Re: Marijuna
I'm with you until the rehabilitation part.
Addiction is a mental illness. It is not uncommon for it to require several rounds of treatment and rehabilitation - for ANY mental illness - before permanent wellness is established. While it's easy to say they "did it to themselves," and in most cases (but not all) that's true, it's ultimately detrimental to society to either let them languish or keep them in indentured servitude for possibly decades.
If addiction is an illness its safe to say that people who have this mental illness either are already addicted, or are already being treated for their mental illness for tobacco, alcohol, perscription drugs or illegal drugs or --- other things like nymphomania, over eating etc. If you characterize drug addition as a mental illness (which I don't agree with) there is already methods to treat mental illness.
In addition, a lot of people who develop addictions have a pre-existing mental health problem. And oftentimes they turn to drugs after the mental health system has failed them - an unfortunately common occurrence. How exactly do you deal with that ethically and from a care standpoint?
If they have pre-existing addictions and as you previously ascribed, are mentally ill and have been diagnosed as such (one would assume so if it's pre-existing) then these individuals are already being treated with legal prescription drugs. If the mental health system failed them? More like, they failed in their treatment. I would deal with them exactly as I've stated... for example, Bob has been bi-polar since he was 16 (now 35) and has been under physician care but decides he does not want to take his medication any more as he feels it's not making him better. He decides he's going to self medicate with heroin - get's addicted and now is a bi-polar heroin addict... he would be detoxed once under federal guidelines as I've stated, put back under his mental health doctors care, and told he must take his previous medication. If he decided again, NOT to take his medication for bi-polar disorder and again moves back to heroin, he's on his own. Ethically, the state and society has taken care of this man - they've cleaned him up at no cost to him, provided him housing, medication to kick heroin, counseling, a program and put him back into the mental health system such that he can be a valued part of society. If he REJECTS such ovations and decides he doesn't like it - Ethically I'm fine with him living and dying in the gutter. That probably wouldn't happen and if say this goes on for another 3 or 4 times, I would garnish the mans wages and put him in debt to the government such that any money he makes the rest of his life will go towards paying off that debt until it's paid off in full. My way gives everyone 1 shot to **** up and gives everyone a get out of drug addition free card. My conscious can certainly live with that just fine.
This begins to expand into other problems we have like the insane cost of health care. Truth is, most people can't afford any healthcare at all without insurance in this country. It's too expensive. It's the most expensive in the world. Expecting an addict to be able to shell that out when even most well-off middle class people can't is insane, and it is essentially condemning them for life.
It's too expensive because it's not insurance, it's a payment plan. If it were insurance, you'd only use it when big health issues occur. We use "insurance" today for everything - therefore it ceases to be "insurance". When our healthcare system actually WAS insurance our healthcare system was much less expensive.
In addition, the gobsmacking inadequacy of our mental health resources. A lot of addicts are self-medicating because they haven't been able to get decent care. Sometimes for money reasons, and sometimes because the programs either don't exist or were badly implemented.
I think harm reduction programs need to be expanded. I think we need affordable and universal health care. I think we need to work harder at caring for the mentally ill in a comprehensive way.
I don't disagree - but I also don't see a way to get those things by making drugs all legal, and providing free detox forever for addicts who cannot control themselves whether it's due to mental illness or not.
As you said, it is unlikely that legalizing drugs will increase abuse in the long run (though we may experience a short-term rise - worth it for the eventual outcome, in my opinion). And it is still true now that most people choose to do the drugs they become addicted to. So why would it be any different or any less affordable than it is now? It could be drastically more affordable if we fixed our healthcare system. A drop in the bucket.
I don't think it will necessarily rise in the general population but I think it will rise in certain parts of the population... It will be less affordable if government, out of pity, charges those who are NOT addicts more for care to make up for the recidivist addicts who continue to make the same mistakes over and over. I'm advocating some tough love here --- you get one free detox - after that you're on your own. I don't see the downside and while it may sound very harsh and callous, it will to some extent remove the damaged individuals from the gene pool such that the genetic prevalence of such an addictive behavior is less in the future.