Crime in Detroit

[Jimaz]

... a vaccine for heroin addiction.... Of course big pharma is trying to stop this drug from being completed in testing because it would cut into there profits in the opiates they sell and get people hooked on....

Legally overprescribed opioids has been an escalating problem. There's the real gateway drug.

I recall reading a few months ago about some newly-designed super-powerful opioid that had been approved over objections of professionals.

I've personally witnessed two recent incidents of Vicodin being prescribed in suspiciously high quantities. Fortunately it wasn't needed and was disposed of properly. If it wasn't needed at all then why was so much prescribed?

What we really need is a vaccine against the drive to profit from the misery of others. That would solve a lot of other problems too.

[Honky Tonk]

Legally overprescribed opioids has been an escalating problem. There's the real gateway drug.

I recall reading a few months ago about some newly-designed super-powerful opioid that had been approved over objections of professionals.

I've personally witnessed two recent incidents of Vicodin being prescribed in suspiciously high quantities. Fortunately it wasn't needed and was disposed of properly. If it wasn't needed at all then why was so much prescribed?

What we really need is a vaccine against the drive to profit from the misery of others. That would solve a lot of other problems too.

You'd have to work in a professional medical environment to have your questions answered. You'd then see that the AMA has been reduced to professional, high paid, pill pushers, fueled by powerful drug company lobbyists. I was SO happy Obama decided to take on health care reform in this country. What a disappointment the results turned out to be.

[Django]

Whats also sick and wrong is the doctors get people hooked on these incredibility addictive and expensive opiates then the kids realize they can get a bag of dope for $5 and it's twice the kick at a fraction of the price. A guy told me an oxycodone pill will sell for $80 on the street but a $5 of street dope give an even better high. Street drugs are already marked up like a hundred times by the time they find there way to the streets here in Detroit but are still much cheaper than big pharma's. Someone with chronic pain could easily grow enough poppies in their backyard to sustain their own opium that would give them relief, homeopathic baby.

[rex]

If I visit the City of Detroit and get shot at, robbed or attacked by an addict to pay for their fix, it affects me one way or the other.

You actually believe this? Really? Brilliant!!!!!!!

[davewindsor]

So let's hear it, davewindsor, how has the current drug policy/war helped you in your quest to not get shot, robbed or attacked at in Detroit by all of our Saturday Night Special wielding crackheads?

It hasn't because the police have given up on this city and most of the city is pro-drugs and anti-police anyway. I have to avoid most of the city and drive through it if I want to move around Metro Detroit for safety's sake. They just aren't enforcing the laws to clean up the city up anymore. Why is Detroit so bad and other cities in metro like Troy so much safer? Every time I pick up the Detroit Free Press, I read about people getting shot at in this city. Once one of the richest cities in the US is now out of control in crime and it's due to the crack epidemic.

Here's some testimonials from Detroit city residents on the city's crime and drug problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWuM0E8Ne74
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCT_g_n61gY

Here's a stat for you: "91.2% of Detroit's Crimes go unsolved" [[ http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgr...s-go-unsolved/ )

Hey, you want to commit a crime in Metro Detroit to pay for your drug addiction? Go to Detroit proper. You'll most likely get away with it. It's become a magnet and a dumping ground for convicts and addicts living off the misery of others to pay for their addiction.

Try robbing someone at Somerset Mall in Troy and we'll see how quickly you get thrown behind bars.

[davewindsor]

If drugs were properly dispensed it would be less likely anyone would be shot at or robbed [[did you really get shot at?) I am not saying it will fix all problems but is simply the lesser evil to work with it than against it.

I don't think so. Drugs won't be free. They'll need money to pay for it. They'll have to pay for a doctor to make a prescription and then the pharmacist will charge a huge dispensing fee.

I know very well about overdoses as My friends grandson at 18 OD'ed on what a street dealer sold him as heroin but was actually fetynal. The street dealer did not know how to cut and distribute and there were a rash of deaths, because it was illegal and not regulated. He lasted about ten years in a coma like state before he died, ironically the same week as his Grandmother died who was my friend, a well know Cass Corridor resident who also believed the drug war is a failure. Old age btw.

This doesn't invalidate the fact that people OD on pure heroin. Are you saying that it is impossible that if he wasn't given fetynal and given pure heroin instead that he couldn't have OD'd on pure heroin?

Things are changing like I said.

I hope not, but we'll see what happens.

I read about a vaccine for heroin addiction recently. http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/...13/heroin.html an addict or possibly even a child would, I assume take the vaccine once but Im not sure on that but cravings would go away. Of course big pharma is trying to stop this drug from being completed in testing because it would cut into there profits in the opiates they sell and get people hooked on. They are also working on a similar vaccine for cocaine and Meth. This is where our tax dollars should be going instead of the lock em up approach. A better world and not the same ol bullcrap.

Vaccines aren't illegal under the status quo. By your reasoning, if illegal drugs were legalized, then wouldn't the big pharmas have more motivation to stop it because they will be making more money selling these regulated drugs that are illegal now. There also is no guarantee that if money is diverted from the war on drugs that it would be spent on creating a vaccine instead.

Again, I am sorry I called you a ding dong, I got a little carried away but you did try and out me as an addict, Gushi a crack head. You dont know me and I dont feel that was right.

When did I call "Gushi a crack head"? I was debating with you not Gushi, so I don't know where you got that from. You've already admitted that you do drugs. Depending on how unprofessional you talk to me will determine how unprofessional I respond to you. Quid quo pro.

[Django]

I apologize Dave, maybe I had written it wrong. You accused me of an addiction and GUSHI accused me of being a crack head.

Drugs will always cost something but a better solution is to stop mass incarceration and put money toward treatment.

I am really not interested in following up anymore on this argument with you Dave. You seem very determined but also uneducated on the subject. I wish you the best and I hope you will keep your mind open to a different solution because this one aint workin. Don't get shot traveling through my city.

[sumas]

Whats also sick and wrong is the doctors get people hooked on these incredibility addictive and expensive opiates then the kids realize they can get a bag of dope for $5 and it's twice the kick at a fraction of the price. A guy told me an oxycodone pill will sell for $80 on the street but a $5 of street dope give an even better high. Street drugs are already marked up like a hundred times by the time they find there way to the streets here in Detroit but are still much cheaper than big pharma's. Someone with chronic pain could easily grow enough poppies in their backyard to sustain their own opium that would give them relief, homeopathic baby.

Sadly, I am old enough to remember how doctors dismissed women's issues with perceptions, mostly Valium. So many women senior to me became drug addicted. Sigh!

[Jimaz]

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee, 9th District, Memphis:
"NOBODY DIES FROM MARIJUANA! YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! THE TRUTH IS THE DRUG WAR FAILED!"

[[I apologize for the "all caps," format but that was the way it was presented in the original.)

[Jimaz]

A good article in today's Free Press: Teens who expect to die young are more likely to commit crimes, study says

... a study from the University of Texas at Dallas [of more than 1,300 serious juvenile offenders in Arizona and Pennsylvania] found that teens who believe they will die young are more likely to commit crimes — and more serious ones at that....

... Lovings has toed the path toward a life of crime, as well. Last year, he said he stole a BB gun from Wal-Mart with the intention of selling it. He planned to use the money to buy much-needed shoes for his brother.

“For the short term, man, I was just like, ‘If I do this, I can get my brother some shoes, and I can probably get an outfit or something,’ ” said Lovings, who recently completed six months’ probation for theft. “But long term, I wasn’t really thinking about it.”

Lovings said he believes he’ll live to be about 50 or 60, but right now, he worries a lot about how to provide for his 6-year-old brother and 5-year-old sister. He recently began selling candy at school and around his apartment complex to contribute to the family’s income....


“It works in every case,” Houser said. “When you give them hope and encouragement and literally, as silly as it sounds, a pat on the back, a ‘good job,’ it changes their entire disposition.”

It may seem self-evident but it's good to see the research back up the intuition. I suppose the opposite would be true as well. A lack of opportunities to succeed would create an increase in crime.