Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have safe injection sites up here in Vancouver, you still find used needles lying around everywhere, depending where you go, only you also find the small saline packs and disposable spoons from the injection sites lying around with the used needles. The police don't really seem to care. I've watched a couple of officers find a small pile of used needles at one of the skytrain stations, they laughed to each other s…
Nothing concrete, but often calls to complain make it into a tally or database that can be cited by a politician looking to change things.
In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
161–170 of 501 posts
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
... or fleeing to suburbs...
That's a big problem for those of us still here that would prefer enforcement; our fellow-minded voters have (probably rightly) chosen defect and left the city, rather than stay to vote for change. Suburb living also has twice the greenhouse gas impact as well.
Seattle's had this tension between the left and the liberals for a century. Traditionally you lived on the outskirts. You're welcome to go back if the city offends your sensibilities.
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#163> “You’ve got a guy shooting heroin on the street, and the cop is supposed to say, ‘You O.K.?’” grumbled one law enforcement officer in Seattle. (In fact, an officer would typically confiscate the heroin, admonish the user and move on.) Some residents worry that when the city ignores its own laws on the books and tolerates people openly abusing narcotics, it takes a step toward incivility that will eventually result…
I was in Portland and watched a guy shooting up on a bench middle of the day, tons of people around, he was screaming for no one to look at him, police at the other end of the block.
I appreciated that I was just visiting.
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#164The reporters designation of "figured out" seems to stem more from the fact that the solution fits his own view than any actual real evidence. There is mention of the difficulties such lax policies has brought to the city, but they are waved away as being "growing pains" toward a new utopia. I can't say, living here, that I feel that the problem is solved. I view the needles outside my apartment as evidence to the co…
It's certainly not just Seattle either, the large-scale homeless/junky situation describes basically every west coast city. There's obviously a much deeper problem.
Its easy to see how that would make many people depressed and lead to a cycle of addiction to escape this crappy reality.
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and shame everyone who dares to complain. And then watch at they turn on you by quietly voting for your opponents in greater and greater numbers as the problem worsens.
... or fleeing to suburbs...
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
How? Junkies and other folks who throw needles on the street when there’s a trash can like 5 feet away will actually make appointments to stop at these consumption sites? Who pays for this? The city of Seattle makes a mess because of their extremist policies of not enforcing laws so let’s raise taxes to make up for it?
Please cite how Seattle's policy of not locking people up to rot in prison is extremist. You had a viable argument right up until that point! Edit: Thanks for the bot downvotes! Going from +2 to -1 in the span of a minute on two separate comments is a bit of a red flag :P
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#167TLDR: by letting mentally disturbed addicts roam the streets with impunity, shunning social services, assaulting toddlers[0]. 0. https://mynorthwest.com/1458667/seattle-offender-coffee-todd...
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just looked up the hot coffee case. It could only happen in a city with strict gun laws. In Texas someone would have enacted his sheriff fantasies on this perpetrator a long time ago.
Seattle, part of Washington, actually has concealed carry as legal. There is no duty to retreat either, no real different than any "gun friendly" state. So your point is invalid. Anyone can have loaded carry pistol, this shows you to be pointless in this example. I assume you're just trying to troll and failing badly.
And just because concealed carry legal doesn't mean the process is constructed in such a way that normal people can actually do it (see CA, MA, NYC and NJ for examples of this) though I'm not sure about Seattle specifically.
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#169I fully support legalizing all drugs, but don't understand why the latest wave of criminal justice reform tolerates property crimes. Crimes like smash and grabs, purse snatching, bike thefts, vandalism, littering, and shoplifting clearly have defined victims and lower the quality of life for everyone. It's perfectly possible to be a heroin addict and an upstanding citizen at the same time. The same cannot be said of…
I would need quote on the 'vast majority' claim. You can't leave a bike for 10 minutes in downtown Seattle for a reason, homeless heroin addicts gets their drug and resource to procure those drug _somewhere_.
Even if every bike is stolen by an addict, that doesn't mean most addicts are doing the stealing.
Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs
#170> In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs. It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with hard drugs and more on the public health toolbox. America's puritanical urges result in more self-harm than anything else. So much of the way our nation is structured is based on some ancient idea that you have to live clean and work hard in order to get to heaven. That is combined with a sen…
That's rather condescending and ignorant. It has nothing to do with puritanical urges, it has to do with personal responsibility and everyone being responsible for their own actions, which results in having to suffer the personal consequences without having the right to impose oneself on others by one's own choices in life. Unfortunately, this whole drug situation in the USA has gotten, like many things, totally out…
"Scorched Earth", "erased as the war criminals and pestilence on humanity they are", further abused, forced into same-sex incarcerated relationships. We've tried this. It hasn't solved yet.
"Just kill them" for climbing without a rope? For risking their long-term health for short-term relief from physical and mental trauma and subsequent addiction, for not violating anyone else's rights but their own, you think you have the right (and moral obligation!) to violate their rights? Because they're inferior. They're an eyesore. "Eliminate the weak!" (who aren't violating the rights of others). Can you think of groups of people in human history who have taken that approach, violated the rights of others, and been cured by subsequent prison?
With the savings from not paying $50,000 a year for learn-to-silently-move-tax-free-contraband-in-cool-school incarceration and attempted concurrent rehabilitation (while the right to address personal health matters is denied), there should be plenty of money to prosecute property crime and littering and biohazards. Let me just reward you with food, a place to stay, gangs, and zero need for personal financial responsibility.
You litter in the street, the park, an alleyway, where f'ing kids play, you spend some of your time cleaning that s' up. For free. Because that's violating the rights of other people.