The legalization of Heroin

[monkeyjunky]

"I would however like to get a methadone habit"

you *want* a methadone habit???
they're harder to kick than H.

 

[Smyth]

Yes but I dont think it is necessarily *THAT* hard. Most people just dont want to quit and have a supply line that makes it possible for them to continue using. Actually this is just through my experience with other drugs. Because I have not tried methadone even once, I cannot comment on just how dependent its users will become.

 

[slaquer]

In my days around opiate users and my time as an opiate user I have noticed that heroin could possibly become a legal drug in certain places that have open minded governments, it is in a few places already, or is starting out/having small trials. Heroin is an amazing, powerful, and deceitful drug that lures people into its grasp and will not let them go. Despite this, I believe legalization could benefit society in a few ways. It would cut down inner city crime quite a bit, those people who take opiates over normal life ["gutter junkies"] would not be forced to steal to pay for their $100+ a day habit, because heroin is actually a pretty cheap drug to produce. This habit could turn down into a $10 a day habit if legal. Also the drug would be pure, and there would be no dangerous adulterants. This would reduce overdose deaths a lot. If it were cheaper many people may stick with intranasal or even oral use instead of IV, for health reasons. Of course even with legality their will be exceptions. There will of course be people who will be heroin addicts and do nothing in life but use heroin, such as some alcoholics. But not EVERYONE would be forced to live this way who uses the drug.

Anyway, that is just my view, coming from a 19 year old kid who does not trust his government anymore then he trusts the corner dealers in my local cities...

 

[batailleseyes]

How can anyone hope to legislate morality? -rachamim18

I agree. You would think that the separation of church and state would be upheld more stringently, BUT one would also have to be naive to believe that this was ever the case. Our legislative branch is completely informed by religious tenets. A good thing in some cases (thou shalt not kill) but a complete failure in other areas i.e. the demonization of certain drugs. The drug war is, perhaps, the strongest example of this religious hypocracy... especially since alcohol kills more people every year than all of the illegal combined. And, I don't see many lobbyists of the religious right clamoring to reinstate prohibition.

 

[CreativeRandom]

slaquer, I see what you mean. But if opium were made legal, heroin use would be much lower, as I have stated.

During prohibition the drink of choice was moonshine. People went blind, and many people had alcohol poisoning.

 

[satricion]

slaquer, I see what you mean. But if opium were made legal, heroin use would be much lower, as I have stated.

I don't think this is true.

Heroin is basically a better drug than opium. You can shoot it up, and it's more effective milligram for milligram. I doubt anyone would use opium if heroin was around.

If legal, heroin would be cheaper than it is now. A lot cheaper. The reason heroin is expensive now is because it is illegal, and hence run by international drug cartels who charge such high prices firstly because they have to to cover their costs, and secondly because they can, and being a completely unregulated industry, they can do pretty much whatever the fuck they want.

If heroin was legal, it could be mass produced by pharmacutical companies in the same way that any other drug is. This production would be more efficient and would not have the pitfalls of illegal drug production, making the product cheaper.

Think about how much 50mg of pure heroin costs compared to how much 50mg of pure oxycodone costs (for someone with a script and no insurance or anything). I know that here in Australia 50mg of pure heroin would probably cost what someone on an oxy script could use to get something like 400mg of oxycodone or more.

 

[satricion]

Yes but I dont think it is necessarily *THAT* hard. Most people just dont want to quit and have a supply line that makes it possible for them to continue using. Actually this is just through my experience with other drugs. Because I have not tried methadone even once, I cannot comment on just how dependent its users will become.

Go and do some reading then.

Methadone is more addictive than heroin. It's withdrawals are more painful than heroin. You can die from methadone withdrawals. You can't die from heroin withdrawals.

 

[PatrickLawrence]

If/When Heroin was legalised, would it be regulated by the government or would companies be set up to profit from its sale (in much the same way as alcohol or tobacco is sold)? If the latter were the case, no matter how much the taxation to cover the costs on the health services and re-habilitation clinics, the product will still be "pushed" onto the public. look at the current trend with alcohol adverts (and adverts for cigarettes 10 years ago, allthough they are becoming less widespread here in the UK now), showing their products as fun, hip, sexy, cool etc. I'm not sure how one would market H like this, but i think its a fairly safe bet that this would increase the number of people who try the drug in the first place even if the actual legalisation aspect doesnt.

 

[WRX STi]

I absolutely agree about the notion that making drugs available and free to everyone will be beneficial. It'll definitely eliminate the black market, lower crime, violence, etc.
What's funny is that I first heard that idea from my dad when i was like 15, and he's really straight edge and never did drugs, but still believes that people should be able to get their 'fix' for free if they need

 

[Winterborn]

Near EVERYONE that used it, would be addicted to it- Imagine the current situation with the added bonus of it being cheap legal, and easy to access. How would the world be better if everyone was dependant on dope?

How is it different from caffiene. Sure its a great drug, but as it is used so reguarly by most people, the drug is needed just to get the user at the level they would be without having ever tried caffiene (work at some restaurants and offices, youll see what I mean).

Think about it this way, cigs and alcohol are legal- which means anyone can get them, as all of us would know, even preteens. Now, once H is legal, the same would apply. SO me and my various 11 yr old friends, wanting to be rebellious and have a good time go to the local gangster/redneck/dero/bum pay him some cash, he hands over the gear, hooks us up- and boom. Every day who needs school when we can just get some smack?

 

[Reuptake]

I think everyone should have a right to do whatever the fuck they want with their body. Put in, take out, cut off, etc. etc. People will do whatever they want anyway, why put a legal restriction on it? Im not saying legalize murder and eating babies, but there should be no restriction on your personal liberties. Just because a few assholes cannot do something responsibly does not mean that I should be restricted from doing it.

 

[genaro]

hahahahaha

legalisation? hahaha don't dream, anyway I think it isn't suitable, more of a nightmare than of a dream I guess.

 

[rachamim18]

back for part two...

Well...as I had left off, people cannot hope to legislate morality. Humankind has always used mind expanding substances in one form or another and societies have pretty much all gone through waves of acceptance and waves of ostracizing users and rejecting the concept. Here in the US we are just coming out of a paticularly nasty wave of rejection but it does seem as though the public's perception of the issue is changing. The thing is, when talking about legalization, the average citizen just gives it a cursory consideration. Legalization to them, usually means total legalization and access for all...in short - nightmare. If the issue were to be approached from a logical and knowledgeable perspective perception might shift in a major way. Sadly, it is political suicide to even suggest examining the issue. Witness the FORMER police chief of Hartford, Conn after he suggested treating all drug possesion offenses as a health issue instead of the felony criminal offense they currently are...or the FORMER mayor of Baltimore. Visionaries are often ignored by their peers until long after the fact. The fact is, the current drug situation in the US reeks of hypocrisy.

Opiate/opioid substitution therapy, the whole concept is ridiculous but it has always been treated in a similar manner. In China they had a terrible opium problem so they came up with the lovely idea of offering incentives for taking "anti-opium pills. The thing is, those pretty little red tablets were relatively pure heroin and within 10 years China had an explosion of heroin addiction. In the US doctors originally prescribed opiates for addicted patients but about 7 years after the Harrison Act [the legislation that pretty much outlawed all drugs in the US] that became illegal in itself. Fast forward to the 60s and the bright idea of substituting methadone caught the imagination of the establishment. Ween people off of heroin and addict them to an almost equal substance with a worsae physical addiction...makes sense to me.

If I was to offer a solution I would venture that a step in the right direction would be to provide pharm. grade substances to addicts who have demonstrated a long, chronic addiction and at least two erstwhile attempts at rehab or alternative treatment. Physically, the substance in question is no worse than alcohol or tobacco for the subject. Under a doctors supervision you would alleviate most of the health complications that you would find on the illicit scene. I would make it mandatory for 7 day pick up to alleviate the diversion one always finds with controlled substances. I would mandate twice weekly urine tox screens and a structured support system for those addicts that are in need/want of it. Most importantly, I would start prevention at the earliest possible age. I would channel the vast amount of money currently spent on interdiction and punishing users on prevention and rehab...where it would have much more tangible results.

I could go on and on but for brevity's sake I'll close here. If I am repeating anyone's thoughts please forgive me as I am posting on my break at work and cannot take the much needed time to digest all the lengthly posts here. I promise to take the time later though...

 

[Udman]

^^These are all very valid points.

The point is, no one is suggesting that people should be able to buy their heroin at the grocery store along with a bottle of wine; however, there is a broad area between this and total prohibition. As Rachamin said, some long term addicts out there are going to do heroin regardless of the consequences. The consequences as they stand now in the current climate of prohibition are 100 times worse than they need to be. Virtually all of the drug-related problems that affect society as a whole stem from the draconian approach to dealing with drugs and drug addicts. The health problems from chronic use of street drugs, prison overcrowding, spread of disease, drug-related crime, etc., could all be alleviated by taking a realistic approach to treating addicts rather than a moralistic approach. Addicts are treated as criminals that have a moral defect that makes them behave the way that they do rather than a medical condition.

If an addict is unable to get clean after several attempts the only option right now is jail or death, which are inevitable. It does not have to be this way. If someone could get their heroin by prescription in a controlled fashion similar to how its described the rachamin's post, and that person is able to live a productive and normal life, that's one less problem for the system to deal with. It would also be cheaper for society than locking the person up and making them an even worse criminal than they started out. In addition to being much healthier for the addict, not that the prohibitionists care about that.

Obviously this is a much more complex debate than just "legalize it!", but the fact is that the total prohibition approach is not working. It just adds to the problems, but because of the "moral majority", alternatives to prohibition cannot even be discussed within main stream society. Cancer patients can't even partake in cannabis to alleviate their symptoms, we're obviously several years away from the decriminalization of harder drugs like heroin. We actually seem to be moving in the opposite direction as evidenced by the current climate of prescription narcotics such as Oxycontin that are becoming increasingly hard to obtain for legitimate patients.

Bottom line is that the we need to move away from the "War on Drugs" and instead declare a "War on Suffering". The drug war just adds to the suffering.

 

[fastandbulbous]

Doctors who have followed up om people with a medical opiate dependance have found that they are less prone to stress related diseases, and as long as the constipation is avoided by the use of mild laxatives/more regulated diets, they are generally no worse off heathwise than similar people who don't use opiate drugs.

If that's the case, surely to god it makes sense to maintain addicts with state supplied heroin. The cost to the NHS would reduce (less admissions with OD or bacterial infections from dodgy gear), the cost of crime would reduce as well (given a supply of heroin, nearly all users wouldn't want to commit crime). Everybody but the anally retentive puritans with a lust for power over people would win - that would make for a better society all round.

 

[Winterborn]

Lets be honest, how many clean people here would be likely to take up H if they knew it would be supplied for them.

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

Lets be honest, how many clean people here would be likely to take up H if they knew it would be supplied for them.

If you mean supplied like methadone is currently supplied, hardly anyone would take it. The reason being is addicts are given a 'maintenance' dose, which makes them feel normal and to stop withdrawl. It doesn't get them high and the same would apply if the state were giving out heroin to wean addicts off.

 

[rachamim18]

Only making sense...

In fact, here in NYC the local government long ago decriminalized the posession and sale of marijuana to try and break up the logjam of backed up drug cases that came out of the so called "Crack War" of the mid to late 80s. Even the sale of merely warrants a misdemeanor and often a conditional release. The result has been the opposite of the doom and gloom forecasted by all the up in arms conservatives , etc. In fact, as a denzien of the target population I would offer that instead of increasing the number of users the number has leveled off and even slightly decreased [as evidenced by the far less number of "weed spots" in most lower class neighborhoods].

The truth is, there will always be a fair amount of people that partake in the experience just to rebel..."outlaw chic" if you will. Take away the deviant element and you decrease a good number of them. Again, using marijuana as an example, the sale here in NYC was controlled by armed gangs [prior to decrim.] in many areas. The profit involved naturally attracted that element. While decrim. has not effectively lowered prices [NYC in itself is far too small to influence that dynamic, it would require decrim. on a much larger scale and in fact the price rose with the gradual increase in quality] it did serve to greatly lowerr the amount of violence that went hand in hand with it.

Heroin is legally available now...in the guise of opioid substitution therapy [as I addressed yesterday]. It runs counter to any sensibility I can possibly imagine to criminalize the substance while PROMOTING a much more physically addictive substance. I do have faith that the issue will resolve itself [and I pray that it will happen in my lifetime].

 

[rachamim18]

Gaz...

As far as "maintainence" goes...while methadone does not afford the euphoria [or "rush"] that heroin provides it does offer a longer lasting "high." Even people that have been on since the first enrollment in the 60s get a regular "nod." The fact is, almost all regular users are maintaining anyway...just through illicit channels. Providing the supervised and healthy opportunity to do that at little or no cost would change thousands of lives for the better. Knowing many addicts, I cannot imagine many that would opt not to participate in a licit program that provided heroin. There would still predictably be a "black market" for heroin but the onus placed on law enforcement and social service agencies would be greatly reduced affording an unheard of opportunity to apply those resources towards prevention and treatment. The result would be great any way you look at it.

 

[axl blaze]

I dunno what ya'll are talkin about the H I get is usually dirt cheap straight from Mexico.