Why Do We Treat Heroin Addicts Like They Deserve to Die?

slimvictor said:
Glad to hear it! But where have you been hanging out? We have a good number of stimulating discussions here...
And other forums can be really top-notch (e.g. I tend to like Philosophy & Spirituality, Words, Advanced Drug Discussion, and Current Events and Politics).
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Oh, I know that there is loads of stimulating discussion on bluelight, but I just found this thread particularly engrossing.

I do take long hiatuses from here though, and am not exactly the most active poster, so I have missed out on some things. Regardless of when I'm hanging out here or not though, the content of this forum and the caliber of posters never fails to impress.

<3 BL!
 
probably because A) they treat themselves with the same attention, and a lot of people follow suit - they see drugs like opium and heroin as utterly destructive, on so many levels and therefore treat anyone who self-destructs, and often rob and steal from god knows who, in such a manner would be better off dead, than creating more and more emotional and physical turmoil and anguish.

and B) of course, because western society is largely sado-masochistic.

I used to have the same view of junkies, myself - it took a LOT of deep thought, and then letting go of it all to understand it.
 
Why Do We Treat Heroin Addicts Like They Deserve to Die?
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It's not that you deserve to die, it's just obvious to the rest of the world that you junkies will have a premature death no matter what we try to do. You guys are killing yourselves and only you. Stop blaming everyone else and sober up you scumbags.
 
rollinstoner said:
It's not that you deserve to die, it's just obvious to the rest of the world that you junkies will have a premature death no matter what we try to do. You guys are killing yourselves and only you. Stop blaming everyone else and sober up you scumbags.
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You're mistaking the homeless/prostitute/dope fiend stereotype for the vast majority of people who use heroin are officially labeled with.

Alas, you have just fallen into the abyss that is American (popular) culture (see the post directly above yours if you're interested in climbing out - most people like the plentiful rituals and goodies consumerist society so rigorously strives to provide so they never make it far, but others do).

If you are able to first make a case that we don't treat heroin users like they deserve to die (we being laws, gov't, public policy, culture, etc), it would be a good "thought exercise" - and then deconstruct it, well you'd win back any admiration I give people, well, just because they're not pricks...

"Obvious to the rest of the world..." I mean, that makes me think, that other than Russia, China and Korea (N and S) as well as some other SEA countries I would imagine (Malaysia), those countries with the strongest rule of law and significant tout (for whatever good or/and evil reason(s) - those always sidetrack me!)...

Why does America have the most draconian policies when it comes to Heroin Users specifically? I mean, it's pretty easy to argue that our drug policy is the most draconian in the world, and given that's its founded in the name of bigotry, malice and expansionism, it shouldn't really be all that surprising that her policies would treat Heroin Users such... After all it's commonly touted as like the most evil, addicting drug there is (see: this thread... of course, the degree to which something is addictive has MUCH more to do with the person, their character and collective experiences, and little to do with the substance - some would argue nothing to do with the substance, but I won't go that far, cause morphine is a lot more "habit forming/reinforcing" than a cheese burger, well for most of us...)
 
slimvictor said:
I blame religion.
Outlaw religion, and these things will right themselves.
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Yeah, because that worked so well in Communist Albania (the first and only self-proclaimed atheist state). That is an example of the exact sort of thinking that the article is talking about. Even if you could control peoples beliefs through passing laws (which you can't, as the people on this board show about prohibition) and even if you could the profound injustice of such a project would outweigh any percieved 'benefits'.

And before you accuse me of being religious, I am not. In fact if you must get a label out of me I'm an existential nihilist. I just find the way that the 'militant atheists' engage in the same stereotyped, essentialistic and assumption-based thinking that their 'religious opponents' do. Having to blame an abstract concept like 'religion' for humans infinate ability to be shitty to one another is...fucking pathetic...delusional. Utopia is not paradise, it was a pun- it means 'no where'.

Anyway, this sort of thinking is fairly fundamental to the human condition- the best way to create an internal unity is through external discrimination. To use an extreme illustration, I believe that paedophilles and rapists are fundamentally equally reprehensible- paedophillia may cause more severe psychological damage as young people are less able to process such trauma, but fundamentally I view them as being more or less the same.

Now step into prison, paedophilles are at the absoute bottom of the pecking order. If they are not in PC, they're desperately trying not to get the shit knocked out of them...and most likely trying to get into PC. Rapists are absolutely entitled to beat the shit out of a paedophile, as far as they're concerned there is no contradiction here. Why? Simply because the lines have been fairly arbitrarially drawn and the paedos are on one side while the rapists are on the other.

Junkies serve an important role as a societal scapegoat- it is perfectly acceptable to advocate inhumane treatment of scapegoats as, ultimately, they are on the other side of the line. Drug addicts are simply the jews/gypsies/heretics of the 20th/21t century.
 
xxkcxx said:
My pre-addiction and during-addiction normal mood was more or less suicidal. I've not have any thoughts of suicide since I got clean.

I don't feel at all like my past addiction has lessened my ability to feel happiness and fulfillment. In fact, I feel quite a bit of both of those. My life is far from perfect or even ideal, but in all honesty, it's much better than when I was getting high, if only because I DON'T think about dying all the time.
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I'm really happy for you kc. :)
 
limonov said:
Yeah, because that worked so well in Communist Albania (the first and only self-proclaimed atheist state). That is an example of the exact sort of thinking that the article is talking about. Even if you could control peoples beliefs through passing laws (which you can't, as the people on this board show about prohibition) and even if you could the profound injustice of such a project would outweigh any percieved 'benefits'.

And before you accuse me of being religious, I am not. In fact if you must get a label out of me I'm an existential nihilist. I just find the way that the 'militant atheists' engage in the same stereotyped, essentialistic and assumption-based thinking that their 'religious opponents' do. Having to blame an abstract concept like 'religion' for humans infinate ability to be shitty to one another is...fucking pathetic...delusional. Utopia is not paradise, it was a pun- it means 'no where'.

Anyway, this sort of thinking is fairly fundamental to the human condition- the best way to create an internal unity is through external discrimination. To use an extreme illustration, I believe that paedophilles and rapists are fundamentally equally reprehensible- paedophillia may cause more severe psychological damage as young people are less able to process such trauma, but fundamentally I view them as being more or less the same.

Now step into prison, paedophilles are at the absoute bottom of the pecking order. If they are not in PC, they're desperately trying not to get the shit knocked out of them...and most likely trying to get into PC. Rapists are absolutely entitled to beat the shit out of a paedophile, as far as they're concerned there is no contradiction here. Why? Simply because the lines have been fairly arbitrarially drawn and the paedos are on one side while the rapists are on the other.

Junkies serve an important role as a societal scapegoat- it is perfectly acceptable to advocate inhumane treatment of scapegoats as, ultimately, they are on the other side of the line. Drug addicts are simply the jews/gypsies/heretics of the 20th/21t century.
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Sorry, I guess you didn't read my later post explaining that my sarcasm was not as clear as I hoped it would be.
 
limonov said:
Junkies serve an important role as a societal scapegoat- it is perfectly acceptable to advocate inhumane treatment of scapegoats as, ultimately, they are on the other side of the line. Drug addicts are simply the jews/gypsies/heretics of the 20th/21t century.
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i think that's an interesting way of looking at things. Humans have a long history of dehumanizing other humans in order to serve their own interests, for example british imperialism, or the enslavement of jews/africans. Shit i can't remember the book but the one with the steam boat and how the british viewed the africans as savages and not human, i don't know how i cant remember the title but it's the same deal with junkies or drug addicts or whatever you want to call us/them.

Just like the British, the egyptians, and plenty of others, people use the drug war to capitalize on drug users through prohibition which generates a serious amount of profits for a shit load of people in power, of course they don't want to view drug users as humans.

If the analogy holds then at some point the people running the drug war will realize that drug adddicts are human and the tide will turn, but even so racism and imperialism still exist but at least not like they did a few hundred years ago (perhaps that's debatable too tho).
 
rollinstoner said:
It's not that you deserve to die, it's just obvious to the rest of the world that you junkies will have a premature death no matter what we try to do. You guys are killing yourselves and only you. Stop blaming everyone else and sober up you scumbags.
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Actually, if we only had pharmaceutical-quality heroin, far fewer people would die from heroin than from alcohol.
The problem is the unknown quality of street heroin. This is rooted in its illegality.
If heroin were legal, it would be far safer than alcohol.
Heroin addiction - even for multiple decades - does not kill people. In fact, I saw a study of their cadavers, and there was no way to know that they had used heroin, let alone been addicted for decades. Nothing in the brain tissue, etc.
Alcohol, however, kills people. If they are addicted for decades, their livers get ruined, brains suffer, etc.
For safety, (real) heroin > alcohol.
 
^tho that's true, there are a shit load of deaths from people combining pharm opiates with benzos/alcohol or whatever else. Pure heroin won't stop that at all. I think the death toll would remain constant as some people are just too fucking stupid or take too many risks with opiates and other drugs that cause respiratory depression. Which is probably why all the good barbs are gone forever now, at least in NA for the most part. They won't kill people if used responsibly, but a ton of people died because of that very problem.

Even with harm reduction info everywhere, people still OD from these combos. Even i have done dangerous combos plenty of times,
 
Just to let you guys know, I have been keeping an eye on this thread. I've e-mailed one of my old pharmacology professors about the whole uniqueness of heroin thing, and am awaiting his reply. As soon as I get this, I'll have a point-by-point reply to the folks here who've addressed me. I'll also be looking for citations in medical literature.

Very important issue, from a public health perspective.
 
I find it pathetic that in this day and age people still ---- dashes because usually THE ACCUSERS are worse off mentally than the accused "dope addict". Friends don't kid yourselves. I have been prescribed LEGITIMATE OPIODS from Vic's to Fent patches. And know dope inside and out. If you are on script OPIODS u are the equivalent of a normal heroin addict. If not WORSE.
Now when abuse and chronic legit pain cross there is no fine
Line. If u just caught a habit cause u liked the way it felt
Well, go on bupe or metha. Simple done. But if u are dependent
On these meds to function in life bupe does jack shit for pain
And going to a meth clinic every morning for a shot of pink juice is
Gonna put a serious cramp in ure day.

Thus, my main point is to go back to the beginning
Is that it is completely ridiculous for one part of the population
That again is likely more mentally fucked than the
Average dope user to consider the death of ANY
ONE - gay - transex - doper - or various racial
Slurs acceptable.

At least here in the USA we are losing the war on drugs.
Hmmmm wonder why. And with 85 % of the worlds dope
Coming outta Afghanistan I would not be surprised if
The EU zone had a spike in addicts. and YET
They handle it better. Yea dope will change j. But it all depends on the person u are to start with. Oxy
Wds are MUCH worse than dope. iMO...
 
Agreed. Alcohol is the real gateway drug.
Pharma grade dope is sorta like what they do in the EU zone
For long term addicts. They give them pharma morph instead of
Metha or bupe. Alcohol kills more people each year here
Than dope death ods every year if my statistics are still right
 
this...
slimvictor said:
Actually, if we only had pharmaceutical-quality heroin, far fewer people would die from heroin than from alcohol.
The problem is the unknown quality of street heroin. This is rooted in its illegality.
If heroin were legal, it would be far safer than alcohol.
Heroin addiction - even for multiple decades - does not kill people. In fact, I saw a study of their cadavers, and there was no way to know that they had used heroin, let alone been addicted for decades. Nothing in the brain tissue, etc.
Alcohol, however, kills people. If they are addicted for decades, their livers get ruined, brains suffer, etc.
For safety, (real) heroin > alcohol.
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Portillo said:
^ It certainly worked for the Soviet Union. How many people died, 80 million?
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How many people died due to religious wars over the millenia? Maybe you need to read up on the Catholic Church's
history, especially the part regarding the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. Some of those popes made Stalin
look like an amateur when it came to torture and mass murder. And that's only one sect of a supposedly peaceful religion.
We won't even get into Islam and their conflicts as of late (or the controversy about Israel and its 'settlers'). Hell, even Buddhists have been known to run murderous governments that attempt to suppress/convert 'minority' religionists.

Why don't you check out Matthew 7:3 in the New Testament? It's got some good advice for you. ;)
 
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rollinstoner said:
It's not that you deserve to die, it's just obvious to the rest of the world that you junkies will have a premature death no matter what we try to do. You guys are killing yourselves and only you. Stop blaming everyone else and sober up you scumbags.
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8(

Are you sure your username isn't missing a "t" at the beginning?
 
I think it's pretty obvious rollinstoner will die a premature death due to ignorance, so we should probably consider him/her a primitive beast and not give him/her basic human rights, maybe we can torture rollinstoner on TV for the entertainment of the world as well, or sell his/her organs for money so that actual human beings could use them, instead of wasting them, like the primitive beast rollinstoner is. Or slave labour or any number of things.
 
limonov said:
Junkies serve an important role as a societal scapegoat- it is perfectly acceptable to advocate inhumane treatment of scapegoats as, ultimately, they are on the other side of the line. Drug addicts are simply the jews/gypsies/heretics of the 20th/21t century.
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Very well said. Szasz expands, basically, on this thesis in one of my favorite books Ceremonial Chemistry

RobotRipping said:
If the analogy holds then at some point the people running the drug war will realize that drug adddicts are human and the tide will turn, but even so racism and imperialism still exist but at least not like they did a few hundred years ago (perhaps that's debatable too tho).
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Too deterministic/over simplified. We're hardly past the Salem Witch Trial period frenzy; which is to say those who served as scape goats for the last 200 years, as you do point out, are still ghetto-ized and marginalized today, de facto and de jure... I fear it's a little more complicated, although being positive isn't the worst thing in the world (just a little naive perhaps).

I'm looking forward to when Latinos/Hispanics make up more than 50% of the US population :)
 
So you're saying that society will always need a human outlet to turn to (or to turn on) when they don't fully understand the origins of something "bad" which is affecting them?

Example - 1342 (the black death - God is punishing us for our sins), 1692 (Salem witch trials - children behaving badly), early 20th century (cannabis made illegal - allegedly, some dink killed his mother with an axe while baked), etc.

So in this case, heroin addicts deserve to die because they rob, cheat, steal, or lie (among other things) to get their fix (an opioid which is cut with impurities)?

^^ IMO, a stupid reason to condemn a person to death. People can be so cruel. A different breed of people, or so it seems. The same kind who yell to a person - who's considering suicide by falling to his/her death - to jump.
 
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