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Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

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

#351

Post by pxmpxm »

m463 wrote: post #77
virgildotcodes wrote: post #7

Talk about burying the lede, 11 years ago they privatized their drug oversight operation and cut funding by over 80%. Gee, I wonder if that could have an impact? > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by th…

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…

This is a complete bullshit narrative, recently made popular by podcasts aimed at left leaning audiences ... because Reagan Bad is easy to sell when you're trying to run damage control for shitty governance/public policy. I have no doubt that's where you got it as well, and have parroted it many a time.

In reality, in the 1970s there was a series of landmark supreme court decisions that dealt with the civil rights of mentally ill, setting a very high bar for involuntary commitment. In California specifically, Short-Doyle act of '57 functionally defunded state run asylums, and Lanterman-Prentis-Short Act of '67 capped the length of involuntary commitment half a decade before the SCOTUS decisions.

http://n204xn214l.pbworks.com/f/Short-Doyle+Act.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman%E2%80%93Petris%E2%80...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addington_v._Texas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_v._Indiana

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

#352

Post by wesselbindt »

boringuser2 wrote: post #150
RoyalHenOil wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That being said, it's also obvious that a criminal isn't really a good authority on the justness of the crime they commit... How is that obvious? It's not at all obvious to me that, for example, MLK Jr was not an authority on the justice of civil disobedience because he himself practiced civil disobedience. If we disregard the opinions of people who think doing X is justified and therefore proceed to do X, then we b…

How is it not obvious that a legal transgressor would justify their transgression? The fact that bad people generally don't feel like bad people is a universal understanding of the human condition. Not interested in making comparisons to someone that you can't separate from a type of neo-sainthood. Anyhow, having an unpopular opinion isn't antisocial or illegal. Buying heroin is.

In referring to recreational drug users as bad people, I think you're conflating morality with legality, which is common, but wrong.

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

#353

Post by [deleted] »

rscrawfo wrote: post #337
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

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

#354

Post by boredumb »

Anyone who thinks funding rehab centers and getting homeless drug addicts into free apartment units are people who have never been around homeless drug addicts. There may be some wonderful examples of this working but 99.8% of the people you will encounter on your commute are not about to participate in rehab, and if you ask them they will give you a history of apartments and homes they've been asked to leave due to destroying them. Even if you used the same enforcement to take other peoples money in taxes for funding in order to force them into homes and rehab centers you will find that the overlap (at least in the US) with severe mental illnesses is huge AND you cannot legally force these people into places to address it. The reality of drugs and homelessness in America is so bad that listening to people talk about government ran programs and some funding figures are naive or disingenuous - all of the state programs are closer to end of life hospice work than a solution.

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

#355

Post by lukeschlather »

comfortabledoug wrote: post #266
virgildotcodes wrote: post #7

Talk about burying the lede, 11 years ago they privatized their drug oversight operation and cut funding by over 80%. Gee, I wonder if that could have an impact? > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by th…

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…

https://msdh.ms.gov/page/44,0,382.html

Drug overdoses are a nationwide problem in the USA. Mississippi also had a 49% increase in overdoses in 2020. Shelter is a basic human need and depriving people of it on the grounds that they might overdose doesn't seem like it follows. I know plenty of addicts who take care of their things just fine. They're addicted to coffee and alcohol and cigarettes. It's possible that the problem is not the drug itself but the social stigma attached to the drug.

Although I suspect both you and I know people addicted to other things, and we are simply unaware because we don't see any of the outward signs that we associate with "bad drug" addiction.

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

#356

Post by rscrawfo »

thebigjewbowski wrote: post #350
rscrawfo wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I’m almost scared to post this but — have you been in / around public housing in the US? (Genuine not rhetorical) It’s not uncommon for it to be unsafe and destroyed.

That’s the reasoning for my question. Just last night I was reading about a local homeless man who was scared to go to the local shelter and had things stolen when he had.

But I also wanted to ask the OP (who mentioned housing as a right) how that could be avoided.

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

#357

Post by bregma »

comfortabledoug wrote: post #239
randomdata wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vancouver and Portugal have very different policy. They shouldn't be all that different. Vancouver (well, British Columbia) has tried to model its decriminalization efforts after Portugal's. That decriminalization hasn't even been around for more than a handful of months, though, so it seems rather early for Vancouver to also be having doubts. Nobody was expecting things to change overnight; Health Canada allowed u…

Vancouver and BC's opioid crisis gets worse and worse as the policies continue to become more and more liberal. Every year there are more tent cities, more crime, and more overdose deaths.

It's also getting worse just as fast in the rest of Canada without the lack of enforcement of the wet coast. Doesn't sound like a causative correlation to me.

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

#358

Post by thriftwy »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #318
comfortabledoug wrote: post #266

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…

A billion people across the world may want a house "as right" in San Francisco. It may only fit three order of magnitudes people realistically, though.

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

#359

Post by dlkf »

jurynulifcation wrote: post #98
throwawa14223 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of people I want consuming recreational PCP around me is 0.

Why should your preference impact my right to my body and what I put into it? That is downright psychotic. You mean to tell me that if someone simply takes PCP near you and does not in any way harm you, you would like for their fundamental human privileges violently stripped from them? Now, if someone takes PCP and is then a public nuisance, that should be dealt with. But it should be dealt with because they are bein…

Your argument would apply equally to a drunk driver who didn’t happen to crash that night.

The problem is that taking pcp significantly raises the probability the user will commit an act of violence, by which point it’s too late.

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

#360

Post by jollofricepeas »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #7

Talk about burying the lede, 11 years ago they privatized their drug oversight operation and cut funding by over 80%. Gee, I wonder if that could have an impact? > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by th…

Good point.

Does anyone know how Norway has handled drugs and homelessness?

The reason I ask is that we should probably compare funding and outcomes between Portugal and Norway, no?

Two things are needed to change human behavior:

1. A strong deterrent

2. An equally strong support system (ie. Healthcare, housing, food, basic income)

You can’t do both of these without a strong financial investment unless…

You’re Singapore.

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