Is the War on Drugs winding down?

[LaughingBoy1503]

For example, if I had an addiction I would be hesitant to seek help as that implies admission of a crime.

I can say by personal experience having been a drug addict for years, having hung out with lots of drug addicts, been best friends with them, been incarcerated with them, etc, etc, etc that I do not recall even one of them saying that they are afraid to seek help because they have to admit to a crime. You do not talk to police when you want to get help. I have been through 3 drug programs and a stay in rehab (court ordered rehab) and never once did what crimes I did or did not commit come up.

PC1000, Prop 36 and Drug court are the state of California run drug programs (not sure if they all exist still). You literally need to get arrested and charged with drug possession for those programs. Any other drug program would not be government run. Such as private rehabs. Why the heck would they care about what crimes you commit? They do not. All those programs cost money. All they care about is if you can pay them. There are narcotics anonymous meeting that are free… Half the people in there are ex criminals, they do not care about what crimes you have committed. They are less interested in turning you in for any crime.

So, I would say, only someone who knows nothing about the drug addict lifestyle would say that they would be hesitant to seek help because that implies admission of a crime. Once again, it is not the police you go to when you want help and rehabs and narcotics anonymous meetings are not interested in doing the polices’ job. Not even the government run programs want to do that. Unless you maybe killed someone, you can talk about all the crimes you committed and nothing happens. All that matters is if you commit a crime during the time you are in the program.

The truth is that most the drug addicts do not seek help because they are not ready to stop using drugs. The next biggest reason is that they do not know how to take the steps to stop. And as much as the AA/Na people may hate this, the overwhelming majority of people I know who finally did stop did so with no program or help in that way.

 

[Pattylt]

My daughter in law became “legally” addicted to drugs. She learned how to play to the doctors and got fentanyl patches and other drugs to counter act the side effects of that…I have no idea what the other drugs were but she would cycle through the drugs and play the doctors to get them. She went from bad to worse, in and out of rehabs and forced my son into bankruptcy twice.

Her last attempt was a clinic in California that I helped pay for. When she got off the plane after her 6week treatment, her first comment was, “well, that was a joke”. She finally did what we all feared. She committed suicide leaving my son and 8 year old granddaughter in shock and pain…but, not surprised. We all watched her downward spiral and tried all that we could try. The will to get clean was never really her goal and left all of us feeling hopeless but resigned. It seems her main reason to go into rehabs was to get off the drugs just enough so that she’d get high from them again.

She never got involved with the law. Never arrested. I don’t know if that would have helped her determination to get clean or not…I kind of doubt it. Counselling for both my son and granddaughter helped them heal…it was 8 years ago. Somehow, we need to figure out how to better help these people, whether it’s more law involvement or better rehab programs. I honestly think most or many rehabs are just in it for the money. Even the follow up information is weak and hit or miss.

For anyone that has gotten clean from drugs or alcohol, I have a great respect for them. It takes true courage to recover and a long time to fully heal, both body and mind!

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

She never got involved with the law. Never arrested. I don’t know if that would have helped her determination to get clean or not…I kind of doubt it. Counselling for both my son and granddaughter helped them heal…it was 8 years ago. Somehow, we need to figure out how to better help these people, whether it’s more law involvement or better rehab programs. I honestly think most or many rehabs are just in it for the money. Even the follow up information is weak and hit or miss.

I am so sorry for your loss.

The problem with a lot of rehabs at least in California is that they are 12 steps based only. They tend to be all about 12 twelve steps and the time spent in them are like one big AA/NA meeting. I can admit the 12 steps have helped many but it is not a magic bullet. Paying somewhere around 20 grand for a few months in rehab for 12 step meetings and a accountability partner (Sponsor) does not have the best success rate. I cannot tell you what is better but something has to be.

 

[MarysLurker]

Somehow, we need to figure out how to better help these people, whether it’s more law involvement or better rehab programs. I honestly think most or many rehabs are just in it for the money. Even the follow up information is weak and hit or miss

I am sorry for everything you and your family have been through… It must have been tough to share all that.

There is good evidence for Drug Courts and other diversion programs as being effective in rehabilitation. But there aren’t enough good people trying to help. I think you are right about a lot of healthcare providers being in it for the money, not to help.

We do need both more law enforcement and more treatment. Unfortunately, the current political trend is to gut law enforcement and underfund treatment providers.

 

[jeannetherese]

From the fact that it stores up with fat.
If you’re smoking pot on weekends, you are going to have pot in you for at least as many weeks as you smoke on weekends. You can go for years without being free from its influence.

 

[jeannetherese]

This country has been legislating based on religion for centuries. Many of our founding fathers came to this country for reasons of religion which informed their cultural practices, including the law.

 

[jeannetherese]

How about we set up dispensaries for the really hard drugs, heroine, meth, etc. Heavily regulate the production, tax the heck out of it, and have gov. oversight on the disposition of the drugs. Build a database of the addicts, use the tax money to build treatment programs which are affective, address the mental health issues which underlies some of the abuse.

Let’s see, and how are those meth and heroin addicts going to be able to pay those taxes? By breaking into your home, robbing the local bank, hitting your mailbox and getting into credit card fraud. Addicts will do what it takes to pay your taxes…but don’t count on it being productive labor.
And that database? The ACLU might not be willing to stick up for religious freedom (see their attitude towards the Little Sisters of the Poor) but I’m betting they will hit the courts in a jiffy to protect the identities of those druggies.
And how does one make an addict take time off to head for the nearest mental health clinic and submit to counseling when the priority is getting the latest fix and settling back to enjoy it, and then getting the means to get the next latest fix?

 

[Rozellelily]

It wasn’t a failure, though

Is this really true though Mary’s Lurker?
The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Approximately 65 % of the USA prison population is addicted to drugs. And they are often injecting drug users. And a good percentage were incarcerated in the first place do drug related offences.

So has America’s War on Drugs truly been successful if all it has done is move many addicts out of the communities and into the prisons?
And at tax payers funds naturally.

And the fact that there is such a ready supply of drugs in prison suggests that the urgent problem of corruption needs to addressed. It will be unsuccessful/counterproductive to direct anti-drug programs towards prisoners when there are crooked guards running them (it only takes one) and often a blurred line between who is the criminal vs who is not.

And also there is clearly still plenty of hard drugs in the USA community because often we see stories on Dr Phil from the US of people heavily on methamphetamine, even mothers, grandmothers!

Instead, the cartels get more access to the free market to launder even more of their money

This makes a lot of sense. The criminals “only occupations” are growing wealthy off exploiting others misery, or off exploiting women, so I can imagine they would still find a way.
And they will find someone crooked in the government or pharmacy who would misdirect those drugs to them for a fee. And addicted are always looking for a cheaper option so they will create something for then “cheap and dirty” (very dangerous).

a massive population collaps

This seems to be happening now with Covid, and sadly predominantly elderly people’s.

They will perform sex acts for a hit, but won’t give their name to get it

Unfortunately it is true at least in regards to support services like needle exchange programs.
I cannot not say for USA but in South Asian countries like Kazakhstan, addicts often won’t use support services if they know that their details will be registered for fear of stigma factors.
Maybe if they were actually being given drugs and not just support services, that would be a different story.

 

[Rozellelily]

Honestly, I believe that fatty and sugary food should be taxed through the roof.
Especially fast food.
My parents are like this mentality and I feel so helpless to be able to change it.
They grew up in extreme poverty in Eastern Europe (no toilets, no food, no running water) and now they eat KFC and other fast food fatty rubbish because it tastes good and is cheap.
They can’t understand the health effects, and unfortunately this is the same for many people from lower socio- economic areas.

And I don’t know about your country, but in my country fast food outlets take no responsibility and take advantage of people in poorer area. They know they have a huge customer base there so they put more stores up there than in the wealthier areas. They know that wealthy people like Quinoa and poorer people like KFC and Pizza Hut etc. These companies don’t care that it is killing people by clogging their arteries with fat, as long as they get their dollars.

It can be extremely hard to educate people and it can either sound like a lecture to them or go in one ear out the other (like with my parents and like your family has experienced).
But what they understand very well and respond to is money factors.

If Governments start taxing fast food outlets through the roof, they will be forced to greatly increase their prices. So when there is no longer any $8 Tuesday greasy chicken special etc, but has now become $40, people in poor areas/poverty mindsets will start on their own saying “now they are too expensive, I won’t buy from them anymore”.

And those taxes can be used to open healthy but tasty government subsidised food outlets in those poorer areas. That are CHEAP and therefore inticing the citizens.

So why don’t Governments do this - is it that noone has thought of it, or is it that rather that no one cares?
Government do not live in poorer areas so they think it “not my problem?”

Or is it that they are afraid to tax fast food outlets through the roof being afraid they will then close the stores in our countries and in turn result in higher unemployment?

 

[Rozellelily]

Wow. I’m very sorry Patty.

 

[Thorolfr]

Any drug which can lead to intoxication has some level of impairment at any level. Your one drink may not put you at the level of being legally intoxicated based on the legal statutes for you state, but that doesn’t mean it has no effect on your ability.

I don’t think it’s true that every drug that can cause intoxication will cause impairment at any level. Adderall, a drug used to treat people with ADHD, is an amphetamine (just like meth) and at high doses would be intoxicating. But at the low doses prescribed to people with ADHD, instead of causing impairment, it actually makes them better and safer drivers. One of the top experts on ADHD, Dr. Russell Barkley, says that anyone with ADHD shouldn’t drive unmedicated without a drug like Adderall (at prescribed doses, of course) being in their system when they’re behind the wheel.

 

[Rozellelily]

A law can be made to force addicts into treatment, but if the current rehabs are no effective then it will all just be in vain. Eventually they will be released and go back to the street and to their old habits.

“Grand American style” emotionally charged interventions can happen, but if available rehabs are not successful and effective then ultimately it all just amounts to an “tele-nova drama show”.

And the majority (except for prison) rely on the addicts self-motivation to seek treatment. And it is no secret about addicts motivation levels and lack of concern for their own health.

Is the selfishness of the Medical profession today part to play in the every present issue of drug addiction?
I.e., back in old days doctors used to come out to peoples home. This is before my time but I know this happened. No offence to any doctors here, but perhaps doctors today have become too selfish.
There is little of a sense of service anymore. Most doctors -and particularly specialists- revolt at the idea of actually visiting any patients home.
They want to clock off at 5.30 period, go play golf or play with kids or whatever.
There is often a mentality of “I am not a junior doctor anymore, I don’t have to work long shifts. I have earned the right to each day same time clock off. I have paid off my mortgage/s and I have no need to do overtime. I certainly won’t work on weekends (referring to specialists) let alone go to a patients house.”

Yet in poor Central Asian countries like Kyrgyzstan, where there is huge stigma towards drug addicts, medical staff and peer-support counsellors will go to the addicts homes, given them hiv tests at home, literally walk with them to treatment centers to support and motivate them, etc.

Surely in western countries, if medicine moves away from selfishness, more to this “poor country” approach it may be something untried that will provide some success??

And more focus and money should be put into peer-support workers. Ex addicts who have “been there themselves” and can show current addicts the light.

And there should be focus on how to help these people with sad emotions coping skills for circumstances, and how to have a “natural high”. Their brain is often unable to find a natural high, so they turn to chemical means. To feel good and escapism.
There needs to be medical focus on restoring chemicals in the brain & cognitive function (if it is not too late) and not just focus solely on abstinence.

For the most part, (natural) drugs are not the problem. It is the abuse of drugs that is. Marijuana and even Opium have their rightful place as medicinal use. I.e., pain relief and similar. But sadly, they are used for abuse much much more than for medicine.

 

[MarysLurker]

Is this really true though Mary’s Lurker?
The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Ironically, the reason for the high incarceration rate is our obsession with liberty. We don’t do compelled mental health or addiction treatment because we do not trust government with that kind of power. As a result, addicts refuse treatment and end up on the streets, where they commit crime and are thus incarcerated.

In other countries, they would have been forcibly treated, and thus not counted as jailed.

 

[Rozellelily]

But even it doesn’t have to be forced if it could be medical workers and peer support worker coming to their house etc. If it can be done in a way that is “early intervention” but at the same time makes the addicts feel that is something that is being done with them as opposed to to them, it may have more success.

Sadly, even in countries with forced treatment there is high relapse rates. That is why they need peer -support. People that they can feel are on the same level as them instead of just a clinical approach.

And I agree with you that this early intervention needs to be done in some form or another. The rights of the public to not be robbed, - or even much worse - need to be considered as much as the addicts rights.
So much of violent crime is due to drugs. And there are too many young people getting into drugs (main worse one now being methamphetamine) because they feel a sense of purposeless in their lives.

Where I live methamphetamine use is replaced heroin use for the large part. And I think it is worse because people can be more unpredictable or violent on this that with heroin use.

 

[Pattylt]

From the fact that it stores up with fat.
If you’re smoking pot on weekends, you are going to have pot in you for at least as many weeks as you smoke on weekends. You can go for years without being free from its influence.

Could you link to information about this. As far as I am aware, it isn’t stored in fat but I could be wrong. Thank you. I also would like to hear about it influencing someone for years.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

Well… I am a ex drug addict. 12 years clean. I spend about 5 years in the system in one way or another due to my choices while active in my addiction.

Congrats on 12 years sober!

 

[otjm]

The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The US was founded on independence, and it has been both the strength of the nation and perhaps its greatest weakness. That “independence” comes out too often in a “You can’t tell me what to do” attitude.

Coupled with that, from experience of defending criminals, is a great deal of impulsivity. It is truly amazing how few of them actually stop to consider the consequences of their actions.

There are literally a multitude of stories of 75 to 100 years ago, where a miscreant child would be dealt with by neighbors as likely as by the parents; now we have neighbors we barely know, and wouldn’t dare even bawl a kid out.

We also did not have the level of drug problems 75 to 100 years ago that we have now. In the 70’s it was very chic among the well-to-do to do a line of cocaine - but it was expensive. In the mid 80’s it was reduced to crack, and spread among the poorer drug users.

The Beatles sand of “mother’s little helper”, and people who had pain from surgery or other physical ails obtained drugs from their doctor, and learned to scam the system - and kids saw their parents taking drugs to “help them” - and learned a lesson.

Drugs underlay a tremendous amount of other crime - theft, burglary, robbery, prostitution - as it is the means of paying for the illegal non-medical sourced drugs. It has been said repeatedly, including by the drug cartels, that we would not have a drug war and they would not be smuggling drugs into the US if they did not have buyers.

So has America’s War on Drugs truly been successful if all it has done is move many addicts out of the communities and into the prisons?
And at tax payers funds naturally.

You made a leap there not consistent with your statistics.

65% may be in prison for crimes which were prompted by an underlying drug addiction. The War on Drugs has been the interdiction of drugs coming into the US - through cross border transport and off-shore transport. That War is not about incarcerating addicts. In Oregon, 5% of the prisoners in the penitentiary are there for drug crimes - possession of more than use amounts, low level dealers and mid level dealers. While the rest of that 65% might have been addicts, they are there for the crimes they committed - to pay for their addiction. If the War were successful (however we define it), the addicts would be going cold turkey as there would be no or minimal supplies and suppliers. The Coast Guard literally interdicts tons of drugs being smuggled in via the ocean. So it cannot be said that it is unsuccessful, unless you define that as seizing all drugs.

 

[MarysLurker]

Coupled with that, from experience of defending criminals, is a great deal of impulsivity. It is truly amazing how few of them actually stop to consider the consequences of their actions.

There are literally a multitude of stories of 75 to 100 years ago, where a miscreant child would be dealt with by neighbors as likely as by the parents; now we have neighbors we barely know, and wouldn’t dare even bawl a kid out.

And parents who are often absent, whether because consumed in their own lives or because they have abandoned their children. Starting with the Vietnam generation, we now have multiple generations of fatherlessness. It isn’t a coincidence that the American drug problem began around that same time.

 

[Savanah]

I wonder how long the irrational fear of the mythical “Drug Dealer”? If you use drugs you must buy them, correct? Isn’t buying and selling necessary to constitute a transaction? How can drinking a beer be ok but the simultaneously the bartender is evil? Why is having a business mind applauded as entrepreneurship or chasing the American dream for every single commodity save one? Dealers get innocent people "hooked " on drugs. Drugs MAKE you act irrational. Didn’t someone get the dealer hooked before he morphed into the boogie man. Why blame him? . … more than someone who neglects their children?!? How about we just judge character by actions. It’s boring sure, but kinda better than ruining lives by demonizing people with thinly veiled hatred disguised as concern.

 

[LilyM]

Rozellelily:

The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The US was founded on independence, and it has been both the strength of the nation and perhaps its greatest weakness. That “independence” comes out too often in a “You can’t tell me what to do” attitude.

Coupled with that, from experience of defending criminals, is a great deal of impulsivity. It is truly amazing how few of them actually stop to consider the consequences of their actions.

There are literally a multitude of stories of 75 to 100 years ago, where a miscreant child would be dealt with by neighbors as likely as by the parents; now we have neighbors we barely know, and wouldn’t dare even bawl a kid out.

We also did not have the level of drug problems 75 to 100 years ago that we have now. In the 70’s it was very chic among the well-to-do to do a line of cocaine - but it was expensive. In the mid 80’s it was reduced to crack, and spread among the poorer drug users.

The Beatles sand of “mother’s little helper”, and people who had pain from surgery or other physical ails obtained drugs from their doctor, and learned to scam the system - and kids saw their parents taking drugs to “help them” - and learned a lesson.
65% may be in prison for crimes which were prompted by an underlying drug addiction. The War on Drugs has been the interdiction of drugs coming into the US - through cross border transport and off-shore transport. That War is not about incarcerating addicts. In Oregon, 5% of the prisoners in the penitentiary are there for drug crimes - possession of more than use amounts, low level dealers and mid level dealers. While the rest of that 65% might have been addicts, they are there for the crimes they committed - to pay for their addiction. If the War were successful (however we define it), the addicts would be going cold turkey as there would be no or minimal supplies and suppliers. The Coast Guard literally interdicts tons of drugs being smuggled in via the ocean. So it cannot be said that it is unsuccessful, unless you define that as seizing all drugs.

As a non-American I find not just a “you can’t tell me what to do” attitude, but as a side-effect, a “your problems and needs are basically none of my conceen” attitude. As evidenced by a resentment of government welfare programs and a demonisation of many of their recipients.

It is all very well to laud self-motivation and say that welfare and charity should b voluntary, but that was the status quo pretty much all over the industrialised world before the 1900s and it led to the vast majority of people even in the wealthiest nations leading lives that were nasty, brutish and short.