Kentucky's Common Sense Shift in the War on Drugs...

Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

A shift in how the nation fights drug use is in order. It has been for a long time. Perhaps more states and the federal government will find their way to sensible laws like the one Kentucky recently passed into state law.

WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday night, Kentucky lawmakers passed wide-ranging legislation to combat the state’s heroin epidemic. The bipartisan measure represents a significant policy shift away from more punitive measures toward a focus on treating addicts, not jailing them.

The state will now allow local health departments to set up needle exchanges and increase the number of people who can carry naloxone, the drug that paramedics use to save a person suffering an opioid overdose. Addicts who survive an overdose will no longer be charged with a crime after being revived. Instead, they will be connected to treatment services and community mental health workers.

At a Wednesday morning press conference before he signed the bill into law, Gov. Steve Beshear (D) said the legislation sent a simple message to addicts across Kentucky: "We’re coming to help you. Work with us. Help us to help you to get on the road to recovery."



























Continue reading BELOW THE FOLD.

Via: Memeorandum

Comments

  1. (O)CT(O)PUSFri Mar 27, 09:15:00 AM EDT

    Needle exchange is a step in the right direction. If you don’t give syringes to abusers, they share them, and then people start getting HIV and viral hepatitis C ... which has turned into a public health emergency in the state of Indiana.

    The cost of needle exchange programs are very cheap compared to the cost of lifetime HIV care.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BB-IdahoFri Mar 27, 11:20:00 AM EDT

    Another European concept we may eventually get around to.

    ReplyDelete
  3. dmarksFri Mar 27, 01:14:00 PM EDT

    Interesting article, from the point of view of someone who in the last year has become a lot more open to such "sensible laws" and the libertarian (small - "L") view on substance abuse issues.."Free thinking" at work.

    Even when I was hardline in favor of the war on drugs, I found the arguments against needle exchanges to be weak and punitive.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Will "take no prisoners" HartSat Mar 28, 02:28:00 AM EDT

    The War on Drugs - a going away present from Nixon and one that we're still paying mightily through the nose for....AND we're losing the thing! Yeah, I would say that a new approach is most assuredly in order.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dmarksSat Mar 28, 07:44:00 AM EDT

      yeah, and it looks like the only possible reprieve was Jimmy Carter's half-hearted attempt to reform. Obama has actually been worse than Bush, too.

      Delete

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