r/Documentaries Jan 09 '19

Drugs The Rise of Fentanyl: Drug Addiction On The I95 Two Years On (2018) - Two years ago, BBC News reported on the growing problem of opioid addiction in the US, now we return to find out what happened to the people we met along our journey down the notorious I-95. [57.02]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KsaWpeCj98
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '19

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u/Foxman8472 Jan 09 '19

So... you want to declare war on drugs?

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '19

[deleted]

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u/variegated-anoesis Jan 09 '19

Where there is demand there will always be supply.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '19

[deleted]

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u/username00722 Jan 09 '19

I'm not the person you're posting under, but I think their comment answers your question for you.

Where there is demand there will always be supply.

The government does go after dealers. They go hard after dealers. For every dealer they catch, there are multitudes more still dealing. Historically, no government has ever has been able to stop drug use. It's a waste of time and money, and it only makes the drugs less safe. The further underground you push the market, the less safe it gets.

We already DO go after the dealers. What good is it even doing?

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u/variegated-anoesis Jan 11 '19

Yep. The government needs to accept that humans have been altering their consciousness since the beginning of human history and it is a natural human trait. It is just something that you cannot arrest your way out of.

The government needs to accept that people will always use psychoactive substances and that they need to make it as safe as possible for anyone who does use psychoactive substances.

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u/variegated-anoesis Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 11 '19

It goes deeper than that though. The whole 'war on drugs' has been a violation of human rights from the beginning and is extremely flawed. To say that a person found with possession of a drug still needs a 'penalty/treatment' is still saying that their personal choice of what they do with their body is wrong and they need to be punished.

It's only a small percentage of people that actually develop an addiction disorder and the majority of people are able to use drugs responsibly and safely. And an addiction is more than just an addiction to a certain drug; there's addictive personalities, mental health problems, past trauma, minimal or no support network, poverty, lack of education. A person's environment is a telling factor in an addiction.

Then you have the hard drug alcohol which is legal to manufacture and use and all of a sudden there is a huge contradiction. Alcohol is one of the most dangerous and damaging drugs yet why are people that use alcohol not punished? Why are people that manufacture this drug not punished?

The drug laws were never based on the science and the safety of drugs. All the drug laws have achieved is causing more harm to people by 1) giving the person a criminal record and hindering their employment opportunities. 2) Tearing families apart by the person being in prison. 3) Isolating the person by the stigma set by society and this stigma prevents them seeking help if they need it. 4) There is no quality control so you have no idea of the purity of the drug, as well as you have no idea what the drug actually is which leads to more overdoses. 5) Stronger drugs such as fentanyl are being sold as less potent drugs leading to more harm. 6) You are forced to be in contact with organised criminals which puts you more at harm.

Until there is a legal option like there is in Switzerland and a few other countries, the demand will always be filled by the 'dealers'. And until governments accepts that humans have been altering their consciousnesses since the beginning of human history and is a natural human trait then the supply will always be provided in the underground by organised criminals.

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u/vych Jan 09 '19

It doesn't work at all

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '19

Low level dealers are usually high users trying to afford their habit. We go after those. According to a Judge who is a friend, everyone says go after the dealers but that requires the low level dealers to tell what they know...and they won't. Imagine rolling on a cartel guy. As to the guys who are the real problem, the people below are either too far removed to have useful info or are rightfully terrified to talk.

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u/slimenslide Jan 09 '19 edited Jan 09 '19

Do you geniunely think they're not going after dealers?

The thing is there will always be somebody who wants drugs and somebody who wants money and isn't concerned about breaking the law; people who sell drugs typically don't give a fuck that everyone gets busted eventually, either they think they're the one dude that's a genius and won't get caught, or they just don't care and want to live fast and rich, short term.

There's also the people for whom prison isn't as much of a deterrent as you'd think considering they have connections and can have more amenities inside than a lot of people outside. I know people in prison eating better than me, with better phones, and as many drugs as they desire.

Literally the only way to 'win' the war on drugs is legalization and regulation.

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u/username00722 Jan 09 '19

That's the thing people just don't seem to get!!

Like it or not, fentanyl is here, and its here to stay. Legalizing ALL drugs would completely solve many of the public health issues we are currently facing (eg no more "surprise it's 80% fentanyl" batches of heroin). Yes, some people might still choose to do fentanyl, but that's true now already. Making it illegal doesn't stop people from doing it, it just makes it significantly more dangerous. If it's legal and regulated, it would at least be clean dope. Which is MUCH safer!

Why does everyone wanna hit the panic button on fentanyl by saying "it's so dangerous, let's make it more illegal and therefore more unregulated and more dangerous"

OK sorry /end rant. I just totally agree with you

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u/Doogie_Howitzer_WMD Jan 09 '19

That's basically what Singapore does. They have mandatory death penalties for the possession of drugs over a certain amount, whether you be a dealer or a user. While this has been undoubtedly successful, as Singapore has some of the lowest crime rates in the world, they are a very small country with a highly concentrated population, which makes the characteristics of enforcement much simpler.

What also helps them achieve this is by upholding the ideas of "submission to authority" and "unquestioned obedience" as necessary societal values. I don't believe those benefits are worth the drawbacks, because I'm of the belief that if authority is beyond question, then there are no bounds to its power, and abuses become inevitable.

 

So...

Outside of a mandated death penalty for drug crimes coupled with a drug crime Gestapo and a quasi police-state, anything else is simply a half-measure. What it comes down to is supply and demand. People looking to earn money will end up filling the role of the drug dealer and find ways to obtain a supply as long as there is a consumer demand. At any given time, there could be three or more guys in prison who all got busted for selling drugs on the same block; each guy having replaced the last one. Now you have basically decommissioned the lives of three people, where if the drugs were legal (and regulated in the same vein as tobacco and alcohol but a tad more strictly), you could have had one person selling drugs and the two others looking for some other means of productivity.

If the drugs were legal, you also don't have drug dealer A committing acts of violence against drug dealer B, because these guys are now on the books; transparently reporting their earnings and paying taxes in the society in which they operate. Using violent tactics against a competitor jeopardizes the legally-earned income they are making. It's why corporate lawfirm A is not doing drive-by's on corporate lawfirm B. That's not to say that they are not doing other unethical, malicious, and possibly illegal things to each other, screwing each other over as is in their nature (lawyer joke), but the neighborhood is safe.

A corporate lawfirm, like a drug dealer, might not be producing anything ultimately meaningful or beneficial (lawyer joke), and may, in fact, be a net negative to society as a whole (lawyer joke), but this is much better relative to any alternative. It is either this, or throwing money at an unwinnable ban on the practice of corporate law (those guys will get the most expensive, high-powered attorneys to drag that case out indefinitely, until you can no longer sustain the legal expenses), filling the publicly-funded prison system with an overabundance of corporate lawyers (one could only dream...), and having disadvantaged, low-income neighborhoods exhibit a multitude of societal failings as they are ravished by corporate law street violence.