Legalization is the easy part. Dealing with the consequences of legalization would take more effort.
Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
41–50 of 104 posts
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?
>If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is that a problem exactly? Also people quit smoking and drinking all the time, has nothing to do with it being legal.
The more we have to pay for each other's healthcare (insurance costs going up, ACA subsidies, maybe a future "single payer" situation), the more other people's health decisions are going to be our business.
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#43Lol people still talking about Fent but then you have Tranq which is even worse, 5 years from now you'll have the streets filled with limbless people from tranq, horrifying
Probably fair to say that neither are any good.
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you explain the failed drug decriminalization in Oregon?
Because they actually have a homeless problem and it was conflated with drugs. They are unwilling to run homeless people out of their cities. San Francisco has the same issues but drugs aren't legal there.
Run them out... where? Into the woods? Into other cities? This whole "just make homeless people go somewhere else" mindset is part of why things are screwed on the national level. It just results in money being set on fire to bus people around in giant circles.
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a good point. Only prohibition works, which is why the number of opioid deaths have been going down since its inception. It is mystifying why anyone would question the efficacy of the current system
Treatment works. Partial enforcement and pandering don't work.
Any statistics on success rate and cost of treatments?
It is hard enough to treat alcohol addiction, and that makes people feel awful. I am skeptical about broadly treating opiate addiction, which surely makes people feel much better than being high on alcohol.
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#46When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…
> When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? That's not enough. You have to legalize everything with restrictions like cigarettes and alcohol. The problem is that fentanyl is so powerful that it contaminates everything . Consequently, you get people who bought drugs completely unrelated to fentanyl still overdosing from it (currently a problem in Austin, for example). You don't want rand…
That's the point though. Most addicts don't want fentanyl, they want other opioids. If they could legally buy said product, they would. But they can't, so they buy the on the street, and they get the easiest drug to smuggle: fentanyl.
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can safely have a few drinks (or more) and feel normal the next day and go to work. You can't do that with fentanyl.
Fentanyl only exists because it's cheap and easy to make. Anyone with a choice would always take something like oxycodone, and there are a ton of occasional recreational oxy users in the world.
> there are a ton of occasional recreational oxy users in the world.
Today, virtually all of the ‘oxycontin’ that is used recreationally is actually fentanyl and binders that looks like an oxycontin. Unless it’s in a prescription bottle (and even then,) it’s almost certainly fentanyl.
> In 2023, DEA seized more than 80 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. The 2023 seizures are equivalent to more than 381 million lethal doses of fentanyl. [0]
If they seized 80 million, just imagine how many weren’t seized.
[0]https://www.dea.gov/onepill#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20DEA%20sei....
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#48Lol people still talking about Fent but then you have Tranq which is even worse, 5 years from now you'll have the streets filled with limbless people from tranq, horrifying
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Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#49When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…
Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?
> they will have no incentive to quit.
I don't think legality is the main thing incentivizing people to quit.
Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you provide all resources to people to enjoy alcohol, why would anyone quit? Would you argue we should go back to prohibition?
You can safely have a few drinks (or more) and feel normal the next day and go to work. You can't do that with fentanyl.
yes you can. they put it in patches and prescribe them at the hospital. people go to work on those. dead addicts can't go to work the next day, but you don't hear about the ones who haven't died yet unless you know them very well personally.