I literally cannot understand why this is being downvoted. Prescribed heroin would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in ER OD cases and the acquisitive crime that this disorder causes. Shame on you HN.
Meanwhile, with proper health care and psychiatric care, the same people who could have stayed within the system, could have greatly boosted research into all kinds of conditions that compel people to take hard drugs in the first place and we could have had this issue solved long ago.
Instead, the medical industry is hamstrung in helping them almost as much as the addicts themselves. But politicians from the left to the right get to look good on camera, and journalists can bravely declare more drugs will be off the streets as they show children walking to school, ensuring nobody will ever suspect they're setting those same children up for severe problems that will go untreated.
>Prescribed heroin would save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in ER OD cases and the acquisitive crime that this disorder causes.
Under what circumstances do you think doctors would be prescribing heroin? Because a person wants to give it a try? For recreational use? Doctors already prescribe (under heavy regulation) narcotics for pain relief. If they were to prescribe heroin, I can't imagine it would be cavalierly prescribed for anything, other to address existing addiction, not unlike methadone treatments today.
... and this is where most Heroin addicts start, actually, through prescription opiate use. Once a physical addiction is formed, heroin can be a cheaper or more accessible alternative to a prescription for say, Oxycontin.
I thought John Oliver had a good segment on it:
Something is wrong with the system for prescribing Oxycontin if black market heroin is ever cheaper or more accessible.
I mean first -
> If you get a prescription for heroin that would probably lead to addiction right?
Decently sure OP is suggesting replacing obtaining heroin from the street with obtaining it through a doctor. As such, only existing (and new) addicts are effected; you would not create addicts.
Alternatively, this story you have told is already the case with other prescription opiates.
> Now as an addict you want more
> continually up the dosages prescribed, no?
I mean, do alcoholics do this? Or gamblers? Adrenaline junkies? Yes and no.
Basically, most of what you know about drugs is inaccurate, and addiction (and escalation of addiction) is complicated. For instance, the rat park experiments indicate that addiction is a coping mechanism - rats in individual cages experience addiction; rats in group cages, not so much. Simply by obtaining the drugs from a sympathetic ear, you can reduce the dependence on the drugs.
Here's a thing:
https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decr...
The first abstract actually describes a theory that cannot be correct given the Rat Park experiment as described on Wikipedia, due to group PC (no new rats were supplied to that group). Or, rather, a theory that does not explain group PC.
Apparently the results have been pretty good so far: http://sciencenordic.com/heroin-clinics-improve-addicts-live...
The idea is you stabilize people's lives. Prescribe them heroin for say 3 months to start with. Their lives are no longer endless crime, prostitution, police cells etc. They can get housing and other things sorted without having to also find $1000s a month for a drug habit.
From that the community is already seeing a benefit (less crime and the market for black market heroin mostly vanishes), and then from that you can start helping people reduce their dose and get proper drug treatment while living a far more normal life.
There will probably be some black market dealing, but it will be much smaller scale and won't have anywhere near the scale.
Yeah shame on people for having a different opinion then yours.
Because it's off topic?
You can't seriously think HN is not anti-prohibition?
To move forward we need to be practical.
One city in the entire US is getting an injection room.
Why start talking about the legalisation of heroin? If it works but it can't be implemented why discuss at this point when we are discussing something that does greatly help and is being implemented.
These are different approaches, not necessarily mutually exclusive but by changing the topic you devaluing the important discussion of injecting rooms.
This article is about injecting rooms not ending prohibition I think it is off-topic?
There are plenty of articles on decriminalisation and legalisation out there to have that discussion.
If you think it's inappropriate for HN, feel free to flag the submission and move on.