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To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

nytimes.com

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

#41

Post by briffle »

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…

The 'officials' did not do that. The voters did, it was state ballot measure. They decriminalized Drugs, to encourage treatment. And moved quite a large percentage of taxes from Marajuana dispenseries to help pay for it. Then left the Oregon Health Authority in charge of distributing the money to build all these new treatment facilities. (Oregon is near the bottom in treatment centers per capita in the US).

The Oregon Health Authority then sat on that money for several years, bickering about procedures, policies, etc, and not a single dollar was sent out for several years after the law changed.

Treatment centers are finally starting to get open, years late. In the meantime, we spent years decriminalizing the drugs, while then guiding people into treatment, with no actual treatment available to them (and literally amassing hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for it, before spending anything)

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

#42

Post by jjtheblunt »

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.

> To this day I know no relative or close friend of mine who ever drank any alcohol, nor one which used any drugs.

That's pretty normal for even some secular (non religious) Americans of European ancestry and their friend groups, I (as one) observe. We were far more interested in sports so that booze would be an interruption in ... sports, for example. I do not know how common that is.

> But ofc this is the unthinkable for West.

No, it's not. (See above.) The thing is that "westerners" that match your friend groups definitely exist with their own matching westerner friend groups, which i guess is a happy surprise. it might be we're not obvious though, to your point.

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

#43

Post by redserk »

nickff wrote: post #27
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…

Perhaps they should have done the “follow-up legislation” before the decriminalization then? I think the problem is quite the opposite from your diagnosis. There are no standards for legislation “success” or “failure”. Very few bills actually achieve their stated aims, and all the ones that don’t are kept on the books, then the results are blamed on under-budgeting, or partisan politics (which should be foreseeable i…

How would this even work?

A rehabilitation program requires a very high level of trust from those seeking help, especially so if the program is trying to pull people off of the streets.

Re-criminalizing drug usage would make it difficult to convince people that they won't be arrested.

Admittedly, I don't know how this problem has been approached elsewhere and what was needed to actually improve things.

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

#44

Post by _a_a_a_ »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #33
kepler1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nam…

While I personally tend towards decriminalisation, a raging, emotive and fact-free posts like this is just plain counter-productive.

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

#45

Post by User23 »

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?

But it doesn't. The troublemakers are a tiny percentage of the population. I guarantee the local cops know every single one of them. But there's no mechanism for diverting them from making trouble so here we are.

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

#46

Post by _a_a_a_ »

reducesuffering wrote: post #28
rokkitmensch wrote: post #15

What is this "potent new methamphetamine"? Mainstream outlets keep parroting this line, but I have yet to see any convincing chemistry.

P2P meth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylacetone

P2P is a methamphetamine precursor, not a drug in itself AFAIK

Edit: I did a search and can't find much. There seems to be a lot of bullshit but suspiciously little by way of solid info. The best I could find was this so-called super meth is simply higher in the dextro isomer which gives the high (the levo being less interesting effect-wise). But that's well known already so...?

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

#47

Post by kepler1 »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #36
kepler1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The treatment / rehab / injection / addict housing programs (and more) that are required when you decide that having people use drugs isn't something that they believe they will be punished for anymore and no longer exercise some measure of self-caution to avoid falling into. The near-hospital-like facilities and salaries of people you have to pay for to replace that self- or state-policing, and now have to clean up after those who have been given free license to use drugs, and get them back on some productive life track.

As GP was alluding to, all the things that require spending $ on, which people aren't apparently willing to spend after the symbol of voting for decriminalization. Which, if they're a mandatory part of decriminalization, but people never end up paying for, mean that decriminalization isn't actually a viable policy.

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

#48

Post by briffle »

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.

Oregon shut down most of their mental health facilities in the 80's and early 90's. We literally have a federal judge letting charged criminals out free, becuase they have sat in jail for sometimes months before even being evaluated by the state hospital to see if they are competent/capable of defending themselves. They literally have 2 state hospitals for the entire state, and one of them is only 1/3 capacity, but they can't seem to staff it, and the other is well over 100% capactity, and forced to release people because of inhumane overcrowding. (and way understaffed, since it turns out people don't like to be beaten up by patients, with no help, protection, or training, for what is essentially entry level pay)

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

#49

Post by beachy »

golergka wrote: post #29
brianjking wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we...i don't know, actually helped people!? Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change until this country starts actually helping people. * Quality drug treatment that is paid for by the state/federal level. * Job training/retraining that is paid for at the state/federal level. * Affordable, high quality education that helps people not get interested in, have time for, be so full of despair that they resort to…

> What if we...i don't know, actually helped people!? This I support 100%. > paid for by the state/federal level This I can't. That's not "we" in any sense or form; that's other people's money taken away from them by violence or threat of violence. If you encourage people to help others (as we should!), then we should help people ourselves. Not delegate it to others, especially if they're not doing it voluntarily.

So in your worldview, all "helping" should happen voluntarily, with no state/federal assistance.

And if no individual is feeling charitable that day, then no help would be provided?

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

#50

Post by vore »

kepler1 wrote: post #38

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 m…

The problem is that the people using drugs out in public are already at rock bottom: there aren't many punishments you can use to deter that, short of putting them in jail and when they come out they're just going to be using drugs in public all over again. I'm somewhat receptive to the idea of mandatory treatment but as it stands, "enforcing some harsh laws" doesn't do anything to curb recidivism – temporarily incarcerating people falling out of the bottom of society is not a long term fix for society.
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