Instead Of Warren’s $100 Billion Opioids Plan Why Not Something That Works – Legalising Heroin?

Senator Elizabeth Warren is just licking her lips at being able to spend another $100 billion of our money. This time it’s to solve the opioids crisis- which she’ll do in the normal for Progressives manner of throwing money at things that don’t work but just measure how much is being spent! At which point we’d do well to try suggesting something that would actually work – legalising heroin. And proper, full, legalisation too. People get to manufacture and distribute legally, create brands and gain public acknowledgement of them. Even, the protection of the law for those brands.

But no, let’s just splash the cash instead:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Elizabeth Warren’s $100 billion plan to fight the opioid epidemic, explained
Warren’s plan is the most ambitious attempt to tackle the opioid crisis, experts and advocates say.[/perfectpullquote]

Can’t you just feel the quiver of anticipation there? Vox’s friends get to spend $100 billion of other peoples’ money!

Because that is what is being squealed about:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren released an opioid crisis plan Wednesday that would provide $100 billion in treatment, provider support and research funds over 10 years.[/perfectpullquote]

Research funds. We just know how the universities are packed to the gunwales with rightie conservative types, right?

T[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] he proposal is modeled after the federal Ryan White HIV grant program and provides a dedicated funding stream of $100 billion over a decade, including $4 billion annually to states, territories and Native American tribes for prevention and treatment services. It also sets aside $2.7 billion each year for those counties and cities with the highest rates of drug overdose deaths. The plan also calls for $1.7 billion for public health surveillance and research for addiction treatments, and new resources to support training health care workers caring for patients with substance use disorders. It additionally provides $1.1 billion for public organizations and nonprofit entities working with at risk populations, to support treatment and harm reduction services, like needle exchanges. Another $500 million would be directed to first responders and public health departments to increase access to the life-saving overdose reversal drug, naloxone. [/perfectpullquote]

None of which will be as effective as a program which will save public money, not spend it. But then if anyone wanted to save money they wouldn’t be a Progressive, would they?

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Under the CARE Act, states and communities will receive $100 billion in federal funding over the next ten years — because that’s what’s needed to make sure every single person gets the treatment they need.[/perfectpullquote]

Just feel how much I’m spending! It’s as with shoe or handbag shopping, it’s not the result that matters it’s the cash splashed.

At which point a plan which would actually work. Firstly, ditch the idea that people happily getting high is a problem. It ain’t – it’s people getting happy by getting high.

What then kills people is their inability to gain that chemical which makes them high of a known quantity and quality. What’s killing all those people through overdoses isn’t that people are taking dope. It’s that no one knows what the hell is in the stuff. Overdoses aren’t caused by shooting up – overdoses are caused by not being able to know what’s in what is being shot.

For example, why fentanyl? Because it’s vastly cheaper than heroin. Thus doping something you’re calling heroin with it gives more doses for less producer costs. Why not fentanyl? Because the gap between getting high and getting dead is tiny in terms of dosage. Thus many people who take fentanyl dosed heroin end up dead. This is grossly magnified by the manner in which fentanyl is vastly more powerful. Miligrams of the pure stuff make a difference. The difference between high and dead is thus a mild twitch in the hand of the person creating the doses.

So, what’s our solution here? It being illegal heroin, cut with who knows what, of uncertain purity and dose, which kills people.

No, really. People taking known doses of pharma grade heroin survive quite happily for decades. Our entire problem stems from the inability of people to gain that pure stuff in known dosages. So, our task is to enable them to do so.

We do this by making it legal. Open season on branding and retailing doses of heroin – fentanyl if you prefer. The people who get the dosages right and consistent will gain the market. Partly by those who don’t killing their customer base but then that’s no different from what’s happening now. And those people who are getting it right will have that incentive to keep doing so. They’ve got a brand they’re making money from and why screw that up?

Elizabeth Warren takes much too much glee in spending ever more of everyone else’s money. In this case here she’s even doing so to ill effect. If we really want to solve the problem of opioid overdoses then the answer is to legalise the stuff.

We could even call Bill Clinton into evidence here. Sure and it didn’t turn out to be rare but there was that other thing that people were going to do legal or not. And which was always going to be more dangerous illegal than legal. So, the answer was to make it safe, legal and rare, right? And let’s be honest about it, if that’s cool for killing babies then why isn’t it for people getting high?