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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

#41

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kelnos wrote: post #18
lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible the probability of success of treating the use of certain brain altering chemicals is untenably low, even if treatment was "properly" funded?

I don't think so. Portugal was famously very successful at drug decriminalization, at least until they slashed funding to rehabilitation programs. If you have data that suggests some drugs just make rehabilitation impossible or unlikely, I'd be interested to see it, though.

> Portugal was famously very successful at drug decriminalization

It isn't that famously successful at all, at least in Portugal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-dru...

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

#42

Post by akira2501 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #32
kelnos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's exactly true. I do agree with you that some people will start using because they lose the fear of being caught, though I'm not convinced this is as large a problem as you might think it is. Either way, there are also undoubtedly people with substance abuse problems who are afraid to get help due to the possibility of incarceration. Removing that fear can lead to more people getting into treatment…

> Either way, there are also undoubtedly people with substance abuse problems who are afraid to get help due to the possibility of incarceration. Removing that fear can lead to more people getting into treatment programs. There are also people that only get help due to the threat of incarceration (e.g. the judge says go to drug treatment or go to jail). Removing that fear can lead to more people not getting into trea…

"We might have to operate in a cruel and unusual fashion, otherwise, some users might not actually be afraid enough of violence from the state to get help."

This is an unfortunate binary we've backed ourselves into. I can imagine tons of other methods the state could use to drive compliance other than outright incarceration and the threat of entirely destroying your life.

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

#43

Post by wonderwonder »

01100011 wrote: post #40
wonderwonder wrote: post #36

If you decriminalize hard drugs, all that happens is that addicts stay addicts, have a higher likely hood of becoming homeless and higher chance of dying. Hard drugs for the most part outside of controlled environments have almost no positive qualities. Drugs like cannabis have medical attributes and can provide benefits. People addicted to hard drugs require treatment, leaving them to their own devices is likely to…

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…

Fair point. This I think goes along with the idea of a functional alcoholic. People can be functional and fine for a very long time, until they aren't. This likely has less affect on the community during their 'functional' phase. I am for the most part against public use and intoxication.

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

#44

Post by TylerE »

Demotooodo wrote: post #35
Alupis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> though I'm not convinced this is as large a problem as you might think it is Several states have legalized marijuana, and surprise, marijuana usage is at an all-time high (no pun intended). People who would have never tried it before now do so because the stigma is gone, and it's trivial to get. This part is always lost on the "legalize everything" crowd. While marijuana might be relatively benign, other drugs are…

It's a novelty right now. In Amsterdam when you go to a music festival you will not see a lot of pod heads. I was one of the few and I'm a German! Look at Portugals drug history. Legalization saved that country!

How do you see wether someone has eaten edibles?

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

#46

Post by api »

wonderwonder wrote: post #36

If you decriminalize hard drugs, all that happens is that addicts stay addicts, have a higher likely hood of becoming homeless and higher chance of dying. Hard drugs for the most part outside of controlled environments have almost no positive qualities. Drugs like cannabis have medical attributes and can provide benefits. People addicted to hard drugs require treatment, leaving them to their own devices is likely to…

My take is that we're going from a criminalization based "screw them, warehouse them in jail and ruin their lives with felony convictions" policy to a laissez-faire "screw them, let them die on the street" policy.

The part that hasn't changed is "screw them." Nobody really cares about these people. They're viewed as an inconvenience and the debate is over the least costly way to either warehouse them or shove them aside somewhere. Most people view addiction as a moral failing and think addicts deserve whatever they get.

I've never been in favor of drug criminalization except possibly in the case of the most addictive and deadly hard drugs (crystal meth, fentanyl, concentrated opiates), but I always hoped that legalization would come with a redirection of funding from prisons and police into treatment. The latter part just isn't happening, or isn't happening with any effectiveness. My take is that nobody gives a damn and decriminalization is more about saving money than freedom or better treatment approaches.

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

#47

Post by kepler1 »

I maintain now (as I did when Measure 110 passed in Oregon, and in the discussions here in HN) that decriminalizing drugs would lead the state, and especially Portland of course, to a terrible and predictable outcome. Many supporters of the measure believed that it was the objectively right choice. Decriminalize, and get people to treatment instead of locking them up.

The sad thing is that you can make all the piecewise-correct A/B choices yet still end up having destroyed your city.

Yes, giving someone a ticket for using drugs and offering them treatment instead of locking them up might be temporarily more productive / more sensible. Yes, maybe it makes sense to put more resources to mental health.

Yet one day, you wake up and your city is unlivable and your block is terrorized by drug addicts.

Somehow, people forgot that once in a while there is a legitimate role for hard authority to punish people for doing things you don't want them to do. Lest your society go down some lawless path which step by step looked like the kind and charitable course to follow.

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

#48

Post by RyanAdamas »

A lot of these drugs are used to get people into the sex trade; once you get someone on drugs to do things with/to their body they otherwise wouldn't the cycle of shame begins that often traps these people in the escape through drug induced pleasure. Just the sad truth.

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

#49

Post by schnable »

kelnos wrote: post #16
j_walter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly they had the best of intentions, but Oregon's politicians are terrible at implementing anything properly. Open drug markets, increased property and retail thefts and a homeless population explosion are what happened...when They always claimed to follow other successful implementations like Portugal, but the law was no where near what they implemented as far as requiring treatment. Whats funny is the Governor…

That's fair, and certainly a problem, but I don't think the solution is "let's just go back to throwing everyone in jail". We know from long experience that isn't working.

I don't know the specifics in Oregon, but in many places (especially bigger cities) that stopped prosecuting drugs and prostitution, "throwing everyone in jail" was not the previous scenario. People were arrested then put into diversionary programs that were enforced by the courts. It worked much better than just letting people stay on the streets as the process acted as a wake up call for many (of course, not all).

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

#50

Post by mrbabbage »

Alupis wrote: post #28
kelnos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's exactly true. I do agree with you that some people will start using because they lose the fear of being caught, though I'm not convinced this is as large a problem as you might think it is. Either way, there are also undoubtedly people with substance abuse problems who are afraid to get help due to the possibility of incarceration. Removing that fear can lead to more people getting into treatment…

> though I'm not convinced this is as large a problem as you might think it is Several states have legalized marijuana, and surprise, marijuana usage is at an all-time high (no pun intended). People who would have never tried it before now do so because the stigma is gone, and it's trivial to get. This part is always lost on the "legalize everything" crowd. While marijuana might be relatively benign, other drugs are…

> We can see this in-action already. Places like California have effectively de-criminalized most/all drug use if you are part of the homeless population. Surprise again - there's more drug use within that community than ever before. It's difficult to walk through the down-town area without seeing overt drug use these-days.

Is this unique to CA? The street level suffering you see in CA cities is overwhelmingly related to fentanyl, an opioid. Infamously, the US is in the midst of the opioid crisis, with deaths continuing to rise unabated [1]. Places with harsher drug policing are also seeing rises in opioid deaths.

And while San Francisco is a top location for opioid deaths, the other top counties by death rates (Mendocino, Trinity, Alpine, Lake, Inyo, Humboldt, Nevada) are all very rural [2].

[1] https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...

[2] https://skylab.cdph.ca.gov/ODdash/?tab=CA

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