I agree. However decriminalization is only a half measure unfortunately. Sure it's a good starting point because people need to be treated instead of punished but decrim only addresses some of the issues. Full legalization of all drugs will allow drug users to be safe through regulation and research. It will also significantly decrease gang violence and reduce police budgets required in order to keep track of these gangs distributing these drugs, which those monies saved could be applied elsewhere in the budget (just think about how much is spent to control drugs).
I know it seems radical to legalize but I urge you to read Dr. Carl Hart's book called Drug Use for Grown Ups. Dr. Carl Hart was the former Chair of Psychology Dept at Columbia and now leads research at Columbia on illicit drugs. He has now come out as a frequent heroin user (insufflation not injection) and argues that all recreational drugs can not only be safe to use but do actually have some positive attributes. Again I know it seems radical but I urge you to read his book or purchase the audio book version.
Consider this: most drug overdoses happen because either the drug user was not taking the drug they believed to have purchased because it had additives in it (such as fentanyl in heroin) or because they were uneducated on taking a depressant (such as alcohol or a benzodiazepine) with an opioid (such as heroin or pain medication). These combinations are deadly because it slows body functions down to a critical level.
If we accept that there will always be drug users and that we will never eradicate drug use, then we need to make it legal for people to buy these drugs safely through regulation, education and research.
I accept all the downvotes ha. Again, I realize how this can be viewed as counterintuitive to solving the opioid crisis but I believe in the long run it will lead to a healthier society.
There is a Columbia professor who is arguing for legalizing all drugs, including heroin.
https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN
I don't agree with his argument, but I do think there is a good argument for broader decriminalization.
> Isn't that stuff basically meth?
Granted, meth is actually pretty safe in normal doses. According to Dr. Carl Hart (who admits to using meth regularly and safely... I think around 20mg with no issues) the toothless meth addicts in the streets apparently use 10x-20x the recommended dose.
2-FMA, MDMA, Adderall are all related to meth, but has less social stigma because it's done by wealthier individuals.
I'd highly recommend this book if you want to see actual data (plus lots of fun anecdotes) from an addiction researcher who came to find that most of what we've been taught about so-called hard drugs is false.
https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN
https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN
Those drugs are more tenuous to have a responsible relationship with but it's not impossible. The guy that wrote this book is a professor that does both of those responsibly.
You have so much to research about drug use and it's effects on the body before you can even begin to answer this question. You need to passively absorb some of the huge amounts of information that are out there if you want to understand what's going on.
For some information and an argument in favor, you could try reading Dr. Carl Hart's book https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN
"If drugs/chemicals are fatal" What?
Thank you sweetie.
You don't think sobriety is just a little bit over rated? I mean, imagine a world without any drugs, not even alcohol. How fun would that be?
We'd all be tweaking for chocolate bars I guess.
I think there's something in our nature that drives us to alter our consciousness. It's truly a part of being human. Have you read any ofProfessor Carl Hart's books?
Hey guys, here are some notes and links from this episode! If you want episode show notes sent directly to your inbox, check out joenotes.com and subscribe to our newsletter!
More from <strong>Dr. Carl Hart</strong>:
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the potency rise is because we cracked down on the pseudoephedrine as a means for making meth. All meth is bad but when you look at psuedo vs. P2P methods, the P2P method causes way more psychotic side effects and does it quicker.
People will still do meth so when psuedo stopped being available, Mexico filled that market and started opening up P2P labs and importing it across the border. We "solved" the home meth lab issue but now we replaced it with worse shit.
It's the same story with fentanyl. Afghanistan accounted for nearly 90% of the worlds heroin supply, and after years of occupation there and we finally started to shut down the opium farms. Other countries again filled that empty market. People started realizing it was easier to just make fentanyl, which is more potent so you need a smaller quantity to smuggle.
The market for drugs will always be there. Drugs were bad in the 80s/90s during the war on drugs. Portland was especially bad. Worse than today if you can believe it. Being tough on drugs didn't solve the issue. Cracking down on the source (afghanistan, psuedo) just created a market for a worse alternative. We wouldn't have spice as a drug either if people didn't worry about drug tests as it is more expensive and had a worse high than normal weed.
I know it seems counter intuitive, but before weed was legal in the Northwest, we had violent gangs just as involved in the illegal weed trade as they were with anything else. Not just legalizing weed but actually creating a market for it under government regulation, killed the black market for it. People who grow weed do it for fun, not profit now. If we regulated recreational drugs, we could control the quality and potency of the drugs for a drug market that will always be there. Let me re-iterate. The drug market will ALWAYS exist. The only question is how are you going to deal with it.
There is a great book about how the US handles drugs called Drug Use for Grown Ups by Dr. Carl L. Hart. Dr. Hart is not some crackpot who conned his way into a phd. He is a tenured professor at Columbia University. Is a board member at the National Institute of Health, has a lab at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, post doctorate studies at multiple universities including Yale. It's a good read. Not dry and is also well sourced if you're interested in hearing both sides.
Trauma/ mental illness.
You have trauma. Either from something before you became depressed or because of the depression not being treated correctly and causing you to use to cover the cope with the mental illness thereby causing trauma. You don’t have the disorder of addiction in the brain I’d dare say.
You had physical dependency. As did I. They gave me oxy at 16. Being on hard drugs that young does crazy things your brain. I have opiate induced pain disorder for example, can only take opioids now. It needs time to recover. It seemly has in this case.
An addict, with a substance use disorder can’t just stop being an addict. They can’t out-will their addiction, even clean and sober it’s always there. They can not push it to the back and move on, thus communities meeting daily/weekly for 20+ years. Sadly they can’t do what you and I have done without massive support structures.
My father is an addict, my husband is an addict, they are both clean for as long as I or longer and neither can stand knowing I have meds, they request I keep them in my safe, just incase.
I sometimes forget I have recreational stuff stashed. If it sits too long I toss, an addict won’t do that.
I have a decade off of hard drug daily use (OxyContin) and I use all sorts of stuff recreationally and medically now. I have the shiny degree and fancy job titles and still smoke when I get home, still drop acid/ shrooms/ hippy stuffs at festivals and (here’s the big boogie man) even use prescribed opioids and adhd meds! Guess what? I’m fine. Half my f*ing department smokes and uses, heck you should see the designer sh!t the chem guys have. Makes me wish I’d gone to Yale…
Addiction and use are two different things. Physical dependence does not equate to SUD. Addiction is when using effects your life in the neg and you still use.
I had a client once who explained to me that when a batch of fent goes around that people are overdosing on they actually try to find it because it’s “strong”… That’s addiction.
Forgetting someone have me a bunch of Molly and finding it a like a year later and tossing it cause your not 100% sure it’s still good… Choosing to go a week off to clear your mind…That’s not addiction.
Anyways read this book-
https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN
First book I've bought in like 10 years.
ICYMI: Do you think this Dr. / Professor at Columbia University would understand? https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN/ref=nodl_
Tocno tako.
Ena zanimiva, ravno prebrana.. https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN
I know we're here on r/Psychonaut, so while many of you may see the importance of changing the legal status of psychedelic drugs, I'd like to mention the benefits of decriminalizing even drugs like speed, meth, coke, crack, and heroin. If you don't have friends or family who have used any of these drugs, it may seem very us-and-them, but we are all just human beings trying to do our best in this life. The complete end of the failed war on drugs is something the Drug Policy Alliance advocates, if you're looking for practical avenues. Particularly if you are coming from the woke side of things, working to end the war on drugs is one of the most practicable things you can do that will actually have an effect against racism. The war on drugs is the primary vehicle that moves mass incarceration (see: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander).
First, I just want to mention that there is legal precedent for this kind of shift. Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Czech Republic have all decriminalized personal use of any drug nationwide. There was no surge in drug use, chaos didn't ensue, people just stopped being locked up for using drugs.
If you have friends or family members who abuse hard drugs, then I'm very sorry. A lesser known fact is that the vast majority of people who use hard drugs are not clinically addicted (see: Drug Use for Grown-Ups by Dr. Carl Hart). This fact makes sense when I think about my friends too. While many of them use certain hard drugs, and a naive observer like my mom may call them addicts, I would be hard pressed to call (most of) them addicts. I wouldn't be able to demonstrate it, and they would not be considered clinically addicted. My point is that by decriminalizing these drugs, we're not sanctioning abuse, we're just respecting that people use hard drugs aren't the same as robbers, vandals, and people who talk too loud in movie theaters.
One of the primary benefits that does not relate to civilian-police relations is that of rehabilitation. Yes, only a minority of even heroin users are addicts, but what do we do with the addicts? Throwing them in prison with the robbers, vandals, and joke-thieves is not helping them. If you've ever been to an AA meeting (or maybe just had your friend tell you how theirs went), could you imagine imprisoning any of the non-violent members? Is that really what they need at their most vulnerable? Do taxpayers need another $31,000-per-year (on average) person to pay for?
One of the lesser talked about benefits is earned respect for the law. I'm not suggesting that decriminalization will fix the existing issues of policing overnight, but the war on drugs certainly slowly eroded civilian-police relations. And when you have a large class of people (1/6th of Americans 26 or older has used coke alone at least once) who break a law, that law loses respect. Either you have a large criminal class, or your law is unreasonable.
If you want to talk about taking things a step further, about legalizing drugs like coke and heroin, there are good reasons for that too. On top of all of the above, having a regulated market for drugs will reduce overdoses by having consistent products that are never adulterated with fentanyl or anything else. It will also make access by minors more difficult, the same way weed is easier to access than alcohol.
If you don't think they take the drugs to feel better, why do you think they take them? Your level of ignorance on this topic is only surpassed by your pride.
People take drugs to feel better.
Instead of spouting your ignorant BS, try educating yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Drug-Use-Grown-Ups-Chasing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B088QLTSQN