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Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

drugpolicy.org

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Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#231

Post by Balgair »

brewdad wrote: post #208
travbrack wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think most people who would be interested in buying heroin in the store can already get it?

Sure, but there's a huge difference between meeting up with "a guy" in secret to buy it versus popping into the shop and picking some up while running errands. There's also an implied suitability in the sense that "stores wouldn't be allowed to sell if it was really that harmful". This may or may not be true but it certainly impacts our cultural mindset around alcohol.

In looking at the data for pot usage in CO around legalization, the data is mixed. Teen usage rates of pot went down after legalization, while adult usage rates went up. The 2020 data is not yet out from what I could see. Like with all drugs, potentiation will alter the dosage rates of individuals, so data on weight of drug sold needs to be calibrated over time. Though pot and heroin are vastly different drugs in terms of effect and addiction, the pot legalization effects provide some guidance on usage among those that can purchase it legally. Per what little data I could see, it does seems that legalization increases use of the drug. As to what that does towards safety and health, I've no clue and would love it if another HNer could enlighten us.

https://www.google.com/search?q=chart+marijuana+usage+in+col...

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#232

Post by Balgair »

colecut wrote: post #226
trianglem wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not verified, 100% pure pharmaceutical grade heroin.

This is especially important considering that it seems most overdose deaths are due to it being laced with fentanyl or similar. My brother died this way

I'm very sorry for your loss.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#233

Post by anm89 »

trianglem wrote: post #220
anm89 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not that easy. I can get pot, cocaine and possibly MDMA. But heroin and LSD would be hard for me to find with my friend circle.

Agreed. I don't think that would necessarily change for most people under the new setup.

On the other hand, if you were the kind of person who had a specific interest in any of those things, I think it is very likely that your friend group would enable you to get them pretty easily. (ie you'd probably have some friends for that purpose)

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#234

Post by Jetrel »

_9hey wrote: post #50
imperio59 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Experimenting with people's lives is not a responsible way to experiment. No one is denying these drugs are harmful, yet Oregon is basically saying "go ahead, it's fine, use these drugs". Seeing what is happening with the Marijuana lobbies coming in and putting in billions in lobbying should scare everybody. We have big tobacco to look at for where this leads. The next obvious step is to legalize all drugs, and let t…

This post being downvoted into oblivion is what irks me about the hacker news community. It’s not enough to disagree, you have to silence the dissenter by graying out their comments. That’s real democratic

I wasn't a participant, but ... it definitely hurts that, like, I haven't the faintest friggin clue how HN's whole voting system works - in fact I'm not even sure where the downvote button is. There's a minus [-] next to them, but that seems to toggle viewing the subthread on and off. "Surely that's not the downvote button."

I just assume I don't have access until I have some sort of hidden karma value that's high enough.

A few tooltips would work wonders, and I believe can still be done with the nice, cleanly-simple html style they've gone for.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#235

Post by engineeringwoke »

tyingq wrote: post #218
lamontcg wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you allowed to have up to 40 tabs of LSD but no more than 5 pills of MDMA? In general, possession-vs-dealing is such a weird line to cut based on quantity of the drug. The fact that 10 pills of MDMA in someone's possession likely means that it won't just be one person consuming all of those doesn't necessarily turn that person into a professional dealer. Not any more than a pack of cigarettes turns someone in…

I predict pre-scored double-dose pills become popular.

Idk LSD early MDMA late is a mantra

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#236

Post by aksss »

catstack wrote: post #114
aksss wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s a group of people that will view Oregon as a promising hospital and a another group that will view it as Disneyland. These reforms will welcome both.

"a group of people that will view Oregon as a promising hospital" I don't follow you on this. Do you mean people will think that Oregon has good health care and will make a move based on that? "another group that will view it as Disneyland" I mean, yeah... It's going to be easier to get substances in Oregon than it will be in other states. I would like to see a study on this but I couldn't imagine a significant amoun…

Hospital - people will move there for a perceived openness to alternative drug therapy (however you want to interpret that), perceived safety nets including addiction treatment advantages.

Suffering from addiction - friend, I came of age in the nineties, and had friends hooked on everything you can imagine back then (and did my share). I’ve had friends die from and survive overdoses. I’ve done CPR on a man dying from an OD in a public restroom within the last three years (who lived, incidentally). The last close friend that died from an overdose was only about five years ago - a highly functional businesswoman. I’ll tell you this, a lot of people suffering from addiction don’t know or care that they have an addiction. Not every drug user thinks themselves a victim - in fact those that do, IME, are the exception, not the rule, but I’m sure that varies with time and place. Will those people that do move to Oregon? Probably not, but I’ve known a lot of personalities that would travel there for the fun of it, and wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few die there too.

I perceive by your comments that you feel very earnestly about the upside in this policy. I have no dog in the fight, and respect your hopefulness.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#237

Post by hmsimha »

lipstone wrote: post #155
pacifist wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would pharma not want legalization? At worst, it doesn't affect them. At best, it's another revenue stream.

This amazing Ted talk [1] on the potential for ketamine as a miracle anti-depressant presents at least one reason; namely, that they don't own the patents to the drugs and therefore can't monopolize their production. Instead, iterative waves of SSRIs are pushed to the public, as Big Pharma stands to profit more from SSRIs they hold the patent to, even if they're arguably much less effective and more harmful.

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_brachman_could_a_drug_prev...

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#238

Post by t1mmen »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #5

I really hope this leads to more research on the effect of psychedelics on treatment-resistant depression. People with depression suffer unimaginable anguish every day - we owe it to them to give them the best treatment options possible.

There is significant research happening in this space, though most clinical trials seem to be happening outside the US. Canada is taking major steps towards psychedelics as treatment for depression/MDD, palliative/end-of-life care, PTSD, anxiety, etc.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00187-9 is one of the many, many recent articles on the topic.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#239

Post by caskstrength »

sandworm101 wrote: post #113
ttul wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly disagree with you. Criminalization of drug production and distribution has been an abject policy failure from the start. Ending the criminalization of drugs and bringing all drugs into a regulatory framework that is guided by health outcomes rather than the one-size-fits-all goal of eradication is the only path that has a hope of reducing the harms associated with the hardest of drugs. You can't stop…

>> 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…

> 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."

I guess doctors would say the same about alcohol. However, I would prefer to have my glass of beer once or twice a month and I don't want to go to jail for it, thank you very much.

Re: Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

#240

Post by _9hey »

Jetrel wrote: post #234
_9hey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post being downvoted into oblivion is what irks me about the hacker news community. It’s not enough to disagree, you have to silence the dissenter by graying out their comments. That’s real democratic

I wasn't a participant, but ... it definitely hurts that, like, I haven't the faintest friggin clue how HN's whole voting system works - in fact I'm not even sure where the downvote button is. There's a minus [-] next to them, but that seems to toggle viewing the subthread on and off. "Surely that's not the downvote button." I just assume I don't have access until I have some sort of hidden karma value that's high en…

It comes with a certain level of karma. One must conclude that those with the most karma are the most sensitive to opposing opinions. I’m a bit jaded by the intolerance of the “community” (read echo chamber).
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