Wanna stop people from doing bad drugs? Give them good drugs.
Yes we're literally advocating giving people weed, Xanax and beer if they want it.
In 2015, Bushwick, Brooklyn, became the epicenter of a K2 epidemic, after some enterprising bodegas by the Myrtle-Broadway train stop started selling various brands of unregulated synthetic cannabinoids, which were then legal.
It took cops a little while to catch on, but before long, there was a full-fledged drug panic with reporters warning of a zombie apocalypse and the NYPD promoting the standard copaganda. “It’s incredibly dangerous and harmful,” police chief William Bratton said in a press conference. “These individuals, many of them under the influence of this drug, are totally crazy, have superhuman strength, are impervious to pain. So some normal takedowns are not going to work.” That’s exactly what cops said about drugs like PCP, which helped justify all manner of beatings and brutality.
We drug policy hippies rolled our eyes. Not another bullshit drug panic! But, well, while no one should ever call drug users “zombies” and Bratton was literally describing a made-up condition called “excited delirium,” K2, also known as Spice, did actually cause some awful side-effects, including acute psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, and a nasty withdrawal. This strange brew advertised as a synthetic cousin to marijuana, advertised as a harmless alternative that feels just like the real plant, turned out to be marijuana’s scary Uncle Fester.
The chemicals can vary from batch to batch, even if they’re labeled as the same brand and the concentration of the drug is inconsistent—even within the same packet. Overdosing on it can legitimately make people freak out and it’s scary. It makes the street smell like a fire in a landfill. Harm reduction specialists insisted that helping people who used was still the right way to go: Advising to wait to see the effect before having more, and creating sites where professionals could calm someone having a bad episode.
The market for K2 emerged because marijuana was not yet legal, and as such, far more expensive and inaccessible for poor unhoused people. Remember when you spent every day in college getting high and nothing bad really happened? Well, at the time, police were still busting poor people of color for weed, and helping drive up prices, as is the way with black markets. K2 was also appealing to some because it didn’t show up on drug tests. People who maybe got caught with weed and have to pee in a cup for their probation officer found a way to alter their consciousness on the sly.
Since then, marijuana has become legal in New York and the city has started the very slow process of working to ensure the legal pot industry isn’t taken over by the people who smoked in college with zero consequences.
Now the street drug supply is full of weird synthetic chemicals not designed for human consumption. Synthetic opioids especially are popping up everywhere. As Zach regularly points out, fentanyl emerged in the void left by the crackdown in legal opioids. There’s always a void!
So what if we, as a society, seriously invested in creating a drug supply and market that has some safe guards? And what if people with severe addictions could access regulated drugs so they don’t die from medicating their pain with mystery powders?
Yes we are literally advocating the government hand out high-quality weed to people who want it for free, and not stop there. Benzodiazepines like Ativan and Xanax glom onto the same brain receptors as alcohol, so they chill people out, without chilling them out in a way that makes them think it’s a great idea to do Whitney Houston at karaoke or get in car and kill someone. They can be addictive if taken daily, so let’s attach trained mental health professionals to benzo dispensers so they can ensure they’re being used in the healthiest way possible for those who want them. And hell, give people who want it safe amounts of alcohol, so they don’t die from drinking mouthwash.
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