Time to suspend suspended sentences

[Seth]

From what I read the drug of choice for many prisoners is heroin, which I never (thanks the gods) tried.

I think I can soften my stance on the death penalty if prisons issue pharmaceutical grade heroin on request, in any amount, to any prisoner who wants it. The catch is you can't get out until you're clean for a year.

I call it the "Roach Motel" method of prison population control.

[Rum]

You can be creative in your nastiness. I'll give you that.

[Seth]

You can be creative in your nastiness. I'll give you that.

Nasty? I'm being extremely generous and compassionate. If a fella (or lady) wants to dope up on heroin, I say let them do so. It's their body and their life, and I respect their right to narcotize themselves as much as they like, even unto death. What better way to go than in the golden fog of a heroin OD?

I've recommended the same thing for ALL addicts who don't want to get clean. Nice, clean, warm, safe facilities where they can walk in and request any type of pharmaceutical or mind-altering substance they want, in unlimited quantities and absolute pharmaceutical purity, then take it to a comfortable room and shoot, snort, eat, smoke or whatever they want to their heart's content and nobody will bother them, moralize at them, try to "rescue" them, or resuscitate them.

Get caught shooting up on the street or manufacturing or distributing drugs or stealing and robbing to support a habit and they get sent to the Roach Motel. They can stay as long as they want and have three hots and a cot until they go clean for a year or die. Until they do one or the other, they can't leave.

I can't think of a more compassionate solution to drug addiction that also keeps the public safe from the addicted and their inability to control themselves.

It would be a HELL of a lot cheaper than the ten billion dollars a year we spend in the US on the "drug war" while trying to moralize, preach, bother and interfere with the sovereign rights of individuals to go straight to hell in whatever peaceable manner suits them.

[pErvinalia]

You're such a libertarian...

[Blind groper]

Seth

The best approach to the drug 'problem' has been clear for a long time. Except idiot politicians will not do it.

1. Make less harmful drugs like marijuana and ecstasy fully legal. Sell them through retail outlets. Set quality regulations. Tax the shit out of them.

2. The nasty drugs are prescribed to addicts. Those guys attend a clinic, and get given their drug hit. Clean, pure drug, in sterile syringes, by qualified staff. If they want to quit, they have help right there - trained people.

This approach will rapidly put the drug pushers out of business.

[Sean Hayden]

Tax the shit out of them.

...

This approach will rapidly put the drug pushers out of business.

[mistermack]

On the subject of deterrence, maybe the habitual low level criminals don't have the imagination to work out that things go wrong, and they will get caught eventually. So maybe prison isn't much of a deterrent for them.
But I can assure you that it's always been a deterrent for me. And most of the people I know.
So maybe it doesn't deter the undeterrable. But it certainly deters a lot of people.
Whether they would have committed crime is debatable. I have myself on occasion, but pretty minor stuff that didn't include dishonesty. And once long ago, a pretty violent crime.
I'm sure there would have been a lot more without the threat of prison lurking.
It creates an attitude of mind. Sort of puts crime into the ''last resort'' bracket. Even if it doesn't one hundred percent stop it, I'm sure it cuts it down a huge amount.

This surprises me. I think I can say in all honesty that the fear of being caught has never stopped me committing a crime - and except for some very minor stuff as a student, I never have. The desire to 'do the right thing' is what makes me someone who stays within the law. I'm not sure what that says except I am well socialised!

Right. So you're in a big shop, with the latest gizmo that you would really like but can't afford, and the only thing that stops you taking it and walking out is the desire to do the ''right thing'' ?
Then I think you are in a real minority. With most people it's the fear of getting caught, and everything that goes with it.

Or perhaps you work for a real asshole, who is so stingy he stops some of your wages, when you think he shouldn't.
You still wouldn't help yourself to stock, in revenge when you get the chance? I have on many occasions.

But then, I've never believed that there is such a thing as right and wrong, on an absolute scale.
I don't want to cause unnecessary harm to people. Especially people I like and mix with. But I'd happily rip off my bank, or a big employer, etc, so long as I was pretty sure of not getting caught.

And I'd certainly grow cannabis and sell it, if there was no penalty. I wouldn't hurt anyone, though, even if I didn't like them, unless it was revenge or self defence. So I suppose there's a bit of catholic conscience left.

[Blind groper]

A couple more points about drugs.

The favorite method used by drug pushers to 'market' their product is to offer highly addicitve drugs like heroin or methamphetamine to someone free of charge. The victims gets maybe two hits for free, and gets addicted. At that stage, the price jumps to astronomical levels, and the new addict has to turn to crime to support the habit. If the new addict could go to a clinic for free, and safe drug, then the pusher is out of pocket, and soon out of business. All that crime is also unnecessary.

One suggestion that was made a few years back, and rejected by idiot politicians, was that the USA should buy the sum total of the opium poppy output of Afghanistan. That would cost about $100 million per year. The benefits would be immense. It would undermine the efforts of the Taliban to make everyone hate America. It would take away the heroin source of much of the world's drug cartels. It would provide the USA with very cheap and potent medical painkillers. It would permit free heroin in the clinics I described. And the cost would be a tiny fraction of the current "war on drugs".

[Seth]

You're such a libertarian...

What's un-Libertarian about allowing people their liberty?

[Seth]

Seth

The best approach to the drug 'problem' has been clear for a long time. Except idiot politicians will not do it.

We did it here in Colorado. The trick is to bypass idiot politicians by amending the state Constitution.

1. Make less harmful drugs like marijuana and ecstasy fully legal. Sell them through retail outlets. Set quality regulations. Tax the shit out of them.

Well, if you tax the shit out of them, the black market will simply supply the drugs at a cheaper price and you spoil the whole purpose of legalizing them. Better to carefully regulate their manufacture and distribution and tax them just like anything else, which encourages business to remain legal voluntarily.

2. The nasty drugs are prescribed to addicts. Those guys attend a clinic, and get given their drug hit. Clean, pure drug, in sterile syringes, by qualified staff. If they want to quit, they have help right there - trained people.

I'm okay with that, but I don't want them wandering around on the streets where they can endanger themselves and others. Besides, they are unlikely to report for a fix because the whole problem is that they are not able to be personally responsible. You could send out drug teams to shoot them up wherever they happen to be squatting, but I like the idea of the Roach Motel better. They have clean, sanitary, safe living conditions, food, and all the drugs they want, and society isn't put at risk by their drugged behavior.

This approach will rapidly put the drug pushers out of business.

Yeah, legal pot in Colorado and Washington has got the Mexican cartels all in a tizzy, so now they are switching over to Super-Meth instead.

So, not so much.

[Seth]

A couple more points about drugs.

The favorite method used by drug pushers to 'market' their product is to offer highly addicitve drugs like heroin or methamphetamine to someone free of charge. The victims gets maybe two hits for free, and gets addicted. At that stage, the price jumps to astronomical levels, and the new addict has to turn to crime to support the habit. If the new addict could go to a clinic for free, and safe drug, then the pusher is out of pocket, and soon out of business. All that crime is also unnecessary.

Yup.

One suggestion that was made a few years back, and rejected by idiot politicians, was that the USA should buy the sum total of the opium poppy output of Afghanistan. That would cost about $100 million per year. The benefits would be immense. It would undermine the efforts of the Taliban to make everyone hate America. It would take away the heroin source of much of the world's drug cartels. It would provide the USA with very cheap and potent medical painkillers. It would permit free heroin in the clinics I described. And the cost would be a tiny fraction of the current "war on drugs".

Yup.

[JimC]

Seth and BG are agreeing on something!

The end times are here!

[Hermit]

One suggestion that was made a few years back, and rejected by idiot politicians, was that the USA should buy the sum total of the opium poppy output of Afghanistan. That would cost about $100 million per year. The benefits would be immense. It would undermine the efforts of the Taliban to make everyone hate America. It would take away the heroin source of much of the world's drug cartels. It would provide the USA with very cheap and potent medical painkillers. It would permit free heroin in the clinics I described. And the cost would be a tiny fraction of the current "war on drugs".

It's actually been tried. The result was that the farmers switched from whatever they were cultivating to poppies. The money they got for it made it a no-brainer. The crop became huge and the country had to import food.

[Seth]

One suggestion that was made a few years back, and rejected by idiot politicians, was that the USA should buy the sum total of the opium poppy output of Afghanistan. That would cost about $100 million per year. The benefits would be immense. It would undermine the efforts of the Taliban to make everyone hate America. It would take away the heroin source of much of the world's drug cartels. It would provide the USA with very cheap and potent medical painkillers. It would permit free heroin in the clinics I described. And the cost would be a tiny fraction of the current "war on drugs".

It's actually been tried. The result was that the farmers switched from whatever they were cultivating to poppies. The money they got for it made it a no-brainer. The crop became huge and the country had to import food.

And that's a problem because...???

[JimC]

One suggestion that was made a few years back, and rejected by idiot politicians, was that the USA should buy the sum total of the opium poppy output of Afghanistan. That would cost about $100 million per year. The benefits would be immense. It would undermine the efforts of the Taliban to make everyone hate America. It would take away the heroin source of much of the world's drug cartels. It would provide the USA with very cheap and potent medical painkillers. It would permit free heroin in the clinics I described. And the cost would be a tiny fraction of the current "war on drugs".

It's actually been tried. The result was that the farmers switched from whatever they were cultivating to poppies. The money they got for it made it a no-brainer. The crop became huge and the country had to import food.

And that's a problem because...???

Hermits point was that they were growing even more poppies, and that there were still lots sold to drug cartels even after the buy up.

Supply and demand is always a problem here - if you disrupt the supply to a certain extent, then prices will rise, giving producers more incentive still. Some form of moderate cost, regulated legal supply by governments would hopefully make it no longer financially worth while to grow or produce drugs, and the whole criminal element could collapse...