After any period of repression there's a rebound effect, it happened after the prohibition of alcohol was rescinded too. Unfortunately, the insane 'war on drugs' has created much harder and more dangerous substances than alcohol.
To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
971–980 of 1001 posts
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#972Drug 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…
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…
For sure, you have productive members who can execute unlimited violence in the name of law, why not using them to displace the poor and ill away from the streets completely? Clean em up from scum eh. A brilliant idea of a mindful reactionist. The soviets did this by the way, and they were able to completely hide the problem, however they never understood that showing it boldly on the streets to all the "taxpayers" is the first step to solution
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#973Earlier quoted context omitted.
"To do that experiment and do it right, it needs to be nationwide." I'm immediately skeptical of any idea where bad results become evidence that the idea should be deployed more widely.
Are the results that bad? Or are the results exactly the same but more visible (i.e. homeless addicts are not just being hidden below the concrete of highway interexchange instead of being able to live in the city center)?
Yes, they are that bad.
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 80s, a time and place when homelessness was rampant, but your typical homeless person was a slow-to-move 50 year old wino, not a psychotic 20 year old on fentanyl and meth. Leaving aside the difference in the drugs, I think it's worse because: We do have, and have had a lot of people living in underpasses in Portland for the last 30 years. Most of those people are unfortunate locals who fell through the cracks, not the new crop who just showed up from Florida. Underpasses are full, and have been full, for decades. Many of us have tried to help. The increased visibility is a sign of two things: (1) overflow, and (2) much more dangerous chemicals.
For instance, you wouldn't find this kind of thing happening ten years ago: https://www.koin.com/news/portland/eight-overdosed-on-fentan...
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#974Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. This has been an increasingly popular argument here in Portland since decriminalization. It's deployed, generally, in terms of re-criminalizing hard drugs until there's a well thought out framework for safe, regulated legalization. While I agree in principle [edit: let's say I did agree, but my views on this subject have shifted radically s…
> And remember - we did have a long experiment with legally prescribed opioids, and their widespread availability contributed to the current addiction crisis. Well yeah, when you have criminally-encouraged over prescription of highly addictive, fairly dangerous drugs, you’re going to create an addiction crisis, but the actual deaths happening now are due to the unavailability of those same prescription drugs. Before…
>> Methadone clinics are a decent example
Sure, they can help, but wouldn't you say that's treating the symptoms rather than the disease?
>> the actual deaths happening now are due to the unavailability of those same prescription drugs
But you just said the initial reason was "criminally-encouraged over prescription". How do you not trace the deaths now all the way back to that? The thing about opioids is that you develop tolerance. I guess if those people were still getting higher and higher prescribed doses, they would never need to dip into illegal markets where their drugs might be contaminated with fentanyl. But it's hard for me to cut off the search for a root cause of deaths at this latest unavailability. The root cause is the over-prescription in the first place.
Stigmatization serves a role. I'm a smoker - but I know anti-smokers will agree with me, that stigmatizing my behavior prevents more people from starting to do something terrible to their health.
And if that's true, then legalization would be a root cause of the next wave of deaths. It's the addiction that kills; the erstwhile lack of good drugs is just the way it happens to kill some people.
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#975Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. This has been an increasingly popular argument here in Portland since decriminalization. It's deployed, generally, in terms of re-criminalizing hard drugs until there's a well thought out framework for safe, regulated legalization. While I agree in principle [edit: let's say I did agree, but my views on this subject have shifted radically s…
I thought the drug laws in question were, or rather had to be, enacted at the state level. Why does the issue seem to be most pronounced in Portland but not as significant in the rest of Oregon? What would be different if the experiment was done on a national scale? It seems to me that you would still see the worst impacts confined to a few major cities. I would hypothesize that other factors come into play like lax…
It's really, really bad in Eugene, Oregon. And Salem is a mess too. But the Portland metro is by an order of magnitude more populous. It's also desperately underfunded, and it's got a situation in which the populace mostly hates the police, and the police feel the same way back. (Which led to an amazing announcement during early Covid, when people were being assaulted and houses broken into all over the city):
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/portland...
This effect hasn't worn off. And the combination of lawlessness and drug availability in Portland has led to a massive influx of people from every other part of the country that has less tolerance for a combination of open drug use + antisocial behavior. I don't think support services even register as part of the draw. There are no cops here and drugs are everywhere, it's open season on people who own property (still), or just anyone walking down the street with $10 in his pocket.
It's a separate subject whether the Portland police are essentially allowing this because (a) they're pissed off at the DA who won't prosecute anyone they arrest and (b) they're pissed off at the denizens and (c) they can't even hire anyone from Portland itself, since Portlanders hate the police so much. All those are basically true, and they're holding the city hostage by not doing their job.
But this is why it doesn't work on a local level. If half the junkies in Idaho weren't robbing people here to buy fentanyl, they'd have to rob people in Boise. White America did not give a fuck about the effects of street drugs on their loved ones when only Black Americans were enduring the crack epidemic. They only started to care once it affected their neighbors and their kids. Shipping those all off to the one place in the country that allows reckless abuse and has no enforcement is a way of washing their hands of their problems and blaming "liberal cities" like ours.
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#976Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. This has been an increasingly popular argument here in Portland since decriminalization. It's deployed, generally, in terms of re-criminalizing hard drugs until there's a well thought out framework for safe, regulated legalization. While I agree in principle [edit: let's say I did agree, but my views on this subject have shifted radically s…
Yes drugs should be legalized and regulated nationally just like Portugal did. But also we should absolutely unambiguously no excuses house and feed the homeless the end full stop we have plenty of money. It just needs to be redirected to doing something productive other than paying endless assemblies of bureaucrats competing with each other to virtue signal the loudest. Because the reason people get hooked on to dru…
>> just like Portugal did
Portugal arrests and jails people for dealing drugs, as well as for public displays of disorder.[0]
>> Police take the person to a police station and weigh the drugs. If the weight exceeds amounts specified for personal use, then the person is charged and tried as a drug trafficker and can receive prison sentences of 1–14 years. Otherwise, the next day, the person appears at the Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction for an interview by a psychologist or social worker. Next comes an appearance before a three-person panel that will provide guidance about how to stop drug use.
This is the stick which accompanies the carrot. The trouble with decriminalization in Portland is that there's no stick. Sure - make drugs legal, I don't care what people do with their bodies! But make sure they don't become a menace.
Housing the homeless is really a separate topic. I'm all for making sure that no one in this country is ever homeless. The drug culture, however, in Portland is comprised mostly of able young men and women under the age of 30. They're willfully homeless because they've given up the idea of having a life, in favor of the drugs they're on.
You say there are no excuses about housing and feeding the homeless. But facts on the ground are: There is a highly visible group of people who are choosing to be homeless, robbing people and serving their own addiction, and (1) people who are actually homeless not by their own fault are the first victims of this, and (2) the general population here who are extremely caring are absolutely sick of it. The backlash is inevitable, and no amount of moralizing will change that.
I don't believe in "effective altruism" or "acceleration" - I think a 4-day work week or a universal basic income is a recipe for disaster. People need to feel a purpose. Hell, even dogs and horses need a purpose, or they get depressed. Accommodating their worst impulses is worse than doing nothing at all.
[0] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-portugals-dru...
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#977Earlier quoted context omitted.
What, no it doesn't? Like seriously, what?
In my house, guests are required to remove their shoes before entering. Also coasters must be used for beverages.
Jail and Admin manual is 383 pages long: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/jail-adm...
Can you even come up with 383 annoying things you require your guests to comply with... let alone 383 PAGES.
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#978Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are the results that bad? Or are the results exactly the same but more visible (i.e. homeless addicts are not just being hidden below the concrete of highway interexchange instead of being able to live in the city center)?
Yes, they are that bad. I grew up in Los Angeles in the 80s, a time and place when homelessness was rampant, but your typical homeless person was a slow-to-move 50 year old wino, not a psychotic 20 year old on fentanyl and meth. Leaving aside the difference in the drugs, I think it's worse because: We do have, and have had a lot of people living in underpasses in Portland for the last 30 years. Most of those people a…
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I could only read the title but from what I can come up these people would have overdosed, the only difference with public drug use is they die in front of everyone. What I am concerned is it should actually trigger a response towards helping addicts get access to safer drugs, and finding a way for them to stay functionnal and harmless in our society. Instead people want to try to hide the problem under the carpet but it will not work either.
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#979Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
If an argument is conceivable, there is always at least one HNer who will feel compelled to make it.
Re: To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use
#980Drug 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…
Worth differentiating recreational drugs that are not perfectly fine to use and continue with normal (if not better) life.
VS
Fentanyl. Opioid epidemics. Addition as business model.
See the chart: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-...
I'm worried that cannabis is less likely to be legalised elsewhere due to pharma drugs being so harmful.