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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

#301

Post by BizarreByte »

felizuno wrote: post #168

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…

I'm a Canadian who travelled to Seattle recently and I found that city legitimately scary downtown. The addicts were unstable and violent like nothing I'd ever seen, even in some of the worst parts of our country.

Walking through downtown Seattle at night with a suitcase trying to find my hotel is the first time in my life I thought I was about to be attacked or robbed, but thankfully I only had stuff thrown at me by the junkies.

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

#302

Post by tayo42 »

wcarss wrote: post #272
tayo42 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick Google says that 20 to 30% of people that try the drug get addicted. So most won't. The worst cases probably just stick out.

I may be wrong, but I thought we were discussing how many regularly-heroin-using people die early, not how many people try heroin once and subsequently become addicted.

Oh I interpreted the thread to be talking about heroine use in general. Could go either way I guess, there's a lot of comments at this point.

Though ime most users don't die. Which is why I support legalization. What I watched happened with my drug phase and others, it was mostly a phase and people just needed time, support and patience to get through to other side. There might be extreme examples ruining it for all, but I saw a lot of people stop after some serious use.

Unfortunately some die because of the policy we have like a few people I knew personally. All uncessarry.

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

#303

Post by hifreq »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #285
hifreq wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America has not filled that with anything else That's not an issue that America has to solve (i.e. the government or the society). It's an individual need that every individual is responsible for.

Does America have to solve it if America destroyed it?

Our maturing world (not just the US) is starting to recognize that religion is BS. We can't go back to relying on religion for keeping our bad instincts at bay. The influence of religion is and has been low in many European countries for decades, which did not result in an increase in homelessness we are seeing in the US.

Social programs, education, keeping corporations in check - these are meaningful alternatives to the idea that we need to bring Jesus back to control the population.

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

#304

Post by runarberg »

ratg13 wrote: post #164
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.

I don’t think this is it. A lot of the unhoused in Seattle are locals or in state, and many of the out of state are from neighboring states such as Idaho or other West Coast states.

Rather I think the problem is that half assed decriminalization efforts simply aren’t enough and that drug overdose has become a much more severe issue because of the opioid epidemic and the proliferation of fentanyl. What needs to happen for decriminalization to work is much better social support for addicts, including safe use sites staffed with nurses, free health care for addicts including detox hospitalization and substance abuse treatments, social housing including housing specifically for recovering addicts and active addicts. In addition full legalization and regulated drug markets (preferably via pharmacies with a strict non-profit motive) wouldn’t hurt either.

What Seattle has done is basically just decriminalization without any of the support needed to go with it. Yes we support addicts and spend a lot of money on their care, however these are all suffering from austerity and are often just post-hoc measures (which often cost more in the long run).

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

#305

Post by chmod600 »

rjbwork wrote: post #282
felizuno wrote: post #168

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…

I actually don't think we should decriminalize. Just legalize it and let people get pure product at dirt cheap prices. There's no reason to fund crime (drug dealers/organized crime), maim and kill users, push users into poverty, and generate and push the externalizes of drug use onto the rest of society. This is the choice we have made and continue to make a society under a prohibitionist regime, decriminalization or…

What does "legalize and regulate" mean? Isn't that true of most drugs?

We are talking about what those regulations should be and what to do when people break the regulations.

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

#306

Post by lostdog »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #105
akira2501 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet.. there are people who take things to make them feel good when they already feel good. Further.. the idea that someone is going to improve their situation in any other than the most short sighted terms by "self medicating" with something like Methamphetamine or Heroin is completely ridiculous. I am absolutely not comfortable standing by to see how that story plays out, I know exactly how it plays out, and it's co…

The term "self medicating" doesn't imply that it works , just that they're trying to address an underlying issue that isn't being sufficiently addressed by anything else. It's closer in concept to "coping mechanism" than it is to "prescribed medication".

Considering how poorly the prescribed medication works, maybe it's just not that big of a difference.

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

#307

Post by SkipperCat »

tensor wrote: post #160
notyofriend wrote: post #150

Singapore has no drug problems. You might think what they do is extreme but it works.

Murdering people does make them go away yes.

Not saying I agree with Singapore's methodology. But their calculus is that one drug trafficker will bring in enough drugs to kill 5 people. Therefore, the murder of one person is saving 5 others.

Once again, I'm not endorsing or condoning this, just trying to show you how they conceptualize their form of justice.

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

#308

Post by hydrok9 »

babyshake wrote: post #205
xkjyeah wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The only time I've ever been on fentanyl was in a hospital, and the nurse described it to me as the "Michael Jackson drug". I actually enjoyed the gallows humor of the nurses, as I felt it brought down the tension in an otherwise serious environment.

That's even funnier because fentanyl is the Prince drug, not MJ's

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

#310

Post by Spinnaker_ »

swalling wrote: post #293
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." This is not even remotely true. Everyone in the city, from the mayor [1] to the head of the largest services non-profit [2] has been yelling from the rooftops about the glacial slowness to effectively spend the allocated funding for drug treatment. Until just months ago, Multnomah County has been sitting on tens of m…

Right, but the plan has still failed. If all the key players are on board and you can't even begin to implement the plan, then it was a bad plan, and the people who developed it had little comprehension of reality. We should not attempt this elsewhere.
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