Why are we dumping so much money into the "fight against drug abuse"? (interview, Mexican)
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The prohibitionists are getting really desperate. All in the name of "The Children! The Children! What about the Children?", when in reality many of these innocent victims of this travesty of justice will never fully recover from the ordeal.
This is just one aspect of the carnage caused by prohibition, there are many others. The reason why Harm Reduction techniques work so well, as we wait for prohibition to slowly end, is because the damage being caused by this stupid War against a plant is so profound.
I wish prohibitionists could take a step back from their narrow focus and actually see the damage they are causing. This is like 100 years ago, all over again.
I agree 100% and CPS is in it for the money, they get huge amounts of money for every child they kidnap. Two separate sources cite payments of $85,000 in federal money for each baby CPS steals and puts up for adoption:
hell yes. one thin dime would be too much. Adults should have the inherent right to put whatever they want into their own bodies. If they break other laws, then bust their heads/lock them up for those other things, which ARE effecting other people. The dope, itself, is not doing so, nor is making/selling it, anymore than growing or selling tobacco is making fools smoke.
The contention that we're throwing a lot of money at solving the problem is simply not true:
$116 million / $4 trillion = 0.000029 of the federal budget.
Nor is the problem a small one:
Quote:
In 2016, the latest year with a full official count, there were nearly 64,000 drug overdose deaths in the US — an all-time high. The rise in drug overdose deaths was a big reason that life expectancy fell for the second year in a row in the US, which had not happened since the early 1960s. And the early data suggests that 2017 was worse: According to preliminary figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were nearly 67,000 drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period through June 2017, up from more than 57,000 in the 12-month period through June 2016. If the worst trends continue, STAT forecast that as many as 650,000 people will die within the next decade — the equivalent of the entire population of Baltimore.
Quote:
One of the big problems is a lack of access to addiction treatment: According to a 2016 report by the surgeon general, only about 10 percent of people with a substance use disorder get specialized treatment. The report attributed the gap, in part, to a lack of supply of treatment — an issue that simply requires more money to deal with.
The contention that we're throwing a lot of money at solving the problem is simply not true: $116 million / $4 trillion = 0.000029 of the federal budget.
we should get every (adult) addicted as we can, by giving it away, encouraging it, etc, and then put some slowacting poison in it. Good riddance to weak minded pos's. Same with tobacco and booze, of course. Wth is the matter with you, when your normal self is not good enough? What loss would they be, really?
[quote=2sleepy;52834630]I'm not sure how you came up with $116 million because close to 28 billion is the projected spending by the federal government for drug control in 2018 Economics of Drug Policy and the Drug War | Drug War Facts[/QUOTE
and all the crime based upon the high price of the dope, when those thefts, beatings, murders, etc would not happen if the dope costs what aspirin cost? HOw much fighting over turf to sell aspirin, hmm?
On average, each heroin user costs society nearly $51,000 a year. An estimated 1 million people in the United States are active heroin users, the study authors said.
The cost per user is much higher than for people with chronic illnesses. In 2015 dollars, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, for example, costs society $2,567 per patient, or $38.5 billion for 15 million patients; and diabetes, $11,148 per patient, or $248.6 billion for 22 million patients.
Researchers found that just after the turn of the millennium, 0.33% of the adult population reported having used heroin at some point in their life, but 10 years later it had risen to 1.6% – a figure corresponding to about 3.8m Americans.
“There are more people in the US using heroin, there are more people that meet criteria for heroin addiction, and we are seeing increases in all different social strata, in different age groups, in both sexes,” said Silvia Martins, lead author of the research from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
While the boom in heroin use is widespread, the study reveals that the rise is steeper for particular groups. Among them, white individuals showed a greater increase than non-white, with an almost six-fold increase in heroin use, rising from 0.34% to 1.9% over the decade.
The number of heroin addicts has increased roughly five-fold (as a percentage of the adult population) in the last 20 years, so overdose deaths have not led to a decrease in total heroin addicts, but far from it. A plan that relies on overdose deaths to reduce addiction is doomed to failure.
It was in response to the initial post in this thread:
Quote:
Cost estimates: The NIH currently spends about $116 million a year on opioid use disorder research, mostly through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers. To accelerate the agency’s various research initiatives, Collins says, the NIH would need four or five times the current spending—or roughly $500 million a year. (The NIH’s annual budget is set by Congress, although the organization’s directors then decide what priorities to fund within their budget.) ( Opioid Crisis: What Experts Say It Would Cost to Fix It | Money )
Why the Hell is our government throwing so much money at a problem that is for the most part self induced? Isn't this money better spent on cancer, heart disease and other diseases that plague mankind?
I'm saying it is not a lot of money, but in fact a piddling amount.
Pretty much, yeah... Heroin has been a problem in black and hispanic areas for a very long time and it was very conveniently brushed under the rug, users and dealers were cycled in and out of prison but there was never any thought given to rehab or methadone, those things only become the focus when suburban upper middle class whites are impacted
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