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Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

washingtonpost.com

331–340 of 660 posts

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not want my state to establish funding because then it would become other states’ dumping grounds.

California is in a weird place due to the weather, which almost guarantees the self dumping of people living outdoors. I'd be curious to see how this factors into these equations. Much of Europe gets pretty cold in winter.

Weird in what way? There's a dozen with higher average minimum temperatures, several with not signifiantly more rain (or less, Texas).

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first is a hand wavey opinion, the second is basically an anecdote and the third relates to a very different implementation of decriminalisation than Portugal's.

> and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence. sounds very plausible, where is the fallacy?

It's easy to find fallacies if you think about it. For example I could say the opposite

> giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is the key that unlocks recovery

I've constructed my argument identically and provided the same amount of evidence for my position.

When you compare both positions side by side, I think you can easily see that neither is valuable. They are both opinions being presented as facts (begging the question / assumption of truth / unwarranted assumption).

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Because of a ballot initiative that essentially made it impossible to raise taxes.

Prop 63 did raise taxes and a budget proposal worth billions is now weaving its way through the legislature. So not true that they couldn’t raise taxes because they did

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not the reason that spending on mental illness can not be increased.

I mean, yes it is, unless you have equivalent cuts somewhere else you're willing to make that can get through the legislature.

I know what you mean, it's just wrong. Spending on mental health is not tied to tax rates constitutionally such that politicians can't change it. They're probably glad not to change it because misinformed voters think it's still Reagan's fault.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence. sounds very plausible, where is the fallacy?

Many things sound plausible without having any real connection to reality, we shouldn't rely on trust-me-bro when we're talking about people's lives.

In San Francisco, where I am most familiar, SROs which are used to house homeless junkies are the primary location of overdose deaths, even though they house fewer junkies than the streets surrounding them.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the other quotes from the article that have nothing to do with funding... > “When you first back off enforcement, there are not many people walking over the line that you’ve removed. And the public think it’s working really well,” said Keith Humphreys, former senior drug policy adviser in the Obama administration and a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “Then word gets out that there’s an open…

Tent cities don't exist solely in places without access to housing "Access to housing" isn't enough. You might have "access" to health care but unable to afford it. You need housing as a right - even without payment - alongside enough adequate housing for everyone. And allow folks to do things in their own home. If they cannot do it at their home with other people, the person in question does not have adequate housin…

This is a real question, not a retort.

But I have known addicts, they don’t exactly take care of their things. It’s very easy to imagine that much of the state supplied housing would quickly become unsafe and or destroyed.

How do you handle that?

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA also in that time passed a ballot initiative that made it essentially impossible to raise taxes. It's also the reason college got so expensive.

they don't need to raise taxes -- California has run huge budget surpluses

No the California budget is famously boom and bust (currently running large deficits) because it relies on income taxes instead of property taxes, the former of which vary a lot with economic conditions while the latter don’t.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is in a weird place due to the weather, which almost guarantees the self dumping of people living outdoors. I'd be curious to see how this factors into these equations. Much of Europe gets pretty cold in winter.

Weird in what way? There's a dozen with higher average minimum temperatures, several with not signifiantly more rain (or less, Texas).

The average you’re looking for can hide a lot of distributions. Texas gets both extremely hot and cold in a way California does not.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#340
post #332

> Amsterdam — a city long famous for its pot cafes — last month instituted a new ban on smoking marijuana in public places. I'd love this for NYC. I'm getting pretty sick of smelling weed all day on the streets.

Noone should be smoking anything in public places, weed or not.
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