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Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#151

Post by tstrimple »

ladeagaytf wrote: post #138
thehappypm wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has the same energy as “we don’t have a gun control problem. We have a mental health problem” which every Republican says after every mass shooting

Well, it’s true… It’s an empty statement, neither side agrees on the fix for poor mental health and so the ball keeps on spinning.

It's worse than neither side agreeing on a fix. One side claims it's a mental health issue and then cuts funding for mental health.

https://www.businessinsider.com/abbott-cut-mental-health-ser...

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#152

Post by NDizzle »

The US would really benefit from a strong southern border. That's obviously a politically loaded statement, but just take it at face value. There is such a thing as borders. The US needs to stop the flow of illegal shit across the southern border. I know this won't solve 100% of the fentanyl issues. Low hanging fruit, and all that. Start somewhere.

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#153

Post by tyingq »

TheCenterSeat wrote: post #150

I thought ycombinator tried to stay away from political stuff? I've been around for years and that was usually the case. Why is there a popular post about drug addiction and the response from "Washington"? This isn't tech related. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments I'll quote the guidelines here: "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity." Most c…

The article doesn't seem to be favoring either party.

"Presidents from both parties failed to take effective action"

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#154

Post by okasaki »

adrr wrote: post #116
snvzz wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, it never got as bad as right now. Congrats, prohibition has made the situation worse.

1 out 200 people addicted to opiates during that time is worse than the reported 10 million users[1] of opiates in the country. Overdoses is higher because Fentanyl is stronger and easier to overdose off of than morphine. 1. https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/opioid-crisis...

Addiction seems like much less of an issue if the substance is cheap and available in stores. I mean, we're "addicted" to oxygen.

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#155

Post by [deleted] »

ajross wrote: post #101
jdmtheNth wrote: post #86

There needs to be more focus on why people need drugs to cope, rather than whether or not to legalize them.

Opium/oid abuse and dependency has a thousand year history. You aren't going to fix this with This One Psychology Trick, and trying to imagine that by projecting your priors onto the problem is just going to lead you into a conspiracy theory. Fentanyl is notable because it's more concentrated and cheaper, so there's more available and it's easier to dangerously overdose. But the "why" behind the market for it hasn't…

[deleted]

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#156

Post by est »

nordsieck wrote: post #72
323 wrote: post #20

All drugs should be legalized. That is the only solution. You should be able to buy cocaine, heroin, fentanyl at the local grocery store. No question asked. Maybe even subsidize it for poor people who can't afford market prices. The local pharmacy should provide training on how to inject/consume them safely and give for free the associated consumables.

> All drugs should be legalized. That is the only solution. > You should be able to buy cocaine, heroin, fentanyl at the local grocery store. No question asked. Maybe even subsidize it for poor people who can't afford market prices. I think that a basic familiarity of the Chinese experience with British opium would suggest that full legalization for the more dangerous drugs is not a panacea.

> a basic familiarity of the Chinese experience with British opium

After the wars, the Qing China quickly became top opium exporter.

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#157

Post by mitchdoogle »

thepasswordis wrote: post #117
overthemoon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this. I don't get it. What's the proposed cause/effect of decriminalization on drug overdoses specifically? Testing kits, sure. And I see the argument for much softer sentences for small amounts with regards to reducing the egregious number of people in the prison system, although that is also a tangential issue to overdoses.

I think this sentiment usually comes from people who have no experience with the problem, and who are used to being contrarians, especially with regards to drugs like marijuana. The authority figure in their lives lied to them about marijjana, and now they think they they’re lying again about fentanyl. Fentanyl is a poison. It’s killing people. It is not like marijuana.

I disagree. I think this sentiment comes from people who are very close to the problem. Users or former users, friends and family of users. People who have seen someone who needs medical help get treated with disdain and arrested instead. People who have a loved one who bought adulterated drugs and overdosed because they didn't know what they were taking.

It is naive to think the war on drugs was ever about protecting people. If the protection of people is a goal, you don't treat the people who need the most help as criminals. Imagine if you discover your brother has a drinking problem and it's destroying his health and finances - is your first instinct to call the police and have him arrested? Most people I think would not even think about that - they would urge him to get help, somehow, through rehab, counseling, any number of things, but no one would say he needs to go to prison.

The only actual criminals involved with drugs are organized crime cartels, gangs, etc that use violence in controlling their market. If you make their product legal and obtainable, they no longer have any incentive to sell it and you eliminate a big chunk of their profits.

Legalizing drugs is about treating addiction as a medical issue instead of a criminal one and eliminating the illicit drug trade which contributes to violence and profits for organized crime.

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#159

Post by standardUser »

thepasswordis wrote: post #69
jack_pp wrote: post #46

This would be solved if drugs were decriminalized and testing kits were very easy to use and come by but I guess a lot more people have to die before society as a whole acquires common sense

Parts of San Francisco have implemented these exact policies and they have made the problems a LOT worse.

Half-assed solutions lead to half-assed results. Decriminalization sounds nice to liberals, but when you continue to criminalize the production and sale of drugs you still get almost all of the same problems you had before decriminalization.

Re: Washington faltered as fentanyl gripped America

#160

Post by Aunche »

jpm_sd wrote: post #8

Opium Wars Round 3 is getting pretty intense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl https://www.brookings.edu/research/china-and-synthetic-drugs...

You'd think that they'd try to get revenge on the UK first, but fentanyl abuse isn't nearly as popular there. Why not Mexican-American war round 2?

Or maybe the same gangs who could no longer profitably sell pirated media found a new way to profit on a country which has historically been completely incompetent when dealing with drugs.

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