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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

#981

Post by anon291 »

redserk wrote: post #364
anon291 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not fairy tales. Its human need for attachment to something greater. America has not filled that with anything else. The previous flag waving civic nationalism has become demonized so now there's nothing.

Religion is far from the only venue to explore the purpose and meaning of one's life. I think religion is declining because people are discovering there are many ways to perform self-discovery and practice fulfillment. The only aspect of religion that has been beneficial to modern society is providing a social venue for others to interact. This can be achieved by building stronger neighborhoods and encouraging the de…

> I think religion is declining because people are discovering there are many ways to perform self-discovery and practice fulfillment.

Let's suppose this were true. If, as you say, it's all about purpose and meaning, then we would expect that although everyone's conception of these things is different, it would still provide the same benefit. However, this is not what we find. Markers of purpose and meaning (such as suicide rate, depression, etc) are getting worse, not better.

So we're forced to come to terms with a few possible conclusions, none of which are very good for your point of view. Either the systems people are coming up with are insufficient to achieve the same goals or people are not coming up with their own system and are left to flounder.

> This can be achieved by building stronger neighborhoods and encouraging the development of more welcoming social venues -- something that I think is the cure to America's loneliness epidemic.

How is Europe doing on these indicators? Or anywhere else?

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

#982

Post by anon291 »

hifreq wrote: post #245
anon291 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not fairy tales. Its human need for attachment to something greater. America has not filled that with anything else. The previous flag waving civic nationalism has become demonized so now there's nothing.

> America has not filled that with anything else That's not an issue that America has to solve (i.e. the government or the society). It's an individual need that every individual is responsible for.

On the contrary, it's completely an issue that society needs to solve, even if the government does not. Part of a civilization is providing a culture.

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

#983

Post by libraryatnight »

hatefulmoron wrote: post #600
lazyasciiart wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“They did everything except what would work! Let’s all give up and go back to things that definitely don’t work. It’s the only option.”

It's always interesting when someone assumes that failed strategy X would have obviously worked if only had it been pursued even harder.. you might be right, but it seems like an odd assumption to make given the circumstance.

It's always interesting when something doesn't work immediately and someone just wants to go back to the shit system everyone hated before because it personally bothered them less.

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

#984

Post by anon291 »

melvyn2 wrote: post #266
anon291 wrote: post #226

[flagged]

Prohibition increased alcohol-related deaths and created a black-market of products so much worse than the regulated market before or after[0]. I would say that, in fact, prohibition did not work. And neither does current drug prohibition. Fentanyl deaths are directly caused by the black-market supply of drugs in the US, and it isn't "decriminalized" cities like Portland that are leading these charts[1]. The current…

Prohibition reduced the rate of alcohol related deaths:

1. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibit...

2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088683/death-rate-rate-...

3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42705455?typeAccessWorkflow=log...

Your article only counts alcohol-caused deaths. Indeed, it fails to account for domestic violence deaths. Although it's true that hundreds of alcoholics died, their children were spared their violent tendencies. One could argue that prohibition pushed the consequence of death on the guilty instead of the innocent, which, if we have to choose between the two, seems the appropriate direction.

So while a few hundred alcoholics died, many more children and women lived. Why is this even a debate? The data are so abundantly clear.

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

#985

Post by willy_k »

noduerme wrote: post #974
willy_k wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 de…

What’s the disease? Is it the body’s down-regulation of opioid receptors? If so, then you’re right. But if it also includes the impact of an active opioid addiction on one’s lifestyle, methadone clinics help treat that, which in turn makes it much easier to address the former.

I think for practical purposes, it’s most helpful to ascribe it to a recent and controllable factor. Otherwise, you could say that the “no medical benefit” scheduling of cannabis also contributed. Restricting medical pain management options to (with a few exceptions) just opioids when there was an unexplored (medically) class of less addictive, less destructive, physiologically safe medicine, definitely didn’t curb the opioid issue.

I agree that stigmatization is a good thing, but if all tobacco products got taken off shelves overnight, people wouldn’t stop smoking, they’d just have to buy on an unregulated (unsafe) market. Not saying that current regulation is perfect, but at least it can be controlled, which allows the market to move in (hopefully) the right way.

> The thing about opioids is that you develop tolerance.

This isn’t really unique to opioids, and I picture the legalization/regulation being discussed in this thread as more along the lines of existing cannabis programs, though obviously stricter in whatever necessary dimensions.

> It's the addiction that kills

Not necessarily, now at least. Lifestyle, maybe, but plenty of people now are overdosing on fentanyl from just experimenting, not even necessarily with opioids. And yes it is dumb to experiment with unknown street narcotics, but I’d be surprised if you took your first sip of alcohol when you were 21, and it’s the same principle of doing something that feels forbidden (and will make you feel good). And, if it were during prohibition, that sip could have had methanol in it. Now it can’t because of legalization and regulation.

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

#986

Post by hellojesus »

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,…

Please stop voting to steal my money for more social program waste.

I already have to pay a 1% tax on all household earnings above $200k. Before haters hate, please realize I'm already paying 10% to the state on all earned income. Plus the federal rates.

Oregon has consistently mismanaged funds. Giving them more money won't fix anything. They don't know how to spend it.

I'm tired of keeping zero income until the end of April. Especially when all I have to show for it is constant homeless drug addicts. Lwt the private sector handle it or enforce no camping laws and sober folks up in a cell or ship them away, or just give them all fet lined drugs to permasolve the issue.

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

#987

Post by TheRealPomax »

autokad wrote: post #81
TheRealPomax wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds a little like treating a symptom so one can pretend they don't need to solve the actual problem, which is homelessness. Which you solve by providing housing, and a long term caretaker-supported program to help folks clean up, get good psychiatric help and therapy, another pass at the educational system, and then hopefully at the end of all that, a new shot at a normal life. That costs a lot of money. Some…

its very rare a person goes homeless because the prices in downtown Seattle are expensive. if housing goes up, you move to a place its more affordable - not to the street. The reason for this homelessness surge is drugs. Many of these people its a lifestyle choice, one that works very well for what they want. They get to beg, do drugs, and sell stolen goods all in one spot, its very convenient. yes, if you have been…

>What makes you think they even want that? They want to do drugs, they want to not work. we should re-criminalize public drug use, followed by not allowing people to set up permanent residence anywhere they please.

Any organization that actually helped deal with homelessness with the intent to help people, rather than the intent to "clean up the streets" (especially in countries that "solved", compared the US, this problem) will be more than happy to explain to you all the ways in which this claim is just complete nonsense, and will be equally happen to explain to you how much harm yelling "they're all criminals" does.

To pretend that people choose to be homeless, or that homeless folks somehow have a better life when they're not on drugs that dull that experience and so should be trivially capable of choosing not to do drugs, is simply bonkers.

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

#988

Post by bbor »

robertlagrant wrote: post #940
bbor wrote: post #896

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The structures I’m talking about are along the lines of “if you have schizophrenia and don’t have rich parents then you probably will never be able to afford meaningful treatment”. Just to pick one. I know it’s tempting to assume everyone else is just morally bankrupt and hedonistic because they’re flawed, but I implore you to be more empathetic to their situation. I PROMISE you, homelessness is not fun, it does not…

> The structures I’m talking about are along the lines of “if you have schizophrenia and don’t have rich parents then you probably will never be able to afford meaningful treatment”. This is not a structure. It's a situation. > I know it’s tempting to assume everyone else is just morally bankrupt and hedonistic because they’re flawed No - the only assumption is yours you're making here. No one is saying that. > no on…

  This is not a structure. It's a situation.
Sorry, I was unclear: I was trying to highlight the fact that this situation is far, far less common in other countries, namely those with single-payer healthcare. That seems like pretty solid evidence that it’s a structural issue, not just… idk, circumstance? Chance?

Otherwise sorry I misinterpreted you —- guess I’ll spend more time reading next time!

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

#989

Post by selimthegrim »

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.

She wasn’t elected, although if Goldschmidt’s crimes had been public knowledge she probably would have been.

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

#990

Post by vGPU »

topato wrote: post #955
buzzert wrote: post #942

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which leads to lovely little details like the reason the SF poop map exists: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab72091...

I’ll pass, thanks.

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