Could we look at actual data from countries that have no drug restrictions and those that terminate people for drug offenses? Wouldn't that data be relevant to our question? I think those are the polar extremes.

Having been through a few hours of a citizen's academy for the DEA, I see no possible success for the war on drugs, given our present staffing, policies, and relentless attacks by the narco organizations. To see these fine agents relate the incredibly hard work they perform every day, and the overwhelming influx of drugs they cannot stop, your heart breaks.

If we legalize and don't treat the victims of their addiction, society is harmed.

If we criminalize and terminate those having failed to maintain sobriety, we don't have a society, we have a horrible dystopian state with no mercy. Our very souls will die as we look on those with an addiction as valueless.

If we criminalize, fight the war, but fight it well, we create incredible and insurmountable challenges for the society. We spend billions, we create millions of incarcerated suppliers and victims, and we experience a large loss in quality of life in our cities and towns.

Can we eliminate the supply of drugs by eliminating the raw materials and knowledge of the drug production? Could "agent orange" decimate the organic crops used? Of course not, as they would be dispersed in amongst valuable lands and plants. Can we eliminate the 2-liter soda bottle used to create meth by the rogue formulator? Too many substitutes for that to work. Likewise restricting Sudafed...not working out. Can we erase the chemical product processes that make the drugs, somehow deleting the knowledge gained and its availability on the web? Not likely.

So, can we attack the high value of drugs? Can we eliminate the profit potential? It seems that alcohol sales do have a model to duplicate. Regulate and distribute drugs? At state-owned ABC stores? Tax the product to pay for the war on illicit production?

Or, can we task a drug company to magically overcome the overdose of opioids by packaging naloxalone with the opioid? Regulate, package poison with antidote, sell at state-owned stores, tax, and regulate the quantity sold per person per unit time?

Can we force the drug companies to fight the war on drugs by creating a pain management drug that is not an opioid? If the chain of events can be believed, pain creates prescriptions, prescriptions create addicts, addicts go doctor shopping until that is impossible, then addicts go to illegal suppliers, increase their dose, then die at high doses. Why are we still dispensing with prescriptions these horribly addictive drugs?

I can't believe I live in these times.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
Y’all rail about abortion all day long… But you’re quite happy to let people self terminate on the other end because of shitty government policies. Well done. I’m sure you’re proud of your beliefs.

Drug rehab success rates are dismal. What is the point of creating even more that will enter and fail that system?

I've seen great families spent significant amounts of money sending their kid to the best available facility. They then watched them go right back to the same life and utility the end of it.

It's one thing to help anyone who really wants to be helped. Too many don't. I've seen locals who got five or more doses of narcan over a relatively short time period until their luck ran out.

This sounds like the bail reform that was going to solve the crime problem.

quote:

Overdoses went through the roof after Oregon voted to decriminalize all drugs

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2...e-all-drugs-1246066/

I’m not saying rehabs are the answer… Hell not even all rehabs are even in the same class or league. (Fan of Hazelden in MN)

Certainly recidivism in this disease is astronomically large. Something like 90% or higher.

I’m not even saying legalizing drugs helps. It’s just not going to change usage that much.

Why does everyone think they’re going to start using heroin or crack once it becomes legal?
Are you?


Fortunately, I know many people that have been recovered for as long as I’ve known them.

For those who do succeed, there is one single common element. Living a daily, spiritual life.

But all those institutions that used to provide such, are now destroyed by liberalism. That’s what happens when you maximize freedom.

As a libertarian, I’m probably guilty in the destruction of these institutions as well.

I try to help rebuild them at this point in my life, as well as help those who want it. So much destruction in men from the last two years.

Legalized public drug use is a problem, much like public intoxication. If legalizing, it should be done in isolated facilities.

IIRC, one of the European countries has established isolated facilities where drug users can go to get unlimited (and free) quantities of their drugs of choice. No treatment for overdoses.

People are bussed in voluntarily. They are free to leave anytime they want, but departures while alive are rare.

It would be a terrible idea to have full legalization as a commercial product like cigarettes, alcohol, and to some degree marijuana.

One solution could be mandatory Vivitrol injections. It blocks the effects of opioids. You can take them, they may still kill you, but you won’t get high.

So the dealers get a pork chop and a .22, you’re a dealer, you’re dead.

Users get monthly injections of Vivitrol for an extended period of time.

Only helps for opioid addictions, but it’s a start.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
One solution could be mandatory Vivitrol injections. It blocks the effects of opioids. You can take them, they may still kill you, but you won’t get high.

So the dealers get a pork chop and a .22, you’re a dealer, you’re dead.

Users get monthly injections of Vivitrol for an extended period of time.

Only helps for opioid addictions, but it’s a start.

Forcing people to do (or in this case inject) anything against their own will is unacceptable and can be described as tyranny.

This solution is unacceptable unless it's completely voluntary and not at all coerced in even the smallest way.

As someone who has narcanned and saved the lives of numerous junkies, only to get cussed out, fought with, battered, and spit on (currently midway through a series of screening tests to make sure I don't have hepatitis or HIV from the last one of those), you'll have to forgive me if I don't buy into the addict sob stories.

The legal system might have half a chance of doing some good if there were actual penalties and legit jail time (or at least long-term, mandated, lockdown rehab) to keep them away from the dope on the streets for a while, but instead they get probation, and don't even get violated when they fail drug tests or re-offend. We deal with the same people over and over again, and the legal system, even in conservative parts of the country, just spits them back out on the street to continue victimizing the rest of the general public.

The idea that's it's a victimless crime is a joke, too. These people don't just keep to themselves and do their dope in the privacy of their own homes. The walk the streets, assault random people, break into houses, steal cars...you name it. Not to mention the truly sad stuff...like the little kids growing up with these shitheads for "parents", and have to be around their tweaking and squalor and criminal behavior every day of their lives.

I don't hate people, and I don't wish death on anyone, but it's pretty hard to feel bad when you find some junkie who's been victimizing members of the community for years dead in some crackhouse with a needle in his arm. I still do my part, give the narcan, and risk exposure doing CPR, but sometimes even with modern miracle drugs the natural consequences of your depraved lifestyle will catch up with you, and there's nothing anybody can do to bring you back.

I’m a former LEO. My opinion is based on my experiences. ALL drugs should be 100% legal with no restrictions at all. This includes all pharmacy medications and antibiotics. Cheap legal drugs should be mass produced by big pharma, and sold at the local CVS for a $5 copay for a 90 pill supply of narcotics.

This accomplished a few things. First , property crime practically disappears overnight. Why steal and sell copper wire if you can get your high legally for $5?

The murder rate drops 50% overnight. Most murders are drug/ drug dealer inspired. Again, no need to kill your competing dealer because dealers are now out of business. No need to rob and kill for your fix when you can get your fix, legally, for $5.

There are downsides like overdoses. But honestly , I’m ok with these idiots killing themselves off in a mass exodus. Society is better off without a bunch of drug addicts running around.

What we are doing now isn’t working. Time to try another approach.

Yea, I’m in the do what you want but leave me out of it camp.

It certainly isn’t victimless. Huge cost to society.

I think it’s sad that you’ve seen someone’s lips turn blue because they overdosed. I think it’s worse that same someone might kill someone in their drug seeking.

Hoping everyone finds spirituality is a poor policy.

A few things strike me as not well parsed, or understood.

With any addict you can always separate the disease from the behavior. No one is making any excuse for behaviors.

There’s an old saying that goes like this. “What happens when you sober up drunken horse thief? You get a sober horse thief.“

If y’all wanna write off all drug addicts and alcoholics… You’re cutting off 20-25% of this nation. You wish them all to go away and die?

Did you know that Larry Kudlow is recovering drug addict?
What would we lose if we lost Larry in the 1980s?

There are literally tens of millions of people just like Mr. Kudlow.

My best friends are recovering people. They’ve lived a life that forces them into humility, spiritual life and the understanding of humanity better than most. I like the guys digging in the dumpsters. They are my people.

I’ll hang with the recovered folk all day any day … And those who still have the desire to quit.

You may not care, but God does.

YMMV

Y’all have a blessed day.

You lost me with by your logic somehow connecting abortions and addicts. Not seeing as those dots connect. At all.

Yes it would be sad if Kudlow didn’t survive his addiction. We also would soldier on just fine without him. We all gotta go, if you are too stupid/naive/mentally ill/dependent/whatever to avoid getting addicted to drugs then it was your time. Sad stories aside because we all have them, if you make poor choices poor outcomes will follow.

I feel way more sympathy for the family murdered by a drunk driver or addict then for an addict. If you feel that’s too unkind I understand. I don’t agree but I understand your position.

Every one of these threads contains all the excuses and rationalizations in the world of why people get addicted and a tiny sound bite about personal accountability/responsibility. Fuck that.

More people need the truth applied strongly and swiftly to their existence.

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:
Anyone remember the movie "Traffic"?

Good movie about the top end of the narco-trade. Well, there's this quote between the HMFIC in charge of drugs here in the States and his counterpart in Mexico-

"Robert Wakefield: What are your policies towards treatment of addiction?

- General Arturo Salazar: Treatment of addiction? Addicts treat themselves. They overdose and then there's one less to worry about."

Yeah, but don’t forget the other half of that film that was filmed with a blue lens, and the way it concludes: some people do get well. I am grateful to be one of them, against all odds. I’m grateful that I had resources available to help me get well once I was ready, because any other time in human history, I would have died.

Nobody chooses to be an addict. Some people can drink, smoke, or even shoot whatever once or twice and not become addicts, and then there’s people like me where all it takes is one. Like so many discussions about addiction on this forum, I see some disappointingly callous comments from people I know to have good hearts and souls. You simply don’t understand the problem, even if you’ve been arresting and processing the people sick with this stuff. You can’t, unfortunately.

For what it’s worth, I am not in favor of coddling. I’ve seen Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland, and seen what permissiveness of substance abuse in open public air leads to. I think it is part of an attempt to use addicts as pawns to get people crying for the government to solve a problem that it made, and it’s unfortunate. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it may be somewhere in compulsory, long-term high security treatment facilities (not prison, where you can get any and all substances known to man, but rehabs where you cannot leave until a panel of doctors and recovered addicts are sure you’re good to go), and serious black hat fuckery with China for sending that shit over here. Unfortunately, I don’t see either of those happening.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
One solution could be mandatory Vivitrol injections. It blocks the effects of opioids. You can take them, they may still kill you, but you won’t get high.

So the dealers get a pork chop and a .22, you’re a dealer, you’re dead.

Users get monthly injections of Vivitrol for an extended period of time.

Only helps for opioid addictions, but it’s a start.

Vivitrol, surprisingly enough, works the same way with alcohol. At the rehab I went to, they offered this to alcoholics leaving the facility as well.

How many here on SF are in the shadows with this disease because of this pervasive attitude of “let them die”? It’s no different in the real world either.

War on drugs since Nixon. How’s that working out?

Again, when it’s someone in your family or close friend (and there is one or more), you might feel different. Unless you really wish death upon them.



Not working fellas.

quote:

Drug rehab success rates are disma

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wrong. The rate of success among professionals that have a license is above 90 percent. Adequate treatment these days is 90 days inpatient with followup. Fly by night programs in Florida and conceirge treatment centers with infinity pools have less success.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:
Anyone remember the movie "Traffic"?

Good movie about the top end of the narco-trade. Well, there's this quote between the HMFIC in charge of drugs here in the States and his counterpart in Mexico-

"Robert Wakefield: What are your policies towards treatment of addiction?

- General Arturo Salazar: Treatment of addiction? Addicts treat themselves. They overdose and then there's one less to worry about."

Yeah, but don’t forget the other half of that film that was filmed with a blue lens, and the way it concludes: some people do get well. I am grateful to be one of them, against all odds. I’m grateful that I had resources available to help me get well once I was ready, because any other time in human history, I would have died.

Nobody chooses to be an addict. Some people can drink, smoke, or even shoot whatever once or twice and not become addicts, and then there’s people like me where all it takes is one. Like so many discussions about addiction on this forum, I see some disappointingly callous comments from people I know to have good hearts and souls. You simply don’t understand the problem, even if you’ve been arresting and processing the people sick with this stuff. You can’t, unfortunately.

For what it’s worth, I am not in favor of coddling. I’ve seen Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland, and seen what permissiveness of substance abuse in open public air leads to. I think it is part of an attempt to use addicts as pawns to get people crying for the government to solve a problem that it made, and it’s unfortunate. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it may be somewhere in compulsory, long-term high security treatment facilities (not prison, where you can get any and all substances known to man, but rehabs where you cannot leave until a panel of doctors and recovered addicts are sure you’re good to go), and serious black hat fuckery with China for sending that shit over here. Unfortunately, I don’t see either of those happening.

I remember the film well.
A few things- YOU decided to make that choice and GET OUT of your addiction. That's a pretty damn big accomplishment! And I personally commend you for that, Thank You!
How many don't? How many flat out refuse? And trust me, I totally understand "addictive personality", really up close and personal, and not just from the Police perspective.


How much damage is done between Point A (the start) and Point B, where ever it ends?

Oh, you want to blame China? Ok... Which time?
Yeah, today is Fentenal, yesterday was Heroin/Opium.
What about (the semi-failed narco-state) Mexico? They've been funneling shit into our back door for how many decades now? The finger of culpability needs to be extended further south to Columbia, Panama, Bolivia, Ecuador... Remember the "Crack" epidemic in the 80's, stemming from the US's desire to get higher than just regular old cocaine?

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
Unless you really wish death upon them.



Not working fellas.

Wishing death on somebody and understanding each person should be free to choose their own path are two different things. Nice straw man though. A for effort.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Drug rehab success rates are disma

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wrong. The rate of success among professionals that have a license is above 90 percent. Adequate treatment these days is 90 days inpatient with followup. Fly by night programs in Florida and conceirge treatment centers with infinity pools have less success.

Not gonna speak to the fly by night types as any illegitimate businesses just that.

I have direct experience with Hazledon (and others). I’ve seen many people relapse. Especially young people that don’t have 20 years of receipts/evidence in their wake. That being said, I do think they are the gold standard in rehab.

I’ll stand by what I said. Show me recidivism rates after five yrs.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime

The murder rate drops 50% overnight. Most murders are drug/ drug dealer inspired. Again, no need to kill your competing dealer because dealers are now out of business. No need to rob and kill for your fix when you can get your fix, legally, for $5.

.

As much as I like your idea, I don't think it's going to work.

We thought the Murder rate would drop with the legalization of Cannabis.
We thought it would force the guy slinging dime bags on the corner to go away.

Didn't happen. They're still shooting each other over illegal cannabis, and Dude is still standing on the corner.

You got to beat the price point of the "sidewalk pharmaceutical salesman". Can't do that when the Government taxing stuff.

Ugh! I’ve typed two long replies and somehow refreshed the window instead of getting to the submit button.

I didn’t blame China for anything, I recognize that they’re waging a war on us on many levels, and fentanyl is one of them. As for the other drugs from the other countries you mentioned, the recovered addicts I’ve talked with and heard from tend to talk about fent like it’s in a whole other league compared to the street drugs of yore.

I think there’s a solution that exists that we’re not going to come to a conclusion on in a discussion on a gun forum. I’d just like to say that for those advocating just letting addicts and alcoholics die from their disease (and yeah, it’s a disease), there are people on this forum suffering quietly alone with it. People you wouldn’t wish an ugly death on, and that’s what it is, because you have positive interactions with them. I’ve emailed back and forth with a handful already, and only because they were willing to approach me about it. I wonder how many can’t and won’t because of threads like these.