401–410 of 660 posts
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Trust me, you can't buy drugs from those guys What I don't get about this: most people seem to know (think?) this. So you'd think these guys have no income at all because no-one is trusting them so no-one buys from them. Yet after decades they're still there, in a lot of cities. So there must be something which works in this system. I find it hard to believe they survive off the occasional sell to a tourist. I mean,…
It's not occasional. They sell a lot. There is a lot of gullible people in this world and an endless supply of fresh tourists or kids from other towns landing in Lisbon everyday. They only need to scam 1 person a day to make 50€. That's more than most Portuguese earn per day. They scammed me when I was a kid (I wanted weed). Don't you think I know what I'm talking about? You can buy drugs is Lisbon of course but real…
Talk about burying the lede, 11 years ago they privatized their drug oversight operation and cut funding by over 80%. Gee, I wonder if that could have an impact? > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by th…
Anyone who thinks funding rehab centers and getting homeless drug addicts into free apartment units are people who have never been around homeless drug addicts. There may be some wonderful examples of this working but 99.8% of the people you will encounter on your commute are not about to participate in rehab, and if you ask them they will give you a history of apartments and homes they've been asked to leave due to…
Honest question: Why are mental issues so prevalent in USA? Temptative hypothesis 1: People have less roots than in Europe, so they don’t belong somewhere, and have weak ties with close family and no ties with extended family, so they move, and when they fall off their life, there is no social safety net? Temptative hypothesis 2: Americans classify any bad mood as a mental issue? Temptative 3: Medical aid is too expe…
> Amsterdam — a city long famous for its pot cafes — last month instituted a new ban on smoking marijuana in public places. I'd love this for NYC. I'm getting pretty sick of smelling weed all day on the streets.
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Tent cities don't exist solely in places without access to housing "Access to housing" isn't enough. You might have "access" to health care but unable to afford it. You need housing as a right - even without payment - alongside enough adequate housing for everyone. And allow folks to do things in their own home. If they cannot do it at their home with other people, the person in question does not have adequate housin…
"And that last bit - about a death sentence? That is only for a few addicts. A subset of addicts die." Not only that, but most drug users aren't addicts. To the general public, when they hear the words "drug user" they immediately equate that with "addict", and many can't even imagine that people could use drugs and not get addicted. But that's not true, as addicts are a small minority of drug users. Drug policy affe…
Do you have any reliable data to back up that claim? In my experience users who purport to not be addicts are indeed addicts in massive denial about their poor choices.
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> and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence. sounds very plausible, where is the fallacy?
It's easy to find fallacies if you think about it. For example I could say the opposite > giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is the key that unlocks recovery I've constructed my argument identically and provided the same amount of evidence for my position. When you compare both positions side by side, I think you can easily see that neither is valuable. They are both opinions being presented as facts (begging the q…
Talk about burying the lede, 11 years ago they privatized their drug oversight operation and cut funding by over 80%. Gee, I wonder if that could have an impact? > After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by th…
Good point. Does anyone know how Norway has handled drugs and homelessness? The reason I ask is that we should probably compare funding and outcomes between Portugal and Norway, no? Two things are needed to change human behavior: 1. A strong deterrent 2. An equally strong support system (ie. Healthcare, housing, food, basic income) You can’t do both of these without a strong financial investment unless… You’re Singap…