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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

#911

Post by TheBlight »

legitster wrote: post #109
TheBlight wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Portland's program do anything to address the mental health problems underlying much of this drug abuse?

$1.3 billion statewide approved in 2021: https://www.oregon.gov/oha/HSD/AMH/Pages/index.aspx This is in addition to the ~$1.3 billion the state already paid in mental health services: https://www.corvallisadvocate.com/2021/oregon-spends-on-ment... In addition to resources available at the county level ($2 million came from police defunding): https://www.multco.us/justice-agenda/budget-priorities

I guess it won't make much of a difference if people can easily opt-out for a life of addiction on the streets.

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

#912

Post by notfed »

recursive wrote: post #500
notfed wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How? Why? It seems like a reasonable question to me, so maybe I'm prejudiced too. That's entirely possible. What's the prejudice? How do I stop? Why is this a bad question? Does it have an answer?

The stereotype here is that every drug user is pushing themselves to the limit of od.

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

#913

Post by mostlysimilar »

joenot443 wrote: post #885
duped wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 presently live in New York but I lived in Seattle in 2020. Open air drug use and homelessness in general is unquestionably a bigger problem in Seattle, despite NYC lacking some of the more progressive policies west coast cities have become so famous for. Anyone who's lived in both the east and west coast can attest to the difference, it's so stark that I find it funny people are still asking if broad coastal politi…

I live in Seattle and recently visited NYC. It was shocking how much cleaner it was, at least the neighborhoods I spent time in. I expected at least similar levels but I saw nothing like Seattle's public drug use and mental health crises on the streets.

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

#914

Post by surgical_fire »

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…

What should a city do when the people that pay taxes and keep the machine chugging along decide to leave because the city is becoming an unbearable mess?

It's an honest question. Social programs cost money, and the money comes from taxes.

I am generally in favor of drugs being legalized and drug addiction being treated as a healthcare policy concern instead of a criminal concern. But the experiment seems to fail more often than not.

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

#915

Post by katabasis »

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 live in Portland and I 100% agree with this. I say this as someone who voted for Measure 110 and now regrets that vote. At this point I would support a straight-up repeal. At least under the old system some people who were arrested were able to get clean in jail, or were able to enter court-mandated treatment programs.

The reality is that people in the throes of drug addiction have already lost their agency, so some kind of coercive intervention will often be necessary to break the cycle. By refusing to do this out of a (commendable) compassionate impulse, we are making the situation worse.

In general the last ~5 years of living here has been a lesson of how important order (i.e. the enforcement of rules and norms) is for a functioning society. You could say it is the foundation of all social goods.

Watching the city's decline up close has deeply altered my political beliefs on a number of topics – this is one of them.

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

#916

Post by adrr »

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?

Solving the drug problem in US through decriminalization and harm reduction programs is an effective as solving gun violence through the same means.

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

#917

Post by hifreq »

nradov wrote: post #478
hifreq wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically what unemployment rate tells us is that USA has enough jobs for people who want to work. It says nothing about people who have given up looking. That's a fair point. If people are not seeking work but claim benefits indefinitely, doesn't this require a different solution than blaming the society and expecting taxpayers to take care of that?

Which benefits are you referring to? Unemployment insurance and welfare are generally time limited. Disability payments can last forever, specifically because those people can't work. (There is a small amount of disability fraud by people who are capable of working but choose not too, and are able to convince physicians to approve their claims.)

Benefits in a very broad sense. This includes both e.g. SF General Assistance payments and things like cleaning the streets from syringes, urine and poop on a weekly basis.

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

#918

Post by hutzlibu »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #905
hutzlibu wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you meant "option" and in general that, the only solution is locking people up? I see lots of other ways, the most simple one: just take away their drugs, if they use drugs in public. If you do this regulary, no junkie will go somewhere, where he will seriously risk loosing his stuff. Locking up people at some point is also possible, but there are lots of other ways before that.

> Just take away their drugs, if they use drugs in public. Seems short sighted. Do you know how people act when they want to get high and can't? When they're going through serious withdrawal? Just taking their drugs is going to get people hurt. They will either hurt themselves, or they will hurt other people.

If you have competent police - than taking the drugs away is sort of a lackmus test. Meaning if they get violent - then they are a danger and further meassures are needed. So yes, jail (conventional or mental) is then the temporary solution.

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

#919

Post by neilyio »

plandis wrote: post #222
cortesoft wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone has a viable option for not living on the street I guess it depends on how we define viable. In my experience working with the homeless, there are a lot of valid reasons shelters are avoided; they can be more dangerous, don't allow pets (who are sometimes the only companions they have), and don't allow families or couples. Whether that is viable or not depends on how you use the word.

I really doubt homeless people are good pet owners. Food scarcity, lack of medical care for your pets, etc, etc…

This is obviously a baseless and naive comment, and I'm glad others have stepped in to call it out. This whole thread is filled with noise like this.

The fact that there are so many strong opinions from people who demonstrate an embarrassingly low understanding of the situation is one of the reasons the problem is so hard to solve in the first place.

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

#920

Post by singlepaynews »

meiraleal wrote: post #695
singlepaynews wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. This suggests to me that homelessness and drug use may be orthogonal problems. If you triple my rent over the next 10 years, without raising my income, then I'm gonna be homeless. No drug use necessary, batteries included, no assembly required.

Do you know that the person raising your rent isn't the same person that pays your salary, right? And raising it is mostly up to you. Doing drugs because you are incapable of matching society's dynamics isn't an excuse

> the person raising your rent isn't the same person that pays your salary

Yes, I am aware

> raising it is mostly up to you

The rent? Or the salary?

> Doing drugs because you are incapable of matching society's dynamics isn't an excuse

Like I said, 3xrent creates a homeless me, no drugs involved

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