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

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

#501

Post by gruez » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #450

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…

> 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. Edgy, I would definitely have posted that on myspace when I was 14. Of course, that's not true. We are not hunter-gatherers, or pre-industrial farmers. We have abundance of all of life's necessities and even more. >We only create misery by “helping” pe…

>Suffice to say: I have. Several people who were on self-destructive paths, of whom you could have said "well fuck him, the fucker doesn't want help and is a burden to those around him, why should I waste money and effort with him?". With the necessary support they are now entirely different persons.

I didn't get the impression that the parent was against help. He explicitly mentioned providing rehab programs to those who wanted them.

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

#502

Post by gruez » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

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.

So the equivalent of putting them in jail cells, minus the bars?

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

#503

Post by LorenPechtel » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

leesalminen wrote: post #408

pmoriarty wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And that last bit - about a death sentence? That is only for a few addicts. A subset of addicts die." Not only that, but most drug users aren't addicts. To the general public, when they hear the words "drug user" they immediately equate that with "addict", and many can't even imagine that people could use drugs and not get addicted. But that's not true, as addicts are a small minority of drug users. Drug policy affe…

> addicts are a small minority of drug users. Do you have any reliable data to back up that claim? In my experience users who purport to not be addicts are indeed addicts in massive denial about their poor choices.

I think both are true.

Different drugs have wildly different addiction rates. Most people who use drugs are using the non-addictive stuff.

However, the people we traditionally view as addicts are almost certainly addicts even if they pretend they could quit anytime.

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

#504

Post by karaterobot » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

I didn't see the part of the article where people in Portugal were having doubts about the policy. I saw that some cities were considering re-criminalizing drug use in certain areas, such as around schools. By and large it sounded like a successful policy that they aren't looking to get rid of. Maybe they'll tweak it: the biggest complaint in that article as about the visibility of drug use, not the effects of drug use, so if that's the problem, maybe make the equivalent of an open container law for needle drugs. I don't know. I'd trade that problem for the problems most countries have.

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

#505

Post by orangepurple » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

momirlan wrote: post #399

orangepurple wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

these would not all be drug users, right? most of them would start a successful life in America

[flagged]

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

#506

Post by LorenPechtel » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

prirun wrote: post #416

pmoriarty wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Then word gets out that there’s an open market, limits to penalties, and you start drawing in more drug users. Then you’ve got a more stable drug culture, and, frankly, it doesn’t look as good anymore.” What's wrong with having a "drug culture" exactly? "Meanwhile, overdoses this year in Portland, the state’s largest city, have surged 46 percent." First, Portland is not Portugal. Second, are the overdoses happening…

I have read that some overdoses occur when an addict gets clean for a while then relapses. They think they can tolerate the same dosage they were taking when they quit but their body can't handle tolerate it now, ie, they have to work back up to that dosage. Not sure how common that is, but better labeling and higher-quality drugs wouldn't help, though I agree, letting pharma companies manufacture street drugs and se…

Anyone who was hooked when they enter jail should have a one-day class on habituation to reduce how many fall into this trap.

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

#507

Post by gretch » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

hotshiitake wrote: post #491

pxmpxm wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

And it's so obvious as to why/how in retrospect

Everyone knows sending an innocent person to prison is really bad. But if you throw "they're not well..." in front of it and you have all the green lights you need.

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

#508

Post by foogazi » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

Trencin wrote: post #163

foogazi wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was you what would you want us to do ? Let you sleep on the streets smoking crack ? treatment for the chemical addiction, and psychological therapy for the trauma around addiction

Love your children, and give them a safe and strong family to grow up in. Isn't that a fundamental part of raising a happy human being.

Yes, and if for whatever reason you are not around how would you like society to act towards your children?

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

#509

Post by blowski » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

bbotond wrote: post #385

blowski wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until “simply”. Nothing about this problem is simple.

What does commenting 3 asterisks mean? I’ve been noticing this more and more recently

I didn't see the original three asterisks, so I'm not sure. In general writing, three asterisks is used as a visual break between two sections in a document.

I assume the other commenter is referring to using "(((@name)))" on Twitter, and similar patterns, which is some social media thing I don't understand. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_parentheses.

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

#510

Post by nickserv » Sat, Jul 08, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #501

andrepd wrote: post #450

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. Edgy, I would definitely have posted that on myspace when I was 14. Of course, that's not true. We are not hunter-gatherers, or pre-industrial farmers. We have abundance of all of life's necessities and even more. >We only create misery by “helping” pe…

>Suffice to say: I have. Several people who were on self-destructive paths, of whom you could have said "well fuck him, the fucker doesn't want help and is a burden to those around him, why should I waste money and effort with him?". With the necessary support they are now entirely different persons. I didn't get the impression that the parent was against help. He explicitly mentioned providing rehab programs to thos…

Putting a bunch of addicts in an abandoned building so they can live in misery doesn't seem very helpful.