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

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

#381

Post by ClumsyPilot » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #256

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…

I've heard that it's not legal to force people into rehab. But I can't see why this can't be done under something like the Baker Act. If you're physically addicted to drugs, you are to some extent not capable of making rational choices, and this means you are a threat to yourself and to those around you. Could this not be a legal pretext to detain someone (humanely) and bring them to rehab treatment? Seems like a bet…

I think you are in the right morally, and legislative position is not relevant - it should be based on morals. Various countries have/had absurd laws, such as making it illegal to insult the supreme leader, suicide is illegal, and having legal slavery, heresy, the list goes on and on. Today we regard those laws as stupid and cruel, and hopefully one day we will regard persecution of addicts with the same incredulity as we regard witch-hunts

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

#382

Post by shshehe » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

ndarwincorn wrote: post #320

homonculus1 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My empathy is reserved for victims. I don't see how siding with antisocial actors and taking a permissive stance on crime is supposed to improve society. I literally can't understand the mindset of such a belief other by applying hipster contrarianism to morality.

My empathy is reserved for victims of the prison industrial complex (that includes your concept of victims, btw). I do see how your sort of hardline dehumanization of undesirables...sorry, 'tough on crime'...approach in the latter half of the 20th century has resulted in many of the problems being discussed in this thread. I'm a felon that committed a crime and violated my probation a year after my original sentencin…

Maybe you should have remained in prison? Maybe the problem w the justice system is people like you can pervert it with money.

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

#383

Post by ndarwincorn » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:23 PM UTC

shshehe wrote: post #382

ndarwincorn wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My empathy is reserved for victims of the prison industrial complex (that includes your concept of victims, btw). I do see how your sort of hardline dehumanization of undesirables...sorry, 'tough on crime'...approach in the latter half of the 20th century has resulted in many of the problems being discussed in this thread. I'm a felon that committed a crime and violated my probation a year after my original sentencin…

Maybe you should have remained in prison? Maybe the problem w the justice system is people like you can pervert it with money.

That was 10 years ago but by all means prove my point about empathy.

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

#384

Post by rdtwo » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #371

rayiner wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think the solution is transforming a segment of incarceration into medical help, or expanding medical conservatorship. If you smell like crap and can't sustain a life because of drug addictions or mental illness, and your behavior causes problems for society, you need to be helped, and maybe against your will. The vast majority of homeless are actually not visible and look like and act like normal people. They ofte…

Respectfully disagree. The invisible homeless need the most help because they could really benefit and return to society for not that much cost. The visible homeless are mostly addicts and mentally ill that are too far gone to be anything more than contained.

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

#385

Post by rdtwo » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #183

rayiner wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting people always point to Portugal to support the idea that decriminalization is the way to address substance abuse. But compare Sweden, which has similar levels of drug dependency to Portugal, but takes a "zero tolerance" approach to drug use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Sweden . While Sweden does include treatment as part of its drug policy, that is a complement to, not replacement fo…

> According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), in 2005, the rate of drug-related deaths per capita in Sweden was more than twice that of the Netherlands and there were more persons addicted to severe narcotics ("heavy drugs") than in other countries It doesn't seem to be working that well, does it?

Is drug related death really the right stat to use? Seems like it doesn’t tell the whole story.

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

#386

Post by stevenicr » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

chrisdhoover wrote: post #237

allana wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The severe wealth stratification that has occurred over the last few decades has left the majority of Americans facing a grim future of low earnings and unstable employment. Its easy to see how that would make many people depressed and lead to a cycle of addiction to escape this crappy reality.

Bollocks, overall more people are rising out of poverty

Are you referring to the global overall rise out of poverty? or specifically the 'west coast cities' as were mentioned higher up in the thread?

Either way, from what I've been witnessing, as the commenter above yours was saying - but in a more specific way, is that many people who once had a fair amount of discretionary spending ability have seen that money sucked up into higher rents and needs for broadband - having more needs for kids and slightly higher expenses for many things all around... it appears that saving to do big things is not an option.

all the while seeing people on instagram living best lives of travel and decadence, many people can't even afford to make healthy choices for food - that once could.

More and more people who were above poverty are finding the higher rents and other expenses taking them into debt with no good way out - more and more people are getting unbanked by fees, and leaning on pawn shops / family and friends to skirt by getting power and water turned back on.

Sometimes they climb back up out of this, but I think more and more people are just simply going without. Going without dental care and healthy food. Skipping meals. There appears to be a bunch of people using dating apps to get free food.

Just that reality is hitting people - and if they can an unexptected larger expense - they are over the edge.

I don't think we have good statistics to show all this. It may seem that poverty is being reduced, and I saw a meme saying the avg household has gained 5k per year lately.. but that's not enough to take care of the basics for most people I see around our growing city that is not on the west coast.

I hear that things like this are even worse elsewhere.

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

#387

Post by rdtwo » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

williamstein wrote: post #270

opportune wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Shoreline,Bellevue woodinville and Redmond all good places to move.

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

#388

Post by blackflame7000 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

One has to wonder if the softening of the public stance on drug use is leading to more drug users which are leading to more homelessness.

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

#389

Post by tryitnow » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

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…

Interesting. Some of the benefits of decriminalizing can probably only be realized if it's done as a national level, so I'm pretty skeptical of just how successful local initiatives can be.

I wonder how Portugal achieved such supposed success in decriminalizing drug use.

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

#390

Post by blackflame7000 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

xenocyon wrote: post #173

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…

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…

What data are you talking about? Because there sure is a strong correlation between drug use and homelessness. While I think it's insane to punish people for ingesting substances that might harm them, I still don't think we should just look the other way and silently condone its use when it's actively destroying people's lives.