7 ms·

There's a heroin shooting gallery here staffed by nurses and it proves keeping narcotics illegal is a complete farce. Out front at any given time of the day is

by feklar 10y ago

There's a heroin shooting gallery here staffed by nurses and it proves keeping narcotics illegal is a complete farce. Out front at any given time of the day is a row of dealers openly selling junk to the junkies. Once in a while a new group of dealers will try to violently jack this lucrative business by causing a massive street gang war where countless people end up shot in the crossfire. Should just sell and distribute the drugs legally.

pacala 10y ago
I hear this argument a lot in young liberal circles, can't wrap my head around it. In particular given how much well deserved flak the tobacco industry has gotten, industry also driven by addiction. Drugs are addictive, messing up people's rewards path and inducing self-destructive and asocial behavior. Priorities are: 1. Keep as many innocent people as possible away from drugs. 2. Help as many junkies recover as possible. 3. Fuck the dealers. Legalizing drugs seems to reduce the risk for dealers, now having their posh addiction-driven business at the mall, while increasing the availability of drugs for the untainted population and for the junkies. Are we really that concerned by dealer's quality of life that we willing to tradeoff the lives of our neighbors, friends or even family?
- aianus 10y ago
  > Legalizing drugs seems to reduce the risk for dealers, now having their posh addiction-driven business at the mall The margins on legal good are a whole lot less than illegal ones. You'd be putting most dealers out of business overnight by legalizing.
  - titanomachy 10y ago
    I've heard this argument, and it makes sense -- medical morphine costs basically nothing compared to street heroin or oxycontin, so it seems like switching to legal supply of drugs could basically delete the profitability of the trade. Instead of a criminal gang making ~$75 from the sale of an oxy pill, some pharmacy makes $1-2 and society makes some taxes we can use to fund rehabilitation programs. Question, though -- why does legal pot cost the same as illegal pot used to in places like WA? It seems there is still a large amount of profit to be made from growing and selling pot, although I guess (pretty much by definition) that money is no longer going towards criminal enterprise. Is it just high taxes?
- feklar 10y ago
  Prohibition is ideology instead of policy. I just want to see a sane policy with data to prove it is working instead of ideology which is never questioned by politicians or studied for it's effectiveness. The tax money from legal drugs can be put into prevention and rehabilitation. We can measure the effectiveness of prevention strategies just like my current government measures their anti smoking and alcoholism prevention strategies. Tax dollars made by my regional government from selling cigarettes went into a program here for a free long term supply of nicotine patches. This policy combined with other anti smoking initiatives have worked we now have the lowest rates of smoking in the country. Nicotine cessation therapy is proven to work. I don't understand why heroin or meth is not treated the same even when there is data that methadone does not work as well for treatment http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-study-finds-new-treatment-path-for-chronic-heroin-addiction/article29537912/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouv... The truly evil dealers, the violent street gangs who prey off the mentally ill and homeless addicts are impossible to bust because of how they have set up their operations to avoid prosecution by employing the desperate junkies to hold and sell small amounts of product 24hrs a day, while low level gangsters, who handle no evidence, run street security. The police if they arrest these addicts simply go to court for minor possession and are released the next morning. The low level gangsters are routinely arrested for violence while debt collecting or running off other gangsters and a replacement is there the next day. Sometimes they get them on conspiracy charges but it doesn't matter, they're hardened criminals who consider prison a cost of doing business and again somebody else replaces them and their operations change to adapt to a police crackdown status. Police have been fighting these gangs as long as I have been alive but the availability of narcotics remains steady. They have changed their policy to management of the drug war now, propping up one semi cooperative gang by turning a blind eye to their activities in exchange for intel on rival gangs, as to prevent a more violent and unstable gang they can't control from taking over and turning the streets into a warzone.

by feklar 10y ago

pacala 10y ago

I hear this argument a lot in young liberal circles, can't wrap my head around it. In particular given how much well deserved flak the tobacco industry has gotten, industry also driven by addiction. Drugs are addictive, messing up people's rewards path and inducing self-destructive and asocial behavior. Priorities are: 1. Keep as many innocent people as possible away from drugs. 2. Help as many junkies recover as possible. 3. Fuck the dealers. Legalizing drugs seems to reduce the risk for dealers, now having their posh addiction-driven business at the mall, while increasing the availability of drugs for the untainted population and for the junkies. Are we really that concerned by dealer's quality of life that we willing to tradeoff the lives of our neighbors, friends or even family?

aianus 10y ago
> Legalizing drugs seems to reduce the risk for dealers, now having their posh addiction-driven business at the mall The margins on legal good are a whole lot less than illegal ones. You'd be putting most dealers out of business overnight by legalizing.
- titanomachy 10y ago
  I've heard this argument, and it makes sense -- medical morphine costs basically nothing compared to street heroin or oxycontin, so it seems like switching to legal supply of drugs could basically delete the profitability of the trade. Instead of a criminal gang making ~$75 from the sale of an oxy pill, some pharmacy makes $1-2 and society makes some taxes we can use to fund rehabilitation programs. Question, though -- why does legal pot cost the same as illegal pot used to in places like WA? It seems there is still a large amount of profit to be made from growing and selling pot, although I guess (pretty much by definition) that money is no longer going towards criminal enterprise. Is it just high taxes?
feklar 10y ago
Prohibition is ideology instead of policy. I just want to see a sane policy with data to prove it is working instead of ideology which is never questioned by politicians or studied for it's effectiveness. The tax money from legal drugs can be put into prevention and rehabilitation. We can measure the effectiveness of prevention strategies just like my current government measures their anti smoking and alcoholism prevention strategies. Tax dollars made by my regional government from selling cigarettes went into a program here for a free long term supply of nicotine patches. This policy combined with other anti smoking initiatives have worked we now have the lowest rates of smoking in the country. Nicotine cessation therapy is proven to work. I don't understand why heroin or meth is not treated the same even when there is data that methadone does not work as well for treatment http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-study-finds-new-treatment-path-for-chronic-heroin-addiction/article29537912/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouv... The truly evil dealers, the violent street gangs who prey off the mentally ill and homeless addicts are impossible to bust because of how they have set up their operations to avoid prosecution by employing the desperate junkies to hold and sell small amounts of product 24hrs a day, while low level gangsters, who handle no evidence, run street security. The police if they arrest these addicts simply go to court for minor possession and are released the next morning. The low level gangsters are routinely arrested for violence while debt collecting or running off other gangsters and a replacement is there the next day. Sometimes they get them on conspiracy charges but it doesn't matter, they're hardened criminals who consider prison a cost of doing business and again somebody else replaces them and their operations change to adapt to a police crackdown status. Police have been fighting these gangs as long as I have been alive but the availability of narcotics remains steady. They have changed their policy to management of the drug war now, propping up one semi cooperative gang by turning a blind eye to their activities in exchange for intel on rival gangs, as to prevent a more violent and unstable gang they can't control from taking over and turning the streets into a warzone.