your biases and view addiction as a "sickness", then throwing addicts in prison makes as much sense as throwing someone in prison for a broken leg. Sure sometimes it might work, but it's clearly not the most optimal solution. Other countries that have taken this approach have far fewer recidivism rates - which is the metric that should be judged.
Finally to answer your point "summary offense with a punishment of education on rehab options create more crime" is not at all what happens in the US today. Drug use & possession carries prision term, in which cutting cold turkey (or, likely more commonly sneaking drugs into prison) is the only option. After which, you are likely to lose your job and turn to more crime to make a living once released from prison. A more realistic counter to your point however is that the current American criminal justice system has little flexibility for nuance, and without major police reform, leaving this issue to police simply does not produce the intended results.
I'm saying that decriminalization isn't the the best option in my opinion either - essentially you have a system ignoring people's drug use rather than offering help. My suggestion was to have a low level summary offense which only punishes the person with education on rehab options. This would require users to recieve information on treatment options that they might otherwise not be aware of. It would also track the offense so that if an addict resorts to crime to pay for their habit, they would not be legally allowed to buy a weapon.
What I'm saying is you have to consider who would be responsible for such a system? Decriminalization isn't about ignoring the issue, it's about getting these people out of the criminal justice system. What you are advocating for, to be implemented successfully, would require a reform of the entire police force to treat these people as patients instead of criminals. (I'm focusing on America here, in your country the police may be less hostile, especially to drug users.)
The eventual path that is being set, for which decriminalization would be a first step would then to have hospitals/health care provide save alternatives to buying hard drugs/needles on the street, which you can then check them into and begin the rehab process there. Essentially forcing people to rehab under threat of punishment isn't successful, and the American police force has spent the last 40 years treating drug users as criminals. Depending on the justice system isn't likely to work.
I'm not sure if I'm mis-understanding you or if you aren't familiar with the legislation in question. What you suggest here seems an awful lot like a marginally more sever version of what this law does.