5 ms·

I've mentioned this elsewhere, and I say this believing that substance abuse is a public health problem and not a criminal one, but: I'm not sure it's the best

I've mentioned this elsewhere, and I say this believing that substance abuse is a public health problem and not a criminal one, but: I'm not sure it's the best idea to give a bunch of people stuck living a lonely life in the suburbs, addicted to social media, and have to pay for their own healthcare, an easier path to hard drugs like heroin. There is no doubt in my mind that decriminalization will make these types of drugs easier to obtain.

hedora 6y ago
They could already access hard drugs. The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. Decriminalization has worked extremely well elsewhere (it dramatically reduced substance abuse problems); hopefully it will in the US as well.
- ericmay 6y ago
  Yea but you can also say criminalization has worked extremely well. Singapore for example. What I worry about here is another instance of treating symptoms instead of causes. Why do people feel like they need to use drugs like heroin? > The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. So if I want healthcare I should get addicted to meth? I'm being flippant here but this goes back to the earlier point about paying for your own healthcare here in this equation.
  - zests 6y ago
    How has criminalization worked in the United States?
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      The question seems simple, but the answer is complex depending on who you ask. There are populations that benefited greatly from criminalization of various substances ( say, for profit prison stocks treated as reit stocks ).
  - intricatedetail 6y ago
    Can you write more about Singapore? My view is that when drug laws are very harsh, then people will less likely admit to use and dealers will use more precautions. Since drug use is mostly estimated based on surveys and police report you may see the policy effective on paper, but the reality may be far different. It is a natural instinct to use drugs akin to listening to music or having sex for pleasure. If you ban music people will still listen to it, just you wouldn't know.
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      Singapore is largely homogeneous, is wealthy (for the area) with an average income of $9200 USD, has excellent health care that covers all citizens, is a geographically small nation state, has extremely low unemployment (even now, at 4.38%) and has a small population (5.7 million). You don't need to do drugs if everything in your life is going well. I saw this with my best friend during his divorce. We spent a lot of time together, often I'd go see him everyday after he got off work. Some days he'd drink two bottles of wine and a six pack. Now his divorce has been finalized for several months, he rarely drinks. Turns out when your life isn't in shambles, you don't need a chemical means to cope.
      - imtringued 6y ago
        I don't understand. Are you really saying your friend would have been better off if the police had arrested him? Isn't your entire comment an argument in favor of legalization? People use drugs when they have to which means criminalization does nothing or makes things worse.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      > It is a natural instinct to use drugs Citation? I’m not particularly tempted to try heroin. What’s wrong with me?
      - intricatedetail 6y ago
        Check https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140528-do-animals-take-drugs https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140528-do-animals-take-... It mostly comes to individual needs, maybe you don't fancy some heroin but you likely have experienced some alcohol, coffee or your body own drug anandamide
BurningFrog 6y ago
Most heroin deaths come from using illegal heroin with unknown strength and unknown contaminants. The typical death is from getting a new supply that's more concentrated than the old one, and accidentally dying from an overdose. The other two disasters that happen is that (1) the drug costs huge amounts of money, so you have to become a prostitute and/or burglar or (2) the legal system puts you in jail for 20 years. I'm not going to pretend that being heroin addict is a good life, but if you can get a clean drug with known strength from CVS for $2/day, it's a vastly better shitty life.
- leakybit 6y ago
  decriminalization is not legalization.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
fpoling 6y ago
Alcohol is a hard drug and trivially available. And judging by relatives and medical articles, alcoholism is worse than heroin addiction. The worst part of alcohol is that it disproportionately affects people around alcoholic through various forms of abuse. That is a direct result of destruction of brain cells responsible for empathy. The effects of heroin are much more localized to the drug user.
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  Problems associated with heroin mostly come from the fact that users cannot have steady supply of medical grade heroin. They suffer from contaminants and need to scramble to pay which is not easy when you are not feeling well. Clean heroin is relatively safe, it won't damage your health like alcohol would.
- ericmay 6y ago
  There are quite a few things at play here. Let's start by admitting we're not comparing apples to apples. Alcohol is a widely available mostly non-addictive substance that hundreds of millions of people use on any given day without any real side effects aside from whatever the alcohol does. Obviously drunk driving, fatty liver disease, etc., are health problems caused by alcohol. Heroin (if we're going to keep on this drug in particular) is currently not widely available, however the effects of the drug are far more severe and it is without a doubt more addictive than alcohol. I find it quite strange that you make the statement that: "alcohol disproportionately affects people around alcoholic through various forms of abuse". First, these are rare occurrences given the amount of alcohol sold and used on a daily bases across the planet. Aside from specific genetic mutations, it's not exactly easy to get addicted to alcohol. Casual drinking =/= addiction. Second, you're not considering how heroin affects those around the addict. People who are addicted to heroin will do nearly anything to get a fix. It's a completely different level compared to alcoholism that I've seen. You don't see a lot of functioning heroin users. There's a reason people are talking about the streets of San Francisco being littered with used needles. Why aren't they talking about the streets being littered with bottles of Jack Daniels? It's certainly worth investigating since if you compare alcohol consumption to heroin consumption, heroin is a rounding error (at the moment). Finally, your statement that the effects of heroin being more localized to the drug user are... frankly, laughable. Do you think people are just sitting around quietly shooting up and then going about their merry day? Maybe taking a nice bike ride to Golden Gate Park or picking their kids up from school? I honestly do not believe you have had any experience around any actual hard drugs based on what you're writing here. Obviously experience is just one data point, but when you're saying "Alcohol is a hard drug too" when we're talking about actual hard drugs like heroin or cocaine I have a hard time really trying to figure out what to make of your statement here.
horsemessiah 6y ago
You're not wrong, but arresting people for possession doesn't help them either. And I can definitely tell you drugs aren't hard to find as it is.
flukus 6y ago
> There is no doubt in my mind that decriminalization will make these types of drugs easier to obtain. I think you're vastly under estimating how easy they are to obtain now. You're probably only a few degrees away and know someone that knows someone already, if you don't then I bet you've got an idea on the sorts of people to ask. Once you've got contacts there's a massively redundant and decentralized supply chain that can deliver to your door quicker than amazon. This is especially true for more common (which varies by location) drugs.
- ericmay 6y ago
  People in my family have used heroin (among other drugs). It was not pretty. I understand and appreciate the decriminalization aspect, but I’m worried about how things will change in the future. If it is easy to obtain now, the removal of the potential of “getting in trouble” is likely to make it even easier. I wish HN had a remind me feature so in 5 years I could come back and see this comment and find out how things have turned out. I think we are likely to see increases in usage and a public health crises in Oregon, not the Switzerland success.

hedora 6y ago

They could already access hard drugs. The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. Decriminalization has worked extremely well elsewhere (it dramatically reduced substance abuse problems); hopefully it will in the US as well.

ericmay 6y ago
Yea but you can also say criminalization has worked extremely well. Singapore for example. What I worry about here is another instance of treating symptoms instead of causes. Why do people feel like they need to use drugs like heroin? > The law provides a lot of additional funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, which could actually help people in those situations. So if I want healthcare I should get addicted to meth? I'm being flippant here but this goes back to the earlier point about paying for your own healthcare here in this equation.
- zests 6y ago
  How has criminalization worked in the United States?
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    The question seems simple, but the answer is complex depending on who you ask. There are populations that benefited greatly from criminalization of various substances ( say, for profit prison stocks treated as reit stocks ).
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  Can you write more about Singapore? My view is that when drug laws are very harsh, then people will less likely admit to use and dealers will use more precautions. Since drug use is mostly estimated based on surveys and police report you may see the policy effective on paper, but the reality may be far different. It is a natural instinct to use drugs akin to listening to music or having sex for pleasure. If you ban music people will still listen to it, just you wouldn't know.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    Singapore is largely homogeneous, is wealthy (for the area) with an average income of $9200 USD, has excellent health care that covers all citizens, is a geographically small nation state, has extremely low unemployment (even now, at 4.38%) and has a small population (5.7 million). You don't need to do drugs if everything in your life is going well. I saw this with my best friend during his divorce. We spent a lot of time together, often I'd go see him everyday after he got off work. Some days he'd drink two bottles of wine and a six pack. Now his divorce has been finalized for several months, he rarely drinks. Turns out when your life isn't in shambles, you don't need a chemical means to cope.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      I don't understand. Are you really saying your friend would have been better off if the police had arrested him? Isn't your entire comment an argument in favor of legalization? People use drugs when they have to which means criminalization does nothing or makes things worse.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > It is a natural instinct to use drugs Citation? I’m not particularly tempted to try heroin. What’s wrong with me?
    - intricatedetail 6y ago
      Check https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140528-do-animals-take-drugs https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140528-do-animals-take-... It mostly comes to individual needs, maybe you don't fancy some heroin but you likely have experienced some alcohol, coffee or your body own drug anandamide

BurningFrog 6y ago

Most heroin deaths come from using illegal heroin with unknown strength and unknown contaminants. The typical death is from getting a new supply that's more concentrated than the old one, and accidentally dying from an overdose. The other two disasters that happen is that (1) the drug costs huge amounts of money, so you have to become a prostitute and/or burglar or (2) the legal system puts you in jail for 20 years. I'm not going to pretend that being heroin addict is a good life, but if you can get a clean drug with known strength from CVS for $2/day, it's a vastly better shitty life.

leakybit 6y ago
decriminalization is not legalization.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

fpoling 6y ago

Alcohol is a hard drug and trivially available. And judging by relatives and medical articles, alcoholism is worse than heroin addiction. The worst part of alcohol is that it disproportionately affects people around alcoholic through various forms of abuse. That is a direct result of destruction of brain cells responsible for empathy. The effects of heroin are much more localized to the drug user.

intricatedetail 6y ago
Problems associated with heroin mostly come from the fact that users cannot have steady supply of medical grade heroin. They suffer from contaminants and need to scramble to pay which is not easy when you are not feeling well. Clean heroin is relatively safe, it won't damage your health like alcohol would.
ericmay 6y ago
There are quite a few things at play here. Let's start by admitting we're not comparing apples to apples. Alcohol is a widely available mostly non-addictive substance that hundreds of millions of people use on any given day without any real side effects aside from whatever the alcohol does. Obviously drunk driving, fatty liver disease, etc., are health problems caused by alcohol. Heroin (if we're going to keep on this drug in particular) is currently not widely available, however the effects of the drug are far more severe and it is without a doubt more addictive than alcohol. I find it quite strange that you make the statement that: "alcohol disproportionately affects people around alcoholic through various forms of abuse". First, these are rare occurrences given the amount of alcohol sold and used on a daily bases across the planet. Aside from specific genetic mutations, it's not exactly easy to get addicted to alcohol. Casual drinking =/= addiction. Second, you're not considering how heroin affects those around the addict. People who are addicted to heroin will do nearly anything to get a fix. It's a completely different level compared to alcoholism that I've seen. You don't see a lot of functioning heroin users. There's a reason people are talking about the streets of San Francisco being littered with used needles. Why aren't they talking about the streets being littered with bottles of Jack Daniels? It's certainly worth investigating since if you compare alcohol consumption to heroin consumption, heroin is a rounding error (at the moment). Finally, your statement that the effects of heroin being more localized to the drug user are... frankly, laughable. Do you think people are just sitting around quietly shooting up and then going about their merry day? Maybe taking a nice bike ride to Golden Gate Park or picking their kids up from school? I honestly do not believe you have had any experience around any actual hard drugs based on what you're writing here. Obviously experience is just one data point, but when you're saying "Alcohol is a hard drug too" when we're talking about actual hard drugs like heroin or cocaine I have a hard time really trying to figure out what to make of your statement here.

horsemessiah 6y ago

You're not wrong, but arresting people for possession doesn't help them either. And I can definitely tell you drugs aren't hard to find as it is.

flukus 6y ago

> There is no doubt in my mind that decriminalization will make these types of drugs easier to obtain. I think you're vastly under estimating how easy they are to obtain now. You're probably only a few degrees away and know someone that knows someone already, if you don't then I bet you've got an idea on the sorts of people to ask. Once you've got contacts there's a massively redundant and decentralized supply chain that can deliver to your door quicker than amazon. This is especially true for more common (which varies by location) drugs.

ericmay 6y ago
People in my family have used heroin (among other drugs). It was not pretty. I understand and appreciate the decriminalization aspect, but I’m worried about how things will change in the future. If it is easy to obtain now, the removal of the potential of “getting in trouble” is likely to make it even easier. I wish HN had a remind me feature so in 5 years I could come back and see this comment and find out how things have turned out. I think we are likely to see increases in usage and a public health crises in Oregon, not the Switzerland success.