Heroin Parenting

[Martinus]

We need a comprehensive drug policy reform. Basically right now most of the anti-drug education is based on the principle that all drugs are, fundamentally, equally bad - whether it is marijuana, peyote, LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine or heroin. This is as effective in preventing drug abuse as abstinence-only sex education is effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Sadly, there is too much vested interest from big pharma, big alcohol and big tobacco in keeping the situation as it is for things to drastically change any time soon.

[Syt]

This is fucking crazy. Heroin? HEROIN? That was a drug that fucked up poor people and hard core addicts had problems with - not middle class kids fucking around in college with pot and booze.

I read somewhere that heroin is making a big comeback in the west amongst young people because the current younger generations have not seen the wreckage it created amongst the older junkies. Over here heroin was almost epidemic in the 80s, but most of those junkies have already died out a good while ago, so young people nowadays have not seen first hand the human zombies it created.

Yeah, I recall the 80s radio reporting dead ODed junkies in Hamburg regularly on the morning news, usually adding, "The xxth drug death so far this year."

[garbon]

We need a comprehensive drug policy reform. Basically right now most of the anti-drug education is based on the principle that all drugs are, fundamentally, equally bad - whether it is marijuana, peyote, LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine or heroin. This is as effective in preventing drug abuse as abstinence-only sex education is effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Sadly, there is too much vested interest from big pharma, big alcohol and big tobacco in keeping the situation as it is for things to drastically change any time soon.

Why is big pharma invested in not wanting people to take those drugs?

[Martinus]

We need a comprehensive drug policy reform. Basically right now most of the anti-drug education is based on the principle that all drugs are, fundamentally, equally bad - whether it is marijuana, peyote, LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine or heroin. This is as effective in preventing drug abuse as abstinence-only sex education is effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Sadly, there is too much vested interest from big pharma, big alcohol and big tobacco in keeping the situation as it is for things to drastically change any time soon.

Why is big pharma invested in not wanting people to take those drugs?

Because it provides the closest legally available substitute. 

[The Larch]

This is fucking crazy. Heroin? HEROIN? That was a drug that fucked up poor people and hard core addicts had problems with - not middle class kids fucking around in college with pot and booze.

I read somewhere that heroin is making a big comeback in the west amongst young people because the current younger generations have not seen the wreckage it created amongst the older junkies. Over here heroin was almost epidemic in the 80s, but most of those junkies have already died out a good while ago, so young people nowadays have not seen first hand the human zombies it created.

Yeah, over here heroin used to be super common back then, and there were lots of junkies, you still see some of the most resillient ones around, but most of them were killed off by ODs, and in the 90s lots of anti drug programs were established, with lots of methadone distribution points being opened. In some villages almost the entire young generation of that time was wiped out. In my hometown it was not unusual to see used needles on the floor in the seedier streets or in parks. When I was a little kid I once found a used needle in the playground where my mother took me, and when she saw me picking it up she freaked out and took me home to wash my hands with industrial grade disinfectant.

Yeah, I recall the 80s radio reporting dead ODed junkies in Hamburg regularly on the morning news, usually adding, "The xxth drug death so far this year."

[Valmy]

We need a comprehensive drug policy reform. Basically right now most of the anti-drug education is based on the principle that all drugs are, fundamentally, equally bad - whether it is marijuana, peyote, LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine or heroin. This is as effective in preventing drug abuse as abstinence-only sex education is effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Sadly, there is too much vested interest from big pharma, big alcohol and big tobacco in keeping the situation as it is for things to drastically change any time soon.

Why is big pharma invested in not wanting people to take those drugs?

Because it provides the closest legally available substitute. 

Eh we can drink ourselves into oblivion and big pharma has always been alright with that.

[Martinus]

Not the same thing - only meds can get you high. Plus the attempts to ban alcohol failed. Unlike with drugs which has been a full success.

[Valmy]

Not the same thing - only meds can get you high.

I have to say if this is the market pharma is going for their marketing methods are really bad. 'Cialis will get you so high you will not give a damn you cannot get it up anymore'

[Martinus]

So you never heard of people getting addicted to prescription painkillers?

[Valmy]

So you never heard of people getting addicted to prescription painkillers?

Of course I have.

[Jacob]

I think Marty is NOT saying "Poors should not be allowed to procreate!"

He is saying "Parents unprepared to raise children are a leading cause of those children growing up in poverty, and then having children of their own in poverty".

Trying to break that cycle by making it less likely for unprepared parents to have children they cannot care for is a goal we should work towards, within the bounds of our liberal ethics.

Personally I think a more ethical and more efficient approach would be to help people care for their children. Eugenics has not had a place in liberal thought for a while, and it would be a mistake to bring it back now.

[Jacob]

This is fucking crazy. Heroin? HEROIN? That was a drug that fucked up poor people and hard core addicts had problems with - not middle class kids fucking around in college with pot and booze.

how do you think these people became poor?
Heroin addicts have always been from all classes.  More often than you think among college kids.

Yeah, I was in Vancouver in the 90s during the then epidemic the and there were a number of junkies in my extended social scene. They came from all sorts of backgrounds, though of course they tended to end up as fucked up poor people and hard core addicts (or just plain dead).

[Berkut]

I think Marty is NOT saying "Poors should not be allowed to procreate!"

He is saying "Parents unprepared to raise children are a leading cause of those children growing up in poverty, and then having children of their own in poverty".

Trying to break that cycle by making it less likely for unprepared parents to have children they cannot care for is a goal we should work towards, within the bounds of our liberal ethics.

Personally I think a more ethical and more efficient approach would be to help people care for their children. Eugenics has not had a place in liberal thought for a while, and it would be a mistake to bring it back now.

See, that is a total bullshit response. Nobody said anything about eugenics.

[Jacob]

See, that is a total bullshit response. Nobody said anything about eugenics.

Determining who can and cannot have children based on their perceived fitness is what Marty proposed. That's pretty close to Eugenics as I understand it.

On a second reading on your post I realize that you're not supporting that, but proposing some sort of "we should leave avenues open for unfit parents to not have children of their own accord"; my apologies for the misunderstanding. I assume - but please correct me if I'm wrong - that you mean something like increasing availability of counselling, birth control, abortion, and sex education to reduce the rates of accidental and early pregnancies will help here? If so, then I'm completely in agreement.

As for "poors should not be allowed to procreate", I think that's pretty much exactly what Marty is saying and you misunderstood him; alternately I misunderstood him and he's just saying we need better programs to support poor people have access to better quality family planning.

[Malthus]

We need a comprehensive drug policy reform. Basically right now most of the anti-drug education is based on the principle that all drugs are, fundamentally, equally bad - whether it is marijuana, peyote, LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine or heroin. This is as effective in preventing drug abuse as abstinence-only sex education is effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies and STDs. Sadly, there is too much vested interest from big pharma, big alcohol and big tobacco in keeping the situation as it is for things to drastically change any time soon.

To solve the opiate addiction crisis in particular, what is needed is better alternatives and approaches to medical pain management. No amount of anti-drug education, even if it quite properly identifies the relative dangers of different street drugs, can solve this problem alone (although admittedly, shitty education is worse than good education).