Drug overdose now cause more death than guns or cars

Prohibition isn't working. New, more stringent control of prescription drugs isn't working. In fact, since hydrocodone was moved to Schedule II heroin OD's have risen sharply - they are definitely related.

So what is the answer? More restrictions, more cops, more jails, less civil liberties? Decriminalization? Relaxation of prescription controls? More methadone/treatment clinics?

The purity/impurity of street drugs is certainly playing a role. Decriminalization - it would seem would help "clean" that up.

I know for sure that drugs will not go away no matter how much we wish they would. People are going to use. So how do we reduce deaths? Or do we just say screw it and not care?

I am moving more and more toward complete decriminalization for adults. You still can't drive under the influence or neglect your kids, but you won't go to jail for being an addict. And you may be less likely to die from an overdose. We can even take the money saved on prisons, law enforcement, and that gained in taxes to put toward something else, like treatment. Not perfect, but the current situation is unacceptable.

On a side note, decriminalization might also reduce inner city violent crime/gun deaths and reduce contentious interactions with police in which police or citizens lose their lives.

The war on drugs is lost and should be ended.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/23/health/heroin-opioid-drug-overdose-deaths-visual-guide/index.html

To top it all off, after years of touting opioids as safe and effective, a hard push is well underway to minimize - and I mean minimize - opioid prescriptions. And to blame providers for writing for opioids. This after the powers that be called pain the 5th vital sign and said the patient has a "right" to adequate pain control, including with safe and effective opioids, which then weren't addictive if taken for pain but now are. It's a complete about face, complete with blame placed on the wrong people. There are providers writing inappropriately, for sure. This problem with prescriptions was of the feds' making, though. Even if they do blame the pharmaceuticals for their studies.

Lots of people are quitting opioids and using marijuana instead, though. But it's relatively expensive since insurance does not pay.

CajunCrimson said:

i say no restrictions on kids either.. If drugs aren't bad for you....what's wrong if five year olds want to get high....go for it.

The problem with complete decriminalization for all adults is that 1/3 of the parents out there suck. And right now the fear of going to jail may be keeping some in line. Making all drugs legal will turn some who did have a fear of incarceration into users and addicts.

Then what?

Most that want to legalize appear to have a personal interest in it, and can't see the danger it will cause.

No one can claim this will create fewer users and addicts....making it easier to find and cheaper to buy ..... Well that's the Walmart philo of life....how that working out for the obesity epidemic?

Click to expand...

So much in this one it's hard to know where to begin. Let's see, kids can't consent for the same reason they can't drink and so on. No one said drugs aren't bad for you. 1/3 of parents suck anyway and there are laws for sucking criminally that have nothing to do with drugs, someone who wants to use will use regardless and really who has it stopped other than a very few, I have no direct or indirect financial incentive and do not and have not ever used - ever, I know the dangers of legalization and they seem less than the dangers of prohibition - see alcohol temperance, hpw's the drug war working out for all the people dying over all these many years?

I mean, this is like a PSA caricature. It's every trope just about rolled into one. If prohibition is so good beyond the warm and fuzzies then why are so many people dying so many different ways? The point of decriminalization is largely harm reduction, not elimination. You can't eliminate it any more than smoking or drinking.

Orebama, I can tell you that we were once told no one would get addicted if they were taking opioids for the pain. That is not true. It doesn't take long to begin building dependence even if taking correctly.

selmaborntidefan said:

I'm not sure of the answer, I'm really not. As I've watched it through the years, I've evolved/flip-flopped/whatever from a rigidly prohibitionist/tough sentencing position to something sorta in almost agreement with NT here. I'm not sure, I'm honestly not.

(One a side note: the most amusing part of this - and no reflection on any specific person here - is often the very same people who tell me we need to legalize drugs because 'you can't keep them from getting them' and we must pass out condoms in the schools because 'they're gonna do it anyway' and every other subject...actually argue that gun control will work. It's not really any more difficult to steal a gun than it is to steal drugs. In fact, depending on how you're doing it, it may well be much easier).


I fear for my ex-SIL. Some of you may remember that three years ago she was nearly killed in a car wreck. The girl never used drugs in her life and rigidly despised them. But now, of course, she takes opioids and who knows what else for pain. I even mused sadly at the time of her wreck about the possibility of medicine addiction and said, "This wreck may kill her twenty years from now due to addiction."

I don't know, NT - I really don't.

Click to expand...

Sad about your SIL. I wish her the best. My brother has used drugs for years. It even contributed to a bad wreck years ago. I don't worry too much about him because I have nothing to do with him anymore. He's a vile person. I don't wish ill on him. Simply have to protect me and mine.

I grew up in a T-total home. When younger I wanted to add alcohol and tobacco to the list of illegals. It was very difficult for me to reach this point because it goes against everything I was ever taught through young adulthood.

Funny thing, when I was young I also wanted gun control. Not so much now.

It's kinda under the radar now, but drugs have grown exponentially worse over the last 15 years or so. It's already really bad out there. We talk about inner city gang violence, drug cartels, police abuse of power, lament blacks killed by police and police killed by anyone, prison overpopulation, high incarceration rates, and we never seem to look at the root of these and similar matters. All are tied to drug prohibition. And all have been made worse by it.

It's time we reconsider the whole deal ever if it is against everything we were ever taught.

OreBama said:

Oh, I know. Similar to how cigarettes are not addictive. I will say that there is a difference in dependence and addiction.

Click to expand...

A distinction without a difference once you reach a certain point.

CajunCrimson said:

But you are saying the "good" of legalization outweighs the "bad". Do you think less people die if it becomes legal? Or, do just different people die? Do you think we really had a "war on drugs"? Really? Seems to me we had a "rehabilitation" approach -- not an all out war. If we did - and eliminated the dealers and the growers and everyone else in between -- it would have helped the problem.

What I've seen is a half-hearted effort -- like everything else we've tried to do for the last 50 years....

I think what you will end up seeing is -- more 18-25 year old kids die

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I'm all too familiar with young people dying. Seen it with my own eyes. Heard plenty of other stories. Even stories abou them dying from huffing a perfectly legal product.

What, really, more can you do in a free society more than what we've done? Seriously? Line up tanks in the projects and trailer parks? That leaves out the rich druggies - and there's plenty of those. Force every single person to undergo cavity searches, warrantless home searches, random automobile checks, and urine tests? Far too close to that as it is. On top of all that the government can and will take your money unless you prove your money is innocent - all in the name of the war on drugs. No-knock raids that get cops and completely innocent people killed. So on and so forth. We've given the state the power to do just about anything, We've given some of that power to corporations to do their work for them. The last 30-40 years have seen a dramatic increase in police powers and government control and yet we are seeing a sharp increase in use and deaths. What other powers should we give the government that are going to stop this? And are we willing to give up the commensurate freedoms required for that?

I say the good will outweigh the bad because there is evidence that it will. Places in Europe have walked this path and it's not as bad there as it is here. I do believe fewer people will die. The available evidence - limited as it is - shows that.

I don't call throwing people in prison for 10,20, or more years - up to life - for nonviolent possession offenses while murderers and rapists walk free in 6 months a "rehabilitation" approach. Let that sink in - we let murderers and rapists and thieves and all manner of violent offenders walk free because the prisons are overcrowded with nonviolent drug offenders. That is beyond ridiculous. That, in and of itself, is criminal. Why is doing harm to yourself by drugs more criminal than doing violent harm to others?! I really want to know.

We have created inner cities that are often too similar to war zones. We have funded and participated in other countries' own war on drugs with military people and equipment. We have literally spent billions upon billions upon billions of dollars. And for what? For drug deaths to outnumber car deaths or gun deaths? To have many of those gun deaths to be as a direct result of prohibition?

Let's put it this way - if your drug dealer screws you then you have no legal recourse. Finding another supplier is hard. So you can handle the problem with a gun. You can find a new dealer. Then there's a turf war - with guns. Buy an impure product? Too bad. No guarantee the product will be pure or of the potency you are used to taking. No testing. No legal recourse. The dealers and suppliers have all the power. The user has little to none. And the law keeps it that way.

We all know the definition of insanity. This insanity is causing people to die.

Jessica4Bama said:

It's a sad thing going on in this country. My brother is an alcoholic (he's been sober for over a year now), and my aunt died three months ago from an overdose. She was hooked on prescription pills.

Click to expand...

I am sorry for your loss. Glad your brother is doing better though and wish him the very best in his continued recovery.