[Nursie]

I started writing a sensible reply to this and couldn't It's outrageous.

'Drug use goes hand in hand with theft'

Do you know how ignorant that sounds? Caffeine and alcohol are drugs, do they go hand in hand with theft? Is everyone legally smoking weed in Colorado a thief too?

'Once you're addicted to drugs, you have to steal to pay for that habit.'

Not all drugs are addictive. Most are less addictive than alcohol, nearly all are less addictive than tobacco. The vast majority of drug users are not addicts. In any sensible country those people who do get addicted would receive help and maintenance doses of their drug and wouldn't need to turn to crime. See Switzerland and their heroin programs.

'It's hardly a victimless crime.'

It's exactly a victimless crime. If someone steals stuff to support a habit THAT is the crime with the victim. Not drug use. FFS.

[aquadrop]

Reality steps in and it's bad. In Russia drug addicts were (and still are, to lesser extent) responsible for very large if not largest portion of crime, especially burglary and theft. It is a major problem, it is there and you can't go around it. And usage isn't punishable here, only distribution. So, don't dismiss parent comment so easily.

'Caffeine and alcohol are drugs' - yes, alcohol comes hand in hand with theft and other crimes.

'It's exactly a victimless crime' - it's victimless short term, but if it's hard drugs addict, there will be victims sooner or later. They will do nasty things just to get next dose.

And I support claim that war on drugs is wrong, and you can't win it (for economical reasons). But usage should be controllable.

[Nursie]

>> In Russia drug addicts were (and still are, to lesser extent) responsible for very large if not largest portion of crime, especially burglary and theft ... So, don't dismiss parent comment so easily.

My issues with the parent comment are not that addicts never steal, it's the ignorance of lumping all drug use into the same category and then saying 'drugs' make you steal.

It's the same in the UK - addicts of one sort or another do disproportionately make up the crime figures. However the proportion of drug users who are addicts is small and the proportion of addicts that steal is small so saying that drugs and theft go hand in hand is just plain wrong.

>> yes, alcohol comes hand in hand with theft and other crimes.

Again, a tiny proportion of drinkers may cause a problem, this is not the same as saying they go hand in hand, implying anyone who has a drink is going to get addicted and steal stuff to support their habit.

>> it's victimless short term, but if it's hard drugs addict, there will be victims sooner or later. They will do nasty things just to get next dose.

Firstly, we're now talking about a subset of drugs, rather than trying to tar all drug users as thieves. Secondly, in a situation where the government treats heroin as a health issue this doesn't occur. Switzerland basically killed this stuff and proved that heroin addicts could lead quite a normal life if they knew where the next dose was coming from - a government clinic in this case. And there's nothing like a queue of old junkies outside a medical facility to put the youth off heroin.

[aidos]

I was composing a reply, but I think you've more than covered what I was adding. Though I also wanted to include the phrase "Drugs are bad, mmmmm'kay?" to cover the tone of the grand parent.

OT but your parent was down-voted for what I would say was a totally reasonable and constructive comment. I guess you didn't do it because you can't down-vote those that reply to you, right? I wish people would keep the down-voting for situations where a comment is offensive / destructive / mean, instead of something they disagree with. Anyways, I'm going to up-vote to counter it.

[aquadrop]

>> However the proportion of drug users who are addicts is small and the proportion of addicts that steal is small so saying that drugs and theft

Probably we have different view on who is a drug addict. Hard drugs addicts (like heroin, ketamin, etc) have very large criminality involvement, because those drugs make them fall very fast.

>> Again, a tiny proportion of drinkers may cause a problem

Maybe small proportion of drinkers, but huge proportion of _drunk_ people cause problems. More than half domestic murders are caused by alcohol in Russia. Whole villiages die out because if alcohol, you can hear sometimes in some village there's no one who can work, because all men became total drunks. I think magical removing of alcohol would be single most positive thing crime-wise you can do in Russia. But of course it's impossible.

>> Switzerland basically killed this stuff and proved that heroin addicts could lead quite a normal life if they knew where the next dose was coming from - a government clinic in this case.

Yes, that's what I was talking about - using should be controllable. Special clinics etc. But Switzerland experience can be hard to reproduce elsewhere, this country just has different social structure. So it should be applied carefully.

[Nursie]

>> Probably we have different view on who is a drug addict.

Maybe we have. One of the reasons I was hacked off at the first comment on this was that it's not even talking about addicts - "drug use goes hand in hand with theft". This is just not true.

>> Hard drugs addicts (like heroin, ketamin, etc) have very large criminality involvement, because those drugs make them fall very fast.

I've never heard of anyone stealing to support their Ketamine habit either!?! K causes various bladder problems, and while it does seem to be a little addictive isn't really very high up the scale I don't think.

>> Maybe small proportion of drinkers, but huge proportion of _drunk_ people cause problems.

I will defer to your knowledge. I know we have problems with alcohol in the UK but I get the impression Russia is more familiar with this problem! I agree actually, that decreasing use of alcohol in our societies would probably be a really positive thing. And that it would be next to impossible. Perhaps if everyone had access to some cannabis they might not bother so much? (I'm only half-kidding there).

In general I don't think addiction is a good thing, and I don't think anyone should be encouraged to take drugs of any sort, let alone the really nasty ones. I'm very pro-legalisation but that doesn't mean I want to hide the damage drugs do to people and to society.

I just think it's way off-mark to say "all drug users are thieves" !!

[MichaelGG]

Hard drugs, like ketamine, the stuff they give children during surgery, a medicine on the WHO's list of essential medications.

[tmp-20150107]

> It's the same in the UK - addicts of one sort or another do disproportionately make up the crime figures.

Yes, the inference only goes in that direction...

[Nursie]

'xactly!

That's a succinct way of summing it up :)

[Zak]

In Russia drug addicts were (and still are, to lesser extent) responsible for very large if not largest portion of crime, especially burglary and theft. <snip> And usage isn't punishable here, only distribution. So, don't dismiss parent comment so easily.

This would likely not be the case if cocaine cost about the same, or even ten times as much as sugar. The high price of drugs is a direct result of laws against their production and distribution. I expect addicts stealing to support their habits would be much less of an issue with legal drugs, even if there were moderately high taxes on them to offset the costs of treating addicts.

[aquadrop]

I don't know, making hard drugs easily available in the country with large number of people living in poverty could end up not too good... I think we should dig history more on that, China and opium comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_opium_in_China

I agree that war on drugs can't be won because of economical reasons, though.

[Nursie]

Perhaps not making (very) addictive drugs easily and cheaply available to the general population, but making them easily available to registered addicts, who can get some counselling but also be provided a cheap/free fix so they don't need to steal to get more.

The cost to society would be far less.