Heroin use up dramatically; Low prices, high purity drive `epidemic'

Boston Herald ^ | Dec 18, 2002 | Michael Lasalandra

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Yeah,THAT oughta do it,along with giving fighter-bombers to local sheriff's departments and attack helicopters to the state police!

There you go: if only the Massachusetts State Police had a few Cobras, they could nip this Horse problem in a week or two.

[AppyPappy]

To remind you that specious arguments about "The War on Drugs" isn't fooling anyone. No one wants heroin legalized and it's not going to happen. Not when tobacco is being slowly made illegal.

[kidd]

But your article doesn't even mention imprisonment. But it does talk about usage by minors. In your opinion are minors responsible for their bad choices? In your opinion, are minors to be considered innocents when they are hospitalized from heroin usage? In your opinion, should the government (a) protect minors, (b) help parents protect minors or (c) do nothing to protect minors?

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

My friend, drugs are and have been illegal for a long time...you know what? they don't stop anyone who wants them from getting them any time they want them.

All the WOD does is makes the profit for drug dealers even higher. Get rid of the WOD, you will get rid of most crimes associated with drugs (there are lots) and give the best treatment available to those who want it. I know a woman who was addicted to heroin and crack and she was forced out of treatment after a few days because there weren't enough rooms available...

[coloradan]

But the two alternatives are no war and legalization, which means much lower prices and more purity.

Please check your logic: even with the war, we are getting lower prices and more purity. And your criticism of the legalization argument is that it will result in what is actually happening with the war?

This study shows that would increase dependency. So much for drug legalization wackos thinking.

Again, what you are stating is the actual, present result of the war, not the hypothetical result of legalization. So much for the drug warriors ability to handle simple reasoning.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

BTW, many of us wackos didn't always feel the way we do about drugs. If you've ever known someone with a drug addiction and seen how the whole game works, you'd probably change your mind too. Drugs are evil and Drugs are a big problem in your society, whether you think they are or not. But, banning drugs is impossible.

[Rebelbase]

Did'nt Albore use "increase in Afghani drug trade" as a reason that Bush's policy was failing in Afghanistan?.... when he pulled his little televised hissy fit about to condem Bush's handling of the war a while back?

[FreeTally]

The reasons for ending the failed War On Some Drugs are that the WOsD leads to the following: deaths of innocents in drug-turf wars; deaths of users due to contaminants and unexpectedly high potencies; enrichment of criminals; and corruption of the justice system by enriched criminals.

Come on, the Drug Warriors do not care about those things as long as they have a job, and can imprison or get away with killing people they don't like.

If possession of drugs was not a crime, then law enforcement, judges and politicians would have no easy means of getting rid of people who are problems for them, or funding their campaigns and departments. As long as they can continue to scare the average dim-witted sheep with the "Drug-crazed boogie man", they will retain their power over all of us. Its really that simple.

[coloradan]

The Libertarians must be happy. Aren't they the ones who always tell us the way to go is to legalize, make it cheap and avoid all those prisons?

How can Libertarians be happy when the expenditure on the War On (some) Drugs is higher than it has ever been in the past, with no end in sight, and despite the obvious and tangible failure of this war as shown by the present article?

[mr.pink]

The reasons for ending the failed War On Some Drugs are that the WOsD leads to the following: deaths of innocents in drug-turf wars;...

The abuse of amphetimines costs many innocent people their lives as the users often end up having phsycotic episodes.

I appreciate your arguement for ending the WOD, and agree with many of your points, but amphetmines are an entirely diiferent animal, and create an entirely different animal.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I can see the TV ads now.

"High quality, low, low prices. I'd give the sh*t away, but my ol' lady won't let me."

[Rebelbase]

"A bag of heroin now costs only about $4, Mumbauer said"

There should be a corresponding decrease in drug related crimes if its that cheap. I think the price of $4.00 per "bag" is bogus.

[coloradan]

If coke, herion, pot etc. were legal, and meth weren't, would the usage rate of meth go up or down?

[MrLeRoy]

To remind you that specious arguments about "The War on Drugs" isn't fooling anyone. No one wants heroin legalized and it's not going to happen.

You have done nothing to demonstrate their speciousness---an argument isn't proved wrong just by noting that "nobody" agrees with it. Might (as in strength of numbers) does not make right.

[MrLeRoy]

should the government (a) protect minors, (b) help parents protect minors or (c) do nothing to protect minors?

A and B. Banning drugs for adults does nothing to protect minors.

[MrLeRoy]

The abuse of amphetimines costs many innocent people their lives as the users often end up having phsycotic episodes.

From the U.S. Department of Justice's National Criminal Justice Reference Service (publication NCJ 145534): "Of all psychoactive substances, alcohol is the only one whose consumption has been shown to commonly increase aggression. [...] Marijuana and opiates temporarily inhibit violent behavior [...] There is no evidence to support the claim that snorting or injecting cocaine stimulates violent behavior. [...] Anecdotal reports notwithstanding, no research evidence supports the notion that becoming high on hallucinogens, amphetamines, or PCP stimulates violent behavior in any systematic manner."

[Joe Bonforte]

Drug warriors love manipulating the numbers to make it appear that a disaster is in progress. As another poster noted, these percentage increases are meaningless without seeing absolute numbers.

Let's illustrate with a hypothetical. Suppose 100 people were admitted to substance abuse programs last year, with 19 of them heroin and 52 of them for cocaine. Suppose this year, it's 100 people again, but this time (presumably because heroin has dropped in price) it's 37 for heroin and 34 of them for cocaine. This hypothetical situation would allow the hysterical numbers in this article to be quoted, though (1) the substance abuse problem has not gotten any worse, and (2) you could just as easily talk about decreases in cocaine usage.

Now, if the absolute numbers of people in substance abuse programs had in fact increased, you better believe that this public health bureaucrat would be trumpeting those numbers to get more money for his department. But he didn't, and that suggests that the absolute increases in substance abuse are modest or non-existent.

[Consort]

The Druggers are at it again. Let's hear the mantra about alcohol again. Play the worn out record once again. The endless loop is....endless.

[wita]

Not when tobacco is slowly being made illegal.

A point that leaves me mystified. On the one hand governments piled on during the tobacco law suits, for the love of the almighty dollar, now they want to kill the goose. Somewhere there is a disconnect. Or could it just be people in any kind of non-military, elected position are just the offspring of the village idiot?

[MrLeRoy]

Let's hear the mantra about alcohol again. Play the worn out record once again. The endless loop is....endless.

Funny that in for all the times the "worn out record" has been played, it hasn't once been successfully rebutted.