Does treating drug addiction as a health problem work?

[Truthmatters]

Portugal's Drug Policy Pays Off; US Eyes Lessons - CBS News


YES



These days, Casal Ventoso is an ordinary blue-collar community - mothers push baby strollers, men smoke outside cafes, buses chug up and down the cobbled main street.

Ten years ago, the Lisbon neighborhood was a hellhole, a "drug supermarket" where some 5,000 users lined up every day to buy heroin and sneak into a hillside honeycomb of derelict housing to shoot up. In dark, stinking corners, addicts - some with maggots squirming under track marks - staggered between the occasional corpse, scavenging used, bloody needles.

At that time, Portugal, like the junkies of Casal Ventoso, had hit rock bottom: An estimated 100,000 people - an astonishing 1 percent of its population - were addicted to illegal drugs. So, like anyone with little to lose, the Portuguese took a risky leap: They decriminalized the use of all drugs in a groundbreaking law in 2000.

 

[Truthmatters]

Just think of the misery we could end by using science instead of prisons

 

[elvis]

It apparently hasn't worked for you.

 

[Truthmatters]

Science can solve this problem much better than prisons can.

Maybe someone should unlock the prison doors holding your mind back.

 

[MaggieMae]

In Vermont, a few counties have begun separating drug offenses from other civil/criminal court cases. Rutland County was the first, and it's helped to thin the court docket(s) as well as redefining non-criminal drug charges to lesser penalties and jail time. Problem is, like every other state, there aren't enough rehab centers or half-way houses, so there's a waiting list and in the meantime some of these folks get right back on the stuff.

Consensus Project - Rutland County Adult Drug Court

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs if there are other controls. Big IF. It would also mean the end of the horrific drug wars going on near our southern borders. If the huge demand isn't there (yes, by many innocent looking, law-abiding American citizens), Mexican and Columbian drug gangs would need to peddle their goods elsewere.

 

[Truthmatters]

Decriminalizing is different than making them legal

 

[editec]

Another question we might ask ourselves is this

After nearly a century of treating drug abuse as a MORAL TRANSGRESSION how well has THAT worked?

 

[Truthmatters]

Science it the answer and NOT phoney moral outrage

 

[uscitizen]

Actually decriminalizing drugs works about as well as rerpeal of prohibition did.
We will still have problems, we will still have intoxicated drivers on the roads causing deaths, We will still have parents addicted not properly caring for their children, etc.

But it makes little sense to lock someone up for smoking pot and fine someone for public drunkeness.

 

[The Rabbi]

Mexico decriminalized drugs too. See how well that worked.

We can only get rid of the scourge of drugs if we adopt the Chinese model. They had a terrible opium problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Everyone in the court and the military just about was a user, with predictable influence on their performance. Once the communists came in, they solved the problem and now China hardly has any issues with drugs.

 

[uscitizen]

Mexico decriminalized drugs too. See how well that worked.

We can only get rid of the scourge of drugs if we adopt the Chinese model. They had a terrible opium problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Everyone in the court and the military just about was a user, with predictable influence on their performance. Once the communists came in, they solved the problem and now China hardly has any issues with drugs.

Yes you might want to investigate the US involvment in the China opium issue as well.
Might suprise you.

 

[Douger]

The problem in the Mpyre is that half of it is controlled by crackpots who " supposedly" base their decisions on historical lies and TV brainwashing.
Portugal is a different show.
Decriminalizing Drugs in Portugal a Success, Says Report - TIME

 

[MaggieMae]

Another question we might ask ourselves is this

After nearly a century of treating drug abuse as a MORAL TRANSGRESSION how well has THAT worked?

About the same as alcoholism. But ironically, alcoholism is STILL treated as a worse moral transgression than drug addiction, the [il]logic being "But s/he started taking drugs under doctor's orders which then led to heroin, while s/he had a choice to drink or not..."

 

[MaggieMae]

Decriminalizing is different than making them legal

Even in your posted article, they're not "legal."

 

[Luissa]

Mexico decriminalized drugs too. See how well that worked.

We can only get rid of the scourge of drugs if we adopt the Chinese model. They had a terrible opium problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Everyone in the court and the military just about was a user, with predictable influence on their performance. Once the communists came in, they solved the problem and now China hardly has any issues with drugs.

It has, Mexico doesn't have the problems we do when it comes to people addicted to drugs.
The cartels are not selling to Mexicans, they are selling to Americans.
You might also want to add, China going after another country for their involvement in Opium sales in their country, destroyed China. How many years did it take for communisim to win in China? How many wars did they fight, because they used the wrong policy when going after the drug problem?

 

[The Rabbi]

Mexico decriminalized drugs too. See how well that worked.

We can only get rid of the scourge of drugs if we adopt the Chinese model. They had a terrible opium problem in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Everyone in the court and the military just about was a user, with predictable influence on their performance. Once the communists came in, they solved the problem and now China hardly has any issues with drugs.

It has, Mexico doesn't have the problems we do when it comes to people addicted to drugs.
The cartels are not selling to Mexicans, they are selling to Americans.
You might also want to add, China going after another country for their involvement in Opium sales in their country, destroyed China. How many years did it take for communisim to win in China? How many wars did they fight, because they used the wrong policy when going after the drug problem?

They don't have the same drug problem bexause they don't have the same disposable income. BUt there are plenty of drug addicts in Mexico.
As for China, what destroyed the country was a lot of things, including and especially a lot of drug-addled people in high positions of power and responsibility. We will find ourselves in teh same position, with a large part of the population unable to be productive at all, unless we model the Chinese approach.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Just think of the misery we could end by using science instead of prisons

How many of those prisoners are you willing to house, clothe, feed and "cure"?

 

[Bullfighter]

At that time, Portugal, like the junkies of Casal Ventoso, had hit rock bottom: An estimated 100,000 people - an astonishing 1 percent of its population - were addicted to illegal drugs. So, like anyone with little to lose, the Portuguese took a risky leap: They decriminalized the use of all drugs in a groundbreaking law in 2000.

Now the whole country is filled with drug addicts and the police spend 8 hours a day in donut shops with no crime to prevent or laws to enforce.