paperfan said:
lifeisforliving: my post was in response to IU's claim that there weren't many people basically going out of control with the drug.
when nearly half the people arrested in a certain city test positive for something that is metabolized in a couple days then it should seem pretty obvious that using the drug is a slippery slope for a lot of people.
who said i was in favor of outlawing it? don't put words in to my mouth; this is not a drug policy discussion thread.
harm reduction is possible with any drug and hell, you can even be prescribed desoxyn. it's much much harder to have harm reduction with some drugs than others, though.
I think given the vast amount of evidence available, there is no question that some people have trouble with this drug. The problem is that in this case, only those with a problem show up. They end up being arrested, at public health clinics, etc.
Those are the "visible" people. What we need to determine is how are the invisible people managing. The ones who don't appear on these public records.
For instances, if the the total population of known "positives" is capable of consuming only 2% of the local drug markets available meth, then what are the other 98% doing?
paperfan, seriously, if you think that I need to be convinced that many people end up tossing their lives away due to this drug, you can relax. I already understand that.
At the same time, the total number of public "positives" does not even come close to accounting for the total drug consumed in a local area. I am asking the question because I would like to get an idea of the long term economic impact that this meth epidemic is going to have on society.
I am hoping to find that there are large numbers of long-term, stable users. Because that will suggest that our health care system isn't going to be overloaded 10 to 15 years from now by meth induced disorders.
Essencially, this isn't just an immediate problem where if we simply ignore it, it will go away. Each of today's individual user disaster, may very likely become tomorrow's long term care patient (requiring a great deal of medical resources and life maintenance care). It is possible that in 10 to 15 years 10% of the world's population could be a major healthcare and maintenance burden. Long term
functional users (even if they smoke the stuff like cigarettes), so long as they remain functional, won't cause an economic crisis down the line.
True, long term use may result in health complications. But someone who is functional doesn't need expensive, daily maintenance (such as emptying the bed pans every few hours for 20 or more years).
Again, the universal approach to the problem is in denying it. Just saying, "say away from it!" And that is the end of that. It's just not working. The FEDs are using the same two path approach that they used 50 years ago: first, promote negative drug use (and information whether factual or not is fine, so long as it supports the anti-drug stance). And second, filling up the prisons (have you looked at the US prison statistics lately?).
And herein lies the crux of the problem with prohibition: when you ban a thing you give up all control over it because you can not regulate something which is by definition banned. Prohibition creates an entirely unregulated market. An underground, black market, which you can attempt to suppress, but that you can not control.
In starting this thread, I am trying to determine if there is some way to make peace with this demon. At the very least, offer a set of safety guidelines where, if followed, will hep insure that the user does not acquire a compulsive drug use pattern. If we can even successfully get a percentage of the community to avoid a drug dependency, the effort will have been worth it.
And I am well aware that members of law enforcement read through these forums every day. And that this thread is probably the last thing that you hoped to see.
