Should drugs be decriminalized?

Quote: kenarman

That is what the safe injection site is about AZD. They will test the drugs if you ask. Clean new needle every time and help if you do OD. Seems like a great idea but it isn't helping the problem.

I have a bit of a problem with all this. It is called "enabling." Thing is, are they always going to go to the injection site or just time to time. How can a medical professional ethically help someone shoot heroin? And it is proven that the clean needles end up as litter all over the place.

IMHO it is not helping because you are dealing with junkies. Junkies cannot be trusted for anything, ever. There is a reason the mafia has a strict rule banning using that stuff.

Quote: kenarman

That is what the safe injection site is about AZD. They will test the drugs if you ask. Clean new needle every time and help if you do OD. Seems like a great idea but it isn't helping the problem.

What's the metric for success? Personally, I don't believe you should force people to accept help if they keep refusing. I may be a bleeding heart liberal, but after offering a reasonable amount of help, if people still refuse and die, I don't count that as failure. Not gonna force people to stay alive if they continue to want to circle the drain.

Quote: rxwine

What's the metric for success? Personally, I don't believe you should force people to accept help if they keep refusing. I may be a bleeding heart liberal, but after offering a reasonable amount of help, if people still refuse and die, I don't count that as failure. Not gonna force people to stay alive if they continue to want to circle the drain.

The reason that the injection sites were put in was to prevent overdose deaths. The sites haven't accomplished that goal. They also provide clean needles but druggies have lots of places to get clean needles for free.

I have never been a drug user but unfortunately have been much closer to the scene my whole life than I would have wished. I don't see an easy way out of the situation we are in now and don't think relaxing our laws have helped.

Quote: kenarman

The reason that the injection sites were put in was to prevent overdose deaths. The sites haven't accomplished that goal. They also provide clean needles but druggies have lots of places to get clean needles for free.

I have never been a drug user but unfortunately have been much closer to the scene my whole life than I would have wished. I don't see an easy way out of the situation we are in now and don't think relaxing our laws have helped.

I wish they would focus more on behavior effects here. If you start this drug, you soon may not be able to stop. The addicted user will continue to use (crack, meth, heroin) for so many months, years until jailed, dead, bankrupt, homeless, lost job, broken family, lost friends, hospital visits, medical emergencies

I know there are stats somewhere on all this.

Quote: AZDuffman

We have history to look at. In the late 1800s and early 1900s you could buy heroin, cocaine, and opium at your corner store. It was making the USA a nation of dope fiends. In the 60s and 70s doctors wrote a ton of prescriptions for speed in the form of diet pills. Results were not good.

I am not advocating that. I don't even want people to be able to use in public. But, at specific clinics there is a good argument, this also keeps people from using in streets and parks.

I mean we have had those drugs criminalized since (I forget, but at least 50 years probably), and the rates continue to rise, so strict criminality is not working either.

I know some of it is complicated, because of the prescriptions for pain killers get cutoff and then people look for alternatives (pretty much everyone I know personally who abuses -uses- heroin started with long term prescriptions for some kind of pain killer and then got cut off. I don't think I know anyone who just went out and started using heroin for fun).

I don't know the data on this, but it would not surprise me if legal prescriptions initiate a lot of illegal drug abuse (at least on the heroin front, I know coke is very different).

IMHO, wouldn't decriminalizing Drugs take out a lot of the "allure," of doing drugs? A lot of people get a rush just off of doing something that is illegal. If buying and selling drugs is decriminalized, a lot of people would be like,"I really don't want to buy drugs anymore now that it's legal."

People in Kansas are excited
Next door Missouri may legalize
Missouri smart, they want to tax revenue
Dumb Kansas doesn't want that revenue
You get the dumb govt you vote for, right Tanko :-)


https://www.yahoo.com/news/missouri-approves-recreational-marijuana-kansas-100000178.html

Weed use cuts across all economic and social strata.

When I went to The South for college in 1970, I soon discovered that the "good old boys" loved weed as much as we northern hippies did.

Quote: missedhervee

Weed use cuts across all economic and social strata.

When I went to The South for college in 1970, I soon discovered that the "good old boys" loved weed as much as we northern hippies did.

When out on the lake on a pontoon boat with an old friend and all her Trumper girlfriends
We had a good time on the lake
Those Trumper women love to smoke pot.
It's the only thing everybody in the country can agree on

They said this is their National anthem