The Five Stages Of Grief Over Obama's Drug Policies

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Tchort

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Like the stages people who experience grief due to a personal tragedy pass through, people concerned about modifying American drug policies have dialed through these five stages since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States:

1. Unbounded enthusiasm. Drug reform advocates, along with other progressives, were wild with anticipation when Barack Obama was elected President. Aside from his remarkable background and intelligence, he was extremely well-informed about drug reform initiatives -- including clean needle programs, discrepancies in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine (which punish minorities disproportionately), and noninterference with states that have enacted medical marijuana (MM) statutes. Moreover, he called the war on drugs an "utter failure."

2. Anxiety. During the run-up to Obama's selection of a Drug Czar, a name often mentioned was Jim Ramstad, former Congressman and a recovering alcoholic who opposed all major drug reforms (e.g., needle exchange, methadone maintenance). Why would Obama even consider such a Neanderthal, his supporters wondered. Where was he coming from in all of this, they asked themselves through sleepless nights.

3. Cautious optimism. Instead, the President selected Gil Kerlikowske, who was not known for being out front in reforming drug policies as Seattle Police Chief, but who also didn't fight the city's needle exchange program and low priority on marijuana possession enforcement, nor Washington state's MM laws. Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance and the country's leading reform advocate, declared himself "cautiously optimistic" due to Kerlikowske's middle-of-the-road stance, even as he was disappointed that Obama had chosen a law enforcement officer rather than a public health advocate to be Drug Czar.

4. Euphoria. Not all drug policy change originates in the Office of National Drug Control Policy. And a number of local and state initiatives came to the fore, including continuing support by states for MM, some harm reduction measures, and - as the economic downturn hit hard - active contemplation of legalizing marijuana in order to tax revenues from its massive sales in California and around the country. Furthermore, the House Judiciary Committee eliminated the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity. Although he pushed none of them, these actions were all consistent with Obama's enunciated positions on drugs.

5. Disillusionment. But, from the start, Kerlikowske sounded like anything but a drug reformer. Shortly after his installment as Drug Czar, he brashly announced that any type of drug decriminalization would be "waving the white flag" and that the "legalization vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Since then, belying his own state's policy and Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's statements, Kerlikowske has consistently maintained that marijuana has no medical value. All in all, Kerlikowske's orientation towards drug policy seems like, well, a cop's. And yet he seems to reflect Obama's position on reform.

Where oh where are you Mr. President? Hoping against hope that Kerlikowske is going rogue, the Drug Policy Alliance has started a letter-writing campaign to the President asking him to reassert the progressive views he had previously endorsed, and to rein in his recalcitrant Drug Czar. Of course, it seems unlikely that a control maven like Obama would really allow his Drug Czar to repeatedly defy the President's own inclinations in this area.

A more realistic scenario is that the President - facing opposition to his key policies from not only red states and hard core Republicans, but increasingly also independent voters and moderate Democrats - is unwilling to forge ahead on drug reform. Liberalizing policies towards currently illicit drugs would strike Americans as intensely alien - even as young and old Americans are turning more and more to prescription pharmaceuticals for their highs (and lows), so that there is increasingly little space between substances deemed "illicit" and "legal."

But Obama is not committed enough to drug policy reform to incur the symbolism taking any steps towards liberalization would convey. Can you imagine what the Congressional hearings, town hall conflagrations, and shrieking of people calling "I want my country back" would be like if he tried? American prudery about drugs, alcohol and whatever else will not be reversed any time soon.
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The Huffington Post

08/08/2009

By Stanton Peele

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanton-peele/the-five-stages-of-grief_b_254134.html
 
A more realistic scenario is that the President - facing opposition to his key policies from not only red states and hard core Republicans, but increasingly also independent voters and moderate Democrats - is unwilling to forge ahead on drug reform. Liberalizing policies towards currently illicit drugs would strike Americans as intensely alien - even as young and old Americans are turning more and more to prescription pharmaceuticals for their highs (and lows), so that there is increasingly little space between substances deemed "illicit" and "legal."
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It wouldn't be seen as intensely alien at all. In the United States, drugs only became illegal during the last 120 years. That means for over two hundred years, drugs were legal.

Pharmaceutical drugs are just weaker, less effective versions of illegal drugs that people end up paying a lot more money for. A lot (not all) pharmaceutical drugs wouldn't even exist if illegal drugs were here today. If you take away legitimate medicine from people, of course they'll need you to make different versions of medicine that some how escape illegality (paying off the US government), otherwise people would be in agony and would hate the US, and would probably leave.

If anyone here were in a car accident and needed pain relief, not a single one of you (recreational drug user or not) would refuse pain medication, especially if the pain were severe enough.

And this is the breaking point people need to realize - there is no reason in denying yourself enjoyment from drugs. Drugs were put here on the earth for a reason - they are tools to help you live your life. They aren't immoral god awful things that take your money and kill you. All illegal drugs kill many fold less people per year than alcohol or tobacco alone.

I could have told you before the election (and I did tell several people this) that Obama was not going to legalize drugs. I'm not surprised. Are you? If you are, how naive are you?

I mean, seriously, he never even brought up drug legalization as a platform issue. Do you people look at someone and think "yeah...I can totally see him doing what I want him to...he looks like he's gonna legalize drugs - he's smoking a cigarette." It's retarded to think someone's going to do something they didn't say the were. I mean...most politicians won't even do the things they actually explicitly say they will as a promise in the first place. Why would they do things they didn't say they were going to do?

Is it your fault you're that naive? I don't know....maybe. But I can't say for sure. It could be the US government's fault, and a lot of other individuals within this country who help spread ignorance and bigotry.

5. Disillusionment. But, from the start, Kerlikowske sounded like anything but a drug reformer. Shortly after his installment as Drug Czar, he brashly announced that any type of drug decriminalization would be "waving the white flag" and that the "legalization vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Since then, belying his own state's policy and Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's statements, Kerlikowske has consistently maintained that marijuana has no medical value. All in all, Kerlikowske's orientation towards drug policy seems like, well, a cop's. And yet he seems to reflect Obama's position on reform.
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Marijuana has a medicinal value - the active ingredient, THC, upon injection, can eradicate deadly tumors.
And why would pharmaceutical companies start producing cannabinoid-like drugs for cancer patients?

Marijuana also has another medicinal value - smoking marijuana helps prevent the onset of Alzheimer's.
Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer's, and it's kind of ironic he did too. In fact, he deserved to die a thousand times over and then some...but we won't go on a Reagan rant. But, maybe if this douche was more concerned with smoking pot and less concerned with marijuana prohibition, he might not have died this way.

One might even go so far as to say...it's a self-fulfilling prophecy; someone who fought to keep drugs illegal (one of which may have prevented Alzheimer's) dies of Alzheimer's. Anyone else get a kick out of this?

http://www.ukcia.org/medical/medicinaluseofmarijuana.php said:
Safety: Numerous studies have been conducted to determine marijuana's toxic level: they have concluded that it would take 20,000 to 40,000 times the normal dose to induce death (Institute of Medicine, 1982: Randall, 1988 ). Another way of stating this would be that a person would have to ingest (or inhale) 1,500 pounds in 15 minutes. After studying all the evidence, the judge in DPF v. DEA #92-1179 and ACT v. DEA #92-1168 found marijuana to be "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man" (Randall, 1989, p. 440). He continued. "One must reasonably conclude that there is accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision. To conclude otherwise, on the record, would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious" (Randall, 1989, p. 444).
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Who can't inhale 1,500 pounds of marijuana in 15 minutes? ;)

This either proves that:

1) Marijuana does have a medicinal value (and many of them at that), or
2) The US Government does not see saving your life from cancer to be of medicinal value. To them, medicinal value would be creating something to kill you.

I mean, clearly the government would rather have people killing each other, and I think #1 and #2 are proved here at the same time. Drug legalization would save many lives - a lot of drug users, and a lot of police officers. How many police died in the line of duty because someone was holding and had a piece and decided "I'm not going to jail."? You would think that police officers in the US would mind dying, but they don't. That's because people's lives are so miserable here they'd rather be dead.

In the UK, cops do mind dying though. Not all of them, but some would rather see drugs sold openly and legally instead of having to risk their lives each day due to the way the drug laws are now. Some US cops also wish drugs were legal so that they would have a safer life, but most cops are too ignorant to hold such an opinion. That, or they benefit way too much to desire drug legalization. If you're a cop, only earn <$30,000 each year, how are you going to have a serious habit? You supplement your habit with the evidence locker!

This leads me to the point about how corrupt police are...and how legalizing drugs would help end corruption...but a lot of cops love the corruption and would probably have to find a new job if we improved the government in such a degree.
 
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Yeah basically legalizing (or decriminalizing) drugs would only hurt obama politically and even trying to would leave him open to a myrian of attacks from his opponets. the ONLY reason Obama would even try to attempt something like decriminalization is if it was an issue that ge truly cared deeply about (which i DOUBT he does). Obama is MUCH more concerned with fixing healthcare to even bother with drug reform. Therefore hes gonna just keep the status quo for now. I don't think he is actually ideologically against reform it would just be a really dumb move for him and he doesn't care about the issue enough to attempt and fight it:\
 
I was in Cancun, Mexico when they had their decrim policy going on a few years back, and it was amazing. People weren't lying in the street dead of overdoses. They were just drunk as fuck. Like always. The only difference was that I could walk into a shop and buy rolls and coke, and no one seemed to care.

Decriminalization is the only good solution to the "war on drugs".
 
I'm starting to look at it that way as well. I think many Western European nations (especially Portugal, Holland and Switzerland- but also Germany, the UK, and many others) have the right idea: provide comprehensive Harm Reduction programs through state subsidies and organizations, and decriminalize the possession of drugs. Portugal has done this outright; most other Western European countries are doing so in a de facto manner- police just look the other way, prison sentances handed out aren't very harsh, etc.

Eventually the only end is decriminalization for those who sell drugs and import/export drugs, as well as those who use. This combined with state Harm Reduction programs is the most efficient and effective end game for the War On Drugs.

But Captain.Heroin is correct on many points about Obama. However, he did make several campaign promises regarding drug reforms that he himself had forcibly stalled or decided not to pursue. After he became president, the DEA continued to bust medical Marijuana patients/dispensaries, the Crack/powder Cocaine sentancing disparity didn't get his attention, ending the ban on Federally funded needle-exchanges, etc.

Now, these few things are either done or in the process of being done: but it was without Obama's approval. Mainly the Justice Department and members of Congress. Drug reforms, just like GLBT rights, immigration reform, prison reform, etc are issues that are central to the Progressive base of the Democratic Party- and all of these issues (and dozens more) are simply taking a back seat to 'not scaring the uneducated, armed white Christian masses with radical change'.
 
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its not at all a big priority, the economy and no all of us taxpayers being forced to pour money into a failed GM plus trying to move back from a war is centre stage,, the whole drug thing is a money laundering political minefield! were all doomed!!
so enjoy your special time with the friends you love!
 
he said prior to being elected, hes not even for the legalization for marijuana just the decriminalization nation wide. So Captain heroin who the fuck are you talking about when you say " I could have told you before the election (and I did tell several people this) that Obama was not going to legalize drugs. I'm not surprised. Are you? If you are, how naive are you?" wtf are you talking about? who thought he would legalize?
 
I just hope for it to happen at some point in my lifetime. I really want my grandkids to be able to enjoy MDMA and Marijuana freely as adults in their lifetimes. I understand the people in office today are still of a generation that simply doesn't understand drugs in general, and beat a drum for others in their own generation. I can only hope and pray that by the time I am in my deathbed, things are different. I want to see it, forget Obama... he is not at fault or responsibility here... the times aren't right yet.

This is not something we can put a timestamp on, we won't see such a time for at least 40 years, when this generation of grey hairs are resting in their graves. I know, morbid as I sound, this is sadly the truth, and toward tomorrow's sun we leave the hopes that the brainwashing of our youth carries over in the most limited fashion it possibly can.
 
I swear, if it werent for marijuana not bein able to be used for medical reasons or if it were decriminalized i would have never been in any trouble in my life; but thanks to our government i am 20 and have never been able to obtain a drivers license, have had to pay 10s of thousands of dollars to our government and would have gotten about 1/2 of my teenage years back that i spent in countless inpatients and jails because of bullshit probation and other laws. Drugs will never be legal; you think they would make alot of money from taxation of drugs etc.??? it would NOT even come CLOSE to comparing to the money each state makes thru fines and shit from the prosecution of drug users and sellers alike. I sit back and watch in court each session 10s of thousands of dollars each state/town makes in drug fines and such alone each week in court. You take that away; theyd have to rely on fuckin speeding tickets and such and soon as u kno it you wont even be able to drive in your own town anymore (not like u cant anyway if ur under 25 u get pulled over and being harrassed for no reason for unconstitutional searches etc) at least where im from. All in all the war on drugs IS a failure but the gov. is too stubborn too not only realize it; but to admit they are wrong and take the right steps in correcting it. cuz u know, we're americans and were never wrong and were perfect; no country can fuck with us. ha ha ha ha (evil laugh)

*Rolls eyes whilst spitting on ground*

goodnight.
 
Chicago66 said:
I was in Cancun, Mexico when they had their decrim policy going on a few years back, and it was amazing. People weren't lying in the street dead of overdoses. They were just drunk as fuck. Like always. The only difference was that I could walk into a shop and buy rolls and coke, and no one seemed to care.

Decriminalization is the only good solution to the "war on drugs".
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You could walk into a shop and buy coke/rolls in cancun a few years back?
 
Captain.Heroin said:
It wouldn't be seen as intensely alien at all. In the United States, drugs only became illegal during the last 120 years. That means for over two hundred years, drugs were legal.

Pharmaceutical drugs are just weaker, less effective versions of illegal drugs that people end up paying a lot more money for. A lot (not all) pharmaceutical drugs wouldn't even exist if illegal drugs were here today. If you take away legitimate medicine from people, of course they'll need you to make different versions of medicine that some how escape illegality (paying off the US government), otherwise people would be in agony and would hate the US, and would probably leave.

If anyone here were in a car accident and needed pain relief, not a single one of you (recreational drug user or not) would refuse pain medication, especially if the pain were severe enough.

And this is the breaking point people need to realize - there is no reason in denying yourself enjoyment from drugs. Drugs were put here on the earth for a reason - they are tools to help you live your life. They aren't immoral god awful things that take your money and kill you. All illegal drugs kill many fold less people per year than alcohol or tobacco alone.

I could have told you before the election (and I did tell several people this) that Obama was not going to legalize drugs. I'm not surprised. Are you? If you are, how naive are you?

I mean, seriously, he never even brought up drug legalization as a platform issue. Do you people look at someone and think "yeah...I can totally see him doing what I want him to...he looks like he's gonna legalize drugs - he's smoking a cigarette." It's retarded to think someone's going to do something they didn't say the were. I mean...most politicians won't even do the things they actually explicitly say they will as a promise in the first place. Why would they do things they didn't say they were going to do?

Is it your fault you're that naive? I don't know....maybe. But I can't say for sure. It could be the US government's fault, and a lot of other individuals within this country who help spread ignorance and bigotry.


Marijuana has a medicinal value - the active ingredient, THC, upon injection, can eradicate deadly tumors.
And why would pharmaceutical companies start producing cannabinoid-like drugs for cancer patients?

Marijuana also has another medicinal value - smoking marijuana helps prevent the onset of Alzheimer's.
Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer's, and it's kind of ironic he did too. In fact, he deserved to die a thousand times over and then some...but we won't go on a Reagan rant. But, maybe if this douche was more concerned with smoking pot and less concerned with marijuana prohibition, he might not have died this way.

One might even go so far as to say...it's a self-fulfilling prophecy; someone who fought to keep drugs illegal (one of which may have prevented Alzheimer's) dies of Alzheimer's. Anyone else get a kick out of this?


Who can't inhale 1,500 pounds of marijuana in 15 minutes? ;)

This either proves that:

1) Marijuana does have a medicinal value (and many of them at that), or
2) The US Government does not see saving your life from cancer to be of medicinal value. To them, medicinal value would be creating something to kill you.

I mean, clearly the government would rather have people killing each other, and I think #1 and #2 are proved here at the same time. Drug legalization would save many lives - a lot of drug users, and a lot of police officers. How many police died in the line of duty because someone was holding and had a piece and decided "I'm not going to jail."? You would think that police officers in the US would mind dying, but they don't. That's because people's lives are so miserable here they'd rather be dead.

In the UK, cops do mind dying though. Not all of them, but some would rather see drugs sold openly and legally instead of having to risk their lives each day due to the way the drug laws are now. Some US cops also wish drugs were legal so that they would have a safer life, but most cops are too ignorant to hold such an opinion. That, or they benefit way too much to desire drug legalization. If you're a cop, only earn <$30,000 each year, how are you going to have a serious habit? You supplement your habit with the evidence locker!

This leads me to the point about how corrupt police are...and how legalizing drugs would help end corruption...but a lot of cops love the corruption and would probably have to find a new job if we improved the government in such a degree.
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Barack. He's been 'Rid'n Dirty' as his G damn Pastor likes to say. Touch him. He's fuzzy, like a Muppet. Obama is something called a "Puppet". The "Puppet" Masters and Obese money anglers Tell the Puppet what to say, what to do, and when. This Husk called 'President', it is he who is truly a Hollow Man' (thanks T.S. Elliot). No Mr. B.O., there are fifty states in America, not fifty seven (I bet you were heaping P.Rico, Guam, St. Thomas, ... that still leaves just fity tree states. Ahh whatever, the man had the proper skin tint, not to dark, not too lite. Good, real good voice. Attorney, Ivy league on pure merit fah sure (Is the color blind society suppose to be good and the touchstone or are we 'spose to be pooh poohing it,.. forgot).
I have noticed Web sites NOW offering Harder sched. II no script prescripts like OC bold, naked, and hanging out for first time.. in awhile! One site offered up to eleven bottles of one hundred pills 80mg OC's for $24,000! VISA or eCheck! That is too funny. anyone a loanshark out there?
I grew up in D.C. well, just across the Potomac in Arlington. There should be some nice smack, good purity, I think Busch Sr. bought his Coke right across from the House, did'nt he show off his daily intake in a speech one night about crack and how he could'nt stop himself and he wished Barb would toke some vapor by liplocking lollies from his own lips when he exhales the Bastard vapor right into Barb's eagerly waiting mouth w/ Presidential vapo exhalent. Or was that Clinton ridin' dirty'... some Old Clinton stainmakers are pulling puppet strings on Mr. B.O.. I thought they were dead or had fled to Vera Cruz, what's up with that crap?
Here are sad Facts aka Reality: Both campaigns,.. would be underacheiving if it were for High School President. Hope, Change. Please, Jesus, No. I've seen better High School campaigns. Selected for tint/ speech sound, direction following ability,.. Whites voting B.O. equals 'White Guilt' assuagement and better psychosis management and control. Will do as told.
I vote we have a benevolent Emporer for a ten year term, able to do... whatever the hell he feels like doin' ('rid'n dirty'!!). .. better than this sh@*!!!
There is near certainty for a Revolution this century.
 
if it was me, i'd wait for the 2nd term to take any "drastic" measures. its unfortunate, but decriminalizing drugs now would be political suicide, plus there are much more important issues at hand.
 
I knew nothing was comming of anything when he announced Joe Biden as his VP....

For the love of god, he wrote the RAVE act....

Have you ever read the rave act?

i was shocked a little bit...

They aim all the blame at promoters saying that they try to lure children to these all night dance parties and feed them drugs and make them overheat to buy price gouged bottles of water, like its some evil plot to destory the youth of america and make a profit at the same time.....

The fuck? Most of the parties in this city pull in little to no profit, they like to break even at the end of the night.... Then again this was written back in the day when instead of a couple hundred people it was in the order of thousands....

Still, kind of fucked up... I have never been at a venue where they tried to shut the taps off... and what kind of moron does not know how to turn a valve on a sink to 'on'?

Theres no hope for drug reform with a guy like biden at your side.... If anything, hope it doesn't get worse....

RON PAUL 2012! assuming he hasn't died of old age....
 
jamaica0535 said:
RON PAUL 2012! assuming he hasn't died of old age....
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Ron paul isn't a solution to the drug issue, some of the shit he says makes Bush's rhetoric seem insightful. e.g. Ban the Fed!, UN/WTA/NATO is evil! He as also has no problem using typical political BS (incorrect comparisons, false dilemmas etc) to suit his needs.

He is simply playing on the stupidity of provincial, uneducated, white Americans.
 
I am an American currently living in Australia and have been for a year now. I work at a primary health care facility that operates an NSP (needle and syringe program). The initiative started here in or around 1986 in order to help reduce the spread of blood born disease through IV drug use. The government decided that it was far cheaper to provide clean injecting equipment than to treat people w/ HIV and Hepatitis. Since Australia has socialized medicare the whole country would be footing the bill to treat these people and they all would prefer harm reduction, ie: NSP programs in order to help reduce the risk. The program has worked really well here. At the health facility where I work we also provide methadone and suboxone maintenance treatment. This is a very responsible and realistic approach to one of many types of drug use. The US is living in the stone age when it comes to a realistic responsible approach to drug use. I really like Obama, but as a whole country I don't think that I will be lucky enough to see positive progressive change in the US in my lifetime and I'm only 26. I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am.
 
Anybody else see whats really going on???

The Government wants Doctors (my father being one) have those "End of Life" talks, and the big controversy surrounding it. It's rediculous and no Dr. would choose to do that, when they could still give patients pain pills, and physical therapy vs a hip replacement. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT, JUST LOOK INTO THE ISSUE.

My point is....
1. Yes, there are so many people who just hear the word drugs and freak out, completely uneducated; but they are so far from reality they don't care. It's like Bush's Drug Czar. So political suicide to raise any issue of legalization, especially before a election.

2. Which ties into my intro, because all the welfare people who come into the E.R because they have a sore throat it cause approx 1000 US minimum without any tests. If you believe in true Darwinism, then if people get sick, they could just die (never gonna happen, bare with me), but as of now people are given test after test after test, and it doesn't matter your age. They want to live forever. So it is costing buttloads of millions of dollars in tests, for some 85 yr old person who then gets a hip replacement which is another 30,000 dollards, instead of giving them a strong pain medicine (which without insurance 30 Perc 10's was maybe 20 bucks. And then if for some reason their hip gets so bad then they could be a candidate for surgery. Now, doctors get paid for the surgeries they do, now I disagree with Obama's exact idea, I see where he's going.

MY POINT: Preventative or surgery as a first option for people towards the end of their lives should be a last resort.

Also why would they push for harm reduction when a majority of drug users kill themselves from overdoses, accidents etc..... Dont even get me started about putting drug users who safely use drugs in jails. More money. There is so much reform that needs to be done.

If you were to look at humans as a commodity, or some animal. It's actually more cost effective to let the sick, older one's live out the rest of their life in pharmacological comfor instead of spending 35,000 on a surgery for someone who could die any day.

I apologize for jumping around a little, I just kept thinking of hopefully better reasons why the U.S government (although a buncl of them are fucking idiots) cant be that stupid.
 
The Government wants Doctors (my father being one) have those "End of Life" talks, and the big controversy surrounding it. It's rediculous and no Dr. would choose to do that, when they could still give patients pain pills, and physical therapy vs a hip replacement. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT, JUST LOOK INTO THE ISSUE.
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You do realize the 'end of life' counseling, that has been part of various Medicare/Medicaid programs for decades, is not about how the patient is going to die, it's about handling your affairs (living will), whether you want heroic measures to be taken in the event of an accident or turn in your health (do you want or not want life support, to be zapped with a defribrilllator, hooked up to a respiratory machine that will breathe for you, signing a DNR form, etc). This already goes on every day, and has for decades. The bill in the House simply states that the government will pay for it if you decide to have this kind of meeting with your doctor. It has nothing to do with making doctors or patients do anything.

Also why would they push for harm reduction when a majority of drug users kill themselves from overdoses, accidents etc.....
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I honestly can't tell if you are being sarcastic. If not, this is absolutely false. The majority of drug users, and drug addicts, do not die of overdoses, accidents, or through any means involving drug use. The vast majority simply live out their lives and eventually die- just like everyone else; without a case directly related to drugs. Those harms that do befall drug users that could result in death are almost always indrectly related to drug use. Such as dying from sepsis from an infected abscess, or from injecting plant material, contracting a blood bourne illness (HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, etc), endocarditis from injecting unsterile solutions, etc. These indirect harms and causes of death are almost the exclusive causes of harm related to drug use and addicton. And, they are almost all preventable through Harm Reduction knowledge and programs. Not only do HR programs help individuals by preventing the harm caused directly and indirectly from using drugs, they save society massive amounts of money. HR programs like needle-exchanges, free Naloxone, opioid replacement therapy, pill testing kits, etc are all very, very cheap to implement and provide- especially compared to the overall savings they bring about.
 
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