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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

#161

Post by notyofriend »

namesbc wrote: post #127
qingcharles wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a hard problem to solve. I work with drug and alcohol addicts regularly and addiction is such a damned nightmare. And every homeless person hates shelters. They have way more rules than prisons and all of the drama. I don't know what the solutions are :(

Permanent Housing is the only solution. Shelters are at best temporary to survive a cold night, but they are not a solution for a sustainable life.

How can someone pushing themselves to the limit of heroin od have anything sustainable.

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

#163

Post by notyofriend »

namesbc wrote: post #128
gafage wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We tried this cruel inhumane policy for the decades called thew war on drugs and it was one of the worst failures in US history

Singapore has been successful so clearly we’re doing it wrong and focusing on the wrong things.

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

#164

Post by ratg13 »

jmcphers wrote: post #82

I live in the Seattle area, which is struggling with public drug use just like Portland. Like Portland, we've lived for decades with very progressive politicians who have lead successful decriminalization efforts and spent huge sums of public funds on treatment and harm reduction programs. After several decades and many, many millions of dollars spent, the problem is, by every measure, absolutely the worst it's ever…

I think other cities bussing and flying homeless people out west outweighs every possible policy change.

We’ll never know if any of these policies stood a chance due to the USA viewing the west coast as a dumping ground for homeless people.

Next time you’re passing by these people, ask them where they are from originally.

Locals are like 20% of the problem.

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

#165

Post by wintogreen74 »

gosub100 wrote: post #138
drewg123 wrote: post #110

Nowhere in these comments have I see anybody take the position that decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. I have a close friend whose relative is a heroin addict. According to her, a lot of overdoses are due to almost no "heroin" actually being heroin, rather its fentanyl cut to varying degrees of strength. Not knowing what you're taking, and not knowing how strong it is, can lead…

Has there been any research into how to measure potency (of fentanyl) and cut it properly? Maybe we could keep the government out of it, and instead give information and supplies to measure the potency correctly? I've heard that one way OD's happen is the substance is not homogeneous, so they can consume half the bag fine, then one dose is super-charged and puts them into OD (because fent can be up to thousands of ti…

Your post is a prime example of the classic engineering approach of efficiently solutioning the immediate technical problem without solving the actual root cause because it's too complex or messy. I mean, CPAP machines for drug addicts because street fentanyl is too potent and inconsistent?

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

#166

Post by prawn »

gosub100 wrote: post #138
drewg123 wrote: post #110

Nowhere in these comments have I see anybody take the position that decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. I have a close friend whose relative is a heroin addict. According to her, a lot of overdoses are due to almost no "heroin" actually being heroin, rather its fentanyl cut to varying degrees of strength. Not knowing what you're taking, and not knowing how strong it is, can lead…

Has there been any research into how to measure potency (of fentanyl) and cut it properly? Maybe we could keep the government out of it, and instead give information and supplies to measure the potency correctly? I've heard that one way OD's happen is the substance is not homogeneous, so they can consume half the bag fine, then one dose is super-charged and puts them into OD (because fent can be up to thousands of ti…

Are many of them going to care? I imagine testing would be useful for pill-takers at festivals, but something that is a daily addiction dominating life seems a different case.

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

#167

Post by kazinator »

drewg123 wrote: post #110

Nowhere in these comments have I see anybody take the position that decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. I have a close friend whose relative is a heroin addict. According to her, a lot of overdoses are due to almost no "heroin" actually being heroin, rather its fentanyl cut to varying degrees of strength. Not knowing what you're taking, and not knowing how strong it is, can lead…

> According to her, a lot of overdoses are due to almost no "heroin" actually being heroin, rather its fentanyl cut to varying degrees of strength.

Anyone knows that who followed current events during the opiod epidemic and read some Wikipedia on it.

And actually, it's not just fentanyl, but fentanyl-like compounds that, even if controlled to the same concentration, have varying degrees of strength.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fentanyl_analogues

"The structural variations among fentanyl-related substances can impart profound pharmacological differences between these drugs, especially with respect to potency and efficacy"

You don't know which fentanyl analog is in that heroin dose, and how much of it.

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

#168

Post by felizuno »

So much sympathy for drug users and business owners, but what about the private citizens who get victimized by these drug users?

I was beaten nearly to death (in broad daylight, in a residential neighborhood) in Seattle in 2020 by two men enabled to descend into meth addiction by permissive policies. In my victim support group I met so many people - innocent people - permanently injured & disfigured like me, or raped, or psychologically destroyed by meth users who had been allowed to live in tents in their neighborhoods and use hard drugs undisturbed until it was too late.

It's easy to treat this like a philosophical topic when you've had the privilege not to pay any personal price. For some of us it's more than an argument on the internet. If you think we should allow people to sell/buy/use meth please have the courage to attend a support group for victims of violent crimes. I doubt you'd claim a moral high ground for decriminalization to the faces of victims like me who have had our lives destroyed by meth users.

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

#169

Post by argc »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #106
iAMkenough wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a hard problem to solve. Criminalizing drugs and throwing addicts in jail doesn't resolve the problem.

...apart from in every country that does this and doesn't have lots of addicts? It is quite strange because you go almost anywhere else in the world...no addicts, no-one uses drugs, they find it strange that anyone would use drugs...go to the US, you not only have drug addicts but a whole industry dedicated to offering very knowledgeable-sounding opinions about what should work...it never is explained why the drug pr…

AFAIK there are drug addicts all over the world, including in the Middle East and Philippines where drug addicts are met with severe punishments. The problem is IMO more the availability of drugs vs the potential punishments people face. People are willing to take risks to do drugs. Unless a government completely controls everyone's private life there remains an ability to evade detection and take drugs while telling oneself that one will not be caught.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/02/middleeast/saudi-drug-capital...

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

#170

Post by stillwithit »

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…

Until recently Portland had a shitty local government structure that voters recently approved to modernize.

Former city council members often railed against it; as a member they’d be assigned city bureaus (fire, police…) to basically manage day to day.

Former members complained they were so busy dealing with office work rather than understanding Portlands problems in the abstract and crafting legislation. Also the mayor was on the council and did the same job.

The hope is the new system (mayor and council are now separate entities, city manager oversees bureaus so mayor and council can focus on legislative matters).

Also I’d like to point out every city in the US is a raging dumpster fire of homeless, collusion, graft, fraud… Portland isn’t unique and it’s hardly as bad as say PA cities. America is a shithole country full of FOMO obsessed fast fashion clothes, food, gadgets, and media and gives zero fucks about setting that aside to clean itself up. Garbage in garbage out

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