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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Topic: Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead today
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 02-05-2014 02:58 PM
As I understand it, this was the point Dave was making: that healthcare systems (whether essentially private sector, as in the US, or government-run, as in Canada) end up having to treat the chronic health problems caused by the consumption of both legal and illegal drugs, and that however the money flows through the system, people who take care of their health end up subsidizing those who do not.
I don't think there's any way you can work that problem totally out of the system, unless you're prepared to make arbitrary decisions as to which diseases are self-inflicted and which are just bad luck, and deny treatment for the former (if someone who is slightly but not grossly overweight shows up in the doctor's office with high blood pressure, do you deny them medication?). You can only try to keep it under control. Outlawing some drugs and regulating others is probably the best way to do that, in many cases.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 02-05-2014 03:38 PM
If Philip Seymour Hoffman had died of a prescription drug overdose some investigative questions would definitely be asked of the pharmacy that provided the drugs and the doctor who prescribed them. "Dr. Feelgood" quacks have been brought up on charges of malpractice and even thrown in jail for prescribing drugs when they shouldn't have done so. Some doctors make a good amount of money writing out prescriptions for people only looking to get high.
quote: Leo Enticknap
I don't think there's any way you can work that problem totally out of the system, unless you're prepared to make arbitrary decisions as to which diseases are self-inflicted and which are just bad luck, and deny treatment for the former (if someone who is slightly but not grossly overweight shows up in the doctor's office with high blood pressure, do you deny them medication?). You can only try to keep it under control. Outlawing some drugs and regulating others is probably the best way to do that, in many cases.
All drug users have somebody or something enabling their irresponsible, selfish choice of lifestyle. If you remove the factors that enable their behavior chances are far greater the users will get clean.
More and more workplaces in my part of the country are screening their employees for drug and alcohol use. The alcohol screening is a breathalyzer test. You would be surprised at how many people have a beer or whiskey breakfast and then go off to work, or hammer back a few during lunch. Some employers have a zero tolerance policy. If your piss test turns up positive for drugs or you blow something other than .000 in the breathalyzer you're fired. Other places will have a 1 or 2 strikes policy with mandatory rehab as a condition.
Most employers don't have drug testing policies in place. I think that is going to change as the costs of liability, worker's comp and health insurance policies continue to rise. If an addict is faced with not having a job and paycheck he'll reexamine his lifestyle choices. I have a few coworkers that did use pot recreationally before we put our drug testing policy in place. They had a simple choice: quit the drugs they were doing or find another job.
Family members and friends often enable a user's addiction, providing money, a place to live, etc.
Our social services sector also enables addictions via welfare, SSI, etc. Some lawmakers are wanting government benefits checks held up under a condition of drug testing. I have no problem with that approach. If someone is needing help from the government to turn their life around, the taxpayer dollars they're receiving give the government the right to demand certain conditions be met, like being drug free. As the United States' debt problem grows worse the idea of making recipients of government assistance submit to drug screenings will become more popular.
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 02-05-2014 03:41 PM
Actor Hoffman's fatal heroin overdose puts focus on dealers
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/actor-philip-seymour-hoffmans-fatal-heroin-overdose-puts-focus-on-dealers/
Most of the nearly 40,000 Americans who die each year from a drug overdose do not make the front page, but when revered actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead Sunday with a needle in his arm, the nation took notice.
And so did the police. On Tuesday, four people were arrested on drug charges and are reportedly being questioned in relation to Hoffman’s death, placing the actor’s untimely demise squarely in the middle of a new trend in the war on drugs: charging dealers when their customers die.
“We’re coming for you,” says Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County, N.J. prosecutor’s office.
Fave told CBS News’ Crimesider that since he came into office in April 2013, prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato has “been on a mission” to hold dealers accountable for the deadly effects their products are having on citizens of Ocean County. According to Fave, of the 53 Ocean County residents who died of overdose in 2012, the majority were using heroin. Total overdoses in the county more than doubled in 2013, to 113; and so far in 2014, Fave says there have been eight fatal overdoses, seven involving heroin.
On Jan. 10, Coronato's office secured a 11-and-a-half year sentence for Kenneth Staunton, a 33-year-old who pleaded guilty to heroin possession and manslaughter in relation to the death of a 27-year-old man who overdosed on Stauton's product.
And just last week in Illinois, a 27-year-old woman was sentenced to four years in prison after she reportedly pleaded no contest to first degree reckless homicide for selling heroin to a man who died from overdose.
Kerry Harvey, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, is also cracking down on dealers in his state.
“We have had a truly horrific problem with prescription drug abuse,” Harvey told Crimesider. And while he says they’ve been able to restrict the supply of these drugs somewhat, the crackdown has “caused a comeback of heroin.”
Instead of specifically charging dealers with their customers’ overdose deaths, Harvey says his office has used sentencing enhancements that allow for as many as 20 years in prison if a death results from an illegal narcotic distributed by the suspect.
“It’s hard to deter someone acting out of an addiction, but you can deter people who are acting out of greed,” says Harvey. “We want them to know they’re risking their own life [when they deal], at least in terms of their freedom.”
Part of this new push has been to train first responders like police and EMTs to treat overdose scenes not as accidents, but as potential crime scenes. They’re taught to secure the scene, interview witnesses, and collect evidence, like pill bottles, needles and the all-important cell phone. Harvey pointed to one recent case where an overdose victim had called his dealer just hours before his death.
In addition, Harvey said that he’s conducted training at local coroner and medical examiner’s offices to make sure that overdose victims are autopsied so that a connection can be established between the death and the drugs.
“We’re trying to change the cost-benefit analysis for dealers,” says Harvey. “With every heroin transaction there is a significant risk of overdose death. We want them to know if their customer ODs, they will be held responsible.”
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-05-2014 03:50 PM
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
Legalization will help reduce the crime associated with drug use, the health care matter is a different story.
You can't deal in absolutes though. If they legalized cocaine tomorrow, do you think all the guys who make big bucks selling cocaine are suddenly going to get licenses and open store fronts? There are way too many reasons that wouldn't take place....government regulation being one of them. If I had a well-operated illegitimate business bringing in good money and all of a sudden I could operate legally but have to give away half of my profits while raising my prices...well, that's a pretty good argument to stay illegitimate if I thought I could get away with it.
The idea of legalization also depends on the notion that people will have money to buy drugs legally. People who are major drug addicts can have a hard time keeping jobs, hence a lot of crime takes place because stoners just don't have the cash.
I guarantee you there is still plenty of black-market pot being sold illegally "on the cheap" in Colorado, the land of legalized pot, just due to the high prices now being charged by the legitimate dealers because of the demand.
How pot will become really mainstream is when big companies get involved and stores start selling packs of ready-made pot smokes and other products in grocery stores and pharmacies, the same way they sell regular cigarettes today. The whole notion of having to buy your pot in stupid little bags and roll your own joints is ... well I guess you would have to be a pothead to think that made much sense. Can you imagine the raging outcry that would arise if the tobacco companies stopped making cigarettes and all the smokers had to roll their own? Why, they'd wail their tar-covered lungs out.
In about 20 years people will look back on today's pot landscape and laugh their asses off...well, if they can remember that far back, they will.
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