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Giving free, safe drugs will depress demand for illegal drugs: most dealers are users, and are pushed to a high risk criminal activity - drug dealing - in order

by yholio 5y ago

Giving free, safe drugs will depress demand for illegal drugs: most dealers are users, and are pushed to a high risk criminal activity - drug dealing - in order to finance their expensive habit. They take extraordinary risk for this, including actively seeking out new clients. If you give out free product, you not only kill the primary demand, but most dealers themselves don't have a reason to continue taking risks - because they can benefit from the free product too. Purely profit oriented dealers will remain in the market, which is now much smaller and even riskier, since they can only sell to recreational users.

rkk3 5y ago
> most dealers are users, and are pushed to a high risk criminal activity - drug dealing - in order to finance their expensive habit Source?
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  The smaller the transaction amount, the larger chance that the dealer is going to have an addiction of their own. It’s easier for one wholesaler to sell to an addict (or several) that distributes small amounts to a bunch of other addicts, vs taking on all the volume yourself. Addicts usually know other addicts and have a strong incentive to sell, they need cash every single day. I doubt you’ll find a source, but the number of users distributing small amounts is probably larger than the amount of people pushing weight (who usually don’t use) This is based of my experience buying heroin in a mid-sized US metro area, fortunately far in my past. One without an open-air drug market, so deals were done in cars or alleys.
gonehome 5y ago
I also have a hypothesis that if it's freely available and boring then more people are likely to quit. The focus required to get it I think is part of what keeps people addicted - the reward is uncertain. If addicts can go to a boring clinic and get it daily for free maybe they'll at some point look up and wonder why they're doing what they're doing. Especially if the clinic has easily available assistance and things that can help people quit. Even in the worst case where they remain addicts, at least they won't OD and they're not funding organized crime. Probably not as easy with meth though - it's one thing to be addicted and still responsive to incentives, psychosis is a harder problem to handle.
vintermann 5y ago
I'm not sure that market is so much smaller. The "recreational" market includes anyone who couldn't afford to publicly admit their use, including for instance single parents who use amphetamines to try to have energy to do necessary things after a full day's work at the meatpacking plant.

by yholio 5y ago

rkk3 5y ago

> most dealers are users, and are pushed to a high risk criminal activity - drug dealing - in order to finance their expensive habit Source?

quickthrowman 5y ago
The smaller the transaction amount, the larger chance that the dealer is going to have an addiction of their own. It’s easier for one wholesaler to sell to an addict (or several) that distributes small amounts to a bunch of other addicts, vs taking on all the volume yourself. Addicts usually know other addicts and have a strong incentive to sell, they need cash every single day. I doubt you’ll find a source, but the number of users distributing small amounts is probably larger than the amount of people pushing weight (who usually don’t use) This is based of my experience buying heroin in a mid-sized US metro area, fortunately far in my past. One without an open-air drug market, so deals were done in cars or alleys.

gonehome 5y ago

I also have a hypothesis that if it's freely available and boring then more people are likely to quit. The focus required to get it I think is part of what keeps people addicted - the reward is uncertain. If addicts can go to a boring clinic and get it daily for free maybe they'll at some point look up and wonder why they're doing what they're doing. Especially if the clinic has easily available assistance and things that can help people quit. Even in the worst case where they remain addicts, at least they won't OD and they're not funding organized crime. Probably not as easy with meth though - it's one thing to be addicted and still responsive to incentives, psychosis is a harder problem to handle.

vintermann 5y ago

I'm not sure that market is so much smaller. The "recreational" market includes anyone who couldn't afford to publicly admit their use, including for instance single parents who use amphetamines to try to have energy to do necessary things after a full day's work at the meatpacking plant.