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From: jack@mcvax.uucp (Jack Jansen)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: The war on drugs
Message-ID: <7078@boring.mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Sep-86 04:21:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: boring.7078
Posted: Mon Sep 22 04:21:46 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 04:38:33 EDT
References: <5305@decwrl.DEC.COM> <1066@kontron.UUCP> <363@cci632.UUCP> <681@midas.UUCP>
Reply-To: jack@boring.uucp (Jack Jansen)
Organization: AMOEBA project, CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 28
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax

In article <681@midas.UUCP> jeffw@midas.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) writes:
>
>Exactly. Which is why an open market on heroin *would* (for the most
>part) solve the parts of the drug problem which cause the most grief -
>the robberies, the poisonous impurities, and the rich drug dealers.
>Of course, the number of people *on* heroin will not decrease. If I
>read you right, it will not increase either. So you have a choice -
>X junkies with a load of crime and costly law enforcement, or X junkies,
>period. Isn't the answer obvious? (Surely no one is so naive as to
>believe that significantly fewer junkies is a realisitic probability?)

Well, I think it's even better than that: legal or semi-legal heroin might
well cause a *drop* in the number of junkies. One of the problems a junky
faces is the lack of a normal social life with non-addicts: most people
will not put up with an underfed friend who is totally undependable, and
will probably steal your stereo if you turn your back on them.

Making drugs readily available will free the junky of the worry of obtaining
enough money to buy his day's dose, enabling them to re-integrate into
the 'normal' society.

But, you're right: the Reagan administration will probably never even consider
this option. An experiment along these lines that was proposed here in
Amsterdam was cancelled by the Dutch government, and while we think of them
as extreme right-wing, they would probably be seen as socialists in the US...
-- 
	Jack Jansen, jack@mcvax.UUCP
	The shell is my oyster.