4 ms·
> There is no way Heroin or Meth can be "used recreationally" without causing self-destructive harm and affecting all of society. Please read up on diacetylmor
by chimeracoder 13y ago
> There is no way Heroin or Meth can be "used recreationally" without causing self-destructive harm and affecting all of society.
Please read up on diacetylmorphine maintenance programs. There is copious literature on this.
Laudanum was used safely for the better part of the late 19th century. The word "heroin" is actually a trademark of Bayer (yes, the same folks who also gave us "aspirin")[0]. It was sold successfully and without any large-scale devastating effects for several years; the reason it was eventually outlawed had nothing to do with any negative repercussions of the drug on a large scale.
As for methamphetamine, according to the MTF and NSDUH studies, the majority of people who have used methamphetamine in the last 30 days do not meet DSM criteria for substance dependence[1]. That's not looking at everyone who's ever used methamphetamine; that's looking at people who have used it within the last month. Clearly it can be used "without affecting all of society"[2].
This is, of course, ignoring the fact that methamphetamine is Schedule II and can be obtained legally (albeit in rare cases) with a prescription (under the brand name Desoxyn).
[0] Both trademarks are now generic; Bayer eventually lost these trademark protections. This is why your local drugstore is allowed to sell acetylsalicylic acid under the name "aspirin" (with a lowercase "a").
[1] Most also wouldn't meet the DSM criteria for substance abuse either, except for a technicality in the criteria that references the legal status of the drug, which is naturally self-fulfilling.
[2] Unless you are looking at the economic impacts (ie, Nicaragua 30 years ago, North Korea and Afghanistan today, in which case you have a point, but that only serves to emphasize the need to short-circuit these black markets with legal ones).
- jebblue 13y agoRead girvo's comments then see if you can come back here and defend dangerous drugs.
- mjallday 13y agoIf heroin was legal today would you go and try it? I wouldn't, and I suspect most people either would or would not regardless of the law. For those that would, having to go but it from some non legitimate source where they are potentially exposed to non-pure product and potential crime certainly isn't going to help their situation.
- girvo 13y agoI find it interesting you get that from my comments. Personally, I blame myself (entirely) for the choices I made that ended with me in some very bad situations. Not the drugs. They're an outlet and a symptom; rarely are they the cause, in my opinion.
- ledge 13y agoWhatever girvo did, he did while heroin was illegal. So how does what you said make any sense? Prohibiting substances will never stop users from seeking them out. It will however make their use less safe (contamination, mislabeling, inconsistent purity, dirty needles, hesitance to seek medical attention for fear of prosecution, lack of available research on currently illegal substances hindering treatment of overdoses, etc.) and create a black market around the distribution of those substances (leading to violent crime, overflowing prisons, traumatized neighborhoods and broken families, etc.). If fact, all of our available evidence from countries that have decriminalized hard drugs points to a reduction in abuse. That's just intuitive to me... wouldn't you be more likely to relapse if you were a felon unable to find gainful employment? Or a mother whose son just got shot for pushing crack on the corner? The repercussions of breaking up families, criminalizing and incarcerating our most vulnerable members of society, and exacerbating violence in our poorest communities cannot be understated. The drug war has caused a whole plague of societal ills, one of which ironically appears to be higher rates of drug abuse.