The Wall Street Journal had a scare story up a while back to the effect of Needle Parks coming to the US. Well that is interesting and just more of the same old. What is really interesting is the comments. I’m going to excerpt a few of them.
These two ignorant prohibitionists shamefully forgot to mention that when the Swiss closed Needle Park way back at the beginning of the 1990s they immediately replaced it with an extremely successful ‘Heroin Assisted Treatment’ program. (google: “Heroin-assisted treatment (HAT)”) — Addicts are now provided with several daily dosages of pure and legal Heroin in a controlled and clinical environment.
At the end of 2009, 1356 patients were undergoing HAT at 21 outpatient centers and in 2 prisons.
HAT is now being carried out at centres in Basle, Bern, Biel, Brugg, Burgdorf, Chur, Geneva, Horgen, Lucerne, Olten, Reinach, Schaffhausen, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thun, Winterthur, Wetzikon, Zug, Zürich and in two prisons Oberschöngrün (canton Solthurn) and Realtà (canton Graubünden).
And:
Lauren Kurilchik, it seems you are a Tea party activist and therefor ostensibly support “less government involvement” in our lives. Isn’t that a bit of a disconnect with what you’ve been posting here? which is for more government involvement in the lives of anyone who takes any drugs except for those you happen to approve of. — I see you have a section on your webpage about “beer drinking tea-party patriots” For those wishing to check it out, just google “Lauren Kurilchik cheers meetup”
Why can’t you admit the obvious, Lauren? The misguided and counterproductive policy of prohibition has failed; the “unintended” consequences are disastrous. Untold Thousands of people have lost their lives in prohibition-associated violence. Drug lords have taken over entire communities. Misery has spread unabated and corruption is undermining fragile democracies everywhere.
And:
Lauren Kurilchick needs to wake-up from her alcohol-haze and realize that most of the nation is now far more informed than during times when ‘Her Ludicrous Hysteria’ was easier to sell. Prohibition is perverse; a human rights and social justice atrocity. And her posts here are a text book example of that perversion. Individuals like herself who perpetuate the idea that ‘We the People’ should continue spending billions upon billions of dollars to fight ‘Their Unwinnable War’ should be made to stand before us with their heads hung in abject shame, for the grave damage they have caused our ‘once free and prosperous’ nation.
And:
Amazing that the “education czar” does not advocate education and rehabilitation when it comes to drug policy. Imagine if we made it illegal to drop out of school and put all of those people behind bars. Criminalization of drugs has not and never will work. By the way, the “social costs” of drug use are already being paid. Might as well collect some taxes to deal with them.
And:
Hundreds of billions of $$$ are redistributed to public employee union members with the present destructive federal drug “war”: DEA, prison guards, local sheriff and police, ATF, border patrol. No way this willl change in our lifetime. Or perhaps the prison system will collapse because of all the non violent drug offends locked up for what is essentially a brain chemistry sickness.
And that is just one page. There are six more mostly like that. Compare it with what you would have seen in the WSJ just ten years ago. The Times They Are A Changin.
Comments
2 responses to “Changing Times”
Like you, I support the legalization of drugs, but I have to wonder if you have any limits.
It seems to me that in order to achieve the benefits of legalization every conceivable drug and brain stimulation device must be legal. No exceptions.
Furthermore, there must be no government control of distribution. I don’t see how the HAT program can actually cover all heroin users. There will always be some people who will not go to a clinic.
There is a place for government certification of safety, but no other role.
bob,
I made my comment below before reading all of your comment. My bad. I’m in agreement with you. But one must also consider what is currently politically possible.
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Does the Swiss plan look to you like no regulation?
In essence our current plan is no regulation. So please tell me how no regulation with violent cartels would be worse than no regulation without violent cartels?
None the less I favor some regulation. OTOH there is the diversionary market in legal drugs already.
What you want is utopia. All I have to offer is bad and worse. Pick one.
When did America get filled with utopians right and left. Are there any realists left? And it is just as true of my allies as it is of my enemies.