Wirehead city when?
Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
271–280 of 660 posts
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#272Are there countries that have successfully reduced drug use among their population without implementing strong penalties for possession?
Yes. Portugal. When they fully funded their rehab and social service program, the system worked. Then they reduced funding and seem surprised the programs don’t work any more.
Portugal decriminalised personal drug possession in 2001. We should not expect the impact to immediately present. It takes years and often decades for these policies to affect change. How do you know it’s the reduced funding of rehab programs and not the decriminalisation which caused this issue? Especially given the low success rate of rehab programs.
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who’s going to pay for that? Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? There are serious problems with welfare programs. They’ve been the downfall of entire countries. Look at Argentina where the bloated government payroll can be viewed as a sort of work for welfare program. The country can’t afford it and its currency blows up on a regular basis as a result. That’s not saying you should have no…
> Who’s going to pay for that? Anyone who wants to live in a better society, who realises this policy would help achieve that. > Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life.
>Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life.
You'd be surprised.
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the new "but that was not TRUE communism". The more tolerant places are overrun with drug users and homeless camps yet their supporters online will say "but if we provided more money for housing and decriminalized all drugs, now that would solve the issue".
Why should the least responsible drug users be the standard measurement?
Because they are the ones who cause the most trouble.
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same sort of thing happened with mental illness in california, probably a leading cause of homelessness problems. Years ago, the law was changed to allow mentally-ill but benign or even non-ill people to escape the "snake pits", mental institutions that kept people incarcerated and drugged. This allowed lots of people to recover. But then Ronald Reagan (as governor of california) cut state mental illness funding. Now…
So essentially the homeless and mentally ill in the U.S are incentivized to be dangerous, explains a lot
It was so even at the beginning of last century, if you believe O.Henry.
He has a short novel about man who tries to get arrested and convicted to be in jail for winter. He attempted to rob a person, broke the window glass and finally got his arrest for loitering, if I remember correctly.
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
These guys are not even selling you drugs. They are selling you some fake thing. They just swindle tourists. They are hustlers not even real drug dealers. I'm Portuguese and lived in Lisbon for 12 years. Trust me, you can't buy drugs from those guys
Trust me, you can't buy drugs from those guys What I don't get about this: most people seem to know (think?) this. So you'd think these guys have no income at all because no-one is trusting them so no-one buys from them. Yet after decades they're still there, in a lot of cities. So there must be something which works in this system. I find it hard to believe they survive off the occasional sell to a tourist. I mean,…
It might also be that they don't have a better alternative. For example, in Germany, refugees who don't have a work permit stand around in parks selling laced weed to tourists all day
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah gosh, like, wow, you can't arrest someone without a jolly good reason... I can see the sad-faces all around, as journo's at the Oligarch's Daily Tribue lament that human rights are completely out of control now that cops can't roust people and smack them around for the crime of making their own personal choices, harming nobody. "B..b..but what about property values?!"
"B..b..but what about property values?!" You mean that thing around which the entire economies of the western world revolve around?
Yes, that's a problem too, but one thing at the time.
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are the same number of mentally unwell people. Mental illness typically follows normal distributions sans PTSD in war torn countries. The difference is the approach. Most European countries use a carrot and stick approach. There are no laws guaranteeing the homeless the right to live on the sidewalk, as there is in California. They can be fined or arrested here in Denmark for doing that. Ditto for begging. So t…
Eh, the ban on begging in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries is so they can throw out the professional beggars. Often called anti-Roma laws since they're one of the main perpetrators of this type of organized begging.
That’s clearly part of the problem in both Denmark and California. However it seems to have solved almost all visible homelessness, including homelessness related to mental health.
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#279I'm not surprised that policy worked well in the Portugal of 20 years ago.
Portugal was and still is to an extend very peaceful4 with an homogenous population and traditional values. Still today people leave their houses and cars opened in the countryside.
As their society aligned with the rest of Western Europe in the last 20 years drugs use came back up, no surprise there. Also cutting the funding during the financial crisis did not help, I believe that.
Now believing that you could replicate what was done in the Portugal of 20 years ago in LA or any place where society have long disintegrate is ludacris. No matter how much money you put in it.
Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts
#280> Crime — including robbery in public spaces — spiked 14 percent from 2021 to 2022, a rise police blame partly on increased drug use. Why not on economic hardship around the pandemic? Am I the only one having the feeling that drog use was picked to blame for some of the troubles experienced (not all, visible use must be a burden, just like the visible alcoholismn on streets and related ill behaviour) and the article…
Sure thing, e.g. Macron now blaming video games is in a similar ballpark, smokescreens left and right.