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“$15,000 in 3 Months Is Change”
The title of this essay is a quote from a heroin addict on what he spent on heroin. As a former police officer, it should come as no surprise that I do not support legalizing drugs like heroin and meth. I understand that for some it is an academic exercise, but I had to clean up the mess when people became addicted to drugs.
One afternoon when working a festival four of us were approached by an individual who said there was an awful smell coming from a porta-potty. We didn’t have any trouble finding it, and we knew right away what that odor was.
My warbag contained extra copies of blank report forms, a copy of the revised statutes, and enough ammunition to take over a small Latin American country was locked up in the trunk of my police car. More importantly, my jar of Vicks was in that bag. We used Vicks for welfare checks that might include someone who had passed away a week earlier in their apartment or home. A Vicks smear underneath your nose made it a little easier to process the scene.
We pried open the door, and there was an individual sitting on the toilet seat, a syringe in his arm; an arm that was tied off to try and find a vein, which he found. He had probably died a day or two earlier. Two 90 degree days, well let’s just say it wasn’t a pleasant experience.
If you believe that the state should sanction heroin use, then you should understand that someone you love might be approached to use heroin. You should also understand that a police chaplain might meet you at the morgue to offer what comfort they can.
I’ll leave you with some more quotes from the link I provided at the beginning of the article.
Heroin costs everything. As in all your money, all your earthly possessions, everything of value that you own. She will take it all. Then she will take your family, friends, and everyone you care about. And she will leave you penniless, alone, sick, cold, and desperate.
When you have an addiction to heroin, you become a slave. She says give me $15,000, you might think, “I don’t have it.” But you’ll get it. It might mean stealing, tricking, conning, and so on. But you’ll damn well not say no to her. Because she knows all your weak spots. She knows what hurts you. And she will hurt you. Oh boy, will she hurt you. First, it’s physical pain. She will torture you physically. The longer you refuse, the worse it will get. And then, if that doesn’t work, she will torture your mind.
So, you will get the money and do it quick. And don’t even try to fight her. It’s a fight we cannot win. Trust me. I’ve been fighting her for 14 years. Recently I decided to stop fighting. I’m too tired to fight.
I’ve seen far more than the one incident I described when it comes to heroin or meth use, but they are not very pleasant stories, so one will be enough.
Published in General
Well, thank you. I can pretty much sum up all I learned on the street in one sentence; Father Flanigan of Boy’s Town was wrong, there is such a thing as a bad boy, and some bad girls as well.
Cracked.com did a decent piece on what being a heroin addict is like: (rough language warning)
http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1306-5-unexpected-things-i-learned-from-being-heroin-addict.html
The final paragraph has probably the most useful bit:
Indeed! Self medication.
Or, according to Johann Hari:
Chasing the Scream: The Opposite of Addiction is Connection
We can’t keep drugs out of jails. Prohibition is useless. Junkies will get their drugs no matter what. Prohibition has only led to stronger and stronger and more dangerous drugs. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, nor can we ever get rid of meth and other drugs now that they exist, thanks to prohibition.
And we are not obligated to feed junkies. This is another example of the evils of socialism. We justify intrusive and ineffective laws that undermine our freedoms and create organized crime based on the ridiculous assertion that we are responsible to provide anything for junkies.
As to your complaint that you have to deal with dead bodies in port-a-johns: That’s your job. We pay someone to do that and that someone is you. And maybe if there weren’t criminal liabilities for using drugs, the guy would have overdosed, if at all, in his home.
My brother-in-law was clean for a long time until my father-in-law died and he back slid hard. He had a wonderful wife and two great kids and a thriving low cost housing business that won awards from the city of Dallas. But the heroin was too powerful. He squandered his inheritance, and my mother-in-laws’ too, on one rehab program after another. After a program in Minnesota seemed to be really effective, he came back to Dallas to bring his car up there to continue treatment. But he was triggered and did heroin again, at a dose his body couldn’t tolerate anymore, and he died in his sleep at a shelter. There was no law that was ever going to stop him from using.
A few years later, his wife died of an aneurism while in line at the ATM and his kids are orphans now. What a shame he couldn’t have been there. He had every motivation to not do drugs. Illegality was the least of his deterrents.
Good Lord. I didn’t get the idea at all that @dougwatt was “complaining.” Merely that he was describing his experience for those of us who might want to learn. As for folks “doing their job,” we are fortunate that men such as Doug sign up for such work, just as we should feel fortunate that fine men sign up for other, equally and sometimes even more difficult, tours of duty in this country and elsewhere.
I’ve run into many men like Doug on the local police forces, who’ve acted with kindness, understanding and humanity in the case of my mentally ill relative with drug and alcohol problems. Yes, they are doing their “job.” But they do it with love and care. God bless them all.
Well, I’ve lived next door to someone who did exactly that. And believe me, it wasn’t a glorious picnic either. Not for the neighbors, nor the first responders, nor the city government who eventually condemned the filthy place and tore it down. Madness is madness. Death is death. And when they happen anywhere under adverse and uncared for circumstances, it’s not nice.
Illegal drugs destroy life, destroy families. It’s one life, but it affects everyone associated with them. It destroys the fabric of a healthy society. It is one reason why I support the strong borders concept – it’s getting into the country and making thugs and some countries rich. I’m sick of it – I remember when Gina Haskell, the new CIA Director, was addressing Congress, she said she was shocked to return to her home state of Kentucky and see the rampant drug problems that have taken over (and to shock someone like that, who has seen it all, has to be bad). It’s true and has permeated every corner of our country. God bless law enforcement and all of those on the front lines.
But it’s already illegal and nothing will stop drug trafficking. Nothing. Ever.
I don’t know … I thought George Carlin’s idea of publicly crucifying the bankers and money launderers could have potential. Add dirty cops and border patrol agents, too. You’ll never stop people from wanting drugs or wanting right make money selling drugs, true, but I’m sure the government can figure out lots of ways to prevent customers from buying what they want and entrepreneurs from selling what they want; they try to do it to every other business.
And from where do you get this faith in government? You don’t need bankers to make drugs, and no matter how many you kill more manufacturers and distributors will step up, because there is a huge demand for their product.
Meth or heroin use has nothing to do with prohibition, and they do not exist because of prohibition. We have laws against bank robbery, and yet banks are still being robbed. Prohibition has nothing to do with addiction. Proponents of legalizing recreational marijuana don’t sell it by saying marijuana use will decrease if it’s no longer illegal.
Laws have never, nor will they ever prevent someone from doing something stupid, or evil. When Moses came down the mountain with just Ten Laws I’m willing to bet that within less than 24 hours all ten of those laws had been broken.
I don’t know how the fallacy of laws prevent crime ever got started. Laws are written to define a crime, the elements of a crime, the punishment, and the defenses to a crime. They are written to provide a consistent process to deal with people that never had any intention of obeying a law in the first place.
People don’t rob banks thinking they will be caught, they rob a bank because they believe they won’t be caught.
As far as my job, actually former job is concerned I have no complaints. I knew what the job required. Looking at someone with a needle stuck in his arm, and he isn’t breathing never led me to believe that if heroin was legal he wouldn’t have overdosed. I left the rationalizations, or hypotheticals to the court system, just like crime I couldn’t prevent juries, defense attorneys, or judges from rationalizing, or engaging in hypotheticals. That never bothered me, and I have no complaints about that either.
This is the kind of post that makes Ricochet special. It’s so interesting to read your perspective.
Robbing a bank is universally recognized as a crime as it involves taking something that belongs to someone else. Drug prohibitions were enacted not because you’re hurting someone else but because they want people to not use drugs. Your claim that prohibition is not intended to stop drug use is an absurd fallacy.
I trust the government the way I trust Bill Clinton: I trust them to screw up everything they touch. If they can destroy free markets in healthcare, education, transportation, mail service, and EM spectra, I’m not sure why they couldn’t screw up the “free market” in drugs.
And no, you don’t need bankers to make drugs. They come in really handy though when you need to buy illegal weapons, smuggling boats and planes, armored cars, and generally all the things you need to make an international export business work. Moreover, bankers and other white collars workers are, as a rule, much more risk averse, so targeting them will likely have a greater effect.
As to the effective of government action, somebody should look up the Opium Wars to see if the Chinese addiction problem lessened when they went to war against Queen Victoria’s drug pushers. I just don’t know the history well enough to say.
@reticulator: the Chinese lost the Opium Wars, and the British pushers won. The only effective rehabilitation program that I know of was the one attributed to the Red Chinese: on the first offense, there was rehab. On the second, the offender received a bullet. I’m sure it didn’t stamp out all addiction, but it reduced it enough to where it was no longer a national problem.
Laws are a social contract, and criminal laws are where societies draw the line on undesirable behavior. This is conduct we will not tolerate, and instead of using the most effective proscription, which is banishment, we waste a terrible amount of time and treasure on more “compassionate treatment”, which is not only ineffective but terribly cruel to our society, to the addict, and to everyone who cares for or depends on him. Capital punishment is the ultimate banishment; public punishments that mark the malefactor so that everyone knows his shame are the mildest. To be continued.
This reminds me of the claim that Iceland has eradicated Downs Syndrome by killing all the babies with Downs.
But why? What is the purpose of defining the elements of a crime, and punishing people for committing it? Why bother? Why have any laws at all?
Would you drive faster on the freeway if there were no speed limits? I would.
I would and do.
Come to think of it, if this statement is true, it follows that we could legalize all drugs and end the expensive War on Drugs and expect that the rate of drug use would remain precisely the same as it is now.
So you would drive even faster than you do now if it were entirely legal and you could do so without fear of getting a speeding ticket?
Unfortunately, laws are promoted as ways of preventing illegal behavior, though they can’t really do that. (The 18th Amendment was a good example.) Such laws being passed dishonestly, they degrade the system of law and order.
We should repeal all immigration laws then. If laws are entirely unable to prevent illegal behavior, then the exact same number of immigrants are going to come here no matter what the law says.
Maybe Ocasio-Cortez has a point, and we should abolish ICE. Big waste of money, since it can’t prevent illegal behavior.
You are already paying to support drug habits. Merchants factor in their losses due to theft with higher prices. Insurance companies raise rates to compensate for claims paid in DUII accidents, as well as claims for car break-ins, and homeowner claims for burglaries.
Many crimes are driven by the necessity to purchase drugs. Even if the state provides legalized drugs someone will have to pay for those drugs. Farmers, chemists, and dealers are not going to donate their time to the state to provide drugs.
Actually it doesn’t mean that. Just because you have not caught every bank robber, child pornographer, drug dealer, rapist, or murderer doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prosecute the ones you catch.
Again, why? Why should we prosecute murderers and rapists?
The problem lies in the court system. The Illinois State Legislature passed a law in January that assigns a mandatory minimum sentence for a felon in possession of a firearm. To date not one judge in Cook County has applied that sentence to any felon that has been caught with a firearm.
The following year to date stats for Chicago, located in Cook County should come as no surprise when you don’t enforce the law.
Shot & Killed: 261
Shot & Wounded: 1357
Total Shot: 1618
Total Homicides: 313
Our drug suppression efforts have always focused on the wrong target: the dealers rather than the addicts. So long as there is a demand, there will be suppliers. The Chinese method targeted the addicts. Get rid of enough of them and supply will not be an issue. No-one wants to write off their own loved one, or at least not until they have been victimized one too many times. Addicts are like tribbles though; no matter how appealing one individual may be, collectively they cause disaster.
The problem with legalizing drugs is that addicts will continue to be a disastrous burden. I’ve heard that some long-time, “functional” heroin users are capable of managing their addiction so that they can actually hold down a job, but the rest will not be able to do so. Even if meth, crack, heroin and oxy are sold legally on the street at reduced prices, unemployed addicts will have neither the money to buy it, nor insurance to cover the cost of their trips to the emergency room. They will still have to steal, deal stolen goods or prostitute themselves to pay for their drugs. And we will have to continue to subsidize them through insurance premiums, tax dollars, inventory “shrinkage” that drives up the cost of goods, etc. Plus there will be the increased physical and emotional damage that they inflict as their addiction affects their public behavior, control of vehicles, and job performance while they are still entrusted with jobs. Whether there would be any savings from the cost of prosecution or imprisonment of drug offenders is debatable. Between diversion and other programs, in California no-one goes to prison for small sales, mere possession, or being under the influence anymore; drug trading has to be close to cartel level before prison enters plea negotiations.
The only way I see legalization improving things is if we invoke a form of banishment to protect the non-addicted. Set up secure addiction support facilities where rehab is offered, but that also provides limitless quantities of drugs to those willing to sign a waiver of rights to leave or sue, then feed, house, and clothe addicts until they kill themselves through overindulgence. It would be a lot more costly than the Chinese bullet, but otherwise similar in result.
No, we should be realistic about what laws can and cannot do. Borders can be protected; it’s just that for decades both political parties have opposed this.
It’s a commonplace to refer to drug abuse as an “epidemic.” The characteristic of epidemics is that they are exponentially contagious. A population can also have endemic levels of disease. If you have a highly lethal epidemic that has not yet made inroads into a population, draconian means may well succeed. These usually include isolation or quarantine of the infected people. It may also involve the terrible decision to abandon treatment in a heavily affected region, establish a cordon sanitaire, enforced if necessary by lethal means: a firebreak within which the disease is allowed to kill until there is nobody left to infect either because of death or recovery. Basically border control.
Such means were tried in Sweden when amphetamines began to be a problem: Unfortunately, successful treatment (which was well short of 100% effective) involved involuntary confinement in treatment centers for up to two years.
Entering a region with a raging lethal epidemic and forcibly extracting every infected person for treatment is a whole nother ballgame; unfortunately that’s more or less what our current drug laws require, except that enforcement tends to be selective, and is not selective for treatability either.
It’s also noteworthy that the “contagious” aspect of drug abuse is generally ignored, but it’s common for one addict to initiate many new ones. The classic epidemiological means are contact tracing, isolation and forced treatment of the disease vectors; development of a safe, effective vaccine generally leads to a change in tactics.
In the endemic stage, either the disease’s lethality has been attenuated by a change in the infectious agent (this happened over time with syphilis, among others;) this facilitates the development of immunity in the host population (that part didn’t work out so well with syphilis,) or an effective treatment is developed… or some combination.*
However, once the disease is endemic, the kind of draconian measures that might be acceptable in the epidemic phase are less likely to be effective, or if effective, accepted. (China has long executed its addicts though I think this is beginning to change.)
My own preferred (hypothetical; the science still isn’t there) preferred policy for cannabis required an accurate and practical field test for altered function due to cannabis with strict enforcement of harsh penalties against operating a motor vehicle under the influence of cannabis, (or alcohol, or many prescription drugs.) None of the above has been done in legalization states and walking the current mess backwards is probably impossible.
What’s not impossible is to stop using epidemic control measures in an endemic disease.