Drug epidemics are lethal. Preventing first use by restraining supply is a valid and effective strategy. I just wish we pursued it. The UK is ripe for a lethal drug epidemics that we see in deregulated america.
A lot of this is commonsense stuff, but the failure as is too often with harm reduction advocates is that the issue is not a binary choice of punishment vs. treatment.
The experience of San Francisco, Seattle etc — places that have emphasized compassion and social services and harm reduction over enforcement — have seen a humanitarian disaster that defies description. Not only have deadly overdoses risen, so too have more serious crimes and homelessness. Entire swaths of the emerald coast are unrecognizable, uninhabitable, or unfit for travelers or businesses. The West Coast has compassioned thousands into an early grave — very often the only way to rebound is to hit rock bottom in that cell first. Instead, they are getting a shot of naloxone, a meeting with their case worker, and then are sent right back on to the streets to continue self-destructing.
Naloxone, post-OD care, social services, drug courts, etc all have their place. But enforcement of the law has to be a priority, as well. It is not cruel to enforce the law for the benefit of the 95% of people who are not drug addicts; just as it is not compassionate to pretend that our harm reduction models won’t kill these same addicts and ruin communities.
I’m no soppy liberal, but drugs laws are mainly there to punish poor and/or black people.
I know for a fact that if I wanted to snort a fat stripe I could and no-one would stop me.
In a world of false claims of victimisation, this *is* a genuine case of discrimination.
The drug laws should be applied equally across the board and not used to target particular groups
If punishing addicts was the answer then we’d have won the war on drugs a long fucking time ago.
“You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the fuck it’s gonna take you.”
It won’t change anything.
Near enough every expert in this field is for the decriminalisation of drugs and yet the politicians won’t because people who know toss all about the topic will be up in arms if it happens.
Criminalisation only leads to more deaths, more unsafe practices and a bigger cost to the taxpayer.
I’ve suffered years of abuse at the hands of drug addicts, why the fuck should I feel any sympathy to those who ruined my life?
I’ve had my home broken into, been physically and verbally abused, harassed for years and years to the point I had to jump town for my own safety and it wasn’t one incident either, 3 fucking times in my life I’ve encountered it from 3 different people, all addicts. All violent. All nasty. All thieves.
They bring all their issues onto those who don’t deserve it because of an evil habit they got themselves into willingly. They’re evil evil evil evil people and so is anyone who encourages it. Fuck them all.
I see it outside my house, day in, day out and it’s just sad. Evil people run the underworld that feeds from these poor people. They take everything from them, money, property, morals, family, soul then life. The war on drugs is lost.
Completely agree
However…
Regular random Drug and Alcohol testing for MPs and anybody who works directly with government including advisers. Failed tests should come with severe punishments attached including immediate removal from their position.
Narcotics prohibition laws are pants. Always have been, always will be imv.
The war on drugs has killed millions and layed waste, economicly, to huge areas of the planet for more than a century. All to placate the manufactured outrage of right-wing Christians in the USA, scared of their daughters becoming heroin whores or raped by black pot smokers.
He’s out of a job within a week, guaranteed.
I’d like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs.
I dunno what other police forces are like but West Mids were very good to me. I was arrested for possession of a class A.
Based on the amount I had I could have been prosecuted for dealing. Instead I was given a conditional caution and release dafter an overnight stay. Made to attend the local rehab service for at least 3 months.
That was 5yr ago. I’m now clean.
I believe in legalisation, license, tax and supply. We had access to opiates and coke at the turn of the 20th Century without it causing mass societal collapse.
I recommend everyone read a book called “Chasing the Scream” – It’s about the history of the drug war.
Wonder how soon he’ll be out of a job.
Hey, you know that thing most of the general public already know, yeah maybe do that.
Invent better drugs make them legal control the supply and patent no more illegal drugs.
All the woe, and crime, is caused – knowingly – by anti-social personality types who set themselves up as figures in the drug world.
Once hooked – and so many really stand little chance – the addicts are the equivalent of their bot army, committing masses of crime and antisocial behaviour just so they can stuff another few notes in the dealers pocket.
Eeeeeeerrr..Portugal decriminalised all drugs 22 years ago
This is great but tomorrow or the day after that they’ll run a headline in which a ‘violent heroin addict’ robs ‘hardworking single mum of three’ and suddenly everyone will hate drug users again. It’s pathetic
There is literally no societal benefit to punishing addicts. We should decriminalise possession (in some amounts, no addict is going round with a bag of drugs), stop going after low level dealers, offer treatment for addicts and refocus policing onto the people responsible for the supply.
I must admit I have little direct experience of illegal drugs, but I have quite a bit of first hand experience of people enjoying and abusing alcohol. I suspect there are similarities.
The first thing that strikes me is the assumption that anyone who uses drugs wants to quit and will give up at the drop of a hat, if only they are offered help. That sounds unlikely to me. Certainly with alcohol the majority of users enjoy it and have no intention of giving up. That applies to people who are well within safe limits and also to people who have a problematic habit. Rightly or wrongly, they feel that their lives are better with alcohol than they would be without it.
If large numbers of people aren’t going to stop in the foreseeable future, I really don’t understand how legalising possession will be much help, if supply is still strictly illegal. Many of the problems with drugs are down to the criminals supplying the drugs – the violence, the dangerous product, large sums of money going to organised crime and terrorism. None of that is going to stop just because possession is no longer illegal.
The only real solution seems to be legalising and regulating the supply of at least some recreational drugs. But that will surely increase the number of people using drugs, so it is a question of whether people will accept that as a political decision.
As an expat now living in Canada I look at UK drug policy and especially marijuana policy and just shake my head…. Absolute madness.
My dad suffers from Parkinson’s and one of things that really helps him is a high dose of THC…. Something that’s now available on literally every street corner in Toronto… yet would land him in jail in the UK.
I absolute do not, not ever, send him drugs in the mail. It’s never happened.
Addiction is a disease
Its so bizarre that we can all (mostly) agree that alcoholism is an illness but hardly anyone extends that same line of reasoning to drug addicts
Punishing addicts never worked and never will. Portugal is one of the few countries that stopped punishing addicts years ago and had amazing success, especially concerning heroin use.
26 comments
Prevention > Treatment
Drug epidemics are lethal. Preventing first use by restraining supply is a valid and effective strategy. I just wish we pursued it. The UK is ripe for a lethal drug epidemics that we see in deregulated america.
A lot of this is commonsense stuff, but the failure as is too often with harm reduction advocates is that the issue is not a binary choice of punishment vs. treatment.
The experience of San Francisco, Seattle etc — places that have emphasized compassion and social services and harm reduction over enforcement — have seen a humanitarian disaster that defies description. Not only have deadly overdoses risen, so too have more serious crimes and homelessness. Entire swaths of the emerald coast are unrecognizable, uninhabitable, or unfit for travelers or businesses. The West Coast has compassioned thousands into an early grave — very often the only way to rebound is to hit rock bottom in that cell first. Instead, they are getting a shot of naloxone, a meeting with their case worker, and then are sent right back on to the streets to continue self-destructing.
Naloxone, post-OD care, social services, drug courts, etc all have their place. But enforcement of the law has to be a priority, as well. It is not cruel to enforce the law for the benefit of the 95% of people who are not drug addicts; just as it is not compassionate to pretend that our harm reduction models won’t kill these same addicts and ruin communities.
I’m no soppy liberal, but drugs laws are mainly there to punish poor and/or black people.
I know for a fact that if I wanted to snort a fat stripe I could and no-one would stop me.
In a world of false claims of victimisation, this *is* a genuine case of discrimination.
The drug laws should be applied equally across the board and not used to target particular groups
If punishing addicts was the answer then we’d have won the war on drugs a long fucking time ago.
“You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don’t know where the fuck it’s gonna take you.”
It won’t change anything.
Near enough every expert in this field is for the decriminalisation of drugs and yet the politicians won’t because people who know toss all about the topic will be up in arms if it happens.
Criminalisation only leads to more deaths, more unsafe practices and a bigger cost to the taxpayer.
I’ve suffered years of abuse at the hands of drug addicts, why the fuck should I feel any sympathy to those who ruined my life?
I’ve had my home broken into, been physically and verbally abused, harassed for years and years to the point I had to jump town for my own safety and it wasn’t one incident either, 3 fucking times in my life I’ve encountered it from 3 different people, all addicts. All violent. All nasty. All thieves.
They bring all their issues onto those who don’t deserve it because of an evil habit they got themselves into willingly. They’re evil evil evil evil people and so is anyone who encourages it. Fuck them all.
I see it outside my house, day in, day out and it’s just sad. Evil people run the underworld that feeds from these poor people. They take everything from them, money, property, morals, family, soul then life. The war on drugs is lost.
Completely agree
However…
Regular random Drug and Alcohol testing for MPs and anybody who works directly with government including advisers. Failed tests should come with severe punishments attached including immediate removal from their position.
Narcotics prohibition laws are pants. Always have been, always will be imv.
The war on drugs has killed millions and layed waste, economicly, to huge areas of the planet for more than a century. All to placate the manufactured outrage of right-wing Christians in the USA, scared of their daughters becoming heroin whores or raped by black pot smokers.
He’s out of a job within a week, guaranteed.
I’d like to congratulate drugs for winning the war on drugs.
I dunno what other police forces are like but West Mids were very good to me. I was arrested for possession of a class A.
Based on the amount I had I could have been prosecuted for dealing. Instead I was given a conditional caution and release dafter an overnight stay. Made to attend the local rehab service for at least 3 months.
That was 5yr ago. I’m now clean.
I believe in legalisation, license, tax and supply. We had access to opiates and coke at the turn of the 20th Century without it causing mass societal collapse.
I recommend everyone read a book called “Chasing the Scream” – It’s about the history of the drug war.
Wonder how soon he’ll be out of a job.
Hey, you know that thing most of the general public already know, yeah maybe do that.
Invent better drugs make them legal control the supply and patent no more illegal drugs.
All the woe, and crime, is caused – knowingly – by anti-social personality types who set themselves up as figures in the drug world.
Once hooked – and so many really stand little chance – the addicts are the equivalent of their bot army, committing masses of crime and antisocial behaviour just so they can stuff another few notes in the dealers pocket.
Eeeeeeerrr..Portugal decriminalised all drugs 22 years ago
This is great but tomorrow or the day after that they’ll run a headline in which a ‘violent heroin addict’ robs ‘hardworking single mum of three’ and suddenly everyone will hate drug users again. It’s pathetic
There is literally no societal benefit to punishing addicts. We should decriminalise possession (in some amounts, no addict is going round with a bag of drugs), stop going after low level dealers, offer treatment for addicts and refocus policing onto the people responsible for the supply.
I must admit I have little direct experience of illegal drugs, but I have quite a bit of first hand experience of people enjoying and abusing alcohol. I suspect there are similarities.
The first thing that strikes me is the assumption that anyone who uses drugs wants to quit and will give up at the drop of a hat, if only they are offered help. That sounds unlikely to me. Certainly with alcohol the majority of users enjoy it and have no intention of giving up. That applies to people who are well within safe limits and also to people who have a problematic habit. Rightly or wrongly, they feel that their lives are better with alcohol than they would be without it.
If large numbers of people aren’t going to stop in the foreseeable future, I really don’t understand how legalising possession will be much help, if supply is still strictly illegal. Many of the problems with drugs are down to the criminals supplying the drugs – the violence, the dangerous product, large sums of money going to organised crime and terrorism. None of that is going to stop just because possession is no longer illegal.
The only real solution seems to be legalising and regulating the supply of at least some recreational drugs. But that will surely increase the number of people using drugs, so it is a question of whether people will accept that as a political decision.
As an expat now living in Canada I look at UK drug policy and especially marijuana policy and just shake my head…. Absolute madness.
My dad suffers from Parkinson’s and one of things that really helps him is a high dose of THC…. Something that’s now available on literally every street corner in Toronto… yet would land him in jail in the UK.
I absolute do not, not ever, send him drugs in the mail. It’s never happened.
Addiction is a disease
Its so bizarre that we can all (mostly) agree that alcoholism is an illness but hardly anyone extends that same line of reasoning to drug addicts
Punishing addicts never worked and never will. Portugal is one of the few countries that stopped punishing addicts years ago and had amazing success, especially concerning heroin use.