Thoughts on legalizing heroin

[TBO]

I know it will never happen, but if heroin was legalized, you would have a lot less deaths. Addicts would know that they were getting a purified product (no elephant tranquilizer, etc.) We've already proven that you can't control these illegal activities. How long did Prohibition last before the govt finally went OK to booze again? Obviously the drug cartels are so organized and with advanced technology and with enough money to bribe every high level official looking the other way, it wouldn't be legalized, but is it worth it to bring up the subject to the public. Addicts will be addicts, no matter what, but if it was legalized, can you imagine the Super Bowl commercials for the new and improved crap?
-=BDD=-

Feelings w/o facts

Sent from my Jackboot using Copatalk

[Moshe]

27 minutes ago, Historian said:

I felt we should have actually alerted Eric.  A civil debate has occurred.  He might want to post a Wiki page on the topic.  It can happen.  It might actually…be a first in internet history.

I will give you the rights versus power. I should have expressed that better. All powers not enumerated in the constitution belong to the states.  However, companies have rights.   They are considered people in the eye of the court. 

Nevertheless, I digress.

Historically speaking I think many of the laws you think would appall our founding fathers have been created by situations and events that would have appalled them in the first place.    The world is not the same place it was in 1776. 

Massive wide-spread issues related to drug abuse and trafficking did not exist in an America with a population of 2.5 million versus the interconnected system of nations we have today with a US population of 327.2 billion last year.  We simply did not have an infrastructure, industrialization, population, or even international connectivity we do today.   Let alone our understanding of how these things meld together to the good, or bad, of the common good.

Some drugs were legal in the past.  You could buy at one time opium on the market.  But that was then. Laws have changed.  People have changed.  Values changed.  Understanding of economics, dangers, health issues all changed…mostly with the scientific and industrial revolutions.  Our laws have changed to reflected our current perspectives.

The reason the eight points are valid is that the money involved allows people to kill each other over ideology related to those two major influences of money and religion.

You could legalize the business of heroin.  However, the infrastructure to produce it will rapidly develop from the people who currently make it.   IBM is not going to stand up IB-Heroin.  It is not their interest.  In addition, the structure already is there with the large-scale cartels.  Money at this scale: Is a religion.

Heroin is a commodity.  Just like coffee.  In addition, when the value is established legally then there will be an illegal commodity market that ensures those who cannot afford Byer brand heroin can get theirs from a locally supplied unlicensed pharmaceutical distributor (drug dealer).

The cartels are not going to disappear once the product is made legal. Furthermore, there are plenty of business in the world whose purpose is to do wrong in the name of “good.”    Just look at the infiltration of Chinese business workings by their intelligence and military services.

The Chinese company that controls who enters the Panama Canal and leaves…does not have a world-wide mutual well-being in mind.  It is the Chinese exerting control. 

Even if you could replace the cartels by making the drug legal…you would be allowing people to purchase a product that is known to kill and destroy.  There is no other benefit of heroin.

My experience is that people who break laws tend to break more than one. Very few people are selective criminals.  When it comes to people who do drugs…they tend to break other laws.  Take a look at the statistics I have shown you in the previous link. 

You cannot get a DUI if you do not drink. You are more likely to get involved in a violent act if you associate with people who sell illegal drugs.  There is a proximity issue here. Your environment will increase the probability of you being involved with a crime.   In short, stupid people do stupid things.  If you keep the company of dangerous people, you can expect to be in danger.

You can remove the illegality of it...but that will not keep it from having ramifications just the same.   Removing the economic value of the drug’s street price and replacing it with a price based on the open market does not solve that problem.  It creates new problems. 

You are focused on this concept of individual liberty.   However, drug use does not affect just one person and quoted Ben Franklyn with his famous quote regarding liberty and safety.

Where is the safety and liberty of people who do not use drugs when forced to live with with people who do?   You are giving one party, the drug user, rights that supersede the right’s people who live within the same community who do not use drugs.

In fact, I dare say, those in the throes of addiction have already given up their liberty and safety to whatever brand of poison has gripped them.  Why should they trample on your rights as their lives are sucked into the abyss?

The failure is seen in the documentary "Murder Mountain."  It covers the so-called emerald mountain with and without legalization the murder rate did not decline.  When all the regulations, and taxes came down, the now "legal" growers found they could not make the money they used to.  Then they went back into bootlegging to make that money, and people were still being murdered at stupid rate, to hide the illegal growing.  Money has been the route of all evil, just as a Yeshua said.  You cannot love both G-d and money.  There are usually three reasons for murder: Jealousy, Money, and Revenge.  It is pretty universal.  I have two dogs, that are enormously jealous of each other.  Both striving against the other for affection.  So, with higher brained animals, jealousy exists.  In the primate family of chimps, they have been known to murder each other for the same motive of jealousy.

So, when it comes to regulation and taxation, it didn't work.  Prior to and after there was still an illegal trade and murders kept carrying on.  That was just marijuana.  Imagine if it were poppy plants how more devastating it would be.  The solution is terrible, but effective.  You introduce, and I am sure that is what happened with some of the fentanyl a poison into the illicit drug population.  Demand drives crime and murder.  A fear of demand stops it, and the potential agitated, highly aggressive heroin addicts.  Because, as explained, heroin addicts when high are busy dying by AIDS, (dirty needles, and overdoses), which still bogs down emergency services and passes disease on when a responder is poked by a sharp that is used for injection.  Then when or if they recover from the above, that is when they become violent.  Because, they will do anything, kill anyone, for that next fix.

[tous]

To echo kidd of wyzz, thank you for a most interesting discussion, amigos.

[Dric902]

We had a foster child, infant girl, born with a heroine addiction

no thanks

[tous]

The libertarian argument goes only so far.

As mentioned in numerous rebuttals, addicted people are either unable or unwilling to participate in life beyond satisfying their addiction, no?

They can't or won't hold a job, have no means of providing shelter or sustenance for themselves beyond stealing what they want.

Yes, some addicts have the means to be constantly intoxicated while maintaining home and diet, but those are rare.

 

So, what does society owe the indolent that refuse to care for themselves beyond their next high?

Do we owe them shelter, food, entertainment as well as a ready supply of their drug of choice?

Are we expected to never criticize, never judge their actions as detrimental to the rest of us?

The libertarians will assert that the government doesn't have the right to restrict what one injects into their body, but does the government have the right, nay, the duty to protect those that exist without being continually intoxicated and helpless from being victims of that addiction?

I do not owe addicts food, shelter or entertainment and a ready, free supply of their drug of choice, nor do I owe them forgiveness when they murder the innocent by their actions, such as operating a motor vehicle when they can barely walk without falling over; actions they choose.

If you can't get your high for today, it isn't my fault and I'll be damned if I allow you to take the fruit of my labor, either through taxes or outright theft to satisfy your profound selfishness.

 

[janice6]

When your priority consists of only a chemically induced state of mind.  You're on your own.  

[Moshe]

12 minutes ago, janice6 said:

When your priority consists of only a chemically induced state of mind.  You're on your own.  

Yes, you are its bitch, not the other way round.  Just like a rather rotund guy I know.  He say Ms. Debbie is his bitch.  I think Ms. Debbie went full on dominatrix.  Now, past the humorous silly schtick.  The problem never stays just at home.  Nancy Pelosi's district is full of heroin addicts, who use dirty needs and **** in department stores in the display section.  You see when it inevitably affects society, as it does, then it is no longer a Libertarian issue.  When I have to avoid a sea of heroin addicts riled up looking for their next fix, deal with the refuge of feces and sharps.  That stopped being a YOU issue and became an US issue.  That is the flaw in the argument.  It has been shown over and over, it never stays just at home-ever.

https://www.wmur.com/article/man-overdoses-on-heroin-crashes-into-pedestrian-police-say/24287913

I cherry picked just one of many, many examples on google search.

I refuse to drive anywhere after taking any pain medication.  But frankly, other people around here in traffic irritate me with the silly things they do.  But, that maybe like a woman who was arrested years ago, they may be on pain medication while drinking vodka to make it that much more intense, as they bought it off the black market to begin with.  Or, stole it. 

Medication is there for people who legitimately need it.  That is what its intended use is for.  Addiction?  No.  If I stop it for a week the only side effect is severe pain, and using the toilet more than I would like.  The end.  I don't go to pain management, because it is joyous to talk to a guy from India, whose method detecting pain is squeezing the hell out of the parts that do, until you are about to pound your EDC knife through his eye socket, he stops.  Good times.   That is what pain management is for.  Doctor's prefer to distance themselves from that in their practice as much as possible, and herd people to pain management.  It is like the voyage of the damned in sheol's waiting room. 

[refugeepj]

12 minutes ago, Moshe said:

Medication is there for people who legitimately need it.

my ex lady friend was using that option, for thirty years.

after she decided to take 70 (yes, 70) 30mg oxys and 15 Paxil to escape her pain, she became a vegetable for several months. my guess is the only reason she did not succeed is the long term use (abuse).

now home, and somewhat functional, it is her family that is living the nightmare of what became her addiction.

should this be legal?

no. it should be as limited as society can make it.

enabling is not the answer.

[Moshe]

8 minutes ago, refugeepj said:

my ex lady friend was using that option, for thirty years.

after she decided to take 70 (yes, 70) 30mg oxys and 15 Paxil to escape her pain, she became a vegetable for several months. my guess is the only reason she did not succeed is the long term use (abuse).

now home, and somewhat functional, it is her family that is living the nightmare of what became her addiction.

should this be legal?

no. it should be as limited as society can make it.

enabling is not the answer.

Sounds like she wanted to die.  I wonder who gave her Oxy?  And why?  They tried giving that to me after a surgery.  It did nothing the for the pain and just caused constipation. I told them to take it back and issue something that would work.  They refused.  I ended up flushing them.  People react to different stimuli differently.  Some people go to a subscription machine rather than a real doctor.  That is, again, how I know one woman, who has a singular back problem.  Not like the erector set I own.  She is hooked on some idiot back east that gave her morphine back in MD, then she moved here and asked what I did for my back problems.  Steroid injections until they stop working then it is the knife.  She has a singular spot, probably from being morbidly obese, and said she wasn't into that, she wanted to know who was issuing morphine.  I said, to my knowledge, no one, except hospice.  So, she went well out of her way after her husband's company moved across Texas just to find some guy Nacadoches that would give it to her.  She was an addict in search of an enabler.  When they find one, they will help you to end up like the above.

[refugeepj]

21 minutes ago, Moshe said:

Sounds like she wanted to die.  I wonder who gave her Oxy?  And why?  They tried giving that to me after a surgery.  It did nothing the for the pain and just caused constipation. I told them to take it back and issue something that would work.  They refused.  I ended up flushing them.  People react to different stimuli differently.  Some people go to a subscription machine rather than a real doctor.  That is, again, how I know one woman, who has a singular back problem.  Not like the erector set I own.  She is hooked on some idiot back east that gave her morphine back in MD, then she moved here and asked what I did for my back problems.  Steroid injections until they stop working then it is the knife.  She has a singular spot, probably from being morbidly obese, and said she wasn't into that, she wanted to know who was issuing morphine.  I said, to my knowledge, no one, except hospice.  So, she went well out of her way after her husband's company moved across Texas just to find some guy Nacadoches that would give it to her.  She was an addict in search of an enabler.  When they find one, they will help you to end up like the above.

thirty years of prescription pain killers.

dosages increased over time, and the trigger seems to be a gradual reduction by a responsible pain management specialist.

 at one point she had scripts (from the same doctor) for Oxy, Norco and Vicodin. also Paxil and Xanax as well as muscle relaxers.

she became a zombie. cigarettes falling out of her mouth, burning herself, the furniture and carpets. nodding out wherever she was.

I was prescribed one 10mg Oxy, three times a day, after total knee replacements.

hated that crap. the pain was more desirable. flushed them.

how she ever functioned with the doses she took is a wonder!

she told me she had a good deal of street drug experience as a girl, and I feel her physical pain was just an excuse to get drugs legally, and continue.

when we met, it was not such an issue. but the increases over the years was terribly destructive.

I understand there were some other underlying issues from her childhood that likely helped her desire the "escape." both the drugs, and her attempted final solution. 

her youngest daughter (not mine by blood, but absolutely mine my choice), is now her primary caregiver. we talk daily, and I keep up on the two ladies. the daughter is one fine young lady, and calls me dad. I could not be more proud of that woman. 

 

[Moshe]

My escapism is through stupid games on my phone, or watching something funny.  I find humor is helpful for pain.  When I am feeling screwed up on a really bad day, I don't think I need to be watching "Van Helssing" on Netflix.  Something stupid like Family Guy or the Orville is vastly more helpful.  I don't know anyone who had a glorious childhood, except maybe my kids.

[Paul53]

Having seen the revolving door of overdosing, my sugestion, as I've shared before;

Revive someone with narcan, they get an indelible ink "N" on the forehead. Anybody with 2 n's gets a toe tag instead, marked suicide.

[Huaco Kid]

I got a lot of heavy-duty stuff after surgery and mostly stayed on it through several months of chemo.  If I took stuff more often then prescribed,  I didn't get over-doped and stoned,  it would actually wind me up and make me very restless.  I'd only take the first dose in the morning, and maybe the next one,  just until I got moving around and then I wouldn't take any more for the rest of the day.

When the prescriptions ran out,  my doctor asked how it was going and I said, "fine".  I was surprised that she was surprised that I quit them so easily.

[ASH]

you wanna see chaos  lol   ban alcohol  again  .  have the same punishment for people caught with alcohol .  80% of this country would be in prison rofl

[ASH]

19 minutes ago, Huaco Kid said:

I got a lot of heavy-duty stuff after surgery and mostly stayed on it through several months of chemo.  If I took stuff more often then prescribed,  I didn't get over-doped and stoned,  it would actually wind me up and make me very restless.  I'd only take the first dose in the morning, and maybe the next one,  just until I got moving around and then I wouldn't take any more for the rest of the day.

When the prescriptions ran out,  my doctor asked how it was going and I said, "fine".  I was surprised that she was surprised that I quit them so easily.

same here thru my surgeries and some bad surgeries ,  i was on percs for 2 months   ,  after i healed no pain i was ok , never felt addicted 

or nothing .  i remember one surgery i had  surgeon gave me bottle of 100   , this was back in  95   hell i took maybe 20   but the bottle stayed in medicine chest   for month  and this was back when they gave refills.  i guess some people have addictive genes  in their body because i dunno what it is , because i hated that fucked up feeling .

[Mike]

I would be all for the immediate stop of using tax money to give these addicts Narcan when they OD. It is a waste of money and resources. 

[PATCHMAN]

To argue that drugs should be legal because drug users only harm themselves is silly.

And where does money for free needles, safe injection sites, staffing of drug counselors, first responders, hundreds of thousands of doses of Narcan, ER visits and nightly cleanup teams as in SF and Vancouver  get funded from?  Private donations or our taxes?

There's also the monetary value of having tent cities encamped in public spaces.

Let's also not forget about the costs of crimes committed by drug users looking to fund their next high. Who's going to make the victim whole?    

       

Edited April 4, 2019 by PATCHMAN

[ASH]

13 minutes ago, PATCHMAN said:

To argue that drugs should be legal because drug users only harm themselves is silly.

And where does money for free needles, safe injection sites, staffing of drug counselors, first responders, hundreds of thousands of doses of Narcan, ER visits and nightly cleanup teams as in SF and Vancouver  get funded from?  Private donations or our taxes?

There's also the monetary value of having tent cities encamped in public spaces.

Let's also not forget about the costs of crimes committed by drug users looking to fund their next high. Who's going to make the victim whole?    

       

i thought it was colorado  .  

[PATCHMAN]

11 minutes ago, ASH said:

i thought it was colorado  .  

Thinking was your first mistake. 

Edited April 4, 2019 by PATCHMAN

[ASH]

1 minute ago, PATCHMAN said:

Thinking was your first mistake. 

boozer heh

[PATCHMAN]

24 minutes ago, PATCHMAN said:

To argue that drugs should be legal because drug users only harm themselves is silly.

And where does money for free needles, safe injection sites, staffing of drug counselors, first responders, hundreds of thousands of doses of Narcan, ER visits and nightly cleanup teams as in SF and Vancouver  get funded from?  Private donations or our taxes?

There's also the monetary value of having tent cities encamped in public spaces.

Let's also not forget about the costs of crimes committed by drug users looking to fund their next high. Who's going to make the victim whole?    

       

 

9 minutes ago, ASH said:

i thought it was colorado  .  

Colorado too.  

[PATCHMAN]

1 minute ago, ASH said:

boozer heh

Don't sweat-er it.  

[ASH]

london fog ??? no but my head is a dizzy

l

[Moshe]

12 hours ago, Paul53 said:

Having seen the revolving door of overdosing, my sugestion, as I've shared before;

Revive someone with narcan, they get an indelible ink "N" on the forehead. Anybody with 2 n's gets a toe tag instead, marked suicide.

Narco, I hate that stuff.  I got that after they cut into my leg without any numbing agent at all.  Still have a nice scar there.  All that did was impede breathing, and did nothing for two inch sutures in my leg.  I imagine civil war surgery was a lot like that, only I had my own hand to bite on.

[Moshe]

10 hours ago, ASH said:

you wanna see chaos  lol   ban alcohol  again  .  have the same punishment for people caught with alcohol .  80% of this country would be in prison rofl

Yes, a particular favorite of many of the illegal aliens we took into custody.  They usually showed up about their 4th time, which makes me wonder how many times they did that without being caught.  Wrong way drivers.  It used to be a removable offense for Resident Aliens, until the Supreme Court ruled against it.  I then asked, if it is not removable for a non-citizen, can I get legally drunk and shoot someone, and say, impairment isn't grounds for punishment?  Essentially that is the SCOTUS rested their hat on, that it was too harsh to make a removable offense for someone who is not a Citizen, because they were impaired at the time.

I think DWI homicide is a joke.  Less time as if you intentionally ram a family of four and kill them for sport.  I think that homicide should be treated like any other homicide, then the who gives a damn, affluenza, or I might get 5 years idea is gone from the psyche forever.  If you are charged the same inebriated or sober, that would sober people up from bring their bullshit to the public sphere.