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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

#711

Post by hutzlibu »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #706
hutzlibu wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree and that is what I said .. "I think other people have a right to walk the streets undisturbed" And when you ban public drug use and enforce it, you automatically remove all junkies from public spaces.

> And when you ban public drug use and enforce it, you automatically remove all junkies from public spaces. Depends on your definition of "use". I can do a bunch of meth somewhere discreet, and then party on the streets without actively "using" drugs for hours - days even!

I think the legal definition is, if you have drugs in your blood, for which there are simple tests for.

And people bothering other people on the streets is not alright and should be stopped any way, drugs in their blood or not.

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

#712

Post by true_religion »

Intermernet wrote: post #696
oooyay wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Portland. Conservatives do not have anything to do with our city or the county of Multnomah. We haven't elected a conservative since the 80s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_McCready . We're the second highest taxed city in the nation. If you ask me most of our problems come down to fraud/waste/abuse, mismanagement, and dysfunction.

I know this is difficult to digest, but compared to a lot of the rest of the world, almost every US politician is conservative. In regards to Portland, you almost certainly have a problem with the key points you identified, but you also have a problem with the fact that public drug use is intrinsically tied with homelessness. You can't fix one without the other. This involves (in the short term) more public housing,…

What is conservative about Portland politicians and whom are you actually comparing them to?

IMO Portland already does every single one of the solutions that you recommend. It’s not working out for them well, in the same way it isn’t working out for Portugal or Amsterdam.

Maybe some drugs should be restricted and usage controlled. I’m pro legalization, but I would not support opium dens being as common as Starbucks.

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

#713

Post by draw_down »

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…

[dead]

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

#715

Post by oneshtein »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #604
oneshtein wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

>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. because when you go that granular it's hard to figure out who to blame. is COVID really any one person's fault, even if we narrow it down to a specific patient 0? is that harm in…

> is COVID really any one person's fault, even if we narrow it down to a specific patient 0?

COVID19 was leaked from "Vector" BSL4 lab in Russia. It's leaked, because first responders broke doors (to check for fire) and stole equipment from BSL4 lab without any protective equipment, then China special police, which was in same city for training with Russians, captured the virus and returned back to China. Then Russian official hide the fact of leaking and start of epidemic, deleted any evidence of that, which they found, except those copies which are in Wayback machine (they are unable to crack the archive so far), and started to blame China (at West), and West (at China and East).

Yes, this is not an one person fault. So what? 7 million died. Should we just ignore that?

> You're usually not punished for the smoke but for violating the ruls of the premise to not smoke.

In my country, it's illegal to smoke near to non-smokers, which helps to reduce spread of smoking. :-/

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

#716

Post by robertlagrant »

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…

> 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.

This thread is about the extreme opposite of this, though. Taking from net contributors and using that money to create a place that's to their extreme detriment, because incredibly it's a votewinner, is the current situation.

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

#717

Post by gexla »

bbor wrote: post #594
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…

It may not make life for the addicts better, but it won't make life for them much worse either Seems like a hard claim to back up. What would “moving” the homeless from, say, Portland look like? Setting up a giant slum on Mount Tabor? Building a network of trailer parks? I can’t imagine any answer to “let’s concentrate all these undesirables somewhere where we don’t have to look at them and they can’t interrupt us” t…

> What would “moving” the homeless from, say, Portland look like?

My guess is you don't. Maybe it's easier for the people with money to go elsewhere than it is for the homeless. So, you get WFH, area small businesses shutting down, less of the casual visitors.

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

#718

Post by LeafItAlone »

adrr wrote: post #677
jmcphers wrote: post #82

I live in the Seattle area, which is struggling with public drug use just like Portland. Like Portland, we've lived for decades with very progressive politicians who have lead successful decriminalization efforts and spent huge sums of public funds on treatment and harm reduction programs. After several decades and many, many millions of dollars spent, the problem is, by every measure, absolutely the worst it's ever…

Can always look at places that don't have drug problems like Singapore, Qatar or UAE. decriminalization. look at china who also had a crippling opiate problem with opium and it wasn't solve with decriminalization. Opoids have no place in society and there's no such thing as harm reduction when it comes to opioid use besides complete prohibition. I know 4 people who have died from opioid over doses, and just recently…

Are those really good comparison countries though? To me, it seems like some of their basic views on rights are antithetical to those in the US, going way beyond how to deal with drug problems.

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

#719

Post by PeterisP »

etchalon wrote: post #640
InSteady wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of valid. In Portland "housing first" has been all the rage, but having lived with pretty severe addiction for some years, and spent lots of time around fellow addicts in considerably worse circumstances, it's pretty hard to imagine that a house on its own is some kind of solution. Especially when compared to a support network and high quality addiction treatment, medical care, and mental health services. In ter…

"Housing first" isn't the belief that providing a house "on its own is some kind of solution". It's the belief and practice of not refusing to provide housing support until people meet certain criteria – which is often how governments approach the problem. "We only help those who help themselves", etc. You get people a safe place to sleep and then provide them with resources to become re-integrated into society, not…

If someone is very much not ready "to become re-integrated into society" then they can't be independently entrusted with a house (because they'll screw up life for others around them and the house itself with various asocial and illegal acts), that "safe place to sleep" has to be in an institution controlled by others with some enforced rules - until they become capable of following the rules on their own, which generally requires treating the addiction, and is the point when they can become re-integrated into society.

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

#720

Post by knallfrosch »

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…

This aspect of the discussion truly baffles me. It's like there's noone but the drug users to consider. Oh, do the addicts get enough treatment? Ah, they want to camp next to a school because they find more 'shelter' from the rain there? No problemo!

Aren't tax-paying citizens allowed to demand that they be able to walk into a train station that doesn't smell like urine and fecal matter?

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