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Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

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Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#481

Post by mensetmanusman »

throwaway77384 wrote: post #228
izacus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the american propaganda for ineffective War on Drugs needs to continue.

Yup, fictitious enemies are always needed to keep the machine running. Terrorists, gays, foreigners, trans people, drugs. So long as people think that these are the problems in society (and not, say, billionaires) the government can keep creating ineffective policies to "fix" these problems (even though they haven't for god knows how many hundreds of years) and people lap it up.

You should have added billionaires to your list then.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#482

Post by [deleted] »

K0balt wrote: post #371
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs. Honestly, if a person isn’t up for it, we need to stop trying to convince them to stay around and be miserable. Elective suicide should be a basic right, and drugs are one way out. We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want hep. Criminaliz…

[deleted]

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#483

Post by heresie-dabord »

d1l wrote: post #383
boredumb wrote: post #354

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…

Yeah I've seen the destruction that comes from removing legal/social consequences for drug abuse. Neglected and abandoned children is by far the most tragic. The community of non-addicts bears the responsibility for cleaning up the destruction, the addicts themselves cannot. That's the nature of addiction. To be clear I'm talking about the hard drugs; opiates, cocaine, meth. I believe addiction is a disease, but trea…

> I believe addiction is a disease, but treatment is elusive.

Treatment is elusive because it isn't possible in the traditional sense.

The phenomenon is the exploitation of two things: the vulnerability of humans to chemicals, and the inability of communities to protect their free spaces from the outcomes of humans abusing chemicals.

Free spaces are a sacrifice zone. Legalisation of addictive drugs, at scale, will destroy what we value as community.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#484

Post by [deleted] »

softsound wrote: post #479
K0balt wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs. Honestly, if a person isn’t up for it, we need to stop trying to convince them to stay around and be miserable. Elective suicide should be a basic right, and drugs are one way out. We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want hep. Criminaliz…

With new diabetes drugs coming out they found them to have anti-addiction properties from food, smoking to shopping addiction, etc. You might say all these people don't want help but what if we just started putting them on anti-addiction drugs in the future? It could change their whole life, my diabetic mom now also has one of those stickers that tells her when her blood sugar gets too high and now she feels guilty w…

[deleted]

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#485

Post by kumarvvr »

pas wrote: post #320
kumarvvr wrote: post #284

Who would have thought mind altering, addictive substances available legally would lead to degeneration in society and transform productive people into high seeking bums ?

Caffeine and alcohol both available legally, both are mind altering and addictive. Did that lead to a degeneration? How come they transform some but not all people into bums? Is it like a virus, some are immune? Does the data for alcohol-addicts look like data for epidemics? Maybe the transformation happens due to some other reason?

Alcohol is extremely destructive to society in many seen and unseen ways.

Why would you even think alcohol has no negative effects on society?

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#486

Post by samtho »

skissane wrote: post #238
samtho wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most situations, a non-profit entity cannot be owned by a corporation in such a way that would give it controlling interest. If you are planning on filing for tax exemption, this is absolutely the case. A non-profit, however, can own (partially or completely) a for-profit corporation and have controlling interests.

> In most situations, a non-profit entity cannot be owned by a corporation in such a way that would give it controlling interest. I think you mean to say, "a non-profit entity cannot be owned by a for-profit entity in such a way that would give it controlling interest" A corporation can be non-profit (aka not-for-profit), and there is no problem with non-profit corporation A owning non-profit corporation B. Non-profi…

Yeah, I botched the specifics on that. My fault for not rereading what I wrote prior to posting.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#487

Post by Vaslo »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #7

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…

Why do the people need to fund the garbage habit of less than 1/8 of their citizens? You choose to do drugs, you’re on your own.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#489

Post by TehCorwiz »

Vaslo wrote: post #487
virgildotcodes wrote: post #7

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…

Why do the people need to fund the garbage habit of less than 1/8 of their citizens? You choose to do drugs, you’re on your own.

Because the effects on society extend well beyond that 1/8th. And simply hitting and imprisoning people hasn’t worked and never works. Support, compassion, treatment work to reduce the negative externalities. Now apply what you said to the tax carve outs for billionaires and oil companies.

Re: Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts

#490

Post by boringuser2 »

cwkoss wrote: post #152
boringuser2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QED, your post, etc. Racism theory is a Rorschach test. Suffice it to say, it's really tough to interrogate reality when you have nothing but contrapositive indications and your response is "yes, this only applies to this one instance though". This is why studying things systemically rather than through a collection of historical anecdotes you've picked up is a vastly superior system for modelling reality. This argum…

lol yikes

Isn't a post like this in violation of Hackernews rules?

Not very intellectually curious. Where's my friend?

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