This happens in almost all legalize ALL drug threads, people raise objections that are direct consequences OF prohibition which would not be present in a hypothetical scenario where a vial of heroin costs $2 at the local pharmacy if you are over 18.
It is addictive and expensive so people will get addicted and turn to crime BZZT wrong.
It will encourage gangs and street crime and enrich cartels BZZT.
People will let their children starve to buy it BZZT.
The whole point is that with legalization and cheap pure drugs sold at retail who would go to their local gang for $10 dollar hits of smuggled cartel product? People nostalgic for ye olden days?!
Heroin makes people self-destructively stupid. It is not a coincidence that the only people stupid enough to use krokodil more than once are heroin users.
Heroin users in Russia(the story has all the markings of a moral panic) used badly made homemade desomorphine because they could not afford heroin. If heroin was legal and cheap why would anyone use dangerous homemade crap? Hell if there is a demand for desomorphine a pharmaceutical company could produce pure stuff for use.
heroin is addictive and destructive to the point it doesn’t matter how much it cost. People lose their ability to earn a living over it. It is so addictive that the user will resort to any means to attain it. So your opening thesis is incorrect.
Ok well what if the government handed out FREE heroin to addicts, if low cost is too prohibitive a barrier.
These threads and debates always just seem to circle back to “it is addictive and people will do anything to get it” cool I agree 100%. But what if getting it was trivially easy or free even? Ok now what.
I’m trying to get around the objection that even if heroin cost 1cent a pound people would be commiting theft to obtain it.
Again what if obtaining and using heroin was a non-issue, everyone can have as much or as little as they want. What would happen then?
I just seem to be stuck in a circular loop of heroin is bad because it makes people desperate to obtain it and that causes much damage, so we have to stop them from getting it at all costs. And I’m going um why not just let them have it, and avoid the damage.
Then you still have huge numbers of addicts who will destroy their lives, sitting around doing nothing but taking heroin until they overdose. Harm doesn’t just come from spending rent money on heroin, or doing illegal things to buy heroin.
From a purely public health point of view, there are epidemiologists and doctors that try to determine the actual harm and addiction potential of different types of drugs. Following their logic, I tend to categorize drugs as less harmful, as harmful, or more harmful than alcohol or tobacco. By that sort of measure, heroin is at the top of the scale for addiction potential and harm.
And then there are the massive indirect costs to society. Since a heroin addict can’t hold a job, the rest of us have to pay for their health care, food, housing, etc.
You’re doing that now(royal you/we) AND you have to replace your laptop and broken window. You can’t convince someone who just wants to get high to work, but you can prevent his need to turn to crime.
The fact is, prohibition makes all the effects of heroin addiction worse.
Once upon a time heroin was given on prescription to addicts. Even now most healthcare systems give methodone out to addicts, which normally results in the patient becoming addicted to both, or refusing to take methodone because it doesn’t feel the same.
So we’re back to the circular arguments and nonsense. Legalisation is the worse of all systems, except for all the others.
The best info I could get in a quick google search said something like 1% of people have ever tried heroin in their lifetime, and some fraction of a percent of them were regular users.
If heroin was cheap and legal, I’d expect those numbers would increase by some multitude of tenfold. Say, 50% would have tried it in their lifetime, and 10-20% would be regular users. Setting aside whether that would be a good or a bad thing, that’s the reason heroin is illegal. Because most people think it would be a bad thing if that many people were addicted to heroin.
Nicotine is highly addictive as well. But nicotine addicts are able to get their fix cheaply and legally so they can function in society. Or alcohol - there are plenty of people with alcohol addictions who manage to function around their addiction.
I’m not arguing that a drug addiction is a good thing but I feel a large part of the social problems caused by the addiction are due to its criminality.
Heroin was legal in the United States prior to 1923. There probably were more addicts but I doubt it was as high as you’re saying. And even if there were, society seemed to have been functioning.
And, sorry for the double post, but 1923 was a long time ago. How many people used heroin in 1922? How many people knew about it? How many could afford it?
The OP is talking essentially about a harm-reduction model. The idea is that if you provide cheap (free?) and pure product then there will be a decline in the negative personal and social effects.
I agree whole-heartedly, and here are the reasons:
Heroin, as far as I understand it, is physically harmless. It does not destroy organs or body systems. What does do damage are the cutting agents used to increase profits.
OD’s are almost always the result someone accustomed to a lower grade accidently getting higher-grade unawares and fixing themselves with their usual dose. This is also seen in relapses where the addict fails to account for decreased tolerance.
Communicable diseases related to heroin are entirely due to sharing works. Use your own needle to fix and you will never catch AIDS or Hep or anything else that you don’t already have.
Junkies are dysfunctional largely because of the realities of illicit drug culture. It takes time to score (your guy is busy, late, waiting for his guy, is on the other side of town, was arrested forcing you to hunt up another buddy etc.) When scoring is a part time job it is hard to hold a full time job.
Try and get a job with a narc rap on your sheet.
Closely related to #s 4 and 5 is that the lack of ability to earn means one must make quick, easy money to avoid getting sick. This means theft (of all sorts) prostitution, pawning everything but your underwear etc. Desperate people do desperate things.
The notion that shitloads of people will flock to try it is asinine. There is a subset of people that will try drugs (less populous as the drugs get “harder.”) I’ve had extensive - non-professional - contact with a goodly number of “druggies” but I’ve only ever known one junkie (morphine.) I’ve done a vast array of drugs and have had opportunities to do many more and have CHOSEN not to. I am not even close to unique among the folks I have known.
I admit this point is sketchy, but here goes. DeQuincy in Confessions of an English Opium Eater lays out a 30 day schedule of (physical) addiction. A century and a half later William S. Burroughs laid out the same schedule. It is not something you will get hooked on the first time. In fact I’ve yet to meet a drug that would hook you (physically) the first time
The countries that have adopted harm-reduction seem happy with it and some of those that went off it are looking at going back to it.
I’m not certain that I support legalization - though I likely would - but nothing could work worse than the current model.
