Comments by "SepherStar" (@SepherStar) on "This Woman Pays Drug Users Not To Have Kids (HBO)" video.

  1. The problem with drug addicts is they don't sit there in their house getting high and not bothering anyone. They create mayhem and often do dangerous and criminal things when under the influence. They often cannot maintain employment and will steal and rob to obtain money for their addiction. Lifting the prohibition didn't reduce the number of alcoholics, it just made it unprofitable for organized crime syndicates. Because alcohol is so easily obtainable, homeless alcoholics fair significantly worse than homeless drug addicts, and create more problems. Drug addicts sober up on a fairly regular basis due to the fact that it's not as easy to obtain drugs as it is alcohol. Homeless drug addicts will use this sober time to attend to personal hygiene and personal and business affairs. Homeless alcoholics have access to a steady, unbroken conveyor belt of alcohol. They never sober up and their hygiene, state of mind, and quality of life suffer significantly because of it. They are significantly more likely than homeless drug addicts to completely forgo personal hygiene and care, live in clothes soiled with urine, vomit, and feces, and urinate and defecate on streets, sidewalks and buildings. San Diego is having a deadly hepatitis A outbreak for this very reason. They have had to pressure clean the sidewalks with a bleach solution in an effort to prevent the virus from spreading, as it's easily communicable.
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  2. Some people have addictive personalities and psychological problems, mental health issues or personality disorders that can't be fixed. I see absolutely nothing wrong with offering them the choice to sterilize themselves. Notice they don't get the money then and there. They have to have the procedure done first. They will likely have to not be under the influence when the procedure is done and will be of sound mind at the time to decide to go through with it. Particularly of they are crack addicts, as many of these women are. That is a very short high.
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  3. Most drug users are 1. In denial that they have a problem, and 2. Underestimate the impact of their problems on others. I've had the misfortune of knowing a lot of drug addicts. All kinds of drugs, and it was always the pot smokers who were the worst to interact with. Crack addicts and heroin addicts, they have a time and place for their drugs. When they are drugged up, they know they are impaired, and they are sober for big chunks of time, but pot addicts don't have a time and place. They are like prescription pain killer addicts who try to go about their day under the influence, and they don't think it's a big deal. In fact they don't think that anything is a big deal, even when it is to others, because that's what pot does. It makes you think that nothing is a big deal, and makes you emotionally unavailable. That can have very profound and negative affects on those around you. I saw a documentary about a lady with cerebral palsy who was trying to get pot legalized. Her fiance had committed suicide. They had gotten into a verbal argument and she told him he was worse than the man who had raped her. He was so upset about this that he locked himself in the bathroom, and instead of talking it out, she kept urging him to come downstairs to smoke some pot. He committed suicide in the bathroom. And after recounting this story she added that if he had just come down stairs and smoked some pot, everything would have been fine. She completely discounted his feelings and the hurt she had caused him. She completely brushed it off because pot made her think that what she said wasn't a big deal, and pot was a solution to everything for her.
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  4. I had a neighbor who was a drug addict and raised in the foster care system. Her biological parents were drug addicts and had 9 kids between them, all had to be taken into state care. You can have an substance abuse problem and you can be a parent but you shouldn't be both at the same time.
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  5. Most women don't drink during pregnancy because it can cause fetal alcohol syndrome. If they do drink, it's typically a single class of wine. I'm sure some women smoke pot while pregnant but I don't think it's very widespread.
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