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Junk Farm before/after So I can write my way out of the blues, or I could play (music-guitar/piano) out. Lets give the keyboard a whirl. Thought of a solution to the heroin problem last night, but its bound up in moralities. So I submit that the idea has not come to gestation. It is not complete, and though I abhor incomplete logic, at the same time, I don't see the point in spending anymore thought-time on it. Its based on the premise of a longitudinal study I reveiwed a while ago. The results were bleak. They tracked a large number of heroin addicts for the majority of their lives. For most of them, 51% or so, (and I may be off slightly on the numbers, it has been awhile), their outcome was straight up death. Meaning that over the course of the study, over fifty percent of their subjects after first being admitted to treatment for heroin abuse, later regressed and died from the drug or tangenital factors like AIDS, crime, hepatits and so on. Most had repeated rehab, been addicted to other drugs, and were repeat criminal offenders. A severe drain on the System's resources. A shade under ten percent survived and were "successful" and "productive". It may have been less than that. I remember reading it and being quite shocked that of the overall number of the population of the study, the number of people who recovered and only had minor troubles (one stint in rehab again, or perhaps one criminal conviction, no felonies) was appalling. They did document a few that came out clean, but that's even worse, seeing as there were thousands in the study. Meaning that roughly 90-95 people out of a hundred who have a heroin addiction represent a continuing, life long (as long as they live) drain of resources, and no productivity towards the communal good. And allow me to say that this is a machiavellian solution. I have a friend who used to be a heroin addict. Under this solution, I never would have had this friend. (And you come to the moral point, Kant vs Reality, does the violation of the possibility of the good of one soul versus the overwhelming societal good that may come of ridding Society of the heroin problem justify the negation of that one life? Kant would argue no, but then, Kant was an uncomprimising prick.) Its rather simple. Junk is a vegetable. This most addictive substance, for itself, by itself, about itself can be grown. A renewable resource. I suggest a government work-farm program. Beyond subsidies. Caught with a heavy junk habit, one could opt for a continuing sentence at the work farm. Subsitence farming, they grown their own food, they grow their own junk. They would be allowed to grow a whole lot of junk, but it would be all consumed on site. Nothing leaves, and its doled out and watched. And I speak not of the ludicrous lost drug war (call it the Price Support War anymore), and the puritannical notions of not supporting someone getting high. I say: sure, get high. Grow some good poppies. Make some clean heroin, and use clean, disinfected needles. (Clean heroin is surprisingly less harmful than street heroin.) But you are out of society, and re-entry will be difficult. You could opt for counselling and rehab towards the end of your sentence, or you could simply stay on the farm, whiling away your days getting high. But miss your shift out in the fields, and its into the pokey with you. Junk sick and shivering, wishing to heaven and hell you'd simply done what was asked of you. I think any and all problems on such a work farm could be solved by the threat of withholding the drug. And lets face it: satiated junkies tend to be rather docile and complacent anyway. They would be a society unto themselves, much like the prison system is right now. And effectively a segment of our society that has clearly shown to be a continuing drain, a negative sum, would be excised.
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