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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

#501

Post by tlivolsi »

anonygler wrote: post #250
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…

Hard disagree. Decriminalizing drugs has skyrocketed schizophrenia and homelessness. Drugs should only be legalized in specific, medically necessary situations. Recreational use should be stigmatized and dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated. The crime of the War on Drugs was that we had double standards, not that we had a War on Drugs.

[flagged]

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

#502

Post by lmm »

roenxi wrote: post #468
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 don't think this particular issue has actually been debated on the internet all that much because I haven't seen it come up that much; the obvious solution is to draw a parallel to alcohol. It is illegal to be drunk and driving. Similarly it can be illegal to be high on something exotic and out in public. As hot takes go that seems fairly cool. The issue with drug criminalisation is that people get arrested who wer…

> Similarly it can be illegal to be high on something exotic and out in public. As hot takes go that seems fairly cool.

Nope, try suggesting that in much of the mainstream/popular internet and you'll be immediately pounced on for discriminating against the homeless (and then the people who said that will get pounced on for saying homeless rather than "unhoused"). "So you think it should be legal for rich people to get high but not poor people". Pretty soon someone will bring race into it too.

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

#503

Post by arp242 »

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…

> you could have "functional addicts" that cause little or no societal harm

Yeah, I don't know about that – plenty of "functional alcoholics" around, sure, but also plenty of not-so-functional alcoholics around, as well as the wife-and-kid-beater alcoholics.

Heroin is not alcohol and doesn't induce aggression in the same way, but it's also a lot more addictive, and especially at low wages getting your daily dose can be a challenge – so "junkies" will not be eliminated outright. I consider it an open question whether they will be reduced – it's very possible (perhaps even plausible), but I certainly wouldn't consider it a forgone conclusion.

> My friend's relative was a functional addict on and off for 20 years.

Dick van Dyke was a chain-smoker until well in to his 70s and he's currently doing well at the age of 97.

These are the sort of things where you really need to look at overall effects and statistics, rather than individual cases.

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

#504

Post by shermantanktop »

arp242 wrote: post #494
1shooner wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Do you think an addict considers the closure rates on assault cases before harming a stranger? Actually, yes. These people are not instinct-driven animals completely incapable of thought. Similarly, if you know that drunk driving is very likely to get you caught then you will do that less than if you know there's 0% of getting caught.

You can tell a lot about how someone thinks by listening for denial of agency. The CEO had to do it; that drug addict had no choice; he had to defend his honor; she couldn’t lie.

Sometimes people have only one choice, but they almost always have agency.

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

#505

Post by nradov »

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.

Marketing of legal prescription drugs can be restricted in certain ways, but it has to be allowed unless we modify the First Amendment. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right and can't be casually eliminated just because we don't like the results.

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

#506

Post by undersuit »

roenxi wrote: post #468
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 don't think this particular issue has actually been debated on the internet all that much because I haven't seen it come up that much; the obvious solution is to draw a parallel to alcohol. It is illegal to be drunk and driving. Similarly it can be illegal to be high on something exotic and out in public. As hot takes go that seems fairly cool. The issue with drug criminalisation is that people get arrested who wer…

>I don't think this particular issue has actually been debated on the internet all that much because I haven't seen it come up that much; the obvious solution is to draw a parallel to alcohol. It is illegal to be drunk and driving.

It's already illegal to drive impaired, doesn't matter your intoxicant. It could even be legally prescribed by a doctor.

But it's much more legal to sell alcohol than it is any other drug. Put the onus on the drug sellers to provide a safe controlled place to consume... which I hope comes with some legality and maybe some access to the banking system.

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

#507

Post by n8cpdx »

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…

In Portland and generally agree. And the people saying alcohol isn’t comparable should look at the stats - death from alcohol is a huge, but normalized and largely invisible issue.

Legalizing will reduce violence, reduce accidental overdoses and poisonings, and give the state regular contact points with users (to hopefully funnel them to assistance). Safe use sites would go some way towards hiding the problem if managed well.

Legalizing will not solve the problem of addiction. It will not solve overdoses (many overdoses are not caused by surprise differences in dose; people often overdose after relapse, or deliberately seek out stronger than usual supplies).

We have to accept that legalizing will solve some problems, but will likely keep killing at least some people.

Housing is another solution to hiding the problem. But housing just hides the drug use problem. It will probably also kill people - people who overdose on the sidewalk are more likely to be narcaned than people using alone.

Free housing + free drugs for opiate addicts would go a long ways towards solving the issue for everyone who isn’t an opiate addict, and probably cheaper than imprisoning or healing addicts.

I’d prefer treatment but the local officials have already proven incapable of that. The county is already very good at handing out needles, smoking kits, and boofing literature, so handing out fetty should be a very light lift administratively.

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

#508

Post by gpm »

coffeecloud wrote: post #149
Consultant32452 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s just hard to enforce that when people don’t have a private place to use in. The problem is feeling like you owe it to addicts to provide them with a place to use. Privatize all the public spaces: parks, sidewalks, etc. Grant strong property rights to those spaces.

You can get all high and mighty about who deserves what, or you can actually solve the problem and give people housing for free (or throw them in jail.) Would you rather be right, or live in a city without homelessness?

> or throw them in jail.

Which is really just a particularly expensive and unpleasant home when you put it in this context.

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

#509

Post by capn_duck »

mikhael wrote: post #429
arandomsapien wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is peak Hacker News response

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

#510

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway44773 wrote: post #463
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…

All well and good: allow everyone to use as many legalized drugs as they want, but enforce the other laws on those people. Don’t allow anyone to camp in the street, don’t let them steal with impunity. If they want to get wasted on drugs, they should manage to not cause harm to normal citizens.

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