Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 252 posts

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#101

Post by crunchyfrog »

I think drug addiction is really misunderstood and this leads to bad policy. The two popular narratives that drug addiction is a moral failing or a disease are both wrong. In some ways it is more simple than that: drug addiction is a coping mechanism.

Most people who get addicted to drugs are using them to escape pain. This is occasionally physical but usually mental. It is memories of traumatic experiences or abuse, loss, stress, etc.

That is why incarceration is so counterproductive, you are just giving the addict more pain they need to escape. Also treating drug addiction itself without understanding and addressing the underlying reason for it will just lead to constant relapsing.

I recommend the book Chasing the Scream for people who want a better understanding of drug addiction.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#102

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

I recently read some something that had the following premise:

Immigrants leave their family and friends behind. People who are more empathetic have a harder time doing this.

Therefore, countries with net emigration will grow more empathetic. Countries with net immigration will grow less.

While just anecdotal, this is something that I've confirmed with my experiences.

I'll add in that countries which were founded on a genocide that happened not too long ago, probably will have echos of this continuing for a long time. Backwaters also tend to be less aggressively restrictive of freedom, as greedy, aggressive people naturally navigate out of them.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#103

Post by 3p0ch »

rdl wrote: post #65
gumby wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, for opiates the DEA makes it essentially impossible for addicts to get working treatment like Suboxone, basically guaranteeing they’ll continue to be arrested and/or OD.

Is there a high abuse potential for suboxone? Would it be dangerous to just completely de-schedule it (either OTC, or at least make it 18+ at a pharmacy on request)?

Suboxone can be abused and is highly addictive. It's an opiate paired with an opiate antagonist called Naloxone to reduce cravings. It's a maintenance medication to treat opiate dependency.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#104

Post by [deleted] »

cjblomqvist wrote: post #86

A lot of comments about why decriminalization of drug use is a no brainer. I'd like to point out that it's not that simple. From what I understand from different "experiments" like Portugal, it's a lot depending on context (eg culture) and how it's done. For example, easier access (lower taxes) on alcohol caused a rise in alcoholics and alcohol related deaths in Finland). Not everyone living in Colorado is happy abou…

[deleted]

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#105

Post by damnyou »

dondawest wrote: post #95
jacquesm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trolling? It would seem obvious that such things are distributed exactly the same no matter what ones social status or ethnic background is. It would be very surprising if it wasn't.

It’s not obvious AT ALL. If you’re aware of the “cluster effect” of those with rapid-onset gender dysphoria, you’re aware that being trans is highly influenced by ones social conditions. You’re making an argument that nature is everything when it comes to one’s LGBT status and nurture means nothing, but there’s mountains of evidence to show this is not the case. If you want to tell me that it’s JUST A COINKYDINK that…

"Rapid onset gender dysphoria" is a fake diagnosis made up by transphobes. It's just the latest iteration of trying to divide trans people into the "good ones" and the "bad ones", just like the fake Blanchardian "HSTS/AGP" typology. The fact that you cite it is a strong signal about you, personally.

Take queer people at their word or fuck off.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#106

Post by darkpuma »

anm89 wrote: post #52
50656E6973 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is no grand conspiracy to keep drugs illegal Many people working together to keep something illegal in order to profit is not a "conspiracy", it's lobbying. >semi well intentioned system How is valuing money and power over millions of lives "semi well intenioned"?

Very few of the millions of people are conspiring together in a single group. They conspire in small groups to achieve their individual goals which may directly contradict the goals of others within the system on a case by case basis. It's not like some secret cabal where they sit around in black robes and vote on how to maximize false arrests for profit. Do you think out of every one of the millions of people in tha…

I think the hangup people have is when they see apparent orchestration, groups of people making moves that seem coordinated, they assume that conspiracy must be the explanation.

But we know from nature that this needn't be the case. Look at a school of fish. There is no hierarchical command structure, nor any democratic council of the fishes, or anything like that. Their schooling behavior is emergent behavior from each individual fish following more or less the same rules as the other, coded in their DNA. They take cues from each other, go with the flow, but they're not actually conspiring with the other fish. There is no Fish Illuminati, just a bunch of fish doing normal fish things.

The failure to recognize the possibility of emergent (or convergent) behavior in humans is I think the root cause of many conspiracy theories. This is related to the concept of pareidolia, e.g. seeing patterns when there are none. In this case there are genuine patterns (fish clump up in schools) but the explanation offered up for this behavior is erroneous (fish Illuminati.)

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#107

Post by Qasaur »

ianai wrote: post #58
mtgx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people wanting a certain law doesn't work in the US anyway as Congress is dependent on corporations much more than it is on the people: https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig Until corporate bribes are removed from electoral campaigns this won't change.

Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization. They’re just not always the same corporations against them. There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs. It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops. Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramat…

Conversely I think there are a lot of vested interests in favour of keeping the status quo - I imagine there is a lot of money that is being poured into defense contracts for the War on Drugs, not to mention the private prison industrial complex.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#108

Post by badamp »

jacquesm wrote: post #82
acpetrov wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source on racial/class distribution for lgbt? Would be interested to see it

Are you trolling? It would seem obvious that such things are distributed exactly the same no matter what ones social status or ethnic background is. It would be very surprising if it wasn't.

That’s a needlessly hostile reply.

Sickle cell, lupus, hypertension, IQ, diabetes, etc etc are all not distributed evenly across race or sex. Also, environmental factors and epigenetics interact in complex ways. I would not be at all surprised that there’s a prevalence difference among racial or social groups.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#109

Post by daenz »

crunchyfrog wrote: post #101

I think drug addiction is really misunderstood and this leads to bad policy. The two popular narratives that drug addiction is a moral failing or a disease are both wrong. In some ways it is more simple than that: drug addiction is a coping mechanism. Most people who get addicted to drugs are using them to escape pain. This is occasionally physical but usually mental. It is memories of traumatic experiences or abuse,…

>drug addiction is a coping mechanism.

That's reductionist. The bigger picture is: why do some people end up with drug addiction as their coping mechanism, but others don't. Why aren't all abuse victims drug addicts? What separates the ones who fall down that hole and the ones who don't? Opportunity? If not opportunity, then what is that X factor? That's why you get to the larger questions of disease, responsibility, and moral failing.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#110

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

microcolonel wrote: post #12
ahelwer wrote: post #7

But thanks to Reaganomics, prison turned to profits 'Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics 'Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison You think I am bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits That's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits Killer Mike, "Reagan" https://youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU

> 'Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics it isn't > 'Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison; you think I am bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment This is true, they didn't listen when Kanye said it awkwardly, but it's been true the whole time. > That's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits Maaaaybe sometimes, but if you come at it from that perspective you aren't going…

> so you need to address the argument that the public is given: that illicit drugs are so dangerous that the enforcement is worth it

Some people see the problem in the fact that Americans are and have historically been very comfortable benefiting from injustice and from things that are enforced 'on other people'.

Middle class young hippies were shocked when the system showed its teeth and banned a substance so that the movement could be targeted by the repression systems put in place... while that was the norm done toward people in bad neighborhoods.

Some people think the the answer is to get people to be more self aware of their position, especially hypocritical positions based on emotion that hurt others, and hopefully be more empathetic.

Post reply on HN