Posted on 07/09/2017 9:47:58 AM PDT by ColdOne
The Oregon legislature passed two bills Thursday decriminalizing small amounts of six hard drugs, including cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and ecstasy.
The first of the two bills now headed to the governor’s desk, HB 2355, decriminalizes possession of the drugs so long as the offender has neither a felony nor more than two prior drug convictions on record, according to the Lund Report. The second, HB 3078, reduces drug-related property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
Republican State Sen. Jackie Winters claimed the war on drugs as it currently exists amounts to “institutional racism” due to how more frequently minorities are charged with drug crimes than whites.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
Nanny-statism in its purest and most loathsome form. A free people does not submit to "teaching" at the point of a government gun.
Bad - but a drop in the bucket compared to the black market's complete willingness to provide pot to minors.
Sadly, from the article it appears that the bill decriminalizes possession, but does not legalize or regulate the sale of the drugs. So the bad guys continue to sell on the street corner, don’t pay taxes, and are not subject to the tender mercies of regulators. Not exactly a cure for the ailment.
On May 5, 2009, the FDA invited Novus to provide testimony before a special FDA committee that was investigating what Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategies (“REMS”) to impose on dangerous prescription narcotics like OxyContin.
During our testimony, we stated that this is known about heroin and OxyContin:
Heroin was initially advertised as being less addictive than morphine and widely promoted in the United States for the treatment of pain and respiratory problems;
Because of its addictive qualities, heroin was made illegal in 1914;
OxyContin was released to the public in 1995;
Purdue Pharma, maker of Oxycontin, pled guilty to lying to the FDA, doctors and the public in 2007;
Purdue Pharma’s influential friends saw to it that OxyContin stayed on the market even though equal application of the law required that Purdue Pharma not be allowed to do business with the government;
Heroin and OxyContin are molecularly almost identical;
Heroin and OxyContin operate in the same manner in the body;
Heroin and OxyContin are interchangeable and addicts regularly use the one that is available;
OxyContin is easily obtained from a number of doctors who prescribe it for any excuse as long as the patient can pay for the office visit;
According to the studies cited in the March 2008 issue of Pain Physician, use of narcotics like OxyContin in the treatment of non-cancer pain patients has little benefit and many side effects.
2 in 3 murders are solved - whereas no more than 2 in 3000 drug "crimes" are even known to the authorities. That's because murder has an unwilling victim, while everyone involved in a drug "crime" sought it out.
It’s legal in all but name under the medicinal farce.
In my county in OR there are at least 1000 mj grows, and 100 are permitted. The rest are illegal.
this is preposterous....
you can only cry so many tears...
now there's the gem...these animals can break into your car or your place or destroy your property and its a "misdemeanor".
like so many drunks break into liquor stores...NOT!
alcoholics crave alcohol, but there is really little they can do...druggies on the other hand, have multiple sources...’
“So Oregon wants to be the Mecca for drugs.
Oregon is beautiful state: Let me know when this “dies” down and I’ll move there.
There goes our “Castle Doctrine” of home-defense laws. We can devolve like Britain.
Funny that you should say that. Last week, I witnessed a fistfight that broke out in my doctor’s waiting room—involving a biker and my doctor!
Fortunately, my doctor is a Marine!
Ever since forums came to the Internet, I’ve been saying that drug decriminalizations weren’t going to end well.
The trouble is that the vast majority are no longer poor people who began using illegal drugs recreationally; but middle class and wealthier people who were prescribed excess opiates by doctors, encouraged to do so by some of the drug makers. In turn, many became horribly addicted, and were offered no means to get off the drugs other than the agonizing “cold turkey” approach.
Once cut off, the street price of prescription opiates is exorbitant, sometimes $100 a pill. Heroin is a quarter of the price and readily available.
(According to a drug treatment counselor I know, they always say they will just smoke or snort heroin, not inject it, but within two weeks they are injecting it.)
The final key is Fentanyl and its analogs. They are inexpensive to make, with thousands of small labs in China producing them, and they are vastly stronger than even pure morphine. Equianalgesic table:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equianalgesic
So drug suppliers will cut their heroin with one of these, some of which can cause overdose in the microgram range.
Carfentanil, one of the strongest, from 10,000 to 100,000 times stronger than pure morphine, costs from as little as $1,500 for a *kilogram*. Already there was an arrest of a smuggler in Florida with over four kilograms of it. Easily enough to kill every person in New York City.
Oddly enough, “caring” accomplishes little or nothing in this case. Instead, these drugs need to be reclassified as weapons of mass destruction.
They are already weapons of mass destruction it is just that they victims volunteer.
I am a doctor, or was, retired now. Ten years ago there was a big move from organized medicine to “end the suffering” because doctors were withholding pain relieving medications. The number of CME hours I sat through was what was insufferable where doctors were “educated” in how to prescribe these medications and to do so “properly” as to avoid prosecution or lawsuit. I tried vainly to warn folks but no avail. Willful ignorance. Now they are raping the whirlwind.
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