Treatment, Not Prison, Way to Deal With Global Drug Epidemic... UN: Treatment, Not Prison, Way to Deal With Global Drug Epidemic June 22, 2017 — The United Nations reports about 250 million people, or 5 percent of the global adult population, used drugs in 2015, and of those, about 29.5 million suffered from drug-use disorders, including addiction. See also: Study: Few Opioid-addicted Youth Get Standard Treatment Medication June 19, 2017 — Only 1 in 4 teens and young adults with opioid addiction receive recommended treatment medication despite having good health insurance, according to a study that suggests doctors are not keeping up with the needs of youth caught up in the worst addiction crisis in U.S. history.
You don't cure an illness by treating the symptoms. The underlying cause of opioid abuse, generally related to prescription opioids as opposed to heroin, is despair. That despair is associated to social, economic, and political. The political despair is generally related to the fact that our government has abandoned the American people in favor of political party agenda. The political division of Congress must end and only the controlling political party has the means to end the division. As of this minute the GOP has the responsibility to end it's political agenda and establish a bi-partisan agenda with the Democrats so that Congress is working for the American people and not for the political party. The economic despair is generally to poverty. Poverty exists because of employment that doesn't provide adequate income for the person to support their household. We need employers to provide a living compensation package (wages and benefits) for all employment to effectively end poverty. Welfare assistance doesn't end poverty but instead merely mitigates the poverty (i.e. welfare assistance treats the symptom and not the problem). The social despair is caused by prejudice and oppression. We need to overcome our prejudice and ironically the best way to accomplish this is for political parties to acknowledge prejudice within their own demographic group and then work to eliminate it. For example a 2012 study indicated that 32% of Democrats expressed explicit anti-black prejudice and the Democratic Party needs to address this within their demographic group. The Republicans have a similar problem where the same study indicated that 79% of Republicans expressed explicit anti-black prejudice. The causes are relatively well known but not much is being done about them and overwhelmingly our elected representatives and the political parties are means by which the causes can be best addressed. Simply throwing government money at the problem doesn't work (e.g. welfare and government health care benefits) but instead we need to go deeper to the real cause such as low paying jobs, partisan politics, and ideological reform that the political parties have the power to effect.
There's perhaps one other possible solution. Develop a drug that has the same effect on the person but that is far less toxic or perhaps. like marijuana, has no toxicity level at all (i.e. a person can't die from a marijuana overdose). Let's get our pharmaceutical companies to start developing really good recreational drugs that have no medicinal value but that are generally non-toxic.
So...treat the illness by proposing an impossible cure that will NEVER be developed? A rather complex and pointless exercise in futility. An immediate and effective solution is preferred, basically providing these people with what they obviously want until they expire from getting it. Eventually the problem is solved through attrition and the solution is humane and cost effective. We could even build into the program the disposal costs to help family with residual difficulty.
It is for such reasons that the proposal of the untied states federal government simply allowing the disease to run its course has been presented for consideration. Once enough deaths occur, and their corpses are allowed to pile up in the open, the matter will ultimately resolve itself, and the drug epidemic will come to an end on its own.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I started hearing those PSA's in the 50's and nearly all of us "got it" and limited our debauchery to beer and marijuana. What kid doesn't know that heroin is an addictive killer? The kids hooked on heroin today seem despondent. Why they have no hope, I don't know, but I suspect that it has to do with the availability and "desirability" of material things and a flashy lifestyle that they can't afford. Our popular culture is in the toilet. There are good role models in entertainment (Taylor Swift) and in sports (Mike Trout, Stephen Curry). Why people prefer to follow the devil, I don't know.
As opposed to proposals for legalizing various illicit substances, that will outright guarantee addiction for millions?
Legalization does not mean open market sale. It may mean, controlled sale. Heroin and Cocaine might be distributed at special clinics at certainly under the street price. And of known quality and dose. Robin Williams was in love with cocaine and lived his last decades staying clean and fighting his desire for cocaine. I have to wonder if Robin Williams received controlled cocaine allowing occasional use, if he might be alive today. Without penalties more draconian than those for Crack Cocaine, penalties the public would not accept; No Drug Prohibition in history has ever been successful. The early Red Chinese just executed their druggies. Very draconian. Tobacco in the late 1500 could get you the death penalty in the Ottoman Empire, yet we have Turkish Tobacco. Same time in Russia they would slit your nose. Tobacco is a great model because it was "discovered" well into a time when people kept written records. We need a "Black Box" test for fitness to drive. Blood levels are meaningless. A Lush would be more dangerous dry than driving a bit sloshed. Proposed Marijuana Blood Levels are unproven. The Black Box test would apply equally to low blood sugar, medication reactions, etc. The Black Box test is about fitness to drive. It must work for the disabled driver too. A test of concentration with distractions, along with reaction time should suffice. Moi r > g
If there is even one legal source for either, how would it be prevented from these sources being hijacked, or otherwise diverted by the criminal element? How would such be guaranteed? Such cannot even be guaranteed with currently legal medications. Was his death not attributed to the suicidal side effects of the anti-depressants he was taking at the time? Which is why the proposal was made that the federal government should simply step back, and allow the matter to take its course. If the public wishes to indulge in prohibited substances they are free to do so, but at the risk of dying as a result, and being left to rot where they fall. Once enough individuals have become addicted and die miserable and painful deaths, the public will be sufficiently fed up with the matter, and the epidemic will come to an end.
I think like alcohol, we arrest people when they commit a crime while drunk, not just arrest them for drinking I do not drink, but I do not want to force my choice on others
The best solution is death penalty for all narcotrafficers, dealers and politics who support consume of drugs. The drug-addicted shall be treated in hospitals
Attempting to undersell street competition does no good, if the legal source is being hijacked before it can be delivered, and thus cannot be provided at the greatly reduced prices.
Heroin should be available for free in barracks maintained by the government. Addicts are given a bunk and sufficient dope to allow them to nod off after a day of maintaining the barracks. School children are given a tour of the facilities so they understand the choice they have to make. Addicts are indifferent to their surroundings and quite passive if supplied with their drug and can even be fairly high functioning.
Street Price includes security and the risk of prison adding to the fee. Clinic price will beat it easily. Take the last word, please.
If the legal sources for prohibited substances such as heroin are hijacked, thus meaning they cannot be delivered to clinics that can dispense it at prices far below what street dealers charge for their product, what good does the underselling approach actually accomplish? That is what is trying to be understood in this discussion. Beyond such, if various drug dealers feel that clinics are cutting in on their profits, by offering the same product at drastically lower prices, would they not regard the clinics as competition, and do everything in their power to drive them out of business, either through intimidation, or perhaps arson to destroy them? What of the law of unintended consequences? If a proposal is going to be put forth, the potential it has for causing even greater harm must be taken into consideration, in order to adequately craft how the proposal could be carried out effectively. As it is, the drug cartels in the nation of Mexico are engaging in significant violence to maintain their control on the market, including beheadings. What do you believe their agents in the united states would do, if word were to get out that clinics were offering pure heroin at pennies on the dollar in order to put them out of business?
The conservative answer is, of course, more big and intrusive government. That is always the conservative answer. The progressive answer isn't any better. You all are addicted to government as your problem-solver and savior and, really, you aren't any less violent or theft-oriented than heroin addicts. You just prefer the violence and theft be committed by others.
I wonder if getting the addicts a much more dilute form of the substance might help them. A lot of these drugs are entirely natural substances, they have just been concentrated to unnatural levels. The natives in Bolivia have been chewing Coca leaves for many hundreds of years and there have never been any reports of serious addiction (supposedly comparable to strong coffee, although some people seem to have a mild addiction to that).
Have government drug camps where people 18+ get three meals a day, a uniform, basic medical care, housing at a minimal level and all the narcotics they want with clean needles and a cremation and burial if they sign a release form. Then addicts get all the drugs they want away from society until they die.
It is when you're paying for it via taxes. A $3,000 autopsy is definitely cheaper than any other options, like education or "public awareness" or any other such nonsense.
