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Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

arstechnica.com

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Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#291

Post by Jochim »

viraptor wrote: post #204
pessimizer wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you really think that heroin production should ever be legalised? Yes. The actual cost of producing heroin is about a nickel a dose. Junkies who get their heroin are productive members of society, and aside from the criminal element they're forced to associate with, the crime they commit to get the cash to not get sick, the inconsistency of product, and the aggression of the state, we have no reason to think the…

Why concentrate on ongoing use rather than providing addiction treatment?

One argument would be that taxes from the sale could be used to fund better addiction treatment than is currently available. State sanctioned supply would then be taking money out of the hands of organised crime and using it to help the people who need it.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#292

Post by refurb »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #134
supernova87a wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the war on drugs was a failure. But is your position that whatever people want to do, you should not try to prevent it? What are your positions on applying that logic to carbon emissions, letting people work for less than minimum wage, companies putting out products that people buy willingly but are non-repairable? Should government step out of those areas too? People want to do all those things.

Those things have large negative externalities that the individual doesn’t pay for. Drugs don’t really have that- unless you make them high cost and illegal.

Alcohol has massive externalities and it’s legal.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#293

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ogre_codes wrote: post #148
lotsofpulp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe now that politicians see that people are very against drug laws we'll see some of them renege on their hard anti-drug stances. The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations.

> The purpose of existing drug laws, especially marijuana, is to give police a reason to harass and discriminate against certain populations. I've heard it argued that this is the purpose of traffic laws as well. A lot of enforcement is based on officer discretion which is IMO a moral trap.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Red light cameras seem to be hated because they catch everybody impartially.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#294

Post by [deleted] »

pessimizer wrote: post #172
throwaway201103 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benef…

I was a black teenager living on the South Side of Chicago during that time, and the media crack obsession was largely hysterics, and sometimes outright fiction (as with "crack babies.")

[deleted]

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#295

Post by TheKarateKid »

GuB-42 wrote: post #245
throwaway201103 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the draconian laws and mandatory sentences trace back to the late 1980s/early 1990s when crack cocaine hit. If you were too young to remember or not born yet, it was absolutely devastating. At least the equivalent of today's opioid crisis if not worse. Entire neighborhoods just fell apart. Politicians and voters freaked out and demanded harsh new drug laws and penalties. Lobbiest support from those who benef…

It looks like drug laws are bound to become a cycle. 1- Drugs are cool, and not really an issue, people take them mostly reasonably. 2- Hey, drugs can be addictive, that's when people stop being reasonable 3- Too many drug addicts, it is a real society problem 4- People demand strict laws, drugs are not cool anymore 5- Parents, who have seen the damage done by drugs support these drastic laws, and tell their kids how…

The real issue isn't the drugs -- it's mental health. Most drug users who become addicts started using drugs to cope and escape from problems they have in life: depression, anxiety, bipolar, PTSD, etc.

If we started treating the real source of the problem -- mental health -- then there would be far less appeal for these types of people to turn to drugs to begin with.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#296

Post by bonestamp2 »

ArnoVW wrote: post #205
Judgmentality wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate to sidetrack this discussion with an obvious political rant, but it's important to remember the CIA was intimately involved in creating the crack epidemic in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...

I was intrigued so I read the page. "the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported." "Webb's series led to three federal investigations, all of which concluded there was no evidence of conspiracy by the CIA or its employees to bring drugs into the United States. .. sounds to me like it was investigated and nothing turned up?

"...the allegations were unsupported."

If one was to read this very carefully, they're not saying it didn't happen, they're just saying the evidence to support the allegations no longer exists. For a top secret program, that sounds about right.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#297

Post by ericmay »

_0w8t wrote: post #42
ericmay wrote: post #23

I've mentioned this elsewhere, and I say this believing that substance abuse is a public health problem and not a criminal one, but: I'm not sure it's the best idea to give a bunch of people stuck living a lonely life in the suburbs, addicted to social media, and have to pay for their own healthcare, an easier path to hard drugs like heroin. There is no doubt in my mind that decriminalization will make these types of…

Alcohol is a hard drug and trivially available. And judging by relatives and medical articles, alcoholism is worse than heroin addiction. The worst part of alcohol is that it disproportionately affects people around alcoholic through various forms of abuse. That is a direct result of destruction of brain cells responsible for empathy. The effects of heroin are much more localized to the drug user.

There are quite a few things at play here. Let's start by admitting we're not comparing apples to apples. Alcohol is a widely available mostly non-addictive substance that hundreds of millions of people use on any given day without any real side effects aside from whatever the alcohol does. Obviously drunk driving, fatty liver disease, etc., are health problems caused by alcohol.

Heroin (if we're going to keep on this drug in particular) is currently not widely available, however the effects of the drug are far more severe and it is without a doubt more addictive than alcohol. I find it quite strange that you make the statement that: "alcohol disproportionately affects people around alcoholic through various forms of abuse". First, these are rare occurrences given the amount of alcohol sold and used on a daily bases across the planet. Aside from specific genetic mutations, it's not exactly easy to get addicted to alcohol. Casual drinking =/= addiction. Second, you're not considering how heroin affects those around the addict. People who are addicted to heroin will do nearly anything to get a fix. It's a completely different level compared to alcoholism that I've seen. You don't see a lot of functioning heroin users. There's a reason people are talking about the streets of San Francisco being littered with used needles. Why aren't they talking about the streets being littered with bottles of Jack Daniels? It's certainly worth investigating since if you compare alcohol consumption to heroin consumption, heroin is a rounding error (at the moment).

Finally, your statement that the effects of heroin being more localized to the drug user are... frankly, laughable. Do you think people are just sitting around quietly shooting up and then going about their merry day? Maybe taking a nice bike ride to Golden Gate Park or picking their kids up from school?

I honestly do not believe you have had any experience around any actual hard drugs based on what you're writing here. Obviously experience is just one data point, but when you're saying "Alcohol is a hard drug too" when we're talking about actual hard drugs like heroin or cocaine I have a hard time really trying to figure out what to make of your statement here.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#298

Post by TheOperator »

gravypod wrote: post #4

Could this be a situation where politicians have faulty data and use that to guide how they act? I would have assumed that a majority of these states - and my home state of NJ - would be very anti-drug but these votes with >60% in favor of legalization show that significant portions of America think drug-related activities are not "immoral" or "wrong" and should not be criminalized. If you had asked me a few years ag…

Looking at political decisions as being as simple as just going with yea/nay opinion polls is overly simplistic. Those polls don't distinguish between voters who really care about an issue and hardly care about an issue. They don't distinguish between undecided voters and card carrying party members. Plus you also have to account for the almost obligatory attack by the opposition that somebody legalizing drugs is involved with them and/or obsessed with trivial matters.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#299

Post by shkkmo »

franga2000 wrote: post #276
shkkmo wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police unions have a vested interest in ever increasing police department budgets that were driven in many ways by the war on drugs.

police unions - that makes sense. Since the comment didn't specify that, I was also quite confused for a bit

I don't know if it was edited, but the comment your responded to did specify police unions when I made my comment.

Re: Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health

#300

Post by eyelidlessness »

bnjms wrote: post #272
eyelidlessness wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for people with dopamine deficiency (ADHD), it can present as both anxiety and depression besides the typically understood ADHD symptoms. Stimulants can certainly treat such cases of anxiety and depression (that was my primary reason for finally seeking a diagnosis).

Thanks for this. I was wondering if other people felt their anxiety pass with adderall and heard reports people get more anxious. Good to know less anxiety is a common response for some.

I missed this response earlier, but want to make sure I don’t let it pass by. Stimulants can make you more anxious. If you’re not actually treating a dopamine deficiency, it can be like way too much coffee. If you are treating a dopamine deficiency, in some cases it can cause anxiety regardless but in most cases heightened anxiety is a sign the dosage is too high. Generally it helps relax the brain chaos and it should be settling enough to be able to get to sleep.
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