381–390 of 660 posts
Are there countries that have successfully reduced drug use among their population without implementing strong penalties for possession?
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…
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…
I believe addiction is a disease, but treatment is elusive. Some have no desire to stop. There are also frequently other mental or emotional problems. Just feeding addiction's most obvious symptom (by continual drug use) does nothing - see this article.
I doubt whether there will ever be a neat and tidy "solution". Eventually the healthy part of society will have enough and some action will be taken, like prohibition or war on drugs, etc. Then it will wax the other way again.
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…
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…
I assure you there is a difference between coffee/cigarettes and methamphetamine beyond just stigma.
Coffee and tobacco both improve your mental capabilities without short-term downsides. No one’s been fired for showing up with a coffee or tobacco buzz and being more productive.
Very few people would rob their friends and families for mocha money were Starbucks suddenly illicit.
Alcohol is obviously less defensible as many people do end up on the streets over it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The homeless drug addicts covers a huge range of people. Many actually claw their way back into normal society. No solution is going to fix everyone but you can minimize the externalities from homelessness. It’s simply an optimization problem. Prison is horrendously expensive, and people on the street have real externalities for everyone in the area.
I was with you until “simply”. Nothing about this problem is simple.
I mean.. I live in Philadelphia. Drugs aren’t legal here and our issues with dangerous drugs far exceed Portugal’s… So, how is criminalizing going to help again? Maybe the only issue is deeper? Depression is at an all time high. People are burned out since covid, this is bound to happen everywhere..
Reading through this thread, it's stunning how shallow the discussion is about addiction and drug use. People suggesting that tent cities are the result of drug use, rather than part of the cause (and no, that's not to say people without a good home become drug addicts, that thinking is on the same level, the problem is deeper).
The economy is failing, we've past peak everything, inequality is terrible, there are more candidates for doing drugs overall, so there are more drug users. As things get worse and worse, which they will, there will be even more addicts, because life has literally nothing else to offer them to make them feel good.
For all we know, this regulation in Portugal could be doing even better than it was, say, 8 years ago, it's just that society has gotten worse at supporting its population and as a result there are so many more potential drug users. Most people aren't required for the economy to function, and it's less and less each year.
People who always said that drugs are bad mmmkay, I think they aren't happy with sensible legislation, because it makes them look stupid, so they are the first to come up with weak strawman arguments as soon as some data point turns in their favour.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
Honest question: Why are mental issues so prevalent in USA? Temptative hypothesis 1: People have less roots than in Europe, so they don’t belong somewhere, and have weak ties with close family and no ties with extended family, so they move, and when they fall off their life, there is no social safety net? Temptative hypothesis 2: Americans classify any bad mood as a mental issue? Temptative 3: Medical aid is too expe…
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…
Honest question: Why are mental issues so prevalent in USA? Temptative hypothesis 1: People have less roots than in Europe, so they don’t belong somewhere, and have weak ties with close family and no ties with extended family, so they move, and when they fall off their life, there is no social safety net? Temptative hypothesis 2: Americans classify any bad mood as a mental issue? Temptative 3: Medical aid is too expe…
Combine that with wealth stratification, Hussle culture, and the complete lack of any real social safety net and if anything I'm surprised we're doing as well as we are.
I don't think it's a single issue by far, but if I had to peg one aspect as the worst offender, it's isolationism. There's strong correlation between drug use, depression, suicide, and lower life expectancy in places with power population density (Alaska, Noth Dakota, pretty much any small rustbelt or mountain or southern town)
When there's nothing to fill the emptiness, people turn to drugs and overeating just to feel something.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2022472118
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States...
Drugs should be sold at the grocery store, no question asked. They should be cheap too. That would solve the drug problem.
Have you seen how much San Francisco and Seattle have improved with drug tolerant policies?
What makes you think that drug use has anything much to do at all with drug policy? People take drugs because society is shit, not because of the rule of law.