We should provide treatment and counseling to those who struggle with addiction.

We should stop viewing drug addiction as a moral failure.

At least they'd be able to get good drugs to kill the pain. But we can't have that ...

You know, the paraplegic man in Florida who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for getting "too many" pain pills to manage his own spinal pain.

Once he was in prison they gave him a morphine pump. But he had to get sentenced to 25 years in prison, first.

And greed, lots of greed, of course. Always the needy greedy. Gotta keep those private prisons full. Gotta get their quotas and get their little pay pellets every two weeks and the little "achievement" awards.

"Heaven forbid that someone dying in pain should experience a little euphoria before they die." -- W. Harrelson
(I cannot swear to the accuracy of that, but I like it.)

Miss that guy. He was a giant. Very influential to me.

Our name is legion. I see those ideas a lot now.

users, their families, and the general public. there's no euphoria, just homelessness, crime, jail and poverty.

but keeping people on drugs sure keeps them apolitical. by design, I believe.

Rather than spending 60+ billion a year locking up otherwise nonviolent people for doing things with their bodies and nervous systems the 'we-know-betters' don't want them to, we could fund an awful lot of treatment on demand AND services for the homeless, etc.

Of course, if someone has some sort of philosophical inclination that prevents them from being able to grok that individuals are capable of making their own decisions, I suppose...

"We should think of overdose deaths as Darwin in action. If someone is so familyless and friendless that no one will push them to receive treatment, then perhaps the end of days is best for them."

my comment was "yeah, fuck em if they have no friends or family".

how you got from there to where you are now, I have no idea.

so whatever sort of ham-fisted sarcasm is intended by this... whatever the fuck, it seems fairly clear that it's supposed to be some sort of lame drug war apologia.

But, then, this place has more than a few authoritarian types, I've noticed, also people who aren't real good at humor.

or do anything really which is by design.

per past performance

because it would come in standard dosages, just like every legal drug does. There would still be some, of course. There will always be the idjits who refuse to follow the directions on the label - the same way thousands of people land in the hospital each year with liver failure from taking too much Tylenol.

What do Heath Ledger, Sage Stallone, Anna Nicole Smith, Keith Moon, Judy Garland, Dorothy Dandridge, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson all have in common? They were high-profile celebrities who died from prescription drug overdoses.

When someone rich and famous dies from a prescription drug overdose, it brings renewed attention to a growing epidemic.

Drug overdose death rates in the United States have more than tripled since 1990 and have never been higher. At least 100 people die from drug overdoses every day in the U.S. More than 36,000 people die from drug overdoses annually and most of these deaths are caused by prescription drugs (1).

The unprecedented rise in overdose deaths in the U.S. parallels a 300 percent increase since 1999 in the sale of powerful painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin. These drugs were involved in 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008, more than cocaine and heroin combined (2).

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201404/prescription-drugs-are-more-deadly-street-drugs

to adequately manage pain".

Me, personally, I'd rather know that a bone cancer patient can get the pain meds they need, than live in perpetual moral panic that someone, somewhere, might get an unauthorized buzz.

This 'growing epidemic' noise inevitably leads to situations like this one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/cruel-and-disgusting-pain_b_43216.html

comments about illegal v. legal drugs.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026012249#post4

legalizing all drugs wouldn't particularly reduce ODs, because legal drugs are already the cause of the majority of ODs.

You seem to think we need tighter controls on peoples' behavior.

I'm assuming your moral panic over prescription drugs doesnt take into account what happened to Mr. Paey.

behavior of the wealthy).

Contra the other poster, legal drugs are more deadly than illegal ones in terms of deaths. That was my point.

Whatever else you're seeing, it's in your own mind. Please leave me the hell alone.

There's an ignore button, though- a little man with a red "x"- go ahead and use it if you want.

It's really obvious and annoying. Or else you're just stupid.

Like I said, use the handy ignore feature.

Technology is supposed to make life easier, but of course some people like to do things the old fashioned way!

Anyone asking that?

At the very least we shouldn't be throwing people in prison for non-violent drug offenses.

California took a responsible step towards sanity this last November- news flash for authoritarian control fetishists, several decades of bad drug war logic is running out of steam.

Alcoholism kills millions every year- and its a shitty way to die. That said, only purtiannical morons still think prohibition was a good idea.

The idea that the only two options are "fuck addicts" and "fuck addicts, throw them in prison" is a false dichotomy.

And I was very happy to cast my vote in favor of it.

who cares how many people committed suicide because of their coke addictions?
I only know a half dozen personally. Now lets count the lives ruined.
the families shattered by the horrors of coke and crack's impact.
fuck em.
they shoulda shot up some of that killer heroin with a dirty needle instead.

a 10 on the stupid scale.

the ambiguous support in the Social Darwinist's OP might have been expressed as End the War on Drugs/Users.
looking kindly on these poisons is not a good idea.

to the drugs themselves. Even taking into account my own first- and secondhand experiences with them.

Legalize weed first, then we can debate everything else.

Law looks kindly on 'drinking responsible', doesn't necessarily have to be responsible but it would help the drug war if they addressed it separately instead of treating users as thieves even if they don't. Some have jobs to pay for it or some wait until they have money or collect cans.

I've finally seen it all on DU.

Are you part of the police union that kills with impunity?

It is easy to support legalization of marijuana. It does not kill through overdose.

Heroin, cocaine, meth, and many other drugs do kill. But throwing users in jail does not stop people. And while treatment can save lives, you have to get people into treatment.

Then there is the question of dealers. Should they still be punished for selling a clearly dangerous product? Or will mainstream, legal operations like pharmacies, convenience stores, etc start selling them?

If we are not arresting dealers for heroin, will they at least be arrested if they sell uncontrolled amounts and/or bad stash? Will there be regulations on safe dosages and safe cuts?

I personally don't want anyone dying. I want people to stay away from all that poisonous crap. But there is only so much we as individuals and as society can do to keep people from harming themselves. My Darwin comment was my frustrated, cranky way of pointing that out.

and a promise not to do it again. Then invested in for-profit private businesses.

If it was legalized, you'd probably see them in similar locations you see liquor stores. Fighting the supply is wack-a-mole, the fence is a joke, they launched bales of marijuana over it using a catapult. The whole thing is joke but for the low level dealers & users it isn't funny, the blip on the radar CEOs of drug trafficking news barely concern Americans. It would still be the same but not as offensive.

Or was it just a way of taking a sideways potshot at the increasing numbers of people who recognize that the drug war is a massive and abject failure? Because honestly, that's how it came off.

Alcohol kills people, too. But consenting adults make choices, including bad ones. Trying to control the behavior of others is ineffective, often totally futile. What we CAN do is offer people tools through which they can, hopefully, help themselves. "Get people into treatment?" No. Make sure treatment is there when they're ready to get themselves in? Yes.

The goose has to get itself out of the bottle.

We should be helping those with addiction rather than punishing them.

Fund treatment on demand and realize it is primarily a public health matter, not a law enforcement one.

but not that tough since people are still using regardless of its legal status.

I'd have Suboxen as easy to find & purchase as candy. I hear there are problems with Methadone clinics, even heard it is harder to get off than heroin which is a remarkable claim since heroin is notoriously tougher to quit than other recreational drugs. The only one that I can think of even rivals is nicotine in tobacco form. I'm not sure how nicotine is unique but most other substances have a rebound effect, when it becomes heavily one-sided is when it becomes very difficult to quit or 'cold turkey' such as needed alcohol to stop the DTs.

Also needle exchanges since injections are a cost-effective way to get high which is important for those that make sure they acquire heroin before they run out. Though opiate pill addictions are not much worse, I've heard heroin users claim the dope sickness was worse off of Percocets and I believe it.

I find your reasoning: to save money ... strange (for this board)

and, this:

What they are actually advocating, however, is not immediately clear.

Id hire the OP (but only because I would obviously be cruel, indifferent and stupid)

Few things doesn't waste tax dollars more than drug wars which are ineffective while banks can release statements "we need to do a better job of monitoring for drug laundering" while UN official claimed they were a year before the were revealed with evidence they did stretching back to 2004.

it would save a bunch of money. Now to the rest of your "idea" ... You know ... the let the friendless, familyless stupid folks mercy kill themselves part, that most people ,and, certainly most liberlas/progressives would find repugnant.

The people that use drugs recreational is very diverse as to rich, white, poor, successful, professions, a lot of people are using. As far as substances go nothing has even came close to impairing, doing things I wouldn't normally do, treating people in a way I wouldn't accept or would even normally close to do is alcohol. Anything else, I was still had the same general personality & judgment of things, stealing just strikes me as something that would suck the euphoria out of getting high. Prison is never worth it for a temporary high so I just never understood the desire.

That said, I favor helping people in treating their addiction (rather than overloading court dockets & overcrowding jails) with an approach that works for them based on their needs. "One size fits of all" model for drug treatment -- AA/NA doesn't work for everyone and if someone uses because they have a mental illnesses or trauma than the mental health should be available as well as the treatment but not one without the other or methods based on science rather than meetings that haven't changed much since the 1950s. If AA/NA works, use that.

The drug war is proven failure that just creates more problems than it helps.

Most people who abuse alcohol or other drugs have a history of child abuse or other trauma, and they're self-medicating. So society failed them when they were vulnerable children, and now we're supposed to turn our backs on desperately hurting adults & rack it up to natural selection when they OD? I have to believe there's a better solution.