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This is the bourgeois line on drugs, believed exclusively by people who haven't spent much time around crack and heroin addicts [0], prolonged exposure to whom

This is the bourgeois line on drugs, believed exclusively by people who haven't spent much time around crack and heroin addicts [0], prolonged exposure to whom eliminates the comfortable fiction that what people put into their body is their own business. [0] Or severe alcoholics, for that matter.

shady-lady 8y ago
I'm not sure if you're being downvoted for your viewpoint or your usage of "This is the bourgeois line on drugs".
- dionidium 8y ago
  I suppose that's a risk one takes when using that word in modern conversation, but I literally mean it in the dictionary-definition sense (i.e. "of or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes"). Feel free to substitute "middle-class" for "bourgeois" if it sounds less political or inflammatory to your ears.
ssijak 8y ago
Hint : Look at Portugal.
- dionidium 8y ago
  It's a sign of abject dysfunction that you think a passing allusion to Portugal is any kind of response to what I said above. The sentiment I'm pushing against is the feel-good, free-love notion that what you put into your body is your own damn business. Recognizing the absurdity of that claim isn't a vote for criminalization or mass incarceration. Indeed, Portugal has invested massively in the kind of healthcare and drug-treatment infrastructure that's required to effectively handle the inevitable results of decriminalisation. Whatever you want to say about drugs or drug policy, the people who do them aren't just minding their own business. One way or the other, the rest of us have to respond to it. Complaints about the "hypocrisy" of attempts to reduce use simply are not serious. And, as I said above, it's a position that rarely survives prolonged interaction with actual addicts.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    > Indeed, Portugal has invested massively in the kind of healthcare and drug-treatment infrastructure that's required to effectively handle the inevitable results of decriminalisation. No,, Portugal has invested massively in the healthcare and drug treatment programmes that you need whether drugs are legal or not. The US could implement all of those tomorrow and still keep drugs illegal.
    - dionidium 8y ago
      Yes. Poorly stated on my end.

shady-lady 8y ago

I'm not sure if you're being downvoted for your viewpoint or your usage of "This is the bourgeois line on drugs".

dionidium 8y ago
I suppose that's a risk one takes when using that word in modern conversation, but I literally mean it in the dictionary-definition sense (i.e. "of or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes"). Feel free to substitute "middle-class" for "bourgeois" if it sounds less political or inflammatory to your ears.

ssijak 8y ago

Hint : Look at Portugal.

dionidium 8y ago
It's a sign of abject dysfunction that you think a passing allusion to Portugal is any kind of response to what I said above. The sentiment I'm pushing against is the feel-good, free-love notion that what you put into your body is your own damn business. Recognizing the absurdity of that claim isn't a vote for criminalization or mass incarceration. Indeed, Portugal has invested massively in the kind of healthcare and drug-treatment infrastructure that's required to effectively handle the inevitable results of decriminalisation. Whatever you want to say about drugs or drug policy, the people who do them aren't just minding their own business. One way or the other, the rest of us have to respond to it. Complaints about the "hypocrisy" of attempts to reduce use simply are not serious. And, as I said above, it's a position that rarely survives prolonged interaction with actual addicts.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > Indeed, Portugal has invested massively in the kind of healthcare and drug-treatment infrastructure that's required to effectively handle the inevitable results of decriminalisation. No,, Portugal has invested massively in the healthcare and drug treatment programmes that you need whether drugs are legal or not. The US could implement all of those tomorrow and still keep drugs illegal.
  - dionidium 8y ago
    Yes. Poorly stated on my end.