Socialism is Good for your Health
A new study from the Cato Institute finds that Portugal’s policy on drug decriminalization is paying health dividends. Portugal decriminalized possession of all drugs on July 1, 2001, including heroin and cocaine. Trafficking in drugs is still a criminal offense.
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies. © Cato Institute
The author, Glenn Greenwald, notes that “decriminalization has become increasingly popular in Portugal since 2001. Except for some far-right politicians, very few domestic political factions are agitating for a repeal of the 2001 law.” He also highlights that “none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for “drug tourists” — has occurred.”
One comment caught my eye: Greenwald states (my emphasis)
Although postdecriminalization usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly when compared with other EU states, drug-related pathologies — such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage — have decreased dramatically. Drug policy experts attribute those positive trends to the enhanced ability of the Portuguese government to offer treatment programs to its citizens — enhancements made possible, for numerous reasons, by decriminalization.
In other words, the study clearly finds that one of the foundational anchors of this success has been the availability of rehab to users.
The study clearly indicates rehab is a major component of the success of the decriminalization policy, and that such rehab needs to be available to all. Successful rehab is thus only possible when health is a public service. Without a public health program, most users (who are poor) would be unable to afford rehab (which tends to be relatively expensive), thus removing any possibility of improved public health outcomes - users will remain as users with increasing incidence of STD & death.
Unfortunately, the US would rather spend untold sums on the War on Drugs, and on the incarceration of users. Apparently it is still un-American (to some) to invest those sums in public health.
Is it that public health is socialism, while war is not?
This is yet another instance where US policy demonstrates a foundation built on ideology, not facts. I’m hopeful that the Obama Administration can transform US healthcare into a form more suitable for a first world nation. One that provides health services for all, according to need. That’s not socialism. It’s common humanity.
Karl said: “Promise a person release from the “hell” of powerful drug addictions and they’ll do just about anything.”
How do you know this, Karl? I’m asking genuinely. How do you know what motivates addicts, and what is this “something” that tells you suicide bombers are addicts? I have never read anything that points to that, so if you have sources, I’d love to hear them.
Mindy: You’ve asked, and I have no doubt that Karl will respond. Karl, please keep it succinct.
Karl. Again: project, confuse and conflate.
You sometimes touch a part of the elephant, but can only imagine a tree.
As for saying “Something tells me that a fair portion of the suicide bombers are addicts”. What something would that be, Karl? It sure isn’t any news source or the result of reliable investigation.
And when you say “If these people had humanity’s better interests in mind they would educate their own people about the evils of opiates.” do you really not understand?
Dictatorial regimes are in it purely for themselves. Warlords are in it purely for themselves.
Criminals are in it purely for themselves.
For these people ‘humanity’ is a field to be harvested, not a forest to be conserved.
I think you might make a good research project. How could someone intelligent enough to graduate college and gain teaching credentials in science be so poor at analytical thought?
Facts. useful.
Evidence. very useful.
Corroboration. Priceless.
A fair portion is my way of stating that the easiest way to control someone else’s behavior is to get them addicted to drugs like crack or heroin and then condition them to do what your want done.
Here is an article that pretty much sums up hypothesis.
http://www.preventragedy.com/pages/TAR/013.aug05.html
Suicide might be gladly entered into by many suicide bombers, but for others it is only a viscious way for the criminals and power hungry dictators who are in it for themselves to further their cause by making people believe that these poor people are on a Holy Mission.
Either way, be it through indoctrination and “religious” zeal or the manipulation of a drug conditioned addict, or both in some cases the world is made to believe that the suicide bomber is in full control of their choices.
I just offered an hypothesis that the “scientists” of this world might want to look into.
Islam extremists certainly fit the picture of the kind of domination that the supplier has over the user.
I was reading HufPost today and came across this apposite post from Norm Stamper, a Retired Seattle police chief and member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
His take on drugs - legalize, regulate, and license.
This odd assertion of Karl’s that a significant proportion of suicide bombers - or indeed any of them - are addicted to drugs (either against their will or otherwise) displays a misunderstanding of fundamentalist Islam. And of drug addiction, as an aside.
The reward for jihadist suicide bombers is, essentially, spending eternity de-flowering virgins (with glory in Allah’s eyes a close second). Marinated in hatred and paranoia and indoctrinated with myths of glorious martyrdom from youth, Islamic suicide bombers go to their hero’s deaths willingly (though there have been tragic cases where intellectually disabled people or vulnerable others have been coerced or threatened into being walking bombs). It also would make no sense for a jihadist group like the Taliban to crack down on opium production (as they did so ruthlessly when they were running the show) if they were actually using it to grow suicide bombers. Firstly and most obvious - if you wanted to coerce people with drugs to do your bidding you’d want a ready supply of your drug of choice. Why not take control of the crops instead of destroying them and executing the growers? Secondly, even moderate Islam strictly forbids alcohol and all other intoxicants. Strict fundamentalists like the Taliban leaders didn’t tolerate opium when they were in power and it’s simply not realistic that they’d breach their own rules so blatantly when there are ranks of people happy to go and explode at a moment’s notice. I can’t imagine any other fundamentalist Islamists wavering on that either. These are fundamentalists after all, and rules are everything to a fundamentalist. Their warped mutant of a religion is enough to make people enraged, insane and spiritually greedy enough to detonate themselves on a crowded bus.
I can relate from personal (but not first hand) experience that heroin, to put it mildly, seriously messes with your head. To pay for your fix you’ll do anything you need to to. When you’re strung out and freaking you’ll do thoughtless, dangerous, illegal and ridiculous shit that you won’t remember once you’re finally high again and would be horrified by if you did. Without doubt, heroin is about the worst drug on the market (ice is closing in though) and pretty much destroys everything it touches, starting with the addict and radiating outwards. It makes people forget they’re human.
However, in order to be truly evil and take others’ lives to glorify yourself you need to be a fundamentalist and to be a fundamentalist you can’t do drugs. You don’t need them - believing that it’s the will of a divine, infallible and unquestionable god is the only way that brutal indiscriminate murder makes any sense.
Karl
You need to use your skepticism a little more regularly.
I support of your thesis, you posted a link to a guy whose business is selling books and seminars (his own) on addiction - and who paints almost every behavior (those he considers anti-social) as being the result of addiction.
Doesn’t the flagrant self promotion and self aggrandizement ring any bells with you?
This guy is simply selling snake oil.
Everything he does is snake oil.
There may be a grain of truth in some of what he says - but more in the vein of “a broken clock is still right twice a day” than in anything resulting from knowledge or analysis.
Your hypothesis is supported by nothing more than vapor. Evidence is not supplied by anecdotes. Evidence is not some guy’s ’sales pitch’ for his addition seminars and books.
Shorter Hank: This odd assertion of Karl’s … displays … misunderstanding.
I see some Muslim stereotypes emerging.
Mainstream Islam condemns suicide bombings because bombing usually kill innocent people. Most suicide attacks are not some religions fanatic who believes he will go to paradise and be with a multitude of virgins, but individuals who are convinced they have no future, nothing to live for and that the sad state of their lived were somehow caused those they view as enemies. It more of a final act of vendetta.
Suicide bombing are nothing new, neither are suicide squads and suicide missions. They are a creation of Muslim fundamentalist, but are often used by them.
Since Arabs have a very different culture from ours,
they have a different language, a different way of writing, the dress different have different customs and holidays. It is easy to believe that they must be some sub human species with a brain defect that makes them all so gullible to think that by blowing themselves up in the local market, and killing women and children, they will get a first class ticket to the here after. What drivel. (By the way, a large number of suicide bombers in Israel are women, and in Islam, women don’t get the benefits of a multitude of virgins in the afterlife.)
Suicide bombing was common in Viet Nam, Korea, WWII, and in many wars against the British empire. Suicide bombing is a weapon of last resort, a tactic of desperation. No drugs, no secret economic wars, no brainwashing. mostly a sense of no self-worth, frustration and anger against their oppressors, and an overwhelming desire for vengeance.
Sorry for the topic drift.
Niklaus: it’s conversation, not drift, and in this case you’ve put some closure on Karl’s wilder Islamic fantasies.
You’re quite right Nik - after I went to bed I realised I hadn’t mentioned anything about the despair and desperation that a person can feel under oppression. The people of Palestine - the regular people who just hope to wake up in an intact house with all their limbs - are probably some of the most desperate (and flatly ignored) people on the planet. I realise my post was a bit of a generalisation (written late at night, though hardly drivel, I must protest that), however I still believe it’s true that the promises of the afterlife hold a lot of sway with an enraged fundie.