Swiss vote on prescription heroin

[Earfetish]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/
7755664.stm

The Swiss government are apparently behind this idea.

Every progressive drugs policy says that legalising and prescribing it is a very sensible step, that it is cheaper to the country to provide junkies with legal heroin (at a cost of like 50 cents) is better than letting them go out and cause enough crime to afford $40 worth of heroin, which costs the country an untold amount in burglaries and crime prevention and so forth. Groups for ex-junkies have been asking for the same thing, and I trust ex-junkies to know heroin policy better than middle class posh people.

They've already opened up clean injection rooms and needle exchanges, which I also think is a very sensible step.

Allowing people to be functioning addicts is better than forcing them off the drugs. I would reckon almost everyone in these programs wants to become normal but have a nasty addiction they can't shake, and we should all be very pleased that they want to be a functioning member of society and be willing to do whatever they ask.

Removing the crime from drugs is the best thing we can do for addicts, users and abstainers.

[Earfetish]

Also, with heroin specifically, if we legalised it globally, Afghanistan would have a collective orgasm. Coke would apply to Columbia.

[marchohare]

At 11/29/08 12:52 PM, Earfetish wrote: The Swiss government are apparently behind this idea.

<shrug> The Germans only created heroin in the first place to help people kick morphine, then methadone to kick heroin, and the beat goes on. Why not go back to a cheap, naturally derived, relatively safe (except for addiction and overdose, which can be managed) opiate instead?

I don't see the big deal. I'm glad there are some people on Earth with a modicum of common sense.

Obviously, such do not yet make up a majority of Americans, however. LOL!

Or... maybe they do. What do you suppose the chances are of us seeing an honest poll about that, or of anyone in D.C. addressing it sensibly if we did?

Such polls, for certain specific substances, do exist, but they're generally hushed up and/or ignored and/or refuted with pure, raging CavemanSpeak and Voodoo BullshitBabble before the truth even has its boots on.

It used to make me furious. Now I just roll my eyes. People are stupid, especially in herds.

[Nitroglys]

I know that many major cities in the U.S. operate a program for giving clean needles out to addicts. Plus many treatment facilities offer a cleaner form of heroin to ween patients off the drug. Methadone is a popular drug outside the medical community as well. So in a way we have this instated already; Switzerland has just taken the real version of heroin rather than the pill version. You can say what you will about the decency of this program, but the fact remains that none of these addicts will stop using without similar programs. Heroin is physically addicting. Heavy users could never go cold turkey without dying. It's a messy situation with double sides to it. You can't deprive these people of proper treatment, but with as big a problem as Switzerland has you can;t fix it without encouraging it.

[fli]

I don't think it's a sensible step because heroin is one of those profound drugs where it's difficult to control.

I understand marijuana, steroids, booze, and other things like that... but heroin, meth, angel dust, etc.
That's a bit scary.

[Cornbucket]

I agree its safer for society to provide junkies with clean needles so they aren't spreading disease and cheap drugs so they're placated-enough to not let their more fiendish sides out... but are these programs doing ANYTHING AT ALL to wean them off the drugs I'd say it's safer in the short-term, but for the long-term it's an all-around negative thing to continue fueling such habits. Things like methadone "maintenance programs" are just shifting the addiction from one drug to another. There should be some sort of middle road between cold-turkey abstinence programs and a policy of government-supported addiction.

A diet that requires you to literally starve yourself, a person could NEVER stick to. But also a diet that lets you eat whatever garbage you want won't improve your health either. They should be doing something to get these people OFF drugs... not just doing something to try to avoid their ugly side when their cravings hit and they've got no money to satisfy them.

It would be crass to accuse these people of having "no willpower" because a physical addiction to drugs can end up feeling as vital as the basic need for air and water... but the fact is, they CAN stop being users if they put forth the effort in the right type of program. Having your habit propped-up and paid for by the government is embarassing... but I suppose it's better to be a functioning addict than a non-functioning one. Man, what a situation to be in.

[marchohare]

At 11/29/08 01:40 PM, Nitroglys wrote: ...You can say what you will about the decency of this program, but the fact remains that none of these addicts will stop using without similar programs....

Who cares if they don't? At that level of addiction--and it is a true addiction, unlike the fake addictions we've made up like sex addiction, gambling addiction, cigarette addiction, internet addiction and so on--the drug doesn't fuck them up. They take it, they're fine. If it killed you, or made you non-functional, Keith Richards should have been dead and/or sleeping in a cardboard box a looooooong time ago.

People like Keith Richards really piss Health Nazis off. He takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. As for looking embalmed, so what? He's always looked like that.

There is no reason whatsoever to treat addiction as anything but a manageable health condition... except for stupid, arbitrary "moral" ones, which are essentially religiously based.

That goes for those who make Junk Science their gawd, too.

[Proteas]

I think it's kind of a sad statement about a nation that it's government would openly legalize and support enabling addicts as apposed to rehabilitating them. Because that's what this is; enabling, not rehab.

[marchohare]

At 11/29/08 03:20 PM, Proteas wrote: I think it's kind of a sad statement about a nation that it's government would openly legalize and support enabling addicts as apposed to rehabilitating them. Because that's what this is; enabling, not rehab.

I think it's a sad statement when some of us prefer loss of civil liberties, enforcement at gunpoint, and the high costs of prosecution and incarceration over leaving it up to the individual whether to kick the habit or not--as well as cheaply keeping them functional no matter what their fucking personal decision regarding what they put into their own bodies happens to be.

But, some people clearly, dearly love to see others punished. Makes them feel superior. It gets them off.

[Conspiracy3]

I support this, but there should also be a drug rehab program (without any jail time or criminal record) run by the government.

[marchohare]

At 11/29/08 03:41 PM, Conspiracy3 wrote: I support this, but there should also be a drug rehab program (without any jail time or criminal record) run by the government.

Oh, I think so too--or more specifically, that they should be available to those who want them. But, they should be voluntary.

Read up on heroin addiction. It's not particularly disabling, just so long as a junkie can get pure stuff and clean needles! Most of its problems are artificially created by its being illegal. Heroin is cheap. The law makes it expensive, as well as limiting the employment opportunities of those who are addicted to it.

Kicking the habit is incredibly hard on one's body. Unlike quitting smoking, breaking a real addiction can kill you. It might be safer just to remain an addict. That's a personal call.

[Proteas]

At 11/29/08 03:40 PM, marchohare wrote: as well as cheaply keeping them functional no matter what their fucking personal decision regarding what they put into their own bodies happens to be.

When the government gets involved, it doesn't matter what your personal decision is or was because now you're on THEIR leash, and the very fact that you want to sit there and preach to me about loss of civil liberties and the like when another government body has chosen to keep members of the populace addicted to opiates IT GREW instead of helping them kick their addiction reeks of bullshit.

[aninjaman]

At 11/29/08 03:20 PM, Proteas wrote: I think it's kind of a sad statement about a nation that it's government would openly legalize and support enabling addicts as apposed to rehabilitating them. Because that's what this is; enabling, not rehab.

I agree.
A compromise would be that this safe junkie program can exist but the government also has to try and ween you off herion at the same time.

[marchohare]

At 11/29/08 04:00 PM, Proteas wrote: ...the very fact that you want to sit there and preach to me about loss of civil liberties and the like when another government body has chosen to keep members of the populace addicted to opiates IT GREW instead of helping them kick their addiction reeks of bullshit.

What opiates would those be?

[Proteas]

At 11/29/08 05:16 PM, marchohare wrote: What opiates would those be?

.... did you even bother to read the title of this topic?

Heroin is made from Morphine, itself a product of Opium Poppys.

[marchohare]

At 11/29/08 05:30 PM, Proteas wrote: .... did you even bother to read the title of this topic?

Of course. Okay, that's cool. For some reason (maybe due to following multiple threads under various tabs) I thought you were saying something downright silly.

[stafffighter]

A lot of what I think is going on here is the kneejerk "me like drugs" reaction. That does not apply. One drug is different from another in how you react to it and how your body over the long term reacts to it. Do you think supporting legalized heroin will help you get legal weed here? It won't. Toke up all you want and don't do something dumb enough to get caught, argument over.
Enabeling addiction is a very real thing. Something being legal legitimizes it and people who would have considered and chosen against it before could very easily come out on the other side. That's the fear of all illegal drugs but for heroin it fucking counts.
Here's another issue, dosage. People kill themselves all the time on prescription medicene and something as easy to kill yourself on as heroin that goes double for. People will figure that with their size, or their need, or their esculated addiction the reccomended dosage does not apply and they will die.
Also detremental is withdrawl. While people on the one here are saying that with safe, cheap herion that won't become an issue what they forsake is that many time addicts are known for allowing themselves to go through stages of withdrawl in order to get higher. That would affect their productivity at the employment oppretunities making it legal will allow.
And don't try to sell me that sensible heroin addicts wouldn't do these things. Heroin addicts are a people are not known for good decision making.

[Alphabit]

That's insane, funding drug addiction is an unnecessary spending. They'd be better-off putting them in treatment centers and paying a one-off fee of a few thousands rather than having to pay salaries for full-time staff to maintain these drug injection centers... Not to mention the cost of infrastructure. Also, there is the issue of work performance to consider; people don't work as well when they're doing heroin, this would be a drag on the economy... Also, the mere fact that people will have to inject these drugs just to be 'normal' makes the whole thing pointless since they were normal to start with... Unless they choose to keep increasing their dosage, in which case they'd die of overdose.

[HogWashSoup]

Make it legal and easier to obtain so that the drug cartell will have less power.

[stafffighter]

At 11/29/08 09:14 PM, HogWashSoup wrote: Make it legal and easier to obtain so that the drug cartell will have less power.

It's not that simple. Like I said before legalizing it, even in this circumstance will legitimize it in peoples minds. Then if Gary down the street who seems like a good guy who wouldn't hurt anyone is selling it, awesome. Yes, people are that dumb.

[Tancrisism]

At 11/29/08 09:21 PM, stafffighter wrote:

At 11/29/08 09:14 PM, HogWashSoup wrote: Make it legal and easier to obtain so that the drug cartell will have less power.

It's not that simple. Like I said before legalizing it, even in this circumstance will legitimize it in peoples minds. Then if Gary down the street who seems like a good guy who wouldn't hurt anyone is selling it, awesome. Yes, people are that dumb.

I'm not sure about that. Personally, there are some things I don't do regardless of legality. I don't do mushrooms, any "hard drug", or things like LSD, and I don't plan on doing them. But I also don't smoke cigarettes and don't do salvia, even though those are legal. But if heroin was suddenly legal I'd feel compelled to try it, and in fact do it every day?

Fuck no.

[stafffighter]

At 11/29/08 09:23 PM, Tancrisism wrote:

I'm not sure about that. Personally, there are some things I don't do regardless of legality. I don't do mushrooms, any "hard drug", or things like LSD, and I don't plan on doing them. But I also don't smoke cigarettes and don't do salvia, even though those are legal. But if heroin was suddenly legal I'd feel compelled to try it, and in fact do it every day?

Fuck no.

Maybe not you but there are people who have more temptation that you, whoa re more on the fence about the issue, and legality would make it easier to fall off that fence onto the side with the needles.

[Tancrisism]

At 11/29/08 09:28 PM, stafffighter wrote: Maybe not you but there are people who have more temptation that you, whoa re more on the fence about the issue, and legality would make it easier to fall off that fence onto the side with the needles.

Well, to be fair, this legislation they are voting on isn't legalizing it on a large scale. I think it actually sounds somewhat reasonable.

But concerning them, and I know it may sound a bit heartless, but have you ever heard of natural selection?

[Ravariel]

So, Proteas... do you see Bars and Liquor stores as alcoholism enablers? Do you view them with the same disdain as this program?

If not, why?

[stafffighter]

At 11/29/08 09:38 PM, Tancrisism wrote:

But concerning them, and I know it may sound a bit heartless, but have you ever heard of natural selection?

Yes but we have laws beyond jungle law for a reason. Society needs order and such things.
Let me explain my point better. Is there anything you would like to maybe do but you know it's illegal? Yu don't have to tell me what but it could be driving faster when the road is clear, or punching some drunk who's too in your face, there's myriad examples. There are people who are like that about drugs.

[JoS]

At 11/29/08 03:20 PM, Proteas wrote: Because that's what this is; enabling, not rehab.

OMG INTERVENTION!!!

[Tancrisism]

At 11/29/08 09:43 PM, stafffighter wrote: Yes but we have laws beyond jungle law for a reason. Society needs order and such things.
Let me explain my point better. Is there anything you would like to maybe do but you know it's illegal? Yu don't have to tell me what but it could be driving faster when the road is clear, or punching some drunk who's too in your face, there's myriad examples. There are people who are like that about drugs.

True. To be honest I don't actually think I believe in natural selection in this case.

I think that victimless crimes are bullshit, and that somebody has the right in general to do whatever they please to their body as long as it doesn't harm other people. Drugs like heroin and meth (especially meth) are not victimless crimes because it is very likely that due to using them someone will harm another person or make them so completely useless that they cannot function (this is very true for heroin; I have seen heroin addiction and it isn't pretty).

But I think different policies could be taken towards drugs like these than simple illegality and subsequent incarceration.

[Ravariel]

At 11/29/08 09:43 PM, stafffighter wrote: Is there anything you... like to... do but you know is illegal? ...or punching some drunk who's too in your face

Punching drunks is illegal?

...shit.

[Earfetish]

Are you guys seriously saying that drug users like myself would start jacking up heroin due to this drug programme? We wouldn't, honestly. And if we did, fine, at least it's clean and legal.

People don't get addicted straight away. You guys mustn't watch much TV or anything but most hard drug addicts appear to be escaping from life, they're not like 'oops I got addicted'.

If you want to become a functioning member of society but have fucked yourself up on drugs, society should do what it can to help you.

[Britkid]

I presume that this would be combined with a weening-off program or something? Ok you've dealt with the financial cost of crime, but what about the human cost? If the addicts want to remain good deed-doing members of society, and therefore also probably get off the drug (they'd have to be insane not to), then surely the goverment should be providing this also.