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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

#271

Post by janalsncm »

Expecting legalization to fix drug-related social issues was never realistic. What it does fix is mass incarceration of people who are ill.

So you need to compare the effects of legalization with the effects of criminalization. First order effects might seem bad: more drug users in public, more crime. But you also don’t see the drug users who weren’t imprisoned and were able to get help and turn their lives around.

What Oregon tells me is that deinstitutionalization doesn’t work. You can’t just kick drug users to the streets and expect that to fix the problem. Sick people need help.

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

#272

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

dmode wrote: post #223
brightlancer wrote: post #186

Rubbish. Folks made the exact same arguments about alcohol and marijuana. Specifically with alcohol, anyone can walk into a treatment center without fear that they'll be arrested for the mere _use_ of a substance. (Marijuana has very low risk and rates of addiction, physical or psychological.) If "hard" drugs are legalized, then they will likely be treated the same as alcohol and pot and tobacco: highly regulated, so…

But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ? And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl. To get to a comparable state with alcohol, you would have to drink copious amount, but then you are more likely to be passed out than exhibit violent behavior. I agree with y…

> But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ?

Every one of them does. Except triggering schizophrenia maybe, which is barely comforting.

> And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl.

But you're replying to a comment about pot, thereby shifting some goalposts.

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

#273

Post by buttercraft »

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.

Maybe you just don't notice the ones who live like normal adults because... they live like normal adults.

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

#274

Post by anon84873628 »

setr wrote: post #251
darth_avocado wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would be better if the drugs were cheaper and safer. Drugs are never going to be safer. If FDA approved painkillers can get you addicted, I am not sure how much safer can Fentanyl get. And making them cheaper is only going to create more problems. Prohibition doesn’t prevent people from accessing drugs. But that doesn’t mean we make it easily accessible. Theft is illegal, but it doesn’t stop people from stealing. T…

Safer drugs is usually referring to not getting drugs cut with other unknown shit. A common scenario is heroin from dealer A being mixed, then you switch to dealer B and get it pure (or at least more so) but not knowing that, you take the same dosage and overdose

Yes, exactly.

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

#275

Post by lampshades »

I support decriminalizing/legalizing hard drugs. But you need to have the force to quickly and harshly deal with crime that it causes.

I keep hearing of people on the west coast committing small crimes constantly and being let out. We can't blame it all on the drugs, people still need to be required to act responsible. Right now we're letting people become junkies on the street and not even doing anything when they rob all the stores.

Make robbing the fucking store illegal, not doing drugs.

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

#276

Post by wonderwonder »

brightlancer wrote: post #246
01100011 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be that HN guy who nitpicks an otherwise spot-on comment, but anyway... One correction: many opiate users, yes, even heroin users, can be functional members of society. There are many folks you would never know use H, at least until they accidentally get some fentanyl and die. Same thing with meth(which is actually a prescription medication). I'll say that there is always a very high probability that some l…

To add, I've known many folks who were infrequent users of cocaine, about once or twice a year during holidays or parties or the like. I also knew one person who worked in finance and EVERYONE did coke; he wasn't addicted and stopped using when he switched fields (he hated the 80h weeks). These anecdotes contrasted heavily with my experience in the Bronx in the 80s, where drug users were overwhelmingly drug abusers a…

It is very possible to use hard drugs and not be addicted . I used to use cocaine socially before kids but I think back and really no positives. Going to bars and in and out of bathrooms in groups. Was really just asking to get arrested for possession. Problem with drugs like that is you think you are invincible but really at least in my case I was just being stupid and lucky.

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

#277

Post by mock-possum »

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…

Is it really ‘most people’ that end up that way though?

Or are those people simply the most visible?

I mean, how can you tell if someone is a functional user - you can’t, they look just everybody else, you know?

It’s not about the substances themselves, it’s the way that they’re used - and abused. It’s helplessness in the face of addiction that’s the problem - addiction will drive the afflicted to trade the rest of their life to get a fix.

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

#278

Post by anon84873628 »

toomim wrote: post #255
anon84873628 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not true. If that were true, then decriminalization wouldn't be making them easier to access. But since drugs have been decriminalized, they have gotten much easier to access. There are open-air drug markets in SF and Portland. You can walk through and say "fent?" and get offers to sell right there. You couldn't do that 10 years ago.

10 years ago you could do that in many places across the country.

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

#279

Post by seadan83 »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #179
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…

> Decriminalization actually would mean you see more of them out on the streets because they're not being locked away in prison. Decriminalization means the government cannot mandate people enter treatment. If people are out on the street and addicted, the government needs some teeth so they can treat even those that are in denial.

Mandating treatment gets people into treatment, it does not mean they are treated.

Detox centers (AKA treatment) are myopic, they get you detoxed but kick you back out to your shitty life that made you do drugs in the first place. Follow up is needed to make sure people can re-establish connections with their community and not feel alone and trapped.

> the government needs some teeth so they can treat even those that are in denial.

You cannot 'treat' those people. Nobody can un-addict the drug addict except the drug-addict themselves. Others can support, but the hard work has to come from the person them-self.

What's more, current day we have many prison sentences that are effectively "go to treatment, do 30 days of parole - or go to jail." The effectiveness of this kind of treatment AFAIK is tantamount to a joke. So, the mandated treatment is kinda already what is happening and it's ineffective.

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

#280

Post by brightlancer »

stcroixx wrote: post #237
mcphage wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big mistake California (and other Leftist faux-topias) made was decriminalizing THEFT, ASSAULT, smoking and shooting on BART, smoking and shooting in public parks, smoking and shooting on sidewalks in front of residences Not being from California—when/how did they do that?

It was this way when I first came to the Bay Area around 2008. Police simply ignore all of these criminal behaviors. They know the DA is not interested in prosecuting. It’s shocking at first. I came from a city where none of that is tolerated.

> They know the DA is not interested in prosecuting.

I think this was the biggest issue.

Cops have done (and will do) some abusive stuff, but IME the west coast was more driven by DAs refusing the prosecute.

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