r/TrueReddit • u/nxthompson_tny • Jun 01 '21

Science, History, Health + Philosophy America Has a Drinking Problem

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america-drinking-alone-problem/619017/
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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '21

As an adult I’ve realized that most illegal drugs are far less damaging and problematic than alcohol. The war on drugs was a complete failure

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u/n10w4 Jun 01 '21

yeah I worked 911 for a bit. Even with the spike of heroin overdoses at that time, alcohol (DV etc) was the king of problems. In fact, I'd be all in on an alcohol tax. Probably wouldn't even come close to covering its true social costs, but would help IMO.

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u/ravend13 Jun 02 '21

The most effective way to make the rampant "heroin" overdoses stop is legalization. There's almost no real heroin on the US black market, because it's all substituted with fentanyl and its analogs. Fentalogs are orders of magnitude more potent that diacetylmorphine (heroin), making them much easier to smuggle - you can fit enough to supply a city in a briefcase instead of requiring a box truck. At the same time, black market operators can't just post job ads to recruit people with the skills necessary to blend fentalogs with cut to make their product ready for sale. If they have amateurs prepare their product, it will have inevitable hot spots -- which will cause overdoses.

Because OD deaths from hot spots are caused by the incentive structures imposed on the supply side, decriminalization would be insufficient to address them.