3 ms·

This a great point, but there is a counter-argument that reducing punishments for drug-related offenses may make the opioid epidemic in the US worse. This is a

by nfw2 6y ago

This a great point, but there is a counter-argument that reducing punishments for drug-related offenses may make the opioid epidemic in the US worse. This is a huge problem and roughly 70k Americans die per year from OD, which is much more than the number of police killings. I personally lost a cousin to drug OD a couple years ago. One extreme solution that might work is making all drugs legal for adults (21+), and have extremely strict punishments on providing drugs to minors. This sort of policy change might have saved my cousin because: 1.) It would put dealers out of business which I think would make it harder for teenagers to acquire hard drugs. When I was in HS in California, it was way easier to get marijuana than to get alcohol because there was a system of distributors for it. Acquiring alcohol meant asking someone's older sibling or friend, or getting a fake id and hoping the liquor store clerk doesn't confront you, or sneaking some out of parents' pantry. None of these were great options, and none of these methods would work for hard drugs like heroin which nearly the entire adult population has a severe negative perspective, unlike alcohol. 2.) If adult users bought from regulated sources, it would at the very least ensure the drugs aren't cut with fentanyl and that doses are intentional.

mschuster91 6y ago
> This is a huge problem and roughly 70k Americans die per year from OD, which is much more than the number of police killings. I personally lost a cousin to drug OD a couple years ago. I am sorry for your loss, but I would not blame a "lax" drug enforcement on the general opioid crisis. Even the death penalty doesn't prevent drug smuggling, all it incentivizes is higher prices and cutting! The real reason behind large parts of the US opioid epidemic is that the US lacks a modern welfare system: - physical healthcare and paid sick time for all. People are too often "pushing through" pain by abusing painkillers and then getting dependent on them (as they cannot afford fixing the cause of the pain), people can't afford to miss work too much so they'll ask for (and get) strong stuff after operations so they can work instead of having the proper time for recovery. - mental healthcare. Many people, especially the homeless, are "self-medicating" with drugs, and there is next to zero support systems for people going through individual crisis (divorces, death of a family member and job loss are the most common start point of drug careers). - related to the above point: government assistance for the unemployed, especially in areas going through rapid de-industrialization. It is no coincidence that the areas affected by the opioid crisis the most are those where the effects of unchecked rabid capitalism and globalization have wrecked entire communities. No matter of "law and order" will help there, people will still try to self-medicate the effects from the lack of these three points - with all the side effects that come with it, including kids like your cousin ending up with people shooting H in school. And regarding age... when I grew up (admittedly in Germany, where beer is legal at the age of 16!) honestly we all knew one or two crackheads too - but in the entire school. The wide, wide majority was happy enough with beer, wine and some schnaps for parties, a decent lot were stoners, and that's it. We never had the need to resort to hardcore illegal drugs, and the pot dealers were all guys who did some side dealing to finance their own stoning.
vidarh 6y ago
Overdoses is far more of a problem of poorly regulated supply than use. You don't see the heroin users with a clean, stable supply that they can afford very often because they're mostly functioning members of society who hold down jobs, and they rarely OD or are on the streets any more than you see alcohol users as typical wrecks - you see the small portion of the worst of the worst. The popular image of a heroin addict is a complete fabrication that only works because so few people are aware of heroin use among people they know. Heroin is by no means a good drug to get dependent on, but it is vastly more dangerous when users don't have a stable, clean supply. And a typical heroin addict could satisfy their addiction for $10-$20/day with medical grade heroin. We know this because the UK NHS buys heroin both for addiction management and for post-op pain management in some hospitals as an alternative to morphine. So your "extreme" solution isn't extreme at all, in fact, and it's a massive shame that politicians still rarely dare address this. Heroin prescription to addicts tends to not just improve their quality of life massively, but also reduce crime substantially, because it frees addicts from having to try to finance their addiction. As for the opioid epidemic in the US, blame Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, and the Sackler Family who owned it and leached it dry before the company was forced to settle claims over OxyContin and went into bankruptcy. Basically they're some of the biggest drug lords in the world. Purdue Pharma extensively misrepresented how to prescribe OxyContin to make more money, in a way that left people dependent. That's a far bigger reason for the opioid epidemic than illegal drug sales. The rise in illegal opioid use is a consequence, not a cause. The rise in heroin use in the US is largely because heroin is cheaper than black-market oxycodone a lot of places, and so people who have had their OxyContin prescriptions cut, which idiotically often happen when they exhibit signs of dependency, instead of helping them off it, often end up transitioning to heroin.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > Purdue Pharma extensively misrepresented how to prescribe OxyContin to make more money, in a way that left people dependent. That's a far bigger reason for the opioid epidemic than illegal drug sales. The rise in illegal opioid use is a consequence, not a cause. Additionally, it's not "just" Purdue and others (like the pill mills) at fault, they are just enablers following a demand. There would be no supply without massive massive demand and let's be honest the majority of addicts didn't start out in hospitals with legit pain management. They search self-medication for issues caused by a lack of mental health care, physical health care and basic social safety networks. A lot of the issues the US faces at the moment boils down to this as a root cause (and to condense it more, one ends up at systemic historical racism and massive wealth inequalities). Nothing can be solved alone, the US needs sweeping general reforms across the board.

by nfw2 6y ago

mschuster91 6y ago

> This is a huge problem and roughly 70k Americans die per year from OD, which is much more than the number of police killings. I personally lost a cousin to drug OD a couple years ago. I am sorry for your loss, but I would not blame a "lax" drug enforcement on the general opioid crisis. Even the death penalty doesn't prevent drug smuggling, all it incentivizes is higher prices and cutting! The real reason behind large parts of the US opioid epidemic is that the US lacks a modern welfare system: - physical healthcare and paid sick time for all. People are too often "pushing through" pain by abusing painkillers and then getting dependent on them (as they cannot afford fixing the cause of the pain), people can't afford to miss work too much so they'll ask for (and get) strong stuff after operations so they can work instead of having the proper time for recovery. - mental healthcare. Many people, especially the homeless, are "self-medicating" with drugs, and there is next to zero support systems for people going through individual crisis (divorces, death of a family member and job loss are the most common start point of drug careers). - related to the above point: government assistance for the unemployed, especially in areas going through rapid de-industrialization. It is no coincidence that the areas affected by the opioid crisis the most are those where the effects of unchecked rabid capitalism and globalization have wrecked entire communities. No matter of "law and order" will help there, people will still try to self-medicate the effects from the lack of these three points - with all the side effects that come with it, including kids like your cousin ending up with people shooting H in school. And regarding age... when I grew up (admittedly in Germany, where beer is legal at the age of 16!) honestly we all knew one or two crackheads too - but in the entire school. The wide, wide majority was happy enough with beer, wine and some schnaps for parties, a decent lot were stoners, and that's it. We never had the need to resort to hardcore illegal drugs, and the pot dealers were all guys who did some side dealing to finance their own stoning.

vidarh 6y ago

Overdoses is far more of a problem of poorly regulated supply than use. You don't see the heroin users with a clean, stable supply that they can afford very often because they're mostly functioning members of society who hold down jobs, and they rarely OD or are on the streets any more than you see alcohol users as typical wrecks - you see the small portion of the worst of the worst. The popular image of a heroin addict is a complete fabrication that only works because so few people are aware of heroin use among people they know. Heroin is by no means a good drug to get dependent on, but it is vastly more dangerous when users don't have a stable, clean supply. And a typical heroin addict could satisfy their addiction for $10-$20/day with medical grade heroin. We know this because the UK NHS buys heroin both for addiction management and for post-op pain management in some hospitals as an alternative to morphine. So your "extreme" solution isn't extreme at all, in fact, and it's a massive shame that politicians still rarely dare address this. Heroin prescription to addicts tends to not just improve their quality of life massively, but also reduce crime substantially, because it frees addicts from having to try to finance their addiction. As for the opioid epidemic in the US, blame Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, and the Sackler Family who owned it and leached it dry before the company was forced to settle claims over OxyContin and went into bankruptcy. Basically they're some of the biggest drug lords in the world. Purdue Pharma extensively misrepresented how to prescribe OxyContin to make more money, in a way that left people dependent. That's a far bigger reason for the opioid epidemic than illegal drug sales. The rise in illegal opioid use is a consequence, not a cause. The rise in heroin use in the US is largely because heroin is cheaper than black-market oxycodone a lot of places, and so people who have had their OxyContin prescriptions cut, which idiotically often happen when they exhibit signs of dependency, instead of helping them off it, often end up transitioning to heroin.

mschuster91 6y ago
> Purdue Pharma extensively misrepresented how to prescribe OxyContin to make more money, in a way that left people dependent. That's a far bigger reason for the opioid epidemic than illegal drug sales. The rise in illegal opioid use is a consequence, not a cause. Additionally, it's not "just" Purdue and others (like the pill mills) at fault, they are just enablers following a demand. There would be no supply without massive massive demand and let's be honest the majority of addicts didn't start out in hospitals with legit pain management. They search self-medication for issues caused by a lack of mental health care, physical health care and basic social safety networks. A lot of the issues the US faces at the moment boils down to this as a root cause (and to condense it more, one ends up at systemic historical racism and massive wealth inequalities). Nothing can be solved alone, the US needs sweeping general reforms across the board.