5 ms·

When I saw the chart I thought, what's wrong with Estonia?

jacquesm 9y ago
All the Nordics have large problems with drug addiction. They are also tracking them quite well so don't compare them to let's say Romania or Bulgaria where tracking is next to non-existent.
- monksy 9y ago
  Romania did better than Portugal. What are they doing better than Portugal? Why is Portugal's liberal policy on drugs heralded so great when it's not the best of the list? (I'm not saying that it's a bad policy but why is the article focused on pushing that policy?) Also what I want to see: What about Portugal makes it work? Could you test that assertion against a different country if you made the contextual changes and the change there?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    NL would be good comparison material.
  - hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
    I think you missed the point of jacquesm's comment: "They are also tracking them quite well so don't compare them to let's say Romania or Bulgaria where tracking is next to non-existent." In other words, it's highly likely that Romania didn't "do better" than Portugal, but rather they're doing a very poor job tracking overdoses at all.
    - monksy 9y ago
      Oh, if that data was bad, they should have even included it in the graph.
      - dmurray 9y ago
        The data points don't even have error bars, unfortunately. They come through various filters. Leaving out one government's reported numbers and keeping another's is a political decision in itself, so it's best to just report the numbers and warn readers of their veracity.
        monksy 9y ago
        The stance I have is more for data quality. If you can't trust the numbers then they're not good numbers.
  - bnegreve 9y ago
    > Why is Portugal's liberal policy on drugs heralded so great when it's not the best of the list? The number of drug induced death has decreased over the past 15 years, and it coincide with the adoption of the liberal policy on drugs. That's what makes Portugal an interesting case study.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  Not coincidentally, all the Nordics also take a hardcore prohibitionist line to drugs.
- sumedh 9y ago
  > All the Nordics have large problems with drug addiction. Why is that?
gok 9y ago
Estonia would make more sense in North America; its overdose rate is right in line with Canada and the US (around 100 and 150 overdose deaths per million people respectively)
taneltanel 9y ago
In Estonia, the police started to act tough on heroin dealers and users. This resulted in dealers and users switching to fentanyl, which is more potent and therefore, more deadly. Heroin is not available any more in Estonia. Fentanyl seems to come from neighbouring Russia, but I'm not sure about that: police keeps reporting about drug busts, but there is very little scientific information available about it. Mostly it's war on drugs propaganda. The majority of Estonian population view drug users as someone who deserves to die, because of their poor choices. It's hard to get help or any compassion when you're an IV drug user. Attempts to create needle exchanges are met with fierce resistance from neighbours. There are methadone programs but it's tiny compared to the amount of fentanyl users. Up to 7.5 grams cannabis is not an criminal offense and smoking weed is quite popular with the younger generation. However, in Estonia it's not uncommon to hear from police that every weed smoker will surely start using fentanyl. Soft and hard drugs are treated the same in state propaganda, which results in many young people not believing that fentanyl is dangerous: since they were lied about weed, how can they trust warnings about hard drugs? Estonia has also a huge alcohol problem. I believe many hard drug users started using because they were drunk in the first place. Alcoholism leads to violence at homes, murders, horrible car accidents, risky behaviours like trying hard drugs and having unprotected sex - you see, Estonia has a HIV epidemic as well.

All the Nordics have large problems with drug addiction. They are also tracking them quite well so don't compare them to let's say Romania or Bulgaria where tracking is next to non-existent.

monksy 9y ago
Romania did better than Portugal. What are they doing better than Portugal? Why is Portugal's liberal policy on drugs heralded so great when it's not the best of the list? (I'm not saying that it's a bad policy but why is the article focused on pushing that policy?) Also what I want to see: What about Portugal makes it work? Could you test that assertion against a different country if you made the contextual changes and the change there?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  NL would be good comparison material.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  I think you missed the point of jacquesm's comment: "They are also tracking them quite well so don't compare them to let's say Romania or Bulgaria where tracking is next to non-existent." In other words, it's highly likely that Romania didn't "do better" than Portugal, but rather they're doing a very poor job tracking overdoses at all.
  - monksy 9y ago
    Oh, if that data was bad, they should have even included it in the graph.
    - dmurray 9y ago
      The data points don't even have error bars, unfortunately. They come through various filters. Leaving out one government's reported numbers and keeping another's is a political decision in itself, so it's best to just report the numbers and warn readers of their veracity.
      - monksy 9y ago
        The stance I have is more for data quality. If you can't trust the numbers then they're not good numbers.
- bnegreve 9y ago
  > Why is Portugal's liberal policy on drugs heralded so great when it's not the best of the list? The number of drug induced death has decreased over the past 15 years, and it coincide with the adoption of the liberal policy on drugs. That's what makes Portugal an interesting case study.
jpatokal 9y ago
Not coincidentally, all the Nordics also take a hardcore prohibitionist line to drugs.
sumedh 9y ago
> All the Nordics have large problems with drug addiction. Why is that?

gok 9y ago

Estonia would make more sense in North America; its overdose rate is right in line with Canada and the US (around 100 and 150 overdose deaths per million people respectively)

taneltanel 9y ago

In Estonia, the police started to act tough on heroin dealers and users. This resulted in dealers and users switching to fentanyl, which is more potent and therefore, more deadly. Heroin is not available any more in Estonia. Fentanyl seems to come from neighbouring Russia, but I'm not sure about that: police keeps reporting about drug busts, but there is very little scientific information available about it. Mostly it's war on drugs propaganda. The majority of Estonian population view drug users as someone who deserves to die, because of their poor choices. It's hard to get help or any compassion when you're an IV drug user. Attempts to create needle exchanges are met with fierce resistance from neighbours. There are methadone programs but it's tiny compared to the amount of fentanyl users. Up to 7.5 grams cannabis is not an criminal offense and smoking weed is quite popular with the younger generation. However, in Estonia it's not uncommon to hear from police that every weed smoker will surely start using fentanyl. Soft and hard drugs are treated the same in state propaganda, which results in many young people not believing that fentanyl is dangerous: since they were lied about weed, how can they trust warnings about hard drugs? Estonia has also a huge alcohol problem. I believe many hard drug users started using because they were drunk in the first place. Alcoholism leads to violence at homes, murders, horrible car accidents, risky behaviours like trying hard drugs and having unprotected sex - you see, Estonia has a HIV epidemic as well.