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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

#811

Post by google234123 »

kevingadd wrote: post #722
adrr wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So you're basically advocating for widespread rollback of civil rights, based on the examples you chose?

You don’t have a right to theft. Let’s go back to punishing crime.

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

#812

Post by megaman821 »

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,…

This is only true economically in arenas like taxes and government programs. Socially what country are you thinking of that is to the left of the American left?

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

#813

Post by u32480932048 »

ninth_ant wrote: post #113
qingcharles wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a hard problem to solve. I work with drug and alcohol addicts regularly and addiction is such a damned nightmare. And every homeless person hates shelters. They have way more rules than prisons and all of the drama. I don't know what the solutions are :(

The fact that shelters have "drama" and "rules" is not a compelling reason for someone to make a home in an area that is intended for public use, and render it unusable and unsafe for others. Is this really a hard problem to solve? I can certainly buy the argument that criminalizing homelessness doesn't make sense when the "criminal" has no other options. But if someone has a viable option for not living on the stree…

> make a home in an area that is intended for public use, and render it unusable and unsafe for others

A tent in a park, unless in the middle of a trail, doesn't inherently or necessarily make it less usable or less safe.

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

#814

Post by carlosjobim »

panick21_ wrote: post #727
stillwithit wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WFH means biz isn’t coming back there any time soon even with the homeless gone. It’s why homeless are downtown now rather on the fringe; fringe used to be emptier more frequently as downtown filled. Now folks are home on the fringe all the time. I was just downtown for lunch on weekday and it was a ghost town. I worked for PSU for years, am aware of what it should look like and it’s just dead. That’s been the case s…

These problems are so American. Downtown in European cities (that I know) are as vibrant as ever. Europe has done just as many social programs as Portland or probably more. Why do people no live in these areas? It seems to me this problem is much larger then drug law enforcement. PS: US Government haven't given Musk a single $ to go to Mars, what are you even talking about.

What about Paris? I think you can find as many European as American examples, but instead of junkies it is gangs making the cities unsafe.

But from what I know the police in Paris sometimes clear away the tent cities from the streets.

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

#816

Post by u32480932048 »

janalsncm wrote: post #613
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.

This would require selective enforcement under current laws, or defining "clear drug problem" for purposes of a new one.

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

#817

Post by silent_cal »

duped wrote: post #151
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…

Is there a measure for how this compares to places without social programs for drug addicts? This is a legitimate question, I don't know if they've done better or worse in the context of the failed war on drugs. Because the country as a whole has been completely ravaged by opiate addiction. It's not just Portland and Seattle. West Virginia doesn't have anything like this, and it's just as badly afflicted. It may be l…

I think it's less a question of the amount of social programs and more about how aggressive the police are about public drug use and assaults by the homeless. Walk around cities in southwest Florida for example (Tampa, Naples etc.) and you'll feel pretty safe.

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

#818

Post by google234123 »

namesbc wrote: post #141
kepler1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If decriminalization relies on a whole raft of practically infeasible (or very expensive) associated programs to make it work, is it really a viable strategy?

We tried this cruel inhumane expensive policy for the decades called thew war on drugs and it was one of the worst failures in US history The US has spent more than a trillion on the War on Drugs, we should use a fraction of that on housing and healthcare, instead of thinking about restarting the trillion dollar war on drugs

How much did china spend to end their opioid epidemic?

How much have we spent on police in this time? I think it’s worth spending a trillion to fight the war on murder, theft and rape…

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

#819

Post by eric_cc »

swalling wrote: post #320
Spinnaker_ wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 reads like total denial. COVID was years ago. The city I’m in bounced back and was mostly normal late 2021. I also was interested in the outcome of Portland’s experiment. It has failed. The war on drugs is anti-liberty and I recognize its racist roots. But racism is no longer a big aspect of the war on drugs as of 2023. Again, denial and excuses. The war on drugs AND Portland’s experiment are BOTH failures. I welcome the next attempt at it.

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

#820

Post by u32480932048 »

roenxi wrote: post #683
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…

> There is more to life than paying taxes, and people contribute to society in many ways that aren’t financial. What are they, and can I do them instead of paying taxes? Because paying taxes soaks up double digit percentages of my productive time and I reckon I could add a lot more value to society if I had alternatives.

You can provide art and music to the community, either by strumming your guitar aggressively at passers-by or turning up your boom box to max volume so everyone can hear your shitty music. /s
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