| > none of its proponents think through logical consequences. They do. Can you point me to the page you read about heroin maintenance that didn't include anything about the consequences? > you may argue a heroin addict has a right to heroin Nobody has a right to heroin. What people have is a right to life; a right to health; a right to not be harmed by treatment. Current treatment for heroin addiction, especially if it's based on abstinence alone, violates each of these. Heroin substitutes are best, but they're not suitable for everyone and some people are not ready to move onto a substitute. In these cases we should provide legal heroin to maintain the habit. This would preserve this person's rights. Importantly, it would preserve the rights of the people around this person. This person no longer has to steal or sell sex in order to fund their habit. > but does a pangolin scale juicer I genuinely have no idea what point you're trying to make with "pangolin scale juice". > what is the "correct" amount of heroin Enough to maintain their current use pattern, with the aim to gradually reduce and then switch to a substitute. But with the recognition that just giving people heroin for the rest of their life is better for them and for the rest of society than forcing them to get illicit opioids. > how much should that cost? Diamorphine is incredibly cheap. Providing diamorphine in a safe setting is costly - you need a trained, qualified, registered, healthcare professional to monitor patients who are self injecting. You need a building that's insured and cleaned, run by a service that's subject to some form of oversight. But, again, all of this is far cheaper than just leaving addicts to source illicit opioids. > what if the "correct" amount for me is just under lethal dose and im essentially comatose between hits? You should probably stop talking about addiction if you're this ignorant. > is that society's responsibility to nurture my addiction. You keep saying things like this, and it highlights how you've fundamentally misunderstood the point. We're not "nurturing addiction", we are treating addiction with a safe, effective, evidence-based approach. Why do we give insulin to T1 diabetics? Are we nurturing their diabetes? No, it's fucking stupid to say so. We're treating a chronic health condition. > why is a single state-issued dose compassionate care, when many addicts need 4 or 5 doses per day to feel good? Addicts don't take heroin to feel good. They take heroin to avoid feeling bad. > when i can longer afford the pharmaceutical dose, won't i just go back to street heroin? Yes, which is one of the reasons > people get hooked on gambling and sky-diving too, but no reasonable people think it's the state's responsibility to maintain those. We should be providing addiction services to people who are addicted to gambling. So far the evidence for problem gambling is clear: more gambling is harmful, not helpful. This is the reason we don't recommend subsidising gambling for problem gamblers. |