Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 1001 posts

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#31

Post by rokkitmensch »

unethical_ban wrote: post #24
Aerbil313 wrote: post #13

Criminalization works, even without sniffing dogs and modern surveillance, when the crime is also a sin . See Islam. To this day I know no relative or close friend of mine who ever drank any alcohol, nor one which used any drugs. But ofc this is the unthinkable for West. Downvote, pass.

The word you're looking for is shame. I'm not sure the benefits of increased shame in society is worth the danger of allowing radical Islam or Christianity to flourish in a free society. Of course, there are wonderful atheists and non-Abrhamic believing people in the world, and there is Hamas and ISIS. I'd rather live in Portland than Tehran.

Shame is just another social control tool. Who holds the stick, and what they seek to accomplish with the beatings is a more interesting question IMO.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#32

Post by diob »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #13

Criminalization works, even without sniffing dogs and modern surveillance, when the crime is also a sin . See Islam. To this day I know no relative or close friend of mine who ever drank any alcohol, nor one which used any drugs. But ofc this is the unthinkable for West. Downvote, pass.

One of the biggest drug users in my life follows Islam. They have struggled with quitting, having a large period of success, but ultimately went back.

No one is immune I'm afraid, religion isn't a magic trick.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#33

Post by ToucanLoucan »

kepler1 wrote: post #22
jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #10

It's really frustrating to see this headline. The officials decriminalized drugs, wiped their hands and backed off from any follow-up legislation to keep it working correctly. It reminds me a lot of the ACA. Officials got the bill passed and have collectively stopped making updates to the program to keep it healthy, but then constantly criticize its faults. American politics are sad in that it's hard to celebrate any…

If decriminalization relies on a whole raft of practically infeasible (or very expensive) associated programs to make it work, is it really a viable strategy?

So what, we continue empowering our state-sponsored thugs to harass, detain, charge and imprison more and more people for the use of substances we've decided are too bad for them, while we continue selling cigarettes, alcohol, etc. to everyone else?

Decriminalization is the only ethical way to move forwards. For decades now we have abused our own populace and those of other countries to the point of parody in the name of this prohibition, and, shock of shocks, it has failed, just like prohibition did, with the added benefit of we have the documents from the Nixon administration who were quite ready to say, behind closed doors anyway, that the entire point from the start of the war on drugs was openly to fuck with hippies and black people at scale, and that was before the CIA was flooding ghettos across the country with drugs to find/launder money for their operations.

None of this has ever been about the fucking drugs, it has always been yet another cudgel wielded by the state to further it's own ends. IF we decide we need to regulate substances based on actual scientific documented evidence, not puritan sensibilities of sin and vice, then so be it and we can figure that out after the fact. But until then, the entire existing systemic infrastructure for it is frankly, poisoned. It is not fit for the task it is entrusted and should be destroyed.

Burn it down, and start over.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#34

Post by jddj »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #13

Criminalization works, even without sniffing dogs and modern surveillance, when the crime is also a sin . See Islam. To this day I know no relative or close friend of mine who ever drank any alcohol, nor one which used any drugs. But ofc this is the unthinkable for West. Downvote, pass.

Confident delivery, but very naive perspective

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#35

Post by chaseha »

spaceribs wrote: post #16
deepfriedchokes wrote: post #12

Drug use is a mental health issue. People take things that make them feel good when they don’t feel good. They’re just self medicating and we need to start treating it as a symptom of an underlying issue rather than the issue itself. Same with the obesity epidemic. It’s not the what, it’s the why.

What if the underlying issue is capitalism itself though?

So what alternative are you proposing? Socialist countries have addiction issues too...

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#36

Post by _a_a_a_ »

kepler1 wrote: post #22
jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #10

It's really frustrating to see this headline. The officials decriminalized drugs, wiped their hands and backed off from any follow-up legislation to keep it working correctly. It reminds me a lot of the ACA. Officials got the bill passed and have collectively stopped making updates to the program to keep it healthy, but then constantly criticize its faults. American politics are sad in that it's hard to celebrate any…

If decriminalization relies on a whole raft of practically infeasible (or very expensive) associated programs to make it work, is it really a viable strategy?

What are these "practically infeasible (or very expensive) associated programs" in your view (genuine question)

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#37

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

spaceribs wrote: post #16
deepfriedchokes wrote: post #12

Drug use is a mental health issue. People take things that make them feel good when they don’t feel good. They’re just self medicating and we need to start treating it as a symptom of an underlying issue rather than the issue itself. Same with the obesity epidemic. It’s not the what, it’s the why.

What if the underlying issue is capitalism itself though?

Perhaps the problem is lack of magic pixie dust. If we voted for leaders with the magic dust, everything would be solved.

https://iea.org.uk/publications/socialism-the-failed-idea-th...

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#38

Post by kepler1 »

I commented a few times here over the years criticizing decriminalization as it came up as an option, against loud / vociferous people saying, how can you continue to embrace criminal penalties that clearly aren't working. As if it were crazy to believe that people need laws to obey.

I said that you can make all the rational step-wise choices in the world, and find yourself led down a path to oblivion, where you've made drug use not a crime, and find yourself in a drug-problem-overwhelmed city.

Lo and behold, we find years later, people awaken to the fact that decriminalization might not work, and countless people having left the city because of it, and probably more importantly, tons of people falling victim to the scourge of drugs.

Sometimes, as unkind as it sounds and expensive as it is, you need to enforce some harsh laws and have people understand that you won't tolerate certain behaviors, lest your society fall apart.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#39

Post by at_a_remove »

spaceribs wrote: post #16
deepfriedchokes wrote: post #12

Drug use is a mental health issue. People take things that make them feel good when they don’t feel good. They’re just self medicating and we need to start treating it as a symptom of an underlying issue rather than the issue itself. Same with the obesity epidemic. It’s not the what, it’s the why.

What if the underlying issue is capitalism itself though?

I would probably ask myself if substance abuse existed in communist countries, socialist countries, and so on. If it did, I might not be too eager to point the blame at capitalism.

Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

#40

Post by strken »

kepler1 wrote: post #22
jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #10

It's really frustrating to see this headline. The officials decriminalized drugs, wiped their hands and backed off from any follow-up legislation to keep it working correctly. It reminds me a lot of the ACA. Officials got the bill passed and have collectively stopped making updates to the program to keep it healthy, but then constantly criticize its faults. American politics are sad in that it's hard to celebrate any…

If decriminalization relies on a whole raft of practically infeasible (or very expensive) associated programs to make it work, is it really a viable strategy?

This embeds a lot of assumptions without offering any proof. The programs may or may not be too expensive to be practically feasible, but without supporting evidence there's nothing concrete to talk about.
Post reply on HN