[MrLeRoy]

Prices are down, which means that supply is up, which means that the War On Heroin is failing. Surprised?

[MrLeRoy]

Wod_list ping

[1L]

Prices are down, which means that supply is up, which means that the War On Heroin is failing.

Maybe. But the two alternatives are no war and legalization, which means much lower prices and more purity. This study shows that would increase dependency. So much for drug legalization wackos thinking.

[AppyPappy]

I guess if murder rates go up, the War on Murder is failing.

The War on My Fat Ass is failing this Christmas. I need to become a soldier in the War of Going To The Gym.

[mr.pink]

A bag of heroin now costs only about $4, Mumbauer said.

Cheaper than beer or a joint in many cases.....that's scarey.

[Phantom Lord]

This is a good thing. After all, Drug Czar John Walters recently said that MJ is more dangerous and more of a problem than Heroine. Looks like people are taking his advice and switching from MJ to Heroine.

[Kenton]

I see the harvest from Afghanistan has arrived.

[kidd]

I'm surprised you posted this. This article is a strong argument against unrestricted legallized recreational drug use.

If you're fishing for people who think the WOD is an unquailified success, I don't think you'll get too many bites.

[monkey]

"Heroin deaths are suffocating our society," he said.

Maybe your society.

There are a lot of percentages in this article, but they don't tell much of a story without absolute numbers. Big percentage increases often mean small numbers.

[sneakypete]

Prices are down, which means that supply is up, which means that the War On Heroin is failing. Surprised?

Of course I'm surprised. How can this be? Ain't we spending billions on this War on Drugs every year for over 10 years now? Maybe we should start spending trillions and declare the Constitution null and void,and give hard time in a feral prison to more pot smokers? Yeah,THAT oughta do it,along with giving fighter-bombers to local sheriff's departments and attack helicopters to the state police!

[trebb]

I thought that Klinton had the war on drugs firmly in hand - I guess he had something else firmly in hand )))))))))

[shrinkermd]

"Low prices and increased purity have caused heroin use to skyrocket in Massachusetts, with a new study showing the drug is the No. 1 reason for admissions to treatment programs and hospital detox units as well as overdose deaths"

The Libertarians must be happy. Aren't they the ones who always tell us the way to go is to legalize, make it cheap and avoid all those prisons?

[Rebelbase]

Did'nt Albore use "increase in Afghani drug trade" as a reason that Bush's policy was failing in Afghanistan?.... when he pulled his little televised hissy fit about to condem Bush's handling of the war a while back?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I can see the TV ads now.

"High quality, low, low prices. I'd give the sh*t away, but my ol' lady won't let me."

[Joe Bonforte]

Drug warriors love manipulating the numbers to make it appear that a disaster is in progress. As another poster noted, these percentage increases are meaningless without seeing absolute numbers.

Let's illustrate with a hypothetical. Suppose 100 people were admitted to substance abuse programs last year, with 19 of them heroin and 52 of them for cocaine. Suppose this year, it's 100 people again, but this time (presumably because heroin has dropped in price) it's 37 for heroin and 34 of them for cocaine. This hypothetical situation would allow the hysterical numbers in this article to be quoted, though (1) the substance abuse problem has not gotten any worse, and (2) you could just as easily talk about decreases in cocaine usage.

Now, if the absolute numbers of people in substance abuse programs had in fact increased, you better believe that this public health bureaucrat would be trumpeting those numbers to get more money for his department. But he didn't, and that suggests that the absolute increases in substance abuse are modest or non-existent.

[Consort]

The Druggers are at it again. Let's hear the mantra about alcohol again. Play the worn out record once again. The endless loop is....endless.

[68 grunt]

Wonderful news. The fed has made God's gift more expensive than this poison and now many of 'gateway' fears are realized.

Everyone of the heroin deaths is a blessing which makes me happy, and they serve as a beautiful object example for our youth of what not to do. Dear drug czar - kiss my a$$!

[AUgrad]

The DPH report showed heroin is the most common drug for which people in the state are seeking substance abuse treatment, with 37 percent of those entering treatment last year saying it was for heroin

That's impossible. Czar Walters said the same thing about MJ just last week. The idiots need to get their lies straight.

[ModelBreaker]

This article undercuts the empirical case for legalization of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Legalization would make the supply of available heroin even cheaper and even more pure. The crisis reported here is a result of the existing low price and high purity. Consider the possibility that legalization would drive the crisis even deeper.

If your position is that, on principle, people should be able to do what they want vis-a-vis drugs regardless of the empirical evidence, I don't agree, but I understand your position. No need to get into an argument about that, which we will never resolve.

But if your position is that the empirical result of legalizing hard drugs would be good (or at least not too bad), I think it is dubious. While I think a good (not compelling argument) can be made that legalization of pot would not cause a crisis (it would just produce a lot of stupid, slow people who accomplish virtually nothing in their lives--but most of them are already stoners), the empirical case on hard drugs seems to me to compel the opposite conclusion.

[Freebird Forever]

"Heroin deaths are suffocating our society," he said.

Reducing support for legalization one death at a time...... better then the threat of imprisonment I guess.

[per loin]

A bag of heroin now costs only about $4, Mumbauer said.

Cheaper than the New York tax on a pack of cigarettes.