Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Heroin Prohibition Is Killing the People It's Supposed to Save-It's
Time to Legalize and Regulate
________________________________________
Heroin Prohibition Is Killing the People It's Supposed to Save-It's Time to
Legalize and Regulate
By Daniel Denvir [1] / Salon [2]
September 8, 2016
A drug normally used to tranquilize livestock and elephants is now being
ingested by human users to disastrous ends and may have contributed to [3] a
recent spate of overdoses in Cincinnati. It's a powerful opioid called
carfentanil, and is only the latest such drug with a funny name to burst
onto the national scene: Fentanyl now rivals heroin as a leading cause of
overdose deaths, and another drug called Opana fueled an HIV epidemic in
Indiana. But as the opioid crisis cuts its widening swath across the
country, an important fact often remains invisible: Heroin prohibition is
driving the problem, not fixing it.
Legalizing and regulating unsavory drugs remains a controversial
proposition. For many people, legalization and regulation seem to confer or
imply approval. But the logic behind doing so is straightforward: the most
dangerous things about opioid addiction, including ingesting drugs of
unknown provenance and quality, and disastrously reorganizing one's life to
pay for a fix, are in large part byproducts of a drug's illegal status.
Prohibiting dangerous substances has not only clearly failed to keep people
from using them, it has also made the use of those substances more
dangerous. And it has incentivized the rise of more dangerous opiates,
because drug traffickers benefit [4] from packing the highest level of
potency into the smallest shipment at the lowest cost possible. To the
extent that people who take fentanyl largely would prefer heroin, access to
regulated heroin used under medical supervision would keep many from dying
by overdose, and would help drive more potent narcotic interlopers like
fentanyl from the market.
This is a debate worth having, and a debate that can be won. Most people, if
they really think about it, oppose heroin for common-sense reasons, not as
an end but as a means. The idea isn't simply that we don't want people to
use heroin. More importantly, we don't want people to use heroin because it
so often makes them sick, miserable or dead. So the goal should be to
reduce, as dramatically as possible, the sickness, misery and death
associated with the drug's use. Heroin prohibition isn't the way to do that.
In fact, it causes more of everything we don't want.
These are the basic arguments undergirding a philosophy known as harm
reduction. It's an approach that, now more than ever, is winning new
adherents. Officials in some states and cities are exploring the creation of
supervised drug use sites, which has shown evidence of decreasing overdose
deaths in Vancouver, Canada. In Maryland, one lawmaker has introduced
legislation that would make pharmaceutical heroin, overseen by a doctor,
available to users in some cases. Just last year, the federal government
finally lifted [5] its ban on funding needle exchanges. Harm reduction
measures don't encourage people to use drugs. In fact, they can make it
easier for people to seek and access treatment when they are ready -
treatment that they'll be in a better position to make use of if their lives
haven't been destroyed beforehand.
The drug war has lost credibility with the public because it is a
demonstrable failure, and law enforcement has in many places shifted to
handling drug addiction as a matter of public health. That's a good first
step. As a recent New York Times investigation [6] makes clear, it's not
happening everywhere: Many rural and suburban areas are cracking down harder
than ever, even as cities ease up. And some prosecutors, including United
States Attorneys' offices under the Obama administration, are in some cases
pursuing unusually harsh sentences [7] against opioid dealers, in the
mistaken belief that it will ease the crisis. Even when it comes to drug
users, the U.S. is far from embracing decriminalization [8], as Portugal has
done with great success [9].
Locking up drug dealers doesn't stop the flow of drugs, and keeping drug
users out of jail isn't enough to keep them safe. The only way to confront
the overdose crisis is to replace the underground criminal market with an
aboveground legal market, turning a profit opportunity for drug cartels into
a government-supervised public health endeavor. We can't limit drug
legalization to drugs we don't think are that bad in the first place, like
marijuana. Too many people are dying. The war against drugs, all drugs, is
making things worse.
Daniel Denvir is a writer at Salon covering criminal justice, policing,
education, inequality and politics. You can follow him at Twitter
@DanielDenvir [10].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [11]
[12]
________________________________________
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/time-legalize-heroin
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/daniel-denvir
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/us/ohio-cincinnati-overdoses-carfentanil-h
eroin.html?_r=0
[4]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/world/americas/drug-that-killed-prince-is-
making-mexican-cartels-richer-us-says.html
[5]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/01/07/funding-ban-needle-exch
anges-effectively-lifted/78420894/
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/upshot/new-geography-of-prisons.html
[7]
http://www.vice.com/read/heroin-murder-and-the-new-front-in-the-war-on-drugs
-928
[8]
http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/approaches-decriminalizing-drug-use-and-p
ossession
[9]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/05/why-hardly-anyone-die
s-from-a-drug-overdose-in-portugal/
[10] http://twitter.com/#!/DanielDenvir
[11] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Heroin Prohibition Is
Killing the People It's Supposed to Save-It's Time to Legalize and
Regulate
[12] http://www.alternet.org/
[13] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Heroin Prohibition Is Killing the People It's Supposed to Save-It's
Time to Legalize and Regulate
Heroin Prohibition Is Killing the People It's Supposed to Save-It's Time to
Legalize and Regulate
By Daniel Denvir [1] / Salon [2]
September 8, 2016
AddThis Sharing Buttons
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Google+Share to MoreShare to Email
A drug normally used to tranquilize livestock and elephants is now being
ingested by human users to disastrous ends and may have contributed to [3] a
recent spate of overdoses in Cincinnati. It's a powerful opioid called
carfentanil, and is only the latest such drug with a funny name to burst
onto the national scene: Fentanyl now rivals heroin as a leading cause of
overdose deaths, and another drug called Opana fueled an HIV epidemic in
Indiana. But as the opioid crisis cuts its widening swath across the
country, an important fact often remains invisible: Heroin prohibition is
driving the problem, not fixing it.
Legalizing and regulating unsavory drugs remains a controversial
proposition. For many people, legalization and regulation seem to confer or
imply approval. But the logic behind doing so is straightforward: the most
dangerous things about opioid addiction, including ingesting drugs of
unknown provenance and quality, and disastrously reorganizing one's life to
pay for a fix, are in large part byproducts of a drug's illegal status.
Prohibiting dangerous substances has not only clearly failed to keep people
from using them, it has also made the use of those substances more
dangerous. And it has incentivized the rise of more dangerous opiates,
because drug traffickers benefit [4] from packing the highest level of
potency into the smallest shipment at the lowest cost possible. To the
extent that people who take fentanyl largely would prefer heroin, access to
regulated heroin used under medical supervision would keep many from dying
by overdose, and would help drive more potent narcotic interlopers like
fentanyl from the market.
This is a debate worth having, and a debate that can be won. Most people, if
they really think about it, oppose heroin for common-sense reasons, not as
an end but as a means. The idea isn't simply that we don't want people to
use heroin. More importantly, we don't want people to use heroin because it
so often makes them sick, miserable or dead. So the goal should be to
reduce, as dramatically as possible, the sickness, misery and death
associated with the drug's use. Heroin prohibition isn't the way to do that.
In fact, it causes more of everything we don't want.
These are the basic arguments undergirding a philosophy known as harm
reduction. It's an approach that, now more than ever, is winning new
adherents. Officials in some states and cities are exploring the creation of
supervised drug use sites, which has shown evidence of decreasing overdose
deaths in Vancouver, Canada. In Maryland, one lawmaker has introduced
legislation that would make pharmaceutical heroin, overseen by a doctor,
available to users in some cases. Just last year, the federal government
finally lifted [5] its ban on funding needle exchanges. Harm reduction
measures don't encourage people to use drugs. In fact, they can make it
easier for people to seek and access treatment when they are ready -
treatment that they'll be in a better position to make use of if their lives
haven't been destroyed beforehand.
The drug war has lost credibility with the public because it is a
demonstrable failure, and law enforcement has in many places shifted to
handling drug addiction as a matter of public health. That's a good first
step. As a recent New York Times investigation [6] makes clear, it's not
happening everywhere: Many rural and suburban areas are cracking down harder
than ever, even as cities ease up. And some prosecutors, including United
States Attorneys' offices under the Obama administration, are in some cases
pursuing unusually harsh sentences [7] against opioid dealers, in the
mistaken belief that it will ease the crisis. Even when it comes to drug
users, the U.S. is far from embracing decriminalization [8], as Portugal has
done with great success [9].
Locking up drug dealers doesn't stop the flow of drugs, and keeping drug
users out of jail isn't enough to keep them safe. The only way to confront
the overdose crisis is to replace the underground criminal market with an
aboveground legal market, turning a profit opportunity for drug cartels into
a government-supervised public health endeavor. We can't limit drug
legalization to drugs we don't think are that bad in the first place, like
marijuana. Too many people are dying. The war against drugs, all drugs, is
making things worse.
Daniel Denvir is a writer at Salon covering criminal justice, policing,
education, inequality and politics. You can follow him at Twitter
@DanielDenvir [10].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [11]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[12]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/time-legalize-heroin ;
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/daniel-denvir
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/us/ohio-cincinnati-overdoses-carfentanil-h
eroin.html?_r=0
[4]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/world/americas/drug-that-killed-prince-is-
making-mexican-cartels-richer-us-says.html
[5]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/01/07/funding-ban-needle-exch
anges-effectively-lifted/78420894/
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/upshot/new-geography-of-prisons.html
[7]
http://www.vice.com/read/heroin-murder-and-the-new-front-in-the-war-on-drugs
-928
[8]
http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/approaches-decriminalizing-drug-use-and-p
ossession
[9]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/05/why-hardly-anyone-die
s-from-a-drug-overdose-in-portugal/
[10] http://twitter.com/#!/DanielDenvir
[11] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Heroin Prohibition Is
Killing the People It's Supposed to Save-It's Time to Legalize and
Regulate
[12] http://www.alternet.org/
[13] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B