What Drug Will You Never Do Again Reddit

There's no bailiwick in our culture where the conversation is dominated by myths and misconceptions and so much as drugs. We are frightened to talk about it. We are tempted to fall back on stock-phrases and mental spasms -- Just Say No, and all its more modern twists.

I accept always been sympathetic to more empathetic drug policies, and I thought of myself as pretty aware. Merely when I spent over three years researching my book Chasing The Scream: The Get-go and Last Days of the War on Drugs, I was startled to detect -- time and again -- that I also had fallen for a shelf-load of myths.

Here are 7 facts I learned along the mode that startled me -- and I call back force us to think differently about the drug state of war we have been waging at present for one hundred and 1 years.

Fact One: 85 percent to ninety percent of people who utilise even heroin, scissure or meth don't become addicted.

If y'all go into a crowded bar tonight and expect around you, you lot might see some alcoholics (who need our love and back up) -- just we all know they're a pocket-size minority.

But this isn't true of most other drugs, is it? We all know that most people who use heroin or cleft or meth go addicts.

This question has been carefully studied by leading social scientists -- and it turns out this belief is a myth. As I learned from Professor Carl Hart at Columbia University, information technology turns out 85-90 pct of people who use whatever drug do not go fond.

Even the UN Office of Drug Control -- the main drug war body in the globe -- admitted that 90 percent of all currently banned drug use doesn't impairment the user -- although they've pulled the link from their site.

Fact Two: Portugal decriminalized all drugs -- and injecting drug use vicious by l pct.

Past the year 2000, Portugal had a massive drug crisis, with 1 pct of the population addicted to heroin. They ready up a panel of scientists to await at the evidence. They came back and said -- decriminalize all drugs, and transfer all the coin they used to spend on making addicts' lives worse, to making their lives better.

They set upwards a huge programme of job creation for addicts, and extensive wrap-around intendance.

The result? Injecting drug use fell by 50 percent; overdose deaths fell significantly; and very few people in Portugal want to go back.

Fact Three: Switzerland legalized heroin for addicts over a decade ago. Nobody has ever died on an overdose there on legal heroin.

Switzerland also had a huge heroin crisis. Under a visionary president -- Ruth Dreifus -- they decided to attempt an experiment. If you are a heroin addict, you are assigned to a clinic, and you lot are given your heroin there, for free, where you lot utilise it supervised past a doctor or nurse. You are given support to plow your life around, and find a job, and housing.

The result? Nobody has died of an overdose on legal heroin -- literally nobody. Street law-breaking fell significantly. The heroin epidemic ended. Most legal heroin users choose to reduce their dose and come up off the program over fourth dimension, because equally they detect work, and no longer feel stigmatized, they want to be nowadays in their lives again.

"When it comes to drugs, we can keep to live in a fantasy-world if we want -- and we will keep getting the results we've got."

Fact Iv: A Harvard Professor calculates the murder rate would fall by at least 25 percent after legalization.

When yous ban drugs, they don't vanish. They are transferred from legal businesses to criminals. If you try to steal from a legal business, they can go to the law. If y'all endeavour to steal from a criminal gang, they tin't go to the police. Illegal businesses tin can but survive through violence and the threat of violence. As the writer Charles Bowden said, the war on drugs creates a war for drugs. The Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman calculated this dynamic kills 10,000 people every yr in the US.

Professor Jeffrey Miron has carefully studied the very significant fall in the murder charge per unit following the end of alcohol prohibition. Using these figures, he has calculated that when the war on drugs ends, there will be a fall in the murder rate of betwixt 25 per centum and 75 percent equally the state of war for drugs ends. Under prohibition, anybody feared Al Capone; nobody fears the caput of Corr'southward.

Fact Five: Kids find information technology much easier to get hold of illegal drugs than legal drugs.

In a major survey, American kids said it was easier to get agree of cannabis than to get hold of beer or cigarettes. In fact, kids were more than twice as likely to say they could easily go cannabis than beer.

Why? Drug dealers don't cheque ID. A legal, licensed trade has a lot to lose if they sell to teens. An illegal merchandise has zippo to lose -- a 13-year-old is every bit good a customer as a 35-year-onetime. Nigh legalization campaigners see information technology as a mode to restrict admission from younger people, who we all concord need to be protected.

Fact Six: Addiction is non caused primarily by the drug yous take; it's caused past distress.

If 85-xc percentage of people who utilize drugs don't become addicted, what'southward happening with the 10-xv pct who do? Nosotros now know it'due south non primarily the drug. Recall about gambling addicts. They're just as addicted every bit any alcoholic or heroin aficionado you'll come across -- but nobody thinks you inject a roulette wheel, or drink a pack of cards.

Then what does cause addiction? This short animation explains:

Fact 7: When people see drug reform in do, few want to become back.

When people offset hear virtually the idea of decriminalizing or legalizing drugs, they understandably remember it sounds really risky. Just everywhere it has been tried, support went upward significantly.

For instance, a year afterward marijuana was put on sale in licensed stores in Colorado, 58 percent supported the legalization, and merely 38 percent opposed information technology. When Switzerland -- a actually conservative country -- was asked to vote on whether to reverse the legalization of heroin for addicts, 70 percent of citizens voted to proceed it legal -- because they had seen such remarkable results.

When information technology comes to drugs, nosotros tin go along to live in a fantasy-world if nosotros want -- and we will keep getting the results we've got: a catastrophic heroin habit epidemic across the U.Southward., spiraling overdose deaths, and teens finding it easier than always to get the drug.

Or nosotros can do something actually original -- something few of us have done for a century now. We tin kickoff to await at the facts.

Johann Hari's New York Times best-selling book 'Chasing The Scream: The Starting time and Last Days of the War on Drugs' is now available in paperback in the U.Due south. This article draws on the book, and these ideas have also appeared in other extracts. You tin can observe out what people every bit varied every bit Elton John, Glenn Greenwald, Bill Maher, Dan Savage, B.J. Novak, Sam Harris and Naomi Klein have said about the book hither.

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Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/7-facts-about-drugs-that-will-make-you-question-everything_b_9484744

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