The White House announced a new Heroin Response Strategy on Monday to combat a "heroin/opioid epidemic" across 15 states in the northeast:
The Office of National Drug Control Policy said it would spend $2.5 million to hire public safety and public health coordinators in five areas in an attempt to focus on the treatment, rather than the punishment, of addicts. The funding — a sliver of the $25.1 billion that the government spends every year to combat drug use — will help create a new "heroin response strategy" aimed at confronting the increase in use of the drug. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that heroin-related deaths had nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013.
[...] Once thought of as a drug used only by hard-core addicts, heroin has infiltrated many communities, largely because of its easy availability and its low price, officials said. The problem has become especially severe in New England, where officials have called for a renewed effort to confront it. Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont devoted his entire State of the State Message in January to what he called "a full-blown heroin crisis" in his state. Like the new White House effort, the governor called for a new, treatment-based approach to the drug.
[More after the break...]
Thomas McLellan, President Obama's chief scientist for drug control policy from 2009 to 2012, said $2.5 million "is not close to the financial commitment that is needed" and that use of the opiate-blocker naloxone is a squandered second chance without proper follow-up care. Executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Ethan Nadelmann, was also dismissive of the announcement:
Nadelmann sees drug policy as existing along a continuum, from "lock'em up, hang'em, pull out their fingernails, Singapore, Saudi Arabia" all the way down to "essentially no controls whatsoever, maybe a little for kids." Unfortunately, he says, American drug policy under Obama is way too close to the hang'em end of the spectrum—and this new heroin program won't change the administration's position much in his eyes. That's because it's a bait-and-switch. It's promoted as a treatment-first program, but the details lean heavily toward enforcement and incarceration. It calls for 15 drug intelligence officers and 15 health policy analysts to collect data on overdoses and trends in heroin trafficking. Everyone will feed the data back to a joint health-law enforcement coordination center, which will distribute the data across state lines. That's great for cops. They need fresher leads on where heroin is coming from, who is moving it, and where it's being purchased. But public health officials don't need to know the intricacies of trafficking in order to respond to an ongoing epidemic.
According to a July 7th report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled from 2002 to 2013, with 8,200 deaths in the year 2013. During that period, heroin use increased the most among females (100%), the 18-25 age group (109%), and non-Hispanic whites (114%). Heroin use among households with less than $20,000 of annual income increased 62%, compared to 77% for households with $20,000-$49,999, and 60% for households with $50,000 or more. Tom Frieden, head of the CDC, said that the "epidemic" is growing out of prescription opioid painkiller abuse. He estimates that heroin is available at one-fifth the cost of prescription painkillers.
(Score: 2) by hankwang on Wednesday August 19 2015, @10:30AM
It's not that simple IMO. Who pays for the health care of someone who does severe drug abuse? No matter whether health insurance is privatized or state-funded, the costs of the damage that you willfully do to your own body will likely be coughed up by the rest of society.
Not that I think the US approach of criminalizing drug use is the right solution, because (a) it punishes limited recreational use without costs to society and (b) it's probably more expensive to keep someone in prison for several years than to deal with it as a medical issue.
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(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday August 19 2015, @10:47AM
It's not that simple IMO. Who pays for the health care of someone who does severe drug abuse?
I would much rather pay more taxes and pay more money for insurance than live as under an authoritarian government. Maybe freedom is worthless to you, but it isn't to me. So even if I assume that it would be a net loss to legalize drugs, I would accept that as the cost for freedom. This is much like I would oppose the NSA's unconstitutional mass surveillance which violates our fundamental human rights even if it did keep us safe.
(Score: 2) by hankwang on Wednesday August 19 2015, @01:16PM
I can only read this as a false dichotomy or strawman argument. But if you want to push the discussion in this direction, then my answer is: "your freedom ends where my nose begins."
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(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday August 19 2015, @01:25PM
I can only read this as a false dichotomy or strawman argument.
That was exactly the point: It was to let people know where I stand, were I to have to choose between those things. I value freedom far, far more than I value safety and money.
My true feelings are that it would probably improve the situation to legalize drugs. We spend so much money on trying to stop people from using drugs, and it's completely futile. Use that for something worthless.
But if you want to push the discussion in this direction, then my answer is: "your freedom ends where my nose begins."
As opposed to getting government thugs to ban things merely because they might end up affecting you indirectly? And I assure you that someone else taking a drug isn't going to affect you directly; its effect is indirect, at best. Your quote implies direct effects (getting punched in the nose, for instance), but that is nonexistent here, so it's irrelevant.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday August 19 2015, @06:43PM
No matter who pays, it's still cheaper than prison. Funny how we don't seem to question the costs of prison or who's going to pay for it before we sentence someone.