Wendy Lady on Nostr: npub17883e…w9nku ok, but. And this is gunna sound pretty shitty. But hear me out. ...
npub17883e4e53zt45f8sc52fprjwqaheppyr7yln4p30drp9xd36ge3snw9nku (npub1788…9nku) ok, but. And this is gunna sound pretty shitty. But hear me out.
Opium bans HAVE been bad for the world, but my perspective is probably not the way this article lays out.
We can argue all day that drugs are bad and that governments introduced drugs into poor communities and more historical bullshit that is unequivocally crappy. It's also pretty shitty that American troops were sent to patrol the safety of poppy fields. Kind of a fucked up role on our part. No one has really disputed this.
But, in the homeless population with the lack of heroin, they turn to more addictive and harmful drugs, causing overdose increases when they have to choose counterfeit fentanyl, arguably a more easily smuggled product and which has proven deadly consequences. Addictions aren't going away because there's no heroin. Instead people are getting more desperate and more addicted.
Talking to one of the homeless people I work with, she said that she regrets having to do "blues" because now she can't stop. Even when she knows how it's affecting her body and the dangers of it. She said she had an easier time managing her heroin addiction. Now that's fucked up.
In the city of Seattle in 2020 we went from 2 fentanyl ODs in the homeless population in the year, to in 2022 160/year. As of mid May this year, we were at 104.
I don't know what this article is arguing, but seeing the affects firsthand in my line of work. There's addicts who are not going away the moment the heroin supply dries up. Now they're just desperate. And I'm not even saying I want heroin to come back. I'm saying that as a country, as the world, we didn't plan for this and the world is still dead set on punishing homeless addicts for stuff our government was responsible for orchestrating and then not providing the addiction services to address what happens when the supply dries up.
Opium bans HAVE been bad for the world, but my perspective is probably not the way this article lays out.
We can argue all day that drugs are bad and that governments introduced drugs into poor communities and more historical bullshit that is unequivocally crappy. It's also pretty shitty that American troops were sent to patrol the safety of poppy fields. Kind of a fucked up role on our part. No one has really disputed this.
But, in the homeless population with the lack of heroin, they turn to more addictive and harmful drugs, causing overdose increases when they have to choose counterfeit fentanyl, arguably a more easily smuggled product and which has proven deadly consequences. Addictions aren't going away because there's no heroin. Instead people are getting more desperate and more addicted.
Talking to one of the homeless people I work with, she said that she regrets having to do "blues" because now she can't stop. Even when she knows how it's affecting her body and the dangers of it. She said she had an easier time managing her heroin addiction. Now that's fucked up.
In the city of Seattle in 2020 we went from 2 fentanyl ODs in the homeless population in the year, to in 2022 160/year. As of mid May this year, we were at 104.
I don't know what this article is arguing, but seeing the affects firsthand in my line of work. There's addicts who are not going away the moment the heroin supply dries up. Now they're just desperate. And I'm not even saying I want heroin to come back. I'm saying that as a country, as the world, we didn't plan for this and the world is still dead set on punishing homeless addicts for stuff our government was responsible for orchestrating and then not providing the addiction services to address what happens when the supply dries up.