[andyt]

Curtman Curtman:

The Taliban, the cartels, the biker gangs.. It's prohibition that creates the lucrative market they thrive on. They wouldn't be producing it if they weren't making tonnes of cash doing it. It ought to be tax revenue instead of profit for them.

I don't agree since we're talking about heroin. I don't ever see heroin taxed and sold the way booze is now. Legalizing and regulating heroin is about using it for pain management and to give to addicts who can't kick it after trying, to reduce harm to them and society. And in fact since dilaudid seems to work just as well for that purpose as horse, we should be using it since it's cheaper and produced here instead of Astan.

So, since it would never be sold in large quantity, there would always exist a black market and enforcement efforts to reduce that market. What we need to do tho, is put more much more money into reducing demand for hard drugs - as people say, treat it as a medical issue, not a criminal one.

The reason I commented on this story isn't because I'm in favor of a heroin aisle in your local booze shop, but because of the self-congratulatory tone of the first few comments, as if in the scheme of things this one seizure will make any difference at all. Plenty more where that came from. And obviously the seizures aren't even doing what Lemmy said they should - raise the price, since we know that the price has dropped substantially over the years. Demand is maybe up a bit, but supply is way up, it seems.

[andyt]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

So, if we let the stuff in unencombered, all of the bad guys go away. Prohibition is over. No more junkies. No more Taliban.

Let's do it then. Get rid of prohibition and get rid of all of the evil.

[Curtman]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

So, if we let the stuff in unencombered, all of the bad guys go away. Prohibition is over. No more junkies. No more Taliban.

Let's do it then. Get rid of prohibition and get rid of all of the evil.

Unencumbered? Regulation is the antithesis of that. Prohibition isn't that either, but the gangsters control pricing, purity, and availability. Its very close.

How do you deal with someone who wants to try heroin for the first time, that's the real question. I'm afraid I don't have an answer except to say that it should involve at the very least a meeting with a health care professional, some education about its effects, and probably a meeting with someone recovering from the addiction. That would be a lot better than what we have now.

[Jabberwalker]

$1:

How do you deal with someone who wants to try heroin for the first time, that's the real question. I'm afraid I don't have an answer except to say that it should involve at the very least a meeting g with a health care professional, some education about its effects, and probably a meeting with someone recovering from addiction.

You KNOW that it won't happen. As I said, injecting "stuff" ... any stuff at all into your veins is not a rational act. It certainly isn't a "lifestyle choice".

[saturn_656]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

$1:

How do you deal with someone who wants to try heroin for the first time, that's the real question. I'm afraid I don't have an answer except to say that it should involve at the very least a meeting g with a health care professional, some education about its effects, and probably a meeting with someone recovering from addiction.

You KNOW that it won't happen. As I said, injecting "stuff" ... any stuff at all into your veins is not a rational act. It certainly isn't a "lifestyle choice".

People injecting hard drugs need to be detained and provided with some "mandatory counselling".

In a mental health facility.

[Curtman]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

$1:

How do you deal with someone who wants to try heroin for the first time, that's the real question. I'm afraid I don't have an answer except to say that it should involve at the very least a meeting g with a health care professional, some education about its effects, and probably a meeting with someone recovering from addiction.

You KNOW that it won't happen. As I said, injecting "stuff" ... any stuff at all into your veins is not a rational act. It certainly isn't a "lifestyle choice".

I look out for my family, and I only advocate a lifestyle choice by example. It's none of my business if someone wants to inject themselves with apathy, other than my compassion that wishes they wouldn't. Whether its rational or not, it's their choice to make and legislation won't change it. Regulation can give us tools that are more effective than prohibition can. We can track usage and target treatment, we can discourage use with more taxation, or discourage trafficking with less. We can control purity to decrease death.

It doesn't make sense to jail people who suffer, or to enable the people who take advantage of them by putting profit in their pocket.

[Jabberwalker]

Well, good luck to you. The stuff is a deadly poison and if some capitalist pig-dog grocery chain deliberately put deadly poison in your food "for that clientelle who may WANT deadly poison in their food" I dare say that you would probably be outraged and call for the jailing of the poisoners. If not, perhaps its because you just don't give a shit.

[Curtman]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

Well, good luck to you. The stuff is a deadly poison and if some capitalist pig-dog grocery chain deliberately put deadly poison in your food "for that clientelle who may WANT deadly poison in their food" I dare say that you would probably be outraged and call for the jailing of the poisoners. If not, perhaps its because you just don't give a shit.

If you hang a sign at the cash register that says "THIS FOOD IS POISON", and they buy it. I'm still not going to join any mob with you guys.

Street gangs are the pig-dog grocery chain. They are the retail end of black market drugs. Prohibition gives them and the whole supply chain a monopoly.

[Jabberwalker]

Boy, you ARE libertarian!

I was right, you don't give a shit.

[andyt]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

The stuff is a deadly poison

Heroin is deadly because the effective dose is close to the lethal dose. If you get heroin of known dosage, and you know what dose you can handle (tolerance goes up with continued use) it's otherwise not very dangerous or poisonous at all. You'll be constipated and not have much of a sex drive, is all. The other negative effects of injecting heroin are mostly about the fact it's sold on the street, who knows what's in it, and that druggies share needles etc. And the crime that goes along with having to find the money to pay for it.

Compare that to alcohol, which really is a poison and does all kinds of damage to your body if you're a more than a light drinker. Or cigs - can you say toxic?