Joe Rosenheim, who grew up in San Francisco, was an opiate addict for 11 years, has been in recovery for six years and is director of Inscape Recovery, an addiction treatment center near Mexico City. (Photo courtesy of Joe Rosenheim)
Why not legalize drugs: all drugs? It is not a new idea, but, in the middle of the endless debate on the way in which existing laws should be applied, it deserves renewed consideration in California and beyond.
If drugs, overdose crimes and goods have been legalized. The black drug market would dry to a large extent, the emergency services would be released, the police could be reused and the prisons and the courts would not be filled with low level criminals.
Meanwhile, users stabilized in legal drugs could leave the wheel of the hamster of the street trunk which consumes their time. In the absence of this underground lifestyle, many would be bored and stop using directly or to go to rehabilitation. No, by the way, the number of homeless would decrease.
Even those who continue to use would do it in a regulated environment which avoids the need to obtain money and release time to pursue more constructive purposes. Regarding illegal drug sellers, legalization would lead to many obsolete (not to mention the impact on international organized crime).
.legalization, in opposition to decriminalization, means not only not to stop people for possession, but actually provides drugs through a legally regulated institution for dependent persons.
The legalization of drugs for drug addicts is not exempt from the previous ones. In the United States, we practice a form by providing methadone and suboxone, although these opiate substitutes are often ineffective and can be even more difficult to kick than heroine.
There are currently several countries, including Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, which, to various degrees allow drug addicts to obtain the prescription heroine. When the legal heroine can be easily obtained, statistics show not only a reduction in crime, but a significant fall in dependence itself.
in Switzerland, which made a legalized heroine available in 1994, I found that, among those who joined the program at the beginning, there were Reductions of real estate crimes and the sale of drugs over 50% in six months.
Legalization does not seem to promote drug addiction. In all cases, it seems to discourage general use by eliminating temptation (as it is for some) from a free life outside the law and by replacing it with boring institutional support.
.would legalize the synthesized versions of heroin, cocaine and amphetamines. These drugs are already widely available anyway, both on the street and on the Internet.
in addition to that, they have long been prescribing legal pharmaceutical equivalents: opioids (such as fentanyl and oxicontina), Addell, Ritalin and Desoxyn (prescribed methamphetamine).
Narcotics could be provided, inexpensive or free, by clinics or pharmacies to medically registered persons, as well as with Suboxone and Methadone. To obtain them, I should make a conscious decision to see a doctor or a worker in the field, have an interview, sign documents and enter the system as a dependent drug.
The same system can support drug addicts with services around employment, housing, rehabilitation and therapy, which will work better when drug addicts have stability and time to go out of street life.
Joe Rosenheim, who has grown in San Francisco, has been addicted to opioids for 11 years, has been recurring for six years and is director of Incape Recovery, a treatment center for the drug addiction near Mexico.