Heroin Crisis Solved; Or Not; Our Choice

[ChrisL]

I can't imagine why anyone would want to be like this . . .

The initial motivation is escape from emotional or physical pain. Then addiction takes over the "choice" part of the mind. Addicts reach a point where their using isn't a choice. That's when arrests & intervention are their only shot at a peek of what autonomy used to look like.

Until then these hopeless addicts are nothing but zombies. They're not even human anymore; because humans are unique autonomous beings. Once an addict, you can see them literally as cookie cutter zombies.

These shows they have on addiction really are thought-provoking documentaries. The addicts seem to retain some self-reflection in that they know they are doomed. But even wanting out they become combative if someone should suggest concrete ways to get out. So I concluded IMHO that extreme force & derailment of the addiction is vital. There needs to be a uniform plan & treatment funding with law enforcement.

Also addicts seem to adopt addict families as they lose contact with sober people. Laws need to be passed that break up adopted addict families so recovering addicts won't instantly relapse. No misery loves company like active addiction.

I don't know if we can lump them all into one basket. I'm sure each person would do drugs for their own reasons, some of which we don't know.

They know they are doomed but like any other addiction, the substance is the most important thing to them. They don't CARE about anything else. The only way an addiction can be cured is if the addicted person wants sobriety more than they want the drugs. Sadly, they usually don't and end up dying from it eventually.

 

[ChrisL]

Measuring America’s changing drug habits, on the border

SAN YSIDRO, Calif. — Mexican traffickers are sending a flood of cheap heroin and methamphetamine across the U.S. border, the latest drug seizure statistics show, in a new sign that America’s marijuana decriminalization trend is upending the North American narcotics trade.

The amount of cannabis seized by U.S. federal, state and local officers along the boundary with Mexico has fallen 37 percent since 2011, a period during which American marijuana consumers have increasingly turned to the more potent, higher-grade domestic varieties cultivated under legal and quasi-legal protections in more than two dozen U.S. states.

Timeline:

1. Mexico imported most of the nation's MJ. The fed had a delicate balance with the Mexican economy, of which pot exports were a huge part of. This consisted of strategically dialing in suppressing the influx & balancing the market. The cartels also had a delicate balance among themselves, keeping the supply/demand ratio in balance. Pretty much like how commercial merchants of all trades form unions to settle on prices so all can benefit.

2. Pot illegally is "legalized" (against federal law) in the US, state by state, using "medicine" as the shoehorn to ultimate free for all. Unregulated medicine is as illegal as recreational medicine of any Schedule 1 FDA regulated substance.

3. The price of pot and its delicate economic balance re: Mexico begins to plummet. Mexican cartels (and Mexico itself) take what is the equivalent of a baseball bat to the nuts.

4. During the parallel timeline, cartel wars and beheadings begin as competition for that dying market increased. Then the reality of the futility even of that struggle sets in as Mexican-MJ economy gets its last coffin nails...as more and more states illegally-legalize.

5. Then Mexican pot cartels switch to a much more lucrative market, one much more addictive and deadly: opium.

6. The US social situation worsens as the heroin epidemic sweeps the nation "from unknown causes all of a sudden!" Law enforcement is overburdened. Heroin quickly renders addicts derelict dependent criminals and thieves. The social welfare rolls begin to swell, taxing an already precarious economy, law enforcement, jail and prison budgets. Insurance companies take more and more hits as more and more petty and serious crime results in property theft to maintain the blind and strong urge of the heroin addicts.

(Russia/China, are you giggling right now? )

So people would say that this illegal legalizing has no repercussions. I beg to differ. Even when they agree they say "well what are you going to do about it? So many states now have "legal" pot" (while it remains on Schedule 1).

Solution will be tough, but actually simple. It will require brass nuggs on behalf of the fed. Simply pass a resolution in Congress that shuts off federal funding to states that have defied federal law. If they fail to re-criminalize pot, they don't get money until they comply. Period.

At the various state levels, look for heads to roll to blame the chaos on with pot laws. State by state a person or group of people (usually the sitting AG at the time) responsible for screening newly proposed laws, either by legislature or referendum, for compliance with federal law FIRST before they were voted on, are weeded out and brought into the limelight for questioning. Their failure of duty will be the culprit. Adjustments can be made before this becomes a complete US nightmare. Dust will settle and life will go on.

The US officials can strike old deals with Mexican cartels in exchange for reduction or elimination of heroin imports. And, life can go back to normal. People wanting to be rebellious can turn back to pot, and forego heroin, the more deadly of the two Mexican imports. The jails and social service programs can breathe a sigh of relief.

Or, we can accept an escalating heroin problem, economic assault from derelict addicts increasing exponentially, and a real threat to our national security. Our choice. The liberals responsible for this downward spiral are clearly incapable of thinking or understanding even the rudiments of delicate economies of the US and Mexico and how they interplay. Pissing off Mexico at our southern doorstep, with our enemies abroad drooling, is not a good plan for national security. Liberals meanwhile do all they can to keep that permeable border with even more and more holes. This is just simply asinine. Smarter minds need to bypass the kicking and screaming and rip the bandaid off.

Here's the approach lawmakers with brains need to take addressing the liberal outcry
vv

#4 is incorrect. 2010 was the horrifically bloody year. 2012-- CO made pot legal.

As for the rest...

Your ignorance about pot legalization, economics, social impact is hu-uuuge.

You also appear to be completely unaware of synthetic opiates, how they were promoted and marketed as "safe".

Get a clue, then check back.

Whoever said they were "safe?" No drugs (legal or illegal) are 100% safe. NONE of them. Even aspirin can have horrid side effects, etc.

 

[Silhouette]

The only way an addiction can be cured is if the addicted person wants sobriety more than they want the drugs. Sadly, they usually don't and end up dying from it eventually.

Maybe pressure will make them want sobriety. Like facing jail. One thing they don't need is enabling. That's what the research is saying. I heard a psychologist say addicts die not so much from the disease, but instead the enablers. If they don't hit a wall, they never will stop.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Only Silhouette could possibly seriously try to argue that making pot illegal would make people stop taking heroin.

 

[ChrisL]

The only way an addiction can be cured is if the addicted person wants sobriety more than they want the drugs. Sadly, they usually don't and end up dying from it eventually.

Maybe pressure will make them want sobriety. Like facing jail. One thing they don't need is enabling. That's what the research is saying. I heard a psychologist say addicts die not so much from the disease, but instead the enablers. If they don't hit a wall, they never will stop.

I'm pretty sure all of that has been tried before. If the person doesn't want to stop, then they aren't going to stop. It's really as simple as that. They have to really, really want to quit in order to quit the addiction. It's a very powerful addiction. Drugs are really, really bad for some people and those people should always avoid drugs no matter the situation. Addictive personalities. The video I posted earlier of the guy who was addicted, he even admitted to it. Nothing else is important to him. When he wakes up in the morning, his first thought is "where can I get my fix today?" And he will do just about anything to get it. You cannot trust a drug addict. They will steal from you, heck, they will even kill you sometimes.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

The only way an addiction can be cured is if the addicted person wants sobriety more than they want the drugs. Sadly, they usually don't and end up dying from it eventually.

Maybe pressure will make them want sobriety. Like facing jail. One thing they don't need is enabling. That's what the research is saying. I heard a psychologist say addicts die not so much from the disease, but instead the enablers. If they don't hit a wall, they never will stop.

It's easier to get heroin in jail than it is to get it on the street.

 

[ChrisL]

The only way an addiction can be cured is if the addicted person wants sobriety more than they want the drugs. Sadly, they usually don't and end up dying from it eventually.

Maybe pressure will make them want sobriety. Like facing jail. One thing they don't need is enabling. That's what the research is saying. I heard a psychologist say addicts die not so much from the disease, but instead the enablers. If they don't hit a wall, they never will stop.

Sadly, a lot of them will die before they will quit. That is a nasty fact and why people should NOT do heroin. That is not something you want to get mixed up with. Prevention is the cure. You have to make people not want to do heroin, show kids some pictures of these people and hear some stories about their hellish lives. However, that is not even enough sometimes. It's just one of those problems that has no simple answers.

 

[Silhouette]

I tend to agree Chris. The only thing that kills a habit is negative reinforcement. Addicts say heroin feels like heaven. Wonder if it felt like shit the minute they used it? Like introducing a safe antibuse agent into the heroin supply. Instead of a pleasant rush, nausea or the shits or something?

 

[ChrisL]

I tend to agree Chris. The only thing that kills a habit is negative reinforcement. Addicts say heroin feels like heaven. Wonder if it felt like shit the minute they used it? Like introducing a safe antibuse agent into the heroin supply. Instead of a pleasant rush, nausea or the shits or something?

And how would you go about doing that unless you legalized and controlled it? You couldn't.

 

[danielpalos]

Can addiction be overcome through full body massage and cannabis. Any brave women want to try?

 

[Silhouette]

I tend to agree Chris. The only thing that kills a habit is negative reinforcement. Addicts say heroin feels like heaven. Wonder if it felt like shit the minute they used it? Like introducing a safe antibuse agent into the heroin supply. Instead of a pleasant rush, nausea or the shits or something?

And how would you go about doing that unless you legalized and controlled it? You couldn't.

Well pot is schedule 1 & states removed it from the fed listing without permission of all 50 states so the same can be done with heroin.

 

[danielpalos]

I tend to agree Chris. The only thing that kills a habit is negative reinforcement. Addicts say heroin feels like heaven. Wonder if it felt like shit the minute they used it? Like introducing a safe antibuse agent into the heroin supply. Instead of a pleasant rush, nausea or the shits or something?

And how would you go about doing that unless you legalized and controlled it? You couldn't.

Well pot is schedule 1 & states removed it from the fed listing without permission of all 50 states so the same can be done with heroin.

There is no Prohibition clause. There is a Commerce Clause.

 

[Silhouette]

^^ so your argument is that the FDA has no authority to list or regulate food & drugs?

 

[danielpalos]

^^ so your argument is that the FDA has no authority to list or regulate food & drugs?

Commerce, well regulated; is what is delegated to Congress.

 

[Silhouette]

^^ so your argument is that the FDA has no authority to list or regulate food & drugs?

Commerce, well regulated; is what is delegated to Congress.

Who decides what is "well regulated" at the federal level? A handful of states or all 50?

 

[danielpalos]

^^ so your argument is that the FDA has no authority to list or regulate food & drugs?

Commerce, well regulated; is what is delegated to Congress.

Who decides what is "well regulated" at the federal level? A handful of states or all 50?

There is no Prohibition clause.

 

[ChrisL]

I tend to agree Chris. The only thing that kills a habit is negative reinforcement. Addicts say heroin feels like heaven. Wonder if it felt like shit the minute they used it? Like introducing a safe antibuse agent into the heroin supply. Instead of a pleasant rush, nausea or the shits or something?

And how would you go about doing that unless you legalized and controlled it? You couldn't.

Well pot is schedule 1 & states removed it from the fed listing without permission of all 50 states so the same can be done with heroin.

Well, the only way you could put something into the supply would be to make sure that people only purchased their drugs from a government controlled (or some other controlled) source. What you are suggesting is pretty much impossible. Our government can't even control itself! Lol!

 

[The2ndAmendment]

I understand your theory that legalizing pot has forced producers/suppliers of pot to switch-to another product and that product is heroine. Personally, I am very skeptical that is why we are seeing an increase in heroine use. Did you contrive this theory out of thin air, or do you have any corroborating evidence? Just because pot is legalized and heroine use goes up, does not prove a cause and effect.

No, it's true. If pot was still illegal (and therefore profitable) I never would have switched markets and thus never caught seven felony drug sale charges. And that's only street level, which works it's way up.

Simply put I wasn't gonna get bud anymore when I couldn't sell it for even 50% more than I paid. I knew some dope and crackheads that could give me enough money daily to keep my own heroin habit going and switched markets entirely, since selling pot no longer sufficed to fund my dope habit.

Also, do you think I was the only person that stopped selling pot and switched to hard narcotics? No. And that is why the cartels switched as well, because us little guys (the workhorses that ultimately move it all to the user) couldn't get rid of it at profit that vastly exceeded the income of a regular 9-5 job. At that point it was either get a second job and work yourself to death for 80 hours a week (while fucked up on dope) or sell hard drugs.

I chose to sell hard drugs...because they legalized pot.

I got caught a little more than 12 months afterwards, so it didn't last long lol. At least I got clean in prison.

 

[ABikerSailor]

I understand your theory that legalizing pot has forced producers/suppliers of pot to switch-to another product and that product is heroine. Personally, I am very skeptical that is why we are seeing an increase in heroine use. Did you contrive this theory out of thin air, or do you have any corroborating evidence? Just because pot is legalized and heroine use goes up, does not prove a cause and effect.

I wonder if the OP realizes that opiate overdoses went down by 25 percent in CO the year they legalized marijuana, and have continued to drop since?

 

[ABikerSailor]

Can addiction be overcome through full body massage and cannabis. Any brave women want to try?

I know that you're being a smartass with this comment, but did you know that there is a place that is using marijuana and cannabis oils to treat heroin addiction? Seems that someone was smart enough to see that the physical withdrawl symptoms of quitting heroin was something that could be alleviated by marijuana.

Heroin addicts, when they quit, go through nausea, joint pain, and anxiety. Know what a really good Indica does? Relieves pain, stimulates your appetite and calms you down.

Saw a story about it on VICE Channel's Weediquette program. They have around a 60 percent success rate, which is unheard of for heroin addicts.

Best part? Because marijuana isn't physically addictive, when they decide to stop smoking, they won't have withdrawl symptoms.