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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

#61

Post by kirsebaer »

calibraxis wrote: post #29
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's about the stupidest thing I've heard in a while, so stupid I have to assume it's sarcasm. Of course the great state experiment is how we got here in the first place. Reagan, as governor, defunded mental health care and just said fuckit, throw all the addicts in prison. Then he took his ideas "to prod" by doubling down on Nixon's "war", with the helpful (to his party) side-effect of throwing millions of black p…

As personally attacking as this post is (though the anger is perfectly understandable), it's probably closest to my view, mentioning "the helpful (to his party) side-effect of throwing millions of black people in prisons." Except I don't consider it a side-effect, nor do I think it's limited to Republicans. For example, prison was one way to control the newly freed slave population. ( http://www.chomsky.info/intervie…

John Ehrlichman, Counsel and Assistant to President Nixon:

"You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Interviewed in 1992 by journalist Dan Baum, author of Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, full quote in "Truth, Lies, and Audiotape" by Dan Baum (2012).

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

#62

Post by tomp »

awildone wrote: post #44
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 is certainly one step in the right direction. I lived and worked there for three months and it's all very relaxed. Cops don't really care about people rolling joints or even doing lines of coke in public if there's a party (and if you are in Portugal, there will be). Quietly puffing a joint while walking down the street in the middle of the day is cool as well. I actually never saw the cops interfere with an…

That's the problem with decriminalizing drugs, really. It's still very much a grey market, with no business backing, no brands, no quality control. Drugs have to be fully legalized. I think what some US states are doing (opening marijuana for businesses, enabling them to build a brand/reputation) is the way forward (but, of course, for all kinds of drugs instead).

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

#63

Post by Xylakant »

coldtea wrote: post #42
Xylakant wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, actually not. Alcohol is a potent poison and kills cells - hence the use as desinfectant. The physical damage caused by alcohol abuse rival and surpass most illegal substances.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/... Oh, and they controlled for the obvious correlations too, like lifestyle differences etc.

oh sure, this is about moderate drinkers, not about people abusing alcohol as a drug. The side effects of moderate use of pretty much every controlled substance are pretty much insignificant as long as you use a pure, unadultered drug (let's forget about croc or battery acid etc). But once you get into heavy use, alcohol starts looking pretty bad: destroys liver and brain among other things, compared to e.g. opium where the worst side effect is constipation. Overdoses obviously kill in both cases, so let's keep that out of the picture here.

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

#64

Post by josefresco »

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…

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.

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

#65

Post by josefresco »

amykhar wrote: post #40

The demographics of Vermont makes me curious. Many people say that the war on drugs is racially motivated in that more blacks and hispanics are prosecuted than whites. Vermont is 95% Caucasian. I wonder if this fact influenced the new policy in any way.

Nope just Vermont being ... Vermont. Caring for your neighbor, and not being afraid of them (racially or socioeconomically) is one key to having a view like this. When one group is afraid of another you get insane sentencing laws and all sorts of discrimination.

Vermont is very independent, and doesn't have much of a "big city" influence, or cultural divide seen in even other New England states.

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

#67

Post by Xylakant »

pionar wrote: post #50
codeshaman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to disagree with you on alcohol. Alcohol is a very addictive and destructive substance and can cause personality changes which lead to aggression and domination (ego enhancer) and is very harmful to health if abused. A large chunk of problems in our society comes from alcohol abuse. Some of the substances which are generically called 'illegal drugs', however, are much safer and self-limiting and many hav…

> drugs which I'm familiar with and have studied extensively through literature and some self experimentation. Sorry, a sample size of one does not make a drug "safe". The fact is, there's no such thing as a safe drug, as everyone's body reacts differently to each one. > although none are as destructive as alcohol. Really? Are you really saying that heroin, which is one of the most addictive drugs in the world, is no…

>> although none are as destructive as alcohol.

> Really? Are you really saying that heroin, which is one of the most addictive drugs in the world, is not as destructive as alcohol? While there are more alcoholics than horse heads, that's because there's more people that drink alcohol as a whole. Are there any studies for the ratio of abusers/users for heroin and alcohol?

Your parent poster is right here. Heroin (and opiates in general) are pretty safe substances in pure form. That's one of the reasons that opiates are still among the preferred potent pain killers in hospitals: Little side effects, extremely potent, a very big window between effective dose and overdose. If you're in really bad pain, at least in germany, you'll get a morphine drip.

The "drug" effects you see in documentaries about drug often are no effects of the drug itself, rather than the stuff that the dealers mix the drug with, the use of unclean needles (infections and stuff) and the conditions that the addicts live in. Overdoses are typically either on purpose or most of the time the result of extreme variations in the potency of the drug. There was (or still is) a medical trial that gave clean, controlled heroin to hard addicts in Hamburg, Germany and from what I read that trial was very successful: The people in the trial were basically able to function in a normal day live with a regular job. Obviously no driving, no handling heavy machinery, but otherwise a major step up from living on the street.

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

#68

Post by bilbo0s »

amykhar wrote: post #40

The demographics of Vermont makes me curious. Many people say that the war on drugs is racially motivated in that more blacks and hispanics are prosecuted than whites. Vermont is 95% Caucasian. I wonder if this fact influenced the new policy in any way.

I see where you are going... but I'm also pretty sure you have it backwards.

Demographics aren't the reason for Vermont's soft touch policy... demographics are the reason for the hardline policies in all of the other states.

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

#69

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Xylakant wrote: post #67
pionar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> drugs which I'm familiar with and have studied extensively through literature and some self experimentation. Sorry, a sample size of one does not make a drug "safe". The fact is, there's no such thing as a safe drug, as everyone's body reacts differently to each one. > although none are as destructive as alcohol. Really? Are you really saying that heroin, which is one of the most addictive drugs in the world, is no…

>> although none are as destructive as alcohol. > Really? Are you really saying that heroin, which is one of the most addictive drugs in the world, is not as destructive as alcohol? While there are more alcoholics than horse heads, that's because there's more people that drink alcohol as a whole. Are there any studies for the ratio of abusers/users for heroin and alcohol? Your parent poster is right here. Heroin (and…

But all those side effects are the direct result of using morphine, right? Splitting hairs to say 'so morphine is safe'. It like 'this knife is safe; its just the cuts that hurt you'.

Still, alcohol is more destructive overall since so many more people abuse it.

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

#70

Post by [deleted] »

josefresco wrote: post #64
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…

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.

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