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In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs

nytimes.com

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

#271

Post by pnw_hazor »

phil248 wrote: post #47
koolba wrote: post #12

> “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…

What does confiscating an addict's heroin accomplish? As far as I can tell, all you've done is make a desperate addict far more desperate than they were a moment ago. The situation is only made worse.

Maybe they would move to somewhere else where they can do their drugs in broad daylight in public without cops bothering them. And where commiting crimes to support their drug habit are unchallenged.

Someplace like Seattle.

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

#272

Post by lacker »

BryantD wrote: post #227
throwaway827364 wrote: post #35

Earlier 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?

It's always amusing to me to hear people complain about taxes in Seattle. Washington State doesn't have an income tax, y'all. If you haven't figured out that a lot of the weird (and bad) city tax issues arise from that, welp.

To me all of these issues seem like the same ones San Francisco is facing, which leads me to conclude that neither lowering income taxes nor raising income taxes is likely to solve them.

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

#273

Post by [deleted] »

tjr225 wrote: post #154
lostlogin wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re minimising the throwing hot coffee in a toddlers face.

No such thing was done. You can find instances of awful stuff happening in any city- anywhere in the world. This is exactly what makes statistics useful.

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by thomasmeeks »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #147
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…

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.

I dunno, the common refrain I hear from native Seattleites is that many places -- like Fremont, Ballard, and West Seattle, were truly awful in the 80s & 90s. Usually just at the mention of where I live, which is one of those neighborhoods.

Compared to Orlando and Salt Lake City, Seattle feels about on par to me with regards to safety and the homeless problem (adjusted for the much higher population & density). Which is useless information because it is an anecdote, but the best way to bring data into a conversation is a lot of useless competing anecdotes.

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

#275

Post by linksnapzz »

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #263
linksnapzz wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That is lovely sentiment; however, I fear that I will ride a space elevator before I ever have the chance to live in regime managed for the furtherance of my and my neighbors' well-being. It's nice to dream, though.

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

#276

Post by EpicEng »

allana wrote: post #190
sbierwagen wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a comment complaining about being downvoted tends to invite more downvotes from unrelated posters.

The timing is just so interesting though! Two of my comments saw 3 downvotes in the span of a minute, the latter of which was much further down than this comment.

Amazing: A whole three downvotes! No way more than two people are reading this comment section at the same time.

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

#277

Post by pnw_hazor »

throwaway827364 wrote: post #27

This article is disingenuous at best. I don’t support the war on drugs, but Seattle’s handling of the situation isn’t close to a model for other cities. As someone who lived here all my life, it’s been a complete disaster. I’m frankly really disappointed in the NYTimes for publishing this garbage. He doesn’t go into the negatives of what the policies in Seattle has done to the city until so far later in the article.…

This morning I saw camper along I-5 with a generator. I wonder if he was a drug dealer, fence, or pimp. He had a nice setup.

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

#278

Post by Fellshard »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #73
malandrew wrote: post #55

Earlier 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...

I heard from a lot of folks in Spokane who moved out because of the city's increasingly boggling policies. They were often quite vocal about the fact that they moved and their reasons for moving; they seemed to care for their old home, but simply could not live there any longer.

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

#279

Post by thomasmeeks »

redisman wrote: post #128
nostromo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's better now than it was during the worst crime wave in American history -- the 1980s." You're not wrong, but you're also not setting a very high bar. I think it's important that cities be safe, livable places. Seattle still is, for the most part. But ask some of your younger, single female friends where they will and will not go at night, and you may be surprised that it includes a large number of neighborhoods.

I'm a married 30s man and I wouldn't go to many Seattle downtown neighborhoods at night.

I do regularly, it's fine. There are a couple specific areas I do avoid in the dead of night, but that's been true of every city I've lived in.

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

#280

Post by moate »

ericfrenkiel wrote: post #201
ianai wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“some would prefer to see the police cart drug users off to jail to get them out of the way” (article) It seems like creating housing projects for these people would be cheaper and more beneficial to society than increasing the prison population. I’d like to see something like dorms with shared restrooms, cafeterias, and such facilities. It’d create work and demand locally while keeping the streets clean.

As long as it is outside city limits, but operated as a city extension, in something like a rural environment, I think this is a great idea.

Why is removing this from the city central to your support?
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