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I'm generally in favour of drug legalization and I think we should carefully experiment with even legalizing heroine/opiates. However, I don't think this is a

by netcan 12y ago

I'm generally in favour of drug legalization and I think we should carefully experiment with even legalizing heroine/opiates. However, I don't think this is a "fix" any more than legal alcohol is a fix for alcoholism. Legal or not, there will be user and there will be addicts. Legality might be an improvement but it doesn't solve the problem. I don't know if there is a solution. An effective treatment for addiction is the only thing I can think of. We don't even have effective treatments for eating disorders.

rwmj 12y ago
There is a difference: alcohol can kill you in various ways, both acute and long term. Heroin can too, but by knowing what you're getting and your own tolerance you can avoid overdoses and then the side effects are pretty mild (constipation).
valarauca1 12y ago
A quote I like to fall back on is the one from Portugal, which no longer has (edited) criminalized substances. "If you realize addiction is simply a symptom of a deeper underlying mental illness. Treat the illness, you solve the addiction." But yes there will be addicts.
- kcole16 12y ago
  Recreational drug possession is decriminalized in Portugal, but still illegal. You will still be fined if caught, and if you possess over a certain amount, charged with a crime. That being said, addiction has declined since the decriminalization.
  - jfrm 12y ago
    If caught consuming (under a certain amount), the drug will be apreend and you can be required to present yourself before a comitte formed by a lawyer, a doctor and a social worker. It's possible to be fined but that it's not the primary objective.
- mercer 12y ago
  While I think it's a huge improvement to see addiction something other than a 'crime', I think assuming it's a symptom of a deeper underlying mental illness is still not ideal. It's too simple. Consider addiction to smoking. There are plenty of people who picked up smoking for no other reason than 'fitting in' or 'curiosity'. Which I'd hardly call a mental illness. Many of these people kept smoking, and sadly probably many of them died from smoking. Similarly, I suspect there are many alcoholics who slowly became so because they entered a culture of alcohol. Addiction is a powerful thing in itself, and while the solution to many might be uncovering the underlying mental illness, for many it might 'just' be a matter of unlearning a powerful, destructive habit. Of course in both cases professional help is necessary, but treating an 'underlying mental illness' in cases where there are none can also have bad consequences. Among the many addicts and ex-addicts I've known, there have been more than a few that were actively treating a 'deeper underlying mental illness' that I suspected didn't really exist in the first place. And while that's probably better than being an addict, it's still not good. in fact, this is one reason I have issues with the approach Alcoholics Anonymous. They seem to treat all alcoholics as sufferers of a lifelong disease, and I cannot help but wonder if being constantly reminded of a thing you don't want to do anymore is a good solution for all people. For some, sure. Some people might have the 'alcoholism gene'. But I don't think that's always the case.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    There is a difference between chemical and psychological addiction you completely overlook. I was generalizing the later, as it can be dealt with, with consoling. The former can be very nasty and serious. It didn't mean to belittle it, or people who've fallen prey to it.
    - mercer 12y ago
      There's a difference, but it's not black and white, and I find it hard to imagine that most chemical addictions we know are bad enough in themselves to cause the extreme behavior that addicts exhibit. Regardless, I was primarily thinking about the psychological side of addiction in the above post, and I think my point still stands. There are many examples of (almost) purely psychological addictions that people suffer from, and also in those cases I think it can be an interplay of habit formation, personality characteristics, and environment, that 'maintain' it, and not always 'deeper issues' (although I suppose one could consider environment a deeper issue...).
tim333 12y ago
The critical point in my suggestion above is that heroin at any rate is not legalised in general. It is only made legal for it to be supplied to support addicts at registered non profit treatment centres. This is actually pretty much the law at the moment in the UK - heroin can be prescribed legally by doctors, but there are still issues in getting it done. The alternate policy of tolerating illegal heroin use such as practiced in Amsterdam at times has many problems - you get the criminal dealers, the parks full of junkies who steal stuff to buy the drugs and so on.
Synaesthesia 12y ago
What's interesting is that the USA has very high rates of drug abuse, illegal and prescription drug abuse, despite having very strict laws and harsh punishments for drugs (it varies by state, but generally). The lesson is that the harsh punishments don't solve the problem. Drug addictions should not be blamed on the addict, there is still a huge problem here. I think they can be treated if they are accepted, the addiction approached like a mental disease, with counseling and honesty.
encoderer 12y ago
But legal alcohol did work to make it far less dangerous and remove the organized crime effect
- tonyonodi 12y ago
  This is spot on, prescribing heroin wouldn't necessarily help addicts to recover but it would go a long way to making the disease itself more bearable for individuals and society.
dscrd 12y ago
If misery causes drug abuse, like it seems to do, then obviously making misery more rare is the solution. Legality is one easy step towards that goal, other steps include societal acceptance (i.e. drug users not immediately being regarded as worse people) and increased wealth.
patcon 12y ago
> However, I don't think this is a "fix" any more than legal alcohol is a fix for alcoholism. Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that legal alcohol IS a fix for alcoholism, at least if you're speaking of the sort of alcoholism that might exist is a world where alcoholics are all destitute and social pariahs? I think we live in a world where many functional alcoholics exist, for better or for worse. But I would rather have more functional alcoholism and legality, than live in a society that views alcoholics as criminals and condemns them to destitution. In the same way, while i dont necessarily want more heroin addicts, i think i want to live in society where functional heroin addicts can lead the semblance of a normal life as we coolectively sort out how to help them recover.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that legal alcohol IS a fix for alcoholism, at least if you're speaking of the sort of alcoholism that might exist is a world where alcoholics are all destitute and social pariahs? Prohibition doesn't make all addicts destitute social pariahs. There are plenty of rich & popular addicts of illegal drugs now, just as there were plenty of rich & popular people who were also alcoholics when alcohol was the subject of Prohibition. It does make more addicts destitute social pariahs, though, and the stigmatization complicates treating addiction.

by netcan 12y ago

rwmj 12y ago

There is a difference: alcohol can kill you in various ways, both acute and long term. Heroin can too, but by knowing what you're getting and your own tolerance you can avoid overdoses and then the side effects are pretty mild (constipation).

valarauca1 12y ago

A quote I like to fall back on is the one from Portugal, which no longer has (edited) criminalized substances. "If you realize addiction is simply a symptom of a deeper underlying mental illness. Treat the illness, you solve the addiction." But yes there will be addicts.

kcole16 12y ago
Recreational drug possession is decriminalized in Portugal, but still illegal. You will still be fined if caught, and if you possess over a certain amount, charged with a crime. That being said, addiction has declined since the decriminalization.
- jfrm 12y ago
  If caught consuming (under a certain amount), the drug will be apreend and you can be required to present yourself before a comitte formed by a lawyer, a doctor and a social worker. It's possible to be fined but that it's not the primary objective.
mercer 12y ago
While I think it's a huge improvement to see addiction something other than a 'crime', I think assuming it's a symptom of a deeper underlying mental illness is still not ideal. It's too simple. Consider addiction to smoking. There are plenty of people who picked up smoking for no other reason than 'fitting in' or 'curiosity'. Which I'd hardly call a mental illness. Many of these people kept smoking, and sadly probably many of them died from smoking. Similarly, I suspect there are many alcoholics who slowly became so because they entered a culture of alcohol. Addiction is a powerful thing in itself, and while the solution to many might be uncovering the underlying mental illness, for many it might 'just' be a matter of unlearning a powerful, destructive habit. Of course in both cases professional help is necessary, but treating an 'underlying mental illness' in cases where there are none can also have bad consequences. Among the many addicts and ex-addicts I've known, there have been more than a few that were actively treating a 'deeper underlying mental illness' that I suspected didn't really exist in the first place. And while that's probably better than being an addict, it's still not good. in fact, this is one reason I have issues with the approach Alcoholics Anonymous. They seem to treat all alcoholics as sufferers of a lifelong disease, and I cannot help but wonder if being constantly reminded of a thing you don't want to do anymore is a good solution for all people. For some, sure. Some people might have the 'alcoholism gene'. But I don't think that's always the case.
- valarauca1 12y ago
  There is a difference between chemical and psychological addiction you completely overlook. I was generalizing the later, as it can be dealt with, with consoling. The former can be very nasty and serious. It didn't mean to belittle it, or people who've fallen prey to it.
  - mercer 12y ago
    There's a difference, but it's not black and white, and I find it hard to imagine that most chemical addictions we know are bad enough in themselves to cause the extreme behavior that addicts exhibit. Regardless, I was primarily thinking about the psychological side of addiction in the above post, and I think my point still stands. There are many examples of (almost) purely psychological addictions that people suffer from, and also in those cases I think it can be an interplay of habit formation, personality characteristics, and environment, that 'maintain' it, and not always 'deeper issues' (although I suppose one could consider environment a deeper issue...).

tim333 12y ago

The critical point in my suggestion above is that heroin at any rate is not legalised in general. It is only made legal for it to be supplied to support addicts at registered non profit treatment centres. This is actually pretty much the law at the moment in the UK - heroin can be prescribed legally by doctors, but there are still issues in getting it done. The alternate policy of tolerating illegal heroin use such as practiced in Amsterdam at times has many problems - you get the criminal dealers, the parks full of junkies who steal stuff to buy the drugs and so on.

Synaesthesia 12y ago

What's interesting is that the USA has very high rates of drug abuse, illegal and prescription drug abuse, despite having very strict laws and harsh punishments for drugs (it varies by state, but generally). The lesson is that the harsh punishments don't solve the problem. Drug addictions should not be blamed on the addict, there is still a huge problem here. I think they can be treated if they are accepted, the addiction approached like a mental disease, with counseling and honesty.

encoderer 12y ago

But legal alcohol did work to make it far less dangerous and remove the organized crime effect

tonyonodi 12y ago
This is spot on, prescribing heroin wouldn't necessarily help addicts to recover but it would go a long way to making the disease itself more bearable for individuals and society.

dscrd 12y ago

If misery causes drug abuse, like it seems to do, then obviously making misery more rare is the solution. Legality is one easy step towards that goal, other steps include societal acceptance (i.e. drug users not immediately being regarded as worse people) and increased wealth.

patcon 12y ago

> However, I don't think this is a "fix" any more than legal alcohol is a fix for alcoholism. Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that legal alcohol IS a fix for alcoholism, at least if you're speaking of the sort of alcoholism that might exist is a world where alcoholics are all destitute and social pariahs? I think we live in a world where many functional alcoholics exist, for better or for worse. But I would rather have more functional alcoholism and legality, than live in a society that views alcoholics as criminals and condemns them to destitution. In the same way, while i dont necessarily want more heroin addicts, i think i want to live in society where functional heroin addicts can lead the semblance of a normal life as we coolectively sort out how to help them recover.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that legal alcohol IS a fix for alcoholism, at least if you're speaking of the sort of alcoholism that might exist is a world where alcoholics are all destitute and social pariahs? Prohibition doesn't make all addicts destitute social pariahs. There are plenty of rich & popular addicts of illegal drugs now, just as there were plenty of rich & popular people who were also alcoholics when alcohol was the subject of Prohibition. It does make more addicts destitute social pariahs, though, and the stigmatization complicates treating addiction.