seeing the writing on the wall about marijuana legalization, given that spending billions of dollars "fighting" pot smoking, arresting and incarcerating marijuana users, is the primary focus and function of our drug war apparati.

So they need a rationale for the continuing mission, so to speak.

It's real. Believe it or not.

Because filling prisons with drug users isn't solving the problem, is it.

If heroin were available recreationally with a doctor's script, drug users would be under a doctors care and could be given warnings about what not to do. The quality and dose would also be infinitely more consistent which causes a lot of deaths.

Whenever you make a vice illegal you simply drive it underground and lose any capability of regulating it. Consumption rates stay pretty much the same.

I support what you mention, or some other wholesale harm reduction approach, or at the very least treating "arrested" addicts like they're having a health problem and not like criminals; but it's pretty hard to argue in that specific case that she wouldn't have been better off if they had just left her alone.

I know many that have OD on it. They even sell the OD med over the counter now in order to try and save lives.

Data from National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and RAND estimate addiction between 600,000 to 1.5 million (2014); all depending on definitions of addiction and survey methods. This dicey range has characterized heroin addiction estimates for years, and falls within the rates estimated for many years. (Note that ONDCP is frequently criticized for it's prohibitionist agenda.). Addiction levels may be spiking some due to the spin-off from opioid over-prescription, but if these addiction rates are half-way acfurate, they are not to far off of modern historical trends.

Caution should be exercised when looking at addiction problems. Like gun-control, the subject is quite politically charged.

which are driving both addicts AND legitimate pain patients, into the black market.

And so now we have edicts coming down from on high (the DEA, office of drug control policy, etc) that patients are "just going to have to live with pain". So guess what- you've got crippling agony from bone cancer or some shit, and because we must "get tough on teh drugzzz" they'll tell you to meditate, or try yoga. In other words, suck it up.


If we "crack down" on the "prescription drug problem" invariably that means people with legitimate pain needs will suffer as well.

It is way past time for a new approach.

Kowtow to the DEA and all of its "scientists." It is no wonder that so little is known about now-illegal drugs, esp. marijuana. If policy-makers knew as much about pot, or any other drug, as the University of Florida knows about oranges, a regulatory scheme would be in the offing.

Here in northern New England, many groups have reported heroin deaths as very much a reality. No hyperbole. No gravy train. Just, we have a problem and we're not dealing with it well, and people are dying. We have to address this problem. At least in this region it's not hype for higher police budgets of support from the war on drugs sorts. It's real.

Here in Oregon we had a 24 year old girl thrown in jail for heroin possession, who was allowed to die, ignored, on her cell floor.

I have a hard time believing that our prohibitionary approach "saved" her from the demon drugs.

but most of the dire consequences are from illegality, not pharmacology.

We know the war on drugs is a farce and a failure, a way to deal with enemies of the corporate state rather than a program for the people. Just end it, people, undercut the black market, drive the gangs out of business, and let people stay healthy on clean supplies of known dosages.

Thats the page I'm on, too.

And honestly I think legal pot would be the best way to reduce it somewhat.

Im not saying its not a problem- it is- but i firmly believe that

one, the drug war gravy train is looking for other reasons for self-justification, since the clock is ticking on pot prohibition...

and two, our current approach - law enforcement and incarceration- isn't working.

Butler county Ohio. The Heroin OD capital at one point. Daily the local police briefs have at least one OD death, and dozens of ODs caught in time. It IS happening

That's roughly 18 times the national average for all illicit drug overdose deaths.

Who believes this?

Here in ohio. From dayton to hamilton. They're cutting fentynal with it here, that's what's killing them

The national rate of heroin OD deaths is about 3 per 100,000. So you're talking about a rate that is more than 100 times greater than the national average.

eom

Don't they?


This link talks about where the data comes from.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6450a3.htm

In the vast majority of cases it's nothing more than an educated guess.

I'm not sure how you go from disputing Heroin Overdose numbers to those wounded in War, Corporate Health Care Givers, the Housing Bubble, and Voting Issues.

Doctors don't prescribe Heroin and death statistics are not guess work, and it has nothing to do with Money unless you are a Heroin Dealer.

It's a very simple test to determine the presence of Heroin. Not a full blown autopsy. When Heroin starts to break down it basically becomes Morphine. So, there is that. But the presence of 6-MAM is qualified as a benchmark for a Heroin overdose.

That's one of the reasons the Governor of Vermont endorsed Hillary Clinton and not The Sandman. Hillary met with the Governor to discuss the out-of-control growth of opiate use in that state and what could be done about it. More white-affluent people are becoming addicted to Heroin in this country. The numbers have actually sky rocketed.

He died choking on his own vomit.

But Big Insurance doesn't want you to know that.

Along with other types of drugs. Jimi Hendrix and Bon Scott both died that way. Neither from heroin.

The cause of death must be verified for the death certificate. The only time one isn't performed is if the cause is clearly known, like in terminal illness or an obvious accident.

As for deaths due to heroin, it's nearly killing more people in Connecticut than guns and car crashes combined!

to control how much heroin makes it to rural America.

Al Qaeda/the Taliban suppressed poppy growth rather stringently, but farmers saved bags of seed beneath their floorboards. As soon as Idiot Son and Uncle Dick destroyed that system of government and turned their backs, subsistence farmers hauled out the means for a cash crop and planted it.

Within a year or so, addicts were congregating along the borders outside Afghanistan. Within another year or so, cheap heroin came flooding into the West.

You want to blame someone? The path to addiction in the US is complicated, thanks to legal prescription drugs that weren't supposed to be addictive. We need to own that crap. But the flood of cheap heroin can be laid directly at the feet of Dubya and Dick.

This is part of the damage they did in 8 years. To imagine one Democrat could clean it up in his term in office with a Congress vowed to obstruct him at every turn is just fantasy.

I voted for Obama knowing he was our best chance to at least begin to repair the country, not because I believed he was Christ Almighty or Gandalf with a magic staff. I will continue to vote for the Democrat every time.

I will never forgive Bush/Cheney. I will never forget.

which allowed for the massive increase of incarceration of African-Americans, including pregnant women and recent mothers. As cannabis moves closer to legalization, expect other areas of the War on Drugs to ramp up in intensity: there's just no way law enforcement and the "rehabilitation" industry is going to relinquish that sweet, sweet cash. The people who suffer from this are chronic pain patients who don't get the meds they need and the addicts who are treated like criminals rather than victims suffering from a serious illness.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/booming/revisiting-the-crack-babies-epidemic-that-was-not.html

And just FYI, the "researcher" who started the whole crack baby hoax/panic (based on sample of 25: now THERE is some strong research!) is named Ira Chasnoff and he is now busy trying to justify the incarceration of mothers who smoke pot. He's a shyster of the highest order and should be shunned as a loser and fraud.

...In the past, Emergency Room research would detect Heroin (or other drugs) in a person's system, and link that substance to a person's O.D. Of course, large quantities of alcohol were ignored in favor of the nemesis drug-of-the-day. Result? This (plug in your favorite drug) caused this OD or death. This "research" was done frequently for a more than willing and unquestioning MSM.

It is my understanding that edema is a great cause of death for Heroin addicts, and that acute condition is caused by Heroin AND the ingestion of large quantities of alcohol. See also: "Crack Baby Syndrome."

This not to say there is not a problem with over-prescription of legal opioids. But we should be aware of old and faulty approaches to "research" when defining and dealing with societal problems.

The vast majority of OD deaths attributed to heroin are from mixing it with other drugs or alcohol.

The subject of drug policy is perhaps even more polarized than that of gun control. It is hard to get good info, and MSM still views the subject as a shriek in the night. But I have followed addiction trends, and the current trends seem to be up, but within the admittedly sloppy range of 600,000 to 1.5 million. Serious policy would treat heroin addiction alone as a public health question, requiring legalization and regulation to blunt the disease danger, educate folks on the alcohol/heroin threat, and to cut the legs from under the criminal market. This to say nothing about costs and harm due to crime.

The CDC's survey said that only 333,000 people have used heroin in the last 30 days. Very few who haven't used in the last 30 days are going to be addicts and not all those who have are going to be addicts. The number for cocaine is over 5 times higher.

I'm not sure if it is them foreigners or drugs or secret voters writing laws. Unword salad challenge level orange.

Last edited Mon Apr 18, 2016, 09:43 PM - Edit history (1)

But if the ONLY choices are the authoritarian clusterfuck we have now or wide-open legalization of everything, I would choose the latter.

And it should go without saying that people with legitimate pain management needs should not be forced to suffer because "we need to get more strict about stopping people from catching a buzz"

An odd preoccupation, to my way of thinking.

the death statistics are not a lie.

The heroin crisis is real.

It is a horrible, gut-wrenching epidemic. It is destroying lives and tearing families apart. Young people are getting hooked on heroin, bouncing in and out of jail, rehab, halfway houses, etc. I currently have one cousin in a sober living facility, one in jail (both have been bouncing around for the last 3 years due to heroin addiction). A friend's son and another friend's nephew have fatally overdosed in the last six months.

There are stories in the local papers daily about the epidemic and overdoses.

...including daring to reveal her own kid is an addict. She'd been away for several years and didn't know how much DU had changed. Back in the day a post like that in GD would have met with support, but not now. It was cruel, so cruel she may never return. It made me ashamed to call myself a DUer.

When Hillary initially went on one of her "listening tours" in the New England states, she came away with first-hand knowledge of the heroin epidemic ravaging suburbs and small communities. But when she spoke about it as the public health crisis that it is, you should have heard the howls here at DU.

The response here was not rational. It was not open to new information. It simply had all the hallmarks of Early Onset Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

NOW it is a national news story.

many of them, simply for marijuana- isn't working.

The "crisis" is taking place not in some free-for-all situation where there is no punishment for drug use, it is taking place UNDER a system where we've already shitcanned the 4th amendment in our desperate desire to control peoples' behavior. Where panic over "the prescription drug crisis" means legitimate pain patients can't get their pain adequately managed because doctors are terrified of the DEA. So where do they go, do they go to NA meetings and find a higher power? Do they say "wow, who needs percocet, I've got a yoga mat!" No, they go to the black market and contribute to the heroin situation.

Remember, we ALREADY live in a country that sent Richard Paey to prison for 25 FUCKING YEARS for managing HIS OWN SPINAL PAIN.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/19/opinion/punishing-pain.html

yay drug war! derp.

"open to new information"? New information doesnt help if it means just throwing more money to the DEA and making minor modifications to already draconian mandatory minimum sentencing. The way to handle the new information is by realizing that 40 years of trying to incarcerate away people doing things we don't want them to with their own bodies hasnt worked, it's time for a radically different approach.

SMDH

And sorry, but moving it from schedule I to II federally does nothing to reconcile the conflict btw. federal and state law, and leaves recreational AND medical users at the mercy of any future executive who decides to start rounding them up.

All schedule II does is make it easier for "researchers" (big pharma, natch) to patent expensive cannabis derivatives, hopefully without all that pesky "getting high" business.

Only one candidate has had the fortitude to say what needs saying, namely that THE DRUG WAR IS A FAILURE.

If Hillary halves mandatory minimums, like only sentences drug users to 5 years instead of 10, how does that address the problem? It doesn't. It's a band-aid.

Her official position is to continue the drug war with very little changes. She won't even go so far as to retroactively fix the crack/cocaine sentencing disparities that imprisons thousands of people of color that her husband's policies (that she fully supported at the time) put there to begin with.

My eyes were full of tears for her. I was shocked at the ugliness of some of the responses.

I voted for Sanders. He is a better match for my ideology.

I don't like how ugly this primary is and it makes me sad that some see others as an enemy based on the candidate they support. I can however understand combative discussion when it comes to controversial topics that feel like personal attacks against one's chosen candidate. I CANNOT understand the combative and abusive tone in the post you mentioned.

I hope they didn't go find some ...never mind

....Personal Profile indicates he is really into conspiracy theories. Why he didn't stick around to defend this one I can't say.

I mean, I have holes in my roof from the hail storm last Monday here in Texas-

That shit doesn't happen just from mother nature!

Are dying from natural causes and not the cheap black tar heroin they are injecting. Thanks for clearing it up that we have an epidemic of young people dying of natural causes.

Hurting themselves, they need to be getting treatment not prison. However it does not change the fact that kids are getting on heroin and dying from it. I am all for changing the system where we no long imprison addicts, but to make a Post saying the numbers are a lie is completely false.

But either way, its time to rethink the war on drugs, and maybe that means harm reduction regarding things like heroin.

That people die from with their doctor prescribed medication. Heroin is like 12,000 which right now is at epidemic level considering it was so low 16 years ago. It's just another repercussion for our war in Afghanistan.

Perhaps you can explain that to me.

They did not provide any proof to back it up other than their belief no autopsies are performed when someone just dies for no apparent reason.

They did not link anything, when I looked it up the CDC lists heroin deaths at 12,000.

I think you'll find they say "heroin-related" or "involving heroin", which means heroin isn't necessarily the sole cause. If you dig a little deeper you'll find that in about 75-90% of OD deaths, the actual cause was from multiple substances. That's also what manages to predominately kill people who die from opiate prescription drug ODs. Mixing opiates and certain other drugs, including ethanol, is very dangerous. So instead of educating people about this fact, which would probably save thousands of lives, the national drug policy is ONLY about prohibition, with a heavy influence on criminalization which has never worked and never will.

Countering one allegation with another is as irrational and specious as originating an allegation.

The method of premise, supporting evidence followed by conclusion is valid. Simply stating a conclusion lacking any supportive evidence (i.e., an 'allegation') is mentally lazy and undisciplined, and is defended by the same laziness and irrational methodology.

You start with heroin and end with imagrants (sic) and end with unknown knowns fucking with elections and they make laws these voters.

Something is f'd up...