In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs • Hacker News Board

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#261

Post by pnw_hazor » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #168

grogenaut wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, but Seattle being Seattle it is not populated by the kind of people who will pack heat. That's like saying "well Austin is part of Texas so why doesn't everyone wear a cowboy hat and go hog hunting on the weekend." Both those cities are basically San Fransisco demographically speaking. And just because concealed carry legal doesn't mean the process is constructed in such a way that normal people can actually do…

WA is a shall issue state. As long as you pass the criminal background check you get a concealed pistol license.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#262

Post by thatswrong0 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #239

CPLX wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people write responses like this I wonder if they’ve ever been to New York City. We don’t really have comparable problems. For me visiting LA, SF or Seattle is jaw dropping. I totally reject this idea that these situations are just inevitable.

That's just objectively wrong. NYC has a higher homeless population both in sheer volume and per 100,000 people. So what is NYC doing to stop the growth of their homeless population beyond making it out of sight and out of mind?

If their homeless population is far less dangerous and destructive to the lives of all the other citizens that live there, then they're doing _something_ right, even if their homeless population is somewhat bigger per capita.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#263

Post by crawfordcomeaux » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

linksnapzz wrote: post #248

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your perspective promotes traumatizing systems. You are therefore a danger to yourself and society. If you are locked up as a result of this, will the reeducation take? ----------------- Thought experiment aside, you don't know what other people need and forcing your ideas onto them is how we get into these messes in the first place. Authoritarianism isn't a healing modality.

Neither is allowing schizophrenics, petty criminals and drug addicts to harm themselves and others, on the assumption that there's no such thing as normative civil behaviour. So that they might be "healed" by being left to their own devices, someone else needs to be harmed. That someone is usually the poor naive bougie who thought that by paying property taxes and having a job, he could expect to be able to retain po…

Then maybe it's time for governments to evolve because why AREN'T they being oriented toward collective and individual well-being, which would include healing?

And I never claimed leaving people to their own devices was a healing modality, either.

We need to expand the concept of responsibility to be aligned with reality. I'm at least partially responsible for everything that hapoen to me after this next breath. Same for you and yours. And I am also partially responsible for everything in happening in the world. Same for you.

Let's start from this perspective and redesign government to be something everyone can love and that is loving. Right now, it's a pretty gross construct that harms way more people in much more severe ways than drug addicts, petty criminals, and people struggling with mental issues.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#264

Post by ndarwincorn » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

stochastastic wrote: post #247

ndarwincorn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those of us still here that prefer empathy would rather you follow your 'fellow-minded' folks and just leave. 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.

Does there need to be a line drawn here? I don’t think there is a contradiction between empathy and enforcement. For example, I would really like an end to the bike and package theft and I think it is reasonable to enforce laws against it. Do you disagree?

In a perfect world, no.

In the world we live in, yes I disagree. Our criminal justice system further entrenches these problems. Before you claim that these petty crimes don't apply, the majority of folks in jail and prison are there on probation/parole violations, and these petty crimes are all jailable/revokable offenses for folks on paper.

In America, we put the already marginalized in jail and prison which only further entrenches their marginalization. Empathy means breaking that cycle.

Fear-based rhetoric around crime is not empathy. In fact, it's the exact opposite. And it's rampant in this thread.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#265

Post by derefr » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

notus wrote: post #121

awakeasleep wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing first is effective for people who want our idea of a 'normal lifestyle' I think people in this thread are asking you to question your assumption- do you think every drug addict on the west coast wants to hold down a job and live our normal life?

People don't want to be drug addicts and live a poor existence to feed a habit. They have problems, they use the drugs to medicate or fit in, the problems compound with drug use, so they use more to deal with the problems more. They are also ostracized by communities which nobody likes as we are social creatures. The level of that social exclusion probably depends a lot on their current level of wealth. People like h…

I'm pretty sure that for a lot of these people, their "dream life" would be one in which they're a productive member of society and use drugs all day, and the drugs just happen to have no negative side-effects.

People don't want to live like drug addicts; but nor do they want to stop using drugs.

To reverse the timeline of an obvious example: the people on the street addicted to heroin, would much rather just become people working regular jobs who are prescribed heroin.

These people probably they got addicted to heroin because of chronic pain, and probably that chronic pain hasn't gone away. So any time the heroin is wearing off, the pain comes back, and that decreases the amount of energy/willpower they have to do anything besides the simplest, shortest-term thing they can do to stave off the pain: buy more street heroin.

You might wean them off heroin, but you aren't gonna make them not take some painkiller, because they still have chronic pain. They'll always be "a drug addict" in a technical sense; they need painkillers the same way people with diabetes need insulin.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#266

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #198

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t this bad in the 90s or 80s, when crime was higher everywhere else. Relatively speaking, Seattle is worse off than it was before, which is a bit sad for the non transplants.

Every stat on violent crime I’ve seen is that the 80s were a peak tho?

The homeless problem wasn’t as large in the 80s, violent crime was maybe higher, but property crime seems to have been lower.

I worked at 3rd and pine McDonald’s in 94-95 (one of the main hangouts for Seattle’s homeless population back then), and downtown was a lot more sane back then. The policing was much more aggressive than it is today, which I think had a large part to do with that.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#267

Post by andrepd » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

Was Bunny Colvin ahead of his time?

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#268

Post by derefr » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

mieseratte wrote: post #142

Miner49er wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they have any mental hospitals to put him in. Locking people up in mental hospitals isn't much of a thing anymore.

Does Seattle / Washington not have anything? I live in one of those "poor Red states", and we absolutely do. I know a few folks who have been forcefully committed, though the common denominator seemed self-harm as opposed to harming passerby. Seems very odd Wilson managed to dodge both mental facilities and prisons.

I know that in Vancouver our municipal and provincial government both repeatedly chose to de-fund and close long-term mental-health care facilities, effectively dumping the patients in them onto the street. It's a large part of our current homeless population.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#269

Post by tehjoker » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

jyrkesh wrote: post #225

xenocyon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least part of the cause of the visible squalor we see in Seattle is that the tough-on-crime crowd has consistently opposed safe injection, harm reduction, trash pickup, housing-first, and other evidence-based policies in favor of expensive, inhumane, and pointless measures like sweeps and incarceration. Any measure the city government takes that is not overtly cruel gets slammed as coddling the homeless or "attrac…

I had a conversation with someone the other day who made many of the same arguments as you. I agreed with some of it--namely that around safe injection, harm reduction, methadone (et al) clinics, etc.--but I had a hard time stomaching the idea that "housing first" was a good idea, in that if you take a drug addict and put them in a home, they're still a drug addict who can't contribute meaningfully to society. Would…

I don't like the framing of this premise that you need to "contribute to society" in order to not be exposed to the elements and have a safe place to retreat. Do people working on ads contribute to society? What about middle managers of middle managers? What about the people on golf courses that basically spend money to make other people do shit for them?

Furthermore, we cannot dehumanize our fellow humans even if they use drugs. The result of such framing is vicious savagery as is seen in America, the Philippines, and other places around the world.

Re: In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

#270

Post by williamstein » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #137

tjr225 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I mean, without statistics his anecdotes are meaningless. It's a common thing to complain here in Seattle, but having lived in the Midwest for most of my life I know what true violence looks like and feels like. I don't hear guns every night like I did in KC. There aren't 600 murders a year like in Chicago. I'm not saying Seattle is perfect but I've never felt safer. And I live in the Central District, which is…

I agree, when I lived in Seattle it was just... normal. There are more homeless people than in most other places but by and large there were no issues I ran into. I saw needles a couple times and was harassed by someone who was almost certainly schizophrenic, but that happens in all medium-large cities. Although I never experienced it and don't know many people who have, I will say that property crimes need to be pro…

I live in Seattle (Central District), and was harassed by a homeless person a half hour ago, had our bike stolen last week, saw a homeless person peeing 40 feet from my house an hour ago, and had three car break-ins and one car theft in the last year. All my neighbors have very similar experiences, and the above list is far from comprehensive for the last year. It's genuinely scary and disturbing living here, and I do regularly think about moving because of the level of crime.