
“You will not be arrested for using drugs” - bartkappenburg
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/02/you-will-not-be-arrested-for-using-drugs-what-a-sane-drug-policy-looks-like/
======
corin_
The UK isn't (obviously) as free with drug laws as Amsterdam, but here it's
illegal to possess but not to use - aka if you walk into a police station
smelling of weed and high as a kite on coke they can't arrest (or caution or
anything) you for it, unless you actually have drugs on you that you haven't
yet taken.

As such, if I witnessed a drug-caused medical issue, I'd get rid of whatever
drugs were around (frankly I imagine if you put them in your pocket you'd be
fine - doctors aren't allowed to inform the police about it unless they have a
reason to believe you're a threat to the safety of yourself or others, and
being a drug addict, short of being really close to killing yourself, isn't
what that mean) and have no worries whatsoever about calling an ambulance.

edit: side-question, is there anyone on here who a.) knows what coke and white
heroin are like and b.) would be willing to comment (with a throwaway if
preferred) on: is it hard to tell them apart? I've never seen any form of
heroin in my life, but find it hard to believe I could sniff it without
knowing.. so wonder is it an easy mistake, or were these victims people who
didn't know what to expect cocaine to be like in the first place?

edit 2: For anyone who hasn't been to Amsterdam, or at least the red light
district... I've never taken them up on their offers, but the number of street
dealers there... last time I was over there for work went out in the evening
for a few drinks and some smoking, must've been offered coke over 10 times
just while walking along streets. (And MDMA a couple of times, but not as
frequently.) Never known anywhere easier to get coke if you wanted it, never
known anywhere that I'd trust the quality of drugs on the street less if I had
wanted it.

~~~
refurb
Cocaine and heroin are sold as white or off-white powders. They are very hard
to tell apart. As someone else mentioned, cocaine produces local anesthesia,
so that provides a "test" for users, but street drugs are rarely pure so there
is always a chance that a batch of heroin has a local anesthetic in it so it
produces a false positive (likely very rare though).

The thing that makes heroin masquerading as cocaine dangerous is that typical
heroin doses are quite small (~10 mg) vs cocaine (~100 mg). If you get heroin
instead of cocaine and snort your regular dose, it can easily be a fatal dose
of heroin for a naive user.

~~~
peatmoss
> there is always a chance that a batch of heroin has a local anesthetic in it
> so it produces a false positive

This suggests that there is some motivation to pass heroine off as cocaine,
rather than this being a supply-chain mixup. But then why sell heroine as the
substitute? It seems like the street value of heroine would still be higher
than other substances (say, talc with the local anesthetic). If you're
dealing, why not just try and pass that off, increase your profit margin, and
not invite criminal investigation into the deaths of your customers?

Or is the presumption here that some people are dealing with the purpose of
causing harm?

~~~
hluska
I am far from an expert, but one possible scenario revolves around drug
novices who are partying heavily, and a simple problem communicating. A group
of tourists, well into a night of very heavy partying, could ask a random
person for an ambiguous term (like 'powder') expecting to get cocaine. Perhaps
that particular dealer only has heroin, which is technically a powder as well,
so he/she sells it and thinks nothing of the transaction.

Moments later, some very intoxicated tourists dive into what they think is
cocaine. They do a line each, don't get the cocaine feeling that perhaps one
or two of them vaguely remember, but they assume that they just got badly cut
drugs, so they dive in and do more.

Snorting heroin (especially if you think it is cocaine) is a surefire recipe
to die because it tends to take a little longer to really kick in. And,
because of its toxicity, there isn't a lot of room between getting high and
dying.

------
refurb
I'll give Amsterdam credit for not legally punishing drug users who need
medical help, but it's not like the US doesn't offer warning when unsafe drugs
are being sold[1].

 _Even as authorities await tests confirming heroin as the culprit in the
latest deaths, the police and health departments are distributing fliers to
community health and addiction service centers warning that “preliminary
testing indicates that contaminated heroin may be available on the streets.”
The fliers also list resources for patients and families struggling with
addiction._

[1][http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/06/worcester-
offici...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/06/worcester-officials-
issue-advisory-after-string-overdose-deaths/xcgLjpHvU9JAUsYXgEPobO/story.html)

------
fmsf
Over a decade ago Portugal decriminalized drug use. You will not be considered
a criminal if you use drugs, and will be treated like a sick person and
provided help, by the government, if you want to cure your addiction. On the
other hand, selling will take you straight to jail. If you carry drugs with
you, the distinction between carrying for usage or for selling is the maximum
amount allowed (in grams) which varies from drug to drug.

~~~
corin_
I think Portugal's policy is great, but it's worth noting that they don't
_quite_ treat you just "like a sick person" \- there are mandated
treatments/etc. that they can (and will) force on drug users, rather than just
saying "hey we're opening the doors to treatment should you want it".

They released a 10 year report in 2011 that basically showed drug use had gone
down by nearly any metric since they changed the laws in 2001. Not sure the
best source to link to, but Forbes have an easy-reading brief piece [1] and
tdpf.org.uk has some more detailed stats with references cited [2] (from a
quick google for the report's findings)

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-
af...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-
decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/)

[2] [http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-
portugal-...](http://www.tdpf.org.uk/blog/drug-decriminalisation-portugal-
setting-record-straight)

------
gk1
I'm glad to say some states in the US are enacting similar laws, called "Good
Samaritan" laws. In essence, the laws "shield a person who calls 911 from
arrest and prosecution for drug use or possession, underage alcohol use and
similar crimes."

According to this NY Times article (from 2013), 11 states and DC have passed
such laws:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/opinion/calling-911-should...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/29/opinion/calling-911-shouldnt-
lead-to-jail.html)

(The article quotes someone I know, who sadly lost his son to an overdose.)

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
The reality of drug laws in America is cops and prosecutors mainly use them to
target criminals actually causing the community problems. It very rarely
happens that an otherwise innocent casual user does time for possession. The
system is arguably less broken than internet libertarians think.

It's often surprisingly difficult to prosecute somebody for repeat breaking
and entering or gun violence, but the cops generally know who is causing the
problems, so they get them on drug possession. This is where the crack cocaine
sentencing disparity comes from. Crack affected communities demanded the law
get the gang bangers off the streets, and crack possession was the obvious way
to pop them.

~~~
gohrt
[Citation needed]

------
johnm1019
Bravo to the Dutch authorities for using public information and a focus on
public health to try and keep the public, and tourists, safe. I like this
approach a lot more than throwing everyone in jail.

TLDR; Sign says tainted cocaine is on the streets, call for help you won't be
arrested if you need it.

------
joeguilmette
Quite the juxtaposition. Here in Thailand the police are now giving random
drug tests on the street and extorting money from you.

~~~
alxndr
Wow, that's interesting. Here's a month-old reddit post discussing it:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/2j9xln/random_drug...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/2j9xln/random_drug_tests_on_tourists_in_thailand/)

------
tedks
Is nobody else on hacker news scared shitless of the convergence of
militarized police forces, pervasive surveillance, and now legalized drugs?

Why is drug policy "liberalizing" now? There's no new information. We've known
about the risks involved in marijuana and other drugs since it was first
scheduled. Harm reduction is not a novel concept.

It seems suspicious to me that drugs are being released into the population,
under the watchful eye of regulators of course, now that we're in a permanent
recession/permanent war rather than, say, during the Clinton years when the
economy was great and we were temporarily not locked in conflict.

Optimists say that ending the "war on drugs" will stop surveillance and
overpolicing, but that doesn't seem like such a sure bet to me.

~~~
lotsofmangos
_Why is drug policy "liberalizing" now? There's no new information._

There is. And because of it doctors really want to use marijuana derivatives.
I know some of the folk running the NHS studies and doing some of the PHD work
on endocrine effects.

Here's a couple of recent studies on Sativex.

[http://www.gwpharm.com/oncology.aspx](http://www.gwpharm.com/oncology.aspx)

[http://www.gwpharm.com/GW%20Pharmaceuticals%20Announces%20Ne...](http://www.gwpharm.com/GW%20Pharmaceuticals%20Announces%20New%20Sativex%20Data%20at%20ECTRIMS.aspx)

Also, you have organisations like Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, who
have been working heavily behind the scenes for the past decade.
[http://www.leap.cc/](http://www.leap.cc/)

~~~
tedks
This is new to me, thanks for pointing it out.

That said, this doesn't mean marijuana needs to be recreationally legalized;
in the US it would only need to be made a Schedule II drug rather than a
Schedule I drug. Cocaine is a Schedule II drug IIRC, and it's routinely used
medically, so it doesn't make sense to have recreational legality, or
tolerance of widespread use, just to get medical benefits.

For virtually every cause, there are groups "working heavily behind the scenes
for decades" \-- the existence of activist pressure doesn't seem to correlate
with policy change. I'd love to see hard data disagreeing with me, but this is
my impression from being an activist for some time, and knowing the histories
of social change for various struggles.

~~~
EpicEng
Yet it does make sense to stop arresting people for recreational use of one of
the most benign drugs we know of. Marijuana does not wreck homes, it does not
kill people, and it does not cause societal problems. It is easy to use
responsibly and does little more than make you feel a bit giddy. If you
disagree with that then I daresay you haven't ever tried it.

~~~
tedks
I don't disagree with it; I just think it's suspicious that people are
publicly acknowledging that _now_ rather than at _any other time._

That said, marijuana is certainly less benign than you're making it out to be.
I know several people who started using marijuana in high school and became
interested in basically nothing else. Anything can become addictive, but
biological components that have tolerance factors are especially effective
because they cause you to increase your dosage over time.

It's not like doctors in the 60's thought that marijuana was actually lethal,
though. The propaganda about marijuana has been divorced from truth basically
the whole time, but it's been scheduled anyway.

I find it hard to believe that this is simply a miracle story of the long work
of activists finally paying off. There are no free lunches. If we're getting
legal marijuana, we're losing something else. So what is that?

Well, what else are we losing?

~~~
EpicEng
I knew more than a few people like that myself. Now, I'm about to stray into
the realm of anecdote, so take this with a grain of salt, but I knew these
people well (I was one of them) and, honestly, if they didn't have weed to
smoke they would have found something else to waste their time with. I'm not
trying to say that this is true across the board, but i do find it hard to
believe that people who are inherently driven and intelligent can be radically
changed by something like pot.

Besides, the current laws are not stopping people from doing it. Most know
that weed is something which can be enjoyed recreationaly without risking
their health or lifestyle. It doesn't hurt anyone around them, so current law
is viewed as arcane and unjust. What benefit are these laws providing to
society?

