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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

#701

Post by 4RealFreedom »

bottled_poe wrote: post #451
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…

The government must never, in good conscience, open up the use of extremely physically addictive substances. Decriminalisation for users, I can support, but legalising and selling is a terrible idea. Alcohol, tobacco and marijuana are not in the same league as heroin and other opiates. It’s extremely dangerous to equate all drugs in this debate.

Alcohol is physically addictive - ever heard of DTs? Decriminalization enables the black market. Legalization would lower prices, too. The black market should be enemy number one.

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

#702

Post by davidmnoll »

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…

If you’re talking about public policy, IMO personal moral opinions have no place. Do you really want the state teaching “personal responsibility”? Even if you did, do you really think they could do it effectively? We have the highest prison population per capita as it is. It’s been tried. Over and over.

Using the idea that millions of people are just morally deficient as public policy is a proven failure. There’s always a reason when millions of people are doing the “wrong” thing, and the job of public policy is to assess the return on investment to society of removing those reasons or otherwise disincentivizing the behavior.

Personal responsibility is a personal lesson that requires personal choices and experiences. It’s not something you can publicly mandate

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

#703

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

oldpmfan wrote: post #674
rayiner wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> 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).

Yay, another thing Germany (post-WWII) got right, in addition to mechanical and electrical engineering and the early use of synthesizers.

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

#704

Post by matheusmoreira »

seattle_spring wrote: post #656
matheusmoreira wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Yes. Claiming people can use these things without consequences is just wrong. Anyone who thinks otherwise has clearly never dealt with addicts. The only possible argument for drug decriminalization is getting rid of all the violent crime surrounding it. That's a worthy reason but must certainly be weighed against the significant…

Dealing with addicts is proof that all people who use drugs will become addicts?

I said "significant risks". I also explicitly mentioned opioids. I assumed that's what was meant by "hard drugs" since I don't think there's anything harder than opioids.

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

#705

Post by inamberclad »

Decriminalization is fine, but there's still no way out for these people. How would one go from living on the street in a state of addiction to happy, housed, and employed? Quality of life is tenuous enough for regular Americans who haven't lost it all before. Climbing back up the hill must seem impossible for those at the bottom. Therefore, there's little motivation to get clean.

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

#706

Post by kaashif »

cal85 wrote: post #673
javajosh wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 id…

> no one ever professes to be a member of it

Go to reddit.com/r/neoliberal, there are lots of people claiming to be neoliberals there.

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

#707

Post by lIIllIIllIIllII »

zer8k wrote: post #581
pierat wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Simply 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. All of your "polite" behavior is modified by shame. To use an extreme, contrived, example if you shit on the floor your parents probably shamed you into using the restroom properly. You can, of course, continue to shit on the floor but you also can't act with suc…

There's a bunch research indicating that shame is not really a useful tool. Correlation with depressive symptoms etc. Hopefully anyone with kids should have realised that making e.g. toilet training more stressful, surprise surprise, is completely counter-productive, but who knows.

If the kid knows that they're not supposed to do something, that's enough - they experience their own internal feeling of failure strongly. I've found that the opposite is usually true, that kids never understand that learning things always involves failing a bunch of times, which is the imore important meta-lesson

Flipside, if they don't care about doing something wrong and you shame them, in my experience they often simply don't give a fuck. Maybe that's my own genetics though. Admonishment and punishment is more useful.

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

#708

Post by javajosh »

cal85 wrote: post #673
javajosh wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 id…

Well, I don't mean it pejoratively. It harnesses the ideas of mutation + selection which has been proven to be successful for 5 billion years. "Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler," describes the limits of practical reason. People have a great deal of latent evil within them, and society should be the least oppressive it can be, but not less oppressive.

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

#709

Post by zmgsabst »

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…

I think it speaks to the incoherence of their views they don’t consider culture, including teaching personal regulation and responsibility, as a feature of systemic problems.

How can culture not be an aspect of a social creature’s systemics?

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

#710

Post by 1024core »

davidmnoll wrote: post #702
javajosh wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you’re talking about public policy, IMO personal moral opinions have no place. Do you really want the state teaching “personal responsibility”? Even if you did, do you really think they could do it effectively? We have the highest prison population per capita as it is. It’s been tried. Over and over. Using the idea that millions of people are just morally deficient as public policy is a proven failure. There’s alw…

> We have the highest prison population per capita as it is. It’s been tried. Over and over.

You are conflating a flawed justice system (prison) with teaching morality. They are not the same.

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