Cost of Treating Meth Lab Burn Patients Straining Burn Units

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8769919/site/newsweek /


Healing: Selena Humphrey, 19, was burned when a lab exploded, spewing molten plastic into her face

Wired on methamphetamine and craving more, Ricky Dale Houchens set out one night last November to cook a fresh batch of the drug. He met some buddies in rural Scottsville, Ky., at a trailer that doubled as a crude lab. As the concoction simmered, Houchens, 27, noticed it was getting too hot. When he picked up the pitcher, the bottom gave way and the combustible mixture splashed onto a burner. The resulting blast engulfed Houchens in a ball of fire. "I felt my face just melting," he recalls. "The skin was running down my arm ... like lard." Eventually, he was transported to Vanderbilt University Burn Center in Nashville, where specialists treated him for severe burns on 40 percent of his body.

Burn victims like Houchens are increasingly popping up in hospitals across the country. In Tennessee, meth-lab seizures have skyrocketed, from 226 in 2000 to 942 in 2004, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. When labs explode, they not only kill and maim the cooks; they wreak financial havoc on the facilities that treat them, since the vast majority of meth victims lack health insurance. In Houchens's case, his hospital charges totaled more than $553,000, only $110,000 of which was recovered from Kentucky Medicaid. As many as a third of Vanderbilt's burn cases at a given time in the past year have been meth-related. "If we continue to take on this large burden" of $5 million to $10 million per year in uncompensated care, says Dr. Jeffrey Guy, Vanderbilt's burn director, "I don't know if we will have a burn unit five or 10 years from now." Across the state line, the Mississippi Firefighters Memorial Burn Center suspended new admissions in May and may need to shut down permanently. Part of the reason: the financial strain from treating meth-lab burn patients.

Since many meth ingredients are flammable, one false move by a cook can yield disaster. When Selena Humphrey, 19, used to make the drug with her friends, "we were always on pins and needles," she says, as they would accidentally spill chemicals or start small fires. Eventually, an explosion sent her to Vanderbilt, where doctors had to chisel melted plastic—which had lined the walls of the lab—off her face.

The toxic substances make patients like Humphrey tougher to treat. A recently published study by the University of Louisville's burn center laid out the typical traits of meth-lab victims: deeper chemical injuries, greater resuscitation requirements, longer periods on a ventilator. Even worse, most of them offer dubious explanations for their injuries, says Dr. Michael Smock of St. John's Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis. That dishonesty complicates diagnosis and slows the response to things like eye injuries, which can cause severe damage if not treated quickly.

[DS1]

1. Where's the Party of Responsibility now?

and why should I pay taxes for this bullshit?

[mike_c]

5. because we're decent, caring human beings who don't respond...

...to other people's pain by cutting them off and leaving them to die, even from their own stupidity. I'd MUCH rather pay taxes to help meth victims than to kill innocent Iraqis!

[FreedomAngel82]

34. I agree

Here in Tennessee our governor (democratic Phil Bredesen) is working on meth labs. I haven't heard much about it though personally. I think there is a better way to do things instead of risking people's lives.

[sandnsea]

11. Here's the question

Instead of increasing the burden to Medicaid by requiring prescriptions for sudafed, why do we not spend a pittance on a massive ad campaign showing the results of cooking meth? It won't stop the users, but it will definitely make some of the cookers think again.

[The Night Owl]

2. What senseless horror.

Unbelievable stupidity. Find a safer drug, people.

[sweetheart]

3. More drugs-law victems

These people would not be injured were it not for stupid lawmakers
and silly people in the white house. They are more than silly, but
just loose cannons shooting at the american people.

[mike_c]

7. agreed-- absent the taliban or some other force...

...to physically prevent them, many folks are just going to engage in really risky behavior. It's human nature. Rather than trying to deny that, and legislate it away-- an exercise in futility at best and in ruining lives more commonly-- we should seek strategies that work WITHIN the limitations of being human.

[Boredtodeath]

4. Hey, they're CRIMINALS, and DRUGGIES

Let them DIE!

Right?

Everyone does know that's the alternative, right?

Right?

I am sickened by DU today. Click! Shutting down this place before I lose all perspective.

[Kraklen]

6. More reason to legalize.

Damn fascists.

[w8liftinglady]

51. I agree

Legalization will remove the underworld element -to a large degree-who gets kids hooked at young ages,and uses children to do their dirty work(beeper boys,et al)I believe when kids see that there is no profit in criminal behavior-they will steer towards less destructive pastimes.

[bleedingheart]

8. so terribly sad....

[SmokingJacket]

9. Idiots.

Maybe their faces should be on billboards, alongside pictures of meth-mouth. Maybe people would think twice before getting into that stuff.

As an up-thread poster said, I'd much rather my taxes go to help these dingbats than to killing people in Iraq.

Still, it's a shame that people do these things to themselves.

[Walt Starr]

10. Still no reason whatsoever to require a SSN to purchase cold medicine

I don't give a damn hoiw bad the meth problem is, and it's damned bad right now, there is no jhustification whatsoever to require a social Security number as idenitification.

Federal law explicitly forbids it.

[Kraklen]

13. It's a reason against it.

The harder meth is to manufacture, the more desperate people will become to manufacture it, resulting in things like this.

[Walt Starr]

18. Then require actual identification, not a SSN

To require an SSN, as many are doing now, is a violation of federal law in the name of the war on drugs.

I'd rather tlet the meth lab operators burn!

[sandnsea]

14. prescription in Oregon

So taxpayers are going to be paying for the doctor's visit AND the sudafed for meth cookers to use; then pay for the physical damage caused, treatment and jails. Unbelievable.

[Ariana Celeste]

35. What makes it even more ridiculous,

is that pseudoephedrine isn't necessary to cook meth. It's just one of many possible ingredients and one of the easiest to come across.

More laws aren't going to stop this epidemic. Requiring ID isn't going to stop it. It may slow it down a notch, but that's it.

All this is, is a way to make people feel better, like something is being done, and only because the drug has hit white suburbia.

[MadHound]

12. Just another reason to legalize all drugs, including meth

Face it, people are going to alter their state of consiousness one way or the other, no matter what the law says. This has been true throughout history, and it seems to be part of human nauture. Making the substances illegal causes many secondary effects, such as this one mentioned.

Rather than having substandard crap being manufactured in homes and hideouts, legalize the shit. Then you wouldn't have to worry about exploding labs, toxic waste, meth fueled crime waves, etc. etc. And studies have shown that after the initial euphoric rise in use of banned substances, the usage rate goes down.

Stop this insane War on Drugs.

[sandnsea]

15. It hasn't worked with alcohol

The legalization of hard drugs theory just doesn't work when you put it up against crimes done by people who are drunk or getting money to get drunk. Legalization isn't a panacea.

[Kraklen]

16. What do you mean it hasn't worked with alcohol?

Do you know how many people used to die from exploding alcohol stills during prohibition compared to now? How many people got sick and died from poorly distilled alcohol?

[sandnsea]

20. And caused how many other deaths?

Alcohol legalization did not solve all the problems alcohol consumption causes. Drug legalization won't either.

[Kraklen]

29. No shit.

But it's better than things were under prohibition.

Do you disagree.

[sandnsea]

32. Depends on the measure

Bootlegging gangs went to jail during prohibition. Now we've got the courts clogged with DUI's, child abusers, spouse abusers, kids without food and housing, fetal alcohol syndrome, deadbeat parents, and on and on. I'm not advocating prohibition, but I know ending it wasn't a solution to the real alcohol problem either.

[Pithlet]

38. Legalization doesn't solve the problems

It just removes all the problems that are added on by criminalization. Legalizing drugs won't help the problems drug addiction causes. But, it will remove the additional problems brought on by making them illegal. Drug laws have done more to rip apart families and ruin lives than drugs alone ever could.

[sandnsea]

42. That is a load

The threat of jail is about the only thing that gets a drug user into treatment in the first place. That aside, denying the damage done by drug USE is just stunning to me. If drug USE didn't cause problems, it wouldn't be illegal. Kind of like cigarettes, highly addictive but they don't cause behavioral changes that leads to problems in the family and society. Drugs are a menace. Treatment is the correct solution. Unfortunately we'll never get there because most of the people who could advocate that are off on the wrong track trying to convince people drug use isn't the problem.

[Pithlet]

43. Sending a peron to jail

isn't harmful to that person? Even if jail helped to get a person off drugs (something I'm highly skeptical of), it certainly harms them. It rips them apart from their families. They lose whatever job they had, if any, and having that conviction record makes them more unemployable in the future.

I am not denying that drug abuse harms, so save your "load". My contention is jailing them for it only adds to it.

[sandnsea]

47. I didn't say any of that

Biting tongue.

I SAID the threat of being sent to jail is often the only thing that gets a person into treatment, off drugs, in the first place. Go to treatment or go to jail. I never said jail isn't harmful to people and I've said repeatedly that I don't support sending drug users or petty drug sellers to jail.

You did say jail is MORE harmful than the drug use. That is what you said. Even though you're now denying it.

[Pithlet]

49. I didn't say jail was more harmful

Go back and read what I said. I never claimed that. I said that jail ADDS to the problems of drug abuse. I've never made the contention that it is more harmful, although I think, based on the circumstances for the individual, it can be.

I don't get what you're saying. You're saying you're not arguing for jailing drug offenders, yet you're arguing against legalization with the rationalization that the threat of jail helps. It sounds an awful lot like you're arguing for jailing them to me. I must be missing something.

[sandnsea]

50. Cut and paste

"Drug laws have done more to rip apart families and ruin lives than drugs alone ever could."

My god. I responded to this nonsense is all. I don't support jailing drug users, but that doesn't mean I would deny that plenty of alcoholics and drug addicts have gotten help because they chose treatment instead of jail. It's a pretty effective carrot/stick. It's called living in reality.

Do you know how they do it in Europe? For real, not the left wing delusions? Go read. Every European country has some sort of drug laws to deal with people who just never get clean and continue to be a menace, primarily through illegal drug sales. The threat of jail is quite real and there are people in jail for drugs, even in Europe. But people support treatment, not jailing everybody for drug use.

[Pithlet]

52. Yes

""Drug laws have done more to rip apart families and ruin lives than drugs alone ever could."

You are completely misundertanding and misrepresenting what I'm saying. That statement does not mean "jail worse than drugs". I don't see how you're getting that. It's clear to me that I mean jail and law inforcement problems add to the problems that drug abuse alone cause.

[sandnsea]

54. "have done more"

That's what you said. Not "add to", but "have done more". That's what I responded to. You want to clarify your statement now, fine. But that isn't what you said earlier. Drug use is the problem. Regardless of any other problems, drug use is still the core problem. Legalization won't change that.

[Pithlet]

57. You are misinterpreting what I said.

Have done more. Becaue they're adding to the problems that already exist. More. Plus. Greater. Add. Expand. More than there was before. I think that covers all the semantics.

I understand. That drug use is a problem. I do. I never said otherwise. Gah.

[sandnsea]

62. done more than drugs could

That is what you said. Drug laws cause more problems than the drugs. You can twist it all around now, but it's what you said.

[Pithlet]

53. Oh

And talk about nonsense. Your little paragraph about Europe is a total non sequiter. Considering I'm not making the case that drug abuse is harmless. But, do we jail people for every single thing that can cause harm to themselves? Of course not. Because it isn't very effective, for one thing. If it were, we wouldn't have a drug problem in this country.

I don't know how you can state that you're not arguing for jailing people who do drugs, when you are clearly arguing against decriminalization. If you aren't arguing the point that drug users should go to jail, then why are you arguing with people who are basically saying just that?

[sandnsea]

55. Ask them

They keep saying I'm supporting people go to jail, just like you are. No matter how many times I say I'm not. I'm just saying legalization isn't a panacea, there's still going to be problems, and there's still going to be people in jail due to problems related to their drug use.

[Pithlet]

58. You argued that jail encourages people to get treatment

that seems like an argument in favor of jailing to me. Not to mention that ALL I've ever argued is people should not go to jail for drug abuse, and you've attacked my position. If you agree that people shouldn't be jailed for drugs, then why the hell are you arguing with me, and telling me that what I'm saying is "a load?" ???????

[sandnsea]

63. jail is an effective carrot/stick

It is. I don't support sending people to jail for drug use. But jail is still an effective carrot/stick and drug law can be written to consider that, like they do in Europe.

You said jail caused more harm than drugs. That's what I called a load.

[mike_c]

17. alcohol is a bit of a different matter than most illegal drugs...

...in that it really does facilitate violence and other crimes. Personally, I think a truely rational drug law-- but not a practical one-- would prohibit alcohol and a very few other drugs with similar propensity to release violent behavior (PCP comes to mind), while making most others legal and easily obtainable.

[sandnsea]

19. Sadly, I think you're serious

The only drug I know of that doesn't facilitate crime is pot. The rest do, in one way or another. I don't know the answer to the drug problem, I just know legalization will not be a panacea.

[mike_c]

21. most of those "crimes" have to do with the criminalization of the drugs...

...themselves-- legalizing those drugs and making them easily obtainable would undercut the majority of drug related crime-- except for drugs that intrinsically inhibit social judgement and unleash the lizard brain. Alcohol is certainly the worst offender in that regard, by far.

[sandnsea]

22. *sigh*

Worked in treatment for ten years. Most of them had criminal records for things other than selling, mostly domestic violence, child abuse and theft. Sorry, legalization won't fix that. I support ending jail sentences for use of any drug right now. I support ending jail sentences for petty drug sellers. The system is screwed up horribly in so many ways. But legalization will not end the criminal problems associated with drug use.

[mike_c]

24. but those problems are not inherently *caused* by drug abuse....

Although again, I'll make a broad exception in the case of alcohol abuse, which ruins more lives than all other substance abuse combined, IMO. You're right-- they're often associated with drug abuse, often because criminalization of drugs further marginalizes people already pushed aside by socio-economic circumstances, but they don't usually CAUSE those problems. And in nearly every case, alcohol is also involved.

[sandnsea]

26. Wow

This just seems to me to be blatant denial. Have you just not known heroin, coke, crack, meth, addicts? Honest question, because I just don't see how you could make the statement you made otherwise.

And if you recognize that LEGAL alcohol has ruined more lives, than what in the world do you think LEGAL drugs will do?

[mike_c]

30. yes I have...

...and have been a user at various times in my own 50 years as well (although my tastes ran more to hallucinagenics and other "hippie drugs," but were certainly not confined there). I have watched people spend considerable inheritances on coke until the money is all gone, back in the Peruvian flake day. I know (well, knew) people who OD'd, and people who fried their synapses and will never be the same. I've lost friends in buys that went bad (or were likely ripoffs from the beginning). I never said that is a good thing, and obviously I made other choices in my own life than I'm advocating people be free to make in theirs. But those people made those choices regardless of the legality of the drugs they used-- criminalization had no effect on the ultimate outcome of those choices other than to make it harder for some to obtain help.

It is human nature to get high or otherwise pursue risky behaviors. Criminalizing that behavior is like trying to legislate the wind-- it is a useless endeavor, bound to fail. I do not advocate throwing one's life away to stay stoned, but some people are going to do that regardless, and laws against it don't stop them. Why not treat them compassionately rather than making them criminals for succumbing to their own weakness?

on edit-- I live in meth country too. The guy across the street from me deals (I don't think he cooks, but I don't really know).

[sandnsea]

31. Legalization? Alcohol? Treatment?

You keep jumping from argument to argument. First you say legalization will end all the associated problems, then you say the associated problems are caused by alcohol, now you say criminalization stops people from getting help. Providing plenty of money for treatment doesn't have anything to do with the fact that there will still be criminal problems if drug use were legalized. It is not a panacea. It has not been for alcohol and it won't be for anything else. In fact, if drug legalization worked as well as alcohol legalization, I really would leave the country.

[sweetheart]

60. Switzerland, Portugal...

Legallization has proven to reduce crime and disease. You are ignoring
evidence that diputes your presumption.

When you "leave the country", you can move to switzerland, and get
universal medical care, AND enjoy the benefits of more intelligent
drugs policy.

[sandnsea]

61. Think so, huh?

You'd be wrong. Drugs are illegal in some form or other in every country, every single one.

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5007#appendixB

[sweetheart]

36. Sadly i think you are

Legallization is part of a "harm reduction" strategy for dealing with
drugs addiction problems. It would cut all deaths from bad chemicals,
cut radically overdose deaths, meth-lab explosion deaths, and deaths
from AIDS infected needles and Hepatitis C. Clearly you're overlooking
the serious damage the current status affects.

But i think that is ancillary, and the core issue we should be concerned
with is "personal responsibility". If you've ever done drugs addictively,
and in this i include TV, coffee, sex, cocaine, cigarettes and alcohol,
you are aware that to quit addictive behaviour, the USER must decide
to take responsibility for their own life. So in effect, we are
depending on an empowered indivdiual with self confidence and personal
power to overcome their own addictive tendencies.

Making a person a criminal is NOT the way to achieve this. Listening
to thier phone calls, throwing them in prison to be raped a bit, or
searching their house is not a way to achieve this. What has been
achieved rather is a gross violation of the search and seizure
considerations of the constitution, that is a far more heinous erosion
than any persons doing drugs.

Legallization will not end drugs usage, but it will take the public
out of its false responsibility for personal choices, and give it
back to the indiduals on which the foundation of our civilization is
based. Unless we can trust citizens, there is no point in law or
government... and such is the war on drugs, that it has eroded all
legitimacy for both government and the law... that it is not respected
and is ultimately a waste of taxes to support a heinous police state
that would kill less of its citizens if it did not exist to start
with.

[mike_c]

39. hear, hear....

eom

[sandnsea]

41. Where did I support jail for drug users?

Go back and read what I wrote.

[sweetheart]

59. Not legallization is jail

Consider amongst legal medicines, all the medications that are
highly addictive and can kill the patient when overapplied. There are
a good many, truth be told. Yet our kids are not dying of these
because they are legal.

85% of violent crime is related to the drugs trade. Given that meth
use could remain generally similar with legalliztaion, then that means
we still gain 85% reduction in street violence.

But the fact remains, that the individual must make their own choices
in life, and until we remove the nanny state from its failed approaches,
we'll never empower people to deal with drugs addiction as their own
responsibility.

In my view, the costs of the war on drugs would be better spent on
universal healthcare for all ameircans. In that sense, medical
supervision of drugs takers who are able to discuss their medications
openly with their doctor, empowers them towards coming out alive
and unscathed from an all to costly experience.

[sandnsea]

65. I don't support jail

I don't support it for users and I don't support it for petty drug sellers. As with other countries in the world, I do support it for drug traffickers. Or those who go out and sell drugs in the street, over and over and over, against the local drug sales laws.

Now. I've had you tell me that other countries have legalized drugs when they haven't. I've had somebody else tell me that it isn't drugs causing the problems, it's the alcohol people use in addition. I've had somebody else say the laws cause more problems than the drugs themselves. Then turn around and deny it all.

I've been clear. Legalization will not be a panacea. Ending prohibition changed one set of problems for another. I support treatment, not jail for drug users or petty drug sellers. But I also recognize this isn't going to solve drug use, and if it were to work as well as ending prohibition did with alcohol use, we're really fucked.

[MadHound]

23. My how quickly we forget Prohibition

The daily gang related deaths, the drive by shootings, the exploding stills, the rotgut poison, killing people on a regular basis, yet still passing for alcohol, bathtub gin making people blind, turf fights, border fights, all this and more was solved by the end of Prohibition. In addition, the rate of alcoholism and alcohol deaths went down following the end of Prohibition.

Sorry, but I don't see how continuing this insanity of a War on Drugs benefits America as a whole. Our civil rights are destroyed, a huge drug driven crime wave is sweeping the country, our police and law enforcement official are racked with corruption, areas are literally laid to toxic waste, are prisons are filled to overflowing with perpetrators of victimless crimes, and yet the drug trade and drug usage continues unabated, in fact picking up speed all the time. It is past time to call an end to the madness and legalize it all.

I lived in a crack neighborhood, and now upon moving out to a rural area, I find myself in meth country. Even in the suburbs the drug traffic flourishes, as do drug crimes. Let us put an end to this madness.

Legalization isn't a panacea, I agree. But it is certainly a lot better than what we're currently doing.

[sandnsea]

25. The other side to Prohibition

Where family violence went down, child neglect, petty theft, etc. Cure one set of problems, contribute to another.

I live in meth country myself. It doesn't matter whether the tweaker gets the meth in a house on one corner or a legal shop on another, the associated problems remain the same. They have to get the money from somewhere. And if you limit the amount one can get from the shop on the corner, and I don't see any other way to do it, you end up with the meth house anyway.

[MadHound]

37. How do you know that these statistics went down?

It wasn't as if the amount of alcohol drunk during prohibition went down, in fact it increased, as did the rate of all major crimes, inlcuding domestic violence, child neglect, petty theft, murder, etc. etc.<http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/sd224/Classes/Hemingw... >
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/4399 />

These figures didn't go down until after Prohibition was repealed.

I find the fact that you live in meth country also, and still think that under legalized meth the associated problems would remain the same rather incredible. Let's see here, if an addict could get legal meth they wouldn't have to make it. If they don't have to make it, well you will eliminate meth making operations and their attendant problems, such as the one noted in the OP. You would also eliminate the toxic waste problems you get from illegal meth labs, and the attendant health problems suffered by the people who live in such houses.

If you made meth legal, you would eliminate the associated secondary crime wave. Even if meth was taxed, the price of meth would come down drastically from the black market prices of today. Thus you wouldn't have people ripping others off to feed their habit, they could do it on the budget of a minimum wage job. You would decrease the rate of violent crimes and theft, since the tweakers wouldn't be desperate for their next hit, and wouldn't be injuring or killing people to get it. You wouldn't have the violence that comes from two competing meth labs, you wouldn't have the gang activity associated with meth production, and since meth would be legal, social services could have a clearer picture of what is going on in a household, and remove the children before any lasting damage is done.

I'm sorry, but you are repeating all of the lies repeated by the prohibitionists so long ago. And then, as now, all of those lies have been proven time and again to be false. It is time to end this madness, and end this War on Drugs.

[sandnsea]

40. I've read the opposite

Outside of large cities, problems associated with alcohol went down during Prohibition. It's not easy finding those studies because this country loves its drugs, alcohol or otherwise.

I'm not saying the gang type problems related to prohibition didn't disappear after it was lifted. They did. It was good. Most of them would disappear with legalization of drugs, but not all of them. I just don't see drug dens, like bars, popping up all over America where people can have as much as they want. And honestly, if this country was really just gambling, bars, drug houses and prostitutes on every corner, I'd leave.

Still, my real point is that even with complete legalization, the problems related to drug use will not disappear. I've already said we should spend more on treatment, no one should go to jail for drug use or petty drug sales. But, as with alcohol, even if they changed all of that, the related problems won't disappear. They haven't with alcohol, they won't with drug legalization either.

[MadHound]

44. Yes, the meth related problems would remain, of that there is no doubt

But some of them would be softened because the product these people would consume would be much cleaner, rather than being made out of whatever ingreadients you can. Thus, a cleaner drug means fewer health problems like meth mouth, etc.

Also, in a society free of the War on Drugs, matters would be much more open, and problems like child abuse, neglect, etc. would be easier to spot and easier to intervene on, much like it is with alcohol today.

In addition, the secondary crime wave associated with illegal drugs would disappear. You write this off like it is a mere triviality, but having live in a neighborhood hosting dueling crack house, let me tell you, this isn't trivial at all. In fact it is the very dispensation of this crime way that makes me so adament on doing away with the War on Drugs. I've seen the drive bys, the break ins, the violence all up close and personal, and quite frankly I don't want to deal with it ever again. The trouble is that you can't move away from it. If you live in urban areas it is the crack houses, in the rural areas it is the meth labs. The only way to get rid of this crime scourge is to end the War on Drugs.

And you seem to be forgetting that if meth and other drugs were legalized, the rate of use would go DOWN. Isn't that what we all want, a reduction of the meth and drug scourge? So why should we not persue the one solution that offers this country a real chance at reducing the usage rates of these drugs? It doesn't make sense.

And I find it amusing that you think that the crime rate went down in rural areas during Prohibition. I think that you need to either do some more research, or talk with somebody from rural US who was alive during Prohibition. Where do you think a lot of that illegal alcohol was made? Much like a meth lab, you can't set up a still in an urban area without serious risk of getting caught due to the smell, or the explosion. Nope, much of the illegal alcohol was made in rural America, and there was all the attendant problems of such a scourge, theft, violence, death. Interesting fact, NASCAR racing came out of those old moonshine operations. The race back then was between the moonshiners and the police, and they didn't politely go round and round on a track, oh no. They went at breakneck speeds through the backwoods, taking potshots back and forth and one another. Quite the violent little outing, especially since it was quite common for inncocents in or by the road to be hit and killed, either by the car or the bullet.

And if you're oh so offended by drug houses, gambling and prostitution that you would leave this country, well, you had better get packing. We already have legalized gambling, growing every day. We have limited legalized prostitution in Nevada. And drug houses are around every corner, legal or not. In victimless crimes such as these, I've always thought that it is best to legalize it, clean it up, regulate it, tax it and let it go. Otherwise you create more problems trying to get rid of it than the original problem itself.

[sandnsea]

46. It's not trivial

I'm not trivializing the drug problems you're facing at all, not one bit. I've got the same problems where I live. I've said that I don't support jailing drug users or petty drug sellers. I support way way way more treatment.

But let's look at Nevada, since you brought it up. Legalized prostitution hasn't done away with illegal prostitution, not even in Nevada. Legalized gambling hasn't reduced gambling, I've read gambling among young people is on the rise as well. Wide spread birth control didn't reduce teen pregnancy. Human behavior is just much more complicated than rather something is legal or illegal.

Also, I keep referring to family and social related crime during prohibition. People keep moving back to gang and production related crime. That's not what I was ever talking about and I never said it was. I said domestic violence, child abuse, deadbeat parents, theft, etc. Those problems went down during Prohibition, particularly in rural areas. Now you can trivialize that if you want, but those are the problems I worry most about. And they will be there whether sales is through gangs on street corners, gangs rounded up to one city block, or legalized gangs in Drugcorp Central. Prohibition has proven that beyond all doubt.

[MadHound]

56. As far as social and familial problems go

While I've not found any stats on the issue, one could come to some logical conclusions. First one is that less alcohol usage after Prohibition would parlay out into fewer societal and familial problems. Also, with greater amounts of crime and death, there would be more single parent families, thus poorer families, thus more societal and familial problems.

In addition, if an addict of any sort is using less time to feed his or her addiction, it means that there is more time for them to work, to be productive citizens, and better parents, to an extent.

As far as Nevada goes, well, let's see here. At the legal brothels in the one country where prostitution is legal, the rate of STDs has gone down, the attendant violence of both pimps and johns have gone down, and the crimes committed to the johns has gone down. Sounds good to me.

And the same can be applied to gambling also.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. However you might change your mind when that meth violence visits your household. I sincerely hope it doesn't, but the probablity is increasing all the time.

[sandnsea]

64. On Nevada

I'll just say I lived there and very quickly decided it was no place to raise kids, and left.

YOur first paragraph makes no sense to me. Your last one wouldn't matter. Whatever it takes to get somebody off drugs is whatever it takes. That's the way of addiction, if prison speeds up the process, good.

[NickB79]

27. Even pure meth made in a clean lab causes long-term damage

The contaminants in it contribute to things such as meth mouth, but even the pure methamphetamine is pretty nasty shit when taken in the doses users are taking them today.

I doubt the usage rate for meth would go down; it has a what, 10% recovery rate? It is one of the hardest drugs to get off of and stay clean, so there would always be a large population of users out there demanding more.

[MadHound]

45. It has been proven time and again

That after an initial euphoric increase of usage, the usage rate will go down below what there were during the period of prohibition. In addition, since you would be opening another revenue stream from taxing these substances, much like you would alcohol, you could institute real education programs to keep our kids off of this shit.

And you're right, clean meth would alleviate problems like meth mouth, and this poor woman's burns. Along with the rest of the crime wave associated with illegal drugs. Sorry, but that is of utmost concern to me, since I've been a victim of such crime in the past.

[sandnsea]

48. Choose carefully

Here's your magic wand.

Alcohol and all related problems, gone.

Meth and all related problems, gone.

Which would you choose to rid the world of?

[devilgrrl]

28. What a bunch of sensationistic hooey!

So, what are they suggesting as solution to the problem? Yeah, Meth users are using up burn units valueable resources. Guess we should get rid of burn units because they not able to treat the "right kind of people."

BOLLOCKS!!!!

[Pithlet]

33. I cannot support refusing life saving treatment

to any burn victims regardless of how it happened. At the same time, the drain on burn units is obviously a problem. Just another way the "war on drugs" is making victims of us all.