Why you should be able to buy heroin

[proud2BlibKansan]

Monday, April 03, 2006
Why you should be able to buy heroin

Leap_badge_logoFormer narc Jack Cole isn't proud of having put young, sometimes college-bound people in prison for selling him a joint in the 1970s. The worst, he told a UMKC audience Sunday, was a drug-free youth trying to escape the inner city but who helped a begging Cole "find a fix" - and drew seven years for conspiracy to distribute heroin.

So now Wichita native Cole, an ex-Marine and ex-New Jersey state trooper, wants to give heroin and other drugs away for free, under government sponsorship. "We are being absolutely inundated with high-quality, hard drugs in this country, and with current policies there's no way to stop them," said Cole, a founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Drugs are more available now and cheaper than ever, Cole said. The War on Drugs costs this country $69 billion a year, he said. Money that could more than offset the consequences of legalization, he said. About 1.3% of the U.S. population was addicted to drugs in 1900, Cole said. The number's the same today, he said. Difference: 1.7 million drug arrests a year, nearly half for marijuana.

Five thousand cops, ex-cops, corrections/probation/parole officers have joined LEAP, he said. NCSL members liked it; 80%-plus of cops he talks to likes it.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2006/04/why_you_should_.html

[RufusEarl]

1. I think the CIA has something to do with it,

after all the poppy crop in Afghanistan is booming this season. We have a couple of war's to finance, and the CIA make great dealers.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Hard to argue with that

[boobooday]

2. The war on drugs has been the cause of so much corruption

in law enforcement. It has to make it almost impossible for honest cops who want a mission that really serves the community.

[tridim]

3. I think most people like the idea

It's the drug warriors and politicians who don't.

[Warpy]

4. That's one of the dirtiest secrets about the Drug War

that the percentage of the population considered hard core addicts has remained the same whether or not opiates were legal and over the counter or illegal and black market only.

The other dirty secret is that heroin itself is kinder to body systems than either of the two legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol. That doesn't cover the stuff that illegal drugs may be cut with like baking soda and cement dust. That's what pure, quality controlled heroin would be like.

Junkies are going to get their drugs. That is a given. Instead of pouring billions down the drug war rathole, it makes much more sense to regulate drugs, tax them, and use the proceeds to care for people who run into trouble on them.

As a side note: In the 1980s there was a study of hospital patients in Boston who were receiving opiates for pain control. Out of more than 10,800 patients they followed, guess how many new addictions they found.

Go ahead, guess.

Four.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. If you really are in pain,

I have always heard you have a minute chance of becoming addicted to pain killers as long as you take the recommended dose and don't exceed it.

[TlalocW]

7. Penn and Teller illustrated how effective

The War on Drugs has been. If heroin were donuts, $30 would have bought you one box of a dozen donuts (1 bag of heroin), and when you opened it up, you would find all but part of one donut gone (5% pure drug). That was the late 1960s.

Now heroin is more widely available, costs $4 per bag and is 80-90% pure. Adjusting for inflation, the same money in the late 60s that bought you only part of a donut would now buy a stack of boxes of donuts that are taller than Penn and Teller combined.

Way to go, War on Drugs.

TlalocW

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. I don't really like Penn and Teller but this actually makes sense

[TlalocW]

24. Donuts make everything easier to understand

eom

TlalocW

[ismnotwasm]

8. Well they'd get cleaner heroin

Heroin is one of the "purest" drugs out there, but what it gets mixed with isn't. So long-time users who lose their veins end up muscling it, and develop some pretty horrible abscesses. Most of the street wise ones lance and dress their own-- not health care rocket science-(usually when they're basically boils) which works until they get one of the resistant infections infecting the streets. We see this all the time in health care.

Then there are the centers for addicted babies--Trust me, one thing you NEVER want to see is a untreated addicted baby--either methadone or heroin. It's horrible. Even with treatment it's a rough go until they're weaned off the drug.

I wonder, given the illegality of drugs, especially the injectable ones, if we'd be able to track and fight some of these infections more effectively (they infest hospitals) if we knew who and where the addicts are? If we'd be able to identify and treat pregnant addicts quicker? Help the children in time?
Offer treatment to the ones who want it and places to go for the ones who don't. I've met in my time heroin addicts who just don't cope well in this world and have no desire to be off the drug. They kind of fade away.

Just sticking to the heroin topic.
Marijuana shouldn't be illegal and never should have been, but that's a different story.

[K-W]

9. Addicts should be on medically supervised maintenance

until such time as they are ready to complete a treatment program and get clean. Its the only rational solution and theres no reason an addict on maintenance cant be relatively productive. Criminalizing and abandoning addicts is what creates junkies.

[ismnotwasm]

12. Agreed

How we're dealing with addiction and drug use now has completely broken down. There is also that whole subculture--driven almost singely by drugs being illegal-- out there that addicts become a part of. It reinforces criminal, destructive and manipulative behavior. Drug related problems are bigger than just addiction, and the solution needs more than just legalizing, but what we have now is insane. We have to start a sane approach somewhere...

Of course illegal drugs supports the prison industry, I wonder what would happen to the economy if we did legalize drugs?

[iamthebandfanman]

16. well unfortunately

not everyone on heroin wishes to clean up, so a program would hardly work.
giving clean heroin and needles can atleast insure saftey from other causes of death associated with the drug use.

[K-W]

18. Which is why I mentioned a maintenance program in my post.

I dont see where you disagree with me.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. We have a very good friend who has been dealing with heroin addiction

for years now. He looks like shit. He is dying of cerrhosis (sp?) now. He likes to drink too. It is one of the saddest things I have ever seen.

[ismnotwasm]

13. I'm sorry to hear that!

Most likely he has hepatitis C--it's an epidemic among users. Using heroin alone would be much better for his liver...
I work on a transplant unit, and most of the transplanted livers are related to HCV. (Not all, and not all HCV is drug related) Some Alcoholism as well, many times both. it leads to cirrhosis, and what we call ESLD (end stage liver disease) The liver damage sometimes shuts down the kidney's as well.

One of the problems with heroin addiction is (maybe you know already)is once an addict has been clean for a while, the body starts making the affected neurotransmitters that heroin use basically shuts down. Addicts know this. They know after a period of clean time, they'll get high again-instead of merely "well"
It's a tough demon to fight. I wish you and your friend well, it's a very difficult thing to watch, especially when you feel helpless to do anything.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. No I didn't know that

and I don't get it. They get high without taking heroin?

I think he may have hepatitis too. He is very jaundiced.

[Acebass]

15. Great post, thanks!...

We need responsible drug programs that work!...

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. I think most drugs should be legal

But I am not sure if our tax dollars should pay for them to be given away free.

[K-W]

21. Its a hell of alot cheaper than dealing with junkies.

I agree with you though, ideally addicts should support themselves, which theyn should be able to do, but only after we reform the system.

There is no reason an opiate addict on maintenenance cant be productive and indeed, before prohibition there were productive opiate addicts all over the country who recieved maintenance perscriptions from their physicians.

The problem is that for so long the choice has been between staying in legitimate society and feeding the addiction because of prohibition and criminalization.

[Acebass]

22. True...

btw Buddy and Anita are making a return trip to Crawford...

[iamthebandfanman]

17. hm

Im an all or nothing kind of person when it comes to drugs.

If alcohol can be legal, then they all should be.
I dont know how many idiots ive watched on alcohol do some of the most stupid things ive ever seen in my entire life.

i just dont understand why alcohol is legal and marijuana is not when clearly marijuana has the lesser addictive qualities and lesser over all effect on judgement and actions.


frankly ive never used herion, so i dunno much about it ;)

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I think the ones God put here should be legal

So legalize pot, heroin, coke and mushrooms.

The ones man makes should remain illegal. That includes meth, LSD and ecstacy.

[iamthebandfanman]

23. well

mushrooms and pot are the only ones u mentioned that come the way they are taken.

arent coke and heroin made thru human means from a natural plant, not naturally made in that state i mean?
same with alcohol, its technically made of natural things...but unless humans followed a certain process of steps it wouldnt become alcohol.

now pot, it grows how you use it. you just pick a part off and have at it.

like i say, i dunno much about heroin and i really dunno much about coke. they dont come for consumption in their natural state do they ?