The Wet-House ConceptFollow

Semantics. If they continue on as they are, they're committing suicide anyway.

You are making the choice FOR THEM to end their life. It isn't semantics, it's murder. Your reasoning for it doesn't matter--they have a right to life.

If they choose to forfeit that right, it's one thing. But doing drugs isn't forfeiting anything. Death is a possibile outcome of doing drugs, sure. But ODing isn't a necessary outcome. You can live a really long life as an addict.



So are smokers. Tabacco will kill you just as surely as cocaine will. The only difference is that you are unlikely to OD on tabacco, and that's hardly important if your argument is that anyone who is slowly killing themselves deserves to die.

Furthermore, there are plenty of activities that are slowly killing people. We just don't care, because the results are so far in the future. Sitting on the couch all day, every day, will kill you. Eating brazil nuts everyday will kill you.

The fact that you assume they are in misery is part of the problem. I'm sure many of them are. But I'm also sure most addicts will choose life over death, even if you give them an easy out.

I think the answer then would be to have a "do not resuscitate" order on them. That more what I was thinking - not that you give them a fatal dose of drugs, but that when they do hit that point, you do nothing to help them.

You're still making the choice to not save their life, but they are taking it in the first place. I apologize, I thought that's what we were talking about at first, not purposely giving them a fatal dose. Now, if you give them "as much as they want" and they don't take the proper, well labeled dosage... eh...

What's your opinion on public funding for the severely mentally challenged?

All for it. Although, I'm fairly certain that was well implied in one of my earlier responses, so I'll assume you were specifically talking to gaxe here.

Hmmm, I see it more as the individual put themselves in that position and should not expect to be saved from it. It's not forcing anything on them - it's saying "Look, if this happens, we won't save you. If you're not willing to be safe and stay alive, we won't be either." While I understand addiction is a disease, it's only an incurable disease if the patient wishes for it to be. If that's the case, they do not seek help despite it being offered, then I feel a DNR is allowable.

I don't see it as murder, because not helping is different than actively doing something. The only problem is if there's a responsibility. Answer? Have everyone who enters one of these places sign a DNR paper. They can get help, or they can get wasted, but if they get totally messed up, it is on their own heads.



That's all just hypothetically speaking however. Again, the entire idea of a wet-house or safe-injection area is inherently unpleasant and I don't agree with it (good idea, terrible reality, as I said previously).

I don't agree with putting drug users in prison. There's absolutely nothing gained from it except getting them off the street to keep them from harming others, but that would be better served by mandatory rehab. However, having not hurt anyone at that point, you can't force them into rehab either simply due to their possible likelihood to. If we could, we'd already have Varus locked up.

The problem is that it comes down to whether or not you think their choice is free or not. I'm inclined to say it isn't--the coercive force of an addiction just seems like it would be something far too powerful for any choice made under it to be rationally considered free. And as long as their choice isn't free, I can't blame them for making it.

And you are making an assumption that addiction is only curable if someone wishes for it to be so. The problem is that no addiction is curable. This is important to note. We fight addictions by purging the drug from the patient's system, which causes the body excruciating pain (which is why it is done in rehab--they can't do it alone). Then we do the best we can to give them the tools to cope. The problem is that you are always an addict--there's no cure for that. There isn't a single addict in the world that isn't in danger of relapse. It's why many of them go to AA, etc., meetings their whole life.

Stop pretending like there's a cure for addiction. Once an addict, always an addict. I'm just not willing to vilify those that don't have a strong enough will to beat it. And I see no reason to assume that everyone is born with a will sufficient enough to avoid relapse.

To be fair, we'd probably already have Varus in a mental institution if we knew his address...



It's fun to ignore the actual argument. You made the claim that murdering them was the right course of action, because otherwise you are forcing them to live horrible lives. And the addicts we are discussing are the ones past some hypothetical point of no-return.

This analogy is similar--there are plenty of people with such awful disabilities that they'll never manage to live a life most people wouldn't consider horrible. But refusing them medical aid so their condition kills them just strikes us as horribly wrong.



I'm all for voluntary euthanasia. I think it's horribly unethical that we force people to live when they don't want to. But I wouldn't force an old woman with cancer to die if she wanted to live out her life. Same with an addict. If they want to kill themselves, they can go ahead. But I'm not going to force them to die if they want to live.

But... you pay more to have them on the streets than you do to have them in a wet house or whatever. And that isn't even counting the social cost of having to step over their body on the street. Personally I would rather pay less to never see these people than pay more and have to step over them and fend them off at the street corner begging for change.

Please explain to me, if we cut them off from our free healthcare and don't put them in jail, how they cost me more? Or did you not read all of my post?

For one, I would overhaul US drug policy so that addicts have nothing to fear, legally, from coming forward to seek help (a la Portugal). This requires that addiction doesn't lead to a loss of rights, or negative consequences, for those with addictions. And it has been shown to vastly decrease cases of addiction and more addicts actually seek aid, because they don't need to hide from the gov't.

Furthermore, by legalizing drugs, you are able to move the drug trade into the public sector, which makes it much easier to control and police. It allows the gov't to set prices and control quality (so you don't accidentally OD of something that looked like a normal dose but was laced). Setting prices also helps drive out illegal dealers, who can't afford to sell drugs in the greatly diminished market at a rate that allows them to compete with the approved dealers. They are also far more likely to be caught in an environment where addicts actually come forward voluntarily.

Plus, you can impose laws on the amount dealers provide at once (and possibly limit the number of dealers per town, and only allow them to sell to those with a local ID, to prevent multiple doses from different dealers in one day).

Right there you just massively curbed the number of OD cases, opened up a ton of options for addicts to actually seek help, and forced drug users to go to a clinic to get their fix (clinics where they could also be encouraged to seek help).

Hopefully, this will let a lot of addicts get clean, and reduce the number of users across the board (especially as the controlled amount of product would curb the amount of substances distributed at venues like parties).

Finally, we come to the people that just aren't going to get clean (or stay clean) in any circumstance. Hopefully, for some of them, the controlled doses and reduced number of illegal dealers would allow them to actually function in the world while not high. Unfortunately, that's about the best you could hope for. You aren't forcing them into rehab (unless they want to go, in which case it should always be available). And they only go to prison if they do something that requires it.

Now we are left with those that just can't stay clean (which, if everything else works, is actually a small number).

Honestly, I would largely leave them alone. We don't bar them from receiving medical treatment, but after any case of ODing (which shouldn't be that common, assuming the public drug control works) they have to detox at a rehab. After they detox and spend some time in rehab, they are given two choices. They can either leave, or they can enter a mental care facility, as they are no longer able to take care of themselves. I'm betting a lot will choose to leave, and eventually kill themselves over a failed liver.

But I'd also bet there are a decent number who will come to understand that they don't have the willpower to keep themselves from using, but also recognize that they definitely don't want to. In that case, the mental hospital doesn't sound so bad. And they can actually be a productive member of society while there, if things are organized properly.

It's probably gonna be a financial drain, sure. But that's why you take the steps to massively lower the number of addicts in the first place. And the only ones that end up here are the worst cases.

Plus, the actual drug trade would obviously be taxed and help cover those costs to begin with.

[EDIT]

Maybe this is too idealistic, but the legalization of drugs has been shown to produce those results. Whether or not we'd be able to force the drug trade into legitimate channels is my only real worry. But I'm inclined to say that we should at least try.

Edited, May 6th 2011 5:33pm by idiggory