Oregon decriminalized hard drugs – early results aren’t encouraging • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by thehappypm » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

mdgrech23 wrote: post #387

michaelteter wrote: post #342

I don't even have to read the article. The US military is, if anything, serious about understanding cause and effect. They studied and learned about drug addiction during and after the Viet Nam war. What they found might seem counterintuitive. Addicted soldiers could break the habit easily once they returned home. Of course this is an oversimplification, but the idea is that circumstance has a lot to do with behavior…

There was also a pretty famous study w/ mice I believe. One of them had a good world w/ plenty of food, plenty of toys to play with and ample people to hang out with and have sex with. They had two feeding tubes, one contained drugs and other didn't. The mouse repeatedly took the drug free version. Then they created a shit mouse world. I think it was just overcrowded and didn't have any toys or that shit they borrow…

This study has been widely debunked as junk science

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

#392

Post by KnobbleMcKnees » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

anon84873628 wrote: post #197

runako wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults Is this true? The US consumes a lot of hard drugs, but my perception is that most users not have their lives fall apart as a result. Curious if there are estimates on the % of e.g. cocaine users who are recreational vs those who eventually end up on the street as a result of their use.

I interpret that to mean, "people who use drugs habitually" not just those who dabbled in particular contexts.

I'm sure someone will turn up with evidence to support this any moment now

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

#393

Post by thehappypm » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #296

ecshafer wrote: post #149

Supporting legalization / decriminalization of hard drugs is a luxury belief. If you’re in a nice rich circle it’s easy to believe it doesn’t harm anyone except yourself. If you are around people that become drug addicts, it becomes apparent that it drastically harms everyone around them, themselves probably not the most. You can only see so many addict parents throw away the money for kids food, or pawn of their kid…

Delusional. The drug that kills and ruins most lives on the planet is alcohol followed by food (diabetes). And the abuse of alcohol and food has the same root that drug abuse does: mental health and education. And let's not even start talking about the damage of legal drugs (medicines) on society at all age tiers.

Interesting that junk food and alcohol are legal and the most heavily abused

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

#394

Post by HideousKojima » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

michaelteter wrote: post #384

plantwallshoe wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, in Vietnam soldiers could use with relative impunity. In the US they would be jailed or socially ostracized. The circumstances changed such that there were serious consequences for doing drugs, and many were able to get off them when presented with consequences. Removing consequences for antisocial levels of drug use does nothing to encourage people to get clean.

Not at all, at least not from what I read a few years ago about this. The war situation there was frankly unfathomable to us privileged folk. Beside the obvious physical pain and injuries there were psychological influences which are normally so far removed from our lives that we cannot deal with them. Drugs are an escape from the physical injuries and pain, and then they turn out to be an escape from the mental awar…

>Shooting at other humans, killing them, is not something we are designed psychologically to handle. But obviously if you feel you must kill another to avoid being killed, you may do it. And then your mind must reconcile that memory. Drugs can help you avoid it.

The vast majority of soldiers in Vietnam (and in any modern war) don't kill anyone at all, and don't get into firefights. Modern armies are basically 90%+ logistics. Drug abuse was spread throughout all roles in the military in Vietnam, it wasn't exclusive to combat roles.

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

#395

Post by idiotsecant » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

plantwallshoe wrote: post #363

michaelteter wrote: post #342

I don't even have to read the article. The US military is, if anything, serious about understanding cause and effect. They studied and learned about drug addiction during and after the Viet Nam war. What they found might seem counterintuitive. Addicted soldiers could break the habit easily once they returned home. Of course this is an oversimplification, but the idea is that circumstance has a lot to do with behavior…

Right, in Vietnam soldiers could use with relative impunity. In the US they would be jailed or socially ostracized. The circumstances changed such that there were serious consequences for doing drugs, and many were able to get off them when presented with consequences. Removing consequences for antisocial levels of drug use does nothing to encourage people to get clean.

Your partially stated assumption here is that soldiers stopped using drugs because of the punishments. I think this is a case of post hoc fallacy. Yes, punishments create a disincentive for some behavior, but only in the case of rational actors who have the means to act on that motive. Some soldiers who left Vietnam had the necessary support systems to overcome addiction or were never addicted in the first place or weren't in an environment where those drugs were available at home. Others did not and stayed addicted, even when they came home. Heavy penalties don't necessarily cause a proportionally smaller addiction problem. They just punish heavier. The only rational path to reducing drug addiction is to improve the conditions that cause drug addictions. Very few people become drug addicts for no reason.

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

#396

Post by antisyzygy » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

adamredwoods wrote: post #151

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…

>> 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. This is actually bigger than people realize. Fentanyl lacing is a MASSIVE problem. With purity, people can rely that there's no fentanyl. https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html https://www.colorado.edu/health/blog/fentanyl https://…

Yeah for sure. That's pretty much what I was thinking about.

There are a ton of accidental overdoses because of black market opiates being laced with fentanyl.

If there were legal opiate shops, government regulated, you wouldn't have to worry about that. They could even control how much you can buy and what strength it is to ensure overdoses are rare.

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

#397

Post by downvotetruth » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

FormerBandmate wrote: post #299

downvotetruth wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to strongly support people getting guns. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in the US has made me think differently. Most people who get guns 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 say the…

Legal guns do way less damage than drugs by a long shot. Even illegal guns kill less people, and you don’t solve illegal guns by banning guns, the millions of illegal guns aren’t going to turn in themselves We do need gun control but it is an absurdly tiny issue compared to drugs. Barely anyone dies in mass shootings with legally purchased guns, it’s up there with lightning strikes

Drugs do way less damage than cancer by a long shot. Even illegal drugs kill less people, and you don’t solve illegal drugs by banning drugs, the millions of illegal drugs aren’t going to turn in themselves

We do need drug control but it is an absurdly tiny issue compared to cancer. Barely anyone dies in mass overdoses with legally purchased drugs, it’s up there with lightning strikes

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

#398

Post by darkclouds » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 10:04 PM UTC

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…

> And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment.

I trust health experts as much as the Nasa scientists who lost contact with voyager2 and the nasa scientists are working under much less pressure than an ER room!

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

#399

Post by taeric » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

thehappypm wrote: post #391

mdgrech23 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was also a pretty famous study w/ mice I believe. One of them had a good world w/ plenty of food, plenty of toys to play with and ample people to hang out with and have sex with. They had two feeding tubes, one contained drugs and other didn't. The mouse repeatedly took the drug free version. Then they created a shit mouse world. I think it was just overcrowded and didn't have any toys or that shit they borrow…

This study has been widely debunked as junk science

To help others that may be looking, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park is a good read on it.

Calling it junk science is probably overly stated. Seems the largest confounding fact is that different strains of rats have different propensities to addictions. I can see why that would be a scary thing to look at in humans.

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

#400

Post by antisyzygy » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #294

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…

> 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. This is actually really not true at all, and it's important to be honest about the reality. First, in many places where weed is now legal, black markets have continued to thrive because there are high taxes on legal weed, and thus black market we…

Eh I don't know. I would guess in some States that implemented dumb policies it could be the case.

WA and CO are where my experience was. The product is more often than not cheaper than the black market prices were.

It was pretty common for a black market eighth to cost 40-80 dollars, and you're looking at 20-60 dollars for legal stuff now even with taxes. It's a bit more expensive in WA but I'd say comparable to black market prices.

That's not even to mention the convenience aspect. You can buy a joint that will last a moderate user all evening for like 5 dollars. No need to roll it yourself and all that.