[silisili]

If you talk to a parent of a child who OD'd, most commonly of fent these days, they all have this thought.

What if I took them somewhere remote where there are no drugs and didn't let them leave?

My heart hurts for them, but I have no idea if it's a good idea or not.

Regardless, I think his heart is in the right place. Time will tell whether or not it's actually useful.

[rswail]

If the parents went with the child, and stayed with them, then maybe.

But they don't, they outsource the job to a group of (mostly) sadistic, uneducated-in-rehab, "boot camps" that somehow think that violently invading an individual's rights and actions is how to "cure" drug addiction, without attempting to treat the underlying causes of addictive behavior.

[croes]

They had camps to cure gayness.

The problem isn’t the camps but the people who have the authority in them and how the treat people especially if the cure isn’t working.

Not everything can be cured by organic food, fresh air and labor.

BTW is the food the grow for the farms only or is selling it part of the plan?

If the latter then it’s about cheap labor

[silisili]

Yes and we used to kill witches for being... different.

That is to say, to any sane modern human, curing gayness is nothing like curing drug addiction.

We have to do something. Because whatever we've been doing for the past two decades has amounted to nothing.

And maybe that ends up being the answer, that there is nothing you can do. But I'll never insult someone for trying, no matter the method.

[croes]

People are still killed for being different, they just aren’t called witches.

>But I'll never insult someone for trying, no matter the method.

No matter the method is a bad take, that’s how we got gruesome people doing gruesome experiments on people who need treatment.

And the camp thing is pretty old and they always end the same: abuse of power.

[silisili]

> No matter the method is a bad take

Perhaps, but I have family going through this and it just makes you so mad. I'd pay to send him to a camp where he's beat with a bullwhip every day if I knew it could cure him.

Perhaps it clouds my judgment a bit, but the alternative is just watching him die, which I'm not stoked about.

[croes]

> if I knew it could cure him

Would you do the same if the chance of curing or killing him is 50:50?

Or if it’s uncertain that it works at all?

[BriggyDwiggs42]

People use drugs in prisons, so I doubt the wellness farms are gonna be able to keep drugs out, much less help people.

[snotrockets]

The problem is the camps. It's forces framing certain traits as something that requires exiling people who show them.

[qingcharles]

The profit margin on drugs is good. I think it would take about zero days before "remote location" is programmed into the Google Maps of several local dealers.

I've been in max security prisons. There are generally far more drugs inside these than I've ever seen in the outside world.

I don't want to piss on rehab too much, it can work. But for every decent rehab facility there are probably 100 bogus ones.

Also remember, that to an addict who has been to prison, rehab feels like prison. It has the same locked-down, heavy-on-the-rules design that can cause serious PTSD issues for (practically everyone) who suffers some sort of trauma from being incarcerated.

[lynx97]

Not just parents. Its a method that actual addicts employ. I have heard this not only once. "Moved a few months to a rural place where I had no access to the stuff to get my system clean" is a tactic that people turn to. Heck, one example I am thinking of even moved from the USA to Europe in the 90s to get rid of his crack addiction.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

1) its not a camp with a bunch of other addicts, who would most certainly procure the stuff and make it available

2) its entirely voluntary and non-coerced

[InvisibleUp]

There’s a webcomic, “Joe vs. Elan School”, that might be an enlightening read for you.

[silisili]

This actually resonates a bit with my own thoughts from these comments.

If we assume a drug abuser is doomed for death in the next 6 months. But by using them as slave labor in terrible conditions for 3 years guarantees they will live to old age, regardless of any psychological trauma from said experience, is it worth it?

I'm not taking a position, I'm just making a thought experiment. It's more of a moral philosophical thing than an answer, I guess.

I think a lot of people not in the midwest may not understand the gravity of the fentanyl problem in the US. Literally every family is affected, whether directly or indirectly.

[rendx]

What makes it so that some people/cultures seem to value age over anything else? If their lives continue to be miserable, broken inside, violent temper thanks to being treated like a slave, a long life to me sounds more like a punishment than a goal.

It's basically a religious war. One side seems to think they need to "break people's spirit" by "work camps", the other side seems to believe in "healing from violence" by compassion. You're free to pick your side, but it's going to get harder to switch, and the other side will treat you as their enemy.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

Your thought experiment, the drug dealer being universally doomed, the only consequence being a state of slavery for a finite time, etc has no relation to reality.

[dns_snek]

> is it worth it?

The answer is a very obvious "no" in any society that claims to be free.

> I'm not taking a position

Frankly it's terrifying that these sorts of questions are being posed as real dilemmas in western societies in 2025.

[snotrockets]

He has no heart. He is cruel, as he subscribes to the idea that a disease isn’t something you get because you rolled the dice wrong, but something that can be avoided by being “pure”. For him, pure health is never systematic or unlucky; the person is at fault.

This is not only immoral and vile, but borders on the psychopathic. The man should have never been allowed to make any decision affecting public health.

[viraptor]

Before downvoting, do look at many available yt videos about his views of mental health. He puts that into much nicer words, but the comment is a good summary.

[whacko_quacko]

I had a drug problem once, and di something like that. It helped a lot. If there's no way to procure any drugs, it takes away a lot of the pain and anguish you feel coming off of drugs.

RFK might be an idiot, but even idiots might be right once in a while

[mschuster91]

> If there's no way to procure any drugs, it takes away a lot of the pain and anguish you feel coming off of drugs.

Or the fact that you're not longer in the environment with its stressors that cause you to seek out drugs in the first place? Lots of people sleeping rough go for drugs of any kind just to be able to put their mind to rest.

Finland shows this with its "housing first" policy, giving people a home is a relatively easy way to get them off of drugs.

[bitwize]

That's how kids end up at Elan School.

The current administration is setting up a modern day Spiegelgrund.