But think of all the money that the private prisons lose. Won't people think of the corporations that require crime to survive?
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Same with giving condoms to teenagers. The're not going to fuck more because the have condoms. The're going to fuck the same amount but get pregnant less.
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Well of course, the Dutch are clever.
Handing out Methadone and in the harder cases even Heroin, with clean needles in protected spaces, is what finally properly solved the extensive drug issues in the 90s here in Zürich too. The repression approach they tried first just moved the scene from Platzspitz (known in English as "Needle Park" I believe) to Letten. Harm reduction approaches were the true solution.
Same thing in Portugal since 2001 by the way.
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That's assuming that it's a problem that governments want to resolve.
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Plus, this stops lots of violent crimes from happening. Addicts don't have to come up with fast big money just to not feel sick, and dealers won't be fighting for turf.
Here's how science works: you collect data, use it to determine what's effective, then you tell the politicians so they can implement a solution. Most of us would consider giving free heroin to people a bad thing. What we consider it is completely irrelevant because it's based on our emotional reaction.
If the data shows that this approach is effective, especially if it's more effective than what you're currently doing, that's what you do.
The only thing that matters here is: does it work?
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Parts of Canada do that too, sporadically. Then some "tough on crime" populists get into office and decide "those people" are a burden and that "our (city/province) will not facilitate illegal drug use" and the safe sites are shut down.
Aaaaaaaand repeat.
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My conservative family: “If you’re addicted to drugs it’s a moral failing and you’re a bad person, and you deserve to die from an overdose”
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I thought this post was about neanderthals
Then you get Sweden where the government will go out of their way to destroy your life for you if you have drugs in your system.
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But if we did that in the USA, how would we fill all the private prisons with drug offenders?! The fact that people in the USA have a hard on to punish people is why this may never take route. A puritanical thought process on unwanted behaviors made illegal.
This feels like one of those things that gets spread around americentric forums but either don't actually exist or is being extremely misrepresented.
I had a hard time finding recent articles, but the articles I did find all agree Heroin Assisted Treatment, HAT, was good for the addict and the community. It was more effective and cheaper than the alternatives. That said, of the ones I found, they sampled only treatment resistant patients. Meaning conventional means such as rehab & therapy had already been attempted and they failed. So it's like a last-straw form of treatment.
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I was informed by a hivemind of ml tankies that "harm reduction" doesn't work, in any sense.
They made it uncool to do basically
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Addicts aren't demonized, they are monetized and politicized. They have their uses, which is why there is no treatment for the disease.
Is it available to tourists?
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so confusing. what does this have to do with voting for Democrats
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