Which drugs do you think are decriminalized in Canada? Cocaine, heroin and marijuana are all prohibited under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
As I said, it would be safer, but not as safe as Vioxx, a drug which was deemed to be too dangerous for public consumption. I just don’t see how heroin could get past the FDA.
Different kinds of “safe,” maybe? If you know the strength of the heroin in question and the weight of the person taking it, as well as their tolerance, couldn’t you compute a safe-but-effective dose? And weren’t the Vioxx concerns related to increased chances of heart attack and stroke after long-term high-dose usage? That’s not the same thing as “easy to OD on.”
There’s also the difference between a drug used for treatment and one used for recreation. You probably run a bigger risk of injury or infection from scarification than from having a mole removed, but that doesn’t make it illegal.
Well decriminalizing Heroin would probably be a better idea than straight up legalization. But also if health classes were teaching kids the concept of dosage rather than, “ZOMG POISON! BE SCARED!”, they might be able to approach Heroin with something resembling critical thought.
You would never be able to make a safe version heroin. Even if you had it in small doses and mixed with some type of buffer, the users would extract and purify whatever form it came in to get a more potent dose. It would be just like how they make meth from Sudafed.
I don’t care about what people **can **do–I care about what you give them the tools for. So, if you give them the proper dosage, and then they inject more than that? Their problem, not yours.
ETA: It’s like saying we’ll never be able to make a safe car, because even if you post speed limits, somebody can still go 120 MPH down a residential street and mow down a line of toddlers.
But if you want to quit using an illegal drug, can you go to a rehab somewhere and say you want to quit using drugs, without worrying about someone turning you in for possession of those drugs? Or do you risk losing college scholarships, jobs, custody of your children, etc., in a way that someone who is trying to quit drinking or smoking doesn’t?
Most people, when they want to drink alcohol, go buy it at the liquor store and drink it pretty much unmodified from the form they bought it in. Most users of alcohol don’t try to purify it or make it more potent. They know that, if they want a stronger effect, it’s easier to go to the liquor store and buy more alcohol than it is to try and make the alcohol they have more potent. That’s not true for someone who buys an illegal drug.
How did La Familia become wealthy if the narcotic supply is so great? Wouldn’t that drive down the price? The fact that illegal drug producers are rich does indicate that there is some scarcity in their product.
Mea culpa. I thought marijuana had been decriminalized about 5 years ago in Canada, after doing some googling I see I was mistaken.
Regardless, I believe my point stands. Comparing the rates of the legal use of coffee to that of the illegal use of heroin is a diversion from the real issue, namely would usage rates rise significantly if drugs were legalized. To answer this question we would be better served examining usage rates of substances in places where they are legal and illegal. Like marijuana in the Netherlands and the U.S. or maybe alcohol consumption rates in the U.S. Muslim community compared to those in Saudi Arabia.
I really want to know who this vast legion of people is who would suddenly take up regular heroin usage were it legal but currently refrain.
Sort of. It indicates that they can artificially inflate the price because there is no open market mechanism balancing it out. Everyone along the chain of distribution assumes large profits because of the attendant risk. It’s not because the supply is actually low that prices are high, it’s because of the perceived risk. Basically everyone along the supply chain assumes that they should get a higher profit than they would for a legal product because they are taking on a greater risk. The mark-up you get from your end supplier is often 25-100% from what they bought it for. A sheet of acid goes from 250 - 500 per sheet, a sheet being 100 hits, an you can sell a hit to someone who knows what they are buying for 10 and sell it to a rube with no connections for 20. If you are dealing in enough volume on the supply side, you can buy your sheets 250, so that’s 400% profit at 10 a piece and 800% at 20, and that’s only the profit at the final end of the chain between final wholesaler and retailer.
To a degree prohibition causes artificial scarcity, but that’s because of the risk aversion involved in distribution more than it is a matter of actual total supply or total demand.
Organizations like La Familia just increase volume in order to compensate for losses. As the cost of actually acquiring the drugs from the farmers is rather low they can easily account for 30% loss of product without actually eating into their intended market saturation.
I should probably change the OP to ‘Prohibition does not significantly reduce demand.’, as my argument is more about the relative demand. Though I am convinced that this is probably incorrect. But I am not convinced that legalization would result in a great increase in addicts, more likely it would result in an increase in casual use.
What about Coca-Cola and Pepsi? There are all sorts of licit goods that are cheap and plentiful, but generate great wealth for the big operators and shareholders. From this I would assume that whether the merchandise is perceived, at the retail level, as “cheap” or “expensive” is largely irrelevant to the potential profitability of the enterprise.
And with the money involved, it makes it all too likely that criminal gangs will “sell out” a $10 million shipment in one part of the country, while elsewhere they are bringing in $100 million’s worth of the stuff.
The police get their pat on the back and the syndicates get their product through.
Right. There is something of an ‘equivalency of risk’ that I think matters. What I mean by this for instance is this:
Marijuana Use Health Risk < Risk of Legal consequences
Heroin Use Health Risk > Risk of Legal consequences
So I believe that legalization of Marijuana will likely normalize it and thus result in probably a wide increase in casual usage. Useful statistics on the change in usage resulting from California medical marijuana laws might be available.
Heroin use on the other hand is riskier from a health perspective than it is from a legal one. Therefore the stronger deterrant is its attendant health risks. As opposed to prescription opioids which are available in precise dosages and as such are far more widely used than Heroin and likely would remain so even if Heroin were decriminalized. I don’t know much about the pharmacology of it but as I understand it opioids are different as a matter of degree rather than kind. A high dose of morphine gives the same effect as a high dose of heroin.
True, but alcohol is not typically addictive like heroin (other than for alcoholics). I can also buy unlimited amounts of 100% alcohol. When I drink alcohol, I’m fully in control of how much I drink and when to stop. But heroin gets in your brain and it starts to demand more and more. That’s why I think users would abuse any sort of legal heroin in order to maintain their high.
I think legal marijuana would be very similar to alcohol. People would use it to get an appropriate buzz. There would be no desire to purify it to maximize THC for the same reason most people don’t drink Everclear.
filmore The idea of Heroin’s addictiveness is a bit overdone. People kick opiates all the time after getting out of the hospital. Also, I know lots of people who have had bouts of heroin usage and then they put it down when they are done. I’ve tried heroin a few times and found it mildly interesting, but not really worth associating with the shady characters and the expense. I think the guy who used to give it to me for free wanted me to help him sell it to the white kids.
Interesting. I must admit, my knowledge of heroin addition is fueled by the images seen on tv and in the movies. I suppose alcoholism could be portrayed the same way.
Do you think the effects of legal heroin would be much like the effects of legal alcohol? That is, the bulk of people use it occasionally to feel good, some abuse it, and a small number become addicted?
I think that opiates are already widely available and that many people choose not to do them. Where do you think all the pills on the open-market come from? They are usually pulled from medicine cabinets after they’ve been forgotten by whoever had their wisdom teeth pulled and got their prescription to oxy. The fact that there is a market for these pills and a supply shows that people who are being prescribed them are choosing not to use them even though they are available, already purchased and can be used legally.
Yeah, it’s my understanding that most people who have to go on opiates for medical reasons don’t have a problem stopping them when they’re no longer necessary. So true heroin addiction would be the same kind of thing as alcoholism.
I have to wonder if marijuana was legalized, if any change in the statistics would be relevant. I would think that when asked the question, “Have you used marijuana in the last year?”, that many would say no even if they have, just because of the legal and social ramifications. If after five years, the social norm was legalized marijuana, how many would then admit to use?