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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

#481

Post by belkinpower »

BizarreByte wrote: post #301
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…

What part of Canada? I live in the Seattle area and visited Vancouver for the first time recently, and Vancouver was much visibly worse than Seattle in terms of open drug use and general sketchiness. Obviously there’s a lot of potential selection bias there in terms of what neighborhoods I visited there vs where I spend time in Seattle. But I was still surprised at how bad it was.

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

#482

Post by thegrim33 »

chmod600 wrote: post #450
jorvi wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The parent comment was complaining that legal consumption made the environment threatening. What the top comment is implying as far as I can see is that going soft on drugs (“philosophical”, “internet argument”) is a solution for pen-pushers. Fucked up as his story may be, what has the war on drugs really ended up accomplishing? Do we really think amping it up will make things better? Legalization combined with har…

"what has the war on drugs really ended up accomplishing?" A lot of comments here have a "Portland was a lot better before decriminalization" theme. So at least some people might think the war on drugs was working out better than the current policies. I'm not saying we should bring back the war on drugs, but the argument you are making can no longer be taken for granted.

Also you can just point to all the countries that do have a war on drugs, and have been successful, and do not have major problems with drugs as a result.

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

#483

Post by gamblor956 »

As someone who used to represent drug addicts in a past career...

Drugs are illegal for a reason. Making drugs legal just makes the problem worse; the reasons most drugs are illegal is because of the many negative side effects they impose on users...and others.

Voluntary rehab and counseling don't work. Permissive policies don't work. There are literally thousands of shelters beds empty each night in LA, SF, and Portland because drug addicts would rather keep their drugs and paraphernalia than have a warm, safe space. The rare rich person who can control their habit or the consequences of their drug use because they've got a wealthy family to take care of them shouldn't be the basis for determining policy for the hundreds of people who can't.

Forced rehab works. Imprisonment works. Losing custody works. Some amount of externally-inflicted mental pain is necessary to overcome addiction to serious drugs like meth and cocaine because without it an addict will never develop the mental fortitude to stop using.

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

#484

Post by arp242 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #382
felizuno wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

Look, obviously there have been and continue to be all sorts of problems with the US justice system for various reasons.

But that doesn't mean it's not needed, because it is. Violent drug addicts are locked up in other countries too, and if you spend time hanging around in public high on meth then at the very least police are going to tell you off.

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

#485

Post by coffeecloud »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #459

This discourse is so tiresome. There are low crime jurisdictions on this planet that do not have drug epidemics. We know what policies work. They're not pretty, but they're effective. Harden your heart and implement them, or live with the consequences.

Effective at what? The whole reason Portland tried something different is that the last 50 years have proven drugs laws to be largely ineffective at preventing drug abuse and its related issues. Clearly this style of decriminalizing has also proven ineffective, but it’s not like we had a working system before.

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

#486

Post by carlosjobim »

theossuary wrote: post #200
notyofriend wrote: post #150

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

Well what they do is: - Have a government who owns almost all the land, and provide subsidized housing to over 75% of the citizens. - Provides universal healthcare, again subsidized through the government - And forces quotas for all ethnicities to ensure everyone is equally represented everywhere. So I guess we could try it Singapore's way, but Republicans keep saying it's a bad idea.

In researching Singapore, did you become interested in visiting the country? Or have you already visited there?

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

#487

Post by lacrimacida »

notfed wrote: post #471
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 sorry for your experience, but consider this: in central and south America, drug cartels are murdering and beating people every day. I think it would be an understatement to say there are more beatings and murders being dealt by drug cartels than meth-induced psychos. Why do drug cartels thrive? Simple: because drugs are illegal in the USA. By legalizing drugs, we would bankrupt them.

There’s one thing to have legal drugs and another to turn a blind eye on people shooting or smoking crack in broad daylight in the public, defecating everywhere and attacking random people. That’s a bit too much for the rest of us to bear. Common sense seems to be upside down and inside out these days.

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

#488

Post by seanmcdirmid »

belkinpower wrote: post #481
BizarreByte wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What part of Canada? I live in the Seattle area and visited Vancouver for the first time recently, and Vancouver was much visibly worse than Seattle in terms of open drug use and general sketchiness. Obviously there’s a lot of potential selection bias there in terms of what neighborhoods I visited there vs where I spend time in Seattle. But I was still surprised at how bad it was.

Vancouver was definitely worse than Seattle in the 90s with respect to open drug use, but now...it feels about the same last time I visited last spring. But I spend time in downtown Seattle and walked through China town in Vancouver.

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

#489

Post by boh »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #422
boh wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We should stop all the current Meth marketing...that'll solve the addiction problem for sure.

What are all these scenarios where policy makers have absolute control of how drugs are sold and consumed? Meth is illegal, as in we don't allow "marketing" today. But if it was legal, it'll only be the marketing that will be the potential problem? What is the point of these arguments? The low enforcement/legalization options have been tried in various places in various ways, not one has gone well. Besides magical thinking, what is the actual argument that legalizing drugs makes it less of a problem?

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

#490

Post by nathanasmith »

overgard wrote: post #386
boh wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

If you had any experience with this at all you would realize how profoundly ignorant it is to conflate the downstream effects of meth with adderall. Anyone reading this please please do not make this mistake.
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