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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

#441

Post by pas »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #195
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the war on drugs a failure in Singapore too? I mean, it is self-evidently obvious that at some level of enforcement, you can actually control the problem. The question then is whether we are willing to tolerate the level of enforcement necessary. Is the cure worse than the disease? That is a real question and a worthy one, but pretending that no tradeoff exists is just silly.

> The question then is whether we are willing to tolerate the level of enforcement necessary. I think the question is how do we make prisons less cruel and dangerous, and lower recidivism. Of course there is a backlash against enforcement when the solution is locking people in cages.

obviously by spending money on it. but the US in general is vehemently against doing that.

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

#442

Post by amanaplanacanal »

FredPret wrote: post #340
toomim wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving drunk is illegal because you're likely to kill someone, and then it'll be too late to say "let's just prosecute the crime of manslaughter, and not prevent future manslaughters by prosecuting drunkenness in the car." In the same way, we should make it illegal to do drugs in situations where you are likely to cause irreparable harm. If we legalize drugs, let's create safe situations to do so. Many drugs are bei…

There’s no safe way to consume a substance that rewires your lizard brain to seek more of it

Yet somehow most people are not alcoholics. So evidently it can be done.

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

#444

Post by lacy_tinpot »

mock-possum wrote: post #277
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…

Is it really ‘most people’ that end up that way though? Or are those people simply the most visible? I mean, how can you tell if someone is a functional user - you can’t, they look just everybody else, you know? It’s not about the substances themselves, it’s the way that they’re used - and abused. It’s helplessness in the face of addiction that’s the problem - addiction will drive the afflicted to trade the rest of t…

I think the main problem is that we lack the other side of this equation. Namely that we don't have an avenue for addicts or even "functional users" to go to when things get tough. No way to prevent their addiction. No way to take these people in and actually really rehabilitate them into society.

Instead we throw these people into jail. And if even that gets too burdensome we let people rot in the streets. So yes. Decriminalize addiction because addiction is NOT a crime. It is an illness.

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

#445

Post by yodog »

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…

[dead]

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

#446

Post by simonh »

What was done in Oregon, based on the successful policy in Portugal, was decriminalising use and possession of very small quantities. Distribution and sale are still just as illegal as before.

Basically I think this is the right approach. Drug use at low levels in endemic. I don't think it makes sense for huge swathes of otherwise law abiding citizens to be technically criminals. It ends up with grossly distorted demographic distributions of those that suffer legal consequences in deeply unfair ways. Criminalisation on use also aligns the interests of users with those of dealers, where differences in criminal liability help drive a wedge between them.

The 3 year old policy in Oregon looks like it was fumbled. They didn’t put in place essential social and health care support services that a policy like this relies on for 2 years. Portugal has a national health care service, so a co-ordinated approach seems like it was far easier to implement and co-ordinate. Still, Oregon seems to have made much needed improvements in this area.

Policies like this are not silver bullets. Drug abuse is a severe issue with deep roots in individual lives and society, and manifests differently in different societies. I hope Oregon sticks with it and works on trying to get this policy to work, and tailor their response to their needs. 50 years of the war on drugs has failed utterly, let’s give an alternative a chance.

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

#448

Post by jiggyjace »

> “We’re building the plane as we fly it,” Haven Wheelock, a program supervisor at a homeless-services provider in Portland who helped put Measure 110 on the ballot, told me. “We tried the War on Drugs for 50 years, and it didn’t work … It hurts my heart every time someone says we need to repeal this before we even give it a chance.”

Saying this is not the logical conclusion one might think it is. It's not a problem where there are only two solutions.

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

#450

Post by ars »

svnt wrote: post #260
mcphage wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big mistake California (and other Leftist faux-topias) made was decriminalizing THEFT, ASSAULT, smoking and shooting on BART, smoking and shooting in public parks, smoking and shooting on sidewalks in front of residences Not being from California—when/how did they do that?

They didn’t, but the police force stopped enforcing those laws, generally in response to defunding or threats of defunding. The police forces in these cities are in the majority comprised of individuals who live outside of the city and commute to perform enforcement in an area they don’t want to live in. This is the difference that never translated between the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter/Thin Blue Line g…

> generally in response to defunding or threats of defunding.

No, it's in response to the DA not prosecuting - what's the point of arresting if nothing happens afterward?

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