Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by larodi 123 days ago
Long overdue in fact. But then perhaps heroin wouldn’t be illegal if it was big pharma was producing it in large quantities. It just got barred early enough. Besides why we always forget how addictive and damaging is the well available alcohol?
4 comments
lillecarl 123 days ago
Alcohol has fucked up more lives than any other drug in my sphere. People who have had their life fucked by drugs has mostly been because of inhumane government intervention.

// Sweden

link
whywhywhywhy 123 days ago
Yeah the legal thing used by people many magnitudes more than hard illegal drugs had an effect on more people than something used by a relatively small minority will impact more people you know.

How many heroin users do you know who manage to only have 1-2 hits a week socially though and hold down a career.

link
larodi 123 days ago
The most apparent addictions that ruin precious lives everywhere around us, in every country, are freely available because "eyes wide open" and most of the times - intentional misinformation (you can think of it also as tradition).

These are:

Alcohol (+the prescription benzo combo) Gambling Sugar

Add to these tobacco if you want. Nicotine on its won as a standalone agent is perhaps no more damaging than caffeine, but is used in a form-factor that really grills one's lungs.

for example - Russian influenced Balkan areas all take drinking of vodka as something super normal.

link
adrianN 123 days ago
Heroin or similar compounds are in fact produced by big Pharma in large quantities.
link
jampekka 123 days ago
Heroin was produced in huge quantities and it was a very popular drug for many ailments, including cough, asthma, insomnia and calming down children. It declined only after the 1912 International Opium Convention. In Finland it was a popular cough suppressant until the 1950s. In e.g. UK it's still used for severe pain.

Heroin (diamorphine) as a molecule isn't really substantially more problematic than e.g. oxycodone or fentanyl, which are in widespread medical use. The specific ban of heroin is more a historical contingency.

link
pjc50 123 days ago
That was the Purdue Pharma scandal: legal opiates.
link