- Joined
- Aug 1, 2014
- Messages
- 26,719
- Reaction score
- 6,278
- Location
- California
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Other
I believe that the drugs used by the homeless are a result of the homelessness, a symptom that maintains the disease for sure but, not a primary cause to start with.
Most homeless addicts start off using drugs at home, exhaust their finances, lose whatever family ties they had to begin with, and then wind up on the street. Addiction is considered a disease, while homelessness isn't.
If parents have become involved in drugs, been useless with their kids and as a result their kids have ended up on the streets then yes but, that is also not the only reason that people end up homeless.
True, there are other reasons as well, such as mental illness, loss of a job, personal tragedy. If we could solve the addiction part of homelessness, we'd be left with the much smaller segment of that group who suffer mental illness. Then hopefully resources could better be directed at helping them.
The war on drugs is a phony war anyway; all it has produced is a cartel for crime. It is an economics problem that governments are trying to solve with moralising and no real regard to the economics! The only way to stop the illicit trade in drugs is to break the cartels so, I support the nationalisation of the illicit drugs industry.
I've gone through periods myself of believing that legalization is the answer. It wouldn't solve the homeless issue to just allow people to abuse drugs. It wouldn't keep people from rotting to death or overdosing. I now see no real benefits of legalization, besides the argument of generating tax revenues from it. But is that worth it? I don't think so, because then governments have an incentive to addict people to drugs.