I guess the clinics around here must be pretty good; you can pretty much specify your own dose, until you get up to about 120mg daily, at which point you have to get a blood test that measures your peak and trough levels in order to go up further. I know a couple dozen people on levels that high.
Assuming the dose is properly titrated, supplanting it with heroin doesn’t work much, if at all, because the opiate receptors are so saturated that it takes a huge amount of heroin to make a difference … making it a huge waste of money that will show up on a urine test and get your methadone taken away in a hurry.
Undoubtedly there are some people who do it, though; I just don’t understand why.
Once they establish that you’re a responsible patient, you only have to come in once every two weeks. It used to be once a month, and there are still plenty of once-a-month patients grandfathered in, but new patients max out at having to come in every two weeks, from what I understand.
That’s for sure. Slightly over 10% of the patients I’ve interviewed say they’re there not for addiction treatment but because it’s the cheapest way to get pain medication.
You could just make poppy tea out of them, but since space would presumably be at a premium, I’m sure a real addict would try to create actual opium for smoking or injection.
Employers already have great (read: unlimited) leeway to administer pre-employment and random drug tests.
If drugs are legalized, but drug testing gets even more intensive and excessively high tax burdens are levied on the drugs, then we end up right back where we started from, don’t we? Unemployed addicts who have to resort to crime to get a fix.
As an alternative, I would suggest impairment testing, not drug testing. If an employee can show up to work sober, do an acceptable job, and keep his use to non-business hours, it should not be any cause for worry from his employer.
I’m also for complete legalization of all drugs. The current policy allows drugs to be sold at ridiculously high prices allowing bribes, corruption, etc to infiltrate every part of the system.
About ten years ago didn’t a drug cartel attempt to build a submarine by employing former Soviet military engineers? How can the DEA, the Coast Guard, and local law enforcement hope to compete with that kind of “buying power”?
Heck, China executes drug dealers. So, I guess that solves their problem, right? Then how come I keep reading that China just executed another group of drug dealers?
With the opportunity for dealers to make huge amounts of money (so much so that even the death penalty cannot deter people), the War On Drugs can never be won.
I tend to agree with the legalization camp. The fact is, alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are just as much “drugs” as any other foreign substance we take into our bodies to induce a desired psychotropic change. “Drugs” are regulated somewhat in relation to the strength and nature of their effects, but when you compare booze to smack in terms of potency, potential for abuse, addictiveness, social and economic harm, and so forth, there’s really no important distinction. In any sensible world, if one were “acceptible” the other would be also, and it’s only old-fashioned social convention that prevents us from deviating from our current approach to the illicit pharmacopeia.
That said, I don’t think it would be wise to simply end all proscription immediately. I think the overall effect on an unacceptably large portion of our population would be somewhat akin to the approach 17-year-old college freshmen take to beer at their first kegger away from home. We are, when it comes to drugs, a pathologically dysfunctional and immature nation, and we won’t suddenly have the skills to handle legal access overnight.
So, as suggested above, slowly phase out enforcement on domestic producers and users, treating foreign suppliers like the traders of any form of contraband. This eases us a bit into acclimation whilst setting the stage for an economy where the production and distribution of drugs is regulated and taxed like any other form of trade, be it foreign or domestic. As the laws become increasingly “blue” in their practical impact, strike them, perhaps in the order of the “softer” to “harder” drugs (like cannibis to begin with, for instance, even if the perception of weed’s lack of “hardness” is little more than an anti-drug fantasy). Introduce laws that limit personal production to personal and non-profit consumption without licensure, just as we do with alcohol. Basically just phase in the alcohol paradigm, and revamp the ATF. “Drugs and Guns” it will be, or whatever they want to call it.
No, it’s not THAT legal; what I meant is that any addict can theoretically go into a clinic and start legally taking it instead of heroin. It’s much cheaper than heroin, despite still being much more expensive than the actual manufacturing cost (a typical clinic in my area charges $5-7 per day for methadone, while their cost is roughly $0.10 per day); the clinics do have to pay for a bunch of nurses, counsellors, and urine tests, of course.
I am Pro-Legalization, but (sadly) the US will never follow the path of common sense:
-legalization would interrupt the drug enforcement industry
-it would cut into the incomes of prisons, lawyers, judges, and the whole court system
-it would threaten the big-city mayors, who use drugs as the excuse for allowing their cities to decay (justifying MORE Federal grants, loans, etc., to corrupt city machines)
In short, we are in too deep! We have an enforcement industry that emplys more people than General Motors, and it MUST be fed!
Just an aside: suppose some chemist at a major drug company were to invent a new drug, which wouldgive you 24 hours of ecstasy (for a small dose0. would be non-addictive, and not harmful. What do you think would happen to it- would the Government allow it to be sold?
True on the current state of testing (for the most part). My point is that we should keep it despite the legalizatioin. Some might say an employer shouldn’t be allowed to drug test if drugs are legal. I’m coming at it from a libertarian angle. Let people who wish to use drugs be free to do so. At the same time, allow employers and society in general to avoid them as much as they’d like to.
Then again, I always liked the comedian’s line about how drug tests are cheating. If you can’t tell I’m high, I win.
Count me as another vote for legalization. In fact, we here in Nevada are currently voting on this very question. Question 7, if passed, would legalize the possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana for private use on one’s own property. The plan, as it stands now, would be to sell it in specially licensed establishments (not convenience or liquor stores) that must be at least 500 feet from a school or house of worship. According to our voter’s guide, the excise tax paid to the state by the vendor would be something on the order of $45 for every ounce sold. Taking in the most conservative estimates of marijuana use, that comes out to a very nice chunk of change for the state–a state which learned a long time ago that it is more practical to tax and regulate people’s vices than prohibit them.
I do not believe, however, that all recreational drugs should be legalized at this time. Marijuana will do just fine for now, and, yes, you can separate it from other substances because marijuana requires no chemical manufacturing process; apart from drying it, it is sold just as it grows.
As far as drug testing goes, I imagine everyone is familiar with the argument that such tests are unconstitutional; count me as one who believes that wholeheartedly. What probable cause does an employer have to suspect you are using illegal drugs unless you present yourself at the interview high as a kite? None, unless we suddenly condone the assumption of criminal activity–a direct contradiction of the “presumption of innocence” principle.
Prohibition costs money; taxation and regulation make money.
If the War on Drugs mentality didn’t pervade general thinking about drugs, it might have been possible that a new method to take opiates which greatly reduces tolerance development and withdrawal symptoms, would have taken root among nonmedical users.
I’m for legalisation too. But here in the U.K., I’d say that treatment for the chronic effects of drug abuse should not be available on the NHS, with the exception of overcoming the addiction. If you did it to yourself, why should I pay for it? Ditto smoking, BTW.
Given that we’re an island, legalisation should be rather easier to manage here.
I’m also from the UK.
To me prohibition seems idiotic, we have an example of what happened in the USA when alcohol was supposedly banned
it turned the average (or median) citizen into a willing conspiritor with criminals.
it also made Joe Kennedy rich.
I also don’t see the point in taxing anything heavily, it just creates a black market, for example in the UK tobacco is heavily taxed, but there is a thriving market in smuggled goods.
The problem with drugs is not what they do to the people who take them, that is a given, it is what they do to society in general.
Take the money out of the drugs market and things will calm down.
But how do you determine what’s an effect of drug abuse? It’s pretty straightforward if you’ve been smoking and get lung cancer or drinking and get cirrhosis of the liver, but with other drugs the damage isn’t so straightforward. And with opiates you can take them pretty much forever without any ill effects (except constipation, which can be dealt with in a variety of ways, the best being the addition of methylnaltrexone to the opiate which prevents constipation in the first place). I’d hate to see a situation like we have with some smoking statistics that try to indicate that anything that happens to a person who smokes is a result of the smoking.
I’ll let those far more knowledgable than myself decide, but I’ll give two examples: snorting cocaine damages the nose, and there is possibly a link (IIRC there is anecdotal evidence but not proof) between marijuana and mental illness. I’m not a doctor; I’m not a proper person to decide.
I really wanted to participate in this thread, but I got this far…
…and just had to give up.
It never ceases to amaze me. Whenever I hear intelligent and rational people discuss this, an overwhelming majority think that the War On Drug Users (especially as regards cannabis prohibition) is poorly conceived and poorly executed. Yet we speak of it only in hushed voices among trusted friends, or under cover of anonymity on message boards.
It will never change unless we start requiring those whom we elect to represent us in this matter. But any dissent on this issue, more than any other, is the Kiss of Death to politicians. Abortion? Sure. Gay marriage? No problem. You want to legalize pot??? Why do you hate America’s children?
I think marijuana (and some prescription pills and hallucinogens) are the ones that are nearly slam-dunk cases for safe legalization from a corruption perspective.
But If we tried to legalize opiates, cocaine, or PCP, for instance, the legislators who pass this might be in danger from drugs cartels that might try to kill them before they can make it legal.
I’m not sure if this would really be a danger, but I don’t think that the marijuana, vicodin, and acid distribution channels are violent and organized enough to do this. And in the case of pot there is the additional benefit of it being very easy to grow, so even racketeering of legal industries (such as gambling in Vegas or est coast longshoremen,) would not be able to take hold there.
So I say that a “perfect storm” of easy growth, safe consumption, lack of corruption-violence, and public acceptance mean that marijuana could be legalized with almost no repercussions in America if we get an administration favorable to it.
On the other side of the spectrum, we have cocaine, which AFAIK is difficult to grow except in South America (?) If that’s the case it would be difficult to get rid of the corruption even if it were legalized so maybe we shouldn’t push for legalization there.
Well, yes (although that marijuana thing surprises me; do you have a cite?), obviously there are some medical problems that can clearly be linked to specific kinds of drug use/abuse. Smoking anything is going to hurt your lungs, snorting alkaline powders is going to hurt your nose, etc. But I don’t think it would be fair to blame every health problem somebody has on drug use, and I suspect that might happen if we adopted a policy of not paying for self-induced health problems.
Again, if the War on Drugs mentality wasn’t extant, snorting/smoking/injecting wouldn’t be prevalent routes of administration, both due to the convenience of legal formulations and the economics of the cocaine supply when treated as a regular agricultural commodity.
As for marijuana and mental illness, the most definitive evidence is that those who take up regular use before age 16 and possess two copies of the Valine158 allele at loci 22q11 (the catechol-O-methyltranferase gene) show a huge increase in risk of psychosis in adulthood. This effect is absent in those with two copies of the methionine allele, and moderated in those with one of each. The effect is also absent among those who weren’t regular users in adolescence. A constellation of recent clinical and epidemiological studies have shown that sustained marijuana use before age 16 is problematic from various biological and social perspectives.
Oh, it’s so easy for tangents … I’ll try to make mine brief
I don’t know about this one. The rush that a user gets from /snorting/injecting/smoking is far greater than by mouth. “Crack” would probably decrease, secondary to it being a different product (assuming that regular cocaine were freely available and inexpensive), but you’d still have injecters and “insufflaters” (snorters).
There is a huge stigma attached to methadone treatment, both by potential clients and communities.
Methadone has the reputation of being more difficult to stop (which in some ways it is).
It also has the reputation of “rotting your teeth, getting in your bones, destroying your liver/kidneys” (it doesn’t, especially compared to other opiates).
It involves significant restrictions in freedom (the extended take-home doses don’t start until two years of stability).
And, it can cramp an addict’s style to have to go to counseling and groups and see a doctor (for those who are not actively planning to work on abstinence and/or actual sobriety).
Not to mention that there are currently enough treatment slots for only about 10% of people who could benefit from treatment.
Buprenorphine (Suboxone) was thought to be the “great orange hope”. It is another opiate replacement therapy with less restrictive guidelines. It is a great (albeit expensive) product and works well for some; however, most clients who come in with a substance use disorder need more than a pill to fix the chaos that is their lives. And, in a busy primary care practice, they’re typically not going to that that kind of wraparound service, which generally leads to using again, and subsequently getting kicked out of the buprenorphine program.
Legalization? For some drugs, yes. Though I would **love ** to see about half of the money that goes to fighting this “war on drugs” go to providing treatment for those who want it (and some forms of treatment - harm reduction strategies, brief interventions) for those who aren’t quite ready to make a change yet.
