Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#181

Post by usrusr » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #58

mtgx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people wanting a certain law doesn't work in the US anyway as Congress is dependent on corporations much more than it is on the people: https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig Until corporate bribes are removed from electoral campaigns this won't change.

Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization. They’re just not always the same corporations against them. There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs. It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops. Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramat…

> I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night.

Short term I would expect more violence: cartels won't just quietly pack up shop, they will try to pivot. Too many people who have a career to salvage. Long term, it would be worth it nonetheless.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#182

Post by ganzuul » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

fwip wrote: post #29

MisterTea wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug use is self medication in order to seek relief from an illness. That illness is usually mental which some view as a personal failing and not a legitimate medical condition. That or they deem it unimportant enough to care about.

Mostly I agree, but it's not always an illness, sometimes it's just a really hard living situation. (E.g. you're dependent on an abusive partner).

Depression follows easily from that.

Long story short; depression has set in when a previous source of joy no longer brings the expected feeling of well-being. Having encountered this fault, the individual seeks to correct it. Depending on environmental factors, they might choose to self-medicate with e.g. alcohol.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#183

Post by dang » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

dondawest wrote: post #95

jacquesm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trolling? It would seem obvious that such things are distributed exactly the same no matter what ones social status or ethnic background is. It would be very surprising if it wasn't.

It’s not obvious AT ALL. If you’re aware of the “cluster effect” of those with rapid-onset gender dysphoria, you’re aware that being trans is highly influenced by ones social conditions. You’re making an argument that nature is everything when it comes to one’s LGBT status and nurture means nothing, but there’s mountains of evidence to show this is not the case. If you want to tell me that it’s JUST A COINKYDINK that…

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how bad the comment you're replying to is. That only makes this place worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#184

Post by dang » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

damnyou wrote: post #105

dondawest wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not obvious AT ALL. If you’re aware of the “cluster effect” of those with rapid-onset gender dysphoria, you’re aware that being trans is highly influenced by ones social conditions. You’re making an argument that nature is everything when it comes to one’s LGBT status and nurture means nothing, but there’s mountains of evidence to show this is not the case. If you want to tell me that it’s JUST A COINKYDINK that…

"Rapid onset gender dysphoria" is a fake diagnosis made up by transphobes. It's just the latest iteration of trying to divide trans people into the "good ones" and the "bad ones", just like the fake Blanchardian "HSTS/AGP" typology. The fact that you cite it is a strong signal about you, personally. Take queer people at their word or fuck off.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how bad the comment you're replying to is. That only makes this place worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#185

Post by tluyben2 » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #84

Ensorceled wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People became more sympathetic to LGBTQ issues when people started coming out of the closet and they learned that their neighbours, cousins, nieces and nephews were being prevented from marrying their loved ones. We didn't need to "turn more people gay" to accomplish this. Similarly, we need to raise the visibility and openness of dealing with drug addiction, to come out of the closet so to speak, not increase drug a…

Unfortunately those in power are not nearly as badly affected by the drug epidemic as the poorer people. Even if they develop a habit or some complication related to it they will have access to the best care and treatment options. So there is very little cost to being 'tough on drugs' until the effects are also felt at all layers of society. Portugal, a country that is a lot more relaxed about many things than the US…

I guess you hit the nail on it’s head; many in power are very addicted but they can hide it better, get better (and more well hidden) dope/prostitutes/casinos/etc than poor people can. Also for some reason a good bottle of whiskey is not considered a dangerous hard drug while it is but if you smoke a spliff people still think it is weird. Even if legal (which it has been in my country since before I was born).

A lot of people, rich or poor, find it hard to cope with life and need help; if they are poor they go to jail or overdose, if they are rich they just, slowly or rapidly, kill themselves or, sometimes, get help. While all need help ofcourse.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#186

Post by olalonde » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #155

baby wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anyone but in my first year living in the US someone got shot in my street and I could see the blood stain on the sidewalk. Chicago, uptown, near the L. I have a friend who got a gun pointed at them too in Chicago (by a fake landlord). I've also overheard people bragging that they were carrying guns in the L. I was freaking out. I will never visit any state with open carry.

What is so scary with open carry? We have policemen that open carry in every country, are they not scary? We are talking about humans with guns, not about Batmans and Jokers.

> We have policemen that open carry in every country, are they not scary?

Yes they are scary and no, policemen do not open carry in every country (China, England, India, etc.). Also, policemen are professionally trained to handle them, have a clear purpose for carrying them and are less likely to be criminals.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#187

Post by mistermann » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

adamcharnock wrote: post #21

From what I hear (as someone now living in rural Portugal), a turning point came when most of the electorate knew someone suffering from a drug addiction. Be it a family member, partner, or friend - there came a point when the majority of people could not only see the problems caused by the epidemic, but could also empathise with those with addictions. As a result of this understanding/empathy, it was possible to pas…

> I see parallels with the legalisation of same-sex marriage. I saw somewhere that there is a correlation between support of same-sex marriage and actually knowing that a family member or friend is LQBTQ.

> It seems to me that once people can empathise on a personal level, new approaches become acceptable (/ enter the Overton Window).

I 100% agree, and believe the significance of this general phenomenon is very underappreciated.

I would generalize this phenomenon as "From a psychological perspective, once individuals can empathize on a personal level with a given topic, it opens their mind to being changed".

As we saw (so it would seem) with same-sex marriage, and general acceptance of non-heterosexual relationships, once a critical mass in society reaches some tipping point, what had looked like an unbreakable impasse suddenly started to break down, and a wave of widespread and willing (eventually, mostly) changing of minds took place relatively rapidly. Cultural evolution in action, via normal evolutionary forces.

My question is: why can we not accelerate or bypass the "normal evolutionary forces" approach. Fields like math, science, and engineering evolve at a far faster rate than we seem to be able to achieve in sociology and psychology, for obvious reasons (the former are far, far simpler) - but are we utterly helpless to improve things? Is there no way? Have we tried everything we can think of? What have we even really* tried, besides arguing in the political (and now social media) realms.

I believe the answer lies in epistemology, and epistemic humility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility

If we could achieve widespread understanding and competence within these fields across members of a group, might it be possible to get people to realize how so many of their beliefs are in reality, little more than an illusion? That the facts they think they are working with are actually opinions?

I think it can be done.

But how might we go about this? How might we perform some experimentation to test this theory, in smaller population than than the entirety of the world? Is there a smaller, segregated population, preferably of higher than average intelligence, upon which we could test this theory? Where, oh where, might such a population be hiding? Right in front of our noses perhaps?

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#188

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #58

mtgx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people wanting a certain law doesn't work in the US anyway as Congress is dependent on corporations much more than it is on the people: https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig Until corporate bribes are removed from electoral campaigns this won't change.

Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization. They’re just not always the same corporations against them. There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs. It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops. Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramat…

> Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization.

There are lots of corporations that exist in market niches that benefit from or even exist entirely because of the drug war; they obviously have reasons to be anti-legalization.

There are lots of potential corporations that do not exist because of the drug war whose interests would be served by legalization, but the potential investors in those potential corporations are largely instead invested in actual corporations based on the incentives in the actual status quo situation.

> There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs.

Much of which competes with existing medical and recreational business, and would open fields around which incumbents have moats to new competition. Which is why existing corporations with lots of money have reasons to oppose, rather than support, it.

> It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops.

That's a reason for people needing jobs and living in rural America to support it, but a reason for corporations employing those people currently to oppose it (as the additional competition for labor would drive up labor prices.)

> Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night.

Yeah, and pretty much every powerful moneyed and political interest in those countries is invested, on one or sometimes both sides, in the continuation of the drug war and associated conflicts.

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#189

Post by dang » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

xfitm3 wrote: post #67

daenz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For obvious reasons, I think many people would be against the suggestion that if more people were suffering from life-destroying drug addiction, a turning point would be reached and the problem would be solved faster. Surely there is a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it overtake society first.

> Surely there is a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it overtake society first. Uneducated comment.

Maybe so, but please don't respond with a worse comment. If you know more, share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. Please don't break the guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working (2017)

#190

Post by 0942v8653 » Sun, Jul 14, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

the_gastropod wrote: post #178

weberc2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true? Almost no one in my social circles knows a victim of gun violence, and I live in one of the most violent cities in the country. Even if you count suicides (and you really shouldn’t), I would be surprised if this were true. I suspect most people in the country don’t know a victim or offender of gun violence, while they do know several law-abiding gun owners leading them to believe that inner city issues—…

Hmm.. Let's do some back of the napkin math, and see. 1. In 2013 (most recent data point I could find) in the US, 107,141 were injured or killed by a gunshot wound. [1] 2. There are currently 327 Million people living in the U.S. (0.033% of Americans are killed or injured by guns every year). 3. The median age of the U.S. population is 38.1. 38.1 * 107,141 = 4,082,072.1, or ~ 1.25% of the population. My statistic-fu…

You're assuming that the distribution is uniform, but I think it's likely that the majority of Americans do not know anybody who was shot, while a (still decent-sized) minority know several.