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Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

theatlantic.com

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Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#191

Post by dahwolf »

Some have the belief that hard drug users are temporarily down, but with the proper help can be converted back into productive citizens.

I think we overestimate for how many of them this is a realistic path. Quite a few of them will struggle for life. Have no family or a dysfunctional one, no marketable skills or ability to gain them, mental issues and cognitive shortcomings, wrong kind of friends/network, a whole host of issues.

Miracle comeback stories will grab the attention, but shouldn't be seen as the normal path. The normal path may be dedicating enormous resources for very little return.

I don't have the answers. You can't do nothing but you can't babysit somebody for their entire life either.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#192

Post by bobthepanda »

anon84873628 wrote: post #158
ecshafer wrote: post #149

Supporting legalization / decriminalization of hard drugs is a luxury belief. If you’re in a nice rich circle it’s easy to believe it doesn’t harm anyone except yourself. If you are around people that become drug addicts, it becomes apparent that it drastically harms everyone around them, themselves probably not the most. You can only see so many addict parents throw away the money for kids food, or pawn of their kid…

Clearly the prohibition on drugs is not preventing those people from accessing them. Obviously rehabilitation would be ideal. But all else being equal, it would be better if the drugs were cheaper and safer.

The real root issue, is that we drastically underfund rehabilitation.

There are generally just not enough rehab spots, therapists, psychiatrists, etc. to address the unmet need. There are not enough of them in the health system because we don't pay for them enough.

There are also not really resources in the prison system either. A lot of the prison-reform movement was actually supported initially by conservatives, because low-tax governments cannot afford to lock large numbers of people up for petty crime.

No matter what the solution is, it requires spending money.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#193

Post by adamredwoods »

hitpointdrew wrote: post #180

Decriminalization is mostly pointless step and won't work to fix the "drug" issue. It only solves one piece of the puzzle, jailing non-violent people. You still have black markets, you still have stigmatization, you still have unknown and mystery substances (users don't know what they are actually getting). To "solve" the drug issue we need full legalization and regulation of all drugs, and safe centers/locations whe…

I partially agree with this. Not all drugs should be legalized, but rather, handled differently. In Seattle, the latest "drug enforcement" failed because the judicial system knew they didn't have the people-power to process the inflow of repeat offenders, who are cycled through the system and let go, only to repeat again. It may keep them off the streets for a bit, but it doesn't solve anything.

Police should be able to enforce drug abuse, but it's a different path.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/what-s-next-for-seattle-drug-la...

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#194

Post by brightlancer »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #93
_blz2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think everyone should get voting rights if there is a section of the society who want to actively harm themselves. What are their votes reflective of?

Anyone who consumes sugar, trans fat or smokes cigarettes should be unable to vote as well?

Anyone who disagrees with me should be unable to vote.

The paradox of tolerance says I should not tolerate anyone who is intolerant, and if they disagree with me then they are intolerant and we should not tolerate them.

Checkmate, fascists.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#195

Post by oatmeal1 »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #134
kelnos wrote: post #5

https://archive.is/rznQr We've plainly seen over the past several decades that the War on Drugs is an abject failure. All it's done is increase incarceration rates (without solving the problems of drug use and addiction), and many people caught in the system are just drug users, not distributors/traffickers. This really doesn't help much of anything. > State leaders have acknowledged faults with the policy’s implemen…

Is the war on drugs a failure in Singapore too? I mean, it is self-evidently obvious that at some level of enforcement, you can actually control the problem. The question then is whether we are willing to tolerate the level of enforcement necessary. Is the cure worse than the disease? That is a real question and a worthy one, but pretending that no tradeoff exists is just silly.

> The question then is whether we are willing to tolerate the level of enforcement necessary.

I think the question is how do we make prisons less cruel and dangerous, and lower recidivism. Of course there is a backlash against enforcement when the solution is locking people in cages.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#196

Post by pravus »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #134
kelnos wrote: post #5

https://archive.is/rznQr We've plainly seen over the past several decades that the War on Drugs is an abject failure. All it's done is increase incarceration rates (without solving the problems of drug use and addiction), and many people caught in the system are just drug users, not distributors/traffickers. This really doesn't help much of anything. > State leaders have acknowledged faults with the policy’s implemen…

Is the war on drugs a failure in Singapore too? I mean, it is self-evidently obvious that at some level of enforcement, you can actually control the problem. The question then is whether we are willing to tolerate the level of enforcement necessary. Is the cure worse than the disease? That is a real question and a worthy one, but pretending that no tradeoff exists is just silly.

After the outrage I saw when a US citizen was caned in Singapore for a vandalism violation, I'd say no, the people here probably don't look to Singapore as a guide for enforcement.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#197

Post by anon84873628 »

runako wrote: post #176
tlogan wrote: post #121

I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in San Francisco has made me think differently. Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll s…

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults Is this true? The US consumes a lot of hard drugs, but my perception is that most users not have their lives fall apart as a result. Curious if there are estimates on the % of e.g. cocaine users who are recreational vs those who eventually end up on the street as a result of their use.

I interpret that to mean, "people who use drugs habitually" not just those who dabbled in particular contexts.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#198

Post by kasey_junk »

mtalantikite wrote: post #177
antisyzygy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're missing part of the equation there. Decriminalization isn't legalization. Legalization would mean controlling purity, and strength where the drug is licensed to be sold. Marijuana legalization hasn't lead to any major problems. People don't even bother getting it on the black market anymore where it is legal. They go for what's convenient. Beyond that simply throwing people in prison doesn't mean that w…

> People don't even bother getting it on the black market anymore where it is legal. The unlicensed weed bodegas popping up on every other block in NYC beg to differ. People might not text a delivery service anymore, but they're definitely not going to legal recreational dispensaries here in NYC.

NYC had a very peculiar roll out where they made it very difficult to get a license to sell but then didn’t do any enforcement for needing the license.

In most places that rolled out legal pot that wasn’t the case and people largely do use the legal places. The only time it’s not true is if the taxes are so bad or if there are regulations that make the quality worse that it makes the legal pot extremely uncompetitive.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#199

Post by cyberax »

rvcdbn wrote: post #165
tlogan wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand. But what is the solution? Just wait for them to all die? Here in San fransciso we have 3 overdose death per day. That is 40% spike from last years. In 2017 we had 222 overdose death for entire year and we reached that number by march 15h this year. [1] https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/2021%2005_OCME%20...

The solution that seems most likely to work IMO seems to be a European-style welfare state. All drugs have long been decriminalized in Portugal and you don’t see that kind of thing on the streets of Lisbon. But I don’t see that happening any time soon in the USA.

Portugal has not yet been fully hit with dirt-cheap fentanyl.

It IS different from other drugs.

Re: Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging

#200

Post by GeoAtreides »

tlogan wrote: post #121

I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in San Francisco has made me think differently. Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll s…

I used to strongly support people getting fat. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want.

But what I've seen in the US has made me think differently. Most people who get fat eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment.

The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll say the numbers are wrong, or focus on wedge issues like transgender, guns, but they're not going to do anything on hard issues like this one.

Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Should we make fast food illegal again and force people into rehab? Should we require weight tests for homeless people to receive government help like CAAP payments?

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