Repost from October 2004 - re Drugs in BC

in the past ....
SOME INFO ABOUT THE 1950S DRUG SCENE. Does it matter today?

(researched because I have written a stage play about drug addiction in the 50s)

In 1952, a Special Committee on Narcotics of the Community Chest and Council of Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, recommended after thorough study: "The Federal [Canadian] Government should be urged to modify the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act to permit the provinces to establish narcotic clinics where registered narcotic users could receive their minimum required dosages of drug." - Such dispensing clinics, the committee predicted, would "protect the life of the addict and support him as a useful member of society." It would also "within a reasonable time eliminate the illegal drug trade. . . . The operation of such clinics would not entail any reduction in the vigilance of law enforcement agencies," which would continue to be responsible for keeping narcotics out of reach of non-addicts.

An addict who shifts from black-market heroin to morphine by prescription moves into another world. Suppose, for example, that be has been paying $20 a day for 40 milligrams of heroin mixed with 360 milligrams of hazardous adulterants and contaminants. Armed with a prescription, he can walk into almost any neighborhood pharmacy and secure pure morphine, U.S.P., safely diluted in an appropriate vehicle, and sterilely packaged, at the full retail price of $5 per dram or less. He thus pays about five cents for 40 milligrams of morphine. If heroin were stocked in pharmacies, he could buy 40 milligrams of it, too, on prescription, for about a nickel - as British addicts do.
The question is obvious: Why shouldn't the addict be encouraged to secure his opiates legally, on prescription, in pure form, for a nickel a day, rather than be forced by federal and state laws to spend $20 per day in the heroin black market?
(NOTE* These figures are pre 1960s, it's more like $300. per day now. (conservative) And the addicts get it by breaking into YOUR car, your house or your life, adding huge costs to us all)

In 1954, a California citizens' advisory committee to the Attorney General on crime prevention proposed that an addict certified as incurable by a disposition board should legally receive specified doses of narcotics and thereby remove said addict as a potential market for criminally or illegally secured narcotics.
Also in 1954, Dr. Edward E. Eggston, for the New York state delegation, brought to the annual convention of the American Medical Association a proposal that the AMA go on record as favoring "the establishment of narcotics clinics under the aegis of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics." The resolution did not pass.

In 1955, the Medical Society of Richmond County (Staten Island), New York, recommended the "establishment of narcotic clinics in large centers where the problem is acute." It suggested, "Suitable private physicians can care for the occasional addict in isolated areas .... The addict will receive his narcotics only at the clinic, hospital, or doctor's office so that he cannot resell them elsewhere."
Also in 1955, the New York Academy of Medicine proposed "taking the profit out of the illicit trade by furnishing drugs to addicts at low cost under federal control."
The academy recommended that "clinics be attached to general hospitals, whether federal, municipal, or voluntary, dispensing narcotics to addicts, open 24 hours daily, 7 days a week."

In 1956 the Council on Mental Health of the American Medical Association, while opposing the immediate establishment of substantial numbers of drug-dispensing clinics as urged the previous year by the New York Academy of Medicine, did suggest "the possibility of devising a limited experiment which would test directly the hypothesis that clinics would eliminate the illicit traffic and reduce addiction."
Also in 1956, the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association established a joint Committee on Narcotic Drugs, which recommended in its 1958 Interim Report:
(1) An Outpatient Experimental Clinic for the Treatment of Drug Addicts Although it is clear ... that the so-called clinic approach to drug addiction is the subject of much controversy, the joint Committee feels that the possibilities of trying some such outpatient facility, on a controlled experimental basis, should be explored, since it can make an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of how to deal with drug addicts in a community, rather than on an institutional basis. It has been suggested that the District of Columbia, being an exclusively federal jurisdiction and immediately accessible to both law enforcement and public health agencies, might be an advantageous locus for this experiment.
Have we progressed at all in the so-called War on Drugs?
posted by caterwauler October, 2004
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I think we all know what the answer is - and what we have to learn is who is stopping us from progressing? The answer is so simple.

Hike liquor prices

You've probably heard of the so-called study out of Victoria that recommends hiking the price of booze. Some are saying it is because liquor consumption has risen dramatically in BC. Some brain turd thinks making a bottle of booze more expensive will eliminate alcoholism! Well, study people live on sponsored studies don't they. Wonder who sponsored this one?
Alcoholics will drink no matter what the price, the cost just means that guy's kids don't get shoes, or toys, or the wife money to feed them.
Why will they drink despite the cost? Because they're alcoholics! (Studies never consider common sense)
Consumption in BC has gone up because people have no extra money for restaurants, clubs, opera, sporting events etc, because THOSE costs have skyrocketed into the stratosphere! (and I haven't even mentioned HST) But what is still cheap enough to make one feel good for a few nights? A bottle of booze.
Okay, you knew this was coming - - - - Here is the real reason I believe the cost of booze will go up. My opinion only of course.
A few years ago, Gordon Campbell might have made promises to private people wanting to take over BC's booze industry. He tried to sell our whole provincial liquor control to these people and these panting privateers greedily anticipated their millions after having the provincial stores closed. Some would even say Gordon got some payoff for orchestrating it all. And HIS extra bonus was to eliminate another union.
But then the public got involved and the argument that private was better disappeared when they realized how much profit from liquor went directly into the provincial coffers from government liquor stores. We were told this profit would continue from taxes but the public saw right through that specious argument too.
Meanwhile the privateer liquor stores proliferated and the prediction that their booze would be 30% higher came true! However they couldn't push that envelope any higher because of competition from the provincial stores. Those damned Government stores offer a comparison! But do they think Gordon owes them something from his promises of Grand profits? Thus a study that will allow the government, (Gordon Campbell) to rationalize putting the prices up again. Thus allowing even more margin for the privateers. Thus weaseling out of his obligation to hand over the entire industry to 'friends' while getting them more.
Colloquially, a Privateer, although established in the 16th century, is nothing more than a Pirate, plundering something that belongs to others.
Get real people, realize you're being had once again, then get drunk, it's about all you can do.