To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

Post by akira2501 » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

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…

Post by ToucanLoucan » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #44

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by kepler1 » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

vore wrote: post #50

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 incar…

Post by legitster » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

Post by petsfed » Mon, Dec 11, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

jgon wrote: post #11

flerchin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they spent more than a few nights in corrective housing? Actually drying out, and getting treatment? I get that you can't force someone to want to get better, but you can lock them away if they refuse and keep breaking the law. Right? The whole situation is horrible. I moved away from Portland around the turn of the century, and it's unrecognizable to me when I go back to visit family.

This is the right answer and it is hopefully one people will converge on, although true to form it will be after trying everything else. Its super frustrating in a lot of cities right now because the current political environment seems to want to have a "stochastic junkie" if you will. When it comes to violence, disorder, theft and just generally refusing to be part of society in a non-harmful way all we get right no…