To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use • Hacker News Board

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

#751

Post by xyzelement » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

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 appreciate your sharing and open mindedness.

It seems like some things don’t have perfect solutions and we are “stuck” picking which downsides we want to deal with.

It seems that if we want to be the most kind to druggies (not lock them up) it comes at the expense of the normies - people trying to live, work, raise families, run businesses, etc.

It seems that for the last few decades society decided that normies are fine and even privileged and therefore it’s fine to hurt them a little to benefit the “disadvantaged”. What I think we are seeing now that doubling down on druggies etc still doesn’t really help them (because frankly their problems are internal and a druggie by definition is in a baaaad place) while it also hurts the people trying to live a good life and who by the way pay for everything.

I do hope that people start to recognize this. We need to feel good making choices in favor of families over druggies, when we have to.

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

#752

Post by rainsford » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

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…

I think it's also bad messaging (even though I agree with the overall sentiment as well) because "paying taxes" and "being productive" are sliding scales rather than binary. And a lot of people can and do extend the argument to prioritizing people who pay the most taxes or the right kind of taxes or are productive in the right way. In the context of who a city is "for", it often becomes about prioritizing people who own their dwelling over those who rent, even though renters certainly meet the threshold of contributing to a society and paying taxes.

It seems possible to both agree with the idea that it's bad if a city's downtown is full of homeless drug addicts while disagreeing with the idea of trying to sort city residents into worthy and not worthy.

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

#753

Post by tim333 » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #725

danielvaughn wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want people locked in jail, but I do think that something akin to the Baker Act needs to be implemented. There are clearly many people who need help but are not willing to seek help themselves. It’s safe to say that they aren’t in control of their own actions and are a danger to everyone around them. It’s not compassion to simply let them rot on the street.

I have been in the same boat while living in SF. I don’t believe addicts and even to extension a lot of dealers should be locked up. I agree generally that nonviolent crimes probably don’t net benefit the community by locking people up. Assuming we are talking about our existing prison system. For addicts unfortunately I don’t know what else is possible beyond locking them up in mental health institutions. Perhaps we…

We used to have a system in the uk where the addicts were prescribed drugs by government sponsored medics. It actually worked quite well, and you can give them a bonus if they get a productive job. Sadly that sort of stuff while effective at helping drug addicts tends to be an easy target for politicians wanting to be 'tough on drugs'. As well as getting addicts off the street and not killed it means less money for drug dealers so the whole thing dwindles.

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

#754

Post by xyzelement » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:09 PM UTC

taskforcegemini wrote: post #679

smallnix wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about raising children?

is not a contribution by default?

That sounds very short sighted. You are preconditioned on all of your ancestors having kids. Everything you like, love, care about was created by someone who was first created by their parents. If not for those people there would be nothing.

Raising children is the greatest, riskiest, and costliest contribution to the world most of us can make. It should be respected.

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

#755

Post by happymellon » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:09 PM UTC

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…

So what exactly did they do that was their one step too far, was it just the tolerance of the drug users?

Is it possible to decriminalise, yet also make it undesirable, or socially unacceptable?

As an outsider, the increase in drug use does not appear to be helping your countries mental health.

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

#756

Post by thworp » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #625

swalling wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, actually we should be trying to fix the stupid mistakes that were made in implementation of the plan, not roll it back and keep on fighting an equally moronic, ineffective, and racist War on Drugs elsewhere. The best available evidence is that decriminalization essentially had no effect on overdose deaths ( https://www.opb.org/article/2023/10/03/ballot-measure-110-di... ). It was going to go up no matter what bec…

This is the classic approach of conservatives: throw wrenches in every part of a welfare system, then point to its failures to justify its dissolution. See: Medicare, public education, etc.

This is just about the worst example you could have used for your theory. In this case there are thousands of people that could have just done a 1:1 copy of what they do in Switzerland, Portugal, Netherlands, Scandinavia etc. Instead they copied only the carrot (treatment and harm reduction). Then they didn't just not copy the stick (prison, consequences for missing treatment) they threw away all their sticks.

With this in mind I can understand why many people are now against harm reduction of any kind, when the same people that fucked it all up in the first place now want to try again.

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

#757

Post by whiddershins » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:15 PM UTC

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…

Locking people up for being addicts is not the same as locking people up for using in the street.

What is wrong with this approach:

Doing drugs isn’t a crime, but all bad behavior associated with it is.

If someone’s addiction has become unmanageable to the point where they are doing drugs on the street, it is a kindness and a necessity to take their agency away from them.

If someone is an addict but otherwise functions, it is none of anyone’s business.

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

#758

Post by bitcharmer » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:19 PM UTC

swalling wrote: post #293

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…

"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…

Appreciate your comment. Terrifyingly high number of commenters (likely Americans) drawing flawed conclusions. We tried and failed, therefore this problem is unsolvable. Dozens of cities in other parts of the world had much success, so maybe you're doing it wrong?

Zurich did a great job, especially with the transformation of the infamous needle park.

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

#759

Post by fredgrott » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:22 PM UTC

The problem will be that we already know the cycle of

illegal drug use->jail->out of jail with worse stuff

is not working..

What would work better....

illegal drug use->modified jail sentence for non violent offenders to be in ail-designed-rehab

I say modified in that successful completion of rehab steps gets parts of sentence modified...

But at the same time we need to address the legal drug problem that lead to 50% of this problem in the first place....stats show huge amount of people who got addicted to legal opoids before their illegal drug use...yes it is actually 50% in places in the US....

And saying something failed because of under usage is not actually saying it failed but saying incentives to use it are not aligned.

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

#760

Post by catchnear4321 » Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

taskforcegemini wrote: post #679

smallnix wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about raising children?

is not a contribution by default?

who will change your diapers when you need them again?

spoiler: if not your children, then someone else’s - the robots may not be sufficiently dexterous by that point.

it is fine to not want children. or to want them. to pretend either side is morally superior is rather foolish. practically speaking, you’re gonna need your diaper changed.