Flesh eating drug ("krokodil") makes appearance in Joliet, Ill.

[musiclady]

There are already young people using heroin, and alcohol and tobacco.

People persisted during Prohibition to use alcohol. People have persisted during the War on Drugs, to use Drugs.

Is it the job of government to be involved with all such matters? They spend so much money, turn people into criminals, turn people towards the criminal lifestyle and community, and fail to curb use.

Many families admit if some marijuana relieved an elderly person's pain, they would be fine with that.

People use legal opiates in the form of prescription narcotic pain killers--a much abused issue. (aka heroin in pill form--Oxycontin, Vicodin, Norco, Percocet, etc.)

I could care less if some idiots cook up meth or krocodil and rot their teeth or shed their skin. When they break a law, lock them up and throw away the key. Give them bread, water and hard labor.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this, ts....

I don't think there is any argument that justifies making something as harmful as hard drugs, that is currently illegal, legal.

There is much that can be done to minimize penalties (local law enforcement, not federal), and get rid of some of the issues that you've mentioned, and there is more that churches and charities can do to help people who feel the need to destroy their lives with such horrific things as this article is referring to.

I don't actually care if heroin was legal a century ago.  It's not legal now, and should never become legal in a country that values the lives of its citizens.  You have to abuse alcohol to harm yourself.  There is no justification for any use of heroin.

That's my opinion. 

Change the penalties, but don't make something this physically devastating legal.

[SouthTexas]

Quote from: truth_seeker on Today at 02:47:56 PM

    After nearly 20 years of AA meetings (and remaining continuously sober), I've heard a lot of stories, good bad and in between. Fear of jail does little to stop an addict or alcoholic from using again.

Side note - Congratulations! Four years for me next month.

Looks as though we have some "speriance" here.  (That's a Nascar reference for the unlearned.)
Some of us survived in spite of ourselves too.  July 23, 1989.

[Liberal_Spy]

Something some of you may not know is that alcohol withdrawals are often times worse than withdrawals from opiates. You can actually die from alcohol withdrawals.

[Oceander]

Drug addicts make and use this stuff because it gives a heroine like euphoria, but for a fraction of the cost. You can pretty easily make this stuff with cheap, everyday things you have laying around your house. The part where it causes necrosis doesn't matter to them, because for a drug addict all that matters is the here and now.

What actually causes the necrosis?

[Liberal_Spy]

What actually causes the necrosis?

Since the homemade mix is routinely injected immediately with little or no further purification, "krokodil" has become notorious for producing severe tissue damage, phlebitis and gangrene, sometimes requiring limb amputation in long-term users. Although there are not many, addicts' life expectancies are said to be as low as two to three years due to injecting drug users' high susceptibility to infections and gangrene.

[aligncare]

Side note - Congratulations! Four years for me next month.

I have never had a problem with alcohol. But I've never been thrilled with it, either. So I stopped drinking years ago after I asked myself this question: what was the point of drinking? The answer for me was I had no good reason for drinking. So I stopped and never looked back. Don't get me wrong, I liked the flavor of beer, especially ice cold on a hot day, or the taste of fine XO brandy, or a good wine or single malt scotch. But factoring in the cost, the lack of any real pleasure, issues with driving after a party etc, I chose to stop and don't miss it.

Back to my point. Crime around drug use is a result of it's illegality. Prohibition means bigger government, higher taxes, more agencies, bureaucrats, cops and more privacy concerns. Prohibition also disproportionately affects minority communities.

I'd rather we shift focus away from interdiction and toward treatment on demand. There would be lower costs and less danger of becoming a police state and infringing on even more of our constitutional liberties.

[Lipstick on a Hillary]

What actually causes the necrosis?

A physician in the clip explains it.

[Liberal_Spy]

Back to my point. Crime around drug use is a result of it's illegality. Prohibition means bigger government, higher taxes, more agencies, bureaucrats, cops and more privacy concerns. Prohibition also disproportionately affects minority communities.

I'd rather we shift focus away from interdiction and toward treatment on demand. There would be lower costs and less danger of becoming a police state and infringing on even more of our constitutional liberties.

Slow clap...

[aligncare]

I find this countries dependance on pharmaceutical drugs extremely disturbing. The solution to everything now seems to be lots of pain killers and lots of anti-depression medication. These drugs can be and are very addictive, and people are being given crazy amounts of them, and are being encouraged to take lots of them all the time. I personally think this dependance is caused by the pharmaceutical companies pushing doctors to prescribe their drugs to patients.

My experience has been different. The doctors I work with, if anything, under-prescribe pain meds. They have an almost pathological fear that their patients will become addicted. This results in needless suffering. Many hospitals in response to this tendency of doctors to under-prescribe have posted their pledge in waiting rooms to say, in effect, don't worry. If you are in pain we'll give you the drugs necessary to control your pain.

[Rapunzel]

My experience has been different. The doctors I work with, if anything, under-prescribe pain meds. They have an almost pathological fear that their patients will become addicted. This results in needless suffering. Many hospitals in response to this tendency of doctors to under-prescribe have posted their pledge in waiting rooms to say, in effect, don't worry. If you are in pain we'll give you the drugs necessary to control your pain.

Out here most of the doctors with chronic pain patients will now send them to "Pain" centers and let doctors who specialize in chronic pain decide on the proper meds.

[Liberal_Spy]

http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock

[aligncare]

http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock

Those are shocking numbers from the "land of the free" for what is essentially a personal weakness, or simply a mental health issue. I sincerely believe as a nation we are mishandling drug abuse policy.

[Liberal_Spy]

Those are shocking numbers from the "land of the free" for what is essentially a personal weakness, or simply a mental health issue. I sincerely believe as a nation we are mishandling drug abuse policy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Equc9A1pqQk

Check this out.

[EC]

Out here most of the doctors with chronic pain patients will now send them to "Pain" centers and let doctors who specialize in chronic pain decide on the proper meds.

Those centers are amazingly effective. The one I know of here (Mom attends it, she has a degenerative disease in her spine) doesn't just do medication, they take a holistic approach to managing chronic pain. Everything from diet to exercise to how to breathe correctly.

Those are shocking numbers from the "land of the free" for what is essentially a personal weakness, or simply a mental health issue. I sincerely believe as a nation we are mishandling drug abuse policy.

Agreed. I lean more towards a mental health issue for a lot of addictions. The addictive personality is a definite thing, so the first question that should be asked of drug abuse cases is "why?" There are some drugs that produce a physiological dependance - nicotine is one of them - I would see those banned.

[aligncare]

 

... to both points

[aligncare]

By the way, folks, being drug-free is the way to go. It's fantastic. So let's help others get there without arresting and jailing them, with all the negative that results from that.

[aligncare]

One more thought.

How many of the law and order conservatives here think that we should have arrested Rush Limbaugh because he abused hydrocodone?

Now, how many of the law and order conservatives here think we should arrest that black teenager in the inner city who is taking and selling hydrocodone?

I hope your response is not *crickets*

[EC]

The law is blind for a reason, or it should be. No favoritism, no influence. If something is illegal, it is illegal. We can and should  debate if some things should be illegal - there are plenty of bad laws on the books, after all - but while they are illegal everyone should be treated equally under the law. That is something that burns me up because it is one of the core ideals of society. All are equal under the law.

Yet some animals are more equal than others.

To use your example - Rush and an inner city teen both abusing hydrocodone? Same penalty should apply to both.

Teen selling his tabs - that is a different law he is breaking and should be considered separately.

[EC]

Sorry for double post, but this popped up on my feed just now:

Veterinarians Say Pot Poisoning In Pets Is On The Rise

Veterinarians have have seen an increase in animals with pot poisoning, a KTVU report says.

According to veterinarians at the Berkeley Dog and Cat Hospital, the majority of incidents are accidental and the result of pets sneaking snacks from their owners’ medical marijuana products, most notably baked goods.

The veterinarians also cited the increasingly strength of pot-laced goods.

“We're seeing more I think for a number of reasons. Probably one is the potency of the THC in the marijuana has increased, so that the animal consuming the pot gets more of the active drug,” Rick Benjamin from the Berkeley Dog and Cat Hospital told KTVU.

The increase is not unique to the Bay Area. A five-year study in Colorado found that pot-poisoning in dogs quadrupled after the state legalized medical marijuana in 2000.

Many pet owners and some veterinarians say that in controlled doses, pot has actually helped sick and dying pets feel better and gain an appetite, just as it does with human patients.

Benjamin claimed that one instance of pot poisoning did lead to a patients’ deaths, as the dog had consumed the entire plant. "[The dog consumed] a huge quantity and got a true marijuana toxicity,” he told KTVU.

In most instances, vets pump activated charcoal into the animal to filter the drug out of their system.

Relevant links to studies in the original article, here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/10/pets-pot-poisoning_n_4081165.html

So, pot is in fact poisonous to mammals.

[aligncare]

Thanks for stepping up, E. Will hold my question open for the strong "lock 'em up" republicans and conservatives to weigh in.

[olde north church]

Thanks for stepping up, E. Will hold my question open for the strong "lock 'em up" republicans and conservatives to weigh in.

I was someone who didn't support the legalization of drugs.  I'm starting to think that might not be the best policy for a few reasons.  Increased militarization of the police, eroding of personal freedoms and exploding drug addict populations in prisons. 
Like most wars on abstracts; crime, poverty, drugs, terror, they fail miserable and impact the victims of those things and not the perpetrators.

[aligncare]

I share a similar attitude. It was a long time in evolving but I eventually came to the same point that you so well stated. I'm not for drug use, I'm simply against the way we're handling it now.

[musiclady]

By the way, folks, being drug-free is the way to go. It's fantastic. So let's help others get there without arresting and jailing them, with all the negative that results from that.

Is there anyone here who disagrees with that?

I'm not going back to read the entire thread again, but I know that I, as a "law and order" folk, believe that the penalties are way too harsh and that jail is NOT the answer.

The problem I have is with the idea that, because the punishments have been too severe and being in prison has made many young offenders worse, then things that are devastatingly harmful should somehow been made legal.

In any discussion such as this one, I have never seen a concrete reason for making something like heroin available at Walgreens.

Crack down on the dealers, community service (how about spending some time with crack babies?) for the people using drugs, but legalizing something that has no purpose but giving a person a high, and many times leading very quickly to addiction and in this case deformity and death, and harming everyone in the person's sphere, is not an viable answer.

(btw, the question about Rush was a bit out of line, but I'm assuming you were just baiting those of us who don't want to legalize flesh-eating drugs).

[musiclady]

I share a similar attitude. It was a long time in evolving but I eventually came to the same point that you so well stated. I'm not for drug use, I'm simply against the way we're handling it now.

As am I, but there are many steps between "the way we're handling it now," and legalizing deadly drugs.

There is no more erosion of liberty in keeping this dastardly, destructive deed illegal than there is keeping people from driving 100 miles an hour while roaring drunk.

The answer is NOT legalization.

[alicewonders]

I don't think you should legalize deadly drugs.  I don't see anything wrong with responsible people using recreational drugs. 

The biggest thing that I think should be done, is to examine why our society has so many people willing to risk their health or their life just to get high.  If we can "fix" what is wrong in our society, then I don't think we would see the drug problem we're seeing now.  It's our society that is sick - addicted to the drugs of dependence, the easy-way-out, short term thinking, lack of accountability - and no spiritual core to keep us strong.