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I don't see any point in continuing to criminalize drugs at all. 45 years of continual Drug War has cost us trillions of dollars, caused the deaths of millions of people. here and in all the other countries that have supplied us drugs, and ruined even more lives due to the imprisonment.
Mandatory sentences didn't stop the drug use. Shorty Guzman was just extradited to the US yesterday, and faces life in prison here, but that hasn't stopped the drugs. There will always be someone to supply a need somewhere, and the cartels are a Mexican problem, not ours, I believe.
The fact is far too many Americans want drugs, use them, and depend on all kinds of them for all kinds of reasons. Trying to prohibit alcohol brought on the biggest crime wave in US history. Trying to prohibit pot for 40 years never stopped or even slowed its use, and now its legal in enough states as to make it effectively de-criminalized. And people were once electrocuted for possessing pot.
Prescription synthetic opioids and alkaloids that are far stronger and purer than heroin are cheap, easily available, and legal.
I think the only way to keep drug usage under control is early intervention, repeated until a user can stay clean. Any addictive substance is going to cause any addict to relapse. Quitting any of them is like quitting tobacco, an addictive substance. A person has to be allowed to quit as many times as it takes to quit for good. Without criminal sentencing, without social disapproval, but with as much extended help as the addict and his family needs.
None of that will stop people from using drugs. The best that can happen is a modest control on the spread and depth of the usage. For every junkie who cleans up, there will always be another who is just becoming a junkie.
I doubt we will ever quit being a pill-popping culture. Given that we rely so much on drugs of all kinds, I think the final solution, if one exists, will be found in synthetics that provide all of the benefits of opioids but don't linger in the body tissues long enough to start addiction.
Or counter-effect drugs which kill the high quickly.
Or electronic devices that interfere with the neuron pain receptors in the brain.
The real problem lies in the pain. Pain always causes associations with it. Those associations don't have to be all good to create addiction. Sometimes, the pain itself becomes addictive.
I once saw an TV documentary , over 30 years ago, on heroin addicts.
Part of it shoed how junkies become addicted to the pain of the needle alone. 5 were wired up to a syringe that would give them all a painful shock once the needle was inserted into an arm. The syringe was loaded with saline in front of them all. They all knew there was no dope in it.
When the needle was handed to one addict, as soon as he stuck the needle into a vein, they all began getting shocked. Even though the addict felt the same shock as the rest, and it hurt, the act of plunging the saline into his vein had become so addictive by itself that he was compelled to continue until it was all shot in, despite all the others yelling and cursing him.
Only time and patience is ever going to cure something like that. Nothing will work fast or cheaply. But in the end, considering how high the current price we pay for total failure, I think that removing all criminality will become a much cheaper and more effective start to a solution than anything we're doing now.
Once an addict quits wanting to get high, he quits for good. Take away the need, and the drug is worthless, no matter what the drug is.
Drugs won't get in past the wall anymore. Thread fail.
So pill mills don't ring any bells, are there Mexican illegal doctors doing that too? All I know is I grew up in NYC during the aids epidemic and crack era and no one gave a crap, hey I got it let's hyper criminalize prescription pill and heroin abuse like we did for crack.
Sure I am not saying that being an addict doesn't negatively effect friends and family, however that is a family/friends relationship issue, not a legal issue.
It's not the same as someone going on a heroin bender, breaking and entering into some stranger's home, and stealing their car. In this scenario the act of doing heroin shouldn't be prosecuted, however, the vandalism and theft should.
And it is.
Prisons are full of people who were convicted of crimes committed to get the $ to score.
Decriminalize ALL drugs and alcohol. Do NOT decriminalize actions and inactions that encroach upon another person's rights or property.
If a person abuses or neglects a spouse or their children, that is a malum in se crime because their action or inaction encroached upon the rights or property of another. Whether or not they were on drugs or alcohol does NOT change or excuse the action or inaction, nor can it justify them.
I bet everyone knows a fully functioning person who harms no one even though they use or even abuse drugs and or alcohol. Should that person be convicted of a crime when their actions and inactions do not encroach upon the rights or property of another? I don't believe they should.
BTW... I also worked at a drug and alcohol halfway house for recently released prison convicts for quite a while, and I am of the opinion that the current system caters to allowing addicts to blame their encroaching actions and inactions on having used and on their addiction. I am of the opinion that these same individuals would have committed the same crimes whether on drugs and/or alcohol or not.
This was not a reg Dr. but a 24 emergency center-I was working PT and Ins. was slim- and they were closed down- not sure why...- FL has a big problem with pill mills- they have made a lot of strides in that but - yea he was pushing it-- kick back and returns for more -hmhm -
You did not mention Florida, the epicenter of the pill mill universe, the Columbia of prescription drugs.
Was it 2005 or 2006 when Limbaugh was found to have received 2000 painkillers from 4 different doctors over a 6 month time frame from a single pharmacy in Palm Beach?
There were daily shuttle flights between airports throughout Appalachia and parts of Florida because at the time, state laws were very lax.
So yeah, I agree with your assessment. Getting patients hooked was good for repeat business.
Missouri is the only remaining state that just let's it rip.
Once an addict quits wanting to get high, he quits for good. Take away the need, and the drug is worthless, no matter what the drug is.
There's a study of Vietnam servicemen who were addicted and required to detox before returning home.
A sole researcher tracked many of them for years and concluded that only a small number relapsed which was astounding given the relapse rate within the general population.
This difference was attributed to several factors:
The potency of the dope they used back then was nothing compared to what's out there, today.
Usage in Vietnam trended more weekend warrier than the more common 3 X a day habit and there was never a certainty of supply.
Conditions changed when they got home.
All attempts at long term follow-up rely on subjects to self disclose. And sometime, people lie.
People can be come addicted to injection like anything else.
Seems to me the younger and/or longer one uses, the more likely their ability to cope with life as is without substance, diminishes. If it's not an opioid/opiate, then something else, including alcohol will do.
Decriminalize ALL drugs and alcohol. Do NOT decriminalize actions and inactions that encroach upon another person's rights or property.
If a person abuses or neglects a spouse or their children, that is a malum in se crime because their action or inaction encroached upon the rights or property of another. Whether or not they were on drugs or alcohol does NOT change or excuse the action or inaction, nor can it justify them.
I bet everyone knows a fully functioning person who harms no one even though they use or even abuse drugs and or alcohol. Should that person be convicted of a crime when their actions and inactions do not encroach upon the rights or property of another? I don't believe they should.
BTW... I also worked at a drug and alcohol halfway house for recently released prison convicts for quite a while, and I am of the opinion that the current system caters to allowing addicts to blame their encroaching actions and inactions on having used and on their addiction. I am of the opinion that these same individuals would have committed the same crimes whether on drugs and/or alcohol or not.
Again, just my opinion.
This is pretty good and mirrors my thoughts, it's makes individuals responsible for their choices.
I say, legalize drugs, but change laws so that any crime committed on drugs or with it in the perp's system gets triple the normal sentence of that crime.
So if someone assaults someone up sober, they get the normal 5 year sentence (or whatever it is).
If they're assaulting someone while high on meth (or to get meth or whatnot), they get 15 years.
Why? People drunk fight all the time.
Listen... people become cops like they become soldiers. Because their IQ's usually aren't high enough to become medical doctors. And cops and soldiers generally believe any dumb thing told them. You could tell them people in Cuba smoke a locally grown marijuana that turns them into zombies and makes them invincle to bullets. Cops and soldiers are likely to believe some nonesense like this. You know who are less likely to believe nonsense like that? Medical doctors.
If someone is "nodding" on heroin they are less a concern to me with their punches than the dude drunk with "liquid courage."
Alcohol is socially acceptable--like heterosexuality--so in the average person's mind it is innocently involved in so many drunk rapes of women. Whereas due to idiot TV images people think taking some illegal drug turns men into superhuman creatures that are capable of rapping 10 women at a time.
Listen... people become cops like they become soldiers. Because their IQ's usually aren't high enough to become medical doctors. And cops and soldiers generally believe any dumb thing told them. You could tell them people in Cuba smoke a locally grown marijuana that turns them into zombies and makes them invincle to bullets. Cops and soldiers are likely to believe some nonesense like this. You know who are less likely to believe nonsense like that? Medical doctors.
If someone is "nodding" on heroin they are less a concern to me with their punches than the dude drunk with "liquid courage."
Alcohol is socially acceptable--like heterosexuality--so in the average person's mind it is innocently involved in so many drunk rapes of women. Whereas due to idiot TV images people think taking some illegal drug turns men into superhuman creatures that are capable of rapping 10 women at a time.
You have to excuse people who grew up with PSA's that thought them just that.
And it is.
Prisons are full of people who were convicted of crimes committed to get the $ to score.
I know, but the topic of this thread is whether or not the act of doing heroin should be prosecuted.
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