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Treating users has a cost, and while there already are problems with healthcare, I don't know if it's possible to spend money to treat users. taxpayers would mo

by jokoon 12y ago

Treating users has a cost, and while there already are problems with healthcare, I don't know if it's possible to spend money to treat users. taxpayers would moan. A more viable solution would be to license hard drugs to pharmacists, and notify health department and non-profits so that they can help users. I agree that it's an error to criminalize them, but you should also discourage people to use hard drugs like heroin and meth. Putting a frame around the use of drugs is a good idea, but it's also important for public health to not send a mixed message. Obsoleting the dealer is one thing, but don't forget the users.

melling 12y ago
We are already paying both directly and indirectly with drug enforcement costs, immigration, etc. If Mexico, for example, becomes a less violent country, and the economy grows, fewer people will cross the border. In fact, more Americans would retire in Central America if some of those counties stabilized.
- sogen 12y ago
  not so sure, gangs are becoming MORE violent, affecting the general population: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9348322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9348322
donkeyd 12y ago
> Treating users has a cost "[In 2012] the annual average taxpayer cost in these states was $31,286 per inmate." If you start treating people you need less law enforcement and you get less inmates. And then you haven't even considered the less obvious damage that drug related convictions cause, like not being able to find a job and relying on welfare. Children of convicted drug abusers growing up in a bad environment and being more vulnerable to addiction and crime. Most arguments against decriminalization are extremely short sighted, just look at the positive effect it's having in Portugal. Drug use might not be severely affected, but the surrounding factors are slowly improving: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-portugal-setting-record-straight http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-portugal-...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
vidarh 12y ago
Taxpayers may moan, but it makes little sense. Daily maintenance doses of heroin for a typical addict costs less than $20 (we know, because medical grade heroin is in use in a number of countries for post-op pain). Compare that to the cost of policing, or incarcerating these users, and health care costs that are massively exacerbated by impurities and unknown dose strengths, and offering free prescriptions for pure versions of many drugs would likely save us massive amounts of money. Especially when indirect crimes (e.g. robberies to finance drug habits) are taken into account, as well as reduced tax revenues (from drug addicts that are unable to function in work places due to the current system). Getting people to stop using would be preferable, but it is not realistic to get most people to even start to deal with until they're not hounded by police and spending most of their time struggling to scrounge up the money for their next hit. I'd be willing to bet that even in purely economic terms, handing free drugs to most drug addicts in clean forms and predictable doses would likely have a massive ROI for society even in purely economic terms because of the reduced damage - both to users health and due to crime - and increased tax revenue from actually getting many of these addicts back to relatively normal lives (even most heroin addicts can function relatively normally when they don't have to worry about where their next hit is going to come from). In human terms, the suffering that is directly caused by criminalisation of many of these drugs today is downright disgusting - we'd be hard pressed to come up with anything worse (unless we allow unregulated marketing and sales to children or something).
bko 12y ago
Don't we already license hard drugs to pharmacist? Most hard drugs are available via prescription. Heroin is diamorphine, methamphetamine is Desoxyn, etc. Other prescription drugs are even more dangerous. The problem isn't that these substances aren't available. It's more of a problem of who they're available to. If you're wealthy and informed, you can probably shop doctors or get prescribed a strong pain killer and even have insurance to pay for it. The less fortunate have to risk their lives to get the same kick with an inferior and less controlled product.
WhitneyLand 12y ago
I think the precedent and willingness to spend huge amounts of money to treat self inflicted problems is pretty well established. Lung cancer, liver damage, sleep apnea, auto accidents, etc. Not to mention one of the main points of approaching this whole situation differently is that treating users and decimalization may actually save money overall.

by jokoon 12y ago

melling 12y ago

We are already paying both directly and indirectly with drug enforcement costs, immigration, etc. If Mexico, for example, becomes a less violent country, and the economy grows, fewer people will cross the border. In fact, more Americans would retire in Central America if some of those counties stabilized.

sogen 12y ago
not so sure, gangs are becoming MORE violent, affecting the general population: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9348322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9348322

donkeyd 12y ago

> Treating users has a cost "[In 2012] the annual average taxpayer cost in these states was $31,286 per inmate." If you start treating people you need less law enforcement and you get less inmates. And then you haven't even considered the less obvious damage that drug related convictions cause, like not being able to find a job and relying on welfare. Children of convicted drug abusers growing up in a bad environment and being more vulnerable to addiction and crime. Most arguments against decriminalization are extremely short sighted, just look at the positive effect it's having in Portugal. Drug use might not be severely affected, but the surrounding factors are slowly improving: http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-portugal-setting-record-straight http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-portugal-...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

vidarh 12y ago

Taxpayers may moan, but it makes little sense. Daily maintenance doses of heroin for a typical addict costs less than $20 (we know, because medical grade heroin is in use in a number of countries for post-op pain). Compare that to the cost of policing, or incarcerating these users, and health care costs that are massively exacerbated by impurities and unknown dose strengths, and offering free prescriptions for pure versions of many drugs would likely save us massive amounts of money. Especially when indirect crimes (e.g. robberies to finance drug habits) are taken into account, as well as reduced tax revenues (from drug addicts that are unable to function in work places due to the current system). Getting people to stop using would be preferable, but it is not realistic to get most people to even start to deal with until they're not hounded by police and spending most of their time struggling to scrounge up the money for their next hit. I'd be willing to bet that even in purely economic terms, handing free drugs to most drug addicts in clean forms and predictable doses would likely have a massive ROI for society even in purely economic terms because of the reduced damage - both to users health and due to crime - and increased tax revenue from actually getting many of these addicts back to relatively normal lives (even most heroin addicts can function relatively normally when they don't have to worry about where their next hit is going to come from). In human terms, the suffering that is directly caused by criminalisation of many of these drugs today is downright disgusting - we'd be hard pressed to come up with anything worse (unless we allow unregulated marketing and sales to children or something).

bko 12y ago

Don't we already license hard drugs to pharmacist? Most hard drugs are available via prescription. Heroin is diamorphine, methamphetamine is Desoxyn, etc. Other prescription drugs are even more dangerous. The problem isn't that these substances aren't available. It's more of a problem of who they're available to. If you're wealthy and informed, you can probably shop doctors or get prescribed a strong pain killer and even have insurance to pay for it. The less fortunate have to risk their lives to get the same kick with an inferior and less controlled product.

WhitneyLand 12y ago

I think the precedent and willingness to spend huge amounts of money to treat self inflicted problems is pretty well established. Lung cancer, liver damage, sleep apnea, auto accidents, etc. Not to mention one of the main points of approaching this whole situation differently is that treating users and decimalization may actually save money overall.