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Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

theguardian.com

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

#141

Post by crankylinuxuser »

greglindahl wrote: post #120
zcid wrote: post #112

Same-sex marriage never achieved enough support to be legalized [0][1]. It was voted against throughout the country including liberal states such as California. Same-sex marriage was legislated by a small number of judges. I'm not making an argument for or against so please don't debate me on the merits of this issue. I am merely pointing out that the people did not decide this issue. A very small number of elites di…

Same-sex marriage rights were obtained in several states via a vote in the legislature. And Americans overwhelmingly support the US Constitution and court system. So "the people" were involved in both of those paths.

In some states, sure. But where I live in Indiana, the strongly Republican state hates gay people (government and much of the citizenry). Remember that one of the cases in northern Indiana was the 'Gay Cake lawsuit'.

Our state only allowed gay marriage because SCOTUS ajudicated it so.

Also, the decision also affected me directly because women could legally change their name in marriage for free. But men doing so (I am one of them) had to pay a bunch and go in front of a judge and ask permission. The Gay Marriage decision removed this form of sexual discrimination as well.

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

#142

Post by casefields »

glennpratt wrote: post #121
zcid wrote: post #112

Same-sex marriage never achieved enough support to be legalized [0][1]. It was voted against throughout the country including liberal states such as California. Same-sex marriage was legislated by a small number of judges. I'm not making an argument for or against so please don't debate me on the merits of this issue. I am merely pointing out that the people did not decide this issue. A very small number of elites di…

You are wading into the complex web of how democracy works in the US. Denigrating the "elite" Supreme Court and ignoring all the other elites and distortions involved in any state legislation seems disingenuous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_m...

Opinion polling is fickle. How about actual voting on the issue such as super liberal California saying no to same sex marriage: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_...

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

#143

Post by Phenomenit »

daenz wrote: post #109
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,…

There's always a coping mechanism, it's just a matter of where in society you and what norms and taboos you subscribe to. If drug use has been a part of your life or people around you it's easier to reach for. This is why demonizing drugs and drug users kind of work. But other coping mechanisms are just as bad and sometimes do way more harm to the individual before being surfaced. Workaholism is very detrimental and can have a long lasting effect on ones life(speaking from personal experience).

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

#144

Post by casefields »

darkpuma wrote: post #93
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.

Do you have data to that effect? What you're saying runs contrary to the data I've seen (e.g. https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population... ) and it doesn't matter how elegant a theory is, if the data doesn't fit. There of course may well be additional data that I'm missing, which is why I'm asking.

That’s such a shockingly small number.

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

#146

Post by crankylinuxuser »

daenz wrote: post #130
wolco wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your len is off. Homosexuality was illegal and slowly we've reached the point of gay marriage. A lot of political reforms are still required. Drug law reforms still need to progress. Gay rights only progressed because of a personal connection. Using the same method for drug reform is not tone deaf. It's a little offensive drug reform is a mental/psychological issue. For many it may be a choice over legal choices that…

>Using the same method for drug reform is not tone deaf. Nobody is saying that using the same methods is tone deaf. Tone deafness is an insensitivity the nuances of marginalized groups. It's like saying we should fight systemic racism with the persistence of a field of laborers. The language is tone deaf to historical oppression. The message is right but the tone is way off. I'm trying to be polite about this, but ma…

As someone who is bisexual and remembers "GRID"(0), we have come a long way forward. And it's 100% true that people are 'out of sight and out of mind' until these things hit you upside your head.

"Gay people are weird" is said, until your child is gay. And those ideas of curing 'gay' then go from something's that's OK to recognizing torture.

What the parent commentor got right was that when things are taboo, solutions are nigh impossible. Only once we started having frank and open discussion did we start making significant progress in equal rights.

And I find your claim of "tone deafness" as a bad hack to shut down conversation you find uncomfortable or don't otherwise like. It's disingenous at best, and stops much needed communication between well-meaning parties.

(0) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay-related_immune_deficienc...

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

#147

Post by gautamnarula »

casefields wrote: post #142
glennpratt wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wading into the complex web of how democracy works in the US. Denigrating the "elite" Supreme Court and ignoring all the other elites and distortions involved in any state legislation seems disingenuous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_m...

Opinion polling is fickle. How about actual voting on the issue such as super liberal California saying no to same sex marriage: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_...

That was also in 2008, when the majority was opposed to same-sex: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/change-doesnt-usually-c...

The link only goes to 2015, but polling had already changed 15-18 points in favor of marriage equality by then. California had 48% vote against prop 8 in 2008, which was still ~8 points above the national level of support for same-sex marriage.

It's also worth noting that "super liberal" MA, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2004 via a state Supreme Court decision, failed multiple times in its legislature to ban it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Massach... and multiple opponents of it were defeated in elections and replaced with proponents.

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

#148

Post by [deleted] »

zcid wrote: post #112

Same-sex marriage never achieved enough support to be legalized [0][1]. It was voted against throughout the country including liberal states such as California. Same-sex marriage was legislated by a small number of judges. I'm not making an argument for or against so please don't debate me on the merits of this issue. I am merely pointing out that the people did not decide this issue. A very small number of elites di…

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by fx1994 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #77
daenz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For obvious reasons, I think many people would be against the suggestion that if more people were suffering from life-destroying drug addiction, a turning point would be reached and the problem would be solved faster. Surely there is a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it overtake society first.

People became more sympathetic to LGBTQ issues when people started coming out of the closet and they learned that their neighbours, cousins, nieces and nephews were being prevented from marrying their loved ones. We didn't need to "turn more people gay" to accomplish this. Similarly, we need to raise the visibility and openness of dealing with drug addiction, to come out of the closet so to speak, not increase drug a…

I think most of people agreed to just give them anything they want since media was constantly bombarding with that stuff.

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

#150

Post by phil248 »

weberc2 wrote: post #92
labster wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet most people in the USA know a victim of gun violence, yet we are unable to copy even a portion of the regulations used by a majority of our allies. There's also a point beyond which a problem is so endemic that people consider it the natural state of affairs.

Is this true? Almost no one in my social circles knows a victim of gun violence, and I live in one of the most violent cities in the country. Even if you count suicides (and you really shouldn’t), I would be surprised if this were true. I suspect most people in the country don’t know a victim or offender of gun violence, while they do know several law-abiding gun owners leading them to believe that inner city issues—…

Why would you arbitrarily exclude suicide from gun violence? Guns are a distinct problem because they make serious injury/death incredibly easy and simple. That's just as true for murder as it is for suicide, and in a world without guns both acts would have a far lower success rate.
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