“Stated even more simply: it doesn’t take a lot of arrests and incarceration to get casual users to quit. But it does take a lot of enforcement to get the “hard core” to change their behavior. And while there in fact were very high levels of drug enforcement in the 1980s and 1990s, these levels do not seem to have been high enough to make an appreciable dent in the population whose drug problems were most acute and most harmful.”
So the question is then why not just target these individuals with intensive, mandatory rehab terms? I imagine they are not hard to identify.
This is where I typically tell people to read Stanton Samenow.
To give the tldr of his ideas...imagine someone with the knowledge of what heroin, fentanyl, and crystal methamphetamine are likely to do to them. Then understand they will use them anyways. There's only so much a rehab program designed around alcohol and genuinely unintentional opioid addiction can do for them.
Seems like the sweet spot is what we had in the 80s and 90s — moderate enforcement (not Taliban-level) and a govt-led culture of messaging on its harms (“Just Say No”).
While the formation of hardcore users may be harder to prevent, we are much better off with a lot less “casual” users, because even mild to moderate use of drugs is destructive to many lives and society generally.
Seems like a reach but Len Bias in June 1986 may have been impactful to males 15-25 at that time. Death from cocaine was a big topic in my world (20 at the time but in Boston where it would have been a prevalent theme).
90 percent of old drug users are incurable,and we don't have any vaccine yet.60 percent of prisoners have commited crimes to find money to by drugs,or to sell drugs.if we had legal drugs we won't had these crimes
The "War on Drugs" could be described as a "War on Small-Time Drug Dealers." Big Pharma, in its quest for profits, gave us the "opioid epidemic" and the "War on Drugs" served mostly to reduce "small-time" competition to the Big Money's (with political connections) interests. Doctors were taught (by Big Pharma) that "pain management" was more important than "addiction management". They claimed oxycodone wasn't addictive...Once Doctors realized the harm they were doing by making so many people into addicts, they refused to keep upping the dosages (and exposing themselves to lawsuits)- and this pushed people out into the Black Market...and then enter Fentanyl...what this shows me is that there is a parallel between the "Opium Wars" and China's "century of humiliation" and the "Fentanyl Epidemic" which is, essentially, "turnabout is fair play." The "War on Drugs" is just a small part of a much bigger story. The driving force of addiction is that people can afford the time and the money, it feels good-so why not? I would love to see a statistic about how many people are incarcerated when there were NO DRUGS involved? People incarcerated for violent crimes are often involved in turf-wars for markets. People who prey on others and steal often do it to support drug-habits. Men sex-traffic women by making them addicted. So much violent and "white collar" crime has (underneath it) a connection to drugs. One drug dealer I know said the real reason small-time drug dealers deal drugs is because women love drugs and women will trade sex for drugs. The way drug dealers get busted is because they find a new girlfriend and the old girlfriend- whose supply is now cut off- rats on them...I enjoy these "War on Drugs" installments, but I think you're missing a lot of the real factors at work. The real impetus behind the "drug epidemic" is sex, I think. The breakdown of the family, the need for two incomes, "women's liberation", the housing shortage...all play a part. People see their lives as a failure, they see no hope- so why not become an addict? People need something better to do with their time and money. That's where the answer has to come from.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I think the "War on drugs" wasn't really a "war on drug deaths and disabilities" so much as it was "War on Big Pharma's small time competition." The real problem is on the demand side, and I think that a big driver of it is women's love of drugs. Watch MSNBC, and count the drug ads. If women could be convinced that drugs weren't good for them (no matter what their doctor tells them), and might even put THEM (and not just their male partners) in jail it could have a deterrent effect. As long as women can/will trade sex for drugs and are considered to be "victims"- not "perps"- men will find and supply drugs, and fill the jails, and the "War on Drugs" will just be a big boondoggle. I'm a Libertarian, so I think everything should be legal- and those who OD? Well, that's just too bad. It's a "Darwin Award," properly earned.
Perplexity says that men are 2-3x more likely to die of an accidental drug overdose. Drugs are the suicide-of-choice for women, men are more apt to use a gun. I think that women are more safe/skillful drug users than men because they're accustomed to being on the female hormone emotional rollercoaster. But that's not my point. My point is that law enforcement attacks the supply side, ineffectively. They ignore the demand side. The government is corrupt, and they're not concerned with the demand side- which serves Big Pharma. Why do people spend the time and money and take the risks? In my case (and I tried a lot of different drugs a half-century ago when it was trendy, Leary and Alpert were on the lecture-circuit promoting "expanded consciousness", etc) I always had something more interesting/important to do with my time and money, and the risks were more than I was willing to endure. I tried to record the "expanded consciousness" with writing to be able to remember my "great ideas"- which were jibberish, later. Others place a higher priority on "feeling good" in the moment, which I think is a female attitude. Women, the poor, the uneducated... don't have as much to lose from getting in trouble with the law, either. Soon they learn that getting busted is "no big deal" because it doesn't affect the trajectory of their lives. Then, they produce children addicted from birth- and that's what we have now. Three generations of addicted children.
“Stated even more simply: it doesn’t take a lot of arrests and incarceration to get casual users to quit. But it does take a lot of enforcement to get the “hard core” to change their behavior. And while there in fact were very high levels of drug enforcement in the 1980s and 1990s, these levels do not seem to have been high enough to make an appreciable dent in the population whose drug problems were most acute and most harmful.”
So the question is then why not just target these individuals with intensive, mandatory rehab terms? I imagine they are not hard to identify.
This is where I typically tell people to read Stanton Samenow.
To give the tldr of his ideas...imagine someone with the knowledge of what heroin, fentanyl, and crystal methamphetamine are likely to do to them. Then understand they will use them anyways. There's only so much a rehab program designed around alcohol and genuinely unintentional opioid addiction can do for them.
Exactly.
Seems like the sweet spot is what we had in the 80s and 90s — moderate enforcement (not Taliban-level) and a govt-led culture of messaging on its harms (“Just Say No”).
While the formation of hardcore users may be harder to prevent, we are much better off with a lot less “casual” users, because even mild to moderate use of drugs is destructive to many lives and society generally.
Seems like a reach but Len Bias in June 1986 may have been impactful to males 15-25 at that time. Death from cocaine was a big topic in my world (20 at the time but in Boston where it would have been a prevalent theme).
90 percent of old drug users are incurable,and we don't have any vaccine yet.60 percent of prisoners have commited crimes to find money to by drugs,or to sell drugs.if we had legal drugs we won't had these crimes
The "War on Drugs" could be described as a "War on Small-Time Drug Dealers." Big Pharma, in its quest for profits, gave us the "opioid epidemic" and the "War on Drugs" served mostly to reduce "small-time" competition to the Big Money's (with political connections) interests. Doctors were taught (by Big Pharma) that "pain management" was more important than "addiction management". They claimed oxycodone wasn't addictive...Once Doctors realized the harm they were doing by making so many people into addicts, they refused to keep upping the dosages (and exposing themselves to lawsuits)- and this pushed people out into the Black Market...and then enter Fentanyl...what this shows me is that there is a parallel between the "Opium Wars" and China's "century of humiliation" and the "Fentanyl Epidemic" which is, essentially, "turnabout is fair play." The "War on Drugs" is just a small part of a much bigger story. The driving force of addiction is that people can afford the time and the money, it feels good-so why not? I would love to see a statistic about how many people are incarcerated when there were NO DRUGS involved? People incarcerated for violent crimes are often involved in turf-wars for markets. People who prey on others and steal often do it to support drug-habits. Men sex-traffic women by making them addicted. So much violent and "white collar" crime has (underneath it) a connection to drugs. One drug dealer I know said the real reason small-time drug dealers deal drugs is because women love drugs and women will trade sex for drugs. The way drug dealers get busted is because they find a new girlfriend and the old girlfriend- whose supply is now cut off- rats on them...I enjoy these "War on Drugs" installments, but I think you're missing a lot of the real factors at work. The real impetus behind the "drug epidemic" is sex, I think. The breakdown of the family, the need for two incomes, "women's liberation", the housing shortage...all play a part. People see their lives as a failure, they see no hope- so why not become an addict? People need something better to do with their time and money. That's where the answer has to come from.
I don't think Big Pharma's opioids were killing nearly that many people. When people started consuming illegal fentanyl, they were far more likely to die. I suppose one could blame the War on Drugs (cracking down on "pill mills") for causing that shift though https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/a-contrary-perspective-on-the-opioid-epidemic/
Maybe I wasn't clear. I think the "War on drugs" wasn't really a "war on drug deaths and disabilities" so much as it was "War on Big Pharma's small time competition." The real problem is on the demand side, and I think that a big driver of it is women's love of drugs. Watch MSNBC, and count the drug ads. If women could be convinced that drugs weren't good for them (no matter what their doctor tells them), and might even put THEM (and not just their male partners) in jail it could have a deterrent effect. As long as women can/will trade sex for drugs and are considered to be "victims"- not "perps"- men will find and supply drugs, and fill the jails, and the "War on Drugs" will just be a big boondoggle. I'm a Libertarian, so I think everything should be legal- and those who OD? Well, that's just too bad. It's a "Darwin Award," properly earned.
That would predict that drug overdoses are more common for women than men. Is that the case?
Perplexity says that men are 2-3x more likely to die of an accidental drug overdose. Drugs are the suicide-of-choice for women, men are more apt to use a gun. I think that women are more safe/skillful drug users than men because they're accustomed to being on the female hormone emotional rollercoaster. But that's not my point. My point is that law enforcement attacks the supply side, ineffectively. They ignore the demand side. The government is corrupt, and they're not concerned with the demand side- which serves Big Pharma. Why do people spend the time and money and take the risks? In my case (and I tried a lot of different drugs a half-century ago when it was trendy, Leary and Alpert were on the lecture-circuit promoting "expanded consciousness", etc) I always had something more interesting/important to do with my time and money, and the risks were more than I was willing to endure. I tried to record the "expanded consciousness" with writing to be able to remember my "great ideas"- which were jibberish, later. Others place a higher priority on "feeling good" in the moment, which I think is a female attitude. Women, the poor, the uneducated... don't have as much to lose from getting in trouble with the law, either. Soon they learn that getting busted is "no big deal" because it doesn't affect the trajectory of their lives. Then, they produce children addicted from birth- and that's what we have now. Three generations of addicted children.