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> make the addicts much happier and safer This is the current trend in many progressive cities, and so far it's a massive failure. Perhaps it's not surprising

by freyir 8y ago

> make the addicts much happier and safer This is the current trend in many progressive cities, and so far it's a massive failure. Perhaps it's not surprising that when you work to make addicts happier, you attract more addicts. You also wind up with an entire industry that spends hundreds of millions of tax dollars catering to the addicts, and which perversely needs addicts to remain addicted in order for the industry to survive. The situation only gets worse. These policies put the addict's needs above those of the non-addicts, since most non-addicts do not want a neighborhood filled with junkies who moved in to get free services, free needles, and legal injection sites. Common knowledge used to be that an addict needs to hit "rock bottom" before they will turn their life around. If this is true, by making addicts happier and more comfortable, you're not helping anybody.

cwkoss 8y ago
This has not been attempted anywhere. What are you referring to? >who typically do not want their neighborhood filled with addicts who have moved in to get free services, free needles, and safe spaces. The lack of a policy for dealing with homeless addicts is a effectively just a policy of keeping them in the poorest neighborhoods. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away, we can do better.
- freyir 8y ago
  > The lack of a policy for dealing with homeless addicts is a effectively just a policy of keeping them in the poorest neighborhoods. No, becoming a drug addict will keep you in poorest neighborhoods. This is simple cause and effect. And why should drug addicts not live in poor neighborhoods? Why would you move the drug addicts out of poor neighborhoods, but not the non-addicts? You are suggesting policy that incentivizes addiction. > This has not been attempted anywhere. What are you referring to? If you don't live in San Francisco, I'd recommend checking out this recent video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/12/14/san-francisco-opioid-homeless-llr-orig.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/12/14/san-francisco-opioi... There are certain blocks of the city in the Tenderloin and SoMa where people are free to shoot up heroin in broad daylight. The city hands out 400,000 free needles to junkies every month. We spend $300 million a year on homeless programs with little oversight or accountability, and recently voted to double that to $600M+. And now they're proposing official safe injection sites in the middle of the city. Is this putting a dent in the addiction problem? No, the city is becoming a dystopian hellscape.
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    That's why you also need free heroin inside, and the price to leave is a clean piss test. Concentrate the people creating the 'dystopian hellscape' so services can be provided to them more efficiently and cheaply. If they can't get clean, they can stay inside and get a daily lecture on why they should be sober before their fix. I'm not saying that its "fair" that everyone else pays for this. I'm saying we're already paying more than this and it isn't working, so puritan notions that "Govt should never provide people with certain drugs" should be challenged if there is a strong economic benefit.
- drak0n1c 8y ago
  Seattle does not enforce laws against public drug use and recently vacated all gross misdemeanor charges, citing the "case load". This just incentivizes bad behavior and further increases the case load. Every time I take my weekly walk I find 2-5 of those "free" used syringes with uncapped needles on sidewalks. While some decriminalization is good, if it is accompanied by indulging people's addictions and lackadaisical enforcement of littering, loitering, and harassment laws it only makes the problem worse.
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    By making the decriminalization location-based, it would concentrate the problem and make providing services to those individuals much cheaper because of economies of scale. I'd imagine if there was free heroin and needles inside, not many people would continue buying H and discarding syringes on the street.
    - drak0n1c 8y ago
      Hopefully these facilities can consistently confront disagreeable and potentially unstable users and ensure they are discarding all needles that were used before leaving. Seattle's track record of enforcement in other areas makes me pessimistic, unfortunately. One idea I've heard of is requiring more needles to be handed in before fresh needles are handed out as a means of incentivizing neighborhood cleanup.
zozbot123 8y ago
> Common knowledge used to be that an addict needs to hit "rock bottom" before they will turn their life around. There are some newer treatments of drug addiction (e.g. wrt. opioids) that seem to hit a useful middle ground. They do more than simply letting the addict hit "rock bottom", e.g. they do mitigate the effects of physical dependence and withdrawal - but they seemingly do not replicate the "rewarding" and "addictive" effects of the drug. They're still rather controversial, precisely because nobody wants to inadvertently "enable" an opioid junkie in their destructive habit, but their use may be worthwhile here.
fzeroracer 8y ago
> This is the current trend in many progressive cities, and so far it's a massive failure > Perhaps it's not surprising that when you work to make addicts happier, you attract more addicts. > Common knowledge used to be that an addict needs to hit "rock bottom" before they will turn their life around. Please cite your claims.

by freyir 8y ago

cwkoss 8y ago

This has not been attempted anywhere. What are you referring to? >who typically do not want their neighborhood filled with addicts who have moved in to get free services, free needles, and safe spaces. The lack of a policy for dealing with homeless addicts is a effectively just a policy of keeping them in the poorest neighborhoods. Ignoring them doesn't make them go away, we can do better.

freyir 8y ago
> The lack of a policy for dealing with homeless addicts is a effectively just a policy of keeping them in the poorest neighborhoods. No, becoming a drug addict will keep you in poorest neighborhoods. This is simple cause and effect. And why should drug addicts not live in poor neighborhoods? Why would you move the drug addicts out of poor neighborhoods, but not the non-addicts? You are suggesting policy that incentivizes addiction. > This has not been attempted anywhere. What are you referring to? If you don't live in San Francisco, I'd recommend checking out this recent video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/12/14/san-francisco-opioid-homeless-llr-orig.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/12/14/san-francisco-opioi... There are certain blocks of the city in the Tenderloin and SoMa where people are free to shoot up heroin in broad daylight. The city hands out 400,000 free needles to junkies every month. We spend $300 million a year on homeless programs with little oversight or accountability, and recently voted to double that to $600M+. And now they're proposing official safe injection sites in the middle of the city. Is this putting a dent in the addiction problem? No, the city is becoming a dystopian hellscape.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  That's why you also need free heroin inside, and the price to leave is a clean piss test. Concentrate the people creating the 'dystopian hellscape' so services can be provided to them more efficiently and cheaply. If they can't get clean, they can stay inside and get a daily lecture on why they should be sober before their fix. I'm not saying that its "fair" that everyone else pays for this. I'm saying we're already paying more than this and it isn't working, so puritan notions that "Govt should never provide people with certain drugs" should be challenged if there is a strong economic benefit.
drak0n1c 8y ago
Seattle does not enforce laws against public drug use and recently vacated all gross misdemeanor charges, citing the "case load". This just incentivizes bad behavior and further increases the case load. Every time I take my weekly walk I find 2-5 of those "free" used syringes with uncapped needles on sidewalks. While some decriminalization is good, if it is accompanied by indulging people's addictions and lackadaisical enforcement of littering, loitering, and harassment laws it only makes the problem worse.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  By making the decriminalization location-based, it would concentrate the problem and make providing services to those individuals much cheaper because of economies of scale. I'd imagine if there was free heroin and needles inside, not many people would continue buying H and discarding syringes on the street.
  - drak0n1c 8y ago
    Hopefully these facilities can consistently confront disagreeable and potentially unstable users and ensure they are discarding all needles that were used before leaving. Seattle's track record of enforcement in other areas makes me pessimistic, unfortunately. One idea I've heard of is requiring more needles to be handed in before fresh needles are handed out as a means of incentivizing neighborhood cleanup.

zozbot123 8y ago

> Common knowledge used to be that an addict needs to hit "rock bottom" before they will turn their life around. There are some newer treatments of drug addiction (e.g. wrt. opioids) that seem to hit a useful middle ground. They do more than simply letting the addict hit "rock bottom", e.g. they do mitigate the effects of physical dependence and withdrawal - but they seemingly do not replicate the "rewarding" and "addictive" effects of the drug. They're still rather controversial, precisely because nobody wants to inadvertently "enable" an opioid junkie in their destructive habit, but their use may be worthwhile here.

fzeroracer 8y ago

> This is the current trend in many progressive cities, and so far it's a massive failure > Perhaps it's not surprising that when you work to make addicts happier, you attract more addicts. > Common knowledge used to be that an addict needs to hit "rock bottom" before they will turn their life around. Please cite your claims.