11 ms·

Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue

479 points by benblodgett 12y ago

omegaworks 12y ago
>Representative Thomas Burditt: “As everybody knows, the war on drugs is lost, pretty much. It’s time to go down a new road.” There is a sane Republican! Hurrah!
- kynikos 12y ago
  As a resident and commnications director/volunteer for a couple of campaigns, I've learned a Republican in Vermont is almost always like a Democrat in any other state.
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    Living in Europe, never having set a foot in the US, I take the bait: what is a Democrat like in Vermont then ?
    - scoofy 12y ago
      Bernie Sanders (Independent - VT) is the nation's only socialist Senator.
      - dasmithii 12y ago
        *he's the only self-proclaimed socialist. Surely there are more who possess similar ideologies, but aren't outwardly socialist.
        scoofy 12y ago
        Difficult to say, but i doubt it. When it comes to whipping votes (getting the party members to vote along party lines) only he and Angus King have the ability to claim no affiliation to the Democrat ticket, but Maine is a much more centrist state than Vermont. The house does not currently have any third party members. Since voting is what matters (not privately held views), i'd say that he is indeed the only socialist in washington. If you insist on nitpicking about personal views, i'd say that perhaps you could include some representatives from the bay area, portland oregon, vermont (particularly the college towns), but that's about it. Many people always assume that the politicians hold secret views (shockingly similar to the those of the people who tend to believe it), but i honestly see no reason why people assume this. If someone has the forum to spread views the truly believe in, i don't seem much reason why they wouldn't.
        dasmithii 12y ago
        I was thinking less along the lines of secret views, and instead, on how many people hold socialist-like beliefs without associating themselves (internally, not outwardly) with the word "socialist". In the modern U.S., "socialist" and "communist" have become derogatory terms more than anything else, and their colloquial meanings are rarely consistent with any formal definition. Because of this stigma, it's easy for one to possess socialist beliefs while simultaneously dismissing all things "socialist", as they are universally negative.
        unknownian 12y ago
        Scott DesJarlais fits into the category of politician preaching what he doesn't believe. Also probably the most disliked man in Washington.
        r00fus 12y ago
        No, I doubt it. The political left in the US is really pretty much extinct. What we have here are conservatives (Democrats) and reactionaries (Republicans). Both are corporate-friendly.
    - some_guy_there 12y ago
      Someone like Bernie Sander[1], who is a self described socialist. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders
    - brianmwaters_hn 12y ago
      In Burlington (the smallest biggest city in any state), our local elections are between Democrats and Progressives. Republicans don't even make the ballot.
    - krschultz 12y ago
      Probably like a liberal in Europe, as opposed to most Democrats that are more conservative than most European liberals. As a single example, Vermont is going down the road of actually enacting a single payer healthcare system at the state level, which is politically impossible nationally.
    - brightsize 12y ago
      I was told by a German, who had lived in the States for a few years in the past, that American Democrats resembled German conservatives. If that's the case it's hard to imagine what the German/European counterpart to a Republican would be.
      - maxxxxx 12y ago
        Their economics are close to liberals (not the american definition). I don't think there is an equivalent for the religious right. At least not in Germany
  - baddox 12y ago
    Are Democrats more likely to oppose the war on drugs?
    - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
      No, nor have they historically been more likely to oppose mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. See http://www.amazon.com/First-Civil-Right-Political-Development-ebook/dp/B00LUUK2S4 http://www.amazon.com/First-Civil-Right-Political-Developmen... Also, big disclaimer, the author of the aforementioned book and I dated for four years.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
    - VMG 12y ago
      They are responsible for minimum sentencing laws: http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/a-timeline-of-the-rise-and-fall-of-tough-on-crime-drug-sentencing/360983/ http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/a-timeline-of-the-ri... > June 19, 1986: College basketball player Len Bias dies of a cocaine overdose, which highly politicized the drug debate during a mid-term election year, as Frontline explains. In 1999, Eric Sterling, a former lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee would go on to explain to This American Life how Democrats, in an effort to recover from their soft on crime reputation, pushed through a drug bill that introduced mandatory minimum sentences. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/143/sentencing http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/143/s...
- refurb 12y ago
  You need to get out more!
par 12y ago
What a wonderful world it will be when we help our sick instead of imprison them. I am looking forward to the rest of the world following suit. I'd also like to add this is a great time for US democracy to shine, as it is through statehood that things like this can be tested on a small scale, before rolling out to 'prod'.
- martinald 12y ago
  I'm not an American but I'm equally as happy to hear this as one. I'd like to argue as a Brit that we did treat these people as sick until Nixon's "war on drugs" made UN policies that the rest of the world had to treat them as criminals.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  Is this sarcasm ? Because the rest of the world http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d... is not waiting for the US the show the way and, Russia being the exception, the prison industry isn't as strong as it is in the US.
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  That's about the stupidest thing I've heard in a while, so stupid I have to assume it's sarcasm. Of course the great state experiment is how we got here in the first place. Reagan, as governor, defunded mental health care and just said fuckit, throw all the addicts in prison. Then he took his ideas "to prod" by doubling down on Nixon's "war", with the helpful (to his party) side-effect of throwing millions of black people in prisons.
  - calibraxis 12y ago
    As personally attacking as this post is (though the anger is perfectly understandable), it's probably closest to my view, mentioning "the helpful (to his party) side-effect of throwing millions of black people in prisons." Except I don't consider it a side-effect, nor do I think it's limited to Republicans. For example, prison was one way to control the newly freed slave population. (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm) Being the world's biggest jailer isn't exactly an "oops" thing.
praneshp 12y ago
I really wish it wasn't called "War on drugs". One of the things I dislike about America, as an outsider, is their tendency to call everything "War on X", which essentially makes everything us vs them.
- djur 12y ago
  "War On Drugs" is a term mostly used by critics of US drug policy these days.
  - thrownaway2424 12y ago
    It has a lot of baggage. "War on drugs" was I believe first uttered in public by Nixon and I don't think anyone used the phrase after Bush (the Elder).
- zem 12y ago
  the foremen had a great song about that: http://www.royzimmerman.com/lyrics/best_peace.html http://www.royzimmerman.com/lyrics/best_peace.html here it is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMdJAia-bw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMdJAia-bw
- mwfunk 12y ago
  I agree about disliking the terminology, although (as far as I know) the phrasing dates back to Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" initiative in 1964. The aspiration that was being reflected there was that the US government could apply the same fervor, resources, and ingenuity to uplifting the poor that it had applied to WW1, WW2, and was then still applying to the Cold War. Because of that, I always felt like the phrase was a swords-into-plowshares type of saying rather than a militant one. Of course, that was 50 years ago- as the phrase has gotten recycled for initiatives like the War on Drugs, it has lost that nuance and context, and sounds more like some zero-tolerance, overly militant government program (which parts of it were). Many or most Americans would agree with you that "War on X" needs to go, including me.
  - clarkmoody 12y ago
BorisMelnik 12y ago
why not set up more suboxone clinics? I know it is just substituting one addiction for another, but it will reduce crime and stop deaths.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > Addicts, including some prisoners, will have greater access to synthetic heroin substitutes to help them reduce their dependency on illegal narcotics or kick the habit.
awjr 12y ago
"War on drugs" is a terrible world affliction. Prohibition neither works nor is conducive to a better society. Governments should just tax and sell the drugs to the general public. Alcohol is considered to be the most harmful drug but is legal because it can be taxed, controlled, and makes money. (http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...) Governments should also support people that want drugs to come off those drugs and while we're at it, release all prisoners who are specifically in for possession/dealing/trafficking. We really need to give up on this idea of a drug free world. I think we need to look to Portugal for an example of what can be done and also as a starting point for possibly developing a better model http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...
- eru 12y ago
  > Alcohol is considered to be the most harmful drug [...] Only because of the wide spread of use.
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    No, actually not. Alcohol is a potent poison and kills cells - hence the use as desinfectant. The physical damage caused by alcohol abuse rival and surpass most illegal substances.
    - thaumasiotes 12y ago
      Alcohol is also one of a very small number of drugs where the physical symptoms of withdrawal can be fatal. That doesn't mean being an alcoholic is worse than being addicted to some other drug (salt withdrawal is invariably fatal, but nobody's out there saying "salt ruins lives"), but it's potentially an argument for alcohol being especially nasty to the body.
    - awildone 12y ago
      And it get's worse. Because your not really tripping but rather fighting poisoning, it effectively cuts the connection to the better part of who you are. If it wasn't for alcohol, a lot of the trouble we see in society simply wouldn't exist.
codeshaman 12y ago
Just back from Boom Festival in Portugal, where personal drug use is decriminalized. There was almost no police/security at the gates or inside the festival, although selling drugs was not tolerated (eg. people selling on the festival grounds were kindly asked to leave). There were 42.000 people from 152 countries and most of them used some kind of substance or plant there (marijuana being the most abundantly and openly used). As a consequence (or despite this?), this was one of the safest and warmest places I have ever seen. Instead of police watching everyone, there were a number of premises: there was a drug info stand, were one could go and test their drugs. The queue was quite long there, people stood 2+ hours in the queue to test their substances. Then there was the Kosmic Care, a place were 20+ psychologists, doctors and shamans would bring people having 'bad' trips back to earth. They had 70 'bad' trippers in the first night alone and they were expecting a lot more on the full moon night. I've spoken to the psychologists there (out of curiosity, not because of a bad trip :) ) and they told me that that the majority of bad trips were caused by people taking 'fake' LSD. In fact, she said, 50% of the LSD people tested was not actually LSD but some designer substance with unknown consequences and effects. Other reasons for bad trips - was people mixing substances or taknig too much (usually young, unexperienced people) and people having prior mental illness. I asked a guy there, how can one prevent people from having a bad trip again and the answer was 'well, after such an experience, most people grow up pretty quickly and it's unlikely they would take these substances lightly the next time'. In most countries, these young people would end up in a hospital and then get arrested and possibly spend time in jail. The war on drugs has caused a lot of suffering and has done very little to reduce drug use or addiction, yet it costs billions every year. Protugal's approach to drugs is a great example of how the negative effects of drug use can be handled with minimal costs and lead to positive outcomes in drug users. All it takes is a bit of acceptance and common sense.
- lifeisstillgood 12y ago
  Yes ... But absolutely everything you say could apply to alcohol during say Prohibition. Look people taking the moonshine to be tested, people enjoying booze sensibly ... We have a legalised and fairly sane alcohol policy in most countries, we can hardly hope to have a better policy and set up for any other drug, and yet alcohol is still a devastating blight on many lives. Yes, stop this crazy war on drugs, but don't expect some nirvana to appear - people with a variety of mental and personality problems are not going to "grow up". They still need to be dealt with - and we are unforgiving of mental illness and have barely moved past the "cut it off and cauterise the wound" phase of treatment. The war on drugs is mostly masking a war on mental health.
dscrd 12y ago
War on Drugs has been won, not lost.
- erichocean 12y ago
  Your comment made me think of Charlie Sheen: "Winning."
blueking 12y ago
I wonder why the government needs to force everyone to hit a collective rock bottom before considering a new strategy. Throwing everyone involved in jail was a bad idea from day 1. What they need to do is manufacture and sell the drugs at cost to registered addicts. This way you destroy the business of the drug cartels and you insure your citizens are at least using pure drugs. Regardless of the legality of the use of the drug it is a health issue that the drugs your citizens consume are pure. The safety of your people should come first and a government that has taken this long to realize something that basic is simply incompetent. Prioritizing law enforcement before public safety is a revealing and meaningful sign of incompetence or even corruption.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >I wonder why the government needs to force everyone to hit a collective rock bottom before considering a new strategy. Throwing everyone involved in jail was a bad idea from day 1. Population control. For blacks, it's the modern day equivalent of Jim Crow laws, but for keeping a huge majority in prison.
- clarkmoody 12y ago
  > Prioritizing law enforcement before public safety is a revealing and meaningful sign of incompetence or even corruption. Government is fundamentally better at policing and enforcing than it is at nurturing. It is not a sign of corruption, but merely a trait inherent to all government.
- jusben1369 12y ago
  Why does the government need to manufacture and sell the drugs at no cost? Why can't we just repeat what we do with alcohol and have it be produced by for profit businesses and then regulated and taxed etc to offset the health and educational costs of said activities?
amykhar 12y ago
The demographics of Vermont makes me curious. Many people say that the war on drugs is racially motivated in that more blacks and hispanics are prosecuted than whites. Vermont is 95% Caucasian. I wonder if this fact influenced the new policy in any way.
- pionar 12y ago
  I would say that it's just Vermont being independent as usual. Vermont has always gone against the grain, in good ways and bad (there's a secessionist movement there now[0]). I've long advocated for treating drug abuse as a disease and making it a health problem. I'm against complete legalization of most drugs, though. I say make personal use legal and continue prosecuting dealers and pushers. And for anyone who disagrees, that's fine. This is just my personal opinion.
- josefresco 12y ago
  Nope just Vermont being ... Vermont. Caring for your neighbor, and not being afraid of them (racially or socioeconomically) is one key to having a view like this. When one group is afraid of another you get insane sentencing laws and all sorts of discrimination. Vermont is very independent, and doesn't have much of a "big city" influence, or cultural divide seen in even other New England states.
- bilbo0s 12y ago
  I see where you are going... but I'm also pretty sure you have it backwards. Demographics aren't the reason for Vermont's soft touch policy... demographics are the reason for the hardline policies in all of the other states.
- mturmon 12y ago
  I think you're getting at something. The easier availability of prescription opiates (e.g., Dad's Vicodin for his bad back) has produced an addiction surge in middle-class communities. This is not just Vermont, but across the U.S.; I'm well aware that Vermont has a unique political culture that also factors in to how this played out. In some places, this has turned out to result in significant high school heroin overdoses among well-off white folks, and significant heroin addiction among their parents. If it's your kid or your neighbor, the "harm reduction" path starts to look a lot better than criminalization, and you start to see political viability for something that was radioactive before. It hurts to admit it, but when you see political demagoguery in the U.S. (i.e., War on Drugs), looking for the racial angle is a good first strategy.
tim333 12y ago
>“This is an experiment,” Shumlin says. “And we’re not going to really know the results for a while.” Good stuff. I really wish those in power would more often try a scientific/engineering approach to see what works rather than politicians shouting about war on whatever.
- jasonwocky 12y ago
  Vermont is just about the most pragmatic state in the union that I know of, and it took them this long to finally try this approach out. Give it time.
- clarkmoody 12y ago
  This is a fantastic argument for strong states' rights and less-overbearing / centralized policy from Washington. Let the states be compared against one another and measure the results: if heroin abuse skyrockets in Vermont, then other states could avoid their policy mistakes. If something works incredibly well in a couple states, then it would be appropriate to implement broad, federal rules codifying the success in those states for the whole union. As it stands, the federal government piles an increasing amount of legislation and regulation down on the states, leaving less room for this type of innovation and experimentation.
  - zanny 12y ago
    You are detailing a consequence of an international crisis, not so much some novel concept in the US. This problem is also starting to show up in the EU, since there is pressure to adopt monolithic policies across member states. But the concept is not complicated - you should give people mobility, so that they can go wherever there are policies they most agree with. That is it. The problem is that international mobility is crippled by bureaucratic immigration policies in addition to the classic cultural and language barriers. Thus, postulating that states should be more independent in their policies is right, but it needs to acknowledge that fundamentally it does not matter if it is states in a country or individual countries or something like city states or homesteading, all that is required is the ability for individuals to migrate where their ideologies and the states match. And the modern world is often simultaneously the best and worst time for such mobility. In terms of real physical barriers, there are pretty much none - flight has advanced sufficiently it is not prohibitive in cost for many people in the world to realistically save up enough to fly anywhere else. Simultaneously, in the past it was much easier to just "cross boarders", where the bureaucracy and monitoring of citizenship was much reduced. Hopefully we progress to minimize or remove the latter, because it is the best outcome for everyone except those who want to prevent mobility to hold power over groups of people who would not stay if they had a choice.
doctornemo 12y ago
If only the state would spend more money on this strategy. But we aren't.
the_cat_kittles 12y ago
this is a great video of Russell Brand discussing this attitude shift and other ideas about how we address addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_LHuII-jYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_LHuII-jYQ
lasermike026 12y ago
Great! How do I get this in my state?
- astrodust 12y ago
  Easy! Move to Vermont.
emhart 12y ago
Most of my life we've had an outsized problem with heroin and other opiates in Vermont. Recently this has developed into an odd symbiotic relationship with New York State, where Heroin is exchanged for guns across the border. I recently left the state, but only a year ago I was living in Saint Albans when a warrant sweep rounded up dozens of my neighbors, including one who had been moving thousands of grams of heroin monthly. Throughout 2013 there were ongoing sweeps in 3 major counties, all focused on narcotics only. Dozens were arrested each time. We're a small state with a terrible economy. As glad as I am that Shumlin is taking this step (and he's made it clear for a while now that he's happy to ignore the political consequences of this action) this has been a very long time coming. I remember first hearing about the heroin problem in my state 20 years ago, when I was in middle school and there was a report of someone overdosing in a park adjacent to a summit on combating opiate addiction. Vice did a good story on all of this last year: http://www.vice.com/read/the-brown-mountain-state http://www.vice.com/read/the-brown-mountain-state
girvo 12y ago
Treating heroin addiction as a medical problem is why I've been clean for two years, after being an addict for 6. Australia is surprisingly okay on this front all things considered. If I was afraid of being arrested for seeking help, then I can guarantee I wouldn't be here today. An acquaintance overdosed once, and we called an ambulance straight away -- if I had lived in a place where a drug overdose means a police car following the ambulance, he would be dead. The fact it was illegal stopped exactly nobody... Anyway, I'm glad I got help. Life's too good to throw it away :)

479 points by benblodgett 12y ago

>Representative Thomas Burditt: “As everybody knows, the war on drugs is lost, pretty much. It’s time to go down a new road.” There is a sane Republican! Hurrah!

kynikos 12y ago
As a resident and commnications director/volunteer for a couple of campaigns, I've learned a Republican in Vermont is almost always like a Democrat in any other state.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  Living in Europe, never having set a foot in the US, I take the bait: what is a Democrat like in Vermont then ?
  - scoofy 12y ago
    Bernie Sanders (Independent - VT) is the nation's only socialist Senator.
    - dasmithii 12y ago
      *he's the only self-proclaimed socialist. Surely there are more who possess similar ideologies, but aren't outwardly socialist.
      - scoofy 12y ago
        Difficult to say, but i doubt it. When it comes to whipping votes (getting the party members to vote along party lines) only he and Angus King have the ability to claim no affiliation to the Democrat ticket, but Maine is a much more centrist state than Vermont. The house does not currently have any third party members. Since voting is what matters (not privately held views), i'd say that he is indeed the only socialist in washington. If you insist on nitpicking about personal views, i'd say that perhaps you could include some representatives from the bay area, portland oregon, vermont (particularly the college towns), but that's about it. Many people always assume that the politicians hold secret views (shockingly similar to the those of the people who tend to believe it), but i honestly see no reason why people assume this. If someone has the forum to spread views the truly believe in, i don't seem much reason why they wouldn't.
        dasmithii 12y ago
        I was thinking less along the lines of secret views, and instead, on how many people hold socialist-like beliefs without associating themselves (internally, not outwardly) with the word "socialist". In the modern U.S., "socialist" and "communist" have become derogatory terms more than anything else, and their colloquial meanings are rarely consistent with any formal definition. Because of this stigma, it's easy for one to possess socialist beliefs while simultaneously dismissing all things "socialist", as they are universally negative.
        unknownian 12y ago
        Scott DesJarlais fits into the category of politician preaching what he doesn't believe. Also probably the most disliked man in Washington.
      - r00fus 12y ago
        No, I doubt it. The political left in the US is really pretty much extinct. What we have here are conservatives (Democrats) and reactionaries (Republicans). Both are corporate-friendly.
  - some_guy_there 12y ago
    Someone like Bernie Sander[1], who is a self described socialist. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders
  - brianmwaters_hn 12y ago
    In Burlington (the smallest biggest city in any state), our local elections are between Democrats and Progressives. Republicans don't even make the ballot.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    Probably like a liberal in Europe, as opposed to most Democrats that are more conservative than most European liberals. As a single example, Vermont is going down the road of actually enacting a single payer healthcare system at the state level, which is politically impossible nationally.
  - brightsize 12y ago
    I was told by a German, who had lived in the States for a few years in the past, that American Democrats resembled German conservatives. If that's the case it's hard to imagine what the German/European counterpart to a Republican would be.
    - maxxxxx 12y ago
      Their economics are close to liberals (not the american definition). I don't think there is an equivalent for the religious right. At least not in Germany
- baddox 12y ago
  Are Democrats more likely to oppose the war on drugs?
  - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
    No, nor have they historically been more likely to oppose mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. See http://www.amazon.com/First-Civil-Right-Political-Development-ebook/dp/B00LUUK2S4 http://www.amazon.com/First-Civil-Right-Political-Developmen... Also, big disclaimer, the author of the aforementioned book and I dated for four years.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - VMG 12y ago
    They are responsible for minimum sentencing laws: http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/a-timeline-of-the-rise-and-fall-of-tough-on-crime-drug-sentencing/360983/ http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/a-timeline-of-the-ri... > June 19, 1986: College basketball player Len Bias dies of a cocaine overdose, which highly politicized the drug debate during a mid-term election year, as Frontline explains. In 1999, Eric Sterling, a former lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee would go on to explain to This American Life how Democrats, in an effort to recover from their soft on crime reputation, pushed through a drug bill that introduced mandatory minimum sentences. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/143/sentencing http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/143/s...
refurb 12y ago
You need to get out more!

par 12y ago

What a wonderful world it will be when we help our sick instead of imprison them. I am looking forward to the rest of the world following suit. I'd also like to add this is a great time for US democracy to shine, as it is through statehood that things like this can be tested on a small scale, before rolling out to 'prod'.

martinald 12y ago
I'm not an American but I'm equally as happy to hear this as one. I'd like to argue as a Brit that we did treat these people as sick until Nixon's "war on drugs" made UN policies that the rest of the world had to treat them as criminals.
johnchristopher 12y ago
Is this sarcasm ? Because the rest of the world http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d... is not waiting for the US the show the way and, Russia being the exception, the prison industry isn't as strong as it is in the US.
thrownaway2424 12y ago
That's about the stupidest thing I've heard in a while, so stupid I have to assume it's sarcasm. Of course the great state experiment is how we got here in the first place. Reagan, as governor, defunded mental health care and just said fuckit, throw all the addicts in prison. Then he took his ideas "to prod" by doubling down on Nixon's "war", with the helpful (to his party) side-effect of throwing millions of black people in prisons.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  As personally attacking as this post is (though the anger is perfectly understandable), it's probably closest to my view, mentioning "the helpful (to his party) side-effect of throwing millions of black people in prisons." Except I don't consider it a side-effect, nor do I think it's limited to Republicans. For example, prison was one way to control the newly freed slave population. (http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm) Being the world's biggest jailer isn't exactly an "oops" thing.

praneshp 12y ago

I really wish it wasn't called "War on drugs". One of the things I dislike about America, as an outsider, is their tendency to call everything "War on X", which essentially makes everything us vs them.

djur 12y ago
"War On Drugs" is a term mostly used by critics of US drug policy these days.
- thrownaway2424 12y ago
  It has a lot of baggage. "War on drugs" was I believe first uttered in public by Nixon and I don't think anyone used the phrase after Bush (the Elder).
zem 12y ago
the foremen had a great song about that: http://www.royzimmerman.com/lyrics/best_peace.html http://www.royzimmerman.com/lyrics/best_peace.html here it is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMdJAia-bw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMdJAia-bw
mwfunk 12y ago
I agree about disliking the terminology, although (as far as I know) the phrasing dates back to Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" initiative in 1964. The aspiration that was being reflected there was that the US government could apply the same fervor, resources, and ingenuity to uplifting the poor that it had applied to WW1, WW2, and was then still applying to the Cold War. Because of that, I always felt like the phrase was a swords-into-plowshares type of saying rather than a militant one. Of course, that was 50 years ago- as the phrase has gotten recycled for initiatives like the War on Drugs, it has lost that nuance and context, and sounds more like some zero-tolerance, overly militant government program (which parts of it were). Many or most Americans would agree with you that "War on X" needs to go, including me.
- clarkmoody 12y ago

BorisMelnik 12y ago

why not set up more suboxone clinics? I know it is just substituting one addiction for another, but it will reduce crime and stop deaths.

DanBC 12y ago
> Addicts, including some prisoners, will have greater access to synthetic heroin substitutes to help them reduce their dependency on illegal narcotics or kick the habit.

awjr 12y ago

"War on drugs" is a terrible world affliction. Prohibition neither works nor is conducive to a better society. Governments should just tax and sell the drugs to the general public. Alcohol is considered to be the most harmful drug but is legal because it can be taxed, controlled, and makes money. (http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_caus...) Governments should also support people that want drugs to come off those drugs and while we're at it, release all prisoners who are specifically in for possession/dealing/trafficking. We really need to give up on this idea of a drug free world. I think we need to look to Portugal for an example of what can be done and also as a starting point for possibly developing a better model http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...

eru 12y ago
> Alcohol is considered to be the most harmful drug [...] Only because of the wide spread of use.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  No, actually not. Alcohol is a potent poison and kills cells - hence the use as desinfectant. The physical damage caused by alcohol abuse rival and surpass most illegal substances.
  - thaumasiotes 12y ago
    Alcohol is also one of a very small number of drugs where the physical symptoms of withdrawal can be fatal. That doesn't mean being an alcoholic is worse than being addicted to some other drug (salt withdrawal is invariably fatal, but nobody's out there saying "salt ruins lives"), but it's potentially an argument for alcohol being especially nasty to the body.
  - awildone 12y ago
    And it get's worse. Because your not really tripping but rather fighting poisoning, it effectively cuts the connection to the better part of who you are. If it wasn't for alcohol, a lot of the trouble we see in society simply wouldn't exist.

codeshaman 12y ago

Just back from Boom Festival in Portugal, where personal drug use is decriminalized. There was almost no police/security at the gates or inside the festival, although selling drugs was not tolerated (eg. people selling on the festival grounds were kindly asked to leave). There were 42.000 people from 152 countries and most of them used some kind of substance or plant there (marijuana being the most abundantly and openly used). As a consequence (or despite this?), this was one of the safest and warmest places I have ever seen. Instead of police watching everyone, there were a number of premises: there was a drug info stand, were one could go and test their drugs. The queue was quite long there, people stood 2+ hours in the queue to test their substances. Then there was the Kosmic Care, a place were 20+ psychologists, doctors and shamans would bring people having 'bad' trips back to earth. They had 70 'bad' trippers in the first night alone and they were expecting a lot more on the full moon night. I've spoken to the psychologists there (out of curiosity, not because of a bad trip :) ) and they told me that that the majority of bad trips were caused by people taking 'fake' LSD. In fact, she said, 50% of the LSD people tested was not actually LSD but some designer substance with unknown consequences and effects. Other reasons for bad trips - was people mixing substances or taknig too much (usually young, unexperienced people) and people having prior mental illness. I asked a guy there, how can one prevent people from having a bad trip again and the answer was 'well, after such an experience, most people grow up pretty quickly and it's unlikely they would take these substances lightly the next time'. In most countries, these young people would end up in a hospital and then get arrested and possibly spend time in jail. The war on drugs has caused a lot of suffering and has done very little to reduce drug use or addiction, yet it costs billions every year. Protugal's approach to drugs is a great example of how the negative effects of drug use can be handled with minimal costs and lead to positive outcomes in drug users. All it takes is a bit of acceptance and common sense.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Yes ... But absolutely everything you say could apply to alcohol during say Prohibition. Look people taking the moonshine to be tested, people enjoying booze sensibly ... We have a legalised and fairly sane alcohol policy in most countries, we can hardly hope to have a better policy and set up for any other drug, and yet alcohol is still a devastating blight on many lives. Yes, stop this crazy war on drugs, but don't expect some nirvana to appear - people with a variety of mental and personality problems are not going to "grow up". They still need to be dealt with - and we are unforgiving of mental illness and have barely moved past the "cut it off and cauterise the wound" phase of treatment. The war on drugs is mostly masking a war on mental health.

dscrd 12y ago

War on Drugs has been won, not lost.

erichocean 12y ago
Your comment made me think of Charlie Sheen: "Winning."

blueking 12y ago

I wonder why the government needs to force everyone to hit a collective rock bottom before considering a new strategy. Throwing everyone involved in jail was a bad idea from day 1. What they need to do is manufacture and sell the drugs at cost to registered addicts. This way you destroy the business of the drug cartels and you insure your citizens are at least using pure drugs. Regardless of the legality of the use of the drug it is a health issue that the drugs your citizens consume are pure. The safety of your people should come first and a government that has taken this long to realize something that basic is simply incompetent. Prioritizing law enforcement before public safety is a revealing and meaningful sign of incompetence or even corruption.

coldtea 12y ago
>I wonder why the government needs to force everyone to hit a collective rock bottom before considering a new strategy. Throwing everyone involved in jail was a bad idea from day 1. Population control. For blacks, it's the modern day equivalent of Jim Crow laws, but for keeping a huge majority in prison.
clarkmoody 12y ago
> Prioritizing law enforcement before public safety is a revealing and meaningful sign of incompetence or even corruption. Government is fundamentally better at policing and enforcing than it is at nurturing. It is not a sign of corruption, but merely a trait inherent to all government.
jusben1369 12y ago
Why does the government need to manufacture and sell the drugs at no cost? Why can't we just repeat what we do with alcohol and have it be produced by for profit businesses and then regulated and taxed etc to offset the health and educational costs of said activities?

amykhar 12y ago

The demographics of Vermont makes me curious. Many people say that the war on drugs is racially motivated in that more blacks and hispanics are prosecuted than whites. Vermont is 95% Caucasian. I wonder if this fact influenced the new policy in any way.

pionar 12y ago
I would say that it's just Vermont being independent as usual. Vermont has always gone against the grain, in good ways and bad (there's a secessionist movement there now[0]). I've long advocated for treating drug abuse as a disease and making it a health problem. I'm against complete legalization of most drugs, though. I say make personal use legal and continue prosecuting dealers and pushers. And for anyone who disagrees, that's fine. This is just my personal opinion.
josefresco 12y ago
Nope just Vermont being ... Vermont. Caring for your neighbor, and not being afraid of them (racially or socioeconomically) is one key to having a view like this. When one group is afraid of another you get insane sentencing laws and all sorts of discrimination. Vermont is very independent, and doesn't have much of a "big city" influence, or cultural divide seen in even other New England states.
bilbo0s 12y ago
I see where you are going... but I'm also pretty sure you have it backwards. Demographics aren't the reason for Vermont's soft touch policy... demographics are the reason for the hardline policies in all of the other states.
mturmon 12y ago
I think you're getting at something. The easier availability of prescription opiates (e.g., Dad's Vicodin for his bad back) has produced an addiction surge in middle-class communities. This is not just Vermont, but across the U.S.; I'm well aware that Vermont has a unique political culture that also factors in to how this played out. In some places, this has turned out to result in significant high school heroin overdoses among well-off white folks, and significant heroin addiction among their parents. If it's your kid or your neighbor, the "harm reduction" path starts to look a lot better than criminalization, and you start to see political viability for something that was radioactive before. It hurts to admit it, but when you see political demagoguery in the U.S. (i.e., War on Drugs), looking for the racial angle is a good first strategy.

tim333 12y ago

>“This is an experiment,” Shumlin says. “And we’re not going to really know the results for a while.” Good stuff. I really wish those in power would more often try a scientific/engineering approach to see what works rather than politicians shouting about war on whatever.

jasonwocky 12y ago
Vermont is just about the most pragmatic state in the union that I know of, and it took them this long to finally try this approach out. Give it time.
clarkmoody 12y ago
This is a fantastic argument for strong states' rights and less-overbearing / centralized policy from Washington. Let the states be compared against one another and measure the results: if heroin abuse skyrockets in Vermont, then other states could avoid their policy mistakes. If something works incredibly well in a couple states, then it would be appropriate to implement broad, federal rules codifying the success in those states for the whole union. As it stands, the federal government piles an increasing amount of legislation and regulation down on the states, leaving less room for this type of innovation and experimentation.
- zanny 12y ago
  You are detailing a consequence of an international crisis, not so much some novel concept in the US. This problem is also starting to show up in the EU, since there is pressure to adopt monolithic policies across member states. But the concept is not complicated - you should give people mobility, so that they can go wherever there are policies they most agree with. That is it. The problem is that international mobility is crippled by bureaucratic immigration policies in addition to the classic cultural and language barriers. Thus, postulating that states should be more independent in their policies is right, but it needs to acknowledge that fundamentally it does not matter if it is states in a country or individual countries or something like city states or homesteading, all that is required is the ability for individuals to migrate where their ideologies and the states match. And the modern world is often simultaneously the best and worst time for such mobility. In terms of real physical barriers, there are pretty much none - flight has advanced sufficiently it is not prohibitive in cost for many people in the world to realistically save up enough to fly anywhere else. Simultaneously, in the past it was much easier to just "cross boarders", where the bureaucracy and monitoring of citizenship was much reduced. Hopefully we progress to minimize or remove the latter, because it is the best outcome for everyone except those who want to prevent mobility to hold power over groups of people who would not stay if they had a choice.

doctornemo 12y ago

If only the state would spend more money on this strategy. But we aren't.

the_cat_kittles 12y ago

this is a great video of Russell Brand discussing this attitude shift and other ideas about how we address addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_LHuII-jYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_LHuII-jYQ

lasermike026 12y ago

Great! How do I get this in my state?

astrodust 12y ago
Easy! Move to Vermont.

emhart 12y ago

Most of my life we've had an outsized problem with heroin and other opiates in Vermont. Recently this has developed into an odd symbiotic relationship with New York State, where Heroin is exchanged for guns across the border. I recently left the state, but only a year ago I was living in Saint Albans when a warrant sweep rounded up dozens of my neighbors, including one who had been moving thousands of grams of heroin monthly. Throughout 2013 there were ongoing sweeps in 3 major counties, all focused on narcotics only. Dozens were arrested each time. We're a small state with a terrible economy. As glad as I am that Shumlin is taking this step (and he's made it clear for a while now that he's happy to ignore the political consequences of this action) this has been a very long time coming. I remember first hearing about the heroin problem in my state 20 years ago, when I was in middle school and there was a report of someone overdosing in a park adjacent to a summit on combating opiate addiction. Vice did a good story on all of this last year: http://www.vice.com/read/the-brown-mountain-state http://www.vice.com/read/the-brown-mountain-state

girvo 12y ago

Treating heroin addiction as a medical problem is why I've been clean for two years, after being an addict for 6. Australia is surprisingly okay on this front all things considered. If I was afraid of being arrested for seeking help, then I can guarantee I wouldn't be here today. An acquaintance overdosed once, and we called an ambulance straight away -- if I had lived in a place where a drug overdose means a police car following the ambulance, he would be dead. The fact it was illegal stopped exactly nobody... Anyway, I'm glad I got help. Life's too good to throw it away :)