Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by hotshiitake » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

pxmpxm wrote: post #351

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…

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…

Yes, this is pretty much how it played out in other countries as well. Involuntary commitment has a very nasty history associated with it - rampant abuse, suicides, forced sterilization and lobotomies, untested electroshock therapy, unethical medical experimentation, pretty much every horrible human rights abuse that you can think of, up to and including genocide. By the 70s it had become socially untenable, and by the end of the century most countries had shuttered their publicly-run mental health institutions.

What is fascinating to me is that you can plainly see this evolution of thought play out in books, music and film. The portrayal of involuntary commitment slowly shifts from something that is normalized and somewhat necessary for society at the beginning of the 20th century, to something that is unabashedly evil by the end of it.

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

#492

Post by wesapien » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #143

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #137

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Maybe look at Singapore and other places where it went right?

And Singapore is mostly homogenous….

If Singapore is homogeneous, the USA is too. Descendants of Chinese (majority), followed by Malay, and Indian make up most of the citizens. Couple that with the high number of expats from all over the world.

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

#493

Post by zuminator » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

Gareth321 wrote: post #270

zuminator wrote: post #200

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The other day a woman passed gas on a crowded public light rail car and it personally offended me. What's more, an approximately six-year-old boy heard her and repeated the infraction, in other words it's indisputable her action influenced others to follow in her footsteps. I also happen to know that neither she nor the six-year-old are gainfully employed, thus they are a drain on society. And in breaking wind it's c…

I don’t think the reason that public drug use is prosecuted is because it offends people prima facie. It’s because it’s associated with and indicative of a more serious problem: addiction. Addiction fuels all kinds of crime. The same cannot be said of passing gas.

I agree with you that addiction can be a serious issue, but I have some responses to that.

1) If someone's addiction leads to crime, then punish the crime when they commit it. Don't make the pre-crine a crime. Instead of preventing crimes, now you've multiplied them.

2) If drugs weren't ruinously expensive due to their illegality, there would be much less need for addicts to turn to crime. You don't normally hear about alcohol, cigarette or coffee addicts going on crime sprees to support their habits.

3) There's evidence that responding with properly funded support and treatment is cheaper and leads to better outcomes than a massive carceral complex.

4) We can discourage a practice with lighter punitive measures than prison. Running a red light is a rampant traffic infraction, and potentially deadly to boot, yet we don't typically punish it with jail time. It would be massively unproductive to do so. We typically fine people and/or give them "points" on their license. Similarly if needed, we could discourage drugs with fines, taxes, restricting privileges, mandated treatment or social shaming instead of incarceration.

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

#494

Post by germinalphrase » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #473

germinalphrase wrote: post #155

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There were a number of scandals and exposes during that time including Geraldo Rivera making a name for himself with his investigations of the Willowbrook State School in NY. The closure of such institutions was very much a national movement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School

If there were scandals at fire departments around the country would you eliminate some or all of them? It's the same with mental institutions. There are people who should be committed for the rest of their lives and nothing, short of curing them, changes that

I don’t disagree that institutions should be part of the equation. I was just expanding on the earlier comment.

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

#495

Post by mcpackieh » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #379

mcpackieh wrote: post #288

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Communism is bad because communists think the ends justify the means and (as you are demonstrating) shamelessly excuse tens of millions of murders (proving they've learned nothing and will do it again when given the chance.)

You obviously have absolutely no idea what communists think, and what "communism" means. What you are demonstrating is that it is impossible to talk with you. Not sure if that is because you can't understand a basic sentence or just because you aren't open to even learn what a word means before making completely wrong conclusions, but I don't care. We won't have a constructive discussion, let's stop here.

"That wasn't real communism, you have to let us murder tens of millions of people again!"

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

#496

Post by mcpackieh » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

jurynulifcation wrote: post #449

mcpackieh wrote: post #248

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It's certainly not a problem with education. Nobody in this country can claim they were never told that drugs are bad.

[flagged]

No amount of education will stop people from getting hooked on drugs. You are ridiculous if you earnestly believe otherwise. People know drugs are bad for you, and do drugs anyway because their life is fucked up for other reasons and they've become self-destructive, seeking short-term pleasure even though they know it will come with long-term pain. If you want to solve this, you need to lift people up and fix their lives before they ever sink that far in the first place.

>pigheaded craven

Blow it out your ass.

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

#497

Post by mcpackieh » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #368

seventhtiger wrote: post #321

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You can do us a favor and outline for us how doing that is a first step to solving poverty. Otherwise it seems like you just regurgitated a populist meme.

Ok, let's say you find a way to distribute the resources evenly between everybody. Haven't you solved poverty then? Then if you want to solve inequalities, do you think it's easier to start by solving inequalities between the poor people, or is it easier to start by taking money from those who are insanely rich for no good reason?

Step 1) Murder tens of millions of people for the cause.

Step 2) ????

Step 3) Equality!

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

#498

Post by ativzzz » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

jcpst wrote: post #413

hughesjj wrote: post #389

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I think part of it is how isolated the us is. We don't really have walkable neighborhoods in most of the country, which means less spur of the moment decisions to gather at a social place and more isolation since so many people are commuting in single occupancy vehicles and doing drive throughs. Combine that with wealth stratification, Hussle culture, and the complete lack of any real social safety net and if anythin…

Isolation is a big one. The classic study people bring up is the “cocaine rat”. The rat in isolation was drawn to the bottle with cocaine water. When the rat was in a cage with activites and other rats, lost the preference for the cocaine water.

Give humans in a room together a vat of cocaine water and that vat will be quickly drained lol

Doing drugs in isolation is a coping mechanism, doing drugs with others is social bonding

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

#499

Post by mcpackieh » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

jurynulifcation wrote: post #98

throwawa14223 wrote: post #85

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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…

> Why should your preference impact my right

A little thing called democracy. Perhaps you've heard of it.

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

#500

Post by mcpackieh » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

wesselbindt wrote: post #352

boringuser2 wrote: post #150

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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.

Doing drugs is immoral because it compromises your ability to serve your community and live up to the expectations and responsibilities that come with living in a society.

If you can keep your life balanced while on drugs, good for you. But you're still toying with the risk of you getting addicted and losing control; to even take that risk is selfish.