Captain Caveman wrote:
Even I baulk at the idea of legalising H - filthy drug. Pure or not, it's still *incredibly* addictive. In my past life, spent with a bunch of pretty hardcore tokers, I've seen people smoke weed every day, do Billy every other, snort Coke, routinely do E - all to more or less no avail. But a few "graduated" to H and without one single exception, all were fucked up big style within a year, despite being previously relatively OK with habitual, routine use of all these other spectrum of drugs.
Also, I know many total coke-heads now, but every single one of them holds down a high powered job and is able to function pretty well by all accounts; far, far better than even a heavy drinker, let alone H user. It really is in its own category as far as I am concerned; not only incredibly addictive but also rendering users totally incapable of doing pretty much anything.
Heroin is a filthy drug by virtue of its being cut with other things (samples I have sent for analysis have come in at one or two percent actual smack) and the means of cleanly injecting it being so hard to obtain even for those who want to, not to mention the paucity of clear and correct guidance for IV users. Moving from smoking (and street brown should never be injected, but it is all the poor can get) to injecting is a fairly rare thing and tends to be for one of two reasons... People either get coerced into pinning up by some wanker because they are vulnerable, or due to some trauma of the mind in earlier life they become addicted due to the effect it has, namely it is like an off switch for painful memories. A very, very large number of IV addicts indeed are self medicating to numb the memories of sexual abuse.
As such, smack IV addiction will perpetuate while it is an option for under supported abuse victims and the like, and while recovery options are underfunded. I am quite convinced, based upon years of helping people off the drug, that while methadone is used as the main 'cure' nothing will change. Meth is basically the same thing but worse, but it is legal on script, and cheaper than the alternatives which, as opiate receptor blockers, simply kill the brains ability to get high. They aren't cheap though. In any case, I am convinced it is harder to come off nicotine, if a less acute detox curve. I wish I was still in contact with my clinical psychologist ex, whose papers on the matter concurred with my assertion.
I'd decriminalise, because legalisation isn't the only option. The fact is middle England won't vote for a decriminaliser, look at the Brown government (ha!) treatment of professor David Nutt...
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