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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

#421

Post by thomasz »

eastbound wrote: post #374
boredumb wrote: post #354

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…

Mental illness is a huge risk factor for becoming homeless, which in turn will escalate any mental health issue to a massive degree. Better access to treatment and better safeguards against homelessness for the affected do actually help a lot. OTOH, migration of the affected towards areas with comparatively good services can create perverse incentives for other areas to just dump their homeless and mentally ill. And then feel smug about solving the problem for themselves.

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

#422

Post by robocat »

K0balt wrote: post #371
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…

Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs. Honestly, if a person isn’t up for it, we need to stop trying to convince them to stay around and be miserable. Elective suicide should be a basic right, and drugs are one way out. We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want hep. Criminaliz…

> Social drugs such as alcohol and thc are not so incompatible with society

Alcohol is very unsociable - calling it social seems odd to me. Anecdotally alcohol seems pretty destructive to me. I am middle-aged so perhaps I have seen more of the deeper long-term destructive effects than you? New Zealanders generally have quite a problem with alcohol abuse.

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

#423

Post by 4RealFreedom »

K0balt wrote: post #371
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…

Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs. Honestly, if a person isn’t up for it, we need to stop trying to convince them to stay around and be miserable. Elective suicide should be a basic right, and drugs are one way out. We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want hep. Criminaliz…

Completely agree with you. The only reason drugs are expensive is because they've been made illegal. Don't get me started on the secondary aspects like people not being able to get pain killers after surgery. Legalize all of them and make them cheap or just hand them out. Public use should be met with harsh penalties. The war on drugs has been so expensive in cash money and the human cost. We need to try something radically different.

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

#425

Post by pmoriarty »

d1l wrote: post #383
boredumb wrote: post #354

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…

Yeah I've seen the destruction that comes from removing legal/social consequences for drug abuse. Neglected and abandoned children is by far the most tragic. The community of non-addicts bears the responsibility for cleaning up the destruction, the addicts themselves cannot. That's the nature of addiction. To be clear I'm talking about the hard drugs; opiates, cocaine, meth. I believe addiction is a disease, but trea…

Imagine you are suffering day in and day out in crushing poverty, that you see nothing but crime and hopelessness all around you, that your friends and family have been killed or are rotting away in jail, that you are looked down upon, spat upon, and despised, that you see no hope of bettering or escaping your situation.

Then imagine you've taken something that infinitely transforms your world and makes you feel amazing to such a degree that's absolutely unimaginable to someone who hasn't tried some of these substances ("better than sex" is an extreme understatement). All your pain is gone, all your misery forgotten, amazing vistas open before you, all is good.

After that brief stay in paradise, you come crashing down and back in to your miserable life. Everything is as before, your passion is back, only you now know it's possible for you to get back to that exalted state, to escape that prison of a life you've been living in, even if for a moment.

Is it evidence of a disease for someone who's gone through this to desperately want to experience that escape again? To be free and feel great?

Is the cause of such a desire -- the misery, the poverty, the hopelessness, the fantastic way these substances make you feel and the escape they offer -- can all that be justly summed up in the word "disease", or is there something else going on?

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

#426

Post by PartiallyTyped »

beached_whale wrote: post #382
boredumb wrote: post #354

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…

The other day I read that in a Finish housing first programs they had a success rate of 4/5 and it was much less expensive than in the past. Not sure of the kpi’s, so grain of salt, but sounds promising

Adding, dealing with homelessness reduces healthcare costs [1], so by all means, a net positive to society.

[1] https://nlihc.org/resource/study-finds-affordable-housing-re...

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

#427

Post by brigandish »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #395

The problem isn't homeless people who are addicts, it's politicians who are addicts. Homeless and about-to-become homeless addicts are at the bottom of the food chain, with extremely limited agency. Their choices are basically improve (v. difficult), tread water (slightly less difficult) or die (not difficult at all.) Politicians who are addicts can create and enforce disastrous irrational policies on an entire count…

Ignoring the pretty weak evidence of slo-mo video, which could make anyone look out of it, and some circumstantial at best "evidence" (my brother's keeper and all that), there have been more high profile and damaging cases of British politicians addicted to drugs. Prime example, Prime Minister Anthony Eden[1] who botched the Suez Crisis:

> Robert Carr served as Eden's Parliamentary Private Secretary and I have been much influenced by his comments:

> ‘I find it difficult to accept the judgement that Anthony's health did not have a decisive influence at least on the conduct of his policy. I agree that he might well have pursued the same basic policy had he been well, but I find it very hard to believe that he would have made such obvious miscalculations in its execution both in the political and the military spheres.’

> Lord William Deedes, the distinguished journalist, who was also a Minister in Eden's government, accurately said on television in 2004 that during the Suez crisis, Eden ‘under prescription had, as many did, and still do, barbiturates, I think, to assist rest and sleep etc. and amphetamines sometimes for a little bit of a pick up’, and agreed that this was what was called ‘uppers and downers’.31 That combination is contained in Drinamyl, identified by Eden's own doctor as the drug he was on. Drinamyl is now very rarely used, as the medical profession have become more aware of their effect on judgement, energy and mood. Deedes’ account, however, contrasts with Eden's wife's view that he was not taking ‘uppers and downers’ and was only taking anything like it (Benzedrine) in the last fortnight before he resigned.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/98/6/387/1548168

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

#428

Post by mensetmanusman »

K0balt wrote: post #376
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?

Concrete. Everything concrete. Anything not concrete is removable.

Concrete has poor tensile strength and is wash to damage with a hammer. Also as a building material is very expensive...

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

#429

Post by DropInIn »

robocat wrote: post #422
K0balt wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs. Honestly, if a person isn’t up for it, we need to stop trying to convince them to stay around and be miserable. Elective suicide should be a basic right, and drugs are one way out. We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want hep. Criminaliz…

> Social drugs such as alcohol and thc are not so incompatible with society Alcohol is very unsociable - calling it social seems odd to me. Anecdotally alcohol seems pretty destructive to me. I am middle-aged so perhaps I have seen more of the deeper long-term destructive effects than you? New Zealanders generally have quite a problem with alcohol abuse.

Alcohol is the drug with the highest correlation with violence etc as well as producing the highest number of deaths and long term health problems...

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

#430

Post by Heyso »

eastbound wrote: post #374
boredumb wrote: post #354

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…

"Mental illness" is also a problem in France.

I recommend you check out reddit r/LateStageCapitalism .

There is so much to be said about how fuck up our world is, I don't wanna start or i'll write a brick.

Elon Musk said recently that school is a joke, and that he do home schooling. Well, he is not the first one to have said it, but he is damn right. Idriss Aberkane has some very good conferences on the subject.

In USA, compared to France, you can add the issue of student debt (slavery). And the city layout being made for cars, public transportation or bikes are scarce, meaning young ones have to heavely rely on parents to do any activitie.

Oh... and your president is not just bad and malevolent, like in France, he is also senile. But like in France, a lot of citizen have voted for him.

Finnaly, who is really sick here ?

"It is not a sign of good mental health to be well adapted to a sick society."

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