Quote Originally Posted by grantzer View Post
The answer is to treat it as a health problem not a criminal one. Addicts avoid doctors and dentists,they don't access support other than the methadone,and the only thing that methadone does is rot teeth and make chemists and drug companies rich.

There are better ways. A drug called bupranorphine acts like heroine,it also makes you violently ill if you continue with heroine. The treatment is to get you hooked on that,then get you off it,the withdrawals are not nearly as severe. It is too expensive tho. Another way is to treat with medical grade heroine, while in a secure environment,along with support from pretty much every service. This is usually done by gradually lowering the dose,until the addict is clean. They are then relocated,to somewhere they don't know anyone to get gear from.

That method is estimated to have possible savings of over a billion a year,with crimes like shoplifting and breaking and entering falling,but politically,I think would be a no-go
Could not disagree more, the countries that have the harshest penalties and pretty much zero tolerance within an ordered society fare best