6 ms·
Now consider states make it illegal to get birth control pills and retroactively go after anyone who has them prescribed. It's according to the law, ain't it?
by x86x87 3y ago
Now consider states make it illegal to get birth control pills and retroactively go after anyone who has them prescribed. It's according to the law, ain't it?
The states should keep their noses out of this and in effect all drugs should be made legal. If you do have a problem (ie an addiction) we should make it trivially easy to get help instead of burning resources to investigate these. As far as abuse goes: it should be trivially easy for a pharmacy to check if a doctor did indeed prescribe something without raping the privacy of everyone involved. As a matter of fact, why the hell does it take 30 minutes to fill a prescription in 2023?
- ljm 3y agoI don't agree with your proposed solution (make all drugs legal), but I do think that the pharma industry in the US basically gets to socialise their losses while privatising the gains. The Sackler family's opioids, for example, have caused untold damage, and they made billions from it. They were able to offset the cost of all of that onto the society.
- x86x87 3y agoThe "make all drugs legal" was meant as a way of saying that we should not punish people that have an addiction. I was not advocating giving highly addictive hard drugs out without prescription.
- lazide 3y agoAren’t these two stances mutually exclusive? How do you propose not punishing people with addictions while somehow never giving out hard drugs without a prescription - since addictions are by their definition destructive and Dr’s shouldn’t be giving prescriptions for things that are known to cause problems for someone?
- reactordev 3y agoPrescriptions exist to allow a non-doctor access to drug classified by the FDA/FHA as being “dangerous”. I agree that we should make all drugs legal in the sense that it’s a mental health problem but I’m not for allowing everyone access to fentanyl.
- YawningAngel 3y agoEx post facto laws are not possible in the United States
- vlovich123 3y agoNominally. But if you’re relying on a drug for medical care and it becomes illegal, the distinction seems superficial to me, no?
- x86x87 3y agoLol. There are a lot of things that should not be possible in the majority of the civilized works. If this is your defense you're in trouble. Take for example the mythical "checks and balances" that are supposed to keep elected representatives under control. How is that working out? US == freedom and democracy! Until you see the fucking army mobilized to protect the capitol like we are some banana republic where the dictator in charge decided they would like to remain in power. This also is not possible in the US, right?
- lazide 3y agoBy convention, but in practice rules get ‘reinterpreted’ to punish previously at least nominally legal behavior all the time - especially when it comes to finance, business, guns, sex/porn, etc.
- newZWhoDis 3y agoIn theory, however California eliminated their statute of limitation's for rape (was previously 10 years) and now people are being charged (and convicted) for 20+ year old crimes with only verbal evidence. You might argue it’s not the same thing, but the effect is definitely the same: the law changed and people went from unchargeable to chargeable
- aspenmayer 3y agoThis is bad reasoning. Ex post facto laws are intended to prohibit making otherwise legal prior actions retroactively against the law, as no law was broken at the time the events occurred, so it would make a mockery of the rule of law to find someone guilty of a crime when no law was broken at that time. What you’re arguing against is absurd. Regardless of the existence or lack thereof of a relevant statute of limitations, ex post facto laws have nothing to do with prosecution of acts that were already illegal at the time they were committed. It may not engender respect for the law or respect for lawmakers to remove the statute of limitations after the time has already passed, but I side with those who the law has already failed: victims of those who break the law to the detriment of victims. If justice delayed is justice denied, then the statute of limitations is a double-edged sword that makes a mockery of the law and of those victims of the law’s failure to be enforced; the original victim is victimized again by denying them their just reward: justice itself. Similarly, we collectively also suffer as a society when lawbreakers aren’t held responsible for their actions, which further foments contempt for the law, by allowing a state of affairs that is demonstrably unjust.
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoDecrim has been an unmitigated disaster in Portland and Seattle. I once agreed with you, but seeing what's happened on the ground changed my position
- x86x87 3y agoNobody talks about part 2 of the decriminalization which cannot happen in the US - which should be providing support for the addicts to recover.
- fnimick 3y agoThere's two massive hurdles to clear in public perception: 1) that addiction is a personal vice that people _shouldn't_ get help from others for, if they die on the street, it's their own fault, and 2) that helping people who are homeless is somehow offensive and unfair to people who are "productive" and don't get help for free. It baffles me, if someone homeless in my community gets housing, that doesn't make me feel aggrieved for having to pay for mine. Yet we spend more money per person on homeless services that fail to get them housing than we would spend just... paying for apartments for them, because it would be unfair to do so.
- Spooky23 3y agoThe problem is that the welfare system failed to get implemented during the new deal and was introduced by the “Great Society” amendments to the Social Security Act in the 1960s. The core compromises essential to getting it done were the usual “states rights” revenue split and later limiting state liability by abusing social security disability. There’s alot of overhead dollars that fund state operations so it is difficult to effectuate change - by design. Things like addiction support are aligned with mental hygiene and Medicaid, so you really need to destroy your life until the safety net kicks in. If you live in a place like Mississippi, they’ll try to ship you north or push you towards SSDI (ie the Federal budget). In states that are less bleak, the community standard for disability is lower, and usually rehab is covered in some way by Medicaid. The other thing that’s different about addiction vs regular healthcare is that the person needs to be ready. I worked for years with a gentleman who beat alcoholism and became a counselor. He was only able to get by it after harming one of his children accidentally.
- chimeracoder 3y ago> Now consider states make it illegal to get birth control pills and retroactively go after anyone who has them prescribed. It's according to the law, ain't it? Your example is ex post facto, but it doesn't even have to be that egregious. State A makes it illegal to leave the state with the intention of having or facilitating an abortion. Because CVS operates nationally, cops in State A can go to a CVS locally and pull records of a CVS in State B filling a prescription for a medication that is sometimes, but not always, used for abortion. They can then use that to build a case for prosecuting the person in State A.
- anonuser123456 3y ago> State A makes it illegal to leave the state with the intention of having or facilitating an abortion. States do not have the authority to regulate travel across borders. The supreme court would strike this down 9-0, as the implications would be enormous.
- lazide 3y agoYou might be meaning to refer to interstate commerce? Which appears to be the more applicable situation?
- anonuser123456 3y agoMedical procedures are commerce.
- u32480932048 3y agoThere are already numerous "leave the state with the intention of" laws, which I assume to be just some extra charge to throw at someone, like wearing body armor while committing a felony.
- anonuser123456 3y agoCan you show a ‘leave state with the intent’ law that has been successfully prosecuted?
- CodeAndCuffs 3y ago> Now consider states make it illegal to get birth control pills and retroactively go after anyone who has them prescribed. It's according to the law, ain't it? Are we discussing legality, morality, what should be legal, or what should be moral? I agree that would be bad morally, and shouldn't be legal, and currently isn't. My original comment was regarding how the process currently works, and why. It was also to explain that any concern of privacy regarding prescriptions comes more from the department of health/board of pharmacies than it does from 3rd partys providing documents, as the documents arent invading privacy anymore than what already happens. > The states should keep their noses out of this and in effect all drugs should be made legal. The whole "your right to swing your fist ends where someones face begins" thing applies here. The problem with some heavier drugs, and their addictive nature, comes in how it effects others. When something is so addictive that a person would sell their own child to acquire more of it, maybe we should limit access to that thing. Ive known a lot of addicts professionally and personally. They come in various degrees of wanting help. Some are in denial, some would do anything to kick the addiction. Some don't care at all and would fight to refuse any help under any circumstance. Its a super complicated issue, "Just legalize all of it", and "Just criminalize and punish all of it" are both equally shortsighted solutions. > we should make it trivially easy to get help I agree 100% > it should be trivially easy for a pharmacy to check if a doctor did indeed prescribe something without raping the privacy of everyone involved It is, and they do. They call the doctor, he says "I didnt write this". Then he gives me a list of people who filled prescriptions he didnt write. The biggest invasion of privacy of unaffected people is when we have a confirmed suspect, we see what other doctors he filled a prescription for, and then go through that list with the new doctor to see what is and isnt legit. So yeah, at some point in a table of a few hundred people I probably saw some names of people who were a doctors patient, and that they have a prescription from him. I've been inside their privacy just as much as the receptionist at the doctor's office and the pharmacy tech at the CVS
- x86x87 3y ago> as the documents arent invading privacy anymore than what already happens. Nope. Invading privacy is invading privacy. Just because something is happening today does not make it okay and acceptable > call the doctor Is this the 70s? Call the doctor? Do you call the doctor for every prescription? Here is a wild idea: we have tjis thing called the internet and this other wild thing called PKI. Give the doctor a certificate pair and they digitally sign every prescription. You don't ever need to talk to the doctor, you just need to pull their public certs. Since we're doing privacy, give the chumps that need the prescription a cert pair and encrypt their shit + make it a crime to store any of their PII at pharmacy level.
- dang 3y ago"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." "Please don't fulminate." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38807378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38807378.