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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

#941

Post by ml-anon »

valval wrote: post #938
ml-anon wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so close . Tobacco companies used to be allowed to actively advertise their product as healthy and employed statisticians and doctors to publish fake science in order to do so. Cracking down on Tobacco advertising has nothing to do with shame . On the other hand, people with a nicotine addiction are encouraged to seek treatment in order to quit. Again, this is the exact opposite of using shame to discourage "b…

I agree that addiction should be treated like a medical issue, but I also think shame plays a role. We're social creatures, after all. Sometimes, the fear of being shamed can deter bad behavior. It's not about using shame to punish addicts, but about recognizing its part in our social dynamics. Also, I'd suggest a friendlier tone in your discussions. Being condescending can push people away, even if you have great in…

There is nothing friendly or respectful about suggesting that people are becoming slaves to addiction and dying destitute in the streets of the richest goddamn nation on earth because of a lack of shame. I'm simply returning the courtesy and it happens to be one of the most well-received sentiments in this miserable thread. If you don't like it, well shame on you I guess.

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

#942

Post by fooker »

troutwine wrote: post #464
fooker wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always easy to blame the execution rather than the policy, if you are ideologically biased to believe in the policy.

Sure, and if you're ideologically opposed to a policy you can make a comment like this. What's needed is data on many alternative approaches, what policies _and_ executions taken as one promote better outcomes? Over what timeframes? Otherwise it's just all shouting into a windstorm.

I am not opposed to decriminalizing drugs.

> What's needed is data on many alternative approaches, what policies _and_ executions taken as one promote better outcomes? > Over what timeframes?

This is where the goalpost shifting happens.

I can not think of a single instance in recent history where a political leader has admitted that a policy they like has failed because it was fundamentally a bad idea.

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

#943

Post by fooker »

creata wrote: post #723
jjcon wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we should take policy results at face value. If it failed if failed, if it succeeded it succeeded. No need to play no true scotsman.

Taking results at face value is silly when your sample size is 1.

Oregon is more than 1% of the US population.

That is significantly more than what's recognized as a good sample size.

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

#944

Post by fooker »

wobbly_bush wrote: post #463
fooker wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always easy to blame the execution rather than the policy, if you are ideologically biased to believe in the policy.

Isn't the opposite also true?

No, this is the Russel's teapot logical paradox.

The onus is on you to prove your positive statement.

If you like and implement a policy, you can't hand wave a failure blaming random stuff.

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

#945

Post by walsand21 »

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’re getting attacked a lot for this comment which I don’t think is fair. Shame helps hold people and companies accountable, and without a social control the only things that holds them accountable is money

I think this article is relevant - shamelessness as a strategy

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25591066

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

#946

Post by wizofaus »

542354234235 wrote: post #909
alienbeast wrote: post #905

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an example of how shame can be useful in discouraging bad choices, look at cigarettes. They're legal, but society and government have successfully campaigned to publicize their negative effects, to shame smokers and to praise quitters.

It wasn't shame. It was age restrictions, banning smoking in most public spaces, addiction acknowledgement and smoking cessation resources, public health awareness campaigns, and increased taxation. "Shaming" smokers was just the cultural byproduct in the change in smoking, and arguably a negative one.

In Australia at least there's been a government sponsored advertisement campaign "Every cigarette is doing you damage" that rather obviously conveys smoking as an unpleasant "shameful" habit, while graphically describing the health impacts. I very much doubt the "shaming" part of the campaign would work on its own, but whoever made the ads were obviously attempting to make cigarette smoking look as unappealing as possible. More importantly, given the article this thread is supposed to be discussing, I'd be wary of assuming what works in helping reduce the usage of a "soft" drug like nicotine by a significant percentage of the population would work with hard drugs used (and abused) primarily by marginalised individuals. In fact we have had similar advertising campaigns against heroin/ice etc. (*) but I'm not aware of convincing evidence that they've really done all that much to help reduce problem usage.

(*) https://youtu.be/jxOlwO_WHrg

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

#947

Post by Izkata »

kenjackson wrote: post #744
babyshake wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't need more people being shamed for being gay, for wearing the wrong outfit or for not fitting in. This is a strawman argument. I think what we're talking about is shame for having a reckless disregard for others. The way I think of it is we are increasingly living in a world where people are viewing other humans as "NPCs".

Is it a strawman? Isn’t that why we had the whole notion of being in the closet, to avoid shame to yourself and family? I get it — let’s have shame for the things that “we” want there to be shame about. I just don’t think there is good consensus on what that is.

> Isn’t that why we had the whole notion of being in the closet, to avoid shame to yourself and family?

That was fear, not shame.

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

#948

Post by cududa »

godelski wrote: post #936
cududa wrote: post #932

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is shockingly common in the aging population, and no one really thinks to look at Grandma baking cookies as a potential addict quietly suffering

Ironically the shame is what hides this too. The Grandma trying to hide her shameful addiction. The part of her family that takes care of her shamefully hiding it from the rest of the family, for fear that they would not be seen as good care takers despite doing their best. The shame of the others that see it but pretend they don't, because they themselves don't want to admit that grandma is an addict. Justifying it…

Precisely. I grew up in an odd town on Lake Erie. On the coast there were the Cleveland Clinic millionaire surgeons, NFL, MLB, and NBA players. On the west side of town a Ford plant and some low income housing, same income and housing on the east side. Middle bit was mostly solid middle class with a couple small higher income enclaves (CEO of a Berkshire Hathaway division, for instance).

So it was truly, truly all income levels interacting in our public schools (which are pretty highly rated).

I graduated in 2009. Close to 10% of my graduating class (~400), all income levels, died of opioid overdoses or suicide. The shame of talking about our town's problem and wanting keep up appearances killed scores of people.

BBC did a documentary on our town, called Smack in Suburbia, focussed on my age group. 30 minute watch, but, it really drives this point home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7ynJ5S9c58

All of this tragedy was the direct consequence of shame as public health policy.

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

#949

Post by shrimp_emoji »

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…

We've devalued shame so much that someone can write a blog post about shame shilling and needing a strong daddy, chased with a soy Reddit closer. Unreal.

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

#950

Post by dang »

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…

Please don't post flamewar rants to HN. You made the thread far worse with this. Veering into fascism at the end didn't help.

We want thoughtful, substantive, and above all curious conversation on HN. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

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