There are a few interesting takeaways:
- Pain perscriptions as a gateway to more hardcore drug use that destroys life, it doesn't sound like this individual had any "liberty" to make choices once he had become hooked on painkillers
- Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in monetary terms, at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it
- Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in terms of destroyed careers and relationships. Sure some users function normally, but you cannot know whether you're going to succumb or not before embarking - and that is the problem.
Heroin is... Interesting. I was an addict for 6 years. I ran two businesses (one successfully), held down excellent jobs for amazing agencies, built cool stuff, had numerous relationships that were both good and bad.
Most of heroin's issues arise because of its illegality, coupled with its price. I was spending $400 a day. It's nearly impossible to keep afloat with that sort of outgoing expense. Heroin also makes me grumpier than I typically am, and I wouldn't wish the withdrawals on my worst enemy.
But on the other hand, it has few negative physical effects in the long term, which I find amazingly curious. I've been clean for three years now, and if I didn't tell you you'd never know what I'd done. That's odd, in my opinion, considering its reputation. If I'd drunk the equivalent amount of alcohol every day for six years, I'd doubt that would be the case.
Like any drug, being illegal distorts the market and causes issues that wouldn't exist with it legal, however I would never want to see it legal the same way alcohol is. It's simply dangerous above and beyond things like weed. I'm truly not sure how i feel about it, to be honest. I just know that I would never use it again, regardless of its legal status.
Thanks for sharing this. If you don't mind me asking, how did you find the experience of getting rid of that habit? What got you to finally try and defeat it?
Getting off it was difficult. I couldn't have done it without the amazing support of my government, despite it's rather draconian drug laws. I've been clean for three years now. The impetus for getting off of it were the cost (I was using 1.5 grams per day), the illegality (I didn't want to risk my future any more).
But, the key reason? I didn't want to take it any more. A well known fact among addict circles, is that there will come a time when you're done taking it. The problem is, unless you were lucky to live in a country like mine, doing so without the support of society when it is so stigmatized is supremely difficult. It's an interesting problem.
This is interesting, as it turns my viewpoint on its head. I firmly believed heroin addicts were all zombies. You are arguing they are quite completely saveable.
It changes my view on whether it is useful to help somebody. Do you have any references for this?
I've shared my experiences a number of times, and you'd be amazed how many other programmers have contacted me to express their situation. "Functional" addicts are far more numerous than common knowledge would have you believe, but the stigma is so great that it's something that remains rather impossible to find out.
Heres an interesting fact. About 23% of people who use heroin (not opiates in general, heroin specifically) become addicts[0]. I've always found that rather interesting, and matches up perfectly with my anecdotal experience. I'm one of the 23% unfortunately.
Edit: As I said in a comment above, no-one wants to remain on heroin forever. You truly will want to stop at some point, even if it causes no issues in your life (good luck with that!) -- every addict I've known has hit that point eventually. I did. I was just lucky my government and society supported me in getting clean. Others in other countries aren't so lucky, and I think that's a shame.
Your 23% statistic is very revealing; in recent years there's been a lot of research into the underlying neurobiology of addiction. Turns out that addicts are often quite predisposed to getting addicted, either through genetics (such as variants in the components of neurotransmitter systems) or their early environment. And through long-term changes in the brain from substance abuse - as an example, over-consuming alcohol over time can damage the frontal cortex, impairing decision-making, including deciding to stop drinking, so you end up with this feedback loop of sorts.
I find it very unfortunate that society hasn't caught up with this way of thinking and mostly still regards addiction as a moral vice, rather than a lifelong illness.
Possibly. But for me 'social issues' is a bit too vague for comfort.
Very normal, in itself healthy social interaction could bring one to alcoholism for example, and nobody, including the addict, will be aware of the problem for a long time.
I believe a more interesting claim would be to say 'social issues involving a significant other'. It's easy to hide problems of various kinds from your friends; it's much harder to do so with a partner, especially living together.
I'm not saying having such a partner prevents addiction, but I do think that it makes it harder to maintain without ramifications. I suspect a significant part of addicts either lack in a significant other, or have one who suffers from 'compatible' issues.
Personally I've found that partners and flatmates (family or otherwise) are a primary reason for not spiraling into bad habits (or addictions). With friends it's too easy to 'manage' yourself.
I think you might be surprised by the number of functional heroin "addicts" there are. There are a lot of people holding down "good" jobs while using.
I don't feel great about posting non-throway, but hey.
My anecdata (10 > N < 20) are that most opiate users generally work out OK (<10% problem rate). Like most habits though, it's not a great thing to be stuck with. Worse than being a smoker although the smart ones will be quick to point out it's biologically better.
It's a thing you can actually grow out of, too. The people who don't usually have other problems.
Yeah, I actually know of at least one doctor who was on heroin (while practicing). Started with an opiate (painkiller) addiction and then led to heroin. Actually, it's pretty common for people who've been prescribed painkillers to start using heroin once they can no longer get their painkiller prescriptions filled/represcribed.
Reminds of an anecdote from when a needle room was opened in Oslo, Norway. Sure, they expected may homeless and such. But what they also got was people in suits driving fancy cars, that stopped by to do a dosage before heading to so big wig office or party.
...at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it
I infer from this statement that you believe that, in the case of legalization, the price would still be high enough to require crime. Do you have any reason to believe that heroin is inherently more expensive to manufacture than, say, aspirin?
Also, unless heroin addiction skews towards the top five-percenters, $3500 per week is a distant outlier.
The UK estimates that between a third and a half of all acquisitive crime in the UK is committed by class A drug users.
You're assuming that in the case of legalisation there wouldn't be sin taxes, which given alcohol and cigarettes (and indeed weed) would be incredibly unlikely.
The problem with heroin is that once you are abusing it you need more and more but it starts to destroy your ability to earn the funds to pay for it.
By the point where it screws up someone's ability to earn and they don't have family money, they're no longer a functional human in society. Their other relationships are screwed, no matter which way you look at it, they're a welfare case.
My experience is that "those" crimes are caused by trauma and mental illness, but I guess the drug use is the easy thing to blame. It correlates super high at that point.
There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to.
Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.
why not to legalize something that hurts just the one who takes it? The same logic would require us to delegalize alcohol. Remember, we had booze dealers with machine guns terrorizing whole cities, like Chicago, before we came back to our senses and legalized it.
Can you see Corona dealers fighting with Coors dealers for a territory to sell beer? Why not? This is the EXACT reality of 1920s in this country.
I don't care if some idiots are going to kill themselves. As if we didn't have enough economic issues and ways to spend money, to spend so much on prisons, police force and all this other BS to deal with somebody's addiction.
I will tell you what will happen. As 1929 crash forced us to legalize alcohol, the same way 2008 forced us to legalize weed. Hopefully next crash will force us to legalize rest of it and start making money on it to find education vs. taking money from education to keep juvenile institutions staffed with guards.
You don't have to be in favour of the current war on drugs to be in favour of heroin being illegal - and this is key selling heroin being illegal. Even Portugal, held up as the example of decriminalization only decriminalized possession not distribution.
Being a heroin addict should be treated as a social/medical problem and people given all the help they can to get clean, but we absolutely shouldn't be encouraging people to take it up. Especially heroin which is responsible for a very high percentage of all drug related deaths.
I think you've struck upon the fundamental issue when it comes to substance legalization: we've made the U.S. government the arbiter of safety. People think, "If it's legal, it must be safe."
That isn't a true statement even now, but it's the mindset people bring to discussions about decriminalization.
Legalization does not need to mean "encouraging people to take it up." If we want to end the war on drugs, we need to all accept responsibility for determining what is safe for ourselves. The government's role should be in providing information and support.
Don't forget marketing. Alcohol is marketed extensively by the industry despite the associated problems. A legal heroin industry would have a huge incentive to market heroin.
Heroin + other drugs combined are responsible for a high percentage of all drug related deaths. You can make the argument that there's not much difference, because people are dumb, and I'd probably agree with you though.
From what I understand, heroin when injected is so addictive that using it even once can put you on a path you never would have gone anywhere near. It takes rational thought out of the occasion, changes your personality and your goals - your life becomes about getting your next fix and you'll do anything to get it.
Beer, weed, ecstacy, etc don't have that same steep addictive power, so aren't dangerous in that way. So it can't be so easily compared to alcohol since alcohol has a much more gradual addiction curve whereas heroin is much much steeper.
That's utter nonsense. Do you realize heroin is a fancy name for diacetylmorphine, an analgesic commonly used to treat chronic and post-surgical pain?
In other words, thousands of people around the world received that 'one shot' today and if you didn't tell them, probably wouldn't even know they just had a hit of h (and none of them suddenly loses their ability for rational thought or their life's goals).
Thousands of people are given heroin-like (or actually heroin in your case) pain killers for chronic and post-surgical pain and move onto illegal forms like heroin after because they're addicted. Like the dude in the article.
"One shot" is an exaggeration, apologies. My point was that heroin and it's analogues are highly addictive substances, in an aggressive way that beer weed and ecstacy aren't. You can't directly compare and equate beer with heroin for the sake of argument for legalization. Drugs aren't equal and the addictive properties of one are different from another. They have to be considered on a case by case basis.
It's also worth watching episode 7 of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown where he goes back home to Massachusetts. A large portion of the episode is focused on this.
You have kids in high school who are injured in sports, are prescribed painkillers by their doctors which eventually gets them on heroin. The addicts didn't wake up one day thinking, "You know what? I think I'm going to try heroin today." It was legal pharmaceuticals with falsely advertised addiction rates that got them onto it.
A single dose is unlikely to lead to physical dependence. Powerful opiates are often administered through an IV for things like oral surgery (my recollection of the sedation I had when I had my wisdom teeth out definitely includes euphoria in the moments before I fell asleep).
The issue is probably mostly that many of the people at a point where the first dose seems like a good idea are going to also think the second dose is a good idea.
> From what I understand, heroin when injected is so addictive that using it even once can put you on a path you never would have gone anywhere near. It takes rational thought out of the occasion, changes your personality and your goals - your life becomes about getting your next fix and you'll do anything to get it.
All bullshit. The vast majority of people who try heroin (even multiple times) do not get addicted.
Me too, but unfortunately it seems to be almost impossible to find unbiased information (almost everything I found was blatant drug-war propaganda with absolutely no science backing it up)
The likelihood that someone will become addicted to a substance is actually much more affected by the route of administration than the substance itself. Addiction primarily happens as a result of people linking an action (e.g. taking a drug) with a reward, and the less time there is in between taking the drug and it taking effect, the more powerful that connection.
In terms of addictive potential for any given drug:
smoking > injecting > snorting > eating > topical
If you were to actually compare drinking crack with drinking coffee, the addictiveness of both would be identical.
Route of administration changes how quickly, how hard and in what way drugs hit you. For example, someone could rub some coke on their gums and have a numb mouth and be slightly more alert, or snort the same amount and get a rush.
I think you're mistaken. While the first part is certainly true - I remain doubtful about the implication for addictive potential of a drug - the second part is a rather bad example:
Both in your nose and in your mouth the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream via a mucous membrane. The reason you don't see a lot of people putting large doses of cocaine on their gums is largely practical... same thing for mdma for example, just the other way around.
/edit The coke-numbs-your-gums part is supposed to be a test for the quality of the product, easily faked though.
You're focussing on physical addiction. A drug hitting you nearly instantly (IV use) vs over a period of time is definitely more psychologically addictive. There's really no argument there..
>Both in your nose and in your mouth the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream via a mucous membrane. The reason you don't see a lot of people putting large doses of cocaine on their gums is largely practical... same thing for mdma for example, just the other way around.
It's more practical to put it in your gums though - you don't need to lay it out, crush it up, line it up into lines, find/roll a tube etc. You just stick your finger into the packet and rub it on your gums. Do a little research - snorting affects you in a more intense way.
> /edit The coke-numbs-your-gums part is supposed to be a test for the quality of the product, easily faked though.
Cocaine was used by dentists to numb gums. It acts as an anaesthetic. Drug dealers play on this and add numbing agents to other drugs and pass it off as coke.
I find myself wondering how someone would go directly form clean to "lets stick this needled in my arm". Likely by that time the person is already craving it after having had it several times via other means.
Give me some real science here instead of BS propaganda of people interested in keeping it illegal, like law enforcement and their budget, like mafia and their income.
I heard exactly the same form school teacher about marijuana. I heard the same about alcohol and native American Indians. This is all BS. Give me science, solid proofs, not scary stories for 6 year olds.
And then again. Even if it is true. How is that your business? Somebody hurting themselves and you decide it is illegal for them at the same time buying a gun that can hurt others and you. This all complete nonsense, not based on our freedoms , Constitution, tradition, but some middle ages hysteria witch a bunch of ladies screaming delegalize alcohol because it is destroying my family.
We had it, this is BS, this doesnt work and first of all is none of your business what chemicals other people take in their time using their money. Unless you have a vested interest in keeping it illegal, like you are in a gang, you are a dealer or law enforcement. There is no logical reason to support drugs delegalization except for these two: dealing it or catching dealers. Because dealing and catching would be extinct without proginition the same way you don't buy Corona on a corner of a street from armed gangster.
It reads more like "A heroin dealer tells the silk road jury what the prosecutor damned well told him to say"
"Duch also described how the Silk Road’s customer base allowed him to reach buyers who he believed wouldn’t have otherwise had access to his product. "
ergo, one of their arguments is going to be that SR created a drug market, and made addicts of innocent children who were looking for my little pony pictures and got tricked into taking smack.
> ergo, one of their arguments is going to be that SR created a drug market, and made addicts of innocent children who were looking for my little pony pictures and got tricked into taking smack.
Doesn't that seem reasonable? Not in the extreme form you've taken at least, but in a milder form. It seems reasonable to me that a number of people who otherwise would not try heroin due to lack of access might try it if getting it becomes convenient enough.
It's naive to assume that just because getting drugs is relatively easy that making it easier won't increase the number of people who decide to use drugs. Just as it is wrong for prosecutors to bend reality to fit their interpretation of the facts, it is wrong of those in favor of drug reform to bend reality to fit their interpretation. I would love to see more reasonable drug laws, and I'm probably far more libertarian than most in what changes I'd like to see, however, I recognize that by improving access to drugs you probably will also increase the number of people who do drugs, all else remaining constant.
But that's the thing - I don't believe that it did increase access in any substantive fashion - you can go virtually anywhere on the planet, and find someone selling the usual suspects. From those who I know who used SR (fully aware this is apocryphal!), usage actually generally decreased, as rather than buying large quantities infrequently from a local dealer (less risk), folks would buy smaller quantities more often, and thus moderate their consumption.
The only things which certainly proliferated more readily as a result of SR would be RCs (Research Chemicals), which your shady park dealer does not usually carry.
Either way, I reckon that this argument will be pivotal in their case, and they will, over the course of the trial, present hockey-stick graphs showing that SR has turned the entire planet into heroin users.
So - I don't reckon this will have increased the number of people taking drugs. I would rather think that it may have encouraged people to experiment more than they otherwise would have due to increased access, but only in the case of people who are prior users of recreational substances - and as above, if anything, it reduced consumption in areas where a "street" supply already existed.
Duch himself was initially addicted to painkillers and due to the price and lack of access to them took up heroin. He probably did reach a lot of painkiller addicts that wouldn't have bought heroin without his aid. The economic proof of this is the huge markup he added (100%). If heroin was so available on the street they would have just bought it themselves.
Now in a better world, the opioid addicts would have quit and the government would have mitigated the issue by giving them methadone for free. But regardless of whether this is the case, he did cause harm to his clients and society as a whole by hooking up to a more dangerous drug while they were at a vulnerable state.
No - the economic proof isn't proof whatsoever - he was buying in bulk from a mid/top dealer, and 100% markup is actually pretty moderate when dealing in controlled substances - consider also that your oh-so-friendly shady dude on a corner is cutting everything with everything, which is also markup, whereas SR dealers did not, if they wanted to stay in business.
Folks bought from SR not because of increased availability, but due to decreased risk. Less interaction with dealers, less chance of law enforcement involvement, and you know what you're buying.
Heroin isn't something that people just one day wake up and decide to do. It spreads socially - the vast, vast, VAST majority of users ended up so because someone they know uses.
I live in a small, conservative, "safe" city - and I could pop out and come back with a sack of MDMA, weed/hash and heroin, if I so chose - but I don't.
I promise you, this shit is everywhere. You just don't see it unless you either go looking or it's shown to you.
The reason is stablishing two facts: that he wouldn't have sold if not for SR and that the buyers wouldn't have bought if not for SR. Also in he article you'll find why: it's a rebuttal to some defense's argument.
I would have asked the witness the source of the $3,500 before he had access to Silk Road. But it doesn't seem just an arbitrary emotional trick.
> Aside from offering a hands-on account of how the Silk Road worked from a dealer’s perspective, Duch’s story calls into question claims that the Silk Road reduced violence by moving drug sales from the street to the relative safety of the internet. Duch’s testimony seemed to suggest that he wouldn’t have sold drugs at all if it weren’t for the Silk Road...
Wow. What a stupendous flaw in logic and reasoning. I guess I'm glad that the fool who wrote this isn't in charge of building bridges or something, where his astonishing stupidity could directly get people killed. He'll just have to settle for indirectly getting people killed by parroting state propaganda and perpetuating the war on drugs.
Obviously, the fact that different people were dealing the drugs on the Silk Road, than on the street, does not in any way serve as evidence that Silk Road did not reduce the risk to both dealers and especially users, in buying drugs.
I mean, it seems like Ulbricht really did put out hits on some people - or at least the state is pressing ahead with the charges anyway, and if that's the case he is a danger to society and needs to be locked up. But in terms of harm reduction Silk Road was pretty awesome (fwiw, I never used the service). Not only did it derisk buying and selling drugs, in many cases it would have taken money directly out of the pockets of large drug cartels (i.e. in cases where they didn't control the supply anyway, only the distribution). That's a cause everyone should get behind.
The whole ordeal here just drives the point home, that the drug war is not at all about harm reduction for anybody, not users, certainly not dealers, and not even society at large. I'm not sure the drug war is about anything at this point. It's just a self-perpetuating relic of the past, and it needs to be put down ASAFP.
I assume many drug users transitioned from patronizing violent street dealers, to non-violent silk road dealers. In the long run, the violent street dealers would lose their customer base and go out of business. Seems like a good thing to me.
I'm fairly ignorant with the workings of the drug markets but is there any scenario in which a cartel controls distribution and not supply? It seems like by increasing the demand for drugs, the cartels who actually produce the drugs will actually be better off with Silk Road operating.
Probably not many. But, the point is that they can't use violence to corner the market for distribution anymore, with something like Silk Road around. Provided dealers remain anonymous, there is no "turf". This simultaneously cuts down on drug-related violence, and takes money out of the pocket of cartels by making the drug market more competitive.
It's not perfect, because if they still control supply they can still exert pressure on distribution. And, while Silk Road may be anonymous, obviously buying drugs in bulk from the cartels is not. But it's a step in the right direction, however small.
Why should cartels be involved at all? Unorganized suppliers and distributors could have run the whole market. I don't see any mention of cartels or gangs in the article.
Where do you obtain the raw product from? This dealer was buying $6000 bricks of heroin, so the only people being cut out were the middlemen just above the street dealers.
The cartels are absolutely still the people being funded by this activity. Or in the case of heroin organisations like the Taliban.
There is a substantial difference between growing a bit of weed to sell and the industrial scale production required to sell the amounts of narcotics that SR is talking about. Cartels still violently control the means of production and entry into the United States, increasing demand for their products increases their profit and motive for violence.
Interesting, I never realized that the Taliban reversed its position on heroin and now supports its production. Thank God we invaded.
Anyway, this [0] Quora answer, specifically pointing out the New York/New Jersey market, states that most heroin in the US comes from South America. I suspect that the CIA played a big part in creating these cartels in the first place, and if it reverted to individual buyers getting their supply directly from the producers via the Silk Road or another bitcoin/Tor market, the cartels wouldn't need to exist at all.
Look, I'm as pro-legalisation as they come, but this sort of delusional reasoning is hurting our case, because it makes us all look stupid. Large scale poppy and coca production requires resources far beyond a single farmer growing, processing and shipping envelopes from the jungle in SA. The reason cartels control manufacture, import and wholesale distribution is because it requires significant logistical, financial and security resources to operate these systems at scale. How many coffee farmers do you know of that ship their beans from their huts? 'Economies of scale' is a real thing. Oh and the idea that the CIA somehow 'created' cartels is straight out tinfoil hat territory. 'Occasionally aligning forces to achieve a common goal' is a far way from 'create cartels'.
Sorry you feel it makes you look stupid. For what it's worth, I'm merely playing the devil's advocate and I'm not entirely sure where I stand on all of these issues.
I'm not saying a single farmer could vertically integrate from opium to heroin, but aren't small businesses possible? They would certainly benefit from flexibility and being under-the-radar in a way that could offset the negatives of not having an economy of scale.
And on your last point, I didn't mean that the CIA went in and set up shop, first "creating" the cartel. But a single buyer (possible), or at least one who allows specific individuals to operate (almost definite), certainly helps in the creation, so to speak, of the larger criminal organization by giving their suppliers or smugglers a hand up on those who have to worry about running afoul of the DEA and other authorities.
> But in terms of harm reduction Silk Road was pretty awesome (fwiw, I never used the service). Not only did it derisk buying and selling drugs...
I don't see how it follows that derisking drug sales necessarily didn't increase harm. Yes, if you were selling drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get into a violent confrontation with a client. Yes, if you were buying drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get into a violent confrontation with the dealer. But the claim here is that Silk Road also dramatically reduced barriers to entry for both buyers and sellers for very serious drugs.
Heroin is no joke and no amount of pseudo-libertarian drug legalization arguments make it any safer. If Silk Road made it available to a dramatically broader audience that otherwise wouldn't have been able to get it, the harm to society, on balance, must have been enormous.
> The whole ordeal here just drives the point home, that the drug war is not at all about harm reduction for anybody, not users, certainly not dealers, and not even society at large.
Heroin isn't weed. It destroys lives of its users and certainly harms the society at large. To say otherwise is preposterous, at best.
I like how you conveniently ignored the parent's comments about cartels.
Also I don't understand the use of "pseudo-libertarian" here? Drug usage is a personal decision and it's none of state's business. That is the very definition of libertarianism.
It has nothing to do with Silk Road but since you brought it up, legalising drug usage is for the greater good. You see the real danger does not originate from violent confrontations but the circles the the usage drags you in. If it was legally available, there wouldn't be need for an individual to get involved for their recreational needs.
On a medical perspective, it is common not to help out a friend having adverse reactions to a drug used simply because it is incriminating if you call the hospital and then stay with him/her.
And as if this wasn't enough, people just don't seem to get that the war on drugs has been lost in every continent. It will just go on and on and on. You can make it safer, peaceful and prevent it to be a source of revenue for actual crimes, or just don't give a crap and be irresponsible.
> Drug usage is a personal decision and it's none of state's business.
I agree with this up to the point where drug use becomes drug addiction. Of course this doesn't happen to everyone who uses drugs recreationally, but if it does, then it's not so much a decision but a relentless compulsion that thoroughly decimates one's freedom to choose.
Whether it's the state's business or not, I suppose that depends on whether one feels the state has some responsibility towards the mental and physical health of its citizens. I'm very much in favour of harm reduction programmes for drug addicts, rather than the prevailing trend of terribly harsh punishment. Some may feel that this sort of thing is too paternalistic and interfering but it's certainly better than imprisonment.
> Drug usage is a personal decision and it's none of state's business.
Not unless the drug has been empirically found to have a high probability of harming the individual and a high probability of spreading through communities. Then it's very much state's business because it becomes a matter of social preservation.
> I don't understand the use of "pseudo-libertarian".
"Pseudo-libertarian" is the kind of libertarian that doesn't account of empirical evidence in their arguments.
Yea we get it. Drug are bad mmmkay. The fact is that the drug war has done nothing to reduce their use, and it provides a huge source of revenue for actual violent criminals.
> Heroin isn't weed. It destroys lives of its users
Well, no more than any other addiction to opiates. The issue with heroin addiction is that 1) it's illegal; (in many places) 2) it's expensive as hell. Clean Heroin by itself has no majorly bad side effects that aren't associated with other (legal and regularly used/abused) opiates like oxy/hydrocodene. Constipation and cotton mouth are about all that comes to mind. The risks are the same as any other street drugs; bad batches, reusing needles, dirty needles, and unmonitored usage.
I'm not saying heroin is good, by any means, but it's not as bad as it's sold as.
This isn't really true, pharmacologically. One way to measure the safety of a drug is the therapeutic index [1], basically the ratio of the lethal dose to the effective dose. It's basically how much of a margin of error you have when administering the drug before it'll kill you. Morphine has a TI of around 70, marijuana and LSD are > 1000, codeine is 20, alcohol is around 10, and heroin is 5 [2].
And even lower again is Paracetamol/Acetaminophen (Tylenol if you're in the US), with the fatal dosage being as low as 3 times the recommended dosage [1]. I can walk into a pharmacy here and buy enough of it to shut down my liver for less than a pound.
I get what you're saying, but if you're talking about overdosing, then I think it's fair to say Heroin is absolutely lethal. But if used responsibly (I know, I know) it's safe.
Also a sibling comment maccard. Also google "krokodil".
In short it's not heroin that destroys lives, it's idiotic policy which makes heroin (or other opiates) very expensive (destroying users' careers and relationships) or unavailable (destroying users' health via them trying to substitute it with something much worse).
The only real threat of opiates is overdosing, which comes from increasing tolerance and uncertain quality of a drug. Making opiates legal and quality-checked and allowing to develop substances that would reduce possibility of increasing tolerance would make opiates just as safe as weed, and certainly safer than alcohol.
But that wouldn't work, because... what? I'm curious.
In support of what you're saying: many countries (but not the US) take a less punitive approach, preferring to focus on harm reduction.
For example in the UK, needle exchanges - places where you can get clean needles and other paraphenalia - have been well established since the late 1980s to help protect people who inject drugs against the infection risks of needle sharing. It's been credited with greatly reducing the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis viruses amongst that population.
Similarly, heroin addicts are often prescribed synthetic opiates such as methadone and buprenorphine, to prevent their reliance on dealers. This doesn't much reduce deaths from overdose, but does seem to prevent societal harm. Indeed if you are charged with theft or robbery and it turns out that it was to help feed your opiate addiction, it's not uncommon for the judge to offer access to a treatment programme in lieu of a custodial sentence.
There is however a problem with user compliance. Some recent research over the past decade or so has been in 'contingency management', where addicts are offered financial rewards to attend or comply with such treatments. It's very controversial and so far has had mixed results, but the idea is that the overall cost to the state will be reduced, in that a small 'bribe' can put people on the right path, hopefully leading to feeling more intrinsically rewarded by the success of the treatment, and that is less expensive than medical treatment later on.
But despite all this, as you imply, it does need the political will behind it to have any good effect.
Heroin isn't weed. It destroys lives of its users and certainly harms the society at large. To say otherwise is preposterous, at best.
deciplex didn't say it wasn't. Read the phrase again.
In fact, it's exactly because heroin is harmful that an approach that actually has a chance of reducing its use - unlike the aforementioned drug war - is in dire need.
It can, but we have pretty abundant evidence now that the treatment we chose for the threat of heroin, the drug war, has a much worse net effect on society than the disease of unchallenged heroin addiction.
there is no logical arguments behind keeping it illegal. Just emotional stuff. That's the problem i dislike hard liners on drugs legality so much. They are like cult members and can't talk to their reason.
How is it your business if someone's injecting heroin? Is this your business? By the Constituion? By comparison to alcohol or weed? None of your business. The same way like guns. I can buy gun to hurt you, and that's fine, but can't get some chemicals to hurt myself? Where is logic here brother?
There is none. Just emotional BS. Get over it. As crash in 1929 legalized alcohol and we don't have beer dealers shooting each other (we used to have them!!!). As crash in 2008 legalized weed in large parts of the country, the same way next crash will legalize rest of it.
In this economy I don't have so much money to spend on somebody's else life. Sorry. And now start your emotional cry.
>“I saw the relative ease that came with it,” he told the court. “It seemed like something I could get away with.”
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Sell drugs throught Internet, it is accessable for a lot of people, which makes it an easy way to exchange drugs, and that might increase the people to do drugs.
- Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in monetary terms, at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it
- Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in terms of destroyed careers and relationships. Sure some users function normally, but you cannot know whether you're going to succumb or not before embarking - and that is the problem.