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I live next door to a rich heroin junkie. She has no job. What's left of her family has basically cut her off. She can afford all of the care in the world, but
by scurvy 10y ago
I live next door to a rich heroin junkie. She has no job. What's left of her family has basically cut her off. She can afford all of the care in the world, but chooses heroin over treatment instead. Why? Heroin don't care.
The city of San Francisco took her dog away (twice) and declared her place a health hazard for a while, but ultimately it never forced her to get treatment and is tacitly approving of her heroin use. She hasn't paid her property taxes in years and the police come out about once a month, but the US has no ASBO laws so it's catch and release in hippie dippie SF.
She's got the money for the dope, and heroin don't care.
PS> She got the dog back both times.
- idiot_stick 10y ago>She's got the money for the dope, and heroin don't care. So you what do you propose as a solution for this (likely unrepresentative) anecdote? Lock her up?
- scurvy 10y agoI don't have a solution, but my point was that not all addicts are victims. For some, it's a conscious decision about choosing heroin over life (insert Trainspotting ending here). Unless the US adopts some sort of ASBO laws, there's not much you can do about forced treatment for someone who doesn't choose treatment. Also, you could substitute heroin here with any other equally damaging substance like alcohol and the situation wouldn't change.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- smokeyj 10y ago> Also, you could substitute heroin here with any other equally damaging substance Desk jobs and fast food? As long as we have public healthcare I reserve the right to smack that bag of chips out of your chubby fingers. /end of rant
- wyager 10y agoEven if ASBO laws were effective, I'd rather have a few drug abusers than ASBO laws. I don't want the government to be able to use force against people for being "anti-social", however that happens to be defined or interpreted. I've seen some ridiculous cases of punishment for "anti-social behavior" out of the UK, including what essentially amounts to outlawing particular unsavory political beliefs. I encourage everyone to read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour_order https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour_order which has a list of things the government was allowed to punish you for, including "rudeness" and "xenophobia". The most recent ASBO legislation is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Social_Behaviour,_Crime_and_Policing_Act_2014 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Social_Behaviour,_Crime... which I am not familiar with.
- scurvy 10y agoThis is the problem with the HackerNews libertarian streak. You're in favor of legalized drugs, prostitution, etc. But no one wants their daughter to grow up and be a crackwhore.
- gozur88 10y agoI'd rather take the risk that my daughter would grow up to be a crack whore than leave anti-drug busybodies the kind of power they've managed to accrue.
- deelowe 10y agoHow about we just let addicts be addicts while we figure the rest out. That's certainly better than today's situation where we make extra sure we ruin their lives to, ya know, protect them from themselves.
- friedman23 10y agoBecause that has worked historically.
- scurvy 10y agoThe problem is they create a wake of destruction in their path of addiction.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoThe cost of a free society. Keep that ASBO trash on the other side of the pond.
- scurvy 10y agoHow about charging them for their public costs? If you get rescued by helicopter because you went skiing out of bounds at a resort and got lost, don't they send you a bill? How about that for people with money who abuse the system while abusing other things?
- toomuchtodo 10y agoLike how the Japanese will send a bill to the family of someone who commits suicide on a train line? I prefer my government to absorb the cost of human despair rather than bill for it. Don't write policy based on outliers.
- jasonkostempski 10y agoSending the bill to the family is dumb but there's sense in sending the person responsible for damages bills. I think we already mostly do that though, they just don't always pay the bill.
- zkms 10y agofrom OP, > chooses heroin over treatment instead Until people realise that this is a rational and sensical decision there won't be any solutions for these problems and these cases. The US drug "treatment" / "rehab" industry is notoriously awful and is dominated by pseudo-religious ideologues obsessed with abstinence (to the point that "cult" is often an accurate, non-hyperbolic term) and whose practices are not based on any medical evidence of what reduces deaths. It's a fucked up industry that loves to use degradation, isolation, and humiliation on its "patients", loves to make people withdraw suddenly from their drug use and force them to endure the withdrawal symptoms, and isn't even particularly good at helping people not die from heroin/opioid use. Given the current state of the rehab industry, and given how ineffective the "treatments" it offers are, it can alas be a rational decision to avoid it. here's some reading that is relevant: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irr... http://theinfluence.org/the-rehab-industry-badly-needs-to-clean-up-its-act-heres-how/ http://theinfluence.org/the-rehab-industry-badly-needs-to-cl... http://www.salon.com/2012/08/28/do_12_step_programs_lead_to_cults/ http://www.salon.com/2012/08/28/do_12_step_programs_lead_to_... http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/dying-to-be-free-heroin-treatment?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067 http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/dying-to-be-free-heroin-t...
- Sunset 10y agoSo why give them the choice in the first place?
- koverstreet 10y agoSo the rehab industry is shit, and your response is literally "make people go through it anyways"?
- Sunset 10y agoWell give them an option. Cold turkey in isolation block in jail or rehab. Guess which they'll pick.
- Sunset 10y agoWhy not? Make "having taken these drugs in the past and tested positive for them in your system" a crime. Then just systematically lock all addicts up and ship them off to freshly constructed prisons in Alaska.
- projektir 10y agoUm, Poe's law?
- jlarocco 10y agoPart of me wonders what the problem is exactly? It doesn't sound like she's hurting anybody, just wasting her life away. But really, that's just my opinion. I think people who watch TV are wasting their life away, too, but it's really not my problem. But to the OP's point, if heroin was sold at clinics or pharmacies there'd be an opportunity for nurses and pharmacists to intervene and offer alternatives before a person's a full blown addict. Even if it's just, "Hey, you're hitting it a bit hard lately, maybe try this meetup group instead."
- scurvy 10y agoHeroin dealers are pretty smart. Even if you have a ton of money, they'll only sell you a bit at a time. They don't want you doing something stupid and messing up their gravy train. At least, that's what I was told by someone who was a former heroin user (I asked him for advice and guidance in this situation). She's wasting her life away, but also endangering others' (as well as her dog's). Her dog was taken away most recently because she was out on a weeklong bender and left the dog locked inside the house. After a few days of wailing and notices, animal control finally went in and rescued the dog. This being San Francisco, of course she got the dog back after claiming she went on vacation and just forgot about the dog. That said, there was feces and urine piled up in the apartment for that week, and a few weeks after. She also had a stopped up toilet that backed up raw sewage into her apartment for "several weeks" according to the health dept. She was literally walking around on waste soaked carpets for weeks...and didn't care. Because heroin don't care. She would also freak out and randomly dial 911 while high and insist that there were people in her apartment that were trying to kill her. I, mean, I could go on for days writing up the crazy stuff she does while high. Her family wants nothing to do with her. She owns her place, has a pile of money, doesn't pay any real estate taxes, is a "frequent flier" for the police and fire department, but all of this is just A-OK, right San Francisco? Honestly, I could care less about her life at this point. I'm just worried about the dog. It never gets walked and lives in literal squalor.
- jlarocco 10y agoSo your problem is with the animal abuse and not the heroin addiction? Heroin isn't helping, but for all you know she treats the dog that way when she's sober. Definitely keep complaining to animal control about the dog, and report illegal activity, but other than that it sounds like you should mind your own business.
- BlytheSchuma 10y agoASBO laws are retarded. That's why the UK has phased them out.
- DanBC 10y agoASBOs ended in 2015. They were replaced by Criminal Behaviour Orders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Social_Behaviour,_Crime_and_Policing_Act_2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Social_Behaviour,_Crime_a... Local councils also have some other powers for their Community Protection Officers.
- pnathan 10y agoYeah, that's not surprising, both on the part of the City and the part of the addict. West Coast cities tend to be pretty schlubby about dealing with those sorts of issues, afaict. Unsure about other parts of the country. That's part of why I think the funnel approach is going to yield better results: when someone's hooked, they are in deep trouble, and with far-reaching impacts. My musing is that federal agencies are the right choice for this: they can ignore local pressure groups and focus on the global optimum.