Britain Gives Heroin to Addicts, Crime Falls--Should U.S. Follow?
A pilot program in England in which heroin is given to chronic drug addicts has reportedly been successful in curbing drug use and reducing crime. So the question is -- should a similar program be imported to the United States?
Acoording to the BBC, the program, which is partly funded by the goverment, began in 2005, and involves 127 heroin users who have tried conventional treatment, but repeatedly failed. A third of them were given heroin to inject, another third took the heroin substitute methadone orally, and the final third injected methadone -- all of this under medical supervision.
Those given the actual heroin responded best. Three-quarters of that group said they "substantially" reduced their level of street drug use. And since much of the money to pay for street drugs comes from committing crimes, that means crime has been reduced.
In the United Kingdom, it is estimated that between half and two-thirds of all crime is drug related. Here in the United States, around 18% of convicted committed their crimes in order to obtain money for drugs, according to Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. In addition, in 2007 4% of all murders were drug related, and 26% of victims of crime said their assailant was on drugs or drunk at the time the crime was committed against them.
In the British study, the group who injected heroin admitted to committing a combined 1731 crimes in the month before the program started. After six months of supervised drug use, they committed 547 crimes, a drop of more than two-thirds.
"It's as if each of them is an oil tanker heading for disaster and so the purpose of this trial is to see: 'Can you turn them around? Is it possible to avert disaster?,'" said Professor John Strang, who headed the project. "And the surprising finding - which is good for the individuals and good for society as well - is that you can."
The addicts themselves said the program is life-transforming. One man named John had been addicted to heroin for eight years. He fed his habit by dealing drugs. "My life was just a shambles... waking up, chasing money, chasing drug."
But now John says his life has turned around, and he even has a part-time job. "It used to be about chasing the buzz, but when you go on the programme you just want to feel comfortable.
"I've started reducing my dose gradually, so that maybe in a few months time I'll be able to come off it altogether, drug free totally."
The results sound promising, but would such a program fly in the United States? People got all bent out of shape when some cities proposed giving clean needles to addicts to curb the spread of AIDS in the 1990s. So how would they react to giving people the heroin to fill those needles?
And what about the money? In these extremely difficult economic times where people are losing their jobs left and right, should the government be spending money on heroin? Instead of going to drug addicts, shouldn't that money go towards fixing the economy, so hard working Americans can get their jobs back?
But if it cuts crime, and results in a better life for all people, isn't it worth it? What do you think?
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every little thing! Take the money spent on interdiction, apprehension, prosecution, and incarceration and use it to provide treatment on demand and raising up drug resistant kids .
The War on Drugs was a lousy metaphor, the U.S. has not won a war since WWII Grow up and get off of your moral high horse (no pun intended).
While current drug regulations aren't working, the answer is not less regulation. It's more intelligent regulation based on evidence and not on moral hypocrisy. You'd still need to regulate the supply of drugs , regulate the creation of new drugs, and regulate the treatment of those who want to get off them - just because they're legal doesn't mean that dependence won't continue to ruin people's lives.
As a former drug prosecutor in Chicago, I know that prohibition's first shortcoming is that it doesn't work. The aim of the DEA and ONDCP is to keep drug prices high to discouage enterprising drug dealers from plying their trade, but the unintended effect of the policy has been to increase drug availability, use, addiction, overdose and death.
After 38 years of drug war , Chicago heroin purity has jumped from 2% in the early 1970s to 90% pure today, so pure that high school kids from "downstate" (outside Cook County) come to Chicago's West Side to buy their heroin that is so pure that it can be consumed without use of a needle. The Chicago region has one heroin overdose death a day and is second in the nation in heroin overdose deaths .
So, give the heroin addicts heroin under controlled and regulated conditions -- stop addict crime , stop overdose deaths that are inevitable when drug gangs and cartels are calling the shots on what gets sold, to whom and at what purity, and cut with agents of their choice.
Better to foil the gangs, deprive them of heroin revenues, stop the turf wars...
Any drug policy is better and less harmful to society than prohibition -- including free heroin maintenance programs where drugs are supplied under government control and regulated auspices.
James Gierach
LEAP Speaker
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
Doesn't need to be "free", rather just at market rate.
Here's the benefits of decriminalisation:
* drugs become affordable
* drugs become regulated, therefore safer (consumer protection)
* profit seized from the criminal black market
* profit can be taxed - benefiting society instead of benefiting thugs
* police budget and be reduced dramatically - saving taxpayers
* more funds from tax to health system
* no drug trials - less cost to taxpayer & frees up the court system to better uses
* no jail of drug offenders - less cost to taxpayer, less exposure of drug users to other types of criminal education
The benefits are so blatantly obvious and easy to list, yet decades of being accustomed to the assumption that drugs needs to be a criminal issue makes many of us quiver in fear at the notion of decriminalisation. Read about the history of the politics of criminalisation and it all becomes clear how this insane state of affairs came to be.
You cant legalize all drugs . If you do, I would start selling a substance that is legal , and extremely addictive, with a several hour and completely overwhelmingly intense, which completely incapacitates and desocializes users (so they have no safety net to fall back in in weeks after becoming addicted)
Something like a mix between high grade pharmaceutical methamphetamine and crack cocaine , with a few additives. A dash of DMT or E. It would be like printing money in tankerloads. And in doing so, you'd really really damage the fabric of society because every schoolkid who failed his grades and got depressed a day would have a fair chance to be addicted the next weekend.
Hell, if I were a real soulless bitch I'd give it away for free on streetcorners, ready to consume. Just hold the sample patch against your arm and press.
I replied a little hastily... I see from your posts generally that you advocate decriminalisation..
...in the worst extremes as you have described of licence to print money style extremely harmful "recreational drugs " my point would still be that there is still no point criminalising these.
That method if flawed, still for the same reasons.
It will invite unnecessary cost, it will create a "curiousity" factor... just let it go. There is always going to be the self-destructive dodo who just can't help but go beyond the outer margin of safety.
Experience has shown, time and again, the Means of Criminalisation in Recrational Drug use (which is a Demand driven market) produces a more harmful result than the Ends it seeks to attain. Criminalisation acts as a branding mechanism which promotes interest in the product prohibited, but invariably fails to stifle supply.
Categorise, if you like, most recreational drugs "Dangerous" and then the one you described "Poison", then work as a community and a health system to keep an eye out for the fools and ill people who go too far, and lend a helping hand. There is no 100% foolproof system though. We need to accept that expectation as we abandon Paternalist policy.
I you make legal a range of drugs that is "safe" enough to capture a wide range of consumers you will block out unhealthy market alternatives.
You can't allow some extremes, as they will have deleterious effects. Offer those who want either the sedation (life hurts to some people) or the rush, but minimize risks. Accompany users by means of screening and constant medical care.
I see your concern, but the point is moot in a context where that kind of thing is happening anyway.
The mistake you make is assuming that criminalisation works, that it somehow avoids the scenario you are speaking of.
In a regulated environment proper packaging and warnings would be required.
So for Cocaine: "Warning - highly addictive, may damage your nasal passages, lungs, and induce paranoia, effects vary with user and quantities"
For your concoction: "Warning - this mixture will completely incapacitate and desocialize users, worse than Cocaine, the euphoric effects diminish with increased use, intense addiction is likely after short use"
I think you also underestimate that even most drug users, stupid to you as they may seem, have some sense of self-preservation and rational discernment. They talk among themselves and they brand and product select, as all consumers do, looking for the most reputable product for their preferred consumption outcome.
The mistake you have made is to rely on the false underlying assumption underpinning Prohibition, which is: that Prohibition inhibits sales.
It does not, and the very evil it seeks to prevent (harm and costs to users, and to society ) it actually amplifies in the ways set out.
Read www.leap.org (a fascinating website created by actual Law Enforcement officers and lawyers with amazing insights from their experience on the failures of Prohibition) for more information.
Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all?
Government assisted self destruction - Hurrah survival of the fittest! How ironic it would be to eliminate socialism from a society in a few generations by encouraging the leeches leach their fill.
Unless the defined objective is either weaning these users off their addiction or letting them have all they want to the point of overdose, this program is idiotic.
...one of those who confuse "socialism" with "National Socialism", by any chance?