11 ms·

There are a few interesting takeaways: - Pain perscriptions as a gateway to more hardcore drug use that destroys life, it doesn't sound like this individual had

by cmdkeen 12y ago

There are a few interesting takeaways: - Pain perscriptions as a gateway to more hardcore drug use that destroys life, it doesn't sound like this individual had any "liberty" to make choices once he had become hooked on painkillers - Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in monetary terms, at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it - Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in terms of destroyed careers and relationships. Sure some users function normally, but you cannot know whether you're going to succumb or not before embarking - and that is the problem.

nostrademons 12y ago
There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to. Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- herendin 12y ago
  > opium dens The modern equivalent is spending hours watching reality TV and eating fast food. Not trying to be snarky. I mean it.
  - joosters 12y ago
    So if I'm eating fast food and watching a non-reality TV program, I've left the opium den, right?
- byEngineer 12y ago
  why not to legalize something that hurts just the one who takes it? The same logic would require us to delegalize alcohol. Remember, we had booze dealers with machine guns terrorizing whole cities, like Chicago, before we came back to our senses and legalized it. Can you see Corona dealers fighting with Coors dealers for a territory to sell beer? Why not? This is the EXACT reality of 1920s in this country. I don't care if some idiots are going to kill themselves. As if we didn't have enough economic issues and ways to spend money, to spend so much on prisons, police force and all this other BS to deal with somebody's addiction. I will tell you what will happen. As 1929 crash forced us to legalize alcohol, the same way 2008 forced us to legalize weed. Hopefully next crash will force us to legalize rest of it and start making money on it to find education vs. taking money from education to keep juvenile institutions staffed with guards.
  - cmdkeen 12y ago
    You don't have to be in favour of the current war on drugs to be in favour of heroin being illegal - and this is key selling heroin being illegal. Even Portugal, held up as the example of decriminalization only decriminalized possession not distribution. Being a heroin addict should be treated as a social/medical problem and people given all the help they can to get clean, but we absolutely shouldn't be encouraging people to take it up. Especially heroin which is responsible for a very high percentage of all drug related deaths.
    - byEngineer 12y ago
      of course, you just want to make sure that Al Capone still has his stream of income. And how exactly does it make it better for society at large?
    - girvo 12y ago
      Heroin + other drugs combined are responsible for a high percentage of all drug related deaths. You can make the argument that there's not much difference, because people are dumb, and I'd probably agree with you though.
      - digi_owl 12y ago
        Best i recall, the major reason for heroin deaths are that people overdose. This either because they don't know the purity of the substance, or they have tried to get clean on their own and are relapsing. The latter is particularly insidious, as the person will set up the dosage based on habit while their body has lost its resistance to the drug.
    - xtian 12y ago
      I think you've struck upon the fundamental issue when it comes to substance legalization: we've made the U.S. government the arbiter of safety. People think, "If it's legal, it must be safe." That isn't a true statement even now, but it's the mindset people bring to discussions about decriminalization. Legalization does not need to mean "encouraging people to take it up." If we want to end the war on drugs, we need to all accept responsibility for determining what is safe for ourselves. The government's role should be in providing information and support.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  > I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to. Not knowing much about this, could I ask why?
girvo 12y ago
Heroin is... Interesting. I was an addict for 6 years. I ran two businesses (one successfully), held down excellent jobs for amazing agencies, built cool stuff, had numerous relationships that were both good and bad. Most of heroin's issues arise because of its illegality, coupled with its price. I was spending $400 a day. It's nearly impossible to keep afloat with that sort of outgoing expense. Heroin also makes me grumpier than I typically am, and I wouldn't wish the withdrawals on my worst enemy. But on the other hand, it has few negative physical effects in the long term, which I find amazingly curious. I've been clean for three years now, and if I didn't tell you you'd never know what I'd done. That's odd, in my opinion, considering its reputation. If I'd drunk the equivalent amount of alcohol every day for six years, I'd doubt that would be the case. Like any drug, being illegal distorts the market and causes issues that wouldn't exist with it legal, however I would never want to see it legal the same way alcohol is. It's simply dangerous above and beyond things like weed. I'm truly not sure how i feel about it, to be honest. I just know that I would never use it again, regardless of its legal status.
- andrey-p 12y ago
  Thanks for sharing this. If you don't mind me asking, how did you find the experience of getting rid of that habit? What got you to finally try and defeat it?
  - girvo 12y ago
    Getting off it was difficult. I couldn't have done it without the amazing support of my government, despite it's rather draconian drug laws. I've been clean for three years now. The impetus for getting off of it were the cost (I was using 1.5 grams per day), the illegality (I didn't want to risk my future any more). But, the key reason? I didn't want to take it any more. A well known fact among addict circles, is that there will come a time when you're done taking it. The problem is, unless you were lucky to live in a country like mine, doing so without the support of society when it is so stigmatized is supremely difficult. It's an interesting problem.
    - cryowaffle 12y ago
stickfigure 12y ago
...at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it I infer from this statement that you believe that, in the case of legalization, the price would still be high enough to require crime. Do you have any reason to believe that heroin is inherently more expensive to manufacture than, say, aspirin? Also, unless heroin addiction skews towards the top five-percenters, $3500 per week is a distant outlier.
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  The UK estimates that between a third and a half of all acquisitive crime in the UK is committed by class A drug users. You're assuming that in the case of legalisation there wouldn't be sin taxes, which given alcohol and cigarettes (and indeed weed) would be incredibly unlikely. The problem with heroin is that once you are abusing it you need more and more but it starts to destroy your ability to earn the funds to pay for it. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-cost-of-acquisitive-crime-caused-by-class-a-drug-users-in-the-uk https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-cost-of...
  - xyzzy123 12y ago
    By the point where it screws up someone's ability to earn and they don't have family money, they're no longer a functional human in society. Their other relationships are screwed, no matter which way you look at it, they're a welfare case. My experience is that "those" crimes are caused by trauma and mental illness, but I guess the drug use is the easy thing to blame. It correlates super high at that point. My experience with most of this is second-hand.
- army 12y ago
  Heroin still requires growing poppies. Aspirin can be be synthesized.
  - stickfigure 12y ago
    Replace 'aspirin' with 'vitamin d' in my question.

by cmdkeen 12y ago

nostrademons 12y ago

There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to. Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
herendin 12y ago
> opium dens The modern equivalent is spending hours watching reality TV and eating fast food. Not trying to be snarky. I mean it.
- joosters 12y ago
  So if I'm eating fast food and watching a non-reality TV program, I've left the opium den, right?
byEngineer 12y ago
why not to legalize something that hurts just the one who takes it? The same logic would require us to delegalize alcohol. Remember, we had booze dealers with machine guns terrorizing whole cities, like Chicago, before we came back to our senses and legalized it. Can you see Corona dealers fighting with Coors dealers for a territory to sell beer? Why not? This is the EXACT reality of 1920s in this country. I don't care if some idiots are going to kill themselves. As if we didn't have enough economic issues and ways to spend money, to spend so much on prisons, police force and all this other BS to deal with somebody's addiction. I will tell you what will happen. As 1929 crash forced us to legalize alcohol, the same way 2008 forced us to legalize weed. Hopefully next crash will force us to legalize rest of it and start making money on it to find education vs. taking money from education to keep juvenile institutions staffed with guards.
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  You don't have to be in favour of the current war on drugs to be in favour of heroin being illegal - and this is key selling heroin being illegal. Even Portugal, held up as the example of decriminalization only decriminalized possession not distribution. Being a heroin addict should be treated as a social/medical problem and people given all the help they can to get clean, but we absolutely shouldn't be encouraging people to take it up. Especially heroin which is responsible for a very high percentage of all drug related deaths.
  - byEngineer 12y ago
    of course, you just want to make sure that Al Capone still has his stream of income. And how exactly does it make it better for society at large?
  - girvo 12y ago
    Heroin + other drugs combined are responsible for a high percentage of all drug related deaths. You can make the argument that there's not much difference, because people are dumb, and I'd probably agree with you though.
    - digi_owl 12y ago
      Best i recall, the major reason for heroin deaths are that people overdose. This either because they don't know the purity of the substance, or they have tried to get clean on their own and are relapsing. The latter is particularly insidious, as the person will set up the dosage based on habit while their body has lost its resistance to the drug.
  - xtian 12y ago
    I think you've struck upon the fundamental issue when it comes to substance legalization: we've made the U.S. government the arbiter of safety. People think, "If it's legal, it must be safe." That isn't a true statement even now, but it's the mindset people bring to discussions about decriminalization. Legalization does not need to mean "encouraging people to take it up." If we want to end the war on drugs, we need to all accept responsibility for determining what is safe for ourselves. The government's role should be in providing information and support.
vertex-four 12y ago
> I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to. Not knowing much about this, could I ask why?

girvo 12y ago

Heroin is... Interesting. I was an addict for 6 years. I ran two businesses (one successfully), held down excellent jobs for amazing agencies, built cool stuff, had numerous relationships that were both good and bad. Most of heroin's issues arise because of its illegality, coupled with its price. I was spending $400 a day. It's nearly impossible to keep afloat with that sort of outgoing expense. Heroin also makes me grumpier than I typically am, and I wouldn't wish the withdrawals on my worst enemy. But on the other hand, it has few negative physical effects in the long term, which I find amazingly curious. I've been clean for three years now, and if I didn't tell you you'd never know what I'd done. That's odd, in my opinion, considering its reputation. If I'd drunk the equivalent amount of alcohol every day for six years, I'd doubt that would be the case. Like any drug, being illegal distorts the market and causes issues that wouldn't exist with it legal, however I would never want to see it legal the same way alcohol is. It's simply dangerous above and beyond things like weed. I'm truly not sure how i feel about it, to be honest. I just know that I would never use it again, regardless of its legal status.

andrey-p 12y ago
Thanks for sharing this. If you don't mind me asking, how did you find the experience of getting rid of that habit? What got you to finally try and defeat it?
- girvo 12y ago
  Getting off it was difficult. I couldn't have done it without the amazing support of my government, despite it's rather draconian drug laws. I've been clean for three years now. The impetus for getting off of it were the cost (I was using 1.5 grams per day), the illegality (I didn't want to risk my future any more). But, the key reason? I didn't want to take it any more. A well known fact among addict circles, is that there will come a time when you're done taking it. The problem is, unless you were lucky to live in a country like mine, doing so without the support of society when it is so stigmatized is supremely difficult. It's an interesting problem.
  - cryowaffle 12y ago

stickfigure 12y ago

...at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it I infer from this statement that you believe that, in the case of legalization, the price would still be high enough to require crime. Do you have any reason to believe that heroin is inherently more expensive to manufacture than, say, aspirin? Also, unless heroin addiction skews towards the top five-percenters, $3500 per week is a distant outlier.

cmdkeen 12y ago
The UK estimates that between a third and a half of all acquisitive crime in the UK is committed by class A drug users. You're assuming that in the case of legalisation there wouldn't be sin taxes, which given alcohol and cigarettes (and indeed weed) would be incredibly unlikely. The problem with heroin is that once you are abusing it you need more and more but it starts to destroy your ability to earn the funds to pay for it. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-cost-of-acquisitive-crime-caused-by-class-a-drug-users-in-the-uk https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/financial-cost-of...
- xyzzy123 12y ago
  By the point where it screws up someone's ability to earn and they don't have family money, they're no longer a functional human in society. Their other relationships are screwed, no matter which way you look at it, they're a welfare case. My experience is that "those" crimes are caused by trauma and mental illness, but I guess the drug use is the easy thing to blame. It correlates super high at that point. My experience with most of this is second-hand.
army 12y ago
Heroin still requires growing poppies. Aspirin can be be synthesized.
- stickfigure 12y ago
  Replace 'aspirin' with 'vitamin d' in my question.