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My condolences to anyone who's lost a friend or relative to addiction - thanks to the human vultures who reap the rewards. It's possible that by vigorously pur

My condolences to anyone who's lost a friend or relative to addiction - thanks to the human vultures who reap the rewards. It's possible that by vigorously pursuing and prosecuting the people who can afford to purchase and disseminate hard narcotics - instead of the users and a pusher or two - most of the problem would dry up. I'm not optimistic about that happening. The little guys are easier to catch, and caps are feathered. Meanwhile, the big guys have contacts and probably political connections.

standardUser 5y ago
The US has waged a war on drug for several generations with virtually unlimited funding and has made no progress on that goal whatsoever. What makes you think it could ever work, despite the mountains and decades of evidence that it has failed?
- MisterMower 5y ago
  They’ve been fighting the suppliers. It’s time to go after the demand side, too. Every user bought their drugs from a dealer. Throw them in jail with the dealer. It seems like every solution in this thread is something other than “punish people who buy or sell drugs.” Can we at least try ruthless enforcement before we try free drugs for addicts paid for by taxpayers?
  - standardUser 5y ago
    It's almost like you are bragging about your ignorance of the drug war. Ruthless enforcement was the norm for two generations and ruined countless lives. How much more ruthless would you have us be? Asset forfeiture, mandatory minimum sentences and massive violations of privacy rights weren't enough for you?
  - bongoman37 5y ago
    Given that law enforcement is quite willing to plant evidence on innocent people, this would just be a terrible idea. I had a cop friend who shared a bit of weed saying 'Can't take it all, its evidence for a case next week'. Free drugs for addicts is often a lot more cost effective. Also, not every drug user is a major addict. Almost everyone I knew (I move in academic circles), has some experimentation with drugs and a fair number will smoke weed every so often and try something like mushrooms a couple of times a year.
  - woah 5y ago
    What’s more expensive, a few grams of an easy to synthesize pharmaceutical or keeping someone in prison? It sounds like your idea would be a massive waste of taxpayer money serving only to gratify a perverse fantasy of sadism and domination.
    - MisterMower 5y ago
      Take Jack's story and multiply it by at least a million. That's the cost we're currently paying for it. Throwing a small fraction of those people in jail in order to prevent this epidemic is the humane thing to do. That you'd rather call a real solution to this issue "perverse" and "sadistic" betrays your own cynical view: you really don't care that much about people like Jack. You'd rather grandstand with your smug, politically correct view than actually help people like him. Why was it so easy for Jack, a high school kid in a small town in the Northeast, to get his hand on hard drugs like this? The answer: we stopped having the stomach for being tough on anyone connected with drugs, by throwing them in prison, and creating incentives to strongly discourage its use. We don't hesitate to jail people for decades when we find them with illegal explosives or plans to commit acts of terrorism. If those people are successful, at most they kill hundreds of people. The use and distribution of drugs does much more damage and impacts millions in a massively negative way.
yholio 5y ago
Or maybe you could move the other way: treat addiction as a disease and provide free, pharmaceutical grade product or methadone substitutes to all that request it, if they suffer from addiction. It costs essentially nothing. This will not only kill the bulk of market and force dealers out in the open to find new, high risk recreational customers as opposed to cash cow addicts; but will also give a livable life to the addicts by preventing the financial and personal ruin brought by addiction to a substance that is made artificially scarce and expensive. Most of the problems with addiction stem from this scarcity, not addiction itself: addicts take up a criminal activities to finance their consumption, lose all property and social capital, the product has high variability in potency and adulterants and is very risky to consume, they have to deal with criminals on a daily basis to get it etc. https://time.com/6108812/drug-deaths-safe-supply-opioids/ https://time.com/6108812/drug-deaths-safe-supply-opioids/
- d136o 5y ago
  At the heart of the opioid epidemic was a company run by medical doctors, with a sales force targeting medical doctors, and a budget to not only buy themselves positive medical literature but also the government agencies that were supposed to watch out for the public, oh and also they had enough wealth to buy themselves immunity from criminal or financial liability. I am not sure that the solution is a pharmaceutical product… And I say this as someone who has been pro-science his whole life. It’s just that training people that a pill will solve their problems is a recipe for creating addicts?
  - ryan_lane 5y ago
    Note that they say a free product. It shouldn't be produced by a company, but rather be produced at a loss by the government, so there's not incentives to keep people addicted, but rather to reduce addictions.
chiefalchemist 5y ago
I lost a sister to a drug OD close to 15 yrs ago. My belief is she suffered from depression, among other things, and self medicated. That said, the opioid crisis in the USA has been largerly fueled by prescription drugs. If by little guys you mean doctors, and big guys you mean the manufacturers;well there's been some progress on that. But obviously and certainly not enough. Let's also not overlook the convenient blind eye of regularors (read: government).
short12 5y ago
After talking to a recovering addict regarding heroin, fentanyl and the such. I did some research and found I could get half a kilo of iso (stronger than fentanyl) by the end of the week. It took me 20 minutes My point is that stuff is so widely available and easily accessible that no sort of enforcement against the higher ups will do a damn thing Treating the addict with compassion and diligence will be far more effective than attempting to dry up the supply. It of course won't be easy and actually will require a mental shift regarding users Instead of headlines of law enforcement patting themselves on the back about some meaningless bust
- snek_case 5y ago
  Potentially we could decriminalize consumption, open treatment centers, but still go after the traffickers. People who sell fentanyl know that they are killing people.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I think this is a great option. It seems quite a few people opposed to decriminalization don't realize that it typically means decriminalization of personal amounts, but still going after the dealers.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I think it's most effective to prevent them from becoming addicts by addressing the hopelessness that drives so many to that (or crime). And through education of the effects for the others, of course.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  The US has never tried hardcore drug enforcement against drug dealers (i.e, execution, as many other countries do). It would categorically not solve drug addiction as a whole but it would likely have some effect.
beebmam 5y ago
It's not popular here on Hacker News due to its libertarian bent, but I'm of the opinion that we should even more brutal to illegal drug production, trafficking, and selling than what we currently are. I've lost 2 friends to fentanyl poisoning in the last 3 years, and I lost my brother 10 years ago to chronic meth use. I'm so utterly sick of this.
- nielsbot 5y ago
  (Not a libertarian) I get the sentiment, but it's been shown that the war on drugs approach is expensive and ineffective. That said, I haven't lived your experience, so I can't really know what you're feeling...
  - CincinnatiMan 5y ago
    >(Not a libertarian) I get the sentiment, but it's been shown that the war on drugs approach is expensive and ineffective. Is there really a way to show that if the war on drugs never existed, the same number of drug users would exist, thus making the war ineffective? I'm not sure how one would prove this. It seems possible that without the war on drugs, the impact of drugs could be even greater, but again, hard to prove that. Just an anecdote but in high school my entire reason for not smoking weed was because it was illegal, even though one of my friend groups was really into it.
    - nielsbot 5y ago
      You may be right but the downsides are large. I think the effects are knowable, but since it's a complex issue there's lots of ways to view the data. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/8/18089368/war-on-drugs-marijuana-cocaine-heroin-meth https://www.vox.com/2016/5/8/18089368/war-on-drugs-marijuana...
- giantg2 5y ago
  I don't know, the current penalties can be pretty stiff already. You can also prosecute under both federal and state laws to stack the terms. They just don't care to do that in most cases.

standardUser 5y ago

The US has waged a war on drug for several generations with virtually unlimited funding and has made no progress on that goal whatsoever. What makes you think it could ever work, despite the mountains and decades of evidence that it has failed?

MisterMower 5y ago
They’ve been fighting the suppliers. It’s time to go after the demand side, too. Every user bought their drugs from a dealer. Throw them in jail with the dealer. It seems like every solution in this thread is something other than “punish people who buy or sell drugs.” Can we at least try ruthless enforcement before we try free drugs for addicts paid for by taxpayers?
- standardUser 5y ago
  It's almost like you are bragging about your ignorance of the drug war. Ruthless enforcement was the norm for two generations and ruined countless lives. How much more ruthless would you have us be? Asset forfeiture, mandatory minimum sentences and massive violations of privacy rights weren't enough for you?
- bongoman37 5y ago
  Given that law enforcement is quite willing to plant evidence on innocent people, this would just be a terrible idea. I had a cop friend who shared a bit of weed saying 'Can't take it all, its evidence for a case next week'. Free drugs for addicts is often a lot more cost effective. Also, not every drug user is a major addict. Almost everyone I knew (I move in academic circles), has some experimentation with drugs and a fair number will smoke weed every so often and try something like mushrooms a couple of times a year.
- woah 5y ago
  What’s more expensive, a few grams of an easy to synthesize pharmaceutical or keeping someone in prison? It sounds like your idea would be a massive waste of taxpayer money serving only to gratify a perverse fantasy of sadism and domination.
  - MisterMower 5y ago
    Take Jack's story and multiply it by at least a million. That's the cost we're currently paying for it. Throwing a small fraction of those people in jail in order to prevent this epidemic is the humane thing to do. That you'd rather call a real solution to this issue "perverse" and "sadistic" betrays your own cynical view: you really don't care that much about people like Jack. You'd rather grandstand with your smug, politically correct view than actually help people like him. Why was it so easy for Jack, a high school kid in a small town in the Northeast, to get his hand on hard drugs like this? The answer: we stopped having the stomach for being tough on anyone connected with drugs, by throwing them in prison, and creating incentives to strongly discourage its use. We don't hesitate to jail people for decades when we find them with illegal explosives or plans to commit acts of terrorism. If those people are successful, at most they kill hundreds of people. The use and distribution of drugs does much more damage and impacts millions in a massively negative way.

yholio 5y ago

Or maybe you could move the other way: treat addiction as a disease and provide free, pharmaceutical grade product or methadone substitutes to all that request it, if they suffer from addiction. It costs essentially nothing. This will not only kill the bulk of market and force dealers out in the open to find new, high risk recreational customers as opposed to cash cow addicts; but will also give a livable life to the addicts by preventing the financial and personal ruin brought by addiction to a substance that is made artificially scarce and expensive. Most of the problems with addiction stem from this scarcity, not addiction itself: addicts take up a criminal activities to finance their consumption, lose all property and social capital, the product has high variability in potency and adulterants and is very risky to consume, they have to deal with criminals on a daily basis to get it etc. https://time.com/6108812/drug-deaths-safe-supply-opioids/ https://time.com/6108812/drug-deaths-safe-supply-opioids/

d136o 5y ago
At the heart of the opioid epidemic was a company run by medical doctors, with a sales force targeting medical doctors, and a budget to not only buy themselves positive medical literature but also the government agencies that were supposed to watch out for the public, oh and also they had enough wealth to buy themselves immunity from criminal or financial liability. I am not sure that the solution is a pharmaceutical product… And I say this as someone who has been pro-science his whole life. It’s just that training people that a pill will solve their problems is a recipe for creating addicts?
- ryan_lane 5y ago
  Note that they say a free product. It shouldn't be produced by a company, but rather be produced at a loss by the government, so there's not incentives to keep people addicted, but rather to reduce addictions.

chiefalchemist 5y ago

I lost a sister to a drug OD close to 15 yrs ago. My belief is she suffered from depression, among other things, and self medicated. That said, the opioid crisis in the USA has been largerly fueled by prescription drugs. If by little guys you mean doctors, and big guys you mean the manufacturers;well there's been some progress on that. But obviously and certainly not enough. Let's also not overlook the convenient blind eye of regularors (read: government).

short12 5y ago

After talking to a recovering addict regarding heroin, fentanyl and the such. I did some research and found I could get half a kilo of iso (stronger than fentanyl) by the end of the week. It took me 20 minutes My point is that stuff is so widely available and easily accessible that no sort of enforcement against the higher ups will do a damn thing Treating the addict with compassion and diligence will be far more effective than attempting to dry up the supply. It of course won't be easy and actually will require a mental shift regarding users Instead of headlines of law enforcement patting themselves on the back about some meaningless bust

snek_case 5y ago
Potentially we could decriminalize consumption, open treatment centers, but still go after the traffickers. People who sell fentanyl know that they are killing people.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I think this is a great option. It seems quite a few people opposed to decriminalization don't realize that it typically means decriminalization of personal amounts, but still going after the dealers.
giantg2 5y ago
I think it's most effective to prevent them from becoming addicts by addressing the hopelessness that drives so many to that (or crime). And through education of the effects for the others, of course.
spoonjim 5y ago
The US has never tried hardcore drug enforcement against drug dealers (i.e, execution, as many other countries do). It would categorically not solve drug addiction as a whole but it would likely have some effect.

beebmam 5y ago

It's not popular here on Hacker News due to its libertarian bent, but I'm of the opinion that we should even more brutal to illegal drug production, trafficking, and selling than what we currently are. I've lost 2 friends to fentanyl poisoning in the last 3 years, and I lost my brother 10 years ago to chronic meth use. I'm so utterly sick of this.

nielsbot 5y ago
(Not a libertarian) I get the sentiment, but it's been shown that the war on drugs approach is expensive and ineffective. That said, I haven't lived your experience, so I can't really know what you're feeling...
- CincinnatiMan 5y ago
  >(Not a libertarian) I get the sentiment, but it's been shown that the war on drugs approach is expensive and ineffective. Is there really a way to show that if the war on drugs never existed, the same number of drug users would exist, thus making the war ineffective? I'm not sure how one would prove this. It seems possible that without the war on drugs, the impact of drugs could be even greater, but again, hard to prove that. Just an anecdote but in high school my entire reason for not smoking weed was because it was illegal, even though one of my friend groups was really into it.
  - nielsbot 5y ago
    You may be right but the downsides are large. I think the effects are knowable, but since it's a complex issue there's lots of ways to view the data. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/8/18089368/war-on-drugs-marijuana-cocaine-heroin-meth https://www.vox.com/2016/5/8/18089368/war-on-drugs-marijuana...
giantg2 5y ago
I don't know, the current penalties can be pretty stiff already. You can also prosecute under both federal and state laws to stack the terms. They just don't care to do that in most cases.