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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

#571

Post by K0balt »

robocat wrote: post #422
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…

> Social drugs such as alcohol and thc are not so incompatible with society Alcohol is very unsociable - calling it social seems odd to me. Anecdotally alcohol seems pretty destructive to me. I am middle-aged so perhaps I have seen more of the deeper long-term destructive effects than you? New Zealanders generally have quite a problem with alcohol abuse.

For some people alcohol and even THC can be very negative. That is true.

But we have learned that the social costs of prohibition of those drugs is higher than the benefit to society.

The same may be true of certain classes of hallucinogenic substances, especially since people tragically turn to solvents and extremely toxic substances as substitutes.

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

#572

Post by JetSpiegel »

SllX wrote: post #86
asymmetric wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delegating to nonprofits is not the same as privatizing. Your argument creates a false dichotomy in which the only two possible actors are the state or private enterprises, but that’s not the case, even for the simple reasons that nonprofits are not the same as for-profit entities. Common Pool Resources are a prime example of a paradigm that escapes this dichotomy.

I don’t know how Portuguese law works but in the United States non-profits have private owners and are private corporations. The contrast they have is with “for-profit” corporations, not “private” corporations. Given the primary purpose of being designated a “non-profit” is a tax advantage for the corporation, I’m willing to bet Portuguese corporations likely don’t differ in this manner. Privatize is an acceptable ve…

In Portugal there are basically no non-profits, it's code for Catholic Church-adjacent institutions.

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

#573

Post by peoplefromibiza »

DropInIn wrote: post #560
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 4 walls they get are literally a single room. Theoretically yes. In practice, no. I've dealt with heroin addiction in my family, believe me when I say that privacy is not the solution, the solution is giving people a purpose outside of their constant quest to find ways to shoot up. As I said, 4 walls can be beneficial, unless it's 4 walls to hide and keep everybody else out, except their dealers. I'm all for re…

Society can't have it both ways - they can't be both receiving constant direct intervention and be invisible at the same time. So long as the majority just want them out of sight or dead, we need to focus on ensuring that they are seen as members of the community rather than a blight, right?

> that they are seen as members of the community rather than a blight, right?

I don't know how it works in the US, but they are primarily people in need of care, like a person with a disease, they need to be cured before they can go back to the society and be part of it or they will return to segregate themselves and die alone sooner or later.

Putting them behind 4 walls is exactly making them invisible, so that the general population won't be upset.

Not exactly a solution in my eyes.

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

#574

Post by HumblyTossed »

K0balt wrote: post #554
HumblyTossed wrote: post #464

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. What a…

We should, I agree. But not everyone wants to participate. I believe life is wonderful and precious… but it is , by default, misery. If you do nothing (the default condition) to sustain or improve your existence, you will be miserable. That is the never ending tyranny of imperative action. That is the fundamental nature of life, and not everyone is up for it. And that’s ok.

>If you do nothing (the default condition) to sustain or improve your existence, you will be miserable. That is the never ending tyranny of imperative action.

You're making LOTS of assumptions here.

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

#575

Post by oliwarner »

Every impact story photo is: "Beautiful place covered in dirty drug paraphernalia". It's the same train of thought when people here describe homelessness in big cities. "They're sleeping in our public spaces!"

If you want undesirables to go away, you have to give them somewhere to go. A better life or at least a safe place. Moving them on solves nothing.

As another comment reiterates, Portugal had a good start but then gutted the social support funding. A huge part of that has to be giving people a way out, so that drug taking isn't the default for the down and out. Decriminalisation is a good first step but not on its own.

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

#576

Post by projektfu »

thucydides wrote: post #61

n=1: during my visit to lisbon in 2021, i was accosted twice by burly guys near my hotel[1] who aggressively asked if i wanted to buy weed or cocaine. the first time, the guy was so angry at my refusal ("no thanks, man") that he followed me up a public staircase to continue his pitch. he backed off when i returned his verbal aggression. so maybe the portuguese policy could use some tweaking. [1] https://goo.gl/maps/y…

N=1, in 1997, when drugs were pretty heavily enforced in NYC, there were mildly scary people at the exit to Penn Station, saying "Want some smoke? Want some blow?"

Now those guys are gone, but there are basically food trucks selling pot gummies with licenses.

There were homeless sleeping on heating vents both times.

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

#577

Post by danielbln »

reducesuffering wrote: post #541
danielbln wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noone should be smoking anything in public places, weed or not.

You don’t own an ICE or natural gas heater then right? Otherwise, “their pollution bad, my pollution good”

Correct, I don't own either. And even if I did, voluntary smoking cigarettes outside near people is not quite at the same level of necessity as heating your home or moving you from place to place, right?

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

#579

Post by slashdev »

joiqj wrote: post #273
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who’s going to pay for that? Anyone who wants to live in a better society, who realises this policy would help achieve that. > Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life.

>Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life. You'd be surprised.

This is objectively true. There are plenty of people who would rather have a meager lifestyle on welfare than have to work. You can argue what the percentage is, but you can’t deny that’s above zero.

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

#580

Post by slashdev »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #232
slashdev wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who’s going to pay for that? Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? There are serious problems with welfare programs. They’ve been the downfall of entire countries. Look at Argentina where the bloated government payroll can be viewed as a sort of work for welfare program. The country can’t afford it and its currency blows up on a regular basis as a result. That’s not saying you should have no…

> Who’s going to pay for that? Anyone who wants to live in a better society, who realises this policy would help achieve that. > Why would those people want to work if they can just freeload? Because most people want more than just the absolute necessities of life.

One of the big reasons I left Canada is I didn’t like paying for the freeloaders. I didn’t like the high taxes. The other big reason was the insane real estate bubble that priced me out of the market. Between the two of those, I have better opportunities elsewhere.
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