
Vermont Quits War on Drugs to Treat Heroin Abuse as Health Issue - benblodgett
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-21/vermont-quits-war-on-drugs-to-treat-heroin-abuse-as-health-issue
======
codeshaman
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.

~~~
josefresco
Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States) are
two completely different realities. I'm welcome your anecdotal evidence but
don't find it at all relevant to the topic of how a state should handle the
legal and health consequences of heroin abuse. A bunch of party-goers doing
recreational drugs couldn't be farther from the realities of heroin addiction
in a rural population.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>Running a a drug friendly "festival" and a state (as in the United States)
are two completely different realities

Right. I mean, a hippy-esque musical festival is going to draw in all sorts of
non-violent potheads. How about the south side of Chicago? Do you think Kosmic
Care is going to handle gangbangers on meth?

Heck, here in Chicago during Lollapalooza, a man bit two people and injured
them. It is reported that he was on drugs:

[http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-
on...](http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/08/05/attacker-bites-man-on-the-arm-
at-lollapalooza/)

“In describing it to the police later, they said ‘We never see cases like that
where the attacker isn’t on PCP, or bath salts, or something like that,” Lenet
said. “There’s no way a normal person could have sustained that much
punishment, and just walked away.”

The problem with the pro-legalization crowd is that we don't have any
consistency. Some of us just want pot legalized but most of the movement seems
to have this pie-in-the-sky view of legalizing just about everything. I'm
afraid that we have two extremists groups: "no drugs" vs "all drugs" and per
usual sane moderate voices are drowned out.

I just don't believe a "one size fits all" mentality will work here. I just
don't think we should legalize drugs that are physically addictive like
heroin, PCP, meth, etc.

~~~
mikeash
How does making the stuff illegal handle gangbangers on meth, exactly?

The anti-legalization crowd seems to hold it as an article of faith that
criminalizing drug use results in less drug use. The arguments always come
down to some variation on, "Freedom is good, but drugs are bad, so sometimes
it's worth making them illegal."

I think you need to show that criminalizing physically addictive drugs like
heroin, PCP, meth, etc. actually reduces their use. The evidence available so
far from places like Portugal seems to indicate the opposite, although the
data is far from clear.

I mean, your PCP example is from a place where all of this stuff is already
highly illegal. How is that not an argument _against_ criminalization?

~~~
mpthrapp
C'mon, don't know you know that making something illegal automatically makes
everyone in the world stop doing it? /s

No, but seriously - and I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir - we desperately
need reforms in both the Mental Health and Drug sectors in the US. Vermont's
initiative seems to be a step in the right direction. It reminds me a bit of
the Canadian Insite[1], which is a place where addicts can go to be in a
sterile environment and be under medical supervision while they use.

[1][http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/](http://supervisedinjection.vch.ca/)

------
awjr
"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_caus...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm))

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-d...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-
decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html)

~~~
ap22213
I don't see it quite so cynically. Alcohol is legal because there would be
outrage or civil unrest if it was banned.

Most people that I've met (who may not be considered alcoholics) certainly
have some level of alcohol dependency. And, I'm being loose here with the word
'dependency', but in the last year, I've never seen one of my friends or
acquaintances refuse alcohol at a bar or restaurant, while others were
drinking.

However, that does bring up the issue of money and alcohol. Restaurants seem
to push the stuff pretty heavily, at least in the US. There should at least be
some restrictions on the amount of profit that bars / restaurants can make off
of it.

~~~
superuser2
There is such a thing as responsible, low-level alcohol consumption that
doesn't turn into a spiral of addiction and self-destruction. Same with LSD.
Not so much with heroin.

~~~
DanBC
> There is such a thing as responsible, low-level alcohol consumption

That responsible low-level use tends to need strong laws to enforce it.

Minimum unit pricing (which only affects the very cheap, poor quality end of
the market); tight alcohol and drivng limits; time restrictions on serving
alcohol.

See eg the measures that France brought in (less dead people from cirrhosis;
less dead and injured from traffic accidents; more profitable drinks industry)
to England, which has seen a five fold increase in cirrhosis over the same
time.

Alcohol has enormous costs which are mostly hidden because people don't want
to accept the truth.

~~~
superuser2
Many of those costs are directly related to suburban car culture. When you
take the subway anyway, risks are much lower.

I would argue that people drinking enough to incur liver damage are doing so
not because alcohol is addictive but because they have other psychological
issues for which alcohol is the only effective relief. In which case, if it
weren't for alcohol, they'd do something else. You can't make the whole world
a padded cell.

------
amykhar
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.

~~~
mturmon
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
>“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.

~~~
clarkmoody
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.

~~~
yarrel
I thought states' rights was just a code phrase for racism?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States'_rights#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States'_rights#Controversy)

~~~
gshubert17
Not in every case. In some cases [0] states' rights means a willingness to
accept less centralized authority and more autonomy. A 1932 Supreme Court
decision contained the phrase "laboratories of democracy" to describe how a
"state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel
social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratories_of_democracy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratories_of_democracy)

------
girvo
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 :)

------
par
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'.

~~~
thrownaway2424
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
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.

~~~
kirsebaer
John Ehrlichman, Counsel and Assistant to President Nixon:

"You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968,
and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and
black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it
illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to
associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then
criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could
arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify
them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about
the drugs? Of course we did."

Interviewed in 1992 by journalist Dan Baum, author of Smoke and Mirrors: The
War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, full quote in "Truth, Lies, and
Audiotape" by Dan Baum (2012).

------
blueking
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.

~~~
jusben1369
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?

------
emhart
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)

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

------
BorisMelnik
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
> 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.

------
lasermike026
Great! How do I get this in my state?

~~~
astrodust
Easy! Move to Vermont.

------
praneshp
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.

~~~
mwfunk
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
While we're at it, I would love to see the " _scandal_ -gate" terminology
disappear as well.

According to Wikipedia[1], the "war on crime" was used by Hoover in the '30s.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_as_metaphor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_as_metaphor)

~~~
praneshp
Heh. When I commented, I had intended to say the same thing about *-gate :)

------
omegaworks
>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
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
Living in Europe, never having set a foot in the US, I take the bait: what is
a Democrat like in Vermont then ?

~~~
scoofy
Bernie Sanders (Independent - VT) is the nation's only socialist Senator.

~~~
dasmithii
*he's the only self-proclaimed socialist. Surely there are more who possess similar ideologies, but aren't outwardly socialist.

~~~
scoofy
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
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.

------
the_cat_kittles
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)

------
dscrd
War on Drugs has been won, not lost.

~~~
erichocean
Your comment made me think of Charlie Sheen: "Winning."

