AldoLagana t1_j1lyt8p wrote on December 25, 2022 at 1:55 PM

shouldn't we just give that group all the opioids they want? if you expect to coerce behavior, why do we still have hateful and intolerant humans around? why have we not behavior modified that aspect of humanity out of our "system"? hint: more humans mean more money to the money-grubbing capitalists, their personality and behavior does not matter to capitalists because every human pays to live.

UnkleRinkus t1_j1n4g2f wrote on December 25, 2022 at 7:47 PM

Until the US passed the Harrison tax act of 1914, we did exactly that. Opiates were perfectly legal to sell in over the counter medications, and there were many morphine addicts in the US. However, they could satisfy their addiction cheaply and legally, and so it was simply tolerated reasonably. They held jobs, they lived their lives, they just had to have their patent medicine every day.

The single biggest law that reduced addiction in the US was the 1906 pure food and drugs act. This required labeling the contents, and people started avoiding the ones with morphine.

In 1970, Britain did an experiment, they resisted the pressure from the United States and made heroin legal to addicts. Marginalized people who had been living on the streets, went back to their families, started working, because they didn't need to steal $100 a day to maintain their addiction. Then the US pressured Britain to stop the experiment, which they did, and the positive effects disappeared.

You made the glib statement above, but there is strong rationale to do exactly that. If we provided legal opiates, of a regulated strength, in a regulated manner to addicts, my belief is that we would see a dramatic drop in crime, and a serious reduction in the life problems of addicts.

ohhelloperson t1_j1meums wrote on December 25, 2022 at 4:25 PM

…? What point exactly are you trying to make here?

dftba-ftw t1_j1mfprf wrote on December 25, 2022 at 4:32 PM

I think they're trying to argue that we should just let this people kill themselfs so that their genes don't get passed on.

So basically they're shouting "I'm a horrible human being"

Devil_May_Kare t1_j1pkueq wrote on December 26, 2022 at 10:37 AM

Opioid use rarely kills people with clean drugs of known strength. Opioid use kills people when they don't know how strong their drugs are and take too much by mistake, and when they consume poisons along with the drug, but those risks can be removed without removing the opioid.

So letting people buy opioids over the counter wouldn't actually cause people that kill themselves and not pass on their genes.