Reply #82: I don't agree entirely. [View All]

[ismnotwasm]

Meth isn't "different" to a heroin addict. You know, the ones huge gaps in their muscle mass in arms and legs from injecting impure product. 'Cause their veins are shot.The "streetwise" ones, who lance their own abscesses, and turn up in ER's across the nation with necrotizing fascititis- you know that as "flesh eating disease" Or some other anti-biotic resistant infection. They help spread these diseases. The mothers who sell their eight year old daughters to tricks to get enough money to use. If you know the drug world you know what I'm talking about.
We could lay the blame on that behavior to the insane drug policies we have. (And they are insane) But not entirely. Drugs do what they do. They cause chemical reactions. That may produce any number of desires and decisions in the user.
Bathtub crank has been around a long time. The more sophisticated "cooking" that's done now evidently produces a superior, easier to produce product. I wouldn't know, being on the other side of that world for many years now. I grew up when PCP was the demon drug, and crank (Methamphetamine was considered a much superior form of crank) was considered a poor man' cocaine. (Back in the day when they said cocaine wasn't addictive)
So looking at behavior, and by that I mean the way the drugs affect others, not the users do you really think it's different from other highly addictive drugs?
Cocaine and meth both can form a type of schizophrenia. All users of hard core drugs might commit violent crimes--The heroin addict might be happy when he's well and all is good but let him get sick....

People are shooting each other over marijuana crops.

One thing that is going on is an epidemic of HCV. And you can live with it for a long time before your liver says fuck you. And when your liver says fuck you, it means it. And your kidneys might go right along with it.

While I enjoy my freedom from the need to use any mild altering substances-- I do remember-- and the only way I can see to free the user is to let them be free. They are already harming others, so saying "lock 'em up when they harm others" is far too late.
Let the laws soften, or let them go. Provide places. Offer treatment. Who pays? Don't know. But would it be any less expensive than it is now?
I do understand, and emphasize with what you're saying though. I do.

It's all a very bad scene, and rich men and women in expensive clothes with all the toys one could dream of are getting theirs off the back of the suffering of those eight year old prostitutes. Or the bizarre social hierarchies on the streets. Or those young men who die running drugs across the border. Or that overdose whose friends leave him to stiffen and die rather than call for help. Or that insane meth addict, locked up in the state mental intuition, with deep acne holes in her face because she happenned to be a"picker" and spent 12 hours picking at non existent zits. (True stories about people I know)
I have a saying. Meth makes you ugly, Heroin makes you old. Not funny, but there is a truth in it.