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There is no such thing as a single approach folks get saved from drug habit.
Some are determined to get free from their lethal behavior and search remedy – if they will discover it – with little exterior motivation. Others want somebody to succeed in out to them and information them on a path to being drug free. And but others are so misplaced to their habit that some type of coercion could also be obligatory.
One factor an individual hooked on medicine isn’t is free. That’s the reason the precept of sustaining private autonomy is so difficult. Can hardcore fentanyl customers actually be referred to as autonomous when they’re enslaved by a drug that can ultimately kill them?
Such questions are being wrestled with within the Washington state Legislature, the place a Senate bill making drug possession a gross misdemeanor was watered down by the Home. Various Democrats assume each variations of the invoice go too far and that there shouldn’t be any penalties for possession. A Pasco Republican, Rep. Stephanie Barnard, seems to be at it in a different way – and personally. In a speech on the Home ground, Barnard spoke of her niece, who died of a drug overdose two years in the past:
“I’d simply ask you, Madam Speaker, to think about a paradigm shift, to think about that her freedom to do what she wished and to do medicine on the streets brazenly, that that was not freedom in any respect. It was bondage. She was in full bondage to her habit.”
In King County Drug Courtroom, these in restoration discuss how they have been hauled into rehab applications “kicking and screaming” however at the moment are grateful that the legislation coerced them into getting remedy. Not everybody wants the authorized system to pressure them to get assist, however some do. Which raises a query for many who favor eliminating penalties for possession: With the variety of overdose deaths within the state capturing greater and better, is it really compassionate to dispense with coercive choices that may avoid wasting lives?
See extra of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View different syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
Editor’s notice: Seattle Occasions Opinion now not appends remark threads on David Horsey’s cartoons. Too many feedback violated our community policies and reviewing the handfuls that have been flagged as inappropriate required an excessive amount of of our restricted workers time. You possibly can remark through a Letter to the Editor. Please e-mail us at letters@seattletimes.com and embody your full identify, tackle and phone quantity for verification solely. Letters are restricted to 200 phrases.
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