Curated Tumblr

The us is a barbaric place in many ways. I have been preaching about drug policy like this for forever. Is a mental health issue, not a criminal one.

I guess most people don't consider chronic pain.

Even the Dutch way of handling things isn't perfect though.

There are plenty of heroin addicted homeless who have to travel daily between shelter and those clinics. The problem is that they are on opposite sides of Amsterdam.

So they need to travel daily through the entire city without money to get their fix and be back to the shelter before evening. Most end up somewhere along the way to get an illegal dose instead.

Also the limit of 3 means a lot of full addicts still need to get the rest of their other fixes somewhere else.

But it is definitely better than most countries.

Similar in Switzerland and Zürich specifically. There used to be a horrible drug scene in Zürich (look up needle park), which was improved with similar techniques.

“But if we treat these people as human beings and not trash who am I supposed to demonise for all of society’s problems?” - My boomer parents

Dutch person here, yeah that mentallity towards problems works non-surprisingly across the board. Demonizing a problem is a way to ensure you never solve it.

So called "social democracy" requires you to pay capitalists if you want to get addicted to heroin.

But think of all the money that the private prisons lose. Won't people think of the corporations that require crime to survive?

Same with giving condoms to teenagers. They're not going to fuck more because the have condoms. They're going to fuck the same amount but get pregnant less.

Sweden is doing the complete opposite. It's the one thing all of our political parties agree on; drugs are evil, people who do drugs are evil, and need to be put in jail (except if you work in parliament of course because politicians are good so their drug use is also good).

We also have some of the highest drug related deaths in Europe. That's to say, currently drugs are winning the war on drugs.

Well of course, the Dutch are clever.

Handing out Methadone and in the harder cases even Heroin, with clean needles in protected spaces, is what finally properly solved the extensive drug issues in the 90s here in Zürich too. The repression approach they tried first just moved the scene from Platzspitz (known in English as "Needle Park" I believe) to Letten. Harm reduction approaches were the true solution.

Same thing in Portugal since 2001 by the way.

That's assuming that it's a problem that governments want to resolve.

Glasgow (Scotland) has a single safe consumption room too, and Edinburgh is consulting on opening their own. Very slow progress.

UK's first legal drug consumption room registers almost 600 users - BBC News

Americans are confused, vulnerable people are for exploitation, not compassion in America.

Here's how science works: you collect data, use it to determine what's effective, then you tell the politicians so they can implement a solution. Most of us would consider giving free heroin to people a bad thing. What we consider it is completely irrelevant because it's based on our emotional reaction.

If the data shows that this approach is effective, especially if it's more effective than what you're currently doing, that's what you do.

The only thing that matters here is: does it work?

Yeah, except #2 and a few notes:

Why get it on the street? Because 3 bags a day isn't enough for a lot of addicts, especially those deeper in. I avoided it but most of my friends got hit, one that's still alive said he used 3 bags a shot iirc, he bought it in bundles for sure.

And also another reason is because of the "it's pure" thing. Bro, they don't want pure, they want the fent. Like actively, they're seeking it out now, there's straight up fent dealers that don't even try to hide it in H or pressies anymore. When a junkie dies and the rest of them hear about it, the dealer's business is BOOMING because, literally, "well if it killed Jimmy it must be some good shit, and I can handle it unlike Jimmy." Seriously, that is actually how bad the mind of the true junkie has been twisted by the brown, it gets pretty bad.

So that's why they'll often still seek it elsewhere, but the free bags are a nice bonus of course.

But for the most part, yeah it gets them near counseling, clean works, and narcan in the room. That stuff is still good.