11 ms·

Why do we continue to treat this as a criminal problem. It's a healthcare problem.

bbarn 9y ago
No, it's a business problem. There's too much money tied up in the infrastructure that criminalizes it, too many people invested and making a lot of money on the status quo.
- teej 9y ago
  There's also a lot of money to be made in keeping addicts hooked. In South Florida, there's a huge issue where opioid addicts are put into "treatment centers" that use them to defraud insurance carriers. The victims don't get treatment but instead get the exact opposite - handlers who make money by feeding the addiction. http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion-dollar-drug-treatment-industry-plagued-overdoses-fraud-n773376 http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion...
  - alikoneko 9y ago
    I live in South Florida, in Palm Beach County, where the bulk of these centers are. You see a lot of addicts. I don't know of any success stories to come out of them. But its a bit unsettling to be driving down I95 and see a billboard: "IMAGINE BEING SOBER". It's really sad and scary. Delray Beach used to be a nice place before the treatment centers came in, too. I was looking for an apartment on Craigslist here not too long ago. More than half the rooms for rent I saw were "sober living" half way houses.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  The pharmaceutical industry is a major part of the problem. Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Adderall is not so different than methamphetamine. The well of do these drugs legally and can afford rehab. Many of the people I've know that struggled with opium addiction could not afford to join treatment programs, many of which cost $2k ~ $15k. There is a lot of money being made in all sides of this game and it's disturbing.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Other way around. Heroin was the response to morphine.
    - ch4s3 9y ago
      Hence the name.
  - djtriptych 9y ago
    You know someone who went to rehab for adderall?
    - 2bitencryption 9y ago
      Alcohol, weed, soft drinks. If you can get addicted to it, you can get rehab'd for it if you're willing.
      - zdkl 9y ago
        *if you can pay for it or get sentenced into it. Ftfy
  - code_duck 9y ago
    You mean Oxycontin - oxytocin is the 'love hormone' released by your brain.
- bpodgursky 9y ago
  This is a super simplistic view. This is not like pot. This is not a drug that you can eve use casually. There is no moral legal framework in which these drugs can be freely bought. After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I agree that users should be receiving treatment. But anyone selling or importing these drugs absolutely deserves to be punished harshly -- they are destroying millions of lives.
  - stickfigure 9y ago
    After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I don't buy it. I heard exactly this being said about cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and yes marijuana in the 80s. Reefer Madness was not a parody movie, and let's not forget that pot is still officially Schedule I in the US. I'm not saying that all drugs require equal amounts of care - carfentanyl sounds more like a chemical weapon, and for that reason alone should be heavily regulated. But folks tend to overreact with panic every single time a new drug comes up, and I've watched this excuse ("no longer able to make free choices!") used to justify ratcheting up the drug war every time. This particular claim doesn't pass the obvious sniff test - if fentanyl was so compulsive, heroin addicts would be seeking it out instead of trying to avoid it. Yeah, these powerful new drugs are killing people - and we should lay the blame square where it belongs, with the prohibition of milder alternatives.
    - 2bitencryption 9y ago
      Your sniff test isn't passing my sniff test.
    - GordonS 9y ago
      If you take a look at forums for drug users, such as Blue Light, you will see most prefer heroin to fentanyl. Apparently the euphoria from fentanyl isn't as great as with other opioids.
      - doikor 9y ago
        Most addicts preferring heroin shouldn't be surprise to anyone. Fentanyl was developed as an alternative to existing opioids that acts faster, goes out of your system faster and has less side effects (with the pain relief being the only wanted effect). The fact that it is very strong (easy to overdose) isn't really that much of an issue in clinical use.
- deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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marcoperaza 9y ago
Treating it like a criminal problem works extremely well for Singapore. If you sell drugs, you get executed. If you have any amount drugs, you almost certainly go to prison. Police have extraordinary powers to investigate and prosecute drug crimes, including compelling drug tests of suspected users. As a result, there is effectively no drug use or trafficking in Singapore. So this oft-repeated mantra that the penal code cannot solve drug problems is frankly bs. I'm not suggesting that we should throw drug addicts in prison for a dozen years, but I'd have no problem letting a fentanyl dealer rot in prison for the rest of their lives. Maybe start sending commandos to kidnap cartel leaders from Mexico to bring them to the US to face charges, for trafficking drugs and for murder. Let's run sting operations with cops posing as drug-seeking addicts to catch doctors handing them out like candy.
- stickfigure 9y ago
  Please tell me, how many marijuana dealers would you have been willing to execute in the 80s? How many brewers would you have been comfortable executing in the 20s? How many homosexuals in the 50s? I for one am very happy not to be living in an all-powerful police state. What's obviously "moral and good" seems to be awfully fluid across history.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    So I'm not arguing that we should completely emulate Singapore and other Asian countries here. Life-ending punishments for low-level dealing of soft drugs is too harsh and incompatible with our vision for society. Likewise for imprisoning addicts. But I think enforcement can work if we're willing to do what must be done. People exporting and importing large quantities of hard drugs into the United States get no sympathy from me.
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      Maybe when large poppy and coca fields were needed enforcement could have worked had it been pursued vigorously. But we apparently really didn't want to do that and it was mostly all lip service. But now? Super powerful chemicals being continually adjusted. A zillion e-packets zipping around the world. Forget about full enforcement. That is no longer possible if we "just try hard enough". Unless maybe you want to stop the mail and bomb 35 countries into smithereens. And incarcerate even more people than the ridiculous number we already have. We can still "discourage" with occasional busts (and probably should for deadly drugs for now) but maybe it's time to sit down and rethink rather than continuing to playing wack-a-mole. Make better drugs. Less harmful ones. That's the eventual answer I think.

No, it's a business problem. There's too much money tied up in the infrastructure that criminalizes it, too many people invested and making a lot of money on the status quo.

teej 9y ago
There's also a lot of money to be made in keeping addicts hooked. In South Florida, there's a huge issue where opioid addicts are put into "treatment centers" that use them to defraud insurance carriers. The victims don't get treatment but instead get the exact opposite - handlers who make money by feeding the addiction. http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion-dollar-drug-treatment-industry-plagued-overdoses-fraud-n773376 http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion...
- alikoneko 9y ago
  I live in South Florida, in Palm Beach County, where the bulk of these centers are. You see a lot of addicts. I don't know of any success stories to come out of them. But its a bit unsettling to be driving down I95 and see a billboard: "IMAGINE BEING SOBER". It's really sad and scary. Delray Beach used to be a nice place before the treatment centers came in, too. I was looking for an apartment on Craigslist here not too long ago. More than half the rooms for rent I saw were "sober living" half way houses.
djsumdog 9y ago
The pharmaceutical industry is a major part of the problem. Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Adderall is not so different than methamphetamine. The well of do these drugs legally and can afford rehab. Many of the people I've know that struggled with opium addiction could not afford to join treatment programs, many of which cost $2k ~ $15k. There is a lot of money being made in all sides of this game and it's disturbing.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Other way around. Heroin was the response to morphine.
  - ch4s3 9y ago
    Hence the name.
- djtriptych 9y ago
  You know someone who went to rehab for adderall?
  - 2bitencryption 9y ago
    Alcohol, weed, soft drinks. If you can get addicted to it, you can get rehab'd for it if you're willing.
    - zdkl 9y ago
      *if you can pay for it or get sentenced into it. Ftfy
- code_duck 9y ago
  You mean Oxycontin - oxytocin is the 'love hormone' released by your brain.
bpodgursky 9y ago
This is a super simplistic view. This is not like pot. This is not a drug that you can eve use casually. There is no moral legal framework in which these drugs can be freely bought. After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I agree that users should be receiving treatment. But anyone selling or importing these drugs absolutely deserves to be punished harshly -- they are destroying millions of lives.
- stickfigure 9y ago
  After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I don't buy it. I heard exactly this being said about cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and yes marijuana in the 80s. Reefer Madness was not a parody movie, and let's not forget that pot is still officially Schedule I in the US. I'm not saying that all drugs require equal amounts of care - carfentanyl sounds more like a chemical weapon, and for that reason alone should be heavily regulated. But folks tend to overreact with panic every single time a new drug comes up, and I've watched this excuse ("no longer able to make free choices!") used to justify ratcheting up the drug war every time. This particular claim doesn't pass the obvious sniff test - if fentanyl was so compulsive, heroin addicts would be seeking it out instead of trying to avoid it. Yeah, these powerful new drugs are killing people - and we should lay the blame square where it belongs, with the prohibition of milder alternatives.
  - 2bitencryption 9y ago
    Your sniff test isn't passing my sniff test.
  - GordonS 9y ago
    If you take a look at forums for drug users, such as Blue Light, you will see most prefer heroin to fentanyl. Apparently the euphoria from fentanyl isn't as great as with other opioids.
    - doikor 9y ago
      Most addicts preferring heroin shouldn't be surprise to anyone. Fentanyl was developed as an alternative to existing opioids that acts faster, goes out of your system faster and has less side effects (with the pain relief being the only wanted effect). The fact that it is very strong (easy to overdose) isn't really that much of an issue in clinical use.
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago

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marcoperaza 9y ago

Treating it like a criminal problem works extremely well for Singapore. If you sell drugs, you get executed. If you have any amount drugs, you almost certainly go to prison. Police have extraordinary powers to investigate and prosecute drug crimes, including compelling drug tests of suspected users. As a result, there is effectively no drug use or trafficking in Singapore. So this oft-repeated mantra that the penal code cannot solve drug problems is frankly bs. I'm not suggesting that we should throw drug addicts in prison for a dozen years, but I'd have no problem letting a fentanyl dealer rot in prison for the rest of their lives. Maybe start sending commandos to kidnap cartel leaders from Mexico to bring them to the US to face charges, for trafficking drugs and for murder. Let's run sting operations with cops posing as drug-seeking addicts to catch doctors handing them out like candy.

stickfigure 9y ago
Please tell me, how many marijuana dealers would you have been willing to execute in the 80s? How many brewers would you have been comfortable executing in the 20s? How many homosexuals in the 50s? I for one am very happy not to be living in an all-powerful police state. What's obviously "moral and good" seems to be awfully fluid across history.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  So I'm not arguing that we should completely emulate Singapore and other Asian countries here. Life-ending punishments for low-level dealing of soft drugs is too harsh and incompatible with our vision for society. Likewise for imprisoning addicts. But I think enforcement can work if we're willing to do what must be done. People exporting and importing large quantities of hard drugs into the United States get no sympathy from me.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    Maybe when large poppy and coca fields were needed enforcement could have worked had it been pursued vigorously. But we apparently really didn't want to do that and it was mostly all lip service. But now? Super powerful chemicals being continually adjusted. A zillion e-packets zipping around the world. Forget about full enforcement. That is no longer possible if we "just try hard enough". Unless maybe you want to stop the mail and bomb 35 countries into smithereens. And incarcerate even more people than the ridiculous number we already have. We can still "discourage" with occasional busts (and probably should for deadly drugs for now) but maybe it's time to sit down and rethink rather than continuing to playing wack-a-mole. Make better drugs. Less harmful ones. That's the eventual answer I think.