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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

#561

Post by oneshtein »

dylan604 wrote: post #193
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…

With my personal experience of knowing so many addicts that have been in/out of various recovery programs, I'm totally at a loss. I too leaned libertarian with let people do the drugs they want, but that's back when I thought people were only doing things for recreation. I didn't have experience with true addicts until I was older. I've even played with liking the idea of a version of The Wire's Hamsterdam on the sol…

> I too leaned libertarian with let people do the drugs they want

... unless this harms other, isn't? Drug addicts are causing harm and are burden to society, so why libertarians support them?

In liberal philosophy, value of human life is infinite, thus all humans are equal, thus it's not allowed for someone to cause harm or abuse others. However, why we limit this to humans only? In my opinion, is a bacteria, virus, ideology, hate, chemicals, drugs, pollution, technical problems, climate change, ecology causes harm to humans, then it should be equal to harm done by a human directly.

Why it's illegal to shot someone, but legal to smoke weed near to someone, which leads to addiction and further death? IMHO, it's the same harm, but with extra steps.

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

#562

Post by golergka »

wolverine876 wrote: post #183
golergka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if we...i don't know, actually helped people!? This I support 100%. > paid for by the state/federal level This I can't. That's not "we" in any sense or form; that's other people's money taken away from them by violence or threat of violence. If you encourage people to help others (as we should!), then we should help people ourselves. Not delegate it to others, especially if they're not doing it voluntarily.

> If you encourage people to help others (as we should!), then we should help people ourselves. Not delegate it to others, especially if they're not doing it voluntarily. What if that reduces our policies, in every area, to zero effectiveness?

Then it means it was below zero before.

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

#563

Post by golergka »

beachy wrote: post #49
golergka wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if we...i don't know, actually helped people!? This I support 100%. > paid for by the state/federal level This I can't. That's not "we" in any sense or form; that's other people's money taken away from them by violence or threat of violence. If you encourage people to help others (as we should!), then we should help people ourselves. Not delegate it to others, especially if they're not doing it voluntarily.

So in your worldview, all "helping" should happen voluntarily, with no state/federal assistance. And if no individual is feeling charitable that day, then no help would be provided?

If I was charitable yesterday, I would probably donate to an organisation that knows how not to spend it all in one day.

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

#564

Post by SilasX »

WalterBright wrote: post #548
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…

A friend of mine recently closed his store in Seattle, permanently, and relocated to another county. He had the door smashed, and the organized thieves ransacked the place, and caused a lot of costly damage. (He showed me the security camera footage.) The police not only did not come, they told him they no longer responded to property crimes, only violent crimes. The law does not allow citizens to protect their prope…

Even violent crimes might not be enough to get attention. I know a couple that was mugged at a gas station near the Oakland airport this past Thanksgiving. The muggers stole stuff from the car with their infant and toddler in it.

Even then, the clerk watched the whole thing while not calling 911. The police didn’t come out and would only take a report if they went to the station, which they ended up not doing.

If something like that isn’t even making it into the crime stats…

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

#565

Post by svnt »

chmod600 wrote: post #316
noduerme wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. This has been an increasingly popular argument here in Portland since decriminalization. It's deployed, generally, in terms of re-criminalizing hard drugs until there's a well thought out framework for safe, regulated legalization. While I agree in principle [edit: let's say I did agree, but my views on this subject have shifted radically s…

"To do that experiment and do it right, it needs to be nationwide." I'm immediately skeptical of any idea where bad results become evidence that the idea should be deployed more widely.

This happens all the time and is in practical use one of the best justifications for regulation.

There must be a more specific term for it I’m forgetting, but it is essentially the tragedy of the commons.

There are many things that are good for society where if one business did them, that business would lose market share or cease to exist, but it is in the public interest that the specific thing be done. Regulation is the proven answer there.

In this case the primary difference is we are talking about regulating cities instead of companies.

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

#566

Post by acover »

felizuno wrote: post #529
acover wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah after writing that I thought of a bunch of counter examples.

It's hard, and for the record I'm also anti-prohibition about many substances (just not meth). I had weed in my pocket when I was assaulted that I campaigned to legalize in WA. I shared streets with plenty of harmless drug users too. I'm sorry for calling you out, after seeing this comment it's obvious I would have done better to give you some space to think. It's an emotionally charged experience that I'm still lear…

You were right to. From reading this thread I've realized I've not read enough to comment and what I could tell you you already know.

Decriminalization was a nice dream to solve a lot of misery.

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

#567

Post by InSteady »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #107
legitster wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is true, there were a lot of programs that existed before M110, and part of the bill of goods that was sold with M110 was that it was going to make it easier for people to access existing resources without fear of law enforcement. And again, literally written into M110 is the idea that treatment is supposed to be cheaper than incarceration. Perhaps it's due to really bad red tape, but the treatment program…

There's two problems with these programs. The first problem is that the people we're really talking about, the ones living/defecating/etc on the street do not want help. The second problem is that in order to want to get better, an addict has to hit their personal rock bottom. Programs that keep people floating above their personal rock bottom are like family members enabling addicts. It ultimately doesn't help them.…

Plenty of people on the streets want all kinds of help. They don't want shit programs with a million hoops and strings attached, nor do they want gross dilapidated shelters also with hoops and strings plus predators prowling around looking to steal their shit (or worse) while they sleep.

Also, while the whole rock bottom trope probably holds some truth for many people, when you make every story all about it you kind of lose the plot. If you try hard enough, you can look at just about anyone's life who has recovered from addiction and create a narrative based on an upward trend after the "worst" moment or period of their addiction. If they had two periods that were basically exactly as bad, you dig around until you find some trivial reason to label the second period as worse, and thus the "real bottom." If someone had their worst period of addiction many years before they actually got to a place where they could maintain sobriety long term it was just a long journey for them. Etc.

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

#568

Post by halestock »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #310
swalling wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

There are a million reasons a plan like could fail that have nothing to do with with it being a good or bad plan, though. And there are a lot of people invested in making sure a plan like this fails, so that the people who supported it in the first place come to the same conclusion as you.

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

#569

Post by vineyardmike »

CydeWeys wrote: post #129
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…

The first priority should be cleaning up the cities for the benefit of the actual taxpayers. Absolutely do not let drug addicts overwhelm your downtown cores and make them terrible. You don't need to lock them up indefinitely, but you do need to move them somewhere else where they won't have hugely negative effects on the city and its populace. It may not make life for the addicts better, but it won't make life for t…

I hate the messaging of “for the actual taxpayers” phrase even if I agree mostly with the sentiment.

There is more to life than paying taxes, and people contribute to society in many ways that aren’t financial. I think “productive members” has the same phrasing problems. We need to make life better for members of society that contribute and benefit from it, for people that want to be a part of society, regardless of their ability to contribute back.

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

#570

Post by sibeliuss »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #473
lbotos wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some are, some aren't. Some people do drugs to feel like a god, others to escape god. Jack the Bipper by Channel 5 was pretty solid. I'd recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLGRGZTk51w

I subscribe to the channel 5 Patreon, and it has been shocking in its coverage of all the stuff. Absolutely phenomenal journalism that nobody is paying attention to unfortunately

he's got millions of subscribers on youtube!
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