The True Cost of Liberal Policies On Recreational Drugs & Addiction

[Remodeling Maidiac]

So take CA as an example. They decriminalized pot and now are an official cartel state, producing more pot than the state consumes. So they're exporting illegally.

Then CA has decriminalized meth and heroin use, and other narcotics. You can be arrested over and over and over in CA for possession/use of heroin and nothing happens to you. Using the same justification of "medical uses and popularity", look for CA to begin softening laws on distributing heroin as well. After all, think of the profits CA could make off of other states where it's illegal?

Everyone is familiar with the costs of heroin addiction in terms of overdose. Everyone knows someone who has lost a dear family member from heroin overdose. That never used to be the case. Now it is. Welcome to post-liberaltopia 2018.

But what most people don't sit down and pencil out is actual costs $$ to hardworking citizens and insurance companies from heroin addiction's #1 spinoff: indigence. Heroin addicts are unemployable. They just are. So they quickly become indigent and homeless. But while they are homeless, their addiction rages on. I've been doing an informal survey of some addicts I know. Each one has on average, about $100/day habit. That's $3,000/month and $36,000/year. Many addicts use much more dope than this per day so this is a relatively conservative estimate.

Each one.

Think about that for a minute. Crime rates in my area have escalated to the point of ridiculousness. People can't leave their homes. Bands of coordinated roving addicts patrol and case streets for signs of temporary lulls in occupancy (such as running to the store, God forbid a vacation). used to be your random heroin addict wasn't your next door neighbor. Now bunches of them live right near you so they case your daily habits and know when you go out & return. Because they share the same loserdom, they band together frequently and form "drug families" that support each others' using and stealing and fencing to get money to use more. These addicts are making us prisoners in our own homes. These "families" coordinate. They really do. And the situation is reaching a tipping point.

As they steal and steal and steal to not become dope sick, insurance claims skyrocket. At some point something has to give.

Each year the average heroin user costs society roughly the same as the US median income

But how much does the heroin epidemic cost the United States? A lot. Researchers seeking to put a number on it have come up with a new figure: more than $51 billion. That’s a vast sum, equivalent to the gross domestic product of countries like Lebanon and Croatia.

^^ I'd say that's a very conservative estimate. I estimated in my small area that just our region the hidden (theft/insurance claims) costs are $30 million. That doesn't even include the healthcare we have to provide these addicts, the food stamp cards, spread of diseases like HIV and Hep C that come with shooting up, other welfare programs, removal of child custody, foster care, temporary housing...all while they have zero intentions or indeed ability to get off the drugs....and all while certain states have zero disincentives for them to not start in the first place, or to get clean once they have.

Interesting and fun fact though. While doing my informal survey I did notice that whenever the topic of cops or real actual jail time came up, the addicts became unanimously nervous. Probably not from the stigma of jail, but because their internal addict-demon knows that if they are incarcerated, the using comes to a full-stop immediately. That's a situation they fear more than anything. Huge disincentive.

Minimum security work prisons with drug dogs making regular rounds of the cells? Just a thought. Would be cheaper than each and every single heroin addict stealing $36,000 worth of stuff from others, forcing them to become in despair, indigent and likely to turn to drugs....

Discuss.

Legal prescriptions took down my job foreman of almost 17 years. He moved in with a new girlfriend clean and became unreliable & sloppy within months.
After trying for a month or two to get him to clean up it became clear that the drugs controlled him.

NEVER hire anyone with a drug habit, casual or not.

Drugs are for losers

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

These are the same people that classify hardcore gamers or people into rough or excessive sex as mentally disabled but think being confused about your biological sex is perfectly normal.

 

[BluesLegend]

How can you reconcile the left's effort to outlaw cigarette smoking while the hypocrites are trying to legalize marijuana use? Is the crazy radical left trying to take the ludicrous stance that smoking the noxious weed is actually healthy for you? That's what they said of tobacco a hundred years ago.

True, but hell drugs are nothing states rake in $80 BILLION a year on lotteries that are so rigged it virtually guarantees everyone loses. Who are their primary victims, of course the poor. People so desperate they will blow what little money they have on lotteries in a desperate attempt to escape.

 

[Syriusly]

War on Drugs has failed

Our prisons are full

Legalize them all

And then all the Democrats will overdose.....

What a stupid remark.

Even by your low standards.

 

[Syriusly]

So take CA as an example. They decriminalized pot and now are an official cartel state, producing more pot than the state consumes. So they're exporting illegally.

Then CA has decriminalized meth and heroin use, and other narcotics. You can be arrested over and over and over in CA for possession/use of heroin and nothing happens to you. Using the same justification of "medical uses and popularity", look for CA to begin softening laws on distributing heroin as well. After all, think of the profits CA could make off of other states where it's illegal?

Everyone is familiar with the costs of heroin addiction in terms of overdose. Everyone knows someone who has lost a dear family member from heroin overdose. That never used to be the case. Now it is. Welcome to post-liberaltopia 2018.

But what most people don't sit down and pencil out is actual costs $$ to hardworking citizens and insurance companies from heroin addiction's #1 spinoff: indigence. Heroin addicts are unemployable. They just are. So they quickly become indigent and homeless. But while they are homeless, their addiction rages on. I've been doing an informal survey of some addicts I know. Each one has on average, about $100/day habit. That's $3,000/month and $36,000/year. Many addicts use much more dope than this per day so this is a relatively conservative estimate.

Each one.

Think about that for a minute. Crime rates in my area have escalated to the point of ridiculousness. People can't leave their homes. Bands of coordinated roving addicts patrol and case streets for signs of temporary lulls in occupancy (such as running to the store, God forbid a vacation). used to be your random heroin addict wasn't your next door neighbor. Now bunches of them live right near you so they case your daily habits and know when you go out & return. Because they share the same loserdom, they band together frequently and form "drug families" that support each others' using and stealing and fencing to get money to use more. These addicts are making us prisoners in our own homes. These "families" coordinate. They really do. And the situation is reaching a tipping point.

As they steal and steal and steal to not become dope sick, insurance claims skyrocket. At some point something has to give.

Each year the average heroin user costs society roughly the same as the US median income

But how much does the heroin epidemic cost the United States? A lot. Researchers seeking to put a number on it have come up with a new figure: more than $51 billion. That’s a vast sum, equivalent to the gross domestic product of countries like Lebanon and Croatia.

^^ I'd say that's a very conservative estimate. I estimated in my small area that just our region the hidden (theft/insurance claims) costs are $30 million. That doesn't even include the healthcare we have to provide these addicts, the food stamp cards, spread of diseases like HIV and Hep C that come with shooting up, other welfare programs, removal of child custody, foster care, temporary housing...all while they have zero intentions or indeed ability to get off the drugs....and all while certain states have zero disincentives for them to not start in the first place, or to get clean once they have.

Interesting and fun fact though. While doing my informal survey I did notice that whenever the topic of cops or real actual jail time came up, the addicts became unanimously nervous. Probably not from the stigma of jail, but because their internal addict-demon knows that if they are incarcerated, the using comes to a full-stop immediately. That's a situation they fear more than anything. Huge disincentive.

Minimum security work prisons with drug dogs making regular rounds of the cells? Just a thought. Would be cheaper than each and every single heroin addict stealing $36,000 worth of stuff from others, forcing them to become in despair, indigent and likely to turn to drugs....

Discuss.

Legal prescriptions took down my job foreman of almost 17 years. He moved in with a new girlfriend clean and became unreliable & sloppy within months.
After trying for a month or two to get him to clean up it became clear that the drugs controlled him.

NEVER hire anyone with a drug habit, casual or not.

Drugs are for losers

Unfortunately that doesn't address the opioid epidemic we are having in the United States.

Lets get something straight- there are real differences between 'soft drugs'- like cigarettes, alcohol and pot- and 'hard' addictive drugs- like prescription opioids, heroin, coke and meth.

People generally don't steal or kill for their cigarette, beer or pot habits- but the others? The true addicts will sell everything they own, and everything their roommates own, their children own, their mother owns and steal more to sell- for their fix.

Ignoring this epidemic is not going to go away- even for those of you who think- 'just let them die'- because before they die the addicts will cost public services thousands of dollars, and likely ruin the lives of both family and strangers.

I have said it before but I will keep pointing it out. The United States tried Prohibition before and it was a failure. Our 'war on drugs' on hard drugs has made the issue worse- our attempts to reduce addiction through prescription drugs drove addicts from presciption drugs to buying heroin in the street.

Portugal has done just the opposite and it has worked.

But why would the United States want to learn from Portugal- when we can keep doing the same thing that has failed for decades?

 

[Silhouette]

People generally don't steal or kill for their cigarette, beer or pot habits- but the others? The true addicts will sell everything they own, and everything their roommates own, their children own, their mother owns and steal more to sell- for their fix.

Ignoring this epidemic is not going to go away- even for those of you who think- 'just let them die'- because before they die the addicts will cost public services thousands of dollars, and likely ruin the lives of both family and strangers.

I have said it before but I will keep pointing it out. The United States tried Prohibition before and it was a failure. Our 'war on drugs' on hard drugs has made the issue worse- our attempts to reduce addiction through prescription drugs drove addicts from presciption drugs to buying heroin in the street.

So your solution is free meth and heroin for everyone? I think there should be some kind of compromise. I think society still needs to teach their youth by example that the life of a drug addict lands you in jail. I say, minimum security prisons where they work hard, regular rounds with drug dogs, counseling and laws that punish people approaching a newly-recovering addict with drugs on them or in their bloodstream. At some point Syriusly you have to understand that we have taboos as a society for a reason. They are so children will at least think twice before diving in head first to a behavior that is deadly dangerous or completely unacceptable to a civilized society.

The disincentive isn't "you will be coddled". The disincentive is "you will be an outcast". In primate societies, including our own societies by extension, there is a punishment worse than death. That punishment is banishment from the tribe. It's a very powerful psychological tool. We need more of it, not less, if we want to deter young people from winding up in a gutter with a needle in their arm.. Even if the dope was free and they got a phamphet when they showed up at the dispensary on "how to get clean".

 

[Syriusly]

People generally don't steal or kill for their cigarette, beer or pot habits- but the others? The true addicts will sell everything they own, and everything their roommates own, their children own, their mother owns and steal more to sell- for their fix.

Ignoring this epidemic is not going to go away- even for those of you who think- 'just let them die'- because before they die the addicts will cost public services thousands of dollars, and likely ruin the lives of both family and strangers.

I have said it before but I will keep pointing it out. The United States tried Prohibition before and it was a failure. Our 'war on drugs' on hard drugs has made the issue worse- our attempts to reduce addiction through prescription drugs drove addicts from presciption drugs to buying heroin in the street.

So your solution is free meth and heroin for everyone?

My recommendation is that we learn from Portugal's success at dealing with their drug problem.

Opinion | How to Win a War on Drugs
Portugal treats addiction as a disease, not a crime.