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Great to see this in the NYT. Drug use should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal issue.
by anythingnonidin 9y ago
Great to see this in the NYT.
Drug use should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal issue.
- crispinb 9y agoThis has been understood in policy circles for decades, with the WoD incontestably the most egregiously failed policy driver in modern times. It's hard to imagine even a fairly prominent NYT article extending discussion very far in the US public sphere, given that nation's current subjection to tribal and atavistic affiliation rather than rationality.
- RhysU 9y agoAddiction is a health issue. Experimenting prior to addiction is clearly not.
- hfourm 9y agoNot sure if you are trying to distinguish a difference but, surely you aren't suggesting that drug experimentation or recreational usage should be criminal?
- vkou 9y agoThe parent poster is explicitly saying that smoking a few joints in college, or taking some LSD once at a rave is not a health issue. They are right. Saying that does not imply that they endorse criminalization.
- RhysU 9y agoNot taking a stand on that, just pointing out that not all users of illicit drugs are addicts.
- simonh 9y agoThis thread is full of smartasses 'well actualy'-ing irrelevant picky distinctions of no particular substance. I'm not going to go at all of them, but lucky you! Medical problems associated with drugs go way beyond just addiction. Kids can die on their first use of a drug, even on a dose that would normally be forced be harmless, due to other factors such as dehydration, alcohol consumption or overheating. Even without becoming addicted, drugs can have other harmful medical effects. The sheer scale of the simpleminded ignorance of this comment is staggering.
- empath75 9y ago10s of thousands of people go to the hospital every year for Tylenol overdoses and hundreds die. That doesn’t mean any use of Tylenol is abuse.
- simonh 9y agoOf course not. Lots of controlled substances have legitimate medical uses. I don't get your point.
- zanny 9y agoLife is dangerous, and it is more valuable to work to educate people on the danger around them than to try banning it by rewriting reality to treat dangers like they don't exist by outlawing them. It is why kids think "that cannot happen to me". Because its criminal. Because its the plight of the "other". Because its told like a monster in a fable rather than a fact of life and an emergent property of our society and biology.
- simonh 9y agoI agree I'm pro-decriminalisation of drug use and for regulated legal distribution.
- tpm 9y agoKids can die on their first use of a horse or a bicycle. Or any subsequent. With higher probability than lots of illegal drugs.
- anythingnonidin 9y agoThanks, yes. I should've said 'drug abuse is a health issue.'
- worik 9y agoDrugs are a social justice issue. Not a health issue. Drug abuse is a health issue. Most drug use is not abuse.
- anythingnonidin 9y agoYes, good correction, thank you.