patrick.net

They should be locked up and restrained, until they kick the monkey. Then when they are clean. They should rat out the dealers as they lead a death squad.
They point the squad shoots.

The author of that article should be tied up and injected with Fentynol. Enough to kill 10 ISIS and 20 Mexican drug Cartel Bosses.

Tenpoundbass says

They should be locked up and restrained, until they kick the monkey. Then when they are clean. They should rat out the dealers as they lead a death squad.
They point the squad shoots.

Why should government tell me what I can and can not put into my body? That is COMMUNISM!!! What is next, I should not be able to drink 100 oz sodas or eat fatburgers?

Lock em up, cold turkey, they'll recover eventually after surviving a few withdrawals.

Article touts the usual fake liberal economics that "spending money actually saves money". How about the arguments that resulted in the plague of needles scattered everywhere? They said that providing free needles would make addicts behave responsibly and exchange them in a civilized manner. Now the needles are scattered all over in public, and the needle dispensers just keep pumping them out to the addicts. The 'saving lives' knee jerk mantra is also in full force. Why save the lives of the walking dead? They should be humanely ushered on. Gee, just get another bureaucracy to follow the homeless around and put chocolates on their pillows. Make sure the bureaucrats have nice pensions, too, because of all that money they are saving us.

Are the safe injection sites also going to allow booths for the dealers for "safe drug sales" sites, too?

I say give the homeless all the free booze, narcotics and speed they want in encampments with minimal medical intervention. Enabling them to roam in public is the source of the plague. Get them off the streets and let them commit suicide somewhere else with as much shit as they can pump in their veins and bodies.

Ceffer says

I say give the homeless all the free booze, narcotics and speed they want in encampments with minimal medical intervention. Enabling them to roam in public is the source of the plague. Get them off the streets and let them commit suicide somewhere else with as much shit as they can pump in their veins and bodies.

Exactly. The problem though is that do-gooders on both sides will not let these people have what they want, which is unlimited bliss from injections. Either "Jesus did not condone this" or "it is not humane, we have to pay for someone's bad choices"

Ceffer says

I say give the homeless all the free booze, narcotics and speed they want in encampments with minimal medical intervention. Enabling them to roam in public is the source of the plague. Get them off the streets and let them commit suicide somewhere else with as much shit as they can pump in their veins and bodies.

And build a wall!
At least put a fence around them.

They should be allowed to od and let Darwin sort them out.

drB6 says

Why should government tell me what I can and can not put into my body?

Because if the users don't kill themselves, they become an economic burden, social burden, and a moral burden on everyone else.
They pop out babies like a Pez dispenser printing press. And don't have the mental capacity to care for them, because all they care about is their next heroine or Opiod fix.
They are worthless human beings and Rodrigo Duerte has it 100% right to shoot them dead where he finds them.

FortWayne says

Lock em up, cold turkey, they'll recover eventually after surviving a few withdrawals.

Absolutely I think pissing Opiates and you don't have a prescription for, they should get 6 months isolation in jail. Nothing but a tray of food passed into them twice a day. A water fountain in their Confinement lock up.

The kindest thing would be mandatory three months lock up, with counseling and parole based on continuing in a narcotics anonymous program or church-based recovery program. That would get them through withdrawal and on towards recovery.

The next kindest road would be Duerte’s solution where addicts are just killed until nobody wants to be an addict anymore.

The worst and harshest method of dealing with them is the way they are dealt with now, where their addiction is supported and their lives are allowed to spiral into the abyss, harming society and their families and friends as they go.

Recovery only works on those who WANT recovery. Addicts and alcoholics are skilled in PRETENDING they want recovery in order to manipulate and get a resting spot in between runs.

Unfortunately, less than 10 percent actually WANT recovery, and of those who actually want it, only another percentage succeed for any length of time. Banking on some pie in the sky notion that any significant percentage of addicts will recover is an exercise in futility.

Force feeding recovery is a prescription for burnout on both sides. Recovery resources are ALREADY available to those who want it and participate in good faith. Fancy, expensive boutique recovery centers have pretty dismal success rates.

The weirdest observation is that prison actually saves more lives than rehabs. Why? Because the addicts/alcoholics are put through withdrawal. Any drugs or alcohol they can get in prison are expensive, make them somebody's bitch, or get them in more trouble and extend their sentences, so a lot of addicts/alcoholics don't use because they just want to finish their sentences and get out. They wind up staying abstinent for long periods of time. There are major, multiple penalties for using inside.

Instead of being dead on the street, they have three hots, a cot, and a roof over their heads until they are released. Some also go through recovery in prison and stay clean. However, a common source of OD deaths are recently released prisoners who take their old dosages that they remember and it kills them. Recovering addict prisoners often comment that prison saved their lives because it forced them to go through withdrawal and stay sober long enough to embrace recovery and get out. Even if they can get drugs/alcohol, and get into debt over it, they seldom can use as much or as often as on the street. Whatever use they do engage in is intermittent at best.

Those who get out and just want to get high go back to their old ways. Prison just saved their lives for a while and kept them on the shelf alive, so to speak.
So, the irony is that the libbies are coddling the homeless and street addicts while the institutions that they rail against i.e. prisons, save more addict/alcoholic lives than their idiotic "humane" policies or the pinky lifting rehabs combined.

Tenpoundbass says

Because if the users don't kill themselves, they become an economic burden, social burden, and a moral burden on everyone else.

This applies also to people who abuse hamburgers. They get fat, get on disability, have others pay for their disability, and eventually die. If we go down the slippery slope of allowing govt to control what we put into our bodies, then very soon someone in govt will apply the same logic and tell me or you that hamburgers or soda are bad as well.

drB6 says

This applies also to people who abuse hamburgers.

Right. Does anybody argue for free unlimited hamburgers to be provided for anyone who wants them? I don't think so.

Does anybody argue for free unlimited hamburgers to be provided for anyone who wants them?

Shhhhhhhhhhhh! If that gets overheard by a Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez type, we will get a new "human right."

I'm sure you could find a homeless guy who will blame it on hamburgers. Any excuse is a good excuse.

drB6 says

This applies also to people who abuse hamburgers.

That is pure hyperbolic rhetoric not even a founded argument. Liberals are going to have to smarten up. Their opposition isn't flat Earth bible thumpers regardless what the Liberal LARPers will have you believe.

RC2006 says

They should be allowed to od and let Darwin sort them out.

This.

The problem is that asshole “compassionate” leftists and liberals won’t allow them to hit their bottom, instead feeding, clothing, and providing the most marginal housing to them(tents), keeping the homeless addicts in a miserable, unhealthy, disgusting, non hygienic state of living.

Get the government out of this bullshit industry and we can have a decent conversation about decriminalizing drugs. I asure you that if you remove govt money from supporting the homeless and I can sway many conservatives into decriminalizing drugs.

I swear Democrats ruin everything.

Hassan_Rouhani says

Right. Does anybody argue for free unlimited hamburgers to be provided for anyone who wants them? I don't think so.

The question is - what is cheaper - to incarcerate addicts after they steal stuff, or to give them FREE! drugs. Incarceration costs 30-60K per year in US + stuff that addicts soil/break while stealing. FREE! drugs probably cost a dollar per injection - plastic syringe costs next to nothing, and drug production is also extremely cheap. No reason to steal if free drugs available, less heartache and wasted $$ for everyone except prison guard unions. On a more philosophical level, another question is why government should be able to control what someone puts in his body? They started with drugs, and now they are seamlessly gliding to prohibiting sodas, fat hamburgers, etc.

drB6 says

Hassan_Rouhani says

Right. Does anybody argue for free unlimited hamburgers to be provided for anyone who wants them? I don't think so.

The question is - what is cheaper - to incarcerate addicts after they steal stuff, or to give them FREE! drugs. Incarceration costs 30-60K per year in US + stuff that addicts soil/break while stealing. FREE! drugs probably cost a dollar per injection - plastic syringe costs next to nothing, and drug production is also extremely cheap. No reason to steal if free drugs available, less heartache and wasted $$ for everyone except prison guard unions. On a more philosophical level, another question is why government should be able to control what someone puts in his body? They started with drugs, and now they are seamlessly gliding to prohibiting sodas, fat hamburgers, etc.

Its a false concept that there are addicts in state prisons who were only addicts. Addicts, even those busted for sales, are given countless chances by the courts, with drug courts a regular thing. Incarceration vs decriminalizing isn't actually a thing although an addiction to drugs may cause one to commit crimes one otherwise would not. .

However, that doesn't mitigate the idea that govt ought not control what people do to their own body. Simply put there ought not be a govt social safety net, and people are free to buy and abuse drugs to their hearts content up until the point where they break laws, thereby infringing on the rights of others.

BTW, in an earlier thread someone mentioned that most Trump supporters on Pat.net at minimum have libertarian leanings. My post here is proof. Even the handful of actual conservatives on this site could be somewhat swayed by these libertarian arguments, especially if tied into an argument for a smaller federal government. The leftists cannot.

drB6 says

The question is - what is cheaper - to incarcerate addicts after they steal stuff, or to give them FREE! drugs. Incarceration costs 30-60K per year in US + stuff that addicts soil/break while stealing. FREE! drugs probably cost a dollar per injection - plastic syringe costs next to nothing, and drug production is also extremely cheap.

Let's not kid ourselves: a junkie with an unlimited access to drugs won't be able to provide for himself, so the society will be on the hook for the rest of it - food, shelter, clothing, healthcare... Basically Communism for junkies.

CovfefeButDeadly says

Its a false concept that there are addicts in state prisons who were only addicts. Addicts, even those busted for sales, are given countless chances by the courts, with drug courts a regular thing. Incarceration vs decriminalizing isn't actually a thing although an addiction to drugs may cause one to commit crimes one otherwise would not. .

I think most if not all addicts support their addiction by panhandling, theft, robbery...etc and are put in jail for that. Furthermore, giving drugs for FREE! would decimate drug cartels and cut down on crime also in that way. This is all similar to alcohol prohibition which screwed a lot of things up in US.

Hassan_Rouhani says

a junkie with an unlimited access to drugs won't be able to provide for himself, so the society will be on the hook for the rest of it - food, shelter, clothing, healthcare... Basically Communism for junkies.

They are not able to provide for themselves also now, so nothing changes except they do not need to steal any more. Drug cartels are also out of 90% of customers suddenly.

drB6 says

Let's not kid ourselves: a junkie with an unlimited access to drugs won't be able to provide for himself, so the society will be on the hook for the rest of it - food, shelter, clothing, healthcare... Basically Communism for junkies.

Drug addicts that can't provide for themselves hit bottom rather quickly absent government handouts. Private non profits will only do so much for the homeless if the homeless wont follow their rules(they wont).

They gotta either be encouraged to hit bottom fast or we have to lock them all up fast. The first would be much easier to do, and would decimate the cartels at the same time. The cost would be in lives as many of those hitting bottom will not survive it. Still, is society better off with perennial junkies and all the dysfunction they add to society? If someone wishes to kill themselves they should be allowed to do so. They can be counseled against this, but ultimately the decision to live or die is up to them. The half measures of extended drug addiction as working towards that goal shouldn’t be supported by society.

Basically, cut off all support for junkies. Drug test welfare recipients, just like they have in other states.

Aphroman says

People who eat candy and drink sodas and consume alcohol cost us an order of magnitude more then the small number of unfortunate souls killing them selves with dope

Souls killing themselves with dope then leaving three or four kids to their aging parents. Or worse yet, the scumbags have babies while high on Opiates and give birth to Junkie babies. The State steps in and for every sensible dollar you would think is spent $1,000 of your tax dollars is spent. All paid out to unaccountable private companies serving as agencies, who toss business cards around like candy and bill the government a perdiem each time someone reads the name on their card.
Grandparents can adopt the kid but those private companies hang on to their shirt tails for a good two years before the court will finalize the adoption(The cheapest route).
If grandfolks don't take the kids, they are put up for Foster Oh that's some big dollar high money Kid Rearing right there. That's what the Childnet really wants. Everybody gets paid every month until the kids are 18. Some states will even pay for their college.

Tell me where Hamburgers does that much carnage without hyperbole and I'll kiss your ass.
Such a Lazy childish argument, what no pictures of fat people in Walmart, you guys are slipping with your Shallowness lately.

Are there really no psychologists or former addicts on this site? Just a bunch of armchair QB's? What's the number one truth of recovery from any addiction? That the person has to WANT to get better. All you people who act like they're re-programmable robots have a lot in common with Mao and Pol Pot.

I'll support family/friends helping an addict to see the light and quit, but government!? Maybe you forget how government deals with sick people(see Kelly Thomas). Heartless assholes, all of you.

tovarichpeter says

Addicts should be able to shoot up legally

Hamsterdam!

They are Junkies they have no say. If I were King around here, if Emergency services are called on you because you Overdosed.
You go right from the gurney to a month long Drunk Tank. The State owns you for six months. No methadone or nothing, just put in a padded cell for 30 days.
If you live good, if you die from the withdraws, well you OD'd anyway, this was your lifeline.
Then six months of Prison Farm labor.

If you're on probation and you pee dirty the same thing in the drunk tank you go for 30 days.
Nodding out in pubic and the police suspect you are abusing Opiates and you don't have prescription, drug test and in the drunk tank you go.

Oh I would have the Opiate abuse issue wrapped up in less than a year. Every Junkie would be the drunk tank, never wanting to do that again.

NuttBoxer says

Are there really no psychologists or former addicts on this site?

Former? We definitely have some active addicts here. Will this work in a pinch?

Tenpoundbass says

Souls killing themselves with dope then leaving three or four kids to their aging parents. Or worse yet, the scumbags have babies while high on Opiates and give birth to Junkie babies. The State steps in and for every sensible dollar you would think is spent $1,000 of your tax dollars is spent. All paid out to unaccountable private companies serving as agencies, who toss business cards around like candy and bill the government a perdiem each time someone reads the name on their card.
Grandparents can adopt the kid but those private companies hang on to their shirt tails for a good two years before the court will finalize the adoption(The cheapest route).
If grandfolks don't take the kids, they are put up for Foster Oh that's some big dollar high money Kid Rearing right there. That's what the Childnet really wants. Everybody gets paid every month until the kids are 18. Some states will even pay for their college.

Tell me where Hamburgers does that much carnage without hy...

Drugs kill only twice more people than alcohol, drugs kill much fewer people than tobacco, and much fewer than obesity. If drugs are illegal, then why not prohibit alcohol, tobacco, and fatburgers?

http://healthyamericans.org/assets/files/TFAH-2018-PainNationUpdateBrief-FINAL.pdf

Deaths from alcohol in US in 2016: 34,900

Deaths from drugs in 2016: 67,300 (I get that this may be an underestimate as some junkies will not be found after death; but even increasing this to 100,000 does not change the overall picture).

Deaths from tobacco-related illnesses: 480,000 in 2016 (https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm); Nearly $170 billion in direct medical care for adults is spent yearly in US for smoking-related health problems. Again, this is probably upper limit but decreasing this number by 10-20% changes nothing.

Obesity: numbers are more difficult to find, but estimate is 300,000 deaths/year in US: http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/hsc/pubs/other/obesity/mortality.htm

Again, if drugs are illegal, then booze, cigarettes, and hamburgers should be even more illegal as they cost society more than drugs and result in more deaths. I have never taken any drugs, I think that people doing that are stupid, but I do not see any reason why putting some chemicals in your body should be legal while others should be strictly verboten. As a taxpayer, I do not want my tax money wasted on prison guard unions.

NuttBoxer says

Heartless assholes, all of you.

Thank you, in a spirit of Patnet civility and intellectual argumentation :)

Yeah who OD'd on hamburgers again?

Why is everything a push back contest with some people?

That's like auguring against car safety because so many people die of rattle snake bites. It makes no logical sense and why the Far Left and Far Right has this country so screwed up it's bonkers.

If you want to advocate forced fat camps for people's own good be my guest. But I bet it wont be as popular as forced Drug Treatment for the animals that need it most.
Communities and Families are torn apart while the Liberal establishment rakes in money from all of those affected by the opiate carnage. Plead for the police to do something and they tell you. They haven't committed any crime. Well they are having getting pregnant and carrying babies to term while doing illegal opiates what do you mean there's no crime!?

But I'm with ya, though forced fat camps for pathetic fat people who can't control their metabolism and thyroids, why the hell not?

NuttBoxer says

I'll support family/friends helping an addict to see the light and quit, but government!? Maybe you forget how government deals with sick people(see Kelly Thomas). Heartless assholes, all of you.

OK for the sake of your argument if a Family member was to do a Hollywood style intervention on a family member and tied him to a bed until he kicked the monkey.
That family would be on every Cable News Network channel that night as another Dungeon master house of horror.

Deaths due to tobacco might be a bit closer to the mark, but it doesn't include vascular events related to smoking i.e. strokes, usually just lung/head/neck cancer, copd, etc.

Deaths from alcohol are grossly underestimated, for no other reason that there is stigma, or the deaths are called something else, or the contributory role of alcohol is never brought into the equation. The word "alcohol" never enters the transcript.

Deaths from drugs likewise are grossly underestimated due to stigma, and the fact that unless there is an obvious documented cause and effect relation i.e. heroin and a needle hanging out of the arm, it is often called something else or "natural causes".

Remember, the autopsies that are necessary to actually make these determinations are seldom performed any more due to expense, or the family refusing, so a lot of death is mislabeled and misattributed. The dead don't care, and the living have their politics.

https://www.medicaldaily.com/portugal-drug-experiment-heroin-decriminalizing-drugs-382598

Decriminalizing drugs didn’t mean letting drug use run rampant, or even that drugs are legal . The system works so that someone caught with drugs in a public place are escorted by police to a police station, where they will confiscate the drugs, weigh them, and determine whether the amount exceeds a certain threshold. If it does, the person might be suspected to be a dealer and sent to the criminal justice system. If not, the person is instead sent to the Ministry of Health.

“Drug use is still prohibited, but you won’t get penalized or sent to jail,” Goulão states. “The police can catch you using drugs, but you don’t get a criminal record, you don’t go to jail, you don’t have a criminal procedure.”

Instead, when caught drug users must present themselves at one of 18 commissions throughout Portugal, where a panel will discuss their drug problem (or lack thereof). The panel typically consists of one psychologist or doctor, a social worker, and a “technical support” team charged with developing an appropriate rehabilitative approach based on treatment.

Teenagers who are caught with weed during an experimental, youthful phase are often dismissed with barely a slap on the hand. Those deemed to be addicts are placed in rehab or community centers, where they’re given a certain amount of time to try to recover from their addiction. If they relapse and are caught with drugs again, they enter the same tribunal and are placed in rehab again if it’s considered worthwhile. They still receive no punishment or criminal record.

“The main goal [of the commission] is to evaluate what kind of needs the person has,” Goulão said. “If you’re addicted, I’ll invite you to the treatment center. Tomorrow at 10 o’clock you have an appointment. Most of the time, they accept. Around 80 percent of addicts who are confronted with this possibility accept.”

Of course in America there are billions of dollars to be made by prisons and police in keeping drug use as a crime and not primarily as a health problem. Our only hope is that the corrupt medical establishment will see that they could take these billions from taxpayers in outrageous health care fees instead. Maybe one kind of corruption can help stop another.

Aphroman says

2.) Racism and voter suppression/disenfranchisement. Now I know The Trumpkin readers read racism, get triggered and cry foul. However, that doesn’t make it any less true. The two Christian Conservatives with the largest roles in The War were more honest about it than those who carry their water and shit on our Freedoms in the modern day

Racism was probably excuse why at least some drugs were prohibited, but these days whites use more marijuana than blacks, and overall drug use rises in white working class meteorically. In a few years, whites will be dying from drugs more than blacks if the trend holds. The numbers are in one of links I gave above. So, today reasons for prohibition are probably economical + "Jesus did not smoke dope so you can not as well".