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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

#811

Post by cat_plus_plus »

blackoil wrote: post #761
nonethewiser wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. > I don't need more people being shamed for being gay Well he never said anything about being gay. Perhaps you’re reading some other concerns into his comment. Imagine two worlds where there is no murder. The first has no murder because no one feels inclined to murder. The second has no murder because there are very strong rules which stop people who…

It doesn't work selectively, if society can shame you into not taking drugs it will do so everything else non-confirming. In my society not valuing individual freedom girls have/had been shamed into not wearing jeans/skirts, going out for night movie show or even cutting hairs.

It doesn't work selectively, if society can shame you into not posting homophobic tweets, they will do so with everything else non-conforming?

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

#812

Post by ohthehugemanate »

I have heard that Portland is such a mess because three factors hit at once:

1) the police stopped arresting for small possession, but no social services were funded to fill the gap for helping/making people get clean. Churches can only do so much.

2) the war on fentanyl pushed that drug market into homemade from ingredients anyone can get on alibaba... greatly increasing access.

3) the unemployment crisis.

I can vouch personally for the massive number of people who appear high on fentanyl, specifically. Thank goodness it's not an aggressive drug. Can someone with more context and subject expertise comment?

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

#813

Post by quesera »

culopatin wrote: post #423
VerminOctopus1 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing you can log onto this website and spout utter bullshit like “assault and theft have been decriminalized in California”. It’s a totally laughable thing to say and I don’t know why no one else has called this poster out for this blatant lie.

But you can’t ignore the struggle to enforce in the Bay Area. Just moved here and I feel like an idiot paying for the Bart when most people just jump the gates in and out. Take your dick out and just pee while you walk. No worries. Cross the street naked throwing stuff around, normal. Dogs in parks? Leash optional, right under the sign that says “dogs must be on a leash”. Break into cars, no one cares. Steal a Kia, d…

> Red state: Back into your driveway? Tag can’t be seen from the street = ticket

That's seriously a law??

That's more ridiculous than anything I've seen in a liberal democracy.

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

#814

Post by oopsit »

toofy wrote: post #773
rayiner wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean shame doesn’t work? America is a country that literally can’t reproduce itself without importing people from countries where mothers shame children for not having children in a timely manner. America had 100,000 people die of drug overdoses last year, whereas societies that shame people for drug use have far lower rates of overdoses. Middle eastern and south Asian countries that shame people for pre-…

> Middle eastern and south Asian countries that shame people for pre-marital sex largely managed to avoid the AIDS epidemic this is absurd, there are plenty of countries who have high levels of shame where aids is still running rampant. and to even imply that we (the us) didn’t have high levels of pre-marital sex in “the good old days when we could shame people” is naive to an extreme. > let’s not forget that we live…

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

#815

Post by fortuna86 »

nonethewiser wrote: post #737
HWR_14 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at…

> It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. > I don't need more people being shamed for being gay Well he never said anything about being gay. Perhaps you’re reading some other concerns into his comment. Imagine two worlds where there is no murder. The first has no murder because no one feels inclined to murder. The second has no murder because there are very strong rules which stop people who…

[dead]

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

#816

Post by sunderw »

_8j50 wrote: post #720
HWR_14 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at…

Shame works very well. I so hate it when people use "gay" to invoke some sort of a culture war side-choosing spell. The original comment is about feeling shame not being shamed. If you believe being gay is wrong the yes you should feel shame, if you don't then the question is not relevant for you. The original commenter is more right than any of us can conceive. So many societal problems would be solved if people had…

You are saying

> the thing so many of people with these views have in a common is they feel no shame about the harm they are causing.

> If in your own opinion you did something wrong, you should absolutley feel shame

It implies that the list of people you don't like think they did something wrong but refuse to feel shame about it.

To me, all those people are not shameless - in the sense that they don't feel shame _at all_ -, but don't feel shame because they don't feel like they did something wrong (how can you think you're wrong when you don't _believe_ in climate change ?).

So shame in itself is not the problem.

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

#817

Post by godelski »

nonethewiser wrote: post #737
HWR_14 wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. Shame just doesn't work well at a practical level. To say nothing of the superpower that gives the shameless. Meanwhile, I find your alternative of "well if we don't have shame, we'll just have to make explicit laws about it" to be not a bad thing at…

> It's difficult for me to overstate how much I disagree with you. > I don't need more people being shamed for being gay Well he never said anything about being gay. Perhaps you’re reading some other concerns into his comment. Imagine two worlds where there is no murder. The first has no murder because no one feels inclined to murder. The second has no murder because there are very strong rules which stop people who…

This is a terrible example. Most people do not want to murder, even when very angry. You don't need laws to make people not murder. The laws are for what to do when people do. No matter how universal an attribute is it'll never be 100%. Besides, you'll notice the murder rate is highly localized and associated with economic opportunities.

You know why talking about gay people _is_ a good example? Because you probably forgot that not even 10 years ago gay marriage wasn't legal in the US, or most of the world. In fact, only 10 countries did. 10. You probably forgot how heated that topic was. How people would try to shame two men for holding hands in public. We're not talking about some super flamboyant guy like that Key & Peele skit, but the other side of that. I mean just ask any Catholic how well shame works. Cultures change fast. Far faster than just the old people dying. But you don't get to be selective about what should be shameful or not. Times change and what was shameful in the past is considered fine now. In fact objecting to some things, such as gay marriage, have now reversed. Shame isn't defined objectively, just like our morals. So the argument doesn't work without this condition.

Speaking of Japan, you know where gay marriage is illegal? Japan. Just June the courts ruled that the ban is constitutional (but other courts have said it isn't). Which just became legal in Korea this year. Didn't even recognize the marriages of foreign diplomats till 2019. In fact, there are only two countries in Asia that have gay marriage: South Korea and Taiwan (2019 but not full rights till 2023). You can probably ask these people about how good shame is too.

You're going to need some strong evidence to convince me that Japan's low murder rate is because of its laws.

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

#818

Post by rjbwork »

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…

We haven't made drugs legal. We've just stopped locking people up for doing them. It's a very different thing. I'm still 100% for full legalization. Decriminalization just causes what we're currently seeing. It's a nonsense policy that is only slightly better than prohibition.

Legalize it, produce it in pure dosages of known substance and dosage, and encourage people to get treatment. That's the best we can do. It was the solution to alcohol prohibition and history will show that it is the solution to the bulk of negative externalities from drug prohibition. We'll always have problems stemming from substance use, as consciousness modulation appears to be a drive inherent to humans as a species, but we are choosing as a society to inflict a far greater harm upon both individuals and the society collectively by pursuing a policy of prohibition, including destabilizing our second biggest trading partner into a near-failed narcostate.

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

#819

Post by Gustomaximus »

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…

I've felt legal was bad, while decriminalisation was for the best, at a personal level as it focuses resources to dealers and importers and leaves social serves for the addicts as jail doesn't seem to be a working solution, but that probably to do with the prison system also.

I recall decriminalisation worked well in Portugal, and maybe it's not repeatable but I wonder if there are other variables beyond the drugs here. I couldn't read the article as behind a paywall but US seems to have other more significant issues where crimes themself are not getting dealt with in these areas. You don't charge addicts for drug use, but when they are stealing or fighting etc they need to be caught and charged. Also there needs to be social support which seems lacking in US compared to other western countries.

And bigger picture, when I watch iterviews with people caught in this life so many grow with parents and communities like this. This cycle needs to be broken somehow but doing so going into ethical grey zones, like Project Prevention, where I feel it's a difficult positive to push for but for the best outcome (in my view) but respect that people can be totally valid feeling otherwise.

At the moment it really seems one of those unsolvable issues. Such a shame it can't be stopped at the supply side.

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

#820

Post by vasco »

pugets wrote: post #728
davidmnoll wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think the aim is to teach that "millions of people are just morally deficient," as you put it. Rather, the aim should be to reinforce that everyone has the capacity to do good or bad, and the direction of your life is influenced partially (if not majorly) by the average value of your decisions. In some aspects of our culture, shame still exists to great effect. For example, drunk driving is a behavior that ne…

Or my personal favorite application of shame at a societal level: shaming people for dodging taxes.
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