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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

#381

Post by 1shooner »

pj_mukh wrote: post #299
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…

Were they ever caught? This seems like assault (and battery?) all already illegal. Your problem doesn’t seem to be drugs but (probably) the defacto police work stoppage? That’s the problem in the Bay Area atleast [1] https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-...

Likewise, the problem isn't the drunk driver, it's that the drunk driver killed your family.

Do you think an addict considers the closure rates on assault cases before harming a stranger?

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

#382

Post by KennyBlanken »

felizuno wrote: post #335
pj_mukh wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were they ever caught? This seems like assault (and battery?) all already illegal. Your problem doesn’t seem to be drugs but (probably) the defacto police work stoppage? That’s the problem in the Bay Area atleast [1] https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-...

Surprisingly yes, they were caught with much credit and appreciation to the detectives of SPD. In fact the police were very helpful in accessing support and counseling, and I should be completely honest that I would have described myself as loosely "anti police" until I had this experience. The issue was simply that these men were psychotic after using meth in an uninterrupted fashion, and emboldened by the fact that…

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

#383

Post by overgard »

boh wrote: post #343
rjbwork wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oxycontin was legal, how well did that go?

I think that's a different context, because doctors were heavily encouraged to overprescribe it and it was marketed as non-addictive.

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

#384

Post by arandomsapien »

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 severely visually impaired. I walk and use public transit. Currently in the pacific northwest. My quality of life has decreased so much since covid and when these policies came into effect. I tripped over someone asleep on the train floor and they lost their shit. I was really scared. One of dozens of instances. And the cities in general must become less walkable to avoid crime. Fences around apartments that mean less sidewalk access, store entrances near transit that close early, and people camping on the sidewalk that block access.

At this moment, it feels society cares less about me and others who want to use public services than the addicts.

It's been an especially hard couple of months here in Portland. I've traveled around, hoping to find a new place to live. But all the big US cities with good transit suffer the same issues. At best, I wish I could move to another country I could live in and feel I had a sense of agency, if anyone would have me. But at this point I'm feeling like it's time to give up.

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

#385

Post by shiroiuma »

plandis wrote: post #222
cortesoft wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone has a viable option for not living on the street I guess it depends on how we define viable. In my experience working with the homeless, there are a lot of valid reasons shelters are avoided; they can be more dangerous, don't allow pets (who are sometimes the only companions they have), and don't allow families or couples. Whether that is viable or not depends on how you use the word.

I really doubt homeless people are good pet owners. Food scarcity, lack of medical care for your pets, etc, etc…

Pets don't really need medical care per se. There's a huge glut of unwanted dogs, so is it better to euthanize so many unwanted dogs right away, or would it be better to just allow some of them to live on the street with homeless people, and then be euthanized when they have medical problems (which usually takes years: pets are typically fairly healthy until they get older unless they get injured, much like humans)?

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

#386

Post by overgard »

boh wrote: post #378
amluto wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear to me that making it legal was the problem. The marketing was catastrophic. The amount of messaging, in doctors’ offices and otherwise, about using long-acting painkillers, getting ahead of the pain, making sure your pain was treated, etc was ridiculous. Nowadays, the messaging is quite different. And we’re starting to learn that the opioids may not even work for the things people like using them for,…

I'm sure the marketing for legalized Meth will be more responsible (just like it is for everything else that isn't good for us). What is the compulsion to find some tiny fragment of an argument to go against the obvious? Maybe it's because you'd need an absolutely idealized scenario to take legalizing drug use seriously. You know those countries that legalized drugs? Feel free to look up how well that's going.

Well, legalized meth is essentially ritalin/adderall (not exactly the same thing, but same class)

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

#388

Post by KennyBlanken »

felizuno wrote: post #337
acover wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[removed]

Like I said, please go to a victim support group and summon the courage to say that to somebody's face.

Please stop incessantly committing appeal to emotion fallacies.

This is about as helpful as "please go to welfare office and tell everyone to just work harder" or "please go to a substance abuse center and tell everyone to just, you know, stop using drugs mkay?" or "please go to a prison and tell everyone that crime is bad and they just need to fly right and everything will be fine."

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

#389

Post by graeme »

notfed wrote: post #318
cpncrunch wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heroin is very different from Tequila, so I don't think it's fair to compare them just because they are both "drugs". Prior to fentanyl, what was the percentage of high functioning heroin addicts compared to people living on the street? I can't find any research on that question, and I'm somewhat skeptical that your friend is the norm.

> Heroin is very different from Tequila, so I don't think it's fair to compare them just because they are both "drugs". Very true, alcohol is much worse by most metrics, both in terms of number of addicts, number of deaths/year [1][2] and general damage done to the body. [3][4]. (I'm not trying to be cynical, just stating facts.) > Prior to fentanyl, what was the percentage of high functioning heroin addicts compared…

Those stats aren't per capita. That page says 902,000 Americans use heroin annual and 14,000 die. That is a 1.55% fatality rate. And that is strictly overdoses. Any death to which heroin contributed but isn't an overdose isn't counted.

141,000 Americans die from the effects of alcohol each year. That would include factors such as increased heart attacks, etc. It is not merely looking at deaths from delerium tremens or the like.

Nonetheless, 177 million Americans[1] use alcohol annually. That is a 0.079% fatality rate.

So, the [direct + indirect] deaths from alcohol are 19.6x smaller per user than the direct deaths from heroin. I would wager if you included indirect effects, the difference is 100x or more against heroin.

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-to...

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

#390

Post by barney54 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #361
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…

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Nice victim blaming here.
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