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from the stop-treating-medical-issues-as-legal-problems dept.
The old rat-with-drug-laced-water "experiment" is a sham. The only choice the rat in the empty cage has is drinking plain water or drinking drugged water. They never show you a CONTROL where there is a rat with a cage full of cool rat toys and rat friends.
Johann Hari reports via Alternet:
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection. [...] just 17.7 percent of cigarette smokers are able to stop [smoking by] using nicotine patches.
[...]Nearly 15 years ago, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe [...] They decided to do something radically different. They resolved to decriminalize all drugs and transfer all the money they used to spend on arresting and jailing drug addicts and spend it instead on reconnecting them--to their own feelings and to the wider society.
[...]The [sic] most crucial step is to get [addicts] secure housing [as well as] subsidized jobs so they have a purpose in life and something to get out of bed for. I watched as they are helped, in warm and welcoming clinics, to learn how to reconnect with their feelings after years of trauma and stunning them into silence with drugs.
[...]An independent study by the British Journal of Criminology found that, since total decriminalization, addiction has fallen and injecting drug use is down by 50 percent.
[...]The main campaigner against the decriminalization back in 2000 was Joao Figueira, the country's top drug cop. He offered all the dire warnings that we would expect: more crime, more addicts; but when we sat together in Lisbon, he told me that everything he predicted had not come to pass--and he now hopes the whole world will follow Portugal's example.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by gnuman on Friday February 13 2015, @05:11PM
But they didn't touch the abortion and the drug-decriminalisation laws, like they always said they would.
That's how politicians fly - by the public opinion polls. They will try to sway public opinion every way they can so it matches their views. But they will not commit political suicide by going against it.
If significant amount of people wanted to criminalize abortion and screw over the junkies, that's what would happen. But no one wants that anymore, so politicians drop it. As an example, look at US conservatives and the gay marriage laws. No one talks about gay marriage anymore, because it doesn't affect anyone. Republicans love gays! But when there was a choice to be made, it was completely different.
Conservatives, generally, will try to keep policies they think are "correct" to keep the status quo going. Even if it makes no sense. That's why they love police states.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday February 13 2015, @07:04PM
Conservatives, generally, will try to keep policies they think are "correct" to keep the status quo going. Even if it makes no sense. That's why they love police states.
Lots of people like to force others to do what is correct, even if it makes no sense. It's not a conservative-only thing. That's why they love police states.