Nah, that'd require introspection.

This is much more about being pragmatic than anything else.

First for your argument to be true you would have to assume that people lack complete agency over their actions AND decide that they should never be punished for it ONLY helped. This would than go for every single crime no matter who no matter what.

I hope that we both agree that people do have agency and i hope we also agree that people have to pay their debts to society and that the threats of punishment is reflected in the desicions thst people make.

Further I hope we also agree that our solutions to problems in society should be effective.

When we help drug addicts we reduce the harm to society on all fronts and we can of course also make a moral argument that drug users hurt themselves the most and that addictions are mostly a complex beast that didn't come into beeing purely bc the addict wanted this to happen. We DO NOT ABSOLVE THEM of the crimes they commited bc of their addiction, they are still legally and socially punished for stealing or robbing or whatever else but we also reduce the need for these crimes by having these programms.

Rape on the other hand is a completely differnt crime, not only because of the harm they are doing to others but also because there is no actual dire situation where you need to do it and as far as i know, there is no "illness'' that makes you a serial rapist. Rape is about control, they want to hurt others, the hurt is the point and even if you want to classify this as an illness there is no real therapy for that. They COULD HAVE partaken in consensual rape play if they wanted to and when we have a rich guy they had all the money in the world to do so.

For an example, a pedophile should get all the help there is BUT as soon as they do harm to others they kinda lost that priviledge because they have proven they aren't safe for society. A pedophile does not NEED to rape a child they can live their whole lives without ever touching one, they might not like it but they absolutely can.

Not every crime is the same and not every bad person is mentally ill just because you think a normal person would not have done this.

if somebody said Russell Brand has a psychological problem we should help him with and hope he gets over it

We absolutely should help him and hope he gets better. That doesn't mean he shouldn't suffer the consequences of his actions, and be kept out of society until he has done so, and ideally is judged to no longer be a threat.

Those things are not comparable. We imprison people to safeguard society and most addicts are harmless to society. There is no rapist who is harmless to society.

People who think addicts are irredeemably evil are just irredeemably bigoted and hard of thinking. We should make that a crime.

The difference is that Russell Brand made people into victims. He harmed other people, and it's an inherent product of rape. Same with murder and assault.

Addicts don't inherently harm other people. In fact the addicts are the victims. Going after them is more akin to trying to demonize suicide victims.

The justice system should be about rehabilitation.

Drug addiction causes direct physical harm to the user. If you remove the monetary cost, the other social harms are mostly resolved. There is very little danger to anyone other than the user if we treat substance addiction as an illness in the way described in this Tumblr post.

Sexual assault, by definition, harms other people besides the person who has the psychological problem. There is not really a way to treat it as an illness that mostly resolves the social harms.

I think that violent offenders should be kept away from the rest of society to reduce their ability to harm others. I think some of them are truly remorseful and can be rehabilitated, and those people can and should receive treatment and be reintegrated after they are no longer dangerous to others. I think some offenders are psychopaths who cannot be rehabilitated, and the only way we protect our society is to keep those people imprisoned indefinitely.

All of these things can be true at the same time, but internet forums are usually not conducive to nuanced conversations about complex topics.

I haven't followed Russell Brand's legal case. Has he expressed remorse and sought help, or has he just denied having committed a crime? I don't think we can help anyone until they admit that they need help.

Drug abuse and sexual assault aren’t really comparable things, though. Typically drug users aren’t hurting anyone besides themselves.

Well he has psychological issues and should seek help for them...but a lot of people have psychological issues and don't rape. Yes, even people with sex addictions. So they're kinda two seperate things

Any rate, part of recovery for addiction includes acknowledging what you did to get your hands on it and how damaging it was, and doing so in a way that gives you 'useful' remorse instead of spiraliing out again

We had a good reputation, but I don't know if it's entirely warranted. We had many years of social democrats and strong worker rights, but I've not seen that in my lifetime. We've been pretty right wing for the past two decades, and the social democrats are sliding right.

During WWII, our neutrality meant cooperation with the Nazis. We were also all-in on eugenics, which harmed our native population. Last time a eugenics law was overturned was back in 2013, which was regarding forced sterilisation of trans people. The neo-nazi party Sweden Democrats voted against that, and they were the second biggest party last election. This past election I think they slid down to third.

I think it's similar to the whole mythos around the American dream and all the freedom Americans supposedly have. It's just mythical.

You may have heard of the widely unpopular Chat Control bill? It was initially put forward by a Swedish social democrat. They're heavily in favour of mass-surveillance.

That's because nothing that comes from a religion makes any sense. Don't try to understand it. It's not possible to understand delusions.

I hear that's quite literally and openly what certain types of religious people believe.

Religious people I know, think that STDs are a good thing to punish bad people who have non-marital sex, especially young people.

In America, people are extremely sex negative, and anything outside procreative sex should be punished, not just discouraged.

I never understood this train of thought. If you go into ANY situation not knowing what you're doing, chances are it will end in a fuck up. Be it sex, driving a car, working with electricity, whatever, if you are untrained you can screw up someone's life.

no sex ed isn't permission for premarital sex, there's no need for permission for premarital sex as long as they do it safely

Without data from an intuitive standpoint I can see where she may think sex ed could lead to an increase in pre-marital (I assume teenage) sex, even if more but safer sex is still preferable to less but more risky sex. So I did a quick search and it appears that she’s just wrong anyway!

"The young adults i made having sex is going to have sex!"

So tired of humanity

So she certainly never engaged in pre-marital right?

But you can't put companies in prison....

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with privately owned prison system...

The British have had a system of heroin maintenance since the 1920s. For decades it supplied a few hundred addicts nationwide, most of whom were doctors themselves. It was de-emphasized considerably during the 1960s-1980s as a result of the U.S.-led war on drugs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment

So, poorly put. Like good sentiment but they did not 'put' it well since it took a couple rereads.

Lol sorry had a late night last night

America was involved in that trade at one point just ask the CIA and who said they ever quit?

Afaik the policies in Portugal came into effect in the 00s or early 10s, while the Dutch policies to overcome the heroin epidemic was started in the 90s. I also believe they had different scopes, the Dutch policies had to do with minimizing the hinder caused by drug users (mainly begging, petty theft, home break-ins), where as the Portuguese policies were about wisely spending the available resources (money and time), like you mention. Both are good examples of healing addicts instead of criminalizing users, but i think both are two distinct things that were pioneered by different states for different reasons.

90's as well; I was a teen then and it was lauded throughout schools.

Regardless, if the policies worked, let's be happy for it and strive to improve them.

Yeah, that's why most politicians are capitalists that have been degrading all of society for decades.

I mean look at France, they throw grenades at kids and get them mutilated and amputated, but it's for their own good.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the very open answer. Hopefully you are doing well now.

thanks for the insight and the video recommendations!

do you find the idea of drug taking to itself be so immoral that harm as a result is actually desirable?

I find people taking this stance, shortighted and stupid. They complain about drug addicts, on the streets and stealing their shit, and all sorts of problems caused, harming themselves. And then they want even more of that, as a solution!

If you believe that laws [...] are necessary [...] I [...] ask you to [...] give up [...]. [L]aws are [...] [m]oral evils[...]. If you [...] pass[...] laws [...] you will [...] create a dozen new evils as well.

—Robert A. Heinlein

—Libertarians

Can you show me evidence of needle exchange programs increasing drug use? Genuinely curious. The evidence is clear these programs reduce HIV and Hep C transmission

The problem is also, that when it is permitted somewhere, and not permitted somewhere else, but the people can easily go to the other place, they will go there. This means it makes the places kind of suck in the addicts from a larger area, which vastly increases the problems, if resources are already sparse.

Categorically correct, yes.

You’re correct. Acute alcohol withdrawal, like withdrawal from other drugs that work on the GABA neuromodulatory system (the major inhibitory system in the CNS), has very serious withdrawal effects such as hallucinations, insomnia, anxiety, and potentially life threatening seizures. 

Discontinuation of any such drug should be done under medical supervision to monitor and mitigate these risks. Often, in the case of alcohol withdrawal, support medications such as Valium or baclofen are used. Baclofen is an interesting emerging option for treating alcoholism, since it works on the GABA B receptor instead of the GABA A receptor as alcohol does, which allows the GABA A receptor to remain untouched while still alleviating withdrawal symptoms. 

GABAergic drug withdrawal is notoriously tough. What’s especially insidious about their it is that with subsequent cycles from dependence to withdrawal result in intensified withdrawal symptoms through something known as the kindling effect.  

Thus, in the post-acute treatment, a medication such as disulfiram may be used, which is designed to intensify the side effects of alcohol (hangover, nausea, etc.) immediately after consumption. This helps thwart the strong psychological incentive to relapse even after the chemical dependence is addressed.  

This directly parallels the use of the opioid receptor antagonist naltrexone in opioid use disorder to thwart relapse. 

Intriguingly, naltrexone is also used in the post-acute treatment of alcoholism. It’s impact on the brain’s reward system is helpful in reducing cravings. 

Furthermore, another interesting area where the opioid neuromodulatory system is relevant outside of opioid drug use is with nicotine. Nicotine has a marked downstream effect on endorphins, which contributes significantly to its addictive qualities.

because in my area drug addict are to be rehabilitated with prayer, motivation and counseling , no drug involved whatsoever in process , you can imagin the result.

Yeah, but the US is way more lax.

I imagine they scale it for the addicts tolerance? I know for alcohol addicts they will prescribe beer and other alcohols but the dosage is correlated with the amount you were consuming before starting treatment. It's basically just a schedule that is backed by medical research for safe rates to get clean.

I think giving them enough to get high just wouldn't really count as treatment, so I agree it is likely the case that they cut the dose way below what the addict would ""Want""

We're about to get rid of that program, it's an abjective failure. The sites were like placing a cancer in a group of healthy cells. All the craziness of those people spilt over into neighborhoods that weren't previously violent.

Netherlands only. And what I thought was interesting.

Harm reduction with narcotics, but no harm reduction with "hey, wear a helmet".

Thanks, I almost booked a flight.

No, it wasn't a real question, it was a joke. But apparently not a good one, woops.