The War on Drugs

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]orion wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

I agree, whilst you are at it lets stop funding treatment for heart disease, it’s normally caused by bad diet and excercise which is a choice.

Also we won’t treat anyone who is involved in a car accident. They knew the dangers.

Anyone who is bitten by their pet dog of course will have to treat themselves. What were they thinking keeping such a dangerous animal.

Sports injuries, they are out as well. Sport carries a high risk of injury so they can treat themselves.

Anyone suffering from an allergy, they don’t get treated either, they should have avoided eating it. And I don’t believe allergies are real either. I think they are faking a disease.

OK that’s cut the health cost bills for the country!

You mean, completely private sector health-care? I’m right there with you! No, seriously, I am.

What about unemployed or underemployed people, what happens when they can’t meet the premiums? Do you just let them die in the street? Who then pays to scrape the corpses up or do you let them rot where they lie?

You should seriously look up private welfare in London if the 19th century.

You know, when working people could still see a doctor on a moments notice, drugs were affordable and crime was 2-3% of what it is now.
[/quote]

And the population was way, way lower.

Personally I favour a private healthcare based system wherever possible but one has to recognise that there will be some people who fall outside of what private healthcare will cover and there has to be a system to care for those, if this is government run or privately run isn’t really an issue, it will end up costing individuals one way or another though.

Either you will pick up the costs for ‘problem’ drug users through taxation for policing, sentencing and punishment, or you will do it through a welfare state, or you will do it through your insurance premiums.

The question surely is, which is the most cost effective?

62

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
How does that line up with personal responsibility? Surely you are talking about a total nanny state?

I betcha folks would be a whole lot more accepting of personal responsibility.[/quote]

Fair comment

63

All addicts quit using one way or another.

I say let them.

For me it came down to two choices, change or die.

No amount of treatment, insurance dollars, tax dollars, legality or illegality will change an addicts useage.

Once it comes down to those two choices you just let them make it. Ultimately it comes down to personal responsibility, and having so many cushions from the health care, legal, and social systems just prolongs and adds expense to the inevitable.

64

[quote]jayski wrote:
Sifu wrote:
jayski wrote:
Rocky101 wrote:

I don’t think it will make America better or worse. It costs billions of dollars a year to fight something that cannot be won. It cost about 800-1000 dollars to treat an addict and 40,000 a year to incarcerate them

I don’t know if you meant 800-1000 a year, but from what I heard from a nurse that does the paperwork for medicad at a rehab facility, that’s about how much a day they get. Covers their “treatments”, food money or aka cigarette money, or some extra pocket change as they see fit, while the administrators,

office workers and most of all the owners are enjoying huge profits, sizable bonuses and bragging rights to expensive vacations to Hawaii and Figi. All the while the staff, CNAs-LPN’s are getting severely underpaid to put up with these assholes.

In a nutshell all treatment facilities are only meant to get people away from drugs in a controlled environment for a little while, while they go to Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous. Aftercare is all about AA or NA.

All you need for an AA or NA meeting is 2 addicts and a big book. It doesn’t cost that much for either.

Addiction is a disease. We don’t call people assholes and respond to them with bigotry, hatred, prejudice because they get diabetes, cancer or heart disease.

As long as it is acceptable to treat addiction like leprosy was treated in the bible we will never have a rational intelligent policy.

If we were to legalize drugs, it would have to be with a catch. They are responsible completely for it. They aren’t elegible to receive any medicad or any government/taxpayer aid, they have to pay for their own addiction.

Rather than going to jail for any reckless behavior as a result, they do lots of community service. Obviously if they commit murder, they will of course be subject to the consequences of that.

We don’t apply your proposed standards to other diseases so why do it to addicts?

Non of this, he was in an altered state and needs to be admitted to the nut house, harm an innocent child physically as a result of the addiction, or contributing to the delinquency of a minor with it remains jail time and loss of that child.

Noone has proposed absolving people of responsibility for their actions. You are just spewing a bunch of hysterical propaganda.

Same goes if their addiction money is only going for drugs and not for their childs well being till 17 or 18 years of age, they will have them removed.

Our present policy of interdiction acts as price support to keep the price of drugs artificially high and does that right now. So you are not making any sense.

These ideas are open to improvment but I think it’s a start on improving what we got now, which isn’t working at all. It’s pretty much the same thing we got going already, but with a few differences.

Your ideas are open to some serious improvement. The starting point would be to drop all the bigotry and prejudice.

Having grown up with drug addicts I won’t drop any bigotry and prejudice, they don’t deserve any pity, they are low life pieces of fucking shits and I’m sure glad I ain’t one of them.[/quote]

Sorry to hear about your family problems. Obviously you have a lot of anger and hatred for people who have a life threatening disease that you don’t have and you feel very superior as a result of your upbringing. Have you ever considered going to Alanon or Naranon to deal with your issues?

While I can agree that there are a lot of addicts who do horrendous shit in their addiction, but there are also a lot of people who don’t do bad things or had addiction forced upon them.

I think you need to really think about what you are saying. ie If a child is forced to take Ritalin are they a low life piece of fucking shit? There are millions of children out there who have been turned into addicts every year by that shit.

It is not like they are allowed to make an informed decision about it. It is just done to them. Or what about kids who live with a crackhead and get addicted from second hand smoke. Are they low life pieces of fucking shits?

[quote]
Most of them don’t want improvement. They’ll be clean for 6 months and they’ll end up right back in rehab. [/quote]

Addiction is a difficult disease to recover from. The present legal situation causes people to become more intractably addicted than they would be otherwise.

[quote]
And they don’t just attend a couple of meetings with with a nice little book to take home with them, they have to go through step programs which is where the 800 a day goes to. [/quote]

Oh you sound like an expert. So tell me is that 800 a step or do they get more steps for their money. or is it 800 a step program? Do the meetings cost extra?

[quote]
Many of them are there because it was either jail or that. [/quote]

It sounds like the courts accept the disease model of addiction as valid.

[quote]
Having a relative work as a nurse in a rehab facility, I used to go there often when she either needed me to drop something off or pick her up from work and these assholes know they are fucking the system and are being babied through it. [/quote]

Wow you must really be an expert if you picked someone up from work at a rehab. I used to pick my girlfriend up from cosmetology school, but for some reason I never learned cosmetology.

[quote]
They don’t want improvement, they love the coddling they are getting from our tax dollars. [/quote]

Some people do want help and take it but a lot of others haven’t been through enough. Some people pay for it themselves or are on insurance.

Rehab is not a panacea and there are a lot of people who think it can do things it can’t do.

[quote]
So drop all your fucking remorse those people, they chose that life and are going to stick with it. They laugh about it while they are clean. [/quote]

You are making some serious generalizations about how people end up becoming addicted to drugs and what their lives are like.

Once a person is an addict if they get drugs into their system they more or less lose all their ability to chose. That is why AA NA suggest complete abstinence from all mind and mood altering chemicals as the first step in recovery.

I know quite a few people who are in recovery who aren’t laughing about what they have been through and they are not proud of what they were like.

[quote]
I don’t care what they say, addiction is not a disease, that’s just some bullshit they tell them to try and get them to improve. They inject that shit in themselves, and they know what it will do to them. It’s a choice. So if I’m addicted to chocolate, does that mean I have a fucking disease? [/quote]

Both AA and NA are based upon the disease model of addiction. If they were wrong they would not have the successes they have had and the courts wouldn’t be sending people to them.

All addictive drugs cause the pleasure and reward center of the brain to release dopamine. Chocolate can work on that part of the brain too, but not like injectable drugs can.

65

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Sloth wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
The Gov. is already taking care of Drug Addicts through Soc. Sec. I personally feel America needs a safety net to take care of those that can not take care of them selves.

If I have to take care of him, then I’ll dictate his lifestyle. Really, it’s that simple. He wants individual freedom? Me too. Freedom from paying for a drug users bad lifestyle choices.

When he starts marching for my cause, I’ll start for marching his. But, like I said, most legalize it folk aren’t after personal freedom. And most are frightened by the idea of personal resposibility, the other side of the freedom coin.

You are paying many times over the cost of supporting him to persecute him .
[/quote]

Actually no. Our children and grandchildren will be the ones paying for the war on drugs, because we are fighting it on borrowed money.

66

[quote]Rocky101 wrote:
Because too many people on both sides profit from it. Law enforcement can justify it’s huge budget while seizing people’s property, banks love the laundered money going through it, politicians love the built in ‘tough on crime’ mantra(though how can you be tough on crime giving criminals a means of revenue and employment).

The war on (some)drugs is a scam by the elite of society to turn millions of people into second class citizens stripped of employment and stripped of most basic rights.

What is truly scary is that America has private prisons, these private prisons hire lobbyists to lobby for longer mandatory sentences. Look at what happened in California with prop 5, the prison guard union spent millions of dollars campaigning against it.

The only way the war on drugs will end is if people start to see drug users as like the Jews in the holocaust. The loss of basic human rights and the human rights violations against drugs users is what the drug reform movement needs to focus on.[/quote]

X2,

This was summed up nicely. There are private prisons all over the country, I had a brief stay in one named Leavanworth CCA, which is a holding facility. These CCA’s (Corrections Corporation of America) has stock which can be bought and traded just like any company.

I think this is a conflict of interest when you think about justice and corporate interest in profit. There are too many organizations involved in corrections (probation, parole, drug treatment, halfway houses, etc) and no one will ever jeopardize that.

Do you think any money is made when a killer, rapist, or child molester is caught? Nope, but the #1 cause of incarceration is drug use/abuse by a long shot. Think about it, 65% of inmates are drug offenders, and this is not a mistake or coincidence.

67

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
orion wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

I agree, whilst you are at it lets stop funding treatment for heart disease, it’s normally caused by bad diet and excercise which is a choice.

Also we won’t treat anyone who is involved in a car accident. They knew the dangers.

Anyone who is bitten by their pet dog of course will have to treat themselves. What were they thinking keeping such a dangerous animal.

Sports injuries, they are out as well. Sport carries a high risk of injury so they can treat themselves.

Anyone suffering from an allergy, they don’t get treated either, they should have avoided eating it. And I don’t believe allergies are real either. I think they are faking a disease.

OK that’s cut the health cost bills for the country!

You mean, completely private sector health-care? I’m right there with you! No, seriously, I am.

What about unemployed or underemployed people, what happens when they can’t meet the premiums? Do you just let them die in the street? Who then pays to scrape the corpses up or do you let them rot where they lie?

You should seriously look up private welfare in London if the 19th century.

You know, when working people could still see a doctor on a moments notice, drugs were affordable and crime was 2-3% of what it is now.

And the population was way, way lower.
[/quote]

Completely irrelevant, for obvious reasons.

No, we will pick it up with charities. Or we won´t.

[quote]
The question surely is, which is the most cost effective?[/quote]

No, the question is, which decision does not make me responsible for the bad decisions of others.

68

[quote]Sifu wrote:
jayski wrote:
Sifu wrote:
jayski wrote:
[/quote]

I didn’t say I was an “expert” though you are doing a pretty good job at acting as though you are one. And you like throwing the superiority thing around don’t you? What’s the matter, were you one of those people that were bitter and jealous of the popular kids at school? Anyway, you talk of me having that attitude, which I admit because I’m strong minded enough to not become one them. I deal with my problems head on, instead of using something to “take me away from it”.

For most addicts, they begin for the high, the escape from their reality. Instead of having to deal with problems, they run to the bottle, needle, powder, or whatever to get away, then eventually it turns into an addiction, which then goes beyond the orginal high. Not all may be this way, but in general, this is how it is. But, anyway, sounds like you think of yourself as superior to me just cause I don’t agree with you. View me as you wish, I don’t care.

Just because studies and courts call addiction a disease, doesn’t mean I have to agree with it, I’d rather form my own conclusions based on my own observations and experiences. Yes I have a relative that did the medicare/medicad paperwork at this particular facility and she was there for several years and I was there very often. She had told me that medicad pays that much for them to be there. It disgusted her, and everyone that works/worked there. They got them all, from alcohalics to herione addicts. The facility is getting paid handsomely, the owners are loving all that money coming in. The office people are getting great bonuses, while the rest get screwed in their while doing the dirty work.

And if you could read what I write, I said 800-1000 a day. A day per person. They had to live in the building and could not leave until they went through all steps or be brought back to start over again, or jail. There are many that do want help, I don’t look down at them. No I would consider a baby or small child being forced fed drugs a piece of shit, nor do I feel any superiority towards them because they did not choose to start out that way. In fact I thought I made it clear in a previous post what should happen to those parents that do that.

But since according to you, it wasn’t their fault, they forced fed their children drugs cause they have a disease, they aren’t in the right state of mind, oh those poor poor people! Come on, now you’re starting to sound like more of an ass than I am. Your examples/arguement in defense of drug addicts are weak and tells me you are confined to written reports, rather than being in actual contact these people outside of a controlled environment. You aren’t going to change my mind on the subject. You’re pity for the ones that want help and hate their situation are good and all,nothing wrong with that, but you really need to look at the entire picture in more detail.

You say I have anger and hatred toward these people, well no I do not. I just have zero tolerance for their bullshit. It’s the same thing all the time, even if they did go through the steps to get clean, most fall right off that horse, or were pretending to be a good boy/girl so they can get out and get their fix. Once you’ve heard every excuse and every ploy to “borrow” 40 bucks here and there for “gas” or “groceries for the kids”, it gets very old after awhile.

You got to be tough on these people if you want to help them, coddling does not help, holding their hands and being all nurturing does not help. Telling them what they are might piss them off, hurt their feelings, oh well but the truth is what they need to hear. Telling them they have a disease gives them a piece of mind, an excuse, something they want to hear. But if you feel the need to pity them and compare them to a cancer patient, go right ahead if it makes you feel good about yourself. Personally, I’d rather people with a REAL disease get my full compassion.

69

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Rocky101 wrote:
Because too many people on both sides profit from it. Law enforcement can justify it’s huge budget while seizing people’s property, banks love the laundered money going through it, politicians love the built in ‘tough on crime’ mantra(though how can you be tough on crime giving criminals a means of revenue and employment).

The war on (some)drugs is a scam by the elite of society to turn millions of people into second class citizens stripped of employment and stripped of most basic rights.

What is truly scary is that America has private prisons, these private prisons hire lobbyists to lobby for longer mandatory sentences. Look at what happened in California with prop 5, the prison guard union spent millions of dollars campaigning against it.

The only way the war on drugs will end is if people start to see drug users as like the Jews in the holocaust. The loss of basic human rights and the human rights violations against drugs users is what the drug reform movement needs to focus on.

X2,

This was summed up nicely. There are private prisons all over the country, I had a brief stay in one named Leavanworth CCA, which is a holding facility. These CCA’s (Corrections Corporation of America) has stock which can be bought and traded just like any company.

I think this is a conflict of interest when you think about justice and corporate interest in profit. There are too many organizations involved in corrections (probation, parole, drug treatment, halfway houses, etc) and no one will ever jeopardize that.

Do you think any money is made when a killer, rapist, or child molester is caught? Nope, but the #1 cause of incarceration is drug use/abuse by a long shot. Think about it, 65% of inmates are drug offenders, and this is not a mistake or coincidence.
[/quote]

Private prisons could work if they were paid to reform criminals or extract an incurred debt from theft/destruction of property. Paying them to simply hold prisoners obviously creates a conflict and only has the incentive to create more criminals and classifications of crime to keep the prisoners coming in.

70

[quote]snipeout wrote

I do agree with your comment on the war on SOME drugs. Do you really think legalizing hard drugs will better America? Don’t you think that a country full of legalized addicts would be a huge drain? Would you also not agree that legalizing all drugs would remove the stigma and create many more users?[/quote]

What is hard and what is soft in your opinion? Mine may differ so might the next persons.

Why would a country that legalised drugs suddenly fill up with addicts?

Do you propose that supply would increase. I would argue not. There is no one living in the western world today who could not go out now and buy virtually any substance they wished to use.

As for demand. Haven’t you heard the bad reviews? I think everyone has by now. If you’re keen to take crack/meth/heroin it’s not like you don’t know it’s addictive and could destroy. This is what stops most people from trying them today. Not their legal status.

Legalise the lot. Tax them and use the tax to fund the economic stimulus program. And treatment programs. And maybe more research into the damn things so we can treat drug addiction better.

71

[quote]orion wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
orion wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

I agree, whilst you are at it lets stop funding treatment for heart disease, it’s normally caused by bad diet and excercise which is a choice.

Also we won’t treat anyone who is involved in a car accident. They knew the dangers.

Anyone who is bitten by their pet dog of course will have to treat themselves. What were they thinking keeping such a dangerous animal.

Sports injuries, they are out as well. Sport carries a high risk of injury so they can treat themselves.

Anyone suffering from an allergy, they don’t get treated either, they should have avoided eating it. And I don’t believe allergies are real either. I think they are faking a disease.

OK that’s cut the health cost bills for the country!

You mean, completely private sector health-care? I’m right there with you! No, seriously, I am.

What about unemployed or underemployed people, what happens when they can’t meet the premiums? Do you just let them die in the street? Who then pays to scrape the corpses up or do you let them rot where they lie?

You should seriously look up private welfare in London if the 19th century.

You know, when working people could still see a doctor on a moments notice, drugs were affordable and crime was 2-3% of what it is now.

And the population was way, way lower.

Completely irrelevant, for obvious reasons.
[/quote]
How so? Higher population means more pressure on support systems (however they are paid for)

So what happens to the problem drug users? If a charity can’t cover the cost they will just end up back in the jail system. Which you pay for.

Very principled of you. Why do you feel it is so important to make a stand on this issue? What puts drug users above the other high risk lifestle people we have mentioned?

72

[quote]lou21 wrote:
snipeout wrote

I do agree with your comment on the war on SOME drugs. Do you really think legalizing hard drugs will better America? Don’t you think that a country full of legalized addicts would be a huge drain? Would you also not agree that legalizing all drugs would remove the stigma and create many more users?

What is hard and what is soft in your opinion? Mine may differ so might the next persons.

Why would a country that legalised drugs suddenly fill up with addicts?

Do you propose that supply would increase. I would argue not. There is no one living in the western world today who could not go out now and buy virtually any substance they wished to use.

As for demand. Haven’t you heard the bad reviews? I think everyone has by now. If you’re keen to take crack/meth/heroin it’s not like you don’t know it’s addictive and could destroy. This is what stops most people from trying them today. Not their legal status.

Legalise the lot. Tax them and use the tax to fund the economic stimulus program. And treatment programs. And maybe more research into the damn things so we can treat drug addiction better.[/quote]

100% agree. Can’t see it happening though

73

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:

How so? Higher population means more pressure on support systems (however they are paid for)
[/quote]

Because it was a percentage of peoples incomes then as opposed to a percentage of peoples income now.

Maybe. But no money will be wasted in preventing them from destroying their lives with drugs. Plus, we would have so many empty cells to fill.

[quote]
Very principled of you. Why do you feel it is so important to make a stand on this issue? What puts drug users above the other high risk lifestle people we have mentioned?[/quote]

Nothing. I also do not like to pay for other peoples bad decisions.

74

[quote]tom63 wrote:

Illegal drugs provide no health benefits used for recreation that can’t be accomplished with alcohol. Very light alcohol usage has been shown to help with blood lipid profiles.

Meth, coke, heroin, nothing. smoking pot will cause lung cancer. the costs of making these legal will IMO decrease the stigma from use and cost us more in the long run.
[/quote]

That’s far too broad a statement. Opium and cannabis have more medicinal (health) benefits than alcohol has in its wildest dreams. Cannabis was the pain reliever of choice throughout the world until the discovery of aspirin. As for its links to lung cancer, well, the jury’s still out on that one:

All the other drugs you mentioned have proven pharmacological benefits. Amphetamine as a treatment of narcolepsy and chronic fatigue syndrome, cocaine and heroin as analgesics and anesthetics. Sure, they are toxic at high dosages, but so is any drug, including caffeine and theobromine (the alkaloid found in chocolate).

Even if you don’t like synthetic “hard drugs,” at least answer this: what are the proven health benefits of nicotine (a drug that has been proven to be far more addictive than any of the other substances you’ve mentioned) that allow it to remain legal and relatively cheap, while opium (which has no deleterious effects other than causing constipation) has been illegal for over a hundred years?

75

[quote]orion wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

How so? Higher population means more pressure on support systems (however they are paid for)

Because it was a percentage of peoples incomes then as opposed to a percentage of peoples income now.

No, we will pick it up with charities. Or we won´t.

So what happens to the problem drug users? If a charity can’t cover the cost they will just end up back in the jail system. Which you pay for.

Maybe. But no money will be wasted in preventing them from destroying their lives with drugs. Plus, we would have so many empty cells to fill.

Very principled of you. Why do you feel it is so important to make a stand on this issue? What puts drug users above the other high risk lifestle people we have mentioned?

Nothing. I also do not like to pay for other peoples bad decisions.[/quote]

If it was just their life then you’d be onto something Orion. It’s not though, the crimes caused by a drug addict who isn’t helped are rather more expensive than treatment to the taxpayer. I’m all for paying less tax but in this case the cheaper option is treatment rather than imprisonment.

76

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
MaximusB wrote:
Rocky101 wrote:
Because too many people on both sides profit from it. Law enforcement can justify it’s huge budget while seizing people’s property, banks love the laundered money going through it, politicians love the built in ‘tough on crime’ mantra(though how can you be tough on crime giving criminals a means of revenue and employment).

The war on (some)drugs is a scam by the elite of society to turn millions of people into second class citizens stripped of employment and stripped of most basic rights.

What is truly scary is that America has private prisons, these private prisons hire lobbyists to lobby for longer mandatory sentences. Look at what happened in California with prop 5, the prison guard union spent millions of dollars campaigning against it.

The only way the war on drugs will end is if people start to see drug users as like the Jews in the holocaust. The loss of basic human rights and the human rights violations against drugs users is what the drug reform movement needs to focus on.

X2,

This was summed up nicely. There are private prisons all over the country, I had a brief stay in one named Leavanworth CCA, which is a holding facility. These CCA’s (Corrections Corporation of America) has stock which can be bought and traded just like any company.

I think this is a conflict of interest when you think about justice and corporate interest in profit. There are too many organizations involved in corrections (probation, parole, drug treatment, halfway houses, etc) and no one will ever jeopardize that.

Do you think any money is made when a killer, rapist, or child molester is caught? Nope, but the #1 cause of incarceration is drug use/abuse by a long shot. Think about it, 65% of inmates are drug offenders, and this is not a mistake or coincidence.

Private prisons could work if they were paid to reform criminals or extract an incurred debt from theft/destruction of property. Paying them to simply hold prisoners obviously creates a conflict and only has the incentive to create more criminals and classifications of crime to keep the prisoners coming in.[/quote]

It will never happen. There is too much money to be lost considering the rate of recidivism being so high. If they wanted to correct the problem truly, they would address is but they don’t and they won’t.

77

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
It will never happen. There is too much money to be lost considering the rate of recidivism being so high. If they wanted to correct the problem truly, they would address is but they don’t and they won’t.
[/quote]

I agree.

78

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Yep. Because, I know exactly what would happen. A country of do whatever you want, have someone else pay for the consequences. If the users are jonesing bad enough, let’s talk about individual freedom AND individual responsibilty. [/quote]

Precisely. Drug use is unlike any of the other behaviors in that it is purely hedonistic and has known, obvious risks up front to a degree other activities don’t.

Why would anyone consciously underwrite that activity for someone else?

Again, the scenario - if you legalize drugs, no problem, (1) deny all access to government health care related to drug use health problems, and (2) provide complete contractual transparency in the private sector so non-drug users can close their insurance pool to drug users.

That’s easy - and with all that wonderful individual freedom comes living with the results of that freedom. And as drug users go bankrupt trying to keep up their premiums, that is no one’s problem but their own.

Drugs are no big deal - what could possibly go wrong? If they are half as safe as their proponents claim, they have nothing to worry about from an insurance perspective. Let’s fire it up - let’s put ink to paper. Everybody wins.

Right?

79

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Sloth wrote:

Yep. Because, I know exactly what would happen. A country of do whatever you want, have someone else pay for the consequences. If the users are jonesing bad enough, let’s talk about individual freedom AND individual responsibilty.

Precisely. Drug use is unlike any of the other behaviors in that it is purely hedonistic and has known, obvious risks up front to a degree other activities don’t.

Why would anyone consciously underwrite that activity for someone else?

Again, the scenario - if you legalize drugs, no problem, (1) deny all access to government health care related to drug use health problems, and (2) provide complete contractual transparency in the private sector so non-drug users can close their insurance pool to drug users.

That’s easy - and with all that wonderful individual freedom comes living with the results of that freedom. And as drug users go bankrupt trying to keep up their premiums, that is no one’s problem but their own.

Drugs are no big deal - what could possibly go wrong? If they are half as safe as their proponents claim, they have nothing to worry about from an insurance perspective. Let’s fire it up - let’s put ink to paper. Everybody wins.

Right?[/quote]

I think Cockney blue said it well; every body?s problems come down to life style. Why do you designate illegal drug users as some one that should be out of the realm of charity? What would you say to making all drugs prescript able from a Doctor. Then could you live with drug users being part of society?

80

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

I think Cockney blue said it well; every body?s problems come down to life style. Why do you designate illegal drug users as some one that should be out of the realm of charity?

What would you say to making all drugs prescript able from a Doctor. Then could you live with drug users being part of society?[/quote]

Because “charity” need not be wasted on someone undertaking that extreme of a risk compared to other ones. “Charity”, however you define it, is a limited amount of resources - and every dollar you give to someone who tried a hard drug is a dollar taken away from someone who didn’t take such an extreme risk or is suffering “bad luck”.

Drug users are not victims - they are seeking a hedonistic pleasure, and doing so with knowledge of potential addiction, health risks, etc. They are making an individual choice because it is worth it to them - but if it goes sour, it isn’t because they were “unlucky” or a “victim of circumstances.”

They are not the kind of folks charity operates to help.

Hilarious, by the way - the Lions roaring for the legalization of drug use in the name of the Individual suddenly turn into Lambs bleating about the injustice of not being coddled and nursed to health by their Brethren when their Individual choices have unwanted consequences.