[lukeschlather]

https://msdh.ms.gov/page/44,0,382.html

Drug overdoses are a nationwide problem in the USA. Mississippi also had a 49% increase in overdoses in 2020. Shelter is a basic human need and depriving people of it on the grounds that they might overdose doesn't seem like it follows. I know plenty of addicts who take care of their things just fine. They're addicted to coffee and alcohol and cigarettes. It's possible that the problem is not the drug itself but the social stigma attached to the drug.

Although I suspect both you and I know people addicted to other things, and we are simply unaware because we don't see any of the outward signs that we associate with "bad drug" addiction.

[donatj]

> They're addicted to coffee and alcohol and cigarettes. It's possible that the problem is not the drug itself but the social stigma attached to the drug.

I assure you there is a difference between coffee/cigarettes and methamphetamine beyond just stigma.

Coffee and tobacco both improve your mental capabilities without short-term downsides. No one’s been fired for showing up with a coffee or tobacco buzz and being more productive.

Very few people would rob their friends and families for mocha money were Starbucks suddenly illicit.

Alcohol is obviously less defensible as many people do end up on the streets over it.

[DropInIn]

When meth was literally 15$ a gram back in my youth (shipping hub) there was no one robbing anyone for it, as an hour or two at any job would pay for a GRAM (large amount) of Pure meth (and I mean high quality pure without any opacity nor color).

Back then most people I knew were using it, in the same way they would use an energy drink, and there were nearly no problems aside from the morons who wouldn't stop parting for a week at a time (but those folks would do the same with Any substance).

Really... Where I grew up the literal mayor was doing coke on the regular and also owned many businesses including the baseball team... And so were most of the successful people doing lots of drugs particularly uppers.

What happened was as they pushed enforcement against the drugs the quality decreased and the cost went up, posing a more immediate health risk and inducing crimes respectively.

I know from first hand experience with both the products and the propel that the biggest issue is the mere fact of thier illegality and extreme markups.

A key is to not have the government view the drug as a profit centre, as Canada did with pot, as that only grows the black market and strengthens them rather than destroy them.

[colonCapitalDee]

I'm sorry, but what? Meth is not an "energy drink". Meth is a highly addictive substance, both physiologically and psychologically. Its use destroys the human body and mind. Meth is too dangerous to be used casually, in the same way that Russian Roulette is too dangerous to be played at board game night.

[DropInIn]

See, that there is what we call failure to engage in basic reading comprehension.

I didn't say meth is like an energy drink, I said these people Used it Like an energy drink...

Reading comprehension, it's important.

And btw ephedra laced drinks were the norm at the time, so they were actually far more similar than now.

[donatj]

To my point though, if you took away cheep coffee, everything is fine. Take away cheap meth, everything is not fine.

[DropInIn]

I dare you to take away cheap coffee.... Things will most certainly Not be fine...

I think you severely underestimate the importance of coffee to the stability of many people's psychology....

I know I'd be far more prone to violent outbursts during the first half of my day if my brain wasn't jump started by coffee.... Literally, I suffer from sleep drunkenness and without coffee my first four hours I'm little more than a drunken moron who is prone to irrational outbursts of instinctive rage at sensory triggers (loudness, brightness, unexpected touch etc).

For me that definitely part of a disorder resultant from a combo of genetics and multiple brain injuries but given what I've seen of others I highly doubt it's any different for many.

A quickly accessed link kind of supports this https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/08/22/neighborhood-in...

Theres a reason tea and coffee shops were the birth places of revolutions: Coffee stimulates the mind and brings clarity and calm many can't find absent it. The absence would be felt in increased consumption of alcohol and the resulting problems.

And really, do you think banning coffee would actually eliminate it? No. It would just become another meth and people would be killed to protect the industry etc, just like with every other substance.

Disbelieve? Look at chinese "medicine" and it's absurd contraband items that are still ridiculously prevalent despite there being literally zero effects from it, no high no health boost just bullshit. And still we have poachers and traffickers murdering thousands of people a year over that shit...

But coffee, it's an exception /s

[mike4ty4]

However, even if there is, why does that mean the answer needs to be the _specific_ extraordinarily-severe-by-nature method of criminal punishment? It seems the article, again, was basically suggesting the problem was there is no sort of incentive AT ALL, when it should be that we should be looking for "neither-nor" solutions that are neither the old method nor "just sit back and do nothing".

[baanlox]

107,000 people in the US died of drug overdoses in the 2022.

400,000 US service members died in WW2.

I think the problem has become so large we are basically in a state of denial and can't put the size of the problem in the proper context.