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

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

#281

Post by joenot443 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #269

jyrkesh wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I think it's pretty obvious he didn't mean "contribute to society" in the metaphorical sense, but in the idiom which typically means "hold a job".

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

#282

Post by lacker » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #196

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'm anti-incarceration for moral reasons, but it's not clear to me that there is a definitive consensus that incarceration does not work. See: https://www.nber.org/digest/jan02/w8489.html > "Annual expenditures of approximately $10 billion on drug incarceration almost pay for themselves through reductions in health care costs and lost productivity attributable to illegal drug use, even ignoring any crime reductions a…

I'm anti-incarceration for moral reasons

There is also a middle ground, where you can think that drugs should generally be legalized, but incarcerating people for non-drug crimes is a good idea. The problem isn't really people doing drugs. It's people breaking into cars, damaging property left in public, trespassing, assaulting other people, leaving big public piles of trash, things that fall into the "harming other people" category of crime.

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

#283

Post by hsitz » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

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 moved to Seattle in 1994 and it's not clear to me that it's worse now than then. Clearly many neighborhoods are not worse, there's been a huge amount of gentrification over the 25 years I've been here. Homelessness and drug issues were big problem back then, too.

I've lived mainly on Capitol Hill and it's a safer and "nicer" place than it was back in the 90's. I had drug deals happening on corner outside my house back then, the neighborhood is great now. I also lived downtown, where Pike St. between 1st and 2nd Aves was horrendous with homelessness and drug use. Clearly much nicer now. The Central District (the other neighborhood I'm most familiar with) has also undergone huge level of gentrification since then, is much "nicer" place to live than it was in the 90's.

Yes, homelessness, and drug use and mental health issues are big problems, and I'm not sure the city has taken best approach to them. But it's easy to criticize without having better answer. The sensationalist ranting I hear sometimes in media and in personal anecdotes seems pretty misleading.

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

#284

Post by rdtwo » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

thomasmeeks wrote: post #243

npo9 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am anti housing projects. To me, creating a housing projects is like sweeping the problem under the rug. It concentrates poverty and crime into the area in/around the projects.

Seattle spreads the housing projects around the city. In fact they just opened one in the South Lake Union area last year (just behind the Neptune apartments). They replaced a parking lot with something like 10-15 sheds for housing. They are in the 100-150 sq ft range, have electricity and a shared bathroom(s). I'm a touch fuzzy on the particulars because they also erect a very tall privacy fence around the whole thi…

Not really they are still mostly concentrated in pockets because developers are allowed to buy out of building subsidized housing units

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

#285

Post by homonculus1 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

ndarwincorn wrote: post #264

stochastastic wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fu…

>the majority of folks in jail and prison are there on probation/parole violations

This is a funny way of saying they're back in prison for more serious original crimes after failing to rehabilitate during the second chance they were already given in the form of probation/parole.

Repeatedly letting criminals free to walk the streets and commit more crimes is not empathy, it is folly. Empathy is protecting the neighborhoods which aren't rich enough to be insulated from these bad actors.

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

#286

Post by kenoyer130 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #196

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'm anti-incarceration for moral reasons, but it's not clear to me that there is a definitive consensus that incarceration does not work. See: https://www.nber.org/digest/jan02/w8489.html > "Annual expenditures of approximately $10 billion on drug incarceration almost pay for themselves through reductions in health care costs and lost productivity attributable to illegal drug use, even ignoring any crime reductions a…

Freakonomics makes a case the drop in crime is directly correlated with the passing of Roe VS Wade and the legalization of abortion. This led to the 18 year later drop in unwanted male children now adults. Very interesting read on a very explosive topic :)

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

#287

Post by BryantD » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

lacker wrote: post #272

BryantD wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've lived in both those cities this decade; the results are in some cases similar, but the issues are in fact different. The thing that's similar: both cities are warm enough so that you can reasonably live on the streets year round. Boston's an intensely liberal city and nobody uses it as an example of how liberal cities always have homeless problems.

Similarly, Google "dallas homeless problem" sometime. Warm city, poor coordination of solutions for the homeless -- whoa, homeless populations are rising! But that once more does not fit the narrative, so nobody talks about it in threads like this.

(Houston is doing much better. Houston, unlike Seattle, has put a priority on coordinating efforts to help homeless. HUH.)

That said you're right -- it's not just about taxes. Seattle is low on revenue, but that's only part of why the city has failed to produce a coordinated response to homelessness. Bad organizational skills are not restricted to the right or the left, though.

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

#288

Post by fwip » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

TheHypnotist wrote: post #250

just_lurkin wrote: post #17

The reporters designation of "figured out" seems to stem more from the fact that the solution fits his own view than any actual real evidence. There is mention of the difficulties such lax policies has brought to the city, but they are waved away as being "growing pains" toward a new utopia. I can't say, living here, that I feel that the problem is solved. I view the needles outside my apartment as evidence to the co…

When I was out there last fall, we stayed in Belltown and walked all over. I'm wondering, where was all this squalor you speak of? I came out with a very different impression of the city than you describe. Obviously you would know better, so I'm just wondering, did I get lucky?

I live in Seattle and take the bus to work downtown every day. I think I've seen, maybe three needles in five years.

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

#289

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

CPLX wrote: post #98

empath75 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say things like this, I do have to wonder if they've ever lived in a city before. Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s. There is just a certain amount of crime and drug use that will always exist in the big city. No amount of 'tough on crime' policing will make it go away.

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.

Yeah, because it gets cold in the winter in NY. Simple as that. You can't support the year round homeless population like the west coast.

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

#290

Post by joenot443 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #98

empath75 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say things like this, I do have to wonder if they've ever lived in a city before. Seattle's crime rate, like most American cities, has been steadily declining since the 1980s. There is just a certain amount of crime and drug use that will always exist in the big city. No amount of 'tough on crime' policing will make it go away.

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.

I feel the same way about Toronto. Over triple the population of SF or Seattle, yet the problems I see described in this article are almost unthinkable here.