This recognition and acknowledgment that the war against drugs has been lost is just one more milestone on the way to inevitable legalization.
The sooner the better.
Posted on 01/21/2016 5:32:19 AM PST by BraveMan
Two hundred twenty people died in Milwaukee County in 2014 from heroin and other opiates, 10 times the number from a decade earlier for the entire state.
The alarming rise in deaths from heroin and prescription opiates, like OxyContin, has led to a statewide media blitz, community summits and education campaigns, but the city of Greenfield is launching a novel program launching this week.
“We're on the front lines of this heroin epidemic,†Greenfield Police Chief Brad Wentlandt said.
Wentlandt said his department encountered nearly 500 heroin addicts last year, many of them repeatedly.
“We just came to the realization that we weren't really doing anything to solve the problem. We were simply arresting and ticketing or arresting and referring to Circuit Court, and there was no follow up that would in any way give these young people an opportunity to get better,†Wentlandt said.
Their solution is to offer treatment as an alternative to arrest and prosecution. It's modeled after a program in Gloucester, Massachusetts, but a first in Wisconsin.
(Excerpt) Read more at wisn.com ...
This recognition and acknowledgment that the war against drugs has been lost is just one more milestone on the way to inevitable legalization.
The sooner the better.
Heroin is a key focus for my county Sheriff as well. It’s a huge problem.
I guess since they’ve tried prosecutions and it doesn’t work, it can’t hurt to try another approach. But, you also can’t force these addicts to stay clean.
I know a couple guys who have gone through a seriously good Christian based program and it’s been life changing for them. One was something like 15 years ago and he’s still in good shape. The other is only a couple years back, but the Lord has dramatically rewritten his life.
The recitivism rate for addicts is about 90%. Without a faith based approach replacing the need for getting high with something better, like God, they are still fighting an uphill battle.
legalize heroin? are you insane?
Gradually people are coming to terms with the fact that the way to win the war on drugs is to end it. Addiction is a medical or psychological problem, not a crime problem, but fighting a war against it kills people and makes crime pay (by supporting prices in the black market) without doing anything to address the underlying problems. There are no other medical problems that are fought with bullets, raids, forfeitures, surveillance, destruction of civil rights and mass incarceration, and there is little reason to think the present approach is successful in any way, except in terms of rights lost, property seized and people jailed or killed.
220 deaths?
It’s a self correcting problem.
No one with God in his life would be a heroin addict. So the solution would be to introduce these addicts to the thing that’s missing, that absence that’s causing them the pain they try to subdue with junk. Instead, the State steps in and tries to act as God with a lot of secular claptrap and humanist bilge that doesn’t work and costs millions.
Still, I suppose it’s more effective (and no more costly) than just locking people up.
Grace is free.
My daughter works in the Emergency department at a local hospital. When she tells me of the day’s events, the problem becomes astounding in it’s depth.
They have many “Frequent Flyers”.
No. You don’t end it.
But you do completely withdraw mandatory rendering of unpaid medical aid.
No legal consequences of any sort for not pumping money into resuscitation junkies.
Do they realize that 99.99% of the people that they arrest don't want treatment? That this is probably a huge waste of money? The solution to the policing issue is easy -- don't arrest casual users simply for using. Only arrest them if they are creating some other type of disturbance. Or arrest them if they are in public areas and aren't out of sight in some abandoned building. Otherwise, let them use and end up killing themselves. If they want help, they can come and ask for it and it will be available. But the cold hard truth is that most of them don't want help and if they are hooked on heroin, are probably going to die a miserable death.
Nothing novel at all in this idea. It has been tried in other countries with varying degrees of success.
Tell that to the people whose homes are broken into to steal items to fence them for drugs, the families whose lives have been impacted forever by a high driver who ran into their children's cars and killed them, the women who become prostitutes to pay for their drug habits, etc...
Addiction is a factor in many criminal activities and there is much negative fallout that effects society directly.
Not necessarily.
Only a small percentage actually die. The majority become ‘successful’ in their addiction and all that entails; burglary, robbery, dependency on government/society, the list goes on and on.
General - perhaps you are right but the heroin is a little different. Addicts on percosets and oxycontin turn to heroin because it’s waaay cheaper. It’s affected relatives of mine. In NH its become a plague. Rush Limbaugh had money, these people do not and drift toward heroin. The KY ‘pillbillies’ will be heroin junkies soon if not already. I guess I come out where the drug war against heroin has to be kept up - heroin needs to be expensive, not cheap.
Sounds like a perfect place for grade school age kids to take a field trip to, along with the morgue. Pictures speak louder than words.
Prior to 1890, laws concerning opiates were strictly imposed on a local city or state-by-state basis. One of the first was in San Francisco in 1875 where it became illegal to smoke opium only in opium dens. It did not ban the sale, import or use otherwise. In the next 25 years different states enacted opium laws ranging from outlawing opium dens altogether to making possession of opium, morphine and heroin without a physician’s prescription illegal.
The first Congressional Act took place in 1890 that levied taxes on morphine and opium. From that time on the Federal Government has had a series of laws and acts directly aimed at opiate use, abuse and control.
I thought the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again in the expectation of getting a different result. You can wage for the next fifty years the war against drugs which you have waged for the last fifty years, but you will get the same result.
In 2066 perhaps you will be around, I will not, but you can tell the world how another half-century of creating a market, indeed, creating the world's biggest multilevel marketing scheme has worked. You can explain to the world how the war on drugs continues to your surprise. You can explain to the world why your government persists in creating a market, why your government persists in subsidizing the price in an inelastic commodity?
You can explain to those who will listen why you have seen their government, their police, their judges, their jailers, their border agents, their bankers, become ever more and more corrupt. While you're at it you might apologize for the bodies piling up from drive-bys and turf wars.
You can explain to them how insane I was back in 2016.
What if the price of dope was left to supply and demand? It would be dirt cheap. Cheap Dope=Less Crime.
It’s easy to fix. You make smuggling a capital offense. Get caught smuggling drugs, you will never see the light of day again. If you bring it in by ship, you lose the ship and berthing rights at that port for 10 years. That will force shipping companies to take a more active role.
Then you string up the dealers. Dealing becomes a federal offense with a mandatory 5 year penalty. Doesn’t matter if it is only the kid selling loose joints in the high school yard. No dealers, no drugs, no problem.
Finally, those who are addicted go through a rigorous treatment program with the goal of getting permanently clean. Reason so many go back is their environment. As long as there are dealers there and availability, recidivism is pretty much guaranteed.
You’re exactly right. A strong, emotionless and final response to smugglers and dealers
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