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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

#181

Post by seanmcdirmid »

wintogreen74 wrote: post #173
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - imprisonment is not effective at curbing drug use in individuals or systemically, because illicit drugs will always be available, see prohibition for the strongest case here I disagree that hardline policies can't work. In China, there is no social safety net for drug users (nor much for anyone else), nor is there much sympathy for it, therefore...drug abuse happens for sure, but it just doesn't survive very long…

>> flood prisons with substance abuse treatment programs As a tax payer it's perfectly reasonable that I don't want to pay for that, though.

Yes. But we are already paying more to many keep these people out of prison than in. $100k/year per unhoused neighbor on fent is hugely expensive, and they aren't even getting treatment in most cases.

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

#182

Post by wintogreen74 »

fasthands9 wrote: post #98
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…

I think the average person (including myself) is just skeptical this is a problem worth having. A rube goldberg where everything has to go right. It seems like the best case scenario is "We legalize drugs and then raise tax dollars and then use that money to fund programs so that people that are addicted aren't harmed too much in the long run" just seems not ideal. I get the arguments for personal liberty, but we wou…

you mean like smoking and drinking?

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

#183

Post by wolverine876 »

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.

> 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.

What if that reduces our policies, in every area, to zero effectiveness?

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

#184

Post by hifreq »

jdminhbg wrote: post #71
legitster wrote: post #57

Drug legalization is something I have come 180 on (or at least, 90 degrees). Portland did everything! They invested huge sums in shelters, treatment programs, counsellors, etc. ODs have more than doubled, and the shelters are half empty! They are not one more social program away from cleaning out the streets. I think the experiment has radically failed and I'm ready to say I was wrong. While I don't want to go back t…

> Portland did everything! They invested huge sums in shelters, treatment programs, counsellors, etc. Huge sums were collected, but they haven't really been spent. As noted elsewhere in this thread, the first detox center built with M110 money only opened two months ago, and only has 16 beds: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/new-se-portl...

There are many other examples of failed policies that increased financial pressure on taxpayers but did not result in an overall improvement in the homeless situation.

E.g. what is the outcome of CA Proposition 2 that passed in 2018?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_California_Proposition_2

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

#185

Post by xkjyeah »

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…

Literally, fentanyl is legal and regulated. It's used as an anaesthetic.

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

#186

Post by kazinator »

Eumenes wrote: post #140
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…

Your argument is tired. There is no such thing as a functional heroin addict. Most don't quit after a 20 year on and off relationship with it. They die and usually cause mayhem in the process - to society, their loved ones, the healthcare system, law enforcement, etc. I'm dealing with a very serious addict in my life right now and how "clean" the drug is makes no difference. They steal and lie non-stop. They cause ma…

There is a critical difference between heroin, and heroin laced with uknown amounts of a fentanyl analog. The adulterated stuff kills even first time people experimenting with drugs.

Joe Perry & Steven Tyler (Aerosmith's "Toxic Twins") are still here. Clapton lives. So does Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page.

All those guys would be long dead if there had been fentanyl lacing back in the 70's.

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

#187

Post by stillwithit »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #179
stillwithit wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Then they’re out of the way. One or way or another, none of us are getting out of this alive. Not sure where the religious conviction we must save all souls comes from or has any value.

Even if one ascribes to this nihilist POV, it isn't an answer. We see the negative effects on communities, families, and people around addicts. Even if you don't care that people are destroying themselves, when they take out the surrounding area it is a problem we share.

Yeah and humans have seen it for centuries and failed to stop it

Who is to say any progress we make won’t be undid by another pandemic we cannot predict, or some nutter launching the nukes

We have political agents hell bent on war and subjugating undesirables, rather than pushback against them let’s focus on some people who don’t want to live?

Why not ask Oceangate how the war against physics is going. It will always win and erode any social progress we think we made

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

#188

Post by notyofriend »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #146
wharvle wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no contradiction here. It may or may not be bad policy, but it’s not a contradiction. Nobody’s a victim when a kid falls and breaks an arm while skateboarding, but we have programs like CHIP to help kids have access to healthcare to get that arm treated, regardless.

> Nobody’s a victim when a kid falls and breaks an arm while skateboarding, but we have programs like CHIP to help kids have access to healthcare to get that arm treated, regardless. The kid is going to be fine after they are in a cast for a few weeks/months. A fentanyl addict, even with million of dollars over a few years of treatment, is more than likely never going to be OK again. Both involve moral hazard (if soc…

This is the real issue. If you “fall” to heroin it’s not economically viable to help you get up. The cost per success is in the millions of dollars and even success is a pretty degrading state of existence. It’s not like insurance people who fall never paid in, it happens too often for that or charity care. It’s just not possible to treat everyone

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

#189

Post by davesque »

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…

I mean, I remember how things were before fentanyl came around (as an outside observer, not as a user) and heroin was a horrible, life-destroying drug addiction back then as well. And I think it was and is convincingly argued that it is much more addictive than alcohol.

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

#190

Post by jghn »

afarrell wrote: post #96
1letterunixname wrote: post #87

The root cause in both instances isn't drugs and so infinite spending or (de)criminalization won't matter. The core issue is hope. In the absence of work for the abled and care for the disabled and housing, there isn't much hope and so crimes, habits, and deaths of despair take hold. Without holistic and comprehensive betterment of people who feel ignored and cheated, there isn't much for this growing sector of socie…

I have come to the conclusion that lots of humans have a religion-shaped hole in their psyche. It is far better to fill it with a stable, local, hope-giving religion. Hymns are a better opiate of the masses than fentanyl.

This was one of the topics covered by "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong [1]. While she didn't propose people should find religion per se, she did present the argument that a god sized hole exists in our psyche, so if one is not religious it needs to be filled somehow.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_God

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