The war on drugs. An outright failure?

[TheBrokenSoul]

I'd go a step further and make "soft" drugs available over the counter at chemists.
They could undercut the current supply prices, raise tax for the government and cut the crime that is carried out to fund the habit.

More than that it would ensure contaminent free drugs , I imagine they put all sorts in street grade drugs .

 

[Altfish]

More than that it would ensure contaminent free drugs , I imagine they put all sorts in street grade drugs .

Indeed

 

[TransmutingSoul]

What are you thoughts? Your solutions?
Have at it, but please be respectful

It will need a united efforts on all fronts, education is good.

The Baha'i Writings are strong about opium.

"As to opium, it is foul and accursed. God protect us from the punishment He inflicteth on the user. According to the explicit Text of the Most Holy Book, it is forbidden, and its use is utterly condemned. Reason showeth that smoking opium is a kind of insanity, and experience attesteth that the user is completely cut off from the human kingdom. May God protect all against the perpetration of an act so hideous as this, an act which layeth in ruins the very foundation of what it is to be human, and which causeth the user to be dispossessed for ever and ever. For opium fasteneth on the soul so that the user’s conscience dieth, his mind is blotted away, his perceptions are eroded. It turneth the living into the dead. It quencheth the natural heat.

No greater harm can be conceived than that which opium inflicteth. Fortunate are they who never even speak the name of it; then think how wretched is the user.

O ye lovers of God! In this, the cycle of Almighty God, violence and force, constraint and oppression, are one and all condemned. It is, however, mandatory that the use of opium be prevented by any means whatsoever, that perchance the human race may be delivered from this most powerful of plagues. And otherwise, woe and misery to whoso falleth short of his duty to his Lord." – Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, pp. 148-149.

In another place it is said that “the user, the buyer and the seller [of opium] are all deprived of the bounty and grace of God.”

This is a a blog on this drug.

Opium: This Most Powerful of Plagues

This is not about when it is used for medicinal purposes, correctly prescribed and controled.

Regards Tony

 

[Brickjectivity]

Right now it is so easy to find someone on the bad side of the law. Just go to college parties. You can recruit, entrap, enslave etc. Everyone already knows it, so I'm saying it.

 

[SomeRandom]

So you came of age during d-basing and crack smoking during the late 70's/early 80's. The war on drugs has always been a abject failure. The US has given up while still funding a fake wire on it compared to Europe and the Middle East has increased the way they deal with the problem by dealing with the transporting and dealers with the heavier hand rather than the users. If people want to do drugs they will. The boomers in power are simply naïve as the think about drugs back then and simply don't understand the potency it has now. They freely let vaping go mainstream without understanding the future ramifications of it.

No I came of age during the mid to late 2000s. With more “sophisticated” and designer drugs becoming all the rage. Like I said, the Ice epidemic. Which largely affected nightclub attendees. Rather than your “typical addict” (read stereotypical lower class addict. Which I know is not accurate to reality, just for the record.)
Like I said it caused so many ODs it literally changed the curriculum in schools. I remember almost randomly in grade 9 my health class did a seemingly hard pivot and suddenly we had to learn all about drugs, how to recognise an OD and how to help a person if we saw it. Then we were given one of two lectures as a whole grade. Which covered the aspects of drugs, addiction and oddly enough how to recognise when your drink had been spiked at a party. (The other lecture being sex ed.)
I’ve only ever heard stories about the crack epidemic. Interestingly largely anecdotes about how it “ruined the game” ie made gangsters lose their code and turned addicts into even worse versions of themselves. Though how it is different to the opium crisis of the late 18th century I’m not entirely sure. Before my time.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I have also seen the war on drugs and imo it’s an abject failure. I have even grown up on media that has basically put that out as it’s central thesis (see The Wire.)

That's interesting. Here I grew up with Reagan jump starting the War on Drugs and massive info campaigns and such with "just say no to drugs" and "winners don't use drugs" and a crime-fighting anthropomorphic detective dog telling kids about the dangers of drugs and to inform adults and the police. We even had a school program (DARE) that encouraged kids to snitch on their family.
As per the American norm, it's an embarrassing **** storm of how poorly things can be here. We have a very high incarceration because drugs and addiction were criminalized and we must be hard on crime and the ill are really just pieces of **** who deserve to rot.

 

[PureX]

Neurological prisoners of circumstance will put their Nuerological Reference Frame in a state of disconnection because Neurological Circumstance is a key factor in mental health matters .
That is why people take drugs and/or become alcholics .

It's a tough problem because there are several key factors at play simultaneously, and they inter-relate to varying degrees, individually. There is a genetic component. There is a sociological component. There is an informational component, and a commercial production component. And they all matter, but not in the same way or to the same degree in everyone. I doubt there will ever be a fully effective solution. But we could certainly do a whole lot better than we do now.

If we really wanted to.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

It's a tough problem because there are several key factors at play simultaneously, and they inter-relate to varying degrees, individually. There is a genetic component. There is a sociological component. There is an informational component, and a commercial production component. And they all matter, but not in the same way or to the same degree in everyone. I doubt there will ever be a fully effective solution. But we could certainly do a whole lot better than we do now.

If we really wanted to.

I do not see the problem as a big problem because I think society will happily accept the constructive move versus the now destructive situation . There is so many drug related crimes because users need their personal Neurological Escape from societies stereotypicalism and having the knowledge of death .

 

[PureX]

I do not see the problem as a big problem because I think society will happily accept the constructive move versus the now destructive situation . There is so many drug related crimes because users need their personal Neurological Escape from societies stereotypicalism and having the knowledge of death .

Making drugs legal doesn't solve the problem of drug addiction any more than making alcohol legal solves the alcoholism problem. In fact it'll make it a lot worse if all it does is make drugs cheaper and easier to get.

 

[TheBrokenSoul]

Making drugs legal doesn't solve the problem of drug addiction any more than making alcohol legal solves the alcoholism problem. In fact it'll make it a lot worse if all it does is make drugs cheaper and easier to get.

Not necessarly true because the users will be neurological connected to the governing bodies , a sense that somebody cares for them . Additionally drug users will have more personal cash , which will allow for a better nutritional diet and more neurological freedom to go places and experience better life . Once they start to feel life experience again , they will want to quit these bad habits and be ''re-born'' .

Example : A crack head dressed in soiled clothes or a crack head wearing new clean clothes would feel more accepted by society ?

 

[SomeRandom]

That's interesting. Here I grew up with Reagan jump starting the War on Drugs and massive info campaigns and such with "just say no to drugs" and "winners don't use drugs" and a crime-fighting anthropomorphic detective dog telling kids about the dangers of drugs and to inform adults and the police. We even had a school program (DARE) that encouraged kids to snitch on their family.
As per the American norm, it's an embarrassing **** storm of how poorly things can be here. We have a very high incarceration because drugs and addiction were criminalized and we must be hard on crime and the ill are really just pieces of **** who deserve to rot.

Weirdly enough I’ve only ever seen parodies of the DARE program and the dog detective character.

We were encouraged not to take drugs in school, obviously. But there was a sense of “well, realistically you’re going to anyway” so the focus was on how to prevent ODs, recognise the signs of a spiked drink and encouragement of involving medical authorities when needed.
I remember there were even ad campaigns highlighting how dangerous the jobs of ambulance workers had become due to certain drugs and the violent reactions of people stoned on said drugs.

Though there was also emphasis on how it disproportionately affected aboriginal communities. Which is sadly still true.

I think it’s high time we start treating drug addiction as a health issue instead of a legal one.

 

[Tali018]

No I came of age during the mid to late 2000s. With more “sophisticated” and designer drugs becoming all the rage. Like I said, the Ice epidemic. Which largely affected nightclub attendees. Rather than your “typical addict” (read stereotypical lower class addict. Which I know is not accurate to reality, just for the record.)
Like I said it caused so many ODs it literally changed the curriculum in schools. I remember almost randomly in grade 9 my health class did a seemingly hard pivot and suddenly we had to learn all about drugs, how to recognise an OD and how to help a person if we saw it. Then we were given one of two lectures as a whole grade. Which covered the aspects of drugs, addiction and oddly enough how to recognise when your drink had been spiked at a party. (The other lecture being sex ed.)
I’ve only ever heard stories about the crack epidemic. Interestingly largely anecdotes about how it “ruined the game” ie made gangsters lose their code and turned addicts into even worse versions of themselves. Though how it is different to the opium crisis of the late 18th century I’m not entirely sure. Before my time.

Basically the same as what you're describing that was the Rave generation that wasn't the stereotypical “typical addict”.

 

[SomeRandom]

Basically the same as what you're describing that was the Rave generation that wasn't the stereotypical “typical addict”.

Interesting. The media seems to have recontextualised the crack epidemic as it affecting the “stereotypical typical addict.” Whereas rave drugs were contextualised as the psychedelics of the 60s and 70s.
I swear there’s a new drug epidemic every decade. I remember ecstasy being popular when I was in high school. Even billed as the “safer alternative” to Ice. Which is kind of funny in hindsight

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Weirdly enough I’ve only ever seen parodies of the DARE program and the dog detective character.

We were encouraged not to take drugs in school, obviously. But there was a sense of “well, realistically you’re going to anyway” so the focus was on how to prevent ODs, recognise the signs of a spiked drink and encouragement of involving medical authorities when needed.
I remember there were even ad campaigns highlighting how dangerous the jobs of ambulance workers had become due to certain drugs and the violent reactions of people stoned on said drugs.

Though there was also emphasis on how it disproportionately affected aboriginal communities. Which is sadly still true.

I think it’s high time we start treating drug addiction as a health issue instead of a legal one.

That's a far better approach to drugs than what we have here. We had nothing about actually recognizing an od, nothing about spiked drinks, and nothing of drug abuse and addiction being health issues. Those things should be universally taught.

 

[Revoltingest]

That's a far better approach to drugs than what we have here. We had nothing about actually recognizing an od, nothing about spiked drinks, and nothing of drug abuse and addiction being health issues. Those things should be universally taught.

And the drug war leads to much of the cop abuse of
civilians, eg, 4th Amendment violations, civil forfeiture.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

And the drug war leads to much of the cop abuse of
civilians, eg, 4th Amendment violations, civil forfeiture.

Yup. You get very little time if the cops do knock because it was reasoned by the Supreme Court that any longer and people are flushing their drugs.
It's a shame America is still quite rather OT and Medieval in assuming the worst in people. That's partly why we get the worst cops. It's assumed their job is way more dangerous than it is and all these criminals are violent and dangerous who'd rather fight than get in trouble (and this includes routine traffic stops. We are potential enemies and this stop could be the final stop before the morgue.)

 

[SomeRandom]

That's a far better approach to drugs than what we have here. We had nothing about actually recognizing an od, nothing about spiked drinks, and nothing of drug abuse and addiction being health issues. Those things should be universally taught.

I agree

 

[PureX]

Not necessarly true because the users will be neurological connected to the governing bodies , a sense that somebody cares for them . Additionally drug users will have more personal cash , which will allow for a better nutritional diet and more neurological freedom to go places and experience better life . Once they start to feel life experience again , they will want to quit these bad habits and be ''re-born'' .

Example : A crack head dressed in soiled clothes or a crack head wearing new clean clothes would feel more accepted by society ?

Neither is a functional human being. I don't think you have any real concept of what addiction is, or what it does to a person.

 

[Yerda]

I'd go a step further and make "soft" drugs available over the counter at chemists.
They could undercut the current supply prices, raise tax for the government and cut the crime that is carried out to fund the habit.

To hell with it, make MDMA mandatory! I want a war on sobriety!

 

[Yerda]

What are you thoughts? Your solutions?
Have at it, but please be respectful

Decriminalisation of all drugs. Addiction treated as a medical issue. Work towards a society that people don't want to escape.

There was a famous experiment where rats were given access to cocaine and they kept going back for hit after hit, neglecting to eat or sleep as long as they could. Those rats lived in a small cage, had nothing to do, were living impoverished lives.

In another experiment the researchers gave the rats the kind of environment that rats enjoy. Space, stimulation, fun. The rats didn't really bother with the cocaine.

People are somehow surprised when they hear this.

Edit: Actually it was morphine.