This is an obviously good idea the only complaint about it is how long it took them to institute it:
Addicts are to be supplied with free heroin at the NHS’s first drug-assisted treatment centre in a “last resort” bid to combat the highest drug death rates in Europe.
The drug addicts will get medical grade heroin to inject up to three a times a day supervised by NHS nurses and health experts at the Heroin Assisted Treatment” (HAT) centre in Glasgow, which will be unveiled this week.
What’s actually wrong with people taking heroin? Well, it kills the people who take it.
Well, actually, no it doesn’t. What kills people is the poor quality of what they’re taking. Partly what it’s cut with etc. But more importantly these days, the variability of the dose. People add a bit of fentanyl and it’s very difficult indeed to add just “a bit” of fentanyl. For the does that kills is tiny, it’s also not much higher than the dose that thrills.
It’s that contamination that kills.
So, logically, to stop heroin killing people give ’em the pure stuff for free. Costs are about £30 a day (hmm, that’s from memory, maybe per dose) or so for that pure stuff at NHS rates.
Of course, what should really be done is legalise the stuff. Then watch as brands vie to be known for the purity of their doses – and the dosages of their doses. Problem then solved but then we also all know that’s not going to happen.
God forbid. The proles can’t be trusted not to give up work and stay at home chasing-the-dragon. Where would the country be then?
Yes indeed, contamination and unpredictable doses are both consequences of Prohibition. Also the frequent need to transact at midnight at a public park and bring your own armed enforcement against a business partner who sees a way to exit with both the cash and the heroin.
You want to get off your tits on drugs, and doing so will harm you. This is exactly the reason why it should be legal.
Only stuff which benefits you as an individual but harms specific people around you should be illegal.
Not to sound overly harsh, but why should we pay for addicts to use heroin? Yes if they buy on the street they might die, but every penny spent on providing them free at the point of delivery narcotics is a penny less, for instance, in treating childhood leukaemia (which the UK is rather bad at).
Save children or pay for druggies to get high?
You have a point. But I’d argue that it’s cheaper to keep them sozzled on heroin than to waste the time of the police and clog up the courts and prisons with the druggies.
Of course if the number became too great, we could just add a dab of fentanyl to their daily dose.
There is a danger that by providing for free a highly addictive drug the state would be encouraging an increase in its use and that treating the ensuing health problems would be expensive.
The fentanyl idea is seductive!
“Of course, what should really be done is legalise the stuff. “ Because we all know that drug addicts are good workers with high-paying jobs, and will gladly visit their local heroin retailer in the mall to make a well-informed purchase. This is a rich society problem, where the compassion of our politicians leads first to handouts to people who can’t work because they are drug addicts; then free needles to stop them getting AIDS; then free heroin. Next thing you know, it is San Francisco here we come! and they are crapping on the streets. In a poor country,… Read more »
I believe general policy was hard compulsory treatment of addicts while dealers and producers were shot. I still ask, why does so much of the best fed, sheltered civilisation want to be off its head ? Granted some have a dreadful start but why so many others with no such excuse ?
There is the big FAIL – addict must live very close
Indeed it does
@Leo Savantt
+1
Why buy alcohol or dope when Gov’t provides free heroin
The great Portugal drug miracle has turned out to be a bust, pun intended. The manipulated stats are showing cracks, pun intended, not a single addict has reformed, why should they, and usage is heavily on the rise again. I need beer. Why doesn’t the government pay for me to have it? I need sex. Why doesn’t the government pay for me to have it? Having known a few addicts I can assure you that everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief when at last they OD. They are not the same people you once loved and looked after. Normalisation… Read more »