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Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities. I'm welcome your anecdotal evidence but don'

Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities. I'm welcome your anecdotal evidence but don't find it at all relevant to the topic of how a state should handle the legal and health consequences of heroin abuse. A bunch of party-goers doing recreational drugs couldn't be farther from the realities of heroin addiction in a rural population.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
david_b 12y ago
Your comment is slightly off-the-mark as his comment wasn't merely about a festival, but also about his opinion on Portugals drug policy. As your comment implies that you aren't familiar with said policy, you may wish to recap Portugals efforts in drug decriminalization: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060-2.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal While it is apparently hard to say how effective these efforts were, it is quite easy to see that the neo-prohibitionists worst nightsmares have yet to happene in Portugal.
smcl 12y ago
Remember that this is not particular to that festival in Portugal, but to the entirety of Portugal
DanHulton 12y ago
You do realize that a great deal of the problems associated with heroin addiction come from the very fact that it is illegal? The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics, these things all make the addiction far, far worse than if we treated this whole thing a little saner and more compassionately.
- justicezyx 12y ago
  No, I do not realize that "a great deal of the problems associated with heroin addiction come from the very fact that it is illegal".
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  >>> The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics Where do you live? There's a myriad of state and federally funded programs here in the US that help people get treatment for a nominal fee or in many cases for free. Not sure how much more compassionate you can be when you're giving people a free alternative to get clean. Also, if you've never had an addict for a friend or a relative, then you'll never know it doesn't matter how compassionate you are to them, if they want to use and continue to throw their life away - they will. They have to be willing to help themselves first. No amount of free clinics, health care or compassion will combat that.
  - jpgvm 12y ago
    > if they want to use and continue to throw their life away This is exactly the marginalization he was talking about. Some of the smartest people I know love hard drugs and are very successful, are they throwing their life away because they use on a regular basis? Maybe you are only talking about the outright stoners that just get high every day, but are they really any different to the other lazy people that don't work? Not doing anything ever is generally what I would consider to be throwing your life away. I don't think drug use has much to do with throwing your life away, apart from the depression that comes from being marginalized. People that wish to throw their life away will do so with or without drugs.
  - spacemanmatt 12y ago
    I might not like it, but I don't consider it my place to judge how others deal (or fail to deal) with their problems, how they lead their lives. What's entirely unfair, and not helping anyone, is criminalization of drugs.
  - bryondowd 12y ago
    The marginalization comes from the fact that you can't participate in society if you are a drug user/abuser. Even if you are healthy enough to be a productive, upstanding member in every other way, the system is designed to tear you down at any moment, based on nothing but the fact that you use an illegal substance. Some people use regularly, but can still maintain and even excel in a job, and keep a healthy social life without anyone even being aware of the drug use or addiction. But they have to live with the knowledge that they are one drug screening away from being out of a job, regardless of performance, and that they can always be arrested the next time they have to purchase their vice, which would likely also lead to loss of a job and social ramifications. If we treated addicts the same way we treated someone with any other mental or physical ailment, it would make it so much easier for them to actually function in society without "getting clean". Which might actually help a few of the ones who want to get clean, because from what I understand, it is much easier to kick a habit when you have more going for you, like a career and social life. Just my two cents, from anecdotal evidence knowing drug users in a few different circumstances. Never been a user myself.
api 12y ago
I fail to see how ruining peoples' lives with criminal convictions, records, and incarceration helps anyone in any case. Addiction is a psychological and medical problem. The real insult is that alcohol is legal. Heavy alcohol use results in severe addiction and physical harm comparable to chronic heroin and amphetamine abuse. Yet we treat alcoholism as a psychological and a medical problem (which it is), and do not further ruin the addict's life and worsen their problems with incarceration and persecution.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
>Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities Right. I mean, a hippy-esque musical festival is going to draw in all sorts of non-violent potheads. How about the south side of Chicago? Do you think Kosmic Care is going to handle gangbangers on meth? Heck, here in Chicago during Lollapalooza, a man bit two people and injured them. It is reported that he was on drugs: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-on-the-arm-at-lollapalooza/ http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-on... “In describing it to the police later, they said ‘We never see cases like that where the attacker isn’t on PCP, or bath salts, or something like that,” Lenet said. “There’s no way a normal person could have sustained that much punishment, and just walked away.” The problem with the pro-legalization crowd is that we don't have any consistency. Some of us just want pot legalized but most of the movement seems to have this pie-in-the-sky view of legalizing just about everything. I'm afraid that we have two extremists groups: "no drugs" vs "all drugs" and per usual sane moderate voices are drowned out. I just don't believe a "one size fits all" mentality will work here. I just don't think we should legalize drugs that are physically addictive like heroin, PCP, meth, etc.
- mpthrapp 12y ago
  Yeah, why would we ever legalize physically addictive drugs like cigarettes or alcohol? Oh wait. I'm not saying anything about the legalization of Heroin, just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    I'm all for making nicotine illegal. Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin. >just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization. Probably better than the current standards. I'd love to live somewhere where cigarettes were illegal and pot wasn't.
    - mpthrapp 12y ago
      > Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin. Yes it is. It's a GABA antagonist.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence#Drugs_that_cause_physical_dependence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence#Drugs_that...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

david_b 12y ago

Your comment is slightly off-the-mark as his comment wasn't merely about a festival, but also about his opinion on Portugals drug policy. As your comment implies that you aren't familiar with said policy, you may wish to recap Portugals efforts in drug decriminalization: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060-2.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal While it is apparently hard to say how effective these efforts were, it is quite easy to see that the neo-prohibitionists worst nightsmares have yet to happene in Portugal.

smcl 12y ago

Remember that this is not particular to that festival in Portugal, but to the entirety of Portugal

DanHulton 12y ago

You do realize that a great deal of the problems associated with heroin addiction come from the very fact that it is illegal? The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics, these things all make the addiction far, far worse than if we treated this whole thing a little saner and more compassionately.

justicezyx 12y ago
No, I do not realize that "a great deal of the problems associated with heroin addiction come from the very fact that it is illegal".
at-fates-hands 12y ago
>>> The crime, the marginalization from society, the lack of access to health care or rehabilitation clinics Where do you live? There's a myriad of state and federally funded programs here in the US that help people get treatment for a nominal fee or in many cases for free. Not sure how much more compassionate you can be when you're giving people a free alternative to get clean. Also, if you've never had an addict for a friend or a relative, then you'll never know it doesn't matter how compassionate you are to them, if they want to use and continue to throw their life away - they will. They have to be willing to help themselves first. No amount of free clinics, health care or compassion will combat that.
- jpgvm 12y ago
  > if they want to use and continue to throw their life away This is exactly the marginalization he was talking about. Some of the smartest people I know love hard drugs and are very successful, are they throwing their life away because they use on a regular basis? Maybe you are only talking about the outright stoners that just get high every day, but are they really any different to the other lazy people that don't work? Not doing anything ever is generally what I would consider to be throwing your life away. I don't think drug use has much to do with throwing your life away, apart from the depression that comes from being marginalized. People that wish to throw their life away will do so with or without drugs.
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  I might not like it, but I don't consider it my place to judge how others deal (or fail to deal) with their problems, how they lead their lives. What's entirely unfair, and not helping anyone, is criminalization of drugs.
- bryondowd 12y ago
  The marginalization comes from the fact that you can't participate in society if you are a drug user/abuser. Even if you are healthy enough to be a productive, upstanding member in every other way, the system is designed to tear you down at any moment, based on nothing but the fact that you use an illegal substance. Some people use regularly, but can still maintain and even excel in a job, and keep a healthy social life without anyone even being aware of the drug use or addiction. But they have to live with the knowledge that they are one drug screening away from being out of a job, regardless of performance, and that they can always be arrested the next time they have to purchase their vice, which would likely also lead to loss of a job and social ramifications. If we treated addicts the same way we treated someone with any other mental or physical ailment, it would make it so much easier for them to actually function in society without "getting clean". Which might actually help a few of the ones who want to get clean, because from what I understand, it is much easier to kick a habit when you have more going for you, like a career and social life. Just my two cents, from anecdotal evidence knowing drug users in a few different circumstances. Never been a user myself.

api 12y ago

I fail to see how ruining peoples' lives with criminal convictions, records, and incarceration helps anyone in any case. Addiction is a psychological and medical problem. The real insult is that alcohol is legal. Heavy alcohol use results in severe addiction and physical harm comparable to chronic heroin and amphetamine abuse. Yet we treat alcoholism as a psychological and a medical problem (which it is), and do not further ruin the addict's life and worsen their problems with incarceration and persecution.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

>Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are two completely different realities Right. I mean, a hippy-esque musical festival is going to draw in all sorts of non-violent potheads. How about the south side of Chicago? Do you think Kosmic Care is going to handle gangbangers on meth? Heck, here in Chicago during Lollapalooza, a man bit two people and injured them. It is reported that he was on drugs: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-on-the-arm-at-lollapalooza/ http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-on... “In describing it to the police later, they said ‘We never see cases like that where the attacker isn’t on PCP, or bath salts, or something like that,” Lenet said. “There’s no way a normal person could have sustained that much punishment, and just walked away.” The problem with the pro-legalization crowd is that we don't have any consistency. Some of us just want pot legalized but most of the movement seems to have this pie-in-the-sky view of legalizing just about everything. I'm afraid that we have two extremists groups: "no drugs" vs "all drugs" and per usual sane moderate voices are drowned out. I just don't believe a "one size fits all" mentality will work here. I just don't think we should legalize drugs that are physically addictive like heroin, PCP, meth, etc.

mpthrapp 12y ago
Yeah, why would we ever legalize physically addictive drugs like cigarettes or alcohol? Oh wait. I'm not saying anything about the legalization of Heroin, just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  I'm all for making nicotine illegal. Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin. >just that the potential for physical addiction maybe isn't the best marker for legalization. Probably better than the current standards. I'd love to live somewhere where cigarettes were illegal and pot wasn't.
  - mpthrapp 12y ago
    > Alcohol isn't physically addictive like heroin. Yes it is. It's a GABA antagonist.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence#Drugs_that_cause_physical_dependence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence#Drugs_that...