08-09-2017, 10:09 PM
(08-09-2017, 09:57 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Crack down on the border, lower the amount of pain pills prescribed, fully legalize pot as a pain alternative to pain pills.
Then stop rescuing people after their first overdose. It won't be a popular choice, but simply put, if one near-death experience from overdosing doesn't make you stop, you're just going to have to be saved again, and again, and again, and again.
Why does the number of drug users keep growing bigger and bigger? You keep saving their lives over and over. Meanwhile the cost keeps rising for the injected anti-OD drug, and that's not counting the cost of the ambulance itself, and the medical care they need, and the personnel, and the fact that if they're busy saving junkies from trying to kill themselves, they're not available to save someone who DOESN'T want to die.
I'm not really an anti-drug guy, but I totally agree about the implementation of Narcan. Many moons ago when I was experimenting with this and that, I always subscribed to the great Hunter S Thompson quote: "Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride".
You really never know what's going to happen when you ingest a psychoactive substance. Whether it's a hallucinogenic trip that goes upside down b/c of general weirdness in your presence (usually shitty company), or just the plain and obvious fact that you never can be sure what's in the powder or pill you just bought, drugs aren't supposed to have a safety net. There's no FDA regulation on what gets sold on the street. No drug dealer is going to be held accountable for what happens to you after you consume his/her product. It's your decision and responsibility when you use.
I think drug use should should remain seedy and scary for prospective users. It encourages people to weigh consequences. If you think the cops or paramedics are just going bring you back from the brink of death, then it takes a key part of the experience (and a valuable one) away.
Personal philosophies aside, overdoses serve a purpose. If enough people die, then I tend to think that the general public's desire to do the drug will wane. Waves of drug popularity ebb and flow. Crack and meth have trashy stigmas and pretty much failed to become long-term epidemics across all demographics. When enough picks of dead bodies and little kids watching their parents turn blue start becoming prevalent, then perhaps the message will get out. If a person knows enough OD victims, maybe the idea gets through.
