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Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

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Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#131

Post by mercurial »

awildone wrote: post #39
sehr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure, the world exists outside of Europe and the US. There are some seriously draconian drug laws in Asia for example

Sweden is fucked up as well, and I'd expect Norway to be the same or worse. Sweden jumped on the war on drugs-train head-first and tried to do it better than the US. And I don't think they got the other memo about the whole approach being a complete failure. It doesn't help that the famous German bitch we insist on keeping with "food" and "shelter" is running her own No Drugs-campaign with religious overtones. Or tha…

As a resident of Denmark who occasionally hears about neighbouring Scandinavian countries, I get the impression that religion (with a puritanical bend) has a stronger influence in Norway and Sweden.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#132

Post by spacemanmatt »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #123
DanHulton wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that a great deal of the problems associated with heroin addiction come from the very fact that it is illegal? The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics, these things all make the addiction far, far worse than if we treated this whole thing a little saner and more compassionately.

>>> The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics Where do you live? There's a myriad of state and federally funded programs here in the US that help people get treatment for a nominal fee or in many cases for free. Not sure how much more compassionate you can be when you're giving people a free alternative to get clean. Also, if you've never had an addict fo…

I might not like it, but I don't consider it my place to judge how others deal (or fail to deal) with their problems, how they lead their lives. What's entirely unfair, and not helping anyone, is criminalization of drugs.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#133

Post by innguest »

lukifer wrote: post #122
coldtea wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a legalised and fairly sane alcohol policy in most countries, we can hardly hope to have a better policy and set up for any other drug, and yet alcohol is still a devastating blight on many lives You don't just need to have a "sane policy". You need to have a sane culture. For one, a culture that doesn't treat alcohol as something necessary for having fun (e.g binge drinking on weekends, etc), but as someth…

I'm reminded of the story of Rat Park: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/

I thought I was the only one that knew about that study. I use it often when arguing that the word 'addiction' is biased and we should just use 'habit'. Addiction makes it seem it's the substance's fault, that it has something that makes people addicted to it, when in fact it is people that sometimes have a predisposition to forming habits when taking certain substances.

Crazy people can't buy guns, but guns aren't illegal for everyone. It should be the same for drugs, at least. If you have this predisposition to habit forming around drugs then you can't have them, but most of us don't.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#134

Post by spacemanmatt »

ap22213 wrote: post #60
awjr wrote: post #26

"War on drugs" is a terrible world affliction. Prohibition neither works nor is conducive to a better society. Governments should just tax and sell the drugs to the general public. Alcohol is considered to be the most harmful drug but is legal because it can be taxed, controlled, and makes money. ( http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus... ) Governments should also support people that want drugs…

I don't see it quite so cynically. Alcohol is legal because there would be outrage or civil unrest if it was banned. Most people that I've met (who may not be considered alcoholics) certainly have some level of alcohol dependency. And, I'm being loose here with the word 'dependency', but in the last year, I've never seen one of my friends or acquaintances refuse alcohol at a bar or restaurant, while others were drink…

How can you ignore the existing outrage and civil unrest around today's prohibition? It is just like the early 1900s. We have black markets, cultural adaptations of the criminality, and all the same corruption patterns.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#135

Post by spacemanmatt »

awildone wrote: post #120
growler wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are a few examples of tripping being the result of poisoning. Mushrooms, various cacti... The reason mescalin makes you puke is not because it does a body good.

Some would say the puke part is part of the cleansing, more spiritual than physical. Comparing shrooms to alcohol is very unfair. One is a spiritual plant, one is poison.

Pish. Once in a while, a drink is just the right elixer for a conversation or a mood change with a new friend. It doesn't deserve top billing, and the other drugs don't deserve to be so screwed, but it does have a deserved place in the human experience. Calling it mere 'poison' misses the mark for me.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#136

Post by kaitai »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #103
josefresco wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities. I'm welcome your anecdotal evidence but don't find it at all relevant to the topic of how a state should handle the legal and health consequences of heroin abuse. A bunch of party-goers doing recreational drugs couldn't be farther from the realities of heroin addiction in a rural population.

>Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities Right. I mean, a hippy-esque musical festival is going to draw in all sorts of non-violent potheads. How about the south side of Chicago? Do you think Kosmic Care is going to handle gangbangers on meth? Heck, here in Chicago during Lollapalooza, a man bit two people and injured them. It is reported that…

Decriminalization would have a disproportionately good impact on the south side of Chicago. Remember, black kids are less likely to use drugs than white kids, but then have roughly equal arrest rates (not per drug use, per person) and then ridiculously disproportionate incarceration rates.

Some interesting books on the topic include "High Price" by neuroscientist Carl Hart, which I enjoyed because it touched personally on the gangbanging aspect, and "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander, which instead takes a structural/legal point of view. "High Price" also discusses our psychological reactions to drugs like nicotine, marijuana, and LSD -- the author talks about interactions between environment, personal psychology, and chemical and how different behaviors can result.

You can explore drug use rates at http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quickconfig.do?34481-... and notice that for a few drugs use is similar across black/white racial lines (crack, heroin) and for most other drugs skews very white. Look at cocaine, for instance.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#137

Post by vidarh »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #106
mpthrapp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, why would we ever legalize physically addictive drugs like cigarettes or alcohol? Oh wait. I'm not saying anything about the legalization of Heroin, just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization.

I'm all for making nicotine illegal. Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin. >just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization. Probably better than the current standards. I'd love to live somewhere where cigarettes were illegal and pot wasn't.

As others have pointed out, alcohol very much is physically addictive.

As for heroin, the rates of addiction to heroin amongst heroin users is similar to that of alcohol - most heroin users are casual users, just like most users of alcohol. You just don't see the casual heroin users as easily, because they don't exactly advertise what they do. Nor do you see the large proportion of heroin addicts that manage to lead relatively normal lives.

It's not like heroin is a good thing, and that heroin addiction is something we should brush under the carpet, but for existing heroin addicts, lack of safe access to consistent doses is a far greater hazard than heroin itself.

Meanwhile nicotine on its own is not particularly addictive, nor particularly harmful - it needs to be mixed with other substances to become much of a problem.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#138

Post by JoeAltmaier »

vidarh wrote: post #137
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for making nicotine illegal. Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin. >just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization. Probably better than the current standards. I'd love to live somewhere where cigarettes were illegal and pot wasn't.

As others have pointed out, alcohol very much is physically addictive. As for heroin, the rates of addiction to heroin amongst heroin users is similar to that of alcohol - most heroin users are casual users, just like most users of alcohol. You just don't see the casual heroin users as easily, because they don't exactly advertise what they do. Nor do you see the large proportion of heroin addicts that manage to lead…

Ok naieve non-user here, no idea what heroin use is like except what I see in the media.

But it takes some kind of nerves to inject a drug, unlike say drinking from a glass or lighting up. I have to believe heroin is the resort of fairly desperate people. Some emotional or physical compulsion must exist to overcome the natural inclination to not jab yourself with a needle. So I have to believe the risk of heroin use escalating is accelerated by that compulsion.

I'd love to see your statistics on the demographics of 'casual heroin users'. And how long they remain that way without some crisis.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#139

Post by galfarragem »

codeshaman wrote: post #27

Just back from Boom Festival in Portugal, where personal drug use is decriminalized. There was almost no police/security at the gates or inside the festival, although selling drugs was not tolerated (eg. people selling on the festival grounds were kindly asked to leave). There were 42.000 people from 152 countries and most of them used some kind of substance or plant there (marijuana being the most abundantly and ope…

Portugal positive approach on drug problem was just the natural reaction to the collapse we had in late 80's and early-mid 90's. Politics claim it was a result of their policies. That is BS. In the end, government policies had very low impact. The only successful policy (on AIDS control, not on drugs) was the free syringe exchange at pharmacies.

The real problem was solved based on the lazy approach of "laissez-faire" (with consumption decriminalization) like a lot of stuff here (for the good and ill), "letting the market solve it": During the 90's the drug problem was huge! As an example, in my home town, that generation doesn't exist (people born during 70's). Almost all men (and some women) from that generation were involved on hard drugs (heroine). A large percentage of them went to prison and didn't come back, another large percentage of them died drugs related. Kids from that time (including myself) saw the dark side of being on drugs seated in first row: it was their neighbors and older brothers, not a stupid tale on TV.

Being on drugs since that moment was not cool anymore. Slowly, young people mentalities improved to "being on hard drugs is not cool". Nowadays, the sentiment is more mixed, hard drugs are not anymore seen as a boogeyman: some forgot what happened, others didn't see it with their eyes. Anyway, I don't think we will come back to 90's again. We were coming from a dictatorship, young generations wanted freedom and there were no visible bad examples of drug addiction. Times are different now, drugs are also cheaper, lesser need to be a petty criminal and involve all society like before.

Re: Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

#140

Post by waterfowl »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #138
vidarh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have pointed out, alcohol very much is physically addictive. As for heroin, the rates of addiction to heroin amongst heroin users is similar to that of alcohol - most heroin users are casual users, just like most users of alcohol. You just don't see the casual heroin users as easily, because they don't exactly advertise what they do. Nor do you see the large proportion of heroin addicts that manage to lead…

Ok naieve non-user here, no idea what heroin use is like except what I see in the media. But it takes some kind of nerves to inject a drug, unlike say drinking from a glass or lighting up. I have to believe heroin is the resort of fairly desperate people. Some emotional or physical compulsion must exist to overcome the natural inclination to not jab yourself with a needle. So I have to believe the risk of heroin use…

Because IV is the only way to do heroin. Lots of "casual drug users" are into pills/narcotics, which end up being too expensive, so they get into heroin and wreck themselves.

To be fair I only know a couple people who say they "occasionally do heroin" and I'm not sure if I believe them, but I would say a huge proportion of heroin users do not initially IV(you can smoke or snort, same with crystal, people tend to progress to IV when they feel they are no longer getting "high enough").

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