"If they are going to steal and hurt people to get the "stuff", just give it to them and we would all be better off."
Thats the basic idea of a new way to look at drugs and crime that goes with it. Concerns that "everybody would get it if its free and then we will just have everybody addicted" are not well founded - would YOU take heroin just because its free? Of course not.
A big proportion of the crime, and basic family debt and poverty, come s from "sin taxes". It all on products that are "sins", things that people get adicted to, that we say they made a choice on and only their weakness and lack of willpower is keeping them tied to these things.
Tobacco, Opiates,booze - those three alone account for a lot of poverty, when people are compelled to spend on them but don't really have enought spare money for them without breaking the budget. And the high costs are artificial, not market forces or production costs, but taxes or the premium paid when its illegal. That part, prohibition, is a benefit to crime, without the prohibition, they would lose their corner of the market and society would have less powerfull organised crime, a good thing eh?
I wouldn't include all the "sins" in the giveaway - not gambling , and not METH and other'chemical' drugs or COCAINE that have no medicinal value. Thats a fuzzy line tho... but you get the idea.
Tobacco is unique in some ways. The high price does seem to have deterred teens - or is it that they don't want to be addicted? Perhaps a rebate for adults who smoke and who cannot quit .
There is something wrong where "if you have money, its affordable and you can smoke ; but if your are low income smoking is a major budget killer." Its not protecting the rich, and it is unintentionally creating poverty conditions for smokers who cannot quit. If high tobacco taxes really worked as a deterrant for teens, we would have 90% of rich kids addicted to tobacco, but its not that way.
Reasons for addiction, and the reasons for not having the toughness required to beat addictions, can and often do come from things beyond a persons control, not a choice. Anxiety, health problems - {some people with bowel diseases find tobacco helps] social status including personal appearance, intelligence, etc. etc.
I want to not blame the addicts completely.There may be some validity in that. Or maybe its just an excuse [I am an addicted to tobacco...]
its just not right that addicts are suffering financially for years on end from taxes that are completely optional. Give them the stuff, and crime will go down, there will be less suffering. And for some, just living without the constant poverty conditions would allow them to feel better, less anxiety, and they just might quit! Very few I suppose, its a pipe dream! ha/
This can be extended to all the essentials, like housing - everyone deserves basic shelter, and we have plenty of resources to make it happen. Why not gaurantee basic shelter to everyone?
And FOOD - having affordable basic food would ease the budgets of the poor and allow for better health and less health care expenses. Plus, its a basic human right.
Socialist? No, please don't frame this as a "left-right" debate. Its time we got away from that and openedup some new views on these problems that are chronic now, going on and on, creating classes of poor people and desperation that just holds everyone back from being the best they can be.
We will hear replys that say " a lot of people are just so lazy and useless, they would just trash anything we give them." Its true I guess, but lets not begrudge them this just because they are messed up - being that messed up isn't what they would choose to do with their lives.
There are allways other factors.
Actually, I have yet to meet an addict of opiates that does not have health problems that were there before they became addicts.
Undertreatment of pain, and 'authority denials' of pain being real, so they could deny those WCB claims, often drives people to self-medicate. From there, its a short path to being addicted to "street drugs" but not METH or COKE - they are just looking for opiates to relieve their pain. Their doctors didn't give them the right drugs, instead opting for the modern anti-depressants, etc. that didn't help at all.
This happens because doctors have been trained to see them as mental cases, that they have psychological problems and not real pain . Anyone with neurological pain could easily be mis-judged like that... and morphine helps when nothing else does - of course they are candidates for addiction to street drug opiates.
Should we now make them pay $100 a day for it?
Thats the basic idea of a new way to look at drugs and crime that goes with it. Concerns that "everybody would get it if its free and then we will just have everybody addicted" are not well founded - would YOU take heroin just because its free? Of course not.
A big proportion of the crime, and basic family debt and poverty, come s from "sin taxes". It all on products that are "sins", things that people get adicted to, that we say they made a choice on and only their weakness and lack of willpower is keeping them tied to these things.
Tobacco, Opiates,booze - those three alone account for a lot of poverty, when people are compelled to spend on them but don't really have enought spare money for them without breaking the budget. And the high costs are artificial, not market forces or production costs, but taxes or the premium paid when its illegal. That part, prohibition, is a benefit to crime, without the prohibition, they would lose their corner of the market and society would have less powerfull organised crime, a good thing eh?
I wouldn't include all the "sins" in the giveaway - not gambling , and not METH and other'chemical' drugs or COCAINE that have no medicinal value. Thats a fuzzy line tho... but you get the idea.
Tobacco is unique in some ways. The high price does seem to have deterred teens - or is it that they don't want to be addicted? Perhaps a rebate for adults who smoke and who cannot quit .
There is something wrong where "if you have money, its affordable and you can smoke ; but if your are low income smoking is a major budget killer." Its not protecting the rich, and it is unintentionally creating poverty conditions for smokers who cannot quit. If high tobacco taxes really worked as a deterrant for teens, we would have 90% of rich kids addicted to tobacco, but its not that way.
Reasons for addiction, and the reasons for not having the toughness required to beat addictions, can and often do come from things beyond a persons control, not a choice. Anxiety, health problems - {some people with bowel diseases find tobacco helps] social status including personal appearance, intelligence, etc. etc.
I want to not blame the addicts completely.There may be some validity in that. Or maybe its just an excuse [I am an addicted to tobacco...]
its just not right that addicts are suffering financially for years on end from taxes that are completely optional. Give them the stuff, and crime will go down, there will be less suffering. And for some, just living without the constant poverty conditions would allow them to feel better, less anxiety, and they just might quit! Very few I suppose, its a pipe dream! ha/
This can be extended to all the essentials, like housing - everyone deserves basic shelter, and we have plenty of resources to make it happen. Why not gaurantee basic shelter to everyone?
And FOOD - having affordable basic food would ease the budgets of the poor and allow for better health and less health care expenses. Plus, its a basic human right.
Socialist? No, please don't frame this as a "left-right" debate. Its time we got away from that and openedup some new views on these problems that are chronic now, going on and on, creating classes of poor people and desperation that just holds everyone back from being the best they can be.
We will hear replys that say " a lot of people are just so lazy and useless, they would just trash anything we give them." Its true I guess, but lets not begrudge them this just because they are messed up - being that messed up isn't what they would choose to do with their lives.
There are allways other factors.
Actually, I have yet to meet an addict of opiates that does not have health problems that were there before they became addicts.
Undertreatment of pain, and 'authority denials' of pain being real, so they could deny those WCB claims, often drives people to self-medicate. From there, its a short path to being addicted to "street drugs" but not METH or COKE - they are just looking for opiates to relieve their pain. Their doctors didn't give them the right drugs, instead opting for the modern anti-depressants, etc. that didn't help at all.
This happens because doctors have been trained to see them as mental cases, that they have psychological problems and not real pain . Anyone with neurological pain could easily be mis-judged like that... and morphine helps when nothing else does - of course they are candidates for addiction to street drug opiates.
Should we now make them pay $100 a day for it?
