Word: addict
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...School professor yesterday advocated the adoption of a heroin maintenance program "to protect the addict's health and benefit society through a reduction in crime...
THERE IS a curious ambivalence about our present-day view of the heroin addict: although we often give lip service to the notion that he is a sick or psychologically disturbed person who needs understanding and treatment rather than punishment, our more basic and emotional response of revulsion, fear and hatred is reflected in our implicit acceptance of the fact that the use of heroin and other opiates continues to be dealt with primarily through prohibition and the imposition of criminal penalties. This means that addicts--with the exception of a few like physicians and pharmacists--have little choice...
...fact of the matter is that crime connected with opiate addiction does not derive directly from any apparent acute properties of the drug, but instead from society's insistence on dealing with the problem of opiate addiction through attempts at prohibition enforced by excessive criminal penalties, rather than through more logical and probably more effective medical and social approaches. The addict suffers an extraordinary compulsion to get hold of his drug, and the more zealously and effectively obstacles are placed in the path of his obtaining the substance he desperately seeks, the scarcer the drug becomes...
This relative scarcity in turn demands greater ingenuity and risk by the pusher as well as the addict, and is reflected in higher prices. Most addicts ultimately are forced to turn to prostitution or crime (almost invariably against property, and only accidentally against person) to raise the money required for purchasing the drugs which will protect them from suffering the discomfort of a withdrawal syndrome. Thus the more completely enforced the prohibition, the scarcer the drug, and--in the case of a drug of addiction--the more crime will be associated with this drug, even though the capacity to induce...
...little known fact that there was a short-lived experience with heroin maintenance in this country. After World War I, approximately 44 out-patient clinics were established in various cities to administer opiates to addicts otherwise unable to obtain their drugs legally. Most of these clinics were understaffed and had little direction and purpose and even less knowledge. The persons in charge were usually uninterested in trying to cure any addictions and apparently decided very quickly that it was easier to give an addict a week's supply of his drug than to see him every...