If you're going to give junkies their fix, are you going to buy my alcohol too? What about my gambling debts? What about my escort bill for my sex addiction? Shy are you differentiating addiction to drugs?
I come from a country with social healthcare, and here we also heavily subsidize drugs for people who need them because of their own lifestyle choices, e.g. diabetes medicine due to obesity. Why do people who have become addicted to psychoactive drugs not deserve the same compassion?
I am frankly appalled by the absence of compassion towards other people in this thread.
If we ended the War on Drugs we would be doing exactly this thing and saving billions of dollars doing it.
Some drugs are genuinely dangerous. Many are addictive and will damage the quality of one's life, even if buying and using the drug isn't illegal. Normalizing addiction to drugs as a regular, normal, accepted part of everyday life is not the answer.
Keeping them illegal does not "protect" anyone and just creates more crime, death, and misery. You've swallowed the propaganda -- it was never about protecting people, it was designed for oppression and it's wildly successful at that.
Take a look at any video of police busting people for drugs: does it look like they're trying to help those poor innocent victims or are they gleefully enjoying their ability to completely fuck with those people in the name of "protecting" them?
The fact that drugs are still such a problem despite countless billions of dollars shows that it's never going to work in the way that they promise.
Drug addiction is a health issue, not a crime. My brother died of a heroin overdose and the law did not help him and the fact that the only resources public money went to were jails and prisons vs clinics shows where the priorities lie.
Feel free to read up on the truth of this matter: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/race...
But there was a world in which junkies existed when the junk wasn't criminal. People had serious addictions, but kept normal lives, because their addiction wasn't criminal. I'm not trying to solve addiction. I'm trying to end the criminality for substance abuse.
And to answer, no, buy your own booze. Cover your own debts, gambling or otherwise. Sex addiction is made up bullshit. I don't need to differentiate because I am not trying to solve that problem.
Taking a step back, why doesn't society have a legitimate interest in making sure that people aren't able to take that first hit?
This can be done by going after suppliers.
There's non-trivial elements to this, otherwise we (I'm not American or in America, but many of the problems are broader) would have already done it.
Off the top of my head (and it will go much deeper): if all vendors are punished then the price remains high ("the iron law of prohibition") -> so you need the government to supply it to avoid dealers getting dollar signs in their eyes at the potential income -> the government must not promote it as part of this -> I'd say "medical prescriptions", but that's from a bias to my experience growing up in the UK where we don't have all the "talk to your doctor about ${pharmaceutical_brand}" ads I hear about in the USA -> would the USA even be able to pass laws preventing this, or is that a 1st Amendment problem?
Perhaps give the book “Chasing the Scream” a read. It is eye opening and respectfully, you seem to need that.
We do have a legitimate interest in making sure people don’t ever take that hit. BUT .. in the USA punishments take precedent over everything. Because we’re cunts from what I can tell.
I follow what you're saying, that the downsides of drug addiction outside of the user's own body is imposed by the people around them. I suppose that's almost definitionally true. I and many people do in fact find it unpleasant to be around people who are high out of their minds. I do not wish to associate with such people while they're in that state. I do not think that society would be better off with more of them, so I would prefer that society actively disincentivize such behavior. And you could certainly make the argument that this is the same thing as wanting punishment.
But if you're making the argument that being high on drugs might lead a user to job loss organically, I find that hard to believe. What if I didn't even know what heroin was, and saw that an employee was nodding off on the job? Wouldn't I be inclined to fire him?
On a purely human level we should all want to help someone like that. But we choose to turn a blind eye, criminalize their actions, break them further. Because it's uncomfortable right? To have to be a person and help someone else? Isn't it a lot easier to, say, throw them in jail?
I'm confused by your final statement. If you saw an employee nodding off on the job and ended up firing them, wouldn't that be job loss organically? I'm not sure how to respond to that? I don't think I'm making that argument though -- I'm saying it's possible to hold down some kinds of jobs while being a junkie. You're not running at full capacity but you can still do something -- so long as you aren't in jail.
I'll say this though: I am not against social consequences for drug addiction. You kinda need that to get clean? But it doesn't have to be criminal. It could be more like: when it's discovered you're using a drug, you're mandated to get it from the state while attending counseling, you have to check in with some state agency, etc. As opposed to: right to jail. Perhaps that's entirely too empathetic?