Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

Post by yard2010 » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 9:37 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #250

m463 wrote: post #77

Earlier 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…

And how long has it been that Reagan is no longer the governor and why hasn't funding been restored?

Post by palata » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 9:42 AM UTC

mcpackieh wrote: post #251

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would never apply this attitude to programming. "Well, I got a segfault, better never touch this C language again..."

> You would never apply this attitude to programming Really? 30 million deaths wouldn't give you pause? Therac-25 killed or injured 6 people and we still talk about that. Communism doesn't deserve another chance.

Post by draw_down » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 9:53 AM UTC

sunshine-o wrote: post #279

I'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 financ…

Post by bandrami » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 9:54 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #254

m463 wrote: post #77

Earlier 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…

> But then Ronald Reagan (as governor of california) cut state mental illness funding. > Now clearly mentally ill people - who needed help - were turned away unless they were clearly "a danger to themselves and others". It's been 50 years between then and now, so... why has no other politician increased it if the funding cut was the problem?

Post by bandrami » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 9:57 AM UTC

ETH_start wrote: post #220

SllX wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how Portuguese law works but in the United States non-profits have private owners and are private corporations. The contrast they have is with “for-profit” corporations, not “private” corporations. Given the primary purpose of being designated a “non-profit” is a tax advantage for the corporation, I’m willing to bet Portuguese corporations likely don’t differ in this manner. Privatize is an acceptable ve…

> Privatize is an acceptable verbiage for a government or government-owned entity which has outsourced to a private corporation. Given how the term is conventionally used, 'privatize' implies that for-profit enterprise has taken over, and even pedantically - looking at what the root word of the term technically means instead of how the term is conventionally used - it implies for-profit enteprise, given private owner…