The solution to the Opioid Epidemic is the termination of prohibition. Not just prohibition of opioids, but of all otherwise illegal recreational drugs. The regulation and sale of opiates - as well as methamphetamine, LSD, ketamine, cocaine, etc. - in a manner akin to that of alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana (in some states, these days) shall greatly reduce the societal cost of drug use.
First of all, I want to address the concept of the word 'drug'. Everything that we consume is a drug. As Paracelsus observed, sola dosis facit venenum: The Dose Makes the Poison. Water, in moderation, is required for life; given in excess, one can die from its over-consumption. Grapefruit is a drug: a combination of many different chemical components including the infamous bergamottin which is responsible for acting synergistically with prescriptions thanks to its CYP450-inhibiting activities. Morphine is a drug which is derived from the plant Papaver somniferum; those seeds on that bagel you ate for breakfast contain morphine, codeine, thebaine, and a wide variety of other alkaloids.
So why are some drugs illegal whereas others are widely consumed and thought of as benign foodstuffs? Culture, for the most part. Opium and laudanum were widely used throughout the 19th century, so much so that they were often sold not only by chemists but also by haberdashers and booksellers; heroin was available, as was cocaine (though later, having been isolated only in 1860, half a century after morphine). It was the Harrison Act of 1914 which saw the criminalization of heroin and cocaine, after which time their prices skyrocketed and a new world of criminality was founded.
If you go out and buy heroin off the street or a friend, the odds are you are getting much more than just heroin, if even that. Adulterants are common and range from the mundane - baby powder, etc. - to the devastating, such as glass or fentanyl. In addition, thanks to the necessary formulation of many recreational drugs outside of accredited and quality-controlled pharmaceutical factories, microbial contamination is also a common occurrence. A case of anthrax in heroin in Lanarkshire made the news a few years ago.
There is relatively little risk to injecting pharmaceutical morphine with a sterile needle, especially if done under the supervision of a nurse. It happens in every hospital in the nation on a daily basis with minimal adverse consequences. However, injecting heroin obtained illicitly can be deadly thanks to a long list of potential negative outcomes ranging from cellulitis, abscesses and amputation to pneumonia. Legalization and regulation would lead to a vast improvement in the quality and safety of the drugs of abuse.
But rather than focusing on how legalization would make recreational usage safer for the user, let's look at the societal benefits.
Why do people begin using drugs? Surely there are nearly as many reasons as there are drug users, but I believe they can generally be reduced to a few primary headings.
1) Pain, either physical or emotional. This can be something obvious, such as pain from a car accident, grief at the loss of a loved one, or something which few might consider as pain per se, such as boredom.
2) Culture. Drug use, drug dealing, etc., make up a large portion of many juvenile sub-cultures throughout North America.
Let's imagine an individual who is addicted to heroin. We shall call him Fred. Fred has various means of acquiring his drug, or the money to do so, ranging from prostitution, theft, odd jobs, drug dealing, etc. One method of drug dealing is to entice drug-naive individuals to use for the first time, which leads to an increase in the number of users over time. Thanks to his IV use of heroin and a lack of education in his area on the dangers of dirty needles, Fred has acquired HIV, though his positive status is unknown to him at this time. Over the last six months, Fred has shared needles with at least a dozen of his friends, and he has also had unprotected sex on numerous occasions. He has done everything imaginable to finance his addiction and is personally responsible for having got numerous other individuals hooked as well.
Fred has gotten himself mixed up with gangs, and has even served as a mule to bring a few condoms full of heroin and cocaine over the border. The amount of money he spends in an average year is astronomical, yet he cannot even afford permanent housing. Most of the money he gets goes straight into his veins; his health has suffered severely not only from his addiction itself but also from the addiction's expense. He has endured abscesses and a variety of infections; he is very skinny and clearly malnourished; half of his teeth have fallen out.
Now let us imagine what Fred's life would be like had he been born in a parallel universe in which recreational drugs are regulated like alcohol.
Fred has been on heroin since for close to a decade. Each morning he goes to the local OCB - Opiate Control Board - store to purchase his daily supply. Thanks to his high tolerance he has a special note from his doctor allowing him to purchase twice the daily legal limit, and his name is in The System so that he cannot 'shop around'. While he injects on a daily basis, he has always done so safely thanks to the proper education on drug use offered in his city: abstinence is encouraged, though the reality of human nature is not denied and thus optimal safety guidelines are simply part of the culture. Clean needles are provided at the store, along with all other necessary equipment.
Fred is able to maintain a good job, something which his Real-World Analog has found impossible thanks to his criminal record. The cost of his daily dose is only about $10, something he can easily afford without having to resort to crime; this is because there is a large supply controlled by the free market, not the black market. Thanks to the culture of harm reduction as opposed to abstinence, he has never shared a needle, nor has his heroin ever been anything other than pharmaceutical-grade. He knows with certainty that the molecules going into his veins are all those of heroin, and nothing else other than the few medical-grade fillers used in production. He has never had to resort to prostitution. He has a wife and kids, a home, and a dog. He is a respected member of society, not cursed for trying to deal with the mental anguish which encouraged his first use. He has never been to jail, nor has he ever even knowingly broken a law.
Ending prohibition will end the dangers of drug use to the individual drug users. Ending prohibition will end the otherwise self-perpetuating culture of criminality which keeps so many users trapped; this will also lead to a vast decrease in criminality: muggings, drug smuggling and dealing, prostitution, etc. Ending prohibition will benefit everybody other than the criminals and the prisons. By ending the phenomenon of drug dealing, criminals will no longer profit by encouraging illegal behaviors in others; the vast sums of money acquired by criminals and criminal organizations will disappear, along with the guns and gangs (and thus violence) through which these criminals maintain their existence. Ending prohibition will allow the focus to shift from law enforcement to education, which will make drug use safer for everybody.
Drugs will never disappear from the human experience. What can disappear, however, is the dangers with which they are associated.
You can't.
The understanding of the Christian God has various characteristics:
1) He is omnipotent
2) He is omniscient
3) He is love
Now, assuming that there characteristics are legitimate, then they prove that God is either untrustworthy or unreal. Love does not hate or take enjoy to see evil, harm, pain, etc. How can God be love but watch not just the suffering on Earth, but the eternal suffering he has threatened for all those who simply do not worship Him? Sounds like a vengeful god to me, and vengeance is not love.
You should spank your brat more often. It needs it. I'm sure it likes it, too.
Because, despite their treasonous behavior against Britain, they are nevertheless the fathers of the nation. As such, their terroristic actions are forced to be viewed in a different light. On the contrary, Harriet Tubman in her involvement with the failed insurrection against the nation, is a symbol of terrorism perpetrated on the part of individuals against the social order, not to mention an act which, if successful, could very easily have had absolutely devastating consequences for the future of the nation.
Essentially, one group - despite their treason to Britain, created America - while the other - Tubman - was treasonous against America, and as such ought not to be venerated by America after 160 years has allowed the weight of her traitorous actions to be forgotten. The ends never justify the means; no matter that her effort was to secure freedom for her people; she was not in a position to make that decision. The Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford had ruled that Negroes cannot ever be citizens of the United States, while Congress was debating on the issue and, ultimately, decided to amend the constitution to allow for the incorporation of the Negro under the concept of "man".
Citizens cannot be tolerated in taking the law into their own hands; those that do so today are shot dead by the ATF somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
The ends do not ever justify the means.
A core tenet of my philosophy.
the American colonists when they began their 'violent insurrection'.
I likewise hold them in low esteem.
Many thousands of years ago, when people began to start writing, some complained that the advent of books which make unnecessary the memory - after all, why remember anything when you can just go back and check a book?
How much more this is true when it comes to cellphones! Rather than writing notes, people can take pictures of the blackboard and record their teachers talking. Rather than paying attention, they can chat with their pedophilic sugar daddies and fellow miscreants. Rather than engage in actual, physical socialization, they can play games on their encapsulating wonder-machine.
Sounds like a disgusting society.
Dirty.
Beards are gross, of any length but especially those which are long.
And women - fuck, women are women; who even looks at them?
Harriet Tubman, had she existed nowadays, would be considered a terrorist. She engaged in violent insurrections, definitely not a good role model to be placed on the bill.
Besides, Jackson is the hottest of the presidents - how dare they remove his likeness from the bills?!?!?
You really are about as delusionally discursive as they come, aren't you?
Climate change is a good example.
Take the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy John Shimkus, who believes that, because of Genesis, the deluge, and Noah, that climate change doesn't matter. He argues based on theology, allowing his ridiculous primitive religious beliefs to interfere with the here and now in extremely resounding ways.
But you are such a radical Leftist that this debate topic could very well have been a serious one from you. Indeed, I am quite sure you agree at least in part with the hypothetical Republican responses.
Of course I agree! I composed that little humorous hiatus from what should be (but ostensibly is not) serious debating because it is such a wonderful analogy to the whole Republican denialism schtick.
yeah, we have couple faggots here who, in their jealousy and deep seated envy of my usually mind numbingly eloquent posts, make it a little game to spend about an hour every day just downvoting ANY post I make.
You're right!
You do have a sense of humor!
Engaging in somoditic acts does not preclude the ability to procreate.
Therefore no.
I believe I am real, therefore I am tangible,
I believe that leprechauns are real.
Therefore leprechauns are tangible.
But, when you can't see them, hear them, feel them, taste them, or smell them, are they really tangible?
every thought I have ever had or will ever have matters.
But the thoughts themselves are intangible. They do not exist in the purely physical universe.
You believe you are intangible
I am clearly tangible. I can feel myself (and feel I do!), smell myself (and smell I do!), taste myself (and taste I do!), yaddayaddayadda...
therefore unreal
If I am not real, then why are you discoursing with me?
Clearly you have some mental issues, since you just admitted to talking to something that you believe to be "unreal" - gotta make you question your deity, doesn't it?
until they realize they are trying to add meaning to life
The meaning of life is to procreate. DNA has been passed on in an unbroken chain from the beginning of life to the present day. The meaning of life is to continue that chain.
This is what many atheists believe, and I am inclined to agree.
Religious people - and, unfortunately, even many ir- - have some meta-mystical need for there to be more to life than just living and fucking and making the next generation. Why? I have never seen the reason for wanting anything grander - what can be grander than the Great Chain of Existence?
where all sodomites will be.
So then it doesn't matter what I believe, now does it? Since I am already a sodomite, why should it matter if I drink of the Spirit of the Lord?
Herbert Marcuse beat Hillary to that claim, if indeed Hillary ever said such a thing.
But yes, when an entity - such as a political party - is willing to put human efforts to save the species on hold with the expectation that some supernatural being will do it for us - the ultimate deus ex machina - they are radical, and their rebellion against rationality and good sense makes them an insurgency. So, in conclusion, the Republican Party would seem to be a radical insurgency.
Oh how hated you are!?!
I post something, go to bed, wake up and see that you've replied, but in the interim have received 3 downvotes! And not even for something that deserves more than 1!
Had you clicked on the link you'd have seen that these are not my words but the words of Ornstein, which Noam Chomsky frequently quotes during his interviews.
I agree with Noam.
The Democrats are right-to-center.
The Republicans "are so far to the right that they don't even pretend to be a party anymore" (paraphrase). They allow God to come into the picture far too much, trusting in Him to take care of climate change, wanting to marry the government with religion, etc. Being a radical fundamentalist Christian is virtually necessary to win the election, and each president since Carter has made a huge show of his religiosity.
And sure, the Republican Party has been around awhile, but that doesn't mean they can't - and they have, a lot - change. I mean, Eisenhower was a Republican, and during his presidency (from 1944 until 1963) the top tax bracket was OVER 90% (at one time reaching 94%), and it was under LBJ - the Democrat - that taxes went soaring downhill.
You don't have a sense of humor, do you?
Well at least one person understands it.
So astronomers have determined that an asteroid is going to hit the earth! So large, it could easily wipe out the human population!
The world needs to work together and create a device that will knock the asteroid off path, and they only have 2 years to do so.
What do the Republicans have to say about this? They see it in two different lights:
1: It is a lie, damned liberals are trying to take our money and our freedom!
2: It is real, but God will save us. No need to bother ourselves over it!
So, if the Republicans are in power, 2 years later and humanity goes extinct.
We can hope that the Libertarian Party fills the void. Definitely an improvement.
You must be brain damaged. Indeed, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is the case. After all, who else could have so perfected the art of the idiot: no comprehension of what other people say, no care for reality, and only latching on to a single, out-of-context statement in an effort to enhance the appearance of your own naïveté?!
Do you believe that your thoughts are physical and have actual weight, shape, and tangibility? If so, then you just proved yourself wrong. If not, then where are they?
Ancient legends state that Jesus, when the adulteress was brought before him and was asked what to do with her - thereby being given the opportunity either to undo himself if he said to follow the Mosaic law, or to outright speak against the Mosaic law - began to write in the sand the sins of each of the people who stood before him. It is for that reason why the people, after Christ said let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone, fled.
The moral of this story is that we must find an indisputable plank in the eye of the people to whom we refer - most likely by developing a more thorough knowledge of Christ, the namesake of those who act as much unlike their Lord and Savior as possible to use against them, something I've been working on.
You must work hard at being naive. So very hard, for you are so very good at it. Well, everybody's gotta have something, right?
Since you say your intelligence emerged from primordial soup,your intelligence is primordial soup
My breakfast of bacon and eggs (sunny-side up) came from a live pig and a shell filled with gelatinous goop. Because my breakfast came from a live pig and a shell filled with gelatinous goop, am I eating a live pig and a shell filled with gelatinous goop?
Of course not!
Things change. Something that is in one state at time A may be in another state at time B, and the greater the difference between A and B, the greater the likelihood that that state will have changed. Thus, while some 4.2 GYA what is now me was not me, right now what is me is me.
Now, since intelligence is an intangible, a word used to quantify some pseudo-metaphysical neurochemistry that results in the ability of an individual to reason, remember, and create, it stands to reason that intelligence was not once of the primordial soup, for it does not physically exist - it is merely a descriptor.
George Washington.
Why?
'cause he's dead.
Can't fuck up this country any more when you're dead.
