The goal of the 'War' on Drugs is not a victory but keeping the problem from derailing the whole society. People will always look for pleasure and try to avoid pain, and the drags are the best shortcut. For many addicts picking themselves up by their bootstraps and becoming productive full members of society isn't an attractive proposition, so they stay on their pass without giving much consideration for tomorrow.
America's failed war on drugs
- Thread starter Leftyhunter
- Start date
This is questionable. Most addicts are incapable of holding steady jobs and even legitimized/decriminalized drugs would cost money, plus regular living expenses. Then life of crime remains of only sustainable way of life.
Joined Jan 2021
4,992 Posts | 3,605+
Conch Republic. "WE Seceded where others failed"
I like that. I like to use the phrase "keeping it down to a dull roar" but you are exactly right.
Probably not, but breaking an addiction is very difficult. One needs to want to overcome the addiction for oneself. I agree that many addicts have little or no incentive to even try.
It needs to be realise that addictions occur in every class, not just the marginalised members of society.
In my AA group, there is a doctor, a police officer, a nurse, a well known actress and a car salesman. Very few street derelicts make it to AA, and those who do tend not to stay.
I overcame my addiction to alcohol in 2002. I had retired 3 years earlier. I had begun to have hang overs. So I thought " This is not good. If I continue they will fire me, sooner rather than later" So I "took a package" (voluntary redundancy ) Typical alkie, it didn't occur to me the stop drinking. I continued for 3 years after I retired and got a lot worse. A moment of clarity resulted in going to AA and a rehab programme.
Sadly, very few doctors know anything about addiction and most rehab programmes are based on AA's 12 step programme, which has very limited success.
Actually if drugs were fully legalized the cost of providing 19th Century drugs such has heroin and cocaine would be about the same as generic aspirin. Even 20th Century drugs such a has LSD and Methamphetamines are over eighty years old so not that complicated to manufacture.
Leftyhunter
Yes but if you confine repeat addicts to Junkietown and just give them all the drugs they want they won't bother anyone and commit crimes they will just enjoy a life of bliss.
Leftyhunter
And just wait until they all die of overdose. Yeah, it might be a solution until some of your loved ones don't end up there.
Realistically that's just how drug addiction goes. There is no magical drug rehabilitation fairy who waves a magic wand to make drug addiction go away. My kids who are now grown stayed out of the drug scene. History has more then adequately shown there is no such thing as a law enforcement or drug rehabilitation cure for drug abuse. Drugs have been around a long time and there not going away. Sure drug rehabilitation can be offered to drug addicts but there has to be a finite amount of times it can be offered. Innocent people should not suffer from the crimes of the drug addicts. There comes a time when the best course of action is to separate drug addicts from society and give them what they want.
Leftyhunter
Joined Jan 2021
4,992 Posts | 3,605+
Conch Republic. "WE Seceded where others failed"
As a Christian, I cannot abide this. I WILL NOT stand by and let fellow citizens die without doing my best to prevent it. From EITHER side, "enforcement" or "rehabilitation". It MUST be a two-pronged approach.
Hollywood isn't helping. In fact, probably exacerbating the problem.
The late Jimmy Buffet (RIP 2023) possibly said it the best:
Turn off the TV,
Turn off the crap
The US has tried a two pronged approach since 1914 . Other countries have done the same for many decades. If an approach doesn't work after one hundred plus years maybe that approach is wrong.
Leftyhunter
@Yury
The claim that most addicts cannot hold down a job is factually untrue as a general principle. It depends on the addiction and on the individual.
Many (most?) alcoholics go through a process, which often includes many years as a functioning alcoholic. Specifically, such people hold down jobs for years before the addiction takes over completely. Took me about 20 years before I reached that stage.
As for opium; smokers of opium can function for many years.
Heroin addicts can also function for many years, especially if the drug they take is chemically pure and taken under sterile conditions. IE clean needles.
My boss in the army was the battalion doctor. This was decades before I started drinking in the sense of being addicted. He told me that should you ever have the choice of having an alcoholic surgeon or a heroin addicted one, take the heroin addict every time.
Even today, in the twenty first century, both most doctors and members of the general public still seem to have a very limited knowledge of addiction, what it actually means and the actual prognosis of over coming the addiction. As far as I'm aware, the rate of addicts who overcome their addiction is somewhere between 3 and 10%***
*** I once read that the percentage of AA members who stay sober long term is about 3%. I've seen no studies to support that. However, going going by the ever changing faces at AA meetings 3% seems about right.----Yet I still recommend AA to the suffering alcoholic. They will usually find immediate relief. (of course, if they have stopped drinking) Plus as far as I'm aware, virtually all rehab programmes are based on the AA 12 step programme. IE there is nothing else, and AA is free, and one can attend 3 meetings a day if they want. The suggestion for the newly sober is 90 meetings in 90 days. ( I never did more than 5 a week, and that was during rehab)
The claim that most addicts cannot hold down a job is factually untrue as a general principle. It depends on the addiction and on the individual.
Many (most?) alcoholics go through a process, which often includes many years as a functioning alcoholic. Specifically, such people hold down jobs for years before the addiction takes over completely. Took me about 20 years before I reached that stage.
As for opium; smokers of opium can function for many years.
Heroin addicts can also function for many years, especially if the drug they take is chemically pure and taken under sterile conditions. IE clean needles.
My boss in the army was the battalion doctor. This was decades before I started drinking in the sense of being addicted. He told me that should you ever have the choice of having an alcoholic surgeon or a heroin addicted one, take the heroin addict every time.
Even today, in the twenty first century, both most doctors and members of the general public still seem to have a very limited knowledge of addiction, what it actually means and the actual prognosis of over coming the addiction. As far as I'm aware, the rate of addicts who overcome their addiction is somewhere between 3 and 10%***
*** I once read that the percentage of AA members who stay sober long term is about 3%. I've seen no studies to support that. However, going going by the ever changing faces at AA meetings 3% seems about right.----Yet I still recommend AA to the suffering alcoholic. They will usually find immediate relief. (of course, if they have stopped drinking) Plus as far as I'm aware, virtually all rehab programmes are based on the AA 12 step programme. IE there is nothing else, and AA is free, and one can attend 3 meetings a day if they want. The suggestion for the newly sober is 90 meetings in 90 days. ( I never did more than 5 a week, and that was during rehab)
Joined Aug 2014
10,465 Posts | 4,802+
Australia
Last edited:
Junkietown drugs will be controlled, regulated, and legitimately sourced. It will also employ medical personnel just like in a hospice facility. The chances of overdosing in Junkietown will be much lower than if they were allowed to remain in regular society. In your country right now, around 70% of overdose fatalities are caused by drugs laced with fentanyl (73,654 people in 2022). If these people were in Junkietown, the vast majority of them would still be alive.
Joined Aug 2014
10,465 Posts | 4,802+
Australia
That makes you an unusual Christian, although the attitude of enforcement is typical. I have no interest in even trying to save addicts from themselves against their will. I don't have that right. Besides, it doesn't work as far as I know. I could be wrong, so far haven't seen any evidence.
Generally speaking, seems to me that Christians of all flavours are perfectly happy to allow addicts remain addicts. There seems to be a an attitude of only giving charity to "the deserving poor". That attitude is still the basis of government welfare aid in my country
A secular humanist and atheist, my position is that there is only one condition for my charity; need.
Best thing you can do coming across a street derelict is give them money. Refusing money could mean the person will suffer "the horrors"*** as they begin to sober up. Or of course, there is the danger of an alcoholic seizure which will kill them . Generally, a suffering alcoholic will probably not be interested in significant change.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
my bold in the last sentence
***Delirium tremens (DTs; lit. 'shaking frenzy') is a rapid onset of confusion usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol.[2] When it occurs, it is often three days into the withdrawal symptoms and lasts for two to three days.[2] Physical effects may include shaking, shivering, irregular heart rate, and sweating.[1] People may also hallucinate.[2] Occasionally, a very high body temperature or seizures (colloquially known as "rum fits")[5][6] may result in death.[2] Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs to withdraw from.[7]
Delirium tremens - Wikipedia
I don't think the problem has any good solution, so we can just watch how it progresses. Eventually when it became so huge that society couldn't live with it anymore a bad solution would be found.That makes you an unusual Christian, although the attitude of enforcement is typical. I have no interest in even trying to save addicts from themselves against their will. I don't have that right. Besides, it doesn't work as far as I know. I could be wrong, so far haven't seen any evidence.
Generally speaking, seems to me that Christians of all flavours are perfectly happy to allow addicts remain addicts. There seems to be a an attitude of only giving charity to "the deserving poor". That attitude is still the basis of government welfare aid in my country
A secular humanist and atheist, my position is that there is only one condition for my charity; need.
Best thing you can do coming across a street derelict is give them money. Refusing money could mean the person will suffer "the horrors"*** as they begin to sober up. Or of course, there is the danger of an alcoholic seizure which will kill them . Generally, a suffering alcoholic will probably not be interested in significant change.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
my bold in the last sentence
***Delirium tremens (DTs; lit. 'shaking frenzy') is a rapid onset of confusion usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol.[2] When it occurs, it is often three days into the withdrawal symptoms and lasts for two to three days.[2] Physical effects may include shaking, shivering, irregular heart rate, and sweating.[1] People may also hallucinate.[2] Occasionally, a very high body temperature or seizures (colloquially known as "rum fits")[5][6] may result in death.[2] Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs to withdraw from.[7]
Delirium tremens - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Joined Aug 2014
10,465 Posts | 4,802+
Australia
There are no good solutions. Junkietown is a better solution than any that have been proposed so far. Essentially, all it does is keep addicts away from the rest of us until they get serious about getting clean.
Joined Jan 2021
4,992 Posts | 3,605+
Conch Republic. "WE Seceded where others failed"
We already have "Junkietowns". They're called "Prisons". Prisons keep addicts away from the rest of us until they get serious about getting clean... or die first. Increasingly, the latter.
The Marshall Project (2021): Inside The Nation’s Overdose Crisis in Prisons and Jails "Behind bars, drug use is rampant and uniquely deadly, new data shows."
"...In prison, “people are bored and miserable and isolated, often self-medicating for mental and physical health needs that usually go unmet,” says Leo Beletsky, a law professor at Northeastern University who studies the intersection of public health and law enforcement. “Is it surprising that there’s such a demand for drugs in detention settings? Absolutely not.”
One incarcerated man named John told The Marshall Project that the federal prison where he is held is “flooded with drugs.” (John, who spoke on a contraband cell phone, asked to be referred to by his first name to avoid retribution from prison officials.) When John went to prison roughly a decade ago, he said, he had never done hard drugs. Now he gets high every day and has tried everything from meth to heroin. Men fall unconscious with some regularity, he said, usually from smoking paper soaked in liquid K2, though they’re not really sure if there’s fentanyl or PCP on it, too.
Drugs get into prisons and jails in a variety of ways, according to current and former prisoners and staff, including through visitors and packages and letters to incarcerated people. Friends and family can tuck strips of paper soaked with drugs into mail or books, and if they get past the mailroom, people in prison can eat them, or roll them up and smoke them. Incoming prisoners can swallow drugs or hide them in body cavities.
Prison staff are often responsible as well: During the pandemic, even though visitation from family and friends was suspended, attorney visits were restricted, and teachers, tutors, and volunteers stayed home, drugs got into many prisons anyway. As The Marshall Project reported, the number of incarcerated people disciplined or charged for drugs actually increased during the pandemic in Texas prisons....
More History Discussions
Trending History Discussions
-
The Great Captains of History - How Many Battles? - Version 7- Started by DiocletianIsBetterThanYou
- Replies: 861
-
-
The Great Captains of History - How Many Battles? - Version 5
- Started by DiocletianIsBetterThanYou
- Replies: 3K
-
The Diversity Of Early African Architecture/Ruins Thread- Started by Kilwa Sultanate
- Replies: 2K
-