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American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

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Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#81

Post by dragonwriter »

AniseAbyss wrote: post #79
m0zg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legalization of what though? Opioids? The drug that kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year, which is almost immediately and very strongly addictive, and with which it is extremely easy to overdose? No thanks. That'd be extremely damaging to society, and it'd inevitably kill a bunch of people and affect an order of magnitude more through network effects.

Look at the reason why people use drugs. I am convinced happy people with fulfilling lives don't get addicted. Large scale substance abuse is IMO an indication something went very wrong in society.

> I am convinced happy people with fulfilling lives don't get addicted.

Even if that were true, it would still be possible that it was true because the same innate features which incline toward addiction work against having a happy fulfilled life in the same external conditions that someone without those features would have a happy, fulfilled life.

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#82

Post by KMag »

akiselev wrote: post #78
KMag wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for legalization and harm reduction, but declaring people enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Shutting down the conversation locks in the status quo.

> I'm all for ending slavery, but declaring plantation owners enemies simply for disagreeing with you is stifling the conversation. Thanks to the 13th Amendment, this is not an exaggeration. Thanks to the war on drugs, hundreds of thousands are slaves that wouldn't be otherwise. Manufacturing your license plates, freezing your Big Macs, and picking up your litter by the side of the highway. At some point, history has…

It's only by the political campaigning of abolitionists that there was enough support for the Civil War in the North. There were plenty of non-slave owners who needed to be convinced of the evils of slavery. Dr. King was so much more effective than Malcolm X because he didn't declare those yet-to-be-convinced to be his enemies.

Once you declare everyone who doesn't agree with you an enemy, they stop listening to you, and you've given up on campaigning. This only makes sense if you've given up on convincing people who aren't already convinced.

If you think the time for convincing is over and dialogue has failed, then you seem to be out of non-violent options. Are you raising an armed militia to raid prisons and free non-violent drug offenders?

If dialogue has been dismissed, and you're not advocating violence, what options are there beyond impotently yelling into the echo chamber?

Edit: also, there's a difference between picking a side and declaring enemies.

Edit 2: The great-grand-sibling by cgriswald put it much more eloquently.

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#83

Post by raverbashing »

m0zg wrote: post #76
3131s wrote: post #57

It's 2020 and if you are still against legalization, or at least decriminalization, you are the enemy. It's no longer incumbent on anyone else to explain to you why the drug war is immoral, prejudiced, and stupid. Violence is exploding all over the country and homicide clearance rates are at an all time low. The irony of what these fat, beer-swilling thugs at the "Department of Justice" and DEA are doing will not be…

Legalization of what though? Opioids? The drug that kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year, which is almost immediately and very strongly addictive, and with which it is extremely easy to overdose? No thanks. That'd be extremely damaging to society, and it'd inevitably kill a bunch of people and affect an order of magnitude more through network effects.

Modern opioid addiction is a mostly manufactured problem, mainly by pharma companies and physicians

In other countries, where the answer to pain isn't "throw strong opioids at every chance" the issue is much less severe.

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#84

Post by m0zg »

raverbashing wrote: post #83
m0zg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legalization of what though? Opioids? The drug that kills tens of thousands of people in the US each year, which is almost immediately and very strongly addictive, and with which it is extremely easy to overdose? No thanks. That'd be extremely damaging to society, and it'd inevitably kill a bunch of people and affect an order of magnitude more through network effects.

Modern opioid addiction is a mostly manufactured problem, mainly by pharma companies and physicians In other countries, where the answer to pain isn't "throw strong opioids at every chance" the issue is much less severe.

Citation needed. Here's mine: 31K people per year die of fentanyl overdose in the United States alone. Data: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/over...

This is fentanyl, drug that is very rarely prescribed. According to Wikipedia only 4% of fentanyl overdoses result from fentanyl obtained by prescription.

I maintain that it is ludicrous to suggest that we should legalize _all_ drugs. We could, however, and IMO should, replace punishment for addictive drug use with drug rehab and a cool-off period, seeing how this shit is almost inevitably deadly in the longer term and is no good for the addict or those around them, at all.

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#85

Post by Hitton »

arcticbull wrote: post #55
CameronNemo wrote: post #2

Justice is such a poor way to describe what is happening here. I have full empathy with those who have struggled with opioid addiction or lost loved ones to the disease. But the fact is that opioid prescriptions are still being written with too little oversight, too few safeguards, and not enough support for patients. Withstanding such contradiction in treatment of opioid suppliers, the federal government cannot keep…

This is your regular reminder that Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 and usage did not go up but the health effects and negative societal effects of drug use all but vanished [1]. They went from worst in the EU to among the best in the EU in the decade that followed on pretty much every metric. Addiction has a huge situational component. 20% of US GIs in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. When they returned hom…

They decriminalized usage and possession of drugs for personal use, not dealing the drugs.

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#86

Post by KMag »

cgriswald wrote: post #75
3131s wrote: post #57

It's 2020 and if you are still against legalization, or at least decriminalization, you are the enemy. It's no longer incumbent on anyone else to explain to you why the drug war is immoral, prejudiced, and stupid. Violence is exploding all over the country and homicide clearance rates are at an all time low. The irony of what these fat, beer-swilling thugs at the "Department of Justice" and DEA are doing will not be…

You both reject any responsibility for swaying others to your way of thinking and put up road blocks for anyone who might otherwise have a change of heart and join your cause. You show no compassion or empathy to those who disagree with you so your compassion towards those suffering due to the war on drugs rings false. I’m pro-legalization and have been for decades; but I’d prefer to live in a world where we don’t bu…

> I’d prefer to live in a world where we don’t build guillotines and dare each other to use them.

Beautifully put. I regret I have but one upvote to give.

DuckDuckGo can't find other uses of this sentence. Is it original? May I quote you?

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#87

Post by throw443259 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #25
fiblye wrote: post #22

>“These charges are a warning to drug traffickers worldwide that neither the shroud of the darknet or of virtual currency can hide their illegal activities from the vigilance of U.S. law enforcement,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin for the District of Columbia. The real warning to heed here is that we allow some countries to arrest citizens of other countries who committed crimes outside of their borders.…

This is already starting to happen. A bunch of countries suspended extradition to Hong Kong after all the recent power consolidation by China because while they trusted an independent Hong Kong to have reasonable limits on its judiciary they do not trust China to do the same; after all this is a country that dismisses "rule of law". And in fact the whole protest situation was caused by Hong Kong's Government introduc…

And the reason for the initial bill was due to a Hong Kong citizen murdering his girlfriend in Taiwan.

Taiwan and Hong Kong do not have extradition treaties.

The murderer is still free in Hong Kong.

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#88

Post by watwut »

adrianN wrote: post #49
263943736 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opioids are among the best medications for treating severe pain. If we're focusing on patients I'd much rather focus on rehabilitative strategies since the current degree of increased scrutiny is already making accessing adequate medication more difficult for groups like the elderly or people with chronic pain. Even more increased oversight is just going to escalate hesitation among doctors.

Do you feel like chronic pain patients outside the US don't get adequate treatment? Because where I live opioids are prescribed much less frequently, but I don't think chronic pain patients suffer more than in the US.

> don't think chronic pain patients suffer more than in the US

How would you know who suffers more on average?

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#89

Post by CerebralCerb »

KerrickStaley wrote: post #18
CameronNemo wrote: post #2

Justice is such a poor way to describe what is happening here. I have full empathy with those who have struggled with opioid addiction or lost loved ones to the disease. But the fact is that opioid prescriptions are still being written with too little oversight, too few safeguards, and not enough support for patients. Withstanding such contradiction in treatment of opioid suppliers, the federal government cannot keep…

> even moderate use can be balanced with a healthy lifestyle Genuinely curious: this doesn't really mesh with my understanding. I think opioids are extremely addictive (more so than tobacco or even cocaine or amphetamine) and as a result it's nearly impossible to be a "casual" user (and therefore I don't ever intend to try any opioids). Is there evidence that opioids can be "moderately" used?

> Set against a background of assumptions that heroin use is inevitably problematic, there is significant evidence of its controlled use. This paper attempts to draw together the literature on patterns of heroin use which avoid physical and psychological dependence.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1360-0443....

This paper is a great read on the topic. Some suggest more than 50% of heroin users are casual users.

Re: American darknet vendor and Costa Rican pharmacist charged

#90

Post by raverbashing »

m0zg wrote: post #84
raverbashing wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern opioid addiction is a mostly manufactured problem, mainly by pharma companies and physicians In other countries, where the answer to pain isn't "throw strong opioids at every chance" the issue is much less severe.

Citation needed. Here's mine: 31K people per year die of fentanyl overdose in the United States alone. Data: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/over... This is fentanyl, drug that is very rarely prescribed. According to Wikipedia only 4% of fentanyl overdoses result from fentanyl obtained by prescription. I maintain that it is ludicrous to suggest that we should legalize _all_ drugs. We could, ho…

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/nov/08/the-making-of-a...

> According to Wikipedia only 4% of fentanyl overdoses result from fentanyl obtained by prescription.

Then why are they manufacturing the other 96% of fentanyl? This is not produced in backyards labs, these are made in professional labs.

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