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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (651524)	4/15/2012 4:25:09 PM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580615

>> People invoke someplace far away like Portugal where it's implied drugs are legalized and everything works great. Only the implication isn't accurate. This leads me to think legalization advocates aren't approaching the issue seriously or with a lot of thought. To be clear, drugs have been decriminalized in Portugal. I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I don't think you understand the situation in Portugal. It is still a legal violation to possess drugs there, but it is minor violation subject to administrative procedures, NOT criminal ones. Trafficking in drugs is still illegal. >> That means the common assumption we can save $100B or whatever number is thrown around and 'end the drug war' and do away with drug-related crime and drug-related incarceration just isn't true. The only way to really 'end the drug war' would be crack and eightballs in convenience stores beside the beer, FourLoco and cigarettes. Just assuming that someone were proposing crack be available at 7-11, the suggestion is that more people would use it than already do. There really is no evidence to support that claim -- it is more of the nonsense that you can tamp down supply and stop people from using drugs. You can't, we know that, it isn't even the subject of doubt at this point. At best you'll manage to increase the street price which, of course, will simply increase property crime. >> I still don't get where the problem is from the standpoint of someone who thinks addiction is no bar from working, including in professional jobs, and functioning in society as addicts. Why cut off the supply of Rx drugs? Some people can, others cannot. As I have said a couple times already. There is a high probability you have worked with addicts at some point in your life. You just didn't know it. Painkiller addicts can lead fairly normal lives for a long time if they are not consumed with trying to supply themselves. I refer you, once again, to the case of Rush Limbaugh. He was horribly addicted, yet nobody was saying, "Damn, Limbaugh sounds like he's out of it today". That is not to say promoting painkiller addiction is good public policy. >> And aren't methadone etc replacement drugs just that .. replacement drugs? Of course. But they allow addicts who have become dysfunctional to return to a normal lifestyle. They take their medicine every day like someone takes blood pressure medicine. In particular, suboxone, is an opiate but a stable dosage eliminates demand for other opiates and does not cause any of the behaviors that can be attributed to extremes of opiate addiction. I must say, your thinking on this is not unusual amongst those who lack an understanding of the subject. Even organizations like NA are negative toward replacement therapies but for some people they are a way out of addiction. There is a lot of work being done on orderly withdrawal of suboxone that suggest it can be a workable therapy for severely addicted individuals. >> I think it's likely any new alternatives will themselves have the potential to be abusable drugs too. I think it is highly likely that nanosciences could lead, within a few years, to nonabusable painkillers -- if there were any motivation to do it. But not all manufacturers are committed to the idea of reducing the market for their medications. >> Somehow the 'end the drug war' thing is turning into a let's crank up the war on prescription abuse. Kind of amazing. There the same problem. You can't separate one from the other. Heroin addiction and oxycontin addiction are the same things, except one is a "street" drug and the other is a Rx. The treatment for the addiction is the same because the problem is the same. The dirty secret William Bennett won't tell you is that while he touts "success" in the drug war in that cocaine & meth use is down, the surge in Rx addiction more than offsets it. There is no "success" -- there is just the same old shit we've seen for years -- you tamp down supply in one place and it pops up in another. The truth of the matter is that cocaine addiction is far easier to treat in most people than is Oxycontin or benzo addiction.