Poll: Drug Addicts

[Kagim]

Nothing.

Doing a quick search there are over half a dozen rehab clinics near me that are free and offer free transportation to the center and will pick you up from any hospital in town. The thing is it is illegal to detain someone in a rehab clinic if they don't want to be there. So the only way the rehab clinics can help is if they go to a hospital and ask.

One might say "what if they don't know about those?"

Maybe maybe not. However they do exist, are readily available, and all one has to do is stumble into a hospital or walk in clinic. Which according to my sister in law happens alot.

I don't have much sympathy for drug addicts anymore. I have honestly tried helping them when i I worked in the crappy part of town. I would run into them and they would ask for money. I would ask for what and they would always say "food". I would offer to buy them a meal and the response was always the same.

"No no i don't want to bother you so just a couple bucks would be fine."
"I don't have change and we are right outside of Mcdonalds. Just come with me inside and i will.."
"Well there is an atm machine across the street in the gas station"
"I'm not giving you twenty bucks. If you want a meal i am happy to buy you one."
"You could ask the guy to break it and just give me a couple bucks. I don't want to be a bother."
"Its more of a bother to give you cash then to buy you a meal. If you want a meal just come inside."
"No no, i don't want to be a bother, a couple of bucks will be fine."
"I'm not giving you money. I'm sorry i can't help you. Goodbye."
"I just need a couple bucks. I'm really hungry."
"Goodbye."

After awhile i just stopped caring, would politely say no and keep walking. No eye contact, no stopping. I just couldn't take it anymore.

The tenth time i heard the exact same story from different people actually made me angry.

The absurd stories i would hear. The ones so obviously nothing but lies. They began to feel like acid to my ears.

The sob stories. They just.. annoyed me after awhile.

In the end its the fact they are drug addicts that cuts the last few strings of sympathy. No one forced them to do drugs. No matter how awful your station in life is drugs don;t have a very good track record of fixing your problems. Just giving you a way to run away for now.

Don't get me wrong. I don't look down on them. I just have no sympathy for them. They made there choice. Until they are willing to fix it i don't see why i should try to force them or help them.

So i would do nothing. Just ignore the man on the bus once I got him away from the girl.

Don't look down on them, but don't sympathize. they may have made stupid choices, but until they earnestly want to change nothing will. No matter how much you care.

The sob story he told you.

The one about his mother?

Is likely just as bullshit as him being rich and just waiting for money to come in. He realized one bullshit story didn't work so he switched to another one. The real truth... Is probably so far gone he will never, ever find it again.

 

[Berserker119]

I don't really think I've seen anything like that, but I would probably just try to ignore it, unless it got really bad.

 

[teqrevisited]

One more chance to start anew. If he blew that I'd have him euthanised for the good of society.

 

[masseyguy911]

I give him one shot at rehab, then if he goes back on the drugs then he goes to prison.

I believe in second chances. No more.

Yea thats pretty much what I would say.
Sometimes rehab works, sometime it doesn't, sometimes they come out worse. Still, I think its the best option.
If it doesn't work or he's worse off... well off to prison. At least he's off the streets.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

This may sound brutal, and a bit silly (or is hypocritical the word?) coming from someone who has a lot of problems himself and certainly isn't the best at dealing with them, but he chose drugs himself. It's not like I don't enjoy drowning my sadness in alcohol, it's just that I choose not to become a useless drunk idiot. Though at least I did have good parents.

 

[Alandoril]

People like him are an unfortunate consequence of capitalism. One of many.

 

[II2]

For an additional 0.02:

This guy described is kinda skirting around the lowest rung of "addicts" short of being comatose in a gutter. It's worth bearing in mind that if you ever have occasion to pass through a rahab centre, you'll (I'd put money on it, based off experience) find equal parts doctors and lawyers and scientists as you will blue collar workers and the most commonly imagined tattooed sketch-hound who's only there because of parole conditions.

People tend to think of drug addicts as do-nothing, street cockroaches, but there are generally more functional adult professionals dealing with their own substance dependencies than the accumulation of inner city skids. You just don't SEE them and they don't LOOK the part, because, like Bonsaik said, "junkies are fantastic liars" (though I'm talking about addictions in general, not just opiate users, as the slang implies).

Just something that's worth considering, for the "get them off the street" crowd. Maybe they would be saying "get them out of the office?" - but ear nose and throat specialists aren't exactly a dime a dozen, if you see what I mean.

Nobody is immune to addiction and some people have shit genetics for it, just like heart trouble.

Even though this is a massive oversimplification, a functional rule of thumb is that a person is more likely to be a 'functional' addict as opposed to the sort described in the OP is how early they started using. It's the functional ones who are most likely to be treated successfully independently or in a rehab centre.

 

[similar.squirrel]

It was ultimately his choice, but if this man is given a second chance at life via rehabilitation, he fully deserves it. It's all too easy condemn, but one should never shrink from helping a fellow human being or having a blink lack of faith in them.

 

[FugitiveZero]

I give him one shot at rehab, then if he goes back on the drugs then he goes to prison.

I believe in second chances. No more.

I'm with this guy.

you've had your chance to come clean, but you blew it.

 

[Mr Shrike]

I think they should just be thrown in prison, no questions asked. Go 'cold turkey' and force them off the drugs. It's illegal for a reason.

Or... The government should buy all the drugs coming into the country and then have them available for purchase over the counter. Do that if people want to pump this crap into their veins they can, but they only have themselves to blame.

 

[Dango]

Rehab, and if he fails, more rehab, you can't give up on someone after only a couple tries.

 

[Kyuubi Fanatic]

Unfortunately there is no real solution. Rehab, empathy, they're all good things but some don't want help, or are genuinely in no help environments where they're guaranteed to fail again should they get the help they need.

And the callus approach doesn't work, or is inhumane. Prison does nothing (except making it worse in some cases), euthanasia is no solution, they're fellow human beings.

So we're stuck with no solution. If the world had a good solution, I doubt we would have these dilemmas. But here we are.

 

[Mr Shrike]

I think they should just be thrown in prison, no questions asked. Go 'cold turkey' and force them off the drugs. It's illegal for a reason.

do you really think they will go cold turkey in prison ?

you don't know much about prisons do you ?

I don't know a great deal about prisons, but I assume Solitary Confinement would work and prison security does vary greatly worldwide.

I know that drugs, phones, batteries etc get into prisons in varous ways, but it would be interesting to see whether or not it has an effect. Not in some, like, experiment kind of way, but some people may find it better than rehab.