The Goat Pen

I heard yesterday there are so many foster kids in Ohio due to heroin that the system is overwhelmed - and they can't put them with relatives because in many cases the relatives are on heroin.

I've tried to talk my wife into becoming a foster parent but she is scared to do it. First because we've heard of cases where the kid is so upset that he/she isn't at home they lie about abuse by the foster parents, and secondly, if we get a child, we aren't going to want him/her to go back to a shitty family when we think we can do better for them.

its frustrating for me that I can't convince her to help.

About what age would you get them? My guess is the younger they are, the easier to deal with.

sardis wrote:Clearly, Trump leaked out a year where his loss carryover ended and he made a ton of money. 2005 was a good year for real estate.

He knew the left's irrational exuberance and lack of business knowledge would rush to report something they had ignorantly no idea would make him look good.

If they were smart they wouldn't reported it because what benefit is reporting a 2005 return?

Boom.

eCat wrote:I heard yesterday there are so many foster kids in Ohio due to heroin that the system is overwhelmed - and they can't put them with relatives because in many cases the relatives are on heroin.

I've tried to talk my wife into becoming a foster parent but she is scared to do it. First because we've heard of cases where the kid is so upset that he/she isn't at home they lie about abuse by the foster parents, and secondly, if we get a child, we aren't going to want him/her to go back to a shitty family when we think we can do better for them.

its frustrating for me that I can't convince her to help.

Yeah, eCat. That is my eternal struggle. My wife is much more hesitant on all of that stuff. My kids are really young, so I kinda agree (I would want my kids to be strong influencers, not younger kids prone to follow), but it is something I will revisit when my kids are deeper into their teens.

sardis wrote:About what age would you get them? My guess is the younger they are, the easier to deal with.

yea I don't know - I'd actually want the kids that are older - more independent but still at a point where I can influence them and show them that a better life is out there.

plus, while I'm at an age where I appreciate 3-6 year old kids in a "now that I've had them I can do better the next time around kind of way", but we both work and I don't want to have to alter the daily pattern of our lives.

I think my wife agrees with me on that - if we were to do it, no babies, plus like Brooklyn said - I have an 18 year old boy and a 16 year old girl so I don't have to worry about a 12 year old hellion messing with my kids.

A friend of our is a hairdresser (not that is has any bearing on this) but she fosters and she told us once that she cries every time they take the kid back. I still get emotional about my dog that died 2 years ago.

We looked into it to the extent to where we started reading about the children claiming abuse just to get out of a foster parenting situation they didn't like. After that I just couldn't push the wife to move on it.

Kid would probably tell the authorities I made them run laps or something.

Somebody here would call for them...

they would warn ahead of time

Decided to spend the weekend with a political talk moratorium, as I just feasted on family and March Madness. Now that that's over...

http://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altm ... ?r=UK&IR=T

So this a.m. the House Intel Chairman (Nunes) once and for all shot down the wiretapping story. Then Comey came to Congress and did the same, and then affirmed that the FBI was investigating Russian meddling in our election and possible ties to Trump associates. Naturally, republicans got the first three questions (30 mins worth) and all they asked about was leaks and whistleblowers...nothing about the russkies. Incredibly, the only republican to mention Russians did so when asking Comey if there were any investigations planned concerning possible Clinton ties to the Kremlin.

talking about health care costs, NPR (yes I still listen to them) did a story on heroin addicts, in particular how the more extreme ones are just like seniors in the last stages of their life, racking up crazy high medical bills and have a 25% mortality rate for those that end up with heart trouble. Most of them are on some form of assistance - Medicaid or the like.

When they were saying heroin was at an epidemic stage a couple of years ago, I didn't realize what they meant - overwhelming the foster care system, burdening the health care system - for whatever reason those aspects of it never entered my mind.


I've been watching Drugs, Inc. lately as well. Its been pretty eye opening.

Yeah, it's a drug that leaves a level of catastrophic collateral damage.

The batman of heroin should show up any second now...

Bklyn wrote:Yeah, it's a drug that leaves a level of catastrophic collateral damage.

watching that show, the cops pulled over a guy selling drugs, they find his stash in the car and he's telling them its cocaine.

The cop was like - "he's lying to us because he knows we go easier on them for selling cocaine than heroin"

I mean, how bad it is that you're going to fess up to selling cocaine, just so you won't get busted for heroin?

Heroin's for loosers. All that time spent fucking around with it, licking one's lips and then ultimately to just sit back and feel pretty much the way really good weed makes you feel.

I always preferred the jagged horror roller-coaster thrill that coke brings.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/wha ... education/

The overwhelming number of teachers in an urban setting are white, come from different communities and are of different socioeconomic classes.

Is this an accurate representation of education in "the hood" as referred to here? Most teachers are white? As a white guy educated in an urban district, the vast majority of my education came from black teachers.

Multiply everything you said about heroin times 10,000 (at least) and that's the damage/cost of tobacco use. Look, I get the concern over heroin, all I'm saying is, if you really feel that way, you should feel it 10,000 times more about tobacco. But nobody does. The main thing that rankles me is the demonization (in moralistic terms) of heroin and the heroin user. I'm just looking at it in cold economic terms and in terms of overall harm done to the general population, and it's no contest, not even close.

But the bottom line to me is, if somebody wants to smoke cigarettes or use heroin (or both), it's really none of my or anybody else's business. I mean, I guess it is in terms of social cost, where taxpayers are having to foot the bill, but that's true of so many things, including alcohol, soft drinks and french fries, that's it's just a given and shouldn't enter the equation (or, if you think it does, then you have to be just as adamantly against all those other things as you are against heroin). But to put heroin in some moral category of approbation that you are not going to apply to tobacco or alcohol or any other thing that's "bad" for you, I find that ridiculous.

But if you really do feel that way, the solution isn't to criminalize heroin, but rather to vastly expand treatment programs and the like. If a fraction of the money that is spent on the law enforcement side stopping heroin was spent on treatment, the problem would be lessened much more effectively. I'm all for that...

treatment and decriminalization should be separate issues.

I don't understand the logic that says legalize it and then all that money you were spending on trying to stop it, spend it on treatment for all the people that are addicted to it.

You can't compare this to cigarettes or alcohol. People aren't breaking into homes to support a cigarette habit.

Its not a cost issue in regards to legalized versus black market - at least not at this point. a single hit of heroin is about the same as 20 smokes. The problem of course is that the heroin habit builds up for a user over time.

Legalizing heroin does not change that process in any way. You are coming at it from a stand point of it being a casual recreational drug. Its not.

aTm wrote:http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/wha ... education/

The overwhelming number of teachers in an urban setting are white, come from different communities and are of different socioeconomic classes.

Is this an accurate representation of education in "the hood" as referred to here? Most teachers are white? As a white guy educated in an urban district, the vast majority of my education came from black teachers.

If parents aren't involved in their child's education then the idea of who can or cannot understand the problem with education as a teacher or administration is pretty irrelevant.

I don't know what the solution is, but it has to include kids who have parents that are dedicated to them getting the best education possible. Its a wasted exercise otherwise.

Saint wrote:I always preferred the jagged horror roller-coaster thrill that coke brings.

"He could remember Johnny Hall saying indignantly of a girlfriend he had recently thrown out, ‘She was the kind of girl who came over and ruffled your hair when you’d just had a fix of coke.’ Patrick had howled at the horror of such a tactless act. When a man is feeling as empty and fragile as a pane of glass, he does not want to have his hair ruffled. There could be no negotiation between people who thought that cocaine was a vaguely naughty and salacious drug and the intravenous addict who knew that it was an opportunity to experience the arctic landscape of pure terror."

"Legalizing heroin does not change that process in any way. You are coming at it from a stand point of it being a casual recreational drug. Its not."

This is the crux of the problem. Look at the language you use. You clearly think that cigarettes and alcohol are "casual" and "recreational" and I doubt you would even use the term "drugs" when talking about them. But somehow the fact that millions of people die every year as a direct consequence of using tobacco and alcohol and that hundreds of billions of dollars are spent caring for them doesn't stop you from thinking of these vices as "casual" and "recreational". Again, from my libertarian point of view, it doesn't matter if they're "casual and recreational" or, as is really the case, progressively addictive and deadly. People should be able to kill themselves in whatever way they see fit. It's none of the government's or anybody else's business. As long as the real information about all these things is available to everyone (and it is), it's their choice.

Just like you said about education, it's up to parents to educate their kids about these matters, not the government and not "society". Legalization would bring costs down dramatically and that would solve your "they're breaking into houses" problem. It's real simple, but the tendency to meddle in other people's lives on moral grounds (a tendency which is exacerbated by government entities who have an extreme financial interest in keeping some things illegal) will always be there. It was the same with marijuana, gay marriage (and faggotry in general), mixed race marriage, etc, etc, and it's the same with heroin...