Public use and illicit sale is still illegal even if possession is decriminalized. It's unclear what this recriminalization accomplishes from a legal standpoint to address the primary concerns of the public. Appears to be little more than a shallow political play.
The Oregon decriminalization experiment had several really puzzling elements. One of them is that isn't clear that public use was illegal, at least not in a way that police could actually enforce. In a fun example of "the exception proves the rule", a few weeks ago the state leg. passed a law criminalizing drug use on public transit.
Decriminalization was really badly implemented in Oregon. Part of it was the pandemic. Part of it was the confluence with the fentanyl surge. Part of it was that our public agencies just didn't seem to know how to coordinate with one another on the issues that arose.
alcohol is perfectly legal, yet it's illegal to walk down a public street with an open can of beer. This all seems to work out fine. Why didnt this work with other kinds of drugs?
In many places it’s perfectly legal to walk down the street with an open containers of alcohol, and there are not the kinds of problems we see with other drugs.
Opiates and amphetamines are entirely different animals than drugs like alcohol and weed. You can’t really treat them as the same kind of thing.
You've never seen a gaggle of drunks in Vegas or New Orleans? Drinking in public absolutely can be a problem, similar to using opiates or whatever else.
I'm not implying the laws should be exactly the same, only that public alcohol consumption also has problems that are visible to non-drinkers/locals.
Alcohol has bars to go to? Bars have bartenders to cut you off?
Drug use doesn't provide a social place. Also, certain drugs are an order of magnitude way worse than having a moderate amount of alcohol. Legalizing public drug use, outside of marijuana, seems idiotic to me.
I guess I dont understand what the actual problem was. People were doing drugs on public street corners? this is my question. It's not hard for people to drink alcohol in places other than street corners, even on days that the bars are all closed.
It's not hart to drink alcohol on the street, but it is easy to drink it indoors.
To contrast, people addicted to heroin or meth are much more vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness, etc.; which pushes them into public spaces, and incentivizes them to commit petty and violent crime.
but also contradicts the original parent that had me going: "Decriminalization of drugs creates better health outcomes for drug users.". but we're saying, the recriminalization is preventing them from doing drugs, falling into homelessness, and then doing drugs on street corners. like why wasnt "treatment is available" doing that. (I mean I know why, it's because coercive force helps coerce drug users to change where they otherwise would have less reason to. halfway houses are like conduits between prison cells and the outside world).
Decriminalization at least stops police from exasperating the situation by punishing drug users with expensive citations, and taking them away from work opportunities because they have to show up at court instead.
Agreed. The difference is in the outcomes we're aiming for.
First, in the case of drugs like methamphetamine, heroine, cocaine, fentanyl, and so on, we're looking to eliminate use of these compounds outside of medical applications. Having a lovely entertainment venue for blowing off steam is not what we're going for. We want to help people avoid or conquer addictions to dangerous drugs.
A program aimed at this goal that has worked elsewhere includes a system of policies and spending that work together to achieve that aim. The system includes a number of aspects:
- Spending on rehabilitation and treatment
- Eliminating criminal penalties for drug use and instead requiring treatment programs
- Jobs programs (it turns out a lot of addiction is about purpose, or lack thereof)
To do this is hard to pull off, because you have to have a number of groups of people all pulling together for the same goal of helping people resolve their addictions. If you don't do it altogether, and just label it "decriminalization" and only do that part of it, it is guaranteed to fail. It is idiotic. There's also a name for it: Cargo Cult.
We're bewildered that the problem just doesn't go away (the planes don't land and bring cargo) when we go through the superficial motions (wave sticks at the sky near the landing strip) of "decriminalization."
We all (hopefully) know what happened when alcohol was criminalized. People using a drug is only part of the overall system that affects society.
Alcohol is also more trivial to illegally produce than most recreational drugs. Hell, you can make it on accident by just keeping fruit too long.
Decriminalization isn't enough to resolve the societal problems caused by a system of prohibition. The greater societal problems - like poverty, homelessness, petty crime, and violence - are tied more closely to production and distribution than possession and use.
I don't have any data at hand, but prefer 'diversion' / redemption programs.
Drug use should happen in safe spaces that don't negatively impact others. For any airborne use, I want a 'fume / chemical hood' like negative draw with scrubbed exhaust.
I want the same for tobacco smokers. Also I don't want to see people consuming alcohol nor have it readily available. I'm wondering whether either of us will het what we want.
What a coincidence, literally 30 minutes ago I saw a man openly smoking something I did not recognize (meth probably?) at a bus stop for the first time.
Is it criminalization that is better for non-users or did they just do decriminalization incorrectly? Did they need to decriminalize drugs in all cases? Couldn’t it be legal to do heroin in private but not on the sidewalk?
I am afraid they badly implemented a policy that, if implemented correctly, could have made a big difference, and now everyone will think it just doesn’t work.
> Is it criminalization that is better for non-users or did they just do decriminalization incorrectly?
They didn't even really do the decriminalization. The full law never came into effect, and the most of the treatment programs they promised to create as an alternative to incarceration were still in the process of being set up. The state never approved the funding for many of them, so they killed the initiative before it ever started.
> I am afraid they badly implemented a policy that, if implemented correctly, could have made a big difference, and now everyone will think it just doesn’t work.
That's exactly what happened. The funny part is that the evidence has shown quite clearly that criminalization doesn't "work" either. But it's treated as the societal default, that which can be accepted and trusted without any evidence.
Right. Criminalization is entirely illogical since it just exacerbates the root causes and doesn’t even really help with the symptom. And most people can’t even fathom that there’s an alternative.
I think your point is well made. Unfortunately, there are a substantial number of drug users in Oregon (and Portland in particular) who do not have a private place to do drugs. They live in tents on the sidewalk[1]. You see people smoking fentanyl on the sidewalk or in parks all over town.
One example of how this negatively impacts non-drug using citizens is that summer camps have been having trouble because the kids can't use the bathrooms at the local parks. People are smoking fentanyl in the park bathrooms (which is not currently illegal), and so the kids have no where to do their business.
> I think your point is well made. Unfortunately, there are a substantial number of drug users in Oregon (and Portland in particular) who do not have a private place to do drugs. They live in tents on the sidewalk[1]. You see people smoking fentanyl on the sidewalk or in parks all over town.
Yes, and that's why the state also needs to provide injection sites, non-shelter housing, and all sorts of other programs that were supposed to happen under Measure 110, and which the state refused to fund, and which never had the time to get off the ground before this bill was passed.
> One example of how this negatively impacts non-drug using citizens is that summer camps have been having trouble because the kids can't use the bathrooms at the local parks. People are smoking fentanyl in the park bathrooms (which is not currently illegal), and so the kids have no where to do their business.
There are lots of ways to solve that issue without criminalizing drugs. And in fact, as proven by countless other cities across the country, criminalizing drugs doesn't even solve that problem either.
> And in fact, as proven by countless other cities across the country, criminalizing drugs doesn't even solve that problem either.
It doesn't solve the problem.
However, criminalization may be a less worse way to mitigate the impacts of the problem.
This feels like "no true Scotsman" at policy-scale: it's unscientific to point out the flaws in actual sausage making as the reason the Platonically ideal sausage turned out poorly in reality.
Those political characteristics are inherent to the process! If one path to utopia requires pissing voters off, then it's more logical to engineer a different path to get there while placating voters, because the former in untenable in a democracy.
> However, criminalization may be a less worse way to mitigate the impacts of the problem.
There's no data to support this claim, and copious evidence against it.
> This feels like "no true Scotsman" at policy-scale: it's unscientific to point out the flaws in actual sausage making as the reason the Platonically ideal sausage turned out poorly in reality. Those political characteristics are inherent to the process! If one path to utopia requires pissing voters off, then it's more logical to engineer a different path to get there while placating voters, because the former in untenable in a democracy.
It's not a "no true Scotsman" to point out that the measure that voters passed was never actually implemented. Some of the provisions weren't even due to kick in until later this year!
Ironically, your statement is a great example of begging the question (in the correct usage of the term): by your logic, any world in which decriminalization is not already implemented is "proof" that it's a bad policy, because if it were, the Logical Politicians™ would implement it, as that would surely appease voters.
In reality, what happened is simple: voters approved an initiative, elected officials didn't like what voters chose, so they just refused to implement it, then called it a "failure".
> It's not a "no true Scotsman" to point out that the measure that voters passed was never actually implemented. Some of the provisions weren't even due to kick in until later this year!
If the voters passed a measure, that caused substantial negative perception before it was fully implemented, then who's to blame?
Maybe the voters should have been clearer on the implementation sequencing.
> In reality, what happened is simple: voters approved an initiative, elected officials didn't like what voters chose, so they just refused to implement it, then called it a "failure".
How does this not suffice as an excuse for any bad results from decriminalization? What constitutes a sufficiently perfect implementation to validate negative outcomes?
> If the voters passed a measure, that caused substantial negative perception before it was fully implemented, then who's to blame?
> Maybe the voters should have been clearer on the implementation sequencing.
This is, again, begging the question. You're assuming the consequent.
Voters were clear on what they wanted. They directly voted for and passed a specific bill. Elected officials - not voters - refused to implement what voters chose. Then, elected officials - not voters - repealed the bill.
It's not like this was repealed by popular vote. As of today, there's not even any evidence that the same voters who approved this in 2020 have somehow changed their minds and oppose it today.
You're arguing from a position of pure speculation to support an a priori conclusion, and that's simply not logically sound.
> How does this not suffice as an excuse for any bad results from decriminalization?
This is ridiculous. You can't judge the effect of a policy that's not implemented. If you're willing to do that, you've left the realm of science altogether and might as well argue for policy based on astrology, or augury.
The only real solution is to discourage drug use in the first place. Early education is the best deterrent but with our modern pluralistic society you can't even get people to agree on what is "good" or "bad." Not only that but these chemicals are extremely physically addictive and cause a derangement in higher executive brain functions. Often the most effective repellent is a threat of negative outcome for the targeted action. Impulse control (internal or external) is the only thing that really separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Unfortunately, if the new laws are enforced there will be a "correction" that takes place and I imagine that will include fines, arrests, and jail.
Well, we just got a great natural experiment to see if it works that way. I don’t think so but I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. I think it’ll just move where they use. If the effects of heroin on your life aren’t a strong enough deterrent I Don’t think a rap sheet is. I don’t know why we default assume otherwise and perhaps I’m missing data that shows it but I haven’t seen any.
And minimum building standards are mindlessly being set by local municipalities, who frankly don't have the engineering competence to understand whether it's excessive or should be required in the first place.
Just mindlessly chasing "newer code is better", without understanding how it affects housing affordability. Or maybe it's an intentional payout to developers to let them profit from increased complexity?
Drug laws are hard - the reality is that enforcement is extremely biased along race and socioeconomic lines, but at the same time a bunch of drugs have real reasons for being banned.
The issue to me is how it becomes penalized - especially given the US response to ex-felons (and its use of felons as a non voting slave class) - it’s very easy for the result of a drug related offense to put people in a position where drugs are functionally the only practical option (either abuse or selling).
Wholesale decriminalization seems like a bad response based on the outcomes in many areas, but it really seems like there should be an option that doesn’t result in immediate criminal records for life.
>Wholesale decriminalization seems like a bad response based on the outcomes in many areas, but it really seems like there should be an option that doesn’t result in immediate criminal records for life.
The problem is not using drugs. The problem is committing crimes while using drugs. Some people can use drugs and avoid crime. Others use drugs and commit crime.
Therefore, you arrest criminals, and offer them jail or treatment that they must follow or they go straight to jail.
Camping on a city sidewalk should be a crime. This is a public space used by everyone, not just one person to make a random house on. Children use sidewalks which are a public good. If someone uses drugs and camps on the sidewalk, they should be arrested and offerred jail or treatment.
The problem is not using drugs. The problem is committing crimes while using drugs. Some people can use drugs and avoid crime. Others use drugs and commit crime.
You forgot those who commit crimes in an effort to use drugs. I think treatment inside jail (or some controlled environment) is probably your best bet. If you have someone who's addiction is clouding their judgement, they might say anything just to stay out of jail, but how do you get them to follow through?
> The problem is committing crimes while using drugs.
The problem is also damaging your brain and body with drugs, developing bad habits and/or drug addiction, your supply being contaminated/poisoned, making irresponsible decisions while intoxicated, etc.
For example cannabis can be mostly safe for adults, but children or teens who use too much of it can develop neurological defects like short-term memory impairment, depending on the frequency and duration of use.
> The problem is also damaging your brain and body with drugs, developing bad habits and/or drug addiction, your supply being contaminated/poisoned, making irresponsible decisions while intoxicated, etc.
We can make the same exact argument about sugar and HFCS. Either of those substances can make people feel extremely hungry even with a full stomach, thus make terrible decisions and damage their bodies.
Alcohol's much worse. Yet we tried banning that. Remind me how that went again? Oh thats right, we had federal agents poisoning alcohol to intentionally kill drinkers. Wonderful times.
> For example cannabis can be mostly safe for adults, but children or teens who use too much of it can develop neurological defects like short-term memory impairment, depending on the frequency and duration of use.
Again, most drugs aren't that bad, regardless what DARE propagandized you into believing. Id advise anyone actually wanting to understand what a drug is like, to go to https://www.erowid.org/ and read up about experiences.
I've been on damn near every painkiller up to fentanyl. My fav is morphine. Feels like a glowing warmth and "home". I could easily see me doing a small amount on a friday evening after work's done. Id keep it down enough that I wouldn't get a tolerance, and I'd be "sobered" up by next morning.
Ive also been on amphetamines, and threw' em away. Made me feel TERRIBLE.
The 3 biggest scourge drugs we have are alcohol, tobacco, and sugar. And, when did bans actually accomplish the ban goal?
> Again, most drugs aren't that bad, regardless what DARE propagandized you into believing.
I haven't been propagandized into believing anything by DARE. My sources of information are PsychonautWiki and NIH research papers, as well as harm reduction communities like Bluelight.
I do actually know someone who has permanent short-term memory impairment due to heavy marijuana use at a young age. There is absolutely nothing propagandized about that because it literally happened. It is something that can happen. But it's merely an example. I'm just using it to illustrate how reckless usage of drugs is one of the big issues right now.
> I've been on damn near every painkiller up to fentanyl. My fav is morphine. Feels like a glowing warmth and "home". I could easily see me doing a small amount on a friday evening after work's done. Id keep it down enough that I wouldn't get a tolerance, and I'd be "sobered" up by next morning.
Nothing wrong with that. Just because abuse is an issue doesn't mean you can't use drugs responsibly.
I used to have a lorazepam prescription for panic attacks, but had to stop getting it because I couldn't use it responsibly. It mostly worked, but I would use too much and risk depleting my natural GABA reserves, which could kill me.
I don't see anything wrong with benzos though. Or opioids. It's all in how you use them.
> Ive also been on amphetamines, and threw' em away. Made me feel TERRIBLE.
I have ADHD and adderall made me feel so terrible that my executive dysfunction got worse and I couldn't leave bed at all. I had to sleep it off. Meanwhile, dexedrine (pure dextroamph without levo) makes me feel calmer and more focused.
They work differently for everybody!
> The 3 biggest scourge drugs we have are alcohol, tobacco, and sugar.
I'd add nicotine (even outside of tobacco) and caffeine to that list!
Harm reduction should include quality control. In the Netherlands, for example, publicly funded harm reduction clinics will test any drug sample for free and anonymously as a public health measure. However, hard drugs are still illegal.
Absolutely. No argument here. Lack of quality control is even part of the current opioid crisis because one issue is that people are dying from fentanyl overdoses even when they weren't trying to buy fentanyl.
This kind of stuff is what makes it safe for me to use LSD recreationally, alone, in my own home- it's nontoxic and I do it on my own time, and I don't glorify its use to others. There should be no reason to send me away for 6 months over this. Yet because all schedule-1 drugs are treated the same, the penalty for LSD possession is the same as the penalty for meth or cocaine possession. I don't get it.
(Maybe the moral of the story should be that LSD shouldn't be schedule-1.)
Meth and cocaine users also want a safe place to use their drug of choice :). The whole issue of drug use should be left to individuals and not mandated by State. If some drugs are more dangerous than others maybe we can provide a safe place for their consumption like hospitals and clinics as we do now for prescription medications. But simply criminalizing all drugs or some drugs doesn't help, as we have seen over and over again.
> Meth and cocaine users also want a safe place to use their drug of choice :)
Harm reduction in general is a wonderful thing and the solution to drug use is definitely not to make it more dangerous. Making it safer and providing easy access to real, non-propaganda harm reduction resources will help far more people than criminalization ever could. Providing safe, regulated supply that won't be contaminated with adulterants or impure byproducts, allowing people to consult with doctors about it, allowing research to be done on it so that it can be better understood, etc.
All the decriminalize crap is pushed by rich liberal types. They live in luxury apartments or out in the burbs. Worst thing they have to dodge is their fav brunch place being full.
Ask any poor or working class person. They don’t want this crap. Drugs ravage their communities. They have to deal with these problems.
Same thing with the defund the police and other non sense.
I grew up in shit areas and went to college in an inner city. Some of my friends, college staff, and my own experiences (been robbed a dozen times) all lived thru this shit. We need police and we need to stop criminals from selling drugs and put career junkies away (they don’t want to get clean, ok go away then)
Meanwhile mfs wearing Arcteryx want to lecture people wearing 2nd hand Starter they should just be cool with junkies and destruction.
Upper class values are not compatible with non-upper class realities. And yet they continue to get forced on people over and over again. People take these values on and then are surprised when they don't work out and everyone feels worse off and things "just keep getting weirder and worse".
100%. It’s why I personally stopped entertaining their nonsense and call it out.
I’m personally doing okay now but I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon and parents having multiple homes. Some of the things my peers say now makes me roll my eyes and take their other opinions with a grain of salt.
Ive been to the rich liberal types' parties. You know how some of them go? Like this:
You'll have a retreat to the den. The host will either send someone out to get "supplies" or they'll already have it. And they'll pull out a few eight-balls, and they'll put up a few hundreds around the room, and everyone will enjoy a few lines.
They'll then retreat to the in-house pool or hot tub, and enjoy.
I also had a friend who was a retired record exec, and it was routine that during lunchtime, they'd gather money to go down to the street and buy coke.
Just because they're rich, doesnt mean they don't do drugs. They likely do, just not on the streets. They do from their mansions.
(And its also the middle class who're scared shitless about drugs. My guess is because they don't have the money to hire a lawyer to keep a drug rap off.)
Wow, sure wish I was in that elite class. I aint. I was a guest.
> All the decriminalize crap is pushed by rich liberal types. They live in luxury apartments or out in the burbs.
And they're doing those same drugs they want decriminalized.
> Ask any poor or working class person. They don’t want this crap. Drugs ravage their communities. They have to deal with these problems.
Again, the drugs are the escape. Escape from what? Poverty.
Poverty is the actual thing ravaging communities. And in inner cities, it is definitely a zero-sum game, or likely negative-sum.
Rich people do drugs as an experience with friends. Its a whole different mindset than "i want to do drugs to escape the fact I dont have enough food and my tooth hurts and avoiding the gunshot sounds outside".
> Same thing with the defund the police and other non sense.
Again, rich liberal types usually don't worry about petty theft or simple vandalism. They dont see it, and so they want to defund it.
Ive had a unique life, where I'm now middle class, went through living on the streets in poverty, and been the guest to some of the rich liberal class. You can try to make fun of me for my experiences. Try to understand whats going on, and why. And the rich are being honest in what they ask, but not what they say.
And in all my experiences, poverty and extreme income disparity is the actual elephant in the room. Drugs? They don't cause near the problem.
This is indicative of overly centralized government. People should have self determination to choose the rules that are best aligned for their situations.
I suspect one pro-social thing citizens can do without government action is to be personally less open to drugs. I've noticed in more left leaning space, the consensus has shifted to that drugs are "cool" which is why they should be decriminalized. They're not. Decriminalization is a pragmatic strategy to minimize harm but drugs still create harm.
The main issue is that Portland was ground zero for a lot of the BLM protests and defund the police campaigns - not without good reason, either. The cops, who mostly live in the suburbs, essentially threw a collective tantrum and refused to do their jobs in Portland. This coincided with covid, newly decriminalized "hard" drugs, the rise of cheap fentanyl, and created a an explosion unprosecuted property and nuisance crimes.
Fundamentally the justice system is just broken in Oregon, and this is merely a political move to please cops and conservatives, that won't fix anything. The state just released a report that they will be short 1800 public defenders due to just this law alone.
"Catch and release" will continue, cops will cry for more budget and less oversight and the human misery of those caught up in addiction will just increase with further legal entanglements.
Interesting to me that voter-passed ballot initiatives can simply be repealed by the Oregon legislature. Seems to defeat the point of ballot initiatives.
Try living in Utah, where that happens before the initiative is even implemented.
The people of my state voted to legalize medical cannabis: it was implemented with absurd restrictions. The people of my state voted for a third-party committee to draw our district maps: our representatives chose to implement their own maps instead.
A big issue with a lot of decriminalize campaigns and policies, is there is generally not additional funding and resources for rehab and recovery paired with it. It's just "well, go out in the street and do whatever" and police depts deciding to throw their hands up in the air and act like assault and other physical or violent crimes can no longer be enforced.
So, Oregon decriminalized in 2020, but failed to stand up treatment and diversion programs as promised. And instead of doing that, they've decided it's easier to just jail addicts again? Sounds like a total failure of government in both cases.
Note: I'm not claiming decriminalization is a panacea. But, decriminalizing without robust diversion/treatment options is bound to fail just as badly as tossing all the addicts in jail.
Oregon's decriminalization was really badly fumbled, but it's not clear to me that it would have succeeded in the best of circumstances. Vancouver,B.C. has all the diversion/treatment options and legal use sites you could want, and they're having a lot of problems with the fentanyl wave too. They're also experiencing sky high overdose rates.
I'm an Oregonian. I would have preferred that the state enacted robust enforcement of bans on public use and stood up legal use sites rather than recriminalize. I'm not sure that would be politically viable though, and "stand up legal use sites" is easy to write in a law, but it's exactly the kind of thing our public agencies have been utterly incapable of doing in recent years. Where would these legal use sites be? Near which schools, homes, and businesses? Which agency would administer them? Or rather, which agency would administer the contract to a grant-supported non-profit entity (because that's how these things work here)? How would you convince qualified people to work there? Can't be done in Oregon on any kind of timeline that would address the present crisis.
> Where would these legal use sites be? Near which schools, homes, and businesses? Which agency would administer them? Or rather, which agency would administer the contract to a grant-supported non-profit entity (because that's how these things work here)? How would you convince qualified people to work there?
I'm pretty bummed we've ended up in a place in this country where there is this strict extreme binary dichotomy of "fully legal do whatever you want" on one end vs "criminal, and if a felony you are likely somewhat fucked for life long after your sentence is over too" on the other. There are lots of medical in human existence, including drugs and certain mental illness, that can render someone a serious problem to the rights of others yet aren't criminal, that do require forceful intervention whether someone wants it or not but don't involve criminal intent and shouldn't result in prison and permanent records. There should be some middle category where force can be used to compel treatment until someone is well enough to return to society, but not be fed into the prison-industrial complex. Instead we've witnessed these wild pendulum swings, with major harm at each extreme. It's a real shame.
I hate to say it but I’m somewhat glad as a resident. This isn’t the right move, or the moral move, but taking decriminalization to mean “do nothing” was equally immoral in its own way.
No drug user was ever helped by a jail cell. Nor was any drug user helped by this free-for-all policy. Oregon allowed users to suffer the same as before and cause unsafe situations for the general populace.
Smoking meth in a sidewalk tent should get your ass sent to a care facility. For help. Oregon ran with the headlines from Portugal but never bothered to read the actual article.
Now I doubt decriminalization will be tried again on this level in this country. And with the drug epidemic still in full swing we badly need a policy that isn’t criminalization. It almost feels like it was meant to fail.
Time and time again the people of Oregon (and specifically Portland) try to show goodwill towards their fellow man. Raising taxes on ourselves is a hobby. Time and time again the legislature makes the money disappear, implements XYZ poorly, and engineers failure.
> Time and time again the people of Oregon (and specifically Portland) try to show goodwill towards their fellow man. Raising taxes on ourselves is a hobby. Time and time again the legislature makes the money disappear, implements XYZ poorly, and creates a failure.
That feels like this policy in an ouroboros-esque nutshell -- doing something for just reasons, but without working through the realpolitik implementation details.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 145 ms ] thread- Decriminalization of drugs creates better health outcomes for drug users.
- Criminalization of drugs creates better outcomes for non-drug users.
It's unreasonable to ask people to be okay with open drug use, and the consequences thereof, for the good of drug users.
A balanced policy between compassionate enforcement and properly funding treatment seems more socially palatable.
Decriminalization was really badly implemented in Oregon. Part of it was the pandemic. Part of it was the confluence with the fentanyl surge. Part of it was that our public agencies just didn't seem to know how to coordinate with one another on the issues that arose.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/politics/bill-using-drugs-p...
Opiates and amphetamines are entirely different animals than drugs like alcohol and weed. You can’t really treat them as the same kind of thing.
I'm not implying the laws should be exactly the same, only that public alcohol consumption also has problems that are visible to non-drinkers/locals.
Drug use doesn't provide a social place. Also, certain drugs are an order of magnitude way worse than having a moderate amount of alcohol. Legalizing public drug use, outside of marijuana, seems idiotic to me.
To contrast, people addicted to heroin or meth are much more vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness, etc.; which pushes them into public spaces, and incentivizes them to commit petty and violent crime.
but also contradicts the original parent that had me going: "Decriminalization of drugs creates better health outcomes for drug users.". but we're saying, the recriminalization is preventing them from doing drugs, falling into homelessness, and then doing drugs on street corners. like why wasnt "treatment is available" doing that. (I mean I know why, it's because coercive force helps coerce drug users to change where they otherwise would have less reason to. halfway houses are like conduits between prison cells and the outside world).
First, in the case of drugs like methamphetamine, heroine, cocaine, fentanyl, and so on, we're looking to eliminate use of these compounds outside of medical applications. Having a lovely entertainment venue for blowing off steam is not what we're going for. We want to help people avoid or conquer addictions to dangerous drugs.
A program aimed at this goal that has worked elsewhere includes a system of policies and spending that work together to achieve that aim. The system includes a number of aspects:
- Spending on rehabilitation and treatment
- Eliminating criminal penalties for drug use and instead requiring treatment programs
- Jobs programs (it turns out a lot of addiction is about purpose, or lack thereof)
To do this is hard to pull off, because you have to have a number of groups of people all pulling together for the same goal of helping people resolve their addictions. If you don't do it altogether, and just label it "decriminalization" and only do that part of it, it is guaranteed to fail. It is idiotic. There's also a name for it: Cargo Cult.
We're bewildered that the problem just doesn't go away (the planes don't land and bring cargo) when we go through the superficial motions (wave sticks at the sky near the landing strip) of "decriminalization."
Alcohol is also more trivial to illegally produce than most recreational drugs. Hell, you can make it on accident by just keeping fruit too long.
Decriminalization isn't enough to resolve the societal problems caused by a system of prohibition. The greater societal problems - like poverty, homelessness, petty crime, and violence - are tied more closely to production and distribution than possession and use.
Drug use should happen in safe spaces that don't negatively impact others. For any airborne use, I want a 'fume / chemical hood' like negative draw with scrubbed exhaust.
I suppose it beats breaking into cars to do it.
I am afraid they badly implemented a policy that, if implemented correctly, could have made a big difference, and now everyone will think it just doesn’t work.
They didn't even really do the decriminalization. The full law never came into effect, and the most of the treatment programs they promised to create as an alternative to incarceration were still in the process of being set up. The state never approved the funding for many of them, so they killed the initiative before it ever started.
> I am afraid they badly implemented a policy that, if implemented correctly, could have made a big difference, and now everyone will think it just doesn’t work.
That's exactly what happened. The funny part is that the evidence has shown quite clearly that criminalization doesn't "work" either. But it's treated as the societal default, that which can be accepted and trusted without any evidence.
One example of how this negatively impacts non-drug using citizens is that summer camps have been having trouble because the kids can't use the bathrooms at the local parks. People are smoking fentanyl in the park bathrooms (which is not currently illegal), and so the kids have no where to do their business.
1: https://www.opb.org/article/2022/12/08/multnomah-county-purc...
Yes, and that's why the state also needs to provide injection sites, non-shelter housing, and all sorts of other programs that were supposed to happen under Measure 110, and which the state refused to fund, and which never had the time to get off the ground before this bill was passed.
> One example of how this negatively impacts non-drug using citizens is that summer camps have been having trouble because the kids can't use the bathrooms at the local parks. People are smoking fentanyl in the park bathrooms (which is not currently illegal), and so the kids have no where to do their business.
There are lots of ways to solve that issue without criminalizing drugs. And in fact, as proven by countless other cities across the country, criminalizing drugs doesn't even solve that problem either.
It doesn't solve the problem.
However, criminalization may be a less worse way to mitigate the impacts of the problem.
This feels like "no true Scotsman" at policy-scale: it's unscientific to point out the flaws in actual sausage making as the reason the Platonically ideal sausage turned out poorly in reality.
Those political characteristics are inherent to the process! If one path to utopia requires pissing voters off, then it's more logical to engineer a different path to get there while placating voters, because the former in untenable in a democracy.
There's no data to support this claim, and copious evidence against it.
> This feels like "no true Scotsman" at policy-scale: it's unscientific to point out the flaws in actual sausage making as the reason the Platonically ideal sausage turned out poorly in reality. Those political characteristics are inherent to the process! If one path to utopia requires pissing voters off, then it's more logical to engineer a different path to get there while placating voters, because the former in untenable in a democracy.
It's not a "no true Scotsman" to point out that the measure that voters passed was never actually implemented. Some of the provisions weren't even due to kick in until later this year!
Ironically, your statement is a great example of begging the question (in the correct usage of the term): by your logic, any world in which decriminalization is not already implemented is "proof" that it's a bad policy, because if it were, the Logical Politicians™ would implement it, as that would surely appease voters.
In reality, what happened is simple: voters approved an initiative, elected officials didn't like what voters chose, so they just refused to implement it, then called it a "failure".
If the voters passed a measure, that caused substantial negative perception before it was fully implemented, then who's to blame?
Maybe the voters should have been clearer on the implementation sequencing.
> In reality, what happened is simple: voters approved an initiative, elected officials didn't like what voters chose, so they just refused to implement it, then called it a "failure".
How does this not suffice as an excuse for any bad results from decriminalization? What constitutes a sufficiently perfect implementation to validate negative outcomes?
> Maybe the voters should have been clearer on the implementation sequencing.
This is, again, begging the question. You're assuming the consequent.
Voters were clear on what they wanted. They directly voted for and passed a specific bill. Elected officials - not voters - refused to implement what voters chose. Then, elected officials - not voters - repealed the bill.
It's not like this was repealed by popular vote. As of today, there's not even any evidence that the same voters who approved this in 2020 have somehow changed their minds and oppose it today.
You're arguing from a position of pure speculation to support an a priori conclusion, and that's simply not logically sound.
> How does this not suffice as an excuse for any bad results from decriminalization?
This is ridiculous. You can't judge the effect of a policy that's not implemented. If you're willing to do that, you've left the realm of science altogether and might as well argue for policy based on astrology, or augury.
I don't know how feasible this would be without public healthcare though
I’m sure it’s real, but is the problem that the drug use isn’t illegal? How does making it a crime again help?
Unfortunately, if the new laws are enforced there will be a "correction" that takes place and I imagine that will include fines, arrests, and jail.
A component of this is minimum building standards.
Homeless is a direct consequence of socially deciding that no new housing under certain standards (and therefore building costs) can be constructed.
If we were okay with building cost- and density-optimized cubes, we could probably solve homelessness in a year.
Instead, we've decided that it's better to have minimum building standards, with the side effect that some people cannot afford such a dwelling.
Just mindlessly chasing "newer code is better", without understanding how it affects housing affordability. Or maybe it's an intentional payout to developers to let them profit from increased complexity?
The issue to me is how it becomes penalized - especially given the US response to ex-felons (and its use of felons as a non voting slave class) - it’s very easy for the result of a drug related offense to put people in a position where drugs are functionally the only practical option (either abuse or selling).
Wholesale decriminalization seems like a bad response based on the outcomes in many areas, but it really seems like there should be an option that doesn’t result in immediate criminal records for life.
Isn't this what the drug diversion programs are for? https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/diversion-programs.h...
Therefore, you arrest criminals, and offer them jail or treatment that they must follow or they go straight to jail.
Camping on a city sidewalk should be a crime. This is a public space used by everyone, not just one person to make a random house on. Children use sidewalks which are a public good. If someone uses drugs and camps on the sidewalk, they should be arrested and offerred jail or treatment.
You forgot those who commit crimes in an effort to use drugs. I think treatment inside jail (or some controlled environment) is probably your best bet. If you have someone who's addiction is clouding their judgement, they might say anything just to stay out of jail, but how do you get them to follow through?
The problem is also damaging your brain and body with drugs, developing bad habits and/or drug addiction, your supply being contaminated/poisoned, making irresponsible decisions while intoxicated, etc.
For example cannabis can be mostly safe for adults, but children or teens who use too much of it can develop neurological defects like short-term memory impairment, depending on the frequency and duration of use.
We can make the same exact argument about sugar and HFCS. Either of those substances can make people feel extremely hungry even with a full stomach, thus make terrible decisions and damage their bodies.
Alcohol's much worse. Yet we tried banning that. Remind me how that went again? Oh thats right, we had federal agents poisoning alcohol to intentionally kill drinkers. Wonderful times.
> For example cannabis can be mostly safe for adults, but children or teens who use too much of it can develop neurological defects like short-term memory impairment, depending on the frequency and duration of use.
Again, most drugs aren't that bad, regardless what DARE propagandized you into believing. Id advise anyone actually wanting to understand what a drug is like, to go to https://www.erowid.org/ and read up about experiences.
I've been on damn near every painkiller up to fentanyl. My fav is morphine. Feels like a glowing warmth and "home". I could easily see me doing a small amount on a friday evening after work's done. Id keep it down enough that I wouldn't get a tolerance, and I'd be "sobered" up by next morning.
Ive also been on amphetamines, and threw' em away. Made me feel TERRIBLE.
The 3 biggest scourge drugs we have are alcohol, tobacco, and sugar. And, when did bans actually accomplish the ban goal?
I haven't been propagandized into believing anything by DARE. My sources of information are PsychonautWiki and NIH research papers, as well as harm reduction communities like Bluelight.
I do actually know someone who has permanent short-term memory impairment due to heavy marijuana use at a young age. There is absolutely nothing propagandized about that because it literally happened. It is something that can happen. But it's merely an example. I'm just using it to illustrate how reckless usage of drugs is one of the big issues right now.
> I've been on damn near every painkiller up to fentanyl. My fav is morphine. Feels like a glowing warmth and "home". I could easily see me doing a small amount on a friday evening after work's done. Id keep it down enough that I wouldn't get a tolerance, and I'd be "sobered" up by next morning.
Nothing wrong with that. Just because abuse is an issue doesn't mean you can't use drugs responsibly.
I used to have a lorazepam prescription for panic attacks, but had to stop getting it because I couldn't use it responsibly. It mostly worked, but I would use too much and risk depleting my natural GABA reserves, which could kill me.
I don't see anything wrong with benzos though. Or opioids. It's all in how you use them.
> Ive also been on amphetamines, and threw' em away. Made me feel TERRIBLE.
I have ADHD and adderall made me feel so terrible that my executive dysfunction got worse and I couldn't leave bed at all. I had to sleep it off. Meanwhile, dexedrine (pure dextroamph without levo) makes me feel calmer and more focused.
They work differently for everybody!
> The 3 biggest scourge drugs we have are alcohol, tobacco, and sugar.
I'd add nicotine (even outside of tobacco) and caffeine to that list!
too bad about all the dead people i guess
(Maybe the moral of the story should be that LSD shouldn't be schedule-1.)
Coincidental username though, reminds me of "NBOMe" :)
Harm reduction in general is a wonderful thing and the solution to drug use is definitely not to make it more dangerous. Making it safer and providing easy access to real, non-propaganda harm reduction resources will help far more people than criminalization ever could. Providing safe, regulated supply that won't be contaminated with adulterants or impure byproducts, allowing people to consult with doctors about it, allowing research to be done on it so that it can be better understood, etc.
Ask any poor or working class person. They don’t want this crap. Drugs ravage their communities. They have to deal with these problems.
Same thing with the defund the police and other non sense.
I grew up in shit areas and went to college in an inner city. Some of my friends, college staff, and my own experiences (been robbed a dozen times) all lived thru this shit. We need police and we need to stop criminals from selling drugs and put career junkies away (they don’t want to get clean, ok go away then)
Meanwhile mfs wearing Arcteryx want to lecture people wearing 2nd hand Starter they should just be cool with junkies and destruction.
I’m personally doing okay now but I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon and parents having multiple homes. Some of the things my peers say now makes me roll my eyes and take their other opinions with a grain of salt.
Ive been to the rich liberal types' parties. You know how some of them go? Like this:
You'll have a retreat to the den. The host will either send someone out to get "supplies" or they'll already have it. And they'll pull out a few eight-balls, and they'll put up a few hundreds around the room, and everyone will enjoy a few lines.
They'll then retreat to the in-house pool or hot tub, and enjoy.
I also had a friend who was a retired record exec, and it was routine that during lunchtime, they'd gather money to go down to the street and buy coke.
Just because they're rich, doesnt mean they don't do drugs. They likely do, just not on the streets. They do from their mansions.
(And its also the middle class who're scared shitless about drugs. My guess is because they don't have the money to hire a lawyer to keep a drug rap off.)
> All the decriminalize crap is pushed by rich liberal types. They live in luxury apartments or out in the burbs.
And they're doing those same drugs they want decriminalized.
> Ask any poor or working class person. They don’t want this crap. Drugs ravage their communities. They have to deal with these problems.
Again, the drugs are the escape. Escape from what? Poverty.
Poverty is the actual thing ravaging communities. And in inner cities, it is definitely a zero-sum game, or likely negative-sum.
Rich people do drugs as an experience with friends. Its a whole different mindset than "i want to do drugs to escape the fact I dont have enough food and my tooth hurts and avoiding the gunshot sounds outside".
> Same thing with the defund the police and other non sense.
Again, rich liberal types usually don't worry about petty theft or simple vandalism. They dont see it, and so they want to defund it.
Ive had a unique life, where I'm now middle class, went through living on the streets in poverty, and been the guest to some of the rich liberal class. You can try to make fun of me for my experiences. Try to understand whats going on, and why. And the rich are being honest in what they ask, but not what they say.
And in all my experiences, poverty and extreme income disparity is the actual elephant in the room. Drugs? They don't cause near the problem.
Fundamentally the justice system is just broken in Oregon, and this is merely a political move to please cops and conservatives, that won't fix anything. The state just released a report that they will be short 1800 public defenders due to just this law alone.
"Catch and release" will continue, cops will cry for more budget and less oversight and the human misery of those caught up in addiction will just increase with further legal entanglements.
And any democracy traits it might have are representative democracy.
The people of my state voted to legalize medical cannabis: it was implemented with absurd restrictions. The people of my state voted for a third-party committee to draw our district maps: our representatives chose to implement their own maps instead.
Note: I'm not claiming decriminalization is a panacea. But, decriminalizing without robust diversion/treatment options is bound to fail just as badly as tossing all the addicts in jail.
I'm an Oregonian. I would have preferred that the state enacted robust enforcement of bans on public use and stood up legal use sites rather than recriminalize. I'm not sure that would be politically viable though, and "stand up legal use sites" is easy to write in a law, but it's exactly the kind of thing our public agencies have been utterly incapable of doing in recent years. Where would these legal use sites be? Near which schools, homes, and businesses? Which agency would administer them? Or rather, which agency would administer the contract to a grant-supported non-profit entity (because that's how these things work here)? How would you convince qualified people to work there? Can't be done in Oregon on any kind of timeline that would address the present crisis.
Watching The Wire Season 3 play out in real life has been unfortunate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire#Season_3
No drug user was ever helped by a jail cell. Nor was any drug user helped by this free-for-all policy. Oregon allowed users to suffer the same as before and cause unsafe situations for the general populace.
Smoking meth in a sidewalk tent should get your ass sent to a care facility. For help. Oregon ran with the headlines from Portugal but never bothered to read the actual article.
Now I doubt decriminalization will be tried again on this level in this country. And with the drug epidemic still in full swing we badly need a policy that isn’t criminalization. It almost feels like it was meant to fail.
Time and time again the people of Oregon (and specifically Portland) try to show goodwill towards their fellow man. Raising taxes on ourselves is a hobby. Time and time again the legislature makes the money disappear, implements XYZ poorly, and engineers failure.
That feels like this policy in an ouroboros-esque nutshell -- doing something for just reasons, but without working through the realpolitik implementation details.
All they had to do was prosecute people using drugs in the street.