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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

#671

Post by Aunche »

RoyalHenOil wrote: post #413
sbierwagen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then build a camp for them out in the desert. There's no reason to have them shitting on the streets of downtown SF.

[flagged]

If you had real empathy, you would understand how people would be upset that their streets are covered by used needles and feces rather than accuse them of being sociopaths. Anyways, I'm pretty sure GP was being facetious. If using drugs is were optimal choice for a bum, then, it would be a much better outcome for everyone involved if California diverted funding from million dollar per unit "affordable housing" into camps in the dessert that provide free hard drugs and basic necessities, and ship homeless people there, where they're likely to overdoes in a few weeks. That your immediate reaction is that of disgust suggests that the premise that drugs are good for the bottom of society is wrong.

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

#672

Post by Spivak »

imgabe wrote: post #665
pierat wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the saying... "My body, My choice" ? Well, some people will choose, willingly, to waste their life away living on the streets from one high to the next. The difference between most types of poverty and this, is that they *chose* this path. Bodily autonomy has powerful upsides, as well as downsides. Here's one of the downsides. If they wanted to 'get out', I'd be there to help them if I knew them. But they have…

You can show the bodily autonomy argument is nonsense with a simple thought experiment. What if it were someone you actually cared about? Your son or daughter, sibling, loved one? Would you say "oh well, I guess I have to respect their bodily autonomy". No, you'd drag them into rehab whether they wanted to go or not. Because you know that is ultimately better for them. That's what you do when you care about someone.…

You're missing influence vs force. If I care about someone I will do everyone in my power to get them into rehab but I would never force them, even if I had parental authority over them to do so. The only time in my life I have ever deprived someone of their bodily autonomy is with their consent, "hey when I'm drunk don't let me smoke."

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

#673

Post by cal85 »

javajosh wrote: post #611
K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

It presents an interesting problem for those "left behind" who value shame, self-restraint, and other unpopular virtues. The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture. I think that's true, but it's a plan B - plan A should be to fight hard to not lose those values in the first place. It's appalling that public discourse about systemic issues ha…

> The neoliberal view is that you can prove your point by forming subcultures that do better than the surrounding culture.

Can you clarify who you actually mean here by neoliberalism? It seems a very loosely defined ideology. Do you just mean ‘the mainstream West’, or something more specific? It’s a strange -ism. It’s very vague in definition, and no one ever professes to be a member of it, yet it is ostensibly an ideology. And I only ever hear it used with a pejorative subtext, which is interesting.

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

#674

Post by oldpmfan »

rayiner wrote: post #660
oldpmfan wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. Germany for example is pretty shameless beyond the shame border in USA. To give you a few maybe extreme examples (which does not apply to all people in Germany and not all this examples are sexual): Mixed saunas, swinger clubs, open relationships, no shame on being naked in designated nudity areas, topless DJs, a naked women is not a big skandal etc. Yet Germany does not have the drug problems which Or…

You’re giving examples of where the German social norms allow things that are taboo under US social norms. That’s not what shame is about. Shame is a feeling that societies use to enforce social norms and taboos—whatever those norms happen to be. America is a very individualistic society—people can violate social norms and they don’t feel shame, because they say “who cares what other people think?” My impression of G…

I was born and raised in Germany and I give a f*ck what other people think (I care ZERO percent). But to be honest I also left Germany (because I'm fortunate enough to do that) because society is blind in sense of taxes, social insurance etc especially if you are an entrepreneur. Rich or wealthy people in Germany are considered to be thieves or inherits of something/somebody. Believe it or not but many Germans feel ashamed when being wealthy (or they do not speak about their wealth ever, keep it a secret).

My thinking is that shame is a very broad term and there are many societies on Earth which are more shameless than USA with relaxed drug laws and DO NOT HAVE that drug problem.

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

#675

Post by OO000oo »

K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

You can’t devalue shame without devaluing dignity. They go hand in hand.

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

#676

Post by selimthegrim »

seattle_spring wrote: post #643
selimthegrim wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're delusional if you think the homeless problem is a bunch of software engineers who tried heroin once, and left FAANG to get high every day. Replace heroin with meth and FAANG with MS and I can definitely state it’s happened in Portland at least

You're claiming that a non-trivial part of Portland's homeless crisis is caused by ex-Microsoft employees becoming addicted to meth?

I can tell you there’s at least one of them. From what I understand his mother drives down from Seattle, and tries to bring him food with varying levels of success.

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

#677

Post by j45 »

K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

There’s lots of other ways to build strong peolel than negativity.

I’m not a fan of the many culture either but dignity and positive inner dialogue is better for resilience than negative inner dialogue.

Like shame. Shamers usually are insecure or impatient to some.

Valuing one’s self is reason enough.

Learning to get better, or sleds order at something one day at a time doesn’t come from a negative spiral of solely living by what others think.

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

#678

Post by taeric »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #574
taeric wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To help others that may be looking, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park is a good read on it. Calling it junk science is probably overly stated. Seems the largest confounding fact is that different strains of rats have different propensities to addictions. I can see why that would be a scary thing to look at in humans.

> I can see why that would be a scary thing to look at in humans. I don’t get it, are you say because of race? Wouldn’t that be more interesting to know that is the case that scared of looking into it?

Eugenics and ancillary fields are rather hazardous historically? I can't claim there isn't something there, but it mostly leads to racism.

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

#679

Post by ClumsyPilot »

pierat wrote: post #556
jmspring wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ex of someone I know is both a user and a dealer. He opted to be homeless over getting clean. Sadly here in the states there is little you can do if an adult chooses a self destructive path - calls to sheriff/police did nothing - “nothing we can do until he commits a crime”. Where “crime” is something other than the drug use/possession. This individual has always been self absorbed and useless. His daughter asked…

What's the saying... "My body, My choice" ? Well, some people will choose, willingly, to waste their life away living on the streets from one high to the next. The difference between most types of poverty and this, is that they *chose* this path. Bodily autonomy has powerful upsides, as well as downsides. Here's one of the downsides. If they wanted to 'get out', I'd be there to help them if I knew them. But they have…

> What's the saying... "My body, My choice" ?

Someone needs to be of sound mind to make a choice. Clearly you can't sign life-changing legal documents, or testify in court while drunk.

A range of other conditions, like deep depression, state of shock, etc. count. Does addiction?

Surely a definition of addiction is that you cannot stop, i.e. its a mental condition.

Like if someone ia diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, do we ask them if they want treatment? No, we have to treat then anyway.

I do not think this is a slippery slope, the conditions are fairly well defibed.

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

#680

Post by [deleted] »

pierat wrote: post #549
K0balt wrote: post #520

The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Shame is an important aspect of behaviour moderation, a negative emotion usefully experienced when doing something that breaks the social contract. Devaluing shame instad of targeting the parts of the contract that needed to be changed has cost us a critical tool for self moderation and has created…

> The USA and a few other cultures have unfortunately devalued shame to the point where it holds nearly no cultural power. Wait, are you talking about "personal" shame, or "corporate" shame. Cause if anything, corporations have none, and people are *learning* to also have no shame. Doesnt get you anything. Just makes you feel bad for no good reason, cause others are pointing a finger at you. > Shame is an important a…

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