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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

#421

Post by Dig1t »

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…

[flagged]

>Conservatives and moderates refuse to allocate spending for treatment programs or expand what social programs cover

Democrats have complete control of the entire west coast of the United States, they run basically unopposed. I actually don't understand what is standing in the way of them allocating money for this stuff. California is currently formulating a plan to spend an incredible amount of money on reparations, so presumably they have the power to spend the kind of money in the way you are suggesting.

West coast states are also incredibly rich, they collect a huge sum in taxes each year. All of the ingredients seem, to me, to be present to implement the idea you are talking about.

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

#422

Post by Dylan16807 »

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.

> I'm sure the marketing for legalized Meth will be more responsible

Doctors already know how those work, and we don't have to allow marketing them.

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

#423

Post by chmod600 »

amluto wrote: post #366
chmod600 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd arrest all of the homeless addicts and put them in jail for consuming in an unapproved place?

If it’s genuinely dangerous for passersby when people are on the streets and have high doses of meth in them, then maybe? I don’t know nearly enough about the behavior of mentally ill homeless people and how it varies with addiction status and current meth levels, but I think there is no shortage of recent reports of dangerous addicts in various cities.

You're the one who proposed the regulation ("particular establishments or at home"), and now you are already second-guessing whether it should actually be enforced (asking if it's "genuinely dangerous... maybe").

Regulation sounds good, but it doesn't just happen because it's written down. Enforcement is the messy part.

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

#424

Post by paulddraper »

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…

Yeah...it's all fine and good until you get slapped in the face by reality.

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

#425

Post by Inward »

shadowtree wrote: post #176

The US is a very young country, with a burn it down and see what happens culture. A frontier state. It is amazing to watch the speed run of recreating basic civilization from first principles. Why do laws exist? Why do we need traffic signals? You think I am joking? Portland disbanded traffic law enforcement! After quite a lot of traffic deaths, mostly minorities they tried to protect, they just reinstated traffic co…

Very young courtry but most successful in the last 200 years What do you mean by young? Roman Empire young? Relative terms like young/old when applied to a country that’s a melting of all others let’s me believe you’re not an American or have studied American history in depth.

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

#426

Post by Dylan16807 »

joemazerino wrote: post #395
KennyBlanken wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Incredible victim blaming here

Where? Can you please quote the victim blaming?

All I see is a claim that harsher drug laws would not have helped this victim.

Also rudeness, but being rude is not victim blaming.

Edit: Pretty please someone explain? Am I missing some obvious implication?

From here it looks like people hate the grandparent comment so much that even incorrect criticism will get treated as true. Which is really bad for a discussion website. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I'm failing to find another way to read things.

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

#427

Post by justworkout »

matrix87 wrote: post #377
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.

I'm pretty sure they anticipated this attitude in Revelation 3:15 Indifference is worse than extreme atheism or fundamentalism because those two options are actually concerned about others The indifferent person could care less whether you believe or don't, it's your own "individual responsibility", they owe nothing to you and you owe nothing to them Widespread indifference will bring about the slow dismantlement of…

East Asia and parts of Europe have quite a few people who are entirely apathetic towards religion. Drug addicts aren't out and open in those regions.

I've really only witnessed such open drug abuse in countries with strong Christian influence, e.g. the US and Latin America. Might be worth investigating why widespread debilitating drug abuse stems from that background.

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

#428

Post by Inward »

iteratethis wrote: post #291

I find it astonishing that nobody has the common sense to consider that the nature of this epidemic is uniquely American, and thus learn from the plenty of developed nations that don't have this problem. You will barely find any find meth or fentanyl in Western Europe. You won't have zombie blocks nor would they ever be tolerated at this scale. The absurd amount of deaths would trigger urgent and decisive actions. No…

Hmm go to North Korea and let me know about their drug use and violent crime; internet arm chair comments like these just show how out of touch most people on HN are

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

#429

Post by mikhael »

arandomsapien wrote: post #384
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…

hopefully this doesn’t sound insulting - have you considered cities outside of the US, like Tokyo or others in Japan?

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

#430

Post by giantrobot »

hifreq wrote: post #101
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…

This assessment contradicts all evidence we have on the homelessness in the US. Unemployment rate is very low in the US, shelters are very often half-empty. Drug-addicts and homeless people refuse help (unless it's cash or free drugs). The idea that we just need to invest more and more into this extremely corrupt industry has no merit.

> shelters are very often half-empty

Shelters have a lot of restrictions that keep swaths of homeless out. For instance most don't allow animals or carts. If you're homeless and don't want to abandon those you're stuck on the street. There might be reasons for restrictions but they exist and homeless are excluded from shelters because of them.

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