Claiming that the horrifying near-death experience really put things into perspective, area man Leo York announced Tuesday that a recent heroin overdose served as a wake-up call to keep on doing heroin but just be smarter about it. “That’s it. Tomorrow I’m buying a digital scale, and from now on I’m only using on weekends or after work if it was a super hard day,” said York, explaining that the close call had provided him with the clarity to realize he needed to do the hard work of finding a more trustworthy dealer instead of shooting up whatever sketchy back-alley stuff he could score. […]
Opiates have a stigma for good reason. This isn’t legalizing marijuana where its hard to find impactful negative consequences of using it. Opiate use very quickly turns to dependence, and most people aren’t ready to deal with that even if they think they are. Thats why most people won’t touch the stuff in the first place, its far too risky.
We already have legal opiates for addicts, methadone and its shitty cousin suboxone, the only issue there is they aren’t free.
What i meant with the stigma is not, that people should think, that they are substances to play with, but that a society that tolerates people no matter what drugs they use create an environment for people who have problems with certain drugs to actually seek help, since they do not have to face discrimination or being seen as an outsider.
I could see that being a help for some addicts reluctant to get help, but the social stigma helps prevent people from underestimating the risk. I’d rather err on the side of preventing new addicts over assisting current ones if I have to choose between the two. In the end, I’m not sure if either of our ideas would result in less suffering but its good to talk about it in public spaces like this.
Just because a substance is legal it does not mean, that people think its harmless. Its widely known, that cigarettes are god damn awful and quite addicting (I don’t want to say that cigarettes and Heroin are The same, This just serves as an example). If you allow people to get access to certain drugs in specialised shops people can get educated about what they are buying/consuming directly. Also what you eliminate if you allow for the selling in shops is sketchy drug dealers offering their clients harder drugs to “try them out” and then get hooked on it. No one on the black market cares about the consumers and eliminating the black market means a significant win land lots of opportunities) in recovering and preventing addicts.
Dehumanizing drug dealers isn’t helping, they are people too and often are just trying to make ends meet the same as a drug user. Most dont want to hurt or kill their customers, and most have incredible patience given the things they have to deal with.
Ive had more doctors make potentially lethal mistakes than drug dealers have, at least in my own experience.