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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

#691

Post by ClumsyPilot »

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…

> imply put: fuck the social contract. I didn't sign it. It doesnt get me any benefits, and all it is a whole lot of "costs", all of which are ill defined.

I mean, this is what happens when you decide that the contract is one-sided. If a company dump toxic waste into a river you use, you must pursue them through the courts like a civilised man. Years in courts and millions in costs to get justice.

If you take their waste and try Tom dump it in their office you will be arrested withing 20 minutes

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

#692

Post by Spivak »

reilly3000 wrote: post #379
carpet_wheel wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We create misery and then distribute poison to escape it. Ugly way of disposing of the unwanted, but it can serve as a warning to the rest.

Manufactured Misery. Would make a great slogan for America

Proud to live in the USSRI!

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

#693

Post by chlorion »

dmode wrote: post #223
brightlancer wrote: post #186

Rubbish. Folks made the exact same arguments about alcohol and marijuana. Specifically with alcohol, anyone can walk into a treatment center without fear that they'll be arrested for the mere _use_ of a substance. (Marijuana has very low risk and rates of addiction, physical or psychological.) If "hard" drugs are legalized, then they will likely be treated the same as alcohol and pot and tobacco: highly regulated, so…

But doesn't alcohol trigger a wildly different reaction than hard drugs ? Which alcohol triggers schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucination and make you violent ? And these are triggered very very easily by using a small amount of meth or fentanyl. To get to a comparable state with alcohol, you would have to drink copious amount, but then you are more likely to be passed out than exhibit violent behavior. I agree with y…

I have used amphetamines extremely heavily for many years and I have never at any time been violent, with or without substances. I also didn't steal, or scam people, or otherwise harm anyone.

When I did meth, I stayed at home and talked on IRC, worked on programming projects, like an IRC bot written in Python. Sometimes I tinkered with Linux stuff, I had a raspberry pi that I ran the IRC bot on.

I played video games sometimes, mainly TF2, insurgency (standalone not sandstorm), a little bit of CS:GO. Probably some others too that I can't remember.

Other than doing that, the only other thing I did is go to work or go shopping or whatever was required. I did not have any problems at work or at the stores.

I actually almost never left my house except to go to work, I have been diagnosed as agoraphobic but I'm not totally sure about it.

Anyways, why exactly should I be put in prison for doing amphetamine and hanging out at home? Who exactly am I harming, or putting at risk of harm?

I do realize that not all cases are like mine, and there are cases where users put other people at risk, but you can't make blanket statements like this and just say "put those violent amphetamine users in prison!" without harming a lot of people who don't deserve it.

I think that the level of antisocial behavior the person exhibits should be taken into account before punishing them is my point, rather than just labeling them as bad because they use $scary-drug.

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

#694

Post by one_level_deep »

ryandrake wrote: post #605
ellisd wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fascinating view on the sedative crisis. The lack of shame from "normal" people feels very real. Complete inaction to the staggering and ever increasing death count rate and bodies piling on the ground IS utterly shameful, but not for 2023 USA. I've noticed as well that when I've spoke to friends and family about open drug use and markets I become the one who's "out of line." Do we as a free society have no…

There's a huge strain of "mind your own business" running through the USA right now. When someone is out of line, you used to be able to rely on the public to correct that behavior. Now if you try, you're the bad guy--or "Karen" as they say, and everyone flips out their cell phone cameras to try to capture that crazed weirdo who has the audacity to ask someone else to behave themselves. I brought my kid to a pumpkin…

== When someone is out of line, you used to be able to rely on the public to correct that behavior. Now if you try, you're the bad guy==

I think people “mind their own business” out of concern for their own safety. The increases in gun ownership, road rage incidents, and mass shootings has certainly impacted my impulse to correct someone in public.

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

#695

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ecshafer wrote: post #149

Supporting legalization / decriminalization of hard drugs is a luxury belief. If you’re in a nice rich circle it’s easy to believe it doesn’t harm anyone except yourself. If you are around people that become drug addicts, it becomes apparent that it drastically harms everyone around them, themselves probably not the most. You can only see so many addict parents throw away the money for kids food, or pawn of their kid…

> Supporting legalization / decriminalization of hard drugs is a luxury belie

Supporting a real criminal justice system is a luxury belief. Many societies don’t have the resources to have 2 years of evidence gathering, investigation, court process, free lawyer for the defendant, then appeals. Then years of incarceration, feeding no clothing inmates, and rehabilitation.

“Every child should go to school” is a luxury belief

The question is, where do you set the bar?

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

#696

Post by epiccoleman »

unethical_ban wrote: post #390
whycome wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support making drugs legal. But, it also requires an extensive framework around that legalization. Social supports. Information. Safety nets/healthcare. Without that, it's gonna fails.

I'll pick your comment out of the pack to pick on, though I think we agree. Yours, and dozens of others, talk about "drugs". That's like talking about banning "food" when there is a problem with people eating five cheeseburgers a day. --- The problem is not with cannabis, or mushrooms, or aspirin. It's with meth, heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioids. Drugs need to be *properly* ranked by government and restrict…

You wrote the comment I wanted to write, thank you.

I'm generally in favor of decriminalization, but I think it's becoming increasingly obvious that the standard arguments for this position fall very flat when it comes to opioids and meth.

It's a shame our leadership is so cowardly and bankrupt in this area. A simple reshuffling of the current drug scheduling could make a huge difference. Knock marijuana down a few pegs (or just accept that the country wants it legal). Take mushrooms off the schedule. Low levels for most psychedelics, mdma, etc. Slightly more control on stimulants like cocaine. Strict controls on opioids and meth.

We've been examining drugs as a culture for long enough that common sense should really have pervaded at this point.

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

#697

Post by chlorion »

dan_mctree wrote: post #336
anon84873628 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the prohibition on drugs is not preventing those people from accessing them. Obviously rehabilitation would be ideal. But all else being equal, it would be better if the drugs were cheaper and safer.

Can we all just be honest and just agree that prohibitions do in fact make access to the prohibited thing harder and reduce the prevalence of it. This is true whether your topic of choice is drugs, guns, abortions, alcohol, some form of sex, vpn access or whatever you want to talk about. Sometimes the prohibition can make obtaining illegal things more difficult and risky, and many of us are too lazy or risk avoidant…

When I was 17 years old, I was able to access hard drugs like amphetamines and opiates more easily than alcohol.

I could buy whatever substances I wanted, no questions asked, just by knowing the right places to look.

To buy alcohol, I needed to have an older friend or family member buy it for me.

At least for me, and my situation, prohibition completely and utterly failed at making access to illegal drugs difficult. If they would have been regulated I most likely would not have managed to access stimulants until I was of legal age, or only had small amounts like I did with alcohol.

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

#698

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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…

It's possible for drugs to be legal and for it to be illegal to turn parks and sidewalks into your personal drug den.

If people want to do drugs, that's one thing.

If people want to turn the few nice outdoor spaces in the city into their personal camp - that's a separate issue.

You also don't need to be like SF and stop enforcing all crimes just because you make drugs legal.

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

#699

Post by hackinthebochs »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #688
hackinthebochs wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response misses the target the parent was getting at. There are laws that constrain behavior in public places derived from the taboos of the past. This is what you are referring to when you talk about limits to nudity and such. These laws may derive from shame culture of the past, but they have modern relevance largely due to the existence of laws. There's another form of shame culture that isn't codified into l…

It is not, in fact, different at all. Being seen naked in public affects your status. Being seen consuming drugs affects your status. All shame is, is degradation of your status.

The issue isn't about an external person's judgment, but one's sensitivity to an external person's judgment. The point is that mainstream culture has been devalued such that sensitivity to alterations in status as judged by people deemed "mainstream" is much less relevant to an average person these days, especially in younger folks. If there were no laws about public nudity, there are subcultures that absolutely would go around naked and would be immune to shame from mainstream culture.
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