How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
independent.co.uk
How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
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Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#2Everytime I read an article like this, 18 years out from the start of the war, I'm reminded of this Onion headline from that time:
https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entir...
"This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t"
The statistic in this article about under-25 unemployment being 36% breaks my heart. This would've been me now, at my current age, born in a different place at the same time.
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#3I know we have a few advocates for legalization.
How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground?
I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#4I know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear!
So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather:
1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs?
2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs legal and repurpose those rents for education, health, and harm reduction purposes?
Legalization doesn't mean you can buy crystal meth at the local 7-11, it just means you don't buy it from a drug lord cum human trafficker.
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#5I know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
We shouldn't legalize meth. We should legalize moderate doses of time-release amphetamine (not methamphetamine, basically adderall). It would displace meth in the marketplace to a great degree if it's readily available, and while it is somewhat dangerous if heavily abused it is far less addictive and dangerous than meth. Making it time release would also somewhat reduce abuse potential. Yes you can crunch it up and snort it and some people would do that, but those are the same people who will snort meth and snorting 50mg of clean pharmaceutically pure amphetamine would do less harm.
Highly concentrated and dirty street meth is what the incentive structure of prohibition gives you. It's significantly more potent than regular amphetamine, so it's easier to transport larger quantities. It's also a lot easier to make with off the shelf materials and precursors. Amphetamine isn't really more complex to make chemically but it's harder to make it with materials you can buy from a trip to a regular hardware store. Hell there's a "one-pot" meth synthesis around that you can do in a two liter bottle in a single step if you don't mind a filthy product and a chance of blowing yourself up. There's nothing that easy for amphetamine.
Note that amphetamine is more common in Europe where prohibition is somewhat less strict. In the USA it's all meth. Regular amphetamine is rare.
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#6I know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear! So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather: 1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs? 2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs leg…
How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction?
Ok, so I don’t get adulterated drugs, that still doesn’t do anything for the addiction.
Are we then going to actively discourage people from doing drugs? If so how? What effective form does that take?
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#7I know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear! So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather: 1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs? 2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs leg…
It also means when you do have problems you can seek help and talk openly about them instead of diving further down the hole, afraid of getting caught.
With illegality there's no hope. With legalisation there's at least a shimmer of it.
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#8I know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
I"m a pretty strong advocate for legalization.
The most concise counterpoint would be that addiction is not really hampered by criminalization, outside of edge cases like Singapore which is an island. Criminalization doesn't create less addicts it just creates more addicts in jail. Criminalization is also not zero sum, b/c it comes with all the issues of black markets, issues with the police who need extra power to enforce these laws.
Treatment does create less addicts, but less people will be addicted if you fix problems in society in the first place. Which are the real issue. In this example Iraq doesn't have a meth problem because meth is the problem, Iraq has a meth problem because of mass poverty.
EDIT: Also look at alcohol prohibition for what happens when you create a white market out of a black market. Lower potency products, that are safer and actually productive for society.
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#9I know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
A large part of the issues from drugs are contaminations and inconsistent dosing. Prohibition also pushes people to make/use higher concentration drugs, and forces people to use drugs they can get vs drugs that are safer (meth vs addaral). And forces them to use unchecked (and often untrustworthy) sources.
The idea is that legalization should bring addiction resources, harm reduction, education, and cleaner drugs.
This removes the infamously dangerous "drug deals", "bad batches"/lacing, removes stigma and legal barriers that prevent addicts from recovery, and should make it easier for users to recover.
Re: How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
#10I know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
We shouldn't legalize meth. We should legalize moderate doses of time-release amphetamine (not methamphetamine, basically adderall). It would displace meth in the marketplace to a great degree if it's readily available, and while it is somewhat dangerous if heavily abused it is far less addictive and dangerous than meth. Making it time release would also somewhat reduce abuse potential. Yes you can crunch it up and s…
It's likely the abuse potential of methampetamine is similar to amphetamine (see e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3475187/)
So, the chemical is probably not the problem. It's also likely methamphetamine performs better for medical use cases. See: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-amphetamines
EDIT: Otherwise, though, I thoroughly agree with what you are saying here in that having access to smaller, cleaner, time-release doses would do well to curb addiction.