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Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

drugpolicy.org

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Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#191

Post by sandworm101 »

umvi wrote: post #153
valuearb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug “trafficking” should absolutely be legal. While Decriminalization is laudatory and beneficial, it solves far fewer problems than outright legalization. With decriminalization: 1) drug users will still not know what they are actually consuming. They can very easily invest drugs heavily mixed with other drugs, or dangerous chemicals. This will lead to far higher levels of accidental overdoses and is a path to more…

Whenever I see these discussions I only ever see the drawbacks of restricting drug manufacturing and distribution and never the drawbacks of legalization. An honest analysis would acknowledge the drawbacks of legalization too. It's difficult to tell exactly what the long term consequences of complete drug legalization are, and I guarantee there are some negative consequences. For example, legalization might reduce th…

>> drawbacks of restricting drug manufacturing

Ya, like how if you get the recipe for a drug only slightly wrong you turn it from useful tool to deadly poison. I want the FDA inspecting facilities. I want them testing purity, and then testing the tests that they use test the previously tested test. When I buy aspirin I want to know it is aspirin and not anything else. "Let the market decide" doesn't help me once I'm poisoned. Please government, regulate drug manufacturers.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#192

Post by ogre_codes »

leakybit wrote: post #139
ttul wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bath salts" are popular because far better alternatives are illegal... If pure meth, cocaine, heroin, MDMA, and other "hard" drugs were made available in a regulated format, many destructive and dangerous alternatives would no longer have a market.

is meth, heroin, and cocaine supposed to be safe for you?

Is that the metric we use for what is legal?

Because alcohol and sugar are hardly safe to use long term, yet no problems with legality.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#193

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

notJim wrote: post #127
throwaway2121bx wrote: post #68

I'm a proponent for legalizing drugs. But I believe there will be negative long-term consequences from drug use becoming normalized and so easy to obtain. People who wouldn't otherwise use drugs could be forgiven (after reading about legalization in the binary and positive way it is often reported, or from walking around a city with an upmarket weed shop every few blocks) for believing it can't be that bad for you an…

I used to favor full legalization, but now I think it's a bad idea. If you can simply go to a store to buy heroin (like you can with weed in many places now), I think we will inevitably have more heroin addicts. People will get addicting just trying it out, and get addicted because they are self-medicating. There are middle-grounds between full legalization and full prohibition. It seems obvious that prohibition has…

I’ve thought for a while that “hard” drugs ought to be made available with a license. Every year you check up with your doctor and a mental health specialist, and if things seem to be in order (no physiological damage from drug use, no arrests, no job loss from drug abuse etc) you get your license to buy consumer quantities of cocaine, mushrooms, whatever.

I’m sure there are solid arguments against a license structure but I haven’t imagined a better middle ground between total prohibition and 19th century style cocaine in cough syrup.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#194

Post by leakybit »

ttul wrote: post #156
sandworm101 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> bringing all drugs into a regulatory framework that is guided by health outcomes Outcomes for who? The individual or the population? Seriously. Ask a doctor and they would probably agree that, for a particular patient, having access to legal safe alternatives is a good thing. But ask them about drugs as a whole, for the entire population, and the answer will always be "less is better but zero is best." Stemming th…

I'm not advocating selling heroin at the corner store. Perhaps it should be sold over the counter at pharmacies? A licensed pharmacist can advice the buyer of the risks and can connect them with resources to help with addiction if there is a desire for that. We already massively promote and sell alcohol nearly everywhere. It's a deadly drug that is more dangerous to use than many illegal drugs. Tobacco is similarly b…

Most people wouldn't need heroin if big pharma, doctors, and pharmacists didn't flood the country with oxycodone in the first place.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#195

Post by jonas21 »

pacifist wrote: post #134
ericholscher wrote: post #52

Of interest, this is mostly a non-story in Oregon after it has passed. Our largest newspaper isn't even running a story on it: https://www.oregonlive.com/ Life continues as normal, just with fewer people in prison. As it should be.

The real story is the fact that mainstream media is ignoring it. The silence is deafening and trumpets their allegiance to big pharma and the criminal injustice complex. Edit: I live in Oregon and voted for this. So yay, we're moving in the right direction.

There was lots of mainstream coverage when the law was passed. A few examples:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/09/politics/oregon-decriminalize...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/04/election-dr...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/ballot-measures-propos...

In fact, I think you would be hard-pressed to find any news outlet that didn't cover it.

That the law goes into effect today is a bit of a technicality, so it's not surprising that most of the coverage was back in November.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#196

Post by valuearb »

umvi wrote: post #153
valuearb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug “trafficking” should absolutely be legal. While Decriminalization is laudatory and beneficial, it solves far fewer problems than outright legalization. With decriminalization: 1) drug users will still not know what they are actually consuming. They can very easily invest drugs heavily mixed with other drugs, or dangerous chemicals. This will lead to far higher levels of accidental overdoses and is a path to more…

Whenever I see these discussions I only ever see the drawbacks of restricting drug manufacturing and distribution and never the drawbacks of legalization. An honest analysis would acknowledge the drawbacks of legalization too. It's difficult to tell exactly what the long term consequences of complete drug legalization are, and I guarantee there are some negative consequences. For example, legalization might reduce th…

Are you seriously comparing tobacco bootlegging with drug trafficking? Wake me up when tobacco bootleggers are having gang wars in large cities using semi-automatic weapons and responsible for a large percentage of our murder rate.

Tax avoidance happens everywhere and it’s contribution to our violent crime rate is minute.

And why would your friend rob anyone if his heroin cost a fraction of today’s price, and he could easily procure it? And if he faced no Neil time for buying it legally?

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#197

Post by anm89 »

I am strongly in support of this and have been for a long time. But having seen how things are playing out in Seattle has definitely given me more nuance to my support for this.

The major one is that decriminalizing drugs cannot mean decriminalizing crime(theft) done to support addiction. Seattle has moved in this direction which has thrown its legal system into utter chaos as it has pretty much legalized petty crime for a certain class of people.

Being compassionate does not mean letting people do whatever they want. That being said, not treating people as criminals for putting substances into their own bodies is a great step and I hope other cities follow suit.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#198

Post by anm89 »

throwaway2121bx wrote: post #68

I'm a proponent for legalizing drugs. But I believe there will be negative long-term consequences from drug use becoming normalized and so easy to obtain. People who wouldn't otherwise use drugs could be forgiven (after reading about legalization in the binary and positive way it is often reported, or from walking around a city with an upmarket weed shop every few blocks) for believing it can't be that bad for you an…

Drug use is already normalized and drugs are already easy to obtain.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#199

Post by m463 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #124
m463 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the great tragedies of politics is that we do not experiment enough I kind of agree, but we do have 50 states, each running their own experiments. Massachusetts has right to repair. Nevada has legalized gambling. Some states have stronger employee freedom, some stronger employer freedom. Lots of different educational experiments. Helmet laws, concealed carry, state income tax, no state income tax. Can you pu…

> Can you pump your own gas? Oh stop it, that's not nice. We are slowly, slowly increasing the ability for people to pump their own gas. Right about the time nobody needs to pump gas any more, we will fully legalize it. We also have no sales tax, and I consider that a pretty big plus.

So sorry, that was not a jab. I was just listing differences off the top of my head. It does look that way and of course it's not editable now, bleh.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#200

Post by triceratops »

anewaccount2021 wrote: post #17
rjbwork wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The next obvious step is to legalize all drugs, and let these lobbies profit off the back of addicts and their families and their ruined lives. Nah, the next obvious step is to legalize them and have pure supplies of known purity and dosage distributed by the government at near-cost + tax to exclusively fund social programs and rehab. There's no need to bring profit into it. Prohibition doesn't work. We've seen it t…

Why would anyone enter rehab if the government is providing free, high-quality drugs?

To live a better life.
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