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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

#611

Post by tw04 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #569
CydeWeys wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But our society rewards your societal contributions via monetary rewards which results in you paying taxes. Sure, the money you get does not necessarily reflect the value of you contributions fairly in most cases, but I think I can count on one hand the number of people I have met in my life that pay no taxes and are still a net benefit to society.

And not paying taxed can be because they have no job and make no money, or are so rich as to be able to write off all their income because they think they don’t owe anyone anything.

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

#612

Post by rcbdev »

svnt wrote: post #565
chmod600 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 i…

I feel like this is a roundabout form of the Prisoner's Dilemma.

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

#613

Post by janalsncm »

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…

I don’t see why it has to be one way or the other: either no enforcement or sending kids caught with a joint to prison. For people who have clear drug problems, they need to go into rehab, voluntarily or not.

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

#614

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#615

Post by gigatexal »

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…

Former Portland native here: it hasn’t worked. I was back just a year or two ago and 5th ave near the waterfront was overrun with homeless openly shooting up and accosting folks.

All the food carts across from the building where I used to work left, the Indian buffet restaurant closed, walking up around 10th near the Target to check out other restaurants I loved many I saw many barricaded former businesses.

The city used to be beautiful. It used to be vibrant and bustling with people and tourists and working professionals but when I was there last retracing my steps as if I was working and living there again it was not the Portland I remember. It’s disheartening.

That’s not to say I’m blaming the homeless or those addicted to substances or dealing with mental Health problems. I’m not. I believe in helping people when they can’t help themselves. But allowing open drug use, camping in front of businesses, etc., doesn’t do much for said businesses and people to invest in your city leaving you with less tax revenue to help these very same folks with.

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

#616

Post by sneak »

beezlewax wrote: post #608
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…

ODs have more than doubled because of fentanyl but I suspect you know this already.

Cigarettes kill 7x as many as fentanyl every hour, day, week, month, and year.

One is available without prescription on every streetcorner, with use allowed in public in proximity to others, and the other is a public health epidemic.

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

#617

Post by flir »

freetanga wrote: post #589
vineyardmike wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, I agree halfway… at the core of any social contract are rights and obligations. I think part of those obligations are to contribute to society (I think we agree up to this point) However, I believe a part of that contribution has to be in an objective, quantifiable way - which translates to taxes. The rights we consume from society are tangible and expensive. A city populated only by of poets would collapse of…

So which do you prefer to tack on the end of that: "...except for the disabled" or "...and to hell with the disabled"? Both are widely used.

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

#618

Post by InSteady »

antisthenes wrote: post #406
namesbc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Permanent Housing is the only solution. Shelters are at best temporary to survive a cold night, but they are not a solution for a sustainable life.

People who are addicts and have other mental issues are not well-equipped to maintain housing. Whatever housing you'd give them would very quickly turn into a slum. Even just cleaning is a lot of work, not to mention additional maintenance (e.g. filter changes, landscaping, etc.), regularly taking out garbage, not flushing trash down the sewer, etc. Unless you also want to hire staff to do that for them, in which cas…

I tend to agree. But for the sake of fleshing it out,

> I want to live for free too and not have to work and do drugs whenever I want.

Here's the rub: When you get to the point of needing free housing, you are usually more or less already at the, shal we say, 'mature' phase of your addiction where there is hardly an ounce of joy left to be had from it. The daily grind of figuring out how to get high is basically just your hellish normal, and the best rush you might get here and there in your average month is akin to eating a nice meal, having a good (but not great) conversation, or a satisfying workout.

Compared to good sex? Get out of here. That phase of drug use is long gone. If you want that back even for a fleeting moment you have to go through the hell of withdrawal first. Even doses that put you dangerously close to OD don't really reach that anymore unless you risk them after a period of abstinence (which is where most opiate addicts used to die, back before fentanyl was the norm).

However, with all that said, I'd argue a functional addict is better equipped to deal with the stuff you mention above better than a severe addict who is trying to get sober after years of active addiction. Obviously acute withdrawal is an absolute bastard, but so are the following months of post acute withdrawal (aka your brain and body re-learning how to function at a completely new level of physiology). If we were doing it right, sobriety would be a hard requirement up front, followed by a good deal of support during the transition back into housing.

True, it's much easier to get sober in stable housing. But you know what's even easier still? Continuing to use in a more comfortable and secure environment. Or worse yet, when free housing is still pretty scarce, using your pad as a commodity to score perks from your friends who are still homeless, or worse, using it as a safer and more secure place to stash and deal quantities of drugs to support your addiction directly. Anyone in active addiction will consider these possibilities the moment the lock is turned and they are alone in their new home (not all will act on it, of course). Housing yes, but probably not 'housing first.'

You don't take a patient with a gunshot wound and make sure they have a long term care bed to lie in comfortably while they bleed. You get their ass to the ER and fix the bleed before worrying about the long term stuff.

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

#619

Post by hatefulmoron »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #605
hatefulmoron wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always interesting when someone assumes that failed strategy X would have obviously worked if only had it been pursued even harder.. you might be right, but it seems like an odd assumption to make given the circumstance.

What circumstance? The clamor to use prison time as a solution to homelessness and drug use?

You know what thread we're in, right? You know what circumstances I'm referring to..

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

#620

Post by eloisius »

runarberg wrote: post #553
eloisius wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What needs to happen for decriminalization to work is much better social support for addicts, including safe use sites staffed with nurses, free health care for addicts including detox hospitalization and substance abuse treatments, social housing including housing specifically for recovering addicts and active addicts How many productive members of society does it take to support each drug addict? Should there be…

Yes, whatever it takes. A society which doesn’t take care of their sick is a failed society. Seattle is the richest city in one of the richest state of the richest country in the world. If we wanted to we could easily take care of anyone that needed it.

At some point we have to say it takes too much. If it takes 20 college-educated social workers, medical professionals, etc. just to enable one junkie to eek out a miserable existence doing drugs and sleeping on the street, it's too much. Their lifestyle is untenable. On some level, we have to accept that one can fuck up one's own life, and fuck it up so badly that others can't fix or maintain it for you.
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