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Given how addictive heroin is how do people supporting decriminalization suggest dealing with hard core addicts that can’t afford the drug? Giving it away for f

Given how addictive heroin is how do people supporting decriminalization suggest dealing with hard core addicts that can’t afford the drug? Giving it away for free in a clinic, hospitalizing hardcore users, letting legal dealers take on the risks directly?

samatman 5y ago
A one-sentence summary of my policy goal is "make sure all addicts get heroin, from a place where they have access to help in quitting if they can". So any dispensary would have addiction specialists on hand, anyone getting heroin would have a card and a database. "Casual" and light users would pay, a known hard-case addict with limited means would get it subsidized or free. The goal is primarily to kick the bottom out of the black market, with a close second being keeping addicts healthy and alive, where quitting heroin is the best case scenario.
vlowther 5y ago
Legalize it and let "hardcore" heroin addicts get a prescription. It is expensive due to it being illegal and the willingness of addicts to pay damn near anything, not due to any intrinsic difficulty in manufacturing.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Given how addictive heroin is how do people supporting decriminalization suggest dealing with hard core addicts that can’t afford the drug?" Cigarettes are even more addictive, and yet we aren't freaking out and throwing cigarette smokers in jail.
greedo 5y ago
I don't know the solution to this, but I'm open to trying anything other than the failed police policies we've been repeating for what seems like forever. One of my nieces died from heart failure last year. She had been living on the street and been a hard core drug user. I can't say that it was heroin that killed her, because like most street users, she took anything she could get her hands on. But her heroin addiction was what kept her on the street. She had been through treatment more times than I can count. None helped for very long. In the end, she's dead at 29, a life completely wasted. Would legalized heroin with clean needles have saved her? Don't know. But our current system sure didn't.

samatman 5y ago

A one-sentence summary of my policy goal is "make sure all addicts get heroin, from a place where they have access to help in quitting if they can". So any dispensary would have addiction specialists on hand, anyone getting heroin would have a card and a database. "Casual" and light users would pay, a known hard-case addict with limited means would get it subsidized or free. The goal is primarily to kick the bottom out of the black market, with a close second being keeping addicts healthy and alive, where quitting heroin is the best case scenario.

vlowther 5y ago

Legalize it and let "hardcore" heroin addicts get a prescription. It is expensive due to it being illegal and the willingness of addicts to pay damn near anything, not due to any intrinsic difficulty in manufacturing.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"Given how addictive heroin is how do people supporting decriminalization suggest dealing with hard core addicts that can’t afford the drug?" Cigarettes are even more addictive, and yet we aren't freaking out and throwing cigarette smokers in jail.

greedo 5y ago

I don't know the solution to this, but I'm open to trying anything other than the failed police policies we've been repeating for what seems like forever. One of my nieces died from heart failure last year. She had been living on the street and been a hard core drug user. I can't say that it was heroin that killed her, because like most street users, she took anything she could get her hands on. But her heroin addiction was what kept her on the street. She had been through treatment more times than I can count. None helped for very long. In the end, she's dead at 29, a life completely wasted. Would legalized heroin with clean needles have saved her? Don't know. But our current system sure didn't.