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posted by FatPhil on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the choose-life dept.

This Bold Plan to Fight Opioid Overdoses Could Save Lives--But Some Conservatives Think It's "Immoral"

With Ohio beset by a massive public health around opioid use and overdoses--more than 4,000 Ohioans died of opioid overdoses in 2016--the Cleveland Plain Dealer sent travel editor Susan Glaser to Amsterdam in search of innovative approaches to the problem. While there, she rediscovered Holland's long-standing, radical, and highly effective response to heroin addiction and properly asked whether it might be applied to good effect here.

The difference in drug-related death rates between the two countries is staggering. In the U.S., the drug overdose death rate is 245 per million, nearly twice the rate of its nearest competitor, Sweden, which came in second with 124 per million. But in Holland, the number is a vanishingly small 11 per million. In other words, Americans are more than 20 times more likely to die of drug overdoses than the Dutch.

For Plain Dealer readers, the figures that really hit home are the number of state overdose deaths compared to Holland. Ohio, with just under 12 million people, saw 4,050 drug overdose deaths in 2016; the Netherlands, with 17 million people, saw only 235.

What's the difference? The Dutch government provides free heroin to several score [where a score=20] hardcore heroin addicts and has been doing so for the past 20 years. Public health experts there say that in addition to lowering crime rates and improving the quality of life for users, the program is one reason overdose death rates there are so low. And the model could be applied here, said Amsterdam heroin clinic operator Ellen van den Hoogen.

[...]"It's not a program that is meant to help you stop," acknowledged van den Hoogen. "It keeps you addicted."

That's not a sentiment sits well with American moralizers, such as George W. Bush's drug czar, John Walters, whom Glaser consulted for the story. He suggested that providing addicts with drugs was immoral and not "real treatment," but he also resorted to lies about what the Dutch are doing.

He claimed the Dutch are "keeping people addicted for the purpose of controlling them" and that the Dutch have created "a colony of state-supported, locked-up addicts."

Your humble Ed (who rechopped the quoting, so head off to the full article(s) to see the full story) adds: of course, this is quite a contentious issue, digging deep into moralistic debate, and where clearly there's little agreed-upon objective truth and plenty of opinions. However, we are a community dotted widely round the globe, and so I'm sure there are plenty of stories of what has or has not worked in different locales.

Previous: Tens or Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Needed to Combat Opioid Crisis?
Portugal Cut Drug Addiction Rates in Half by Rejecting Criminalization


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:18PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:18PM (#712699)

    You forgot the other option, because you are conditioned to view violence as the purview of those who monopolize it. Want me to pay for your shitty road? Got me fucked up. I'll pay the goon squad to fuck your life up. Take sledgehammers to your stuff. Rob your toll booths. Mob any one of you that steps near the town and string them up. It's not pretty, but neither is exploitation. Oppression under the boot of wealthy shysters who use fairy tales like "law" to bully and exploit by the million is even uglier. THAT is the reality of the current system.

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:39PM (2 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:39PM (#712719)

    Also known as "turn the place into a war zone". Because you seem to be assuming that you and your goon squad are going to be more capable of winning that fight than the company who is pulling this off can come up with. Nothing really improves a neighborhood like a good old-fashioned artillery barrage.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:52PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:52PM (#712731)

      He finally showed us the real side of his personality. A violent thug one small step away from justifying his violent tendencies. He wants to live in complete freedom and just IMAGINES that he and his friends will be able to maintain the libertarian utopia against all odds. One person steals some food from them and they'll go get it back and likely end up murdering people over it. Morally. Bankrupt. Asshole. Or MBA for short.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:46AM (#712905)

        Actually, I'm not the VIM guy, just playing devil's advocate. The point was, economic violence can be met in kind, which is why the type of shit he was talking about earlier just wouldn't happen from any serious businessmen. A happy customer will gladly give and give. Fighting, whether literally or figuratively, just isn't sound business. The trick is to make your customer willingly embrace the prison, not extort them like you seem sure would happen.

  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday July 25 2018, @10:28PM (1 child)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday July 25 2018, @10:28PM (#712751) Journal

    And now we see the viloence inherent in your system

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @10:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @10:56PM (#712767)

      But its mutually agreed to violence! Or something... how does that work again?

      I wish every thief had come up to me and had me sign an agreement that if I caught them breaking into my car again I'd kick their ass. Would have saved me some time and kicked their ass right there!

      Seriously, that troll reads like a 5th grade bully trying to get out of detention.