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sundin13 on 27 October 2017
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fatslob-:O said:
sundin13 said:

One public health crisis involved in roughly 30,000 deaths per years vs another public health crisis involved in roughly 30,000 deaths per year. Seems like a fair comparison to me. 

That 30000 deaths per year figure for guns are mostly due to suicides. If you check the FBI numbers which only count homicides that 30000 figure becomes a lot less impressive and comes to less than 10000 ... 

With Opiods, once a user is addicted they will go on to progressively consume the drug until overdose so it's pretty clear from which is more of a health concern and especially when we consider that illicit drug abuse related deaths are growing at an alarming rate ... 

sundin13 said:

Also, decriminalization is largely an effort to improve treatment. All research in successful drug policy shows that treatment should be increased, and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences. By treating drugs as a public health issue instead of a criminal issue we can get people the help they deserve instead of pumping them into the prison system which often does much more harm than good.

"Successful drug policy" is more costlier than going with the "drug abuse prevention policy". Illicit drug users wouldn't need treatment if they just avoided using illicit drugs and followed the god damn law instead of congesting the healthcare system further ... 

I'd be willing to bet - and this is just a theory, don't quote me on this - most of those opioid deaths weren't homicides. The fact that a lot of gun deaths are suicides doesn't make them any less of a public health issue. In fact, you could argue that suicide is more of a public health issue than homicide.

As for successful drug policy, what exactly is it? Sounds like you are just kind of hoping that people will suddenly start following the law. Like, yeah, "If only people didn't break the law" is a nice thought, but as those spiking overdose numbers would indicate, hope and prison aren't really getting us very far.