5 ms·

Opiates used to be unregulated in the US and the US had an opiate addiction issue. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-story-americas-19th-century-op

• snvzz 4y ago
  And yet, it never got as bad as right now. Congrats, prohibition has made the situation worse.
  • ajross 4y ago
    I don't know that that follows. Fentanyl's cost to the end user is like 100x cheaper than 19th century opium (or more? I can't find data but that's probably about right). Don't market economics explain the issue better than regulatory decisions?
    • snvzz 4y ago
      I would say safe consumption (of a not random concentration) matters, particularly as reflected in the death toll.
  • adrr 4y ago
    1 out 200 people addicted to opiates during that time is worse than the reported 10 million users[1] of opiates in the country. Overdoses is higher because Fentanyl is stronger and easier to overdose off of than morphine. 1. https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/opioid-crisis-statistics/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/about-the-epidemic/opioid-crisis...
    • ericpauley 4y ago
      Am I missing something? 10 million/330 milllion is 6x higher than 1/200.
      • adrr 4y ago
        Yeah i just realized my math wrong.
    • okasaki 4y ago
      Addiction seems like much less of an issue if the substance is cheap and available in stores. I mean, we're "addicted" to oxygen.
• mitchdoogle 4y ago
  Well ya duh. The substance is addictive. There will be addicts whether it is legal or not. But addiction isn't a criminal issue. It's a medical one, so we should treat it as such and stop sending users to prison and stop creating a market for organized crime to make billions