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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

#951

Post by shermantanktop »

1shooner wrote: post #742
shermantanktop wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell a lot about how someone thinks by listening for denial of agency. The CEO had to do it; that drug addict had no choice; he had to defend his honor; she couldn’t lie. Sometimes people have only one choice, but they almost always have agency.

Your experience of addiction must be significantly different than mine.

I was referring to the language people use to convert other humans into objects or automatons.

But if you deny the addict any agency, you deny the possibility of eventual recovery. One could also point to the Sacklers as the ones with agency in that scenario. But somebody made choices; it didn’t just happen and there’s nothing that anyone could have done.

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

#952

Post by Dweller1622 »

jstarfish wrote: post #901
avgcorrection wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t have to get lost in philosophical questions of human worth here. We’re talking about addicts, not stay-at-home moms or other non-tax payers. Maybe pathological addicts are also productive in some ways that we don’t appreciate? In any case: saying that addicts are “non-productive” does not imply that stay at home moms, poor artists, or retirees are unproductive (etc. etc.).

> Maybe pathological addicts are also productive in some ways that we don’t appreciate? Noble savages? Loosely, addiction can be useful-- the thrill seekers among us are our pioneers. Everest wasn't Hillary's first climb, it was his tallest. Think about the implications of that though. Pioneers die...a lot. As a group the addict class are probably meant to be sacrificial. Pathological addiction subverts that. It's a…

> Loosely, addiction can be useful-- the thrill seekers[...]

This seems like a strange conception of addiction, unless we aren't seriously comparing mountain climbing with heroin. If we are then I wonder what utility the classification of addiction is actually supposed to provide to us.

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

#953

Post by 1letterunixname »

hifreq wrote: post #155
namesbc wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Homeless shelters are full, wages are the lowest they have been in decades, and US health care is the most expensive in the world

Available shelter space, housing vacancies: https://www.kqed.org/news/11668623/why-do-thousands-of-l-a-s... https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/san-f... https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/top-stories/story/2020-... > wages are the lowest they have been in decades This is an endless argument. Why can't a person with 0 skills rent an apartment in San Francisco? Some wages are very low. If you can't…

This is an unpopular but more tenable solution. The federal government should step in should anyone be homeless and find them better living conditions and comprehensive services especially in under-utilized, lower cost areas where it is cheaper to deliver services. The federal government level is necessary because it amortizes the financial risks more fairly than dumping the costs on specific municipalities.

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

#954

Post by buzzert »

hedora wrote: post #515
Aurornis wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just legalize it and let people get pure product at dirt cheap prices. Having traveled to Portland recently and witnessed the public drug problem first hand, I have no idea how anyone would think that increasing availability of the drugs would improve the situation. The only thing legalization and widespread availability would help is reducing deaths from tainted drugs. While that is a significant problem, anything…

Sociologists recently performed a large multi-region study of homelessness, drug use, etc. It turns out that there’s no real correlation between having drug addicts on the streets and the level of drug use in the area or even mental illness. Unemployment doesn’t even predict homelessness, and neither does weather, or laws pertaining to the homeless. By far, the best predictor is housing affordability and availability…

Interestingly, progressive cities also have the most expensive housing.

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

#955

Post by topato »

buzzert wrote: post #942
uoaei wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm curious why you think there are much fewer homeless in conservative cities (like Provo, Jacksonville, even Orange County)? Is it because everything is backwards? The progressive cities are actually conservative, and the conservative cities are actually progressive?

Because if you're homeless, you totally want to stay somewhere with no social programs. Here in California, our Medicaid insurance is infinitely better than any private insurance. Why would you stay somewhere where you get zero help? I. E. Zero Medicaid expansion in conservative states

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

#956

Post by buzzert »

Kaotique wrote: post #788

It seems trying to solve the homeless drug addiction crisis is putting the cart before the horse. Why are there so many homeless drug users in the first place? Any real solution for the problem would be to prevent people from ending up like this. If you fall out of the rat race in the US you are screwed. No job, no insurance, no health care, no house, no car followed by homelessness and drug use. After all that it wo…

> If you fall out of the rat race in the US you are screwed. No job, no insurance, no health care, no house, no car followed by homelessness and drug use. After all that it would take an insane amount of effort to get you back up to the ladder.

This isn't true at all. The US has a good social safety net, just like European countries. San Francisco in particular has free, universal healthcare, rent assistance programs, eviction protection programs, public transportation, pretty much everything you mentioned.

The problem is if you're a nuisance to your neighbors (i.e., smoking drugs indoors, which my downstairs neighbor decided to start doing during 2020), you will be kicked out if you don't own your place (and you don't have an HOA). At which point, you can go to a shelter (of which there are many in SF), but if you refuse to do that, well…

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

#957

Post by mrangle »

1. Drug use and the fallout was infitesimal compared to what it is after it was widely culturally promoted and approved of. Neither has alcohol abuse been supplanted.

2. Drug addicts (which especially includes pot users) will argue for maximum legalization until everyone is blue in the face, and despite any counter argument. Such is the nature of addiction.

At some point, people need to be again ignored for the social good. Drug use legalization advocates will always remain, but they will be less with time.

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

#958

Post by Inward »

iteratethis wrote: post #839
Inward wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm go to North Korea and let me know about their drug use and violent crime; internet arm chair comments like these just show how out of touch most people on HN are

What are you implying? That the Netherlands, a vastly more progressive nation than the US, is somehow similar to North Korea, an authoritarian state?

Progressive != good Using buzz words like conservative / progressive is just lazy. This isn’t Twitter/x

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

#959

Post by [deleted] »

oooyay wrote: post #682
uoaei wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

[deleted]

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

#960

Post by shiroiuma »

vineyardmike wrote: post #877
infamouscow wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no option to opt-out of paying taxes and voluntarily live in the woods. You have to pay taxes. In fact, you have to pay taxes even if you're living in another country for multiple years. These claims are ridiculous and border delusional.

You get collective benefit even if you live in the woods. You can’t opt-out because you don’t opt out of the benefit. You can leave the country and stop paying taxes, you just can’t come back . You can be a nomad in the woods and not earn income, and you’ve essentially avoided most taxes unless you own the woods. You’d pay taxes on your woodland because the government protects it from forest fires, criminals entering…

>You can leave the country and stop paying taxes, you just can’t come back.

No, you can't. You have to renounce your US Citizenship to stop paying taxes in the US, no matter where you live. Renouncing requires acquiring citizenship in a new country, which isn't that easy: just ask anyone who's tried to naturalize in the US.

>Again, you’re part of a society and you can’t opt out, even if you don’t want to pay.

You're not really a part of the society if you don't live there, but if you're a US Citizen, you're still required to pay both federal and state taxes, even if you've never lived in the US in the first place.

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