British Prisons Help Addicts Relapse Before Re-Entering Society

A new government "retoxification" program is helping formerly drug-addicted inmates get hooked back on drugs before being released to help avoid accidental overdoses. From the article: "Thirty-three prisons across England offer highly addictive heroin substitutes like methadone to inmates, even if their sentences mean they are effectively drug-free at the time of their release. Supporters claim it gets former addicts' bodies used to drugs again by building up tolerance and slashing the risk of overdose deaths. Critics blast it as 'state-sponsored' drug dealing." I'm surprised they don't give robbers a complimentary get-away car upon release to help alleviate future auto thefts.

It was better when....

[Upaut]

It was better when any addict could get a prescription for the drug itself, at an insanely low cost. You can be "very" functional on opiates, so long as you keep it up. Now that was state sponsored drug dealing.... Low, pure heroin with a prescription if you are an addict; and to be an addict you just had to tell your doctor you were.

Violent drug dealers could not compete, and went to other organized crimes. Crime rate was much lower because the addicts could afford their fixes, and a failed drug test coul

Re:

[Locke2005]

and a failed drug test could be said "I have a prescription" and keep their job.

that no longer works. [newsvine.com]

Re:

[gandhi_2]

You brought up this:

intelligent people always get the books knocked out of their hands

twice in this article.

did something happen today at school?

you can tell us.

Solution in search of a problem

[oldspewey]

I'm having difficulty understanding where the following process requires intervention or is not already fully optimized:

1) Inmate kicks his/her addiction after a lengthy prison sentence
2) Drug-free inmate is released for re-integration into society
3) Former inmate chooses to begin using again, despite the fact he/she kicked the habit months or years ago
4) Former inmate dies from an overdose
5) "Last chance" used up. Former inmate will never trouble anyone again

Re:

[Locke2005]

Every premature loss of life is a tragedy; I believe Edgar Allen Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were both drug addicts at one point. That being said, I personally do not believe the government has the right or the responsibility to protect people from themselves.

Re:Solution in search of a problem

[Nutria]

Every premature loss of life is a tragedy

I'm getting nauseated just reading this brainless drivel.

There are a lot of people for whom death before their statistically-expected lifespan is a benefit to society.

Anyway, the word tragedy used to have an emotional impact, but now it's tossed around like candy, losing all meaning.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

You seem to dislike fascist regimes and bad public policy. Would you not prefer that people who advocate and/or implement those things should expire before they can offend your delicate sensibilities?

Re:

[Nutria]

And yep, I got down-moderated for that observation.

Then you should have written something beyond triteness and pablum, which is a specialty of both the far right and far left.

Deep thinking is what this world needs, not "We Are The World" or Sarah Palin.

Re:

[Nutria]

we don't have to worry about the Left since they are increasingly isolated into small pockets of the world like Cuba.

Shiiit. Obama and his cronies are about as left-wing statist as you can get. They'd love nothing better than to make this country a really big Cuba or Nicaragua.

Re:

[Killall -9 Bash]

Right, Obama is completely different from Bush. He closed down Guantanamo Bay, ended the "War on Terror", ended the practice of shoveling billions of dollars into the gaping maw of Wall Street Leech Monster, and is fighting hard to repeal Patriot Acts I and II so that we can have our privacy and/or freedom back.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

In other news, your insistence that Obama is "right wing" (among other things) is why I don't take you seriously.

But by the standards of most of the developed world, he is.

He wouldn't have been elected otherwise.

Re:

[jdigriz]

Yes, of course, Communists *always* go for market-based solutions like requiring people to purchase private health insurance, or creating a commodities market for carbon dioxide to create an entire new bunch of rich financiers. Maybe learn a little about the things you're against so you can argue against them intelligibly?

Re:

[tehdaemon]

"requiring people to purchase" and "market-based solutions" are mutually exclusive.

T

Re:

[jdigriz]

Maybe if I used the word "free" you'd be correct. But there are plenty of non-free markets that are still markets.

Re:

[Valdrax]

There are a lot of people for whom death before their statistically-expected lifespan is a benefit to society.

Not everyone is a utilitarian who views the lives of others entirely in terms of their use to society, and it's not "brainless drivel" to place a different value on human life than the one you advocate, where relapsing into an addiction is worth a tacit death penalty.

Re:

[Nutria]

Not everyone is a utilitarian who views the lives of others entirely in terms of their use to society, and it's not "brainless drivel" to place a different value on human life than the one you advocate,

Your field of view is way too narrow, assuming just because I assert that "There are a lot of people for whom death ... blah blah..." that I must be utilitarian.

Amazingly, there's grey between "We Are The World" and strict utilitarianism.

poe and doyle themselves

[circletimessquare]

would agree that, as addicts, their lives were degenerate. and that whatever they wrote is in spite of their drug use that was destroying their ability to write

drug use easily leads to addiction. addiction hollows out a formerly delightful human being into a monomanical zombie: "fix, fix, fix, fix..." then they usually wind up being unable to hold a job or have a relationship. then myself, society, we have to house and feed these drug addicts

since we are taking care of them, that therefore gives us every ri

Re:Solution in search of a problem

[Kell Bengal]

The media has never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Re:

[Penguinoflight]

Yellow Journalism in the US goes back to the 1800s, so intentionally misleading the public while still masquerading as the news has been around for some time.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm having difficulty understanding where the following process requires intervention or is not already fully optimized:

1) Inmate kicks his/her addiction after a lengthy prison sentence

2) Drug-free inmate is released for re-integration into society

3) Former inmate chooses to begin using again, despite the fact he/she kicked the habit months or years ago

4) Former inmate dies from an overdose

5) "Last chance" used up. Former inmate will never trouble anyone again

The process is fully optimized and is the correct one. The key lies in step 3: "Former inmate chooses to begin using again, despite the fact he/she kicked the habit months or years ago". People make their own choices and sometimes these choices have consequences, in this case they know the risk they face and they willingly choose to use anyway. It is a tragedy but this person was already given help in kicking the habit via the prison sentence and had the opportunity to remain clean, that was one of their

Re:

[blackest_k]

you misunderstand addiction, just because you have beat an addiction doesn't mean you don't want to indulge it again.

I am cigarette free 9 months and although i choose not to smoke i really would enjoy one.

Opiates are really nice , very mellow and relaxing makes it easy to be close to dying without panicking. To be honest i'd choose to die full of morphine, it really is that good.

Re:

[Dragoniz3r]

So not the point he was trying to make there. The issue I believe he was trying to get at goes something like this:
IF this person was in jail AND this person was addicted to heroin THEN the heroin use is probably involved in why this person is in jail, so IF the person uses heroin again THEN they'll likely end up in jail again, so IF they die because they overdose THEN it's no great loss to society cuz they were just going back to jail anyways.

Hubris

[vorlich]

The unqualified level of ignorance in this post and the fact that others have ranked it insightful are a sad indictment of some of the slash dot community. Not to mention the fact that the source of the "story" is the Sun Newspaper - a source more normally the recipient of slashdot vitriol. Apparently any consistent moral standard of behaviour is to be abandoned the moment an opportunity to talk with a mouthful of ash presents itself.

• 1 Citizen is sent to prison for crimes committed under the influence

What about his/her children?

[newdsfornerds]

Sure the addict is dead and will never again burgle my house to pay for his fix, but what happens to his poor children? They will will grow up with no father.
And they might better off for it. Heh.
Baiting liberals is fun.

Re:

[Valdrax]

You mean Murdoch's American politically-motivated news empire is reporting a story from one of his British politically-motivated rags? And with a story that portrays a doctor-driven decision as the ultimate example of destructive coddling of criminals by liberals?

Say it isn't so.

Re:

[julesh]

Moderating for the first time for a while. Disappointed to note that there's still no "-1 Stupid" option.

Re:

[clone53421]

Getting away, obviously. From whatever. A bank robbery, say. And if it wasn’t your get-away car, then by definition the get-away also occurs during the theft of an automobile. So now you get charged with bank robbery and car-jacking.

Re:

[d1r3lnd]

If an ex con wanted to, say, knock off a bank, he would require a get-away car, which would require stealing one. If you give ex cons get-away cars, they no longer have to steal them prior to committing a bank robbery. Capisci?

Re:

[Hognoxious]

You are a grade A, class 1 fucking wrist-tapper.