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From what I hear (as someone now living in rural Portugal), a turning point came when most of the electorate knew someone suffering from a drug addiction. Be it

From what I hear (as someone now living in rural Portugal), a turning point came when most of the electorate knew someone suffering from a drug addiction. Be it a family member, partner, or friend - there came a point when the majority of people could not only see the problems caused by the epidemic, but could also empathise with those with addictions. As a result of this understanding/empathy, it was possible to pass this legislation. I see parallels with the legalisation of same-sex marriage. I saw somewhere that there is a correlation between support of same-sex marriage and actually knowing that a family member or friend is LQBTQ. It seems to me that once people can empathise on a personal level, new approaches become acceptable (/ enter the Overton Window). How this relates to the opioid crisis in the USA I do not know. I’ll leave someone else with more familiarity with the situation to pontificate on that.

mtgx 7y ago
The majority of people wanting a certain law doesn't work in the US anyway as Congress is dependent on corporations much more than it is on the people: https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig Until corporate bribes are removed from electoral campaigns this won't change.
- ianai 7y ago
  Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization. They’re just not always the same corporations against them. There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs. It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops. Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night. Farmers wouldn’t need to work with cartels to sell now legalized crops. The US would see fewer refugees.
  - Qasaur 7y ago
    Conversely I think there are a lot of vested interests in favour of keeping the status quo - I imagine there is a lot of money that is being poured into defense contracts for the War on Drugs, not to mention the private prison industrial complex.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    > I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night. Short term I would expect more violence: cartels won't just quietly pack up shop, they will try to pivot. Too many people who have a career to salvage. Long term, it would be worth it nonetheless.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization. There are lots of corporations that exist in market niches that benefit from or even exist entirely because of the drug war; they obviously have reasons to be anti-legalization. There are lots of potential corporations that do not exist because of the drug war whose interests would be served by legalization, but the potential investors in those potential corporations are largely instead invested in actual corporations based on the incentives in the actual status quo situation. > There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs. Much of which competes with existing medical and recreational business, and would open fields around which incumbents have moats to new competition. Which is why existing corporations with lots of money have reasons to oppose, rather than support, it. > It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops. That's a reason for people needing jobs and living in rural America to support it, but a reason for corporations employing those people currently to oppose it (as the additional competition for labor would drive up labor prices.) > Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night. Yeah, and pretty much every powerful moneyed and political interest in those countries is invested, on one or sometimes both sides, in the continuation of the drug war and associated conflicts.
daenz 7y ago
For obvious reasons, I think many people would be against the suggestion that if more people were suffering from life-destroying drug addiction, a turning point would be reached and the problem would be solved faster. Surely there is a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it overtake society first.
- smt88 7y ago
  Democracies often resist legislation that is proactive and instead react to a disaster
  - xenospn 7y ago
    Same goes for individuals. How many people wait until they get a heart attack before they change their diet or quit smoking?
- rdl 7y ago
  It isn't just numbers. It has to be people who voters/others in power empathize with. The "crack epidemic" of the 80s never would have achieved that. Opiate addiction sort of approaches it (definitely does in some states).
- xfitm3 7y ago
  > Surely there is a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it overtake society first. Uneducated comment.
  - dang 7y ago
    Maybe so, but please don't respond with a worse comment. If you know more, share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. Please don't break the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  People became more sympathetic to LGBTQ issues when people started coming out of the closet and they learned that their neighbours, cousins, nieces and nephews were being prevented from marrying their loved ones. We didn't need to "turn more people gay" to accomplish this. Similarly, we need to raise the visibility and openness of dealing with drug addiction, to come out of the closet so to speak, not increase drug addicted people.
labster 7y ago
And yet most people in the USA know a victim of gun violence, yet we are unable to copy even a portion of the regulations used by a majority of our allies. There's also a point beyond which a problem is so endemic that people consider it the natural state of affairs.
- weberc2 7y ago
  Is this true? Almost no one in my social circles knows a victim of gun violence, and I live in one of the most violent cities in the country. Even if you count suicides (and you really shouldn’t), I would be surprised if this were true. I suspect most people in the country don’t know a victim or offender of gun violence, while they do know several law-abiding gun owners leading them to believe that inner city issues—not guns—are the real driver of gun violence. This is how I perceive the debate; I’m not advocating for either side.
  - javagram 7y ago
    You don’t know anyone who’s ever been robbed at gunpoint or something like that? I think it might depend on who you define as a victim, but if you include suicides and robberies that didn’t result in a homicide this claim doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I guess one thing is that it may be generational, as violent crime was far higher 20-50 years ago. Since the mid 1990s violent crime including gun crime has dropped dramatically so Gen Z and younger millennials would be less likely to have experienced it.
    - baddox 7y ago
      > You don’t know anyone who’s ever been robbed at gunpoint Uhhh, no? Is that a question you would expect people to answer Yes to?
      - tasty_freeze 7y ago
        > You don’t know anyone who’s ever been robbed at gunpoint If you live in the US, then yes, I think it wouldn't be too uncommon. In fact if you listen to 2A advocates, crime is rampant and they love telling stories about how having a gun saved their bacon. Two different kids in my high school that I personally knew, in the suburbs west of Chicago, killed themselves with guns (separate incidents), early 1980s. I'm sure there have since been other suicides, but I'm out of touch with my HS classmates. Sunnyvale, 1986: I was in a 7-11 waiting to turn onto a street, but I had to cross lanes quickly to get to into turn position. Traffic started moving but I was unable to cross. The guy in the car behind me got irate that he was stuck behind me, pulled his car next to mine, and waved a gun in my direction. I pulled into traffic even though it lead me in a direction I didn't want to go to. The guy followed me, pulled up in parallel, rolled down his window and was shouting at me, spitting mad, to pull over ... I guess he wanted to fight. Fat chance. Although the trigger wasn't pulled, it sure felt like an assault. Mid 1990s -- a good friend was robbed at gunpoint at an ATM in downtown Palo Alto at about 7pm. About 2011 -- my sleepy neighborhood in Austin got the news that a murder had been committed and the killer was on the loose. The house was about one block away. It was a nerve-wracking 24+ hours until they caught the guy. It turns out he and his girlfriend were visiting friends for the 4th of july weekend, and after a night of drinking, he shot her and fled. I've always lived in low crime areas, and yet I can think of the above situations. I'm sure I know others who have experienced gun violence but I simply don't know about it.
wtdata 7y ago
Same-sex marriage is about LGB. I really don't understand (or actually I do, I just think it's devious) why we keep mixing sexual preferences in partners (i.e. Lesbian Gay Bisexual), and sexual identity (Transsexual, Queer). These two things are not in the same category at all.
mistermann 7y ago
> I see parallels with the legalisation of same-sex marriage. I saw somewhere that there is a correlation between support of same-sex marriage and actually knowing that a family member or friend is LQBTQ. > It seems to me that once people can empathise on a personal level, new approaches become acceptable (/ enter the Overton Window). I 100% agree, and believe the significance of this general phenomenon is very underappreciated. I would generalize this phenomenon as "From a psychological perspective, once individuals can empathize on a personal level with a given topic, it opens their mind to being changed". As we saw (so it would seem) with same-sex marriage, and general acceptance of non-heterosexual relationships, once a critical mass in society reaches some tipping point, what had looked like an unbreakable impasse suddenly started to break down, and a wave of widespread and willing (eventually, mostly) changing of minds took place relatively rapidly. Cultural evolution in action, via normal evolutionary forces. My question is: why can we not accelerate or bypass the "normal evolutionary forces" approach. Fields like math, science, and engineering evolve at a far faster rate than we seem to be able to achieve in sociology and psychology, for obvious reasons (the former are far, far simpler) - but are we utterly helpless to improve things? Is there no way? Have we tried everything we can think of? What have we even really* tried, besides arguing in the political (and now social media) realms. I believe the answer lies in epistemology, and epistemic humility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility If we could achieve widespread understanding and competence within these fields across members of a group, might it be possible to get people to realize how so many of their beliefs are in reality, little more than an illusion? That the facts they think they are working with are actually opinions? I think it can be done. But how might we go about this? How might we perform some experimentation to test this theory, in smaller population than than the entirety of the world? Is there a smaller, segregated population, preferably of higher than average intelligence, upon which we could test this theory? Where, oh where, might such a population be hiding? Right in front of our noses perhaps?

mtgx 7y ago

The majority of people wanting a certain law doesn't work in the US anyway as Congress is dependent on corporations much more than it is on the people: https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig https://youtu.be/5tu32CCA_Ig Until corporate bribes are removed from electoral campaigns this won't change.

ianai 7y ago
Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization. They’re just not always the same corporations against them. There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs. It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops. Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night. Farmers wouldn’t need to work with cartels to sell now legalized crops. The US would see fewer refugees.
- Qasaur 7y ago
  Conversely I think there are a lot of vested interests in favour of keeping the status quo - I imagine there is a lot of money that is being poured into defense contracts for the War on Drugs, not to mention the private prison industrial complex.
- usrusr 7y ago
  > I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night. Short term I would expect more violence: cartels won't just quietly pack up shop, they will try to pivot. Too many people who have a career to salvage. Long term, it would be worth it nonetheless.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Corporations actually have a reason to be pro legalization. There are lots of corporations that exist in market niches that benefit from or even exist entirely because of the drug war; they obviously have reasons to be anti-legalization. There are lots of potential corporations that do not exist because of the drug war whose interests would be served by legalization, but the potential investors in those potential corporations are largely instead invested in actual corporations based on the incentives in the actual status quo situation. > There’s lots of industry to be made around medicinal and recreational uses of drugs. Much of which competes with existing medical and recreational business, and would open fields around which incumbents have moats to new competition. Which is why existing corporations with lots of money have reasons to oppose, rather than support, it. > It might even make jobs in rural America in the form of additional cash crops. That's a reason for people needing jobs and living in rural America to support it, but a reason for corporations employing those people currently to oppose it (as the additional competition for labor would drive up labor prices.) > Further, imagine the societal impact of removing the money for cartels. I think Mexico and central and South America would become dramatically less violent over night. Yeah, and pretty much every powerful moneyed and political interest in those countries is invested, on one or sometimes both sides, in the continuation of the drug war and associated conflicts.

daenz 7y ago

For obvious reasons, I think many people would be against the suggestion that if more people were suffering from life-destroying drug addiction, a turning point would be reached and the problem would be solved faster. Surely there is a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it overtake society first.

smt88 7y ago
Democracies often resist legislation that is proactive and instead react to a disaster
- xenospn 7y ago
  Same goes for individuals. How many people wait until they get a heart attack before they change their diet or quit smoking?
rdl 7y ago
It isn't just numbers. It has to be people who voters/others in power empathize with. The "crack epidemic" of the 80s never would have achieved that. Opiate addiction sort of approaches it (definitely does in some states).
xfitm3 7y ago
> Surely there is a way to push back the spread of drugs and addiction, without letting it overtake society first. Uneducated comment.
- dang 7y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't respond with a worse comment. If you know more, share some of what you know so the rest of us can learn. Please don't break the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Ensorceled 7y ago
People became more sympathetic to LGBTQ issues when people started coming out of the closet and they learned that their neighbours, cousins, nieces and nephews were being prevented from marrying their loved ones. We didn't need to "turn more people gay" to accomplish this. Similarly, we need to raise the visibility and openness of dealing with drug addiction, to come out of the closet so to speak, not increase drug addicted people.

labster 7y ago

And yet most people in the USA know a victim of gun violence, yet we are unable to copy even a portion of the regulations used by a majority of our allies. There's also a point beyond which a problem is so endemic that people consider it the natural state of affairs.

weberc2 7y ago
Is this true? Almost no one in my social circles knows a victim of gun violence, and I live in one of the most violent cities in the country. Even if you count suicides (and you really shouldn’t), I would be surprised if this were true. I suspect most people in the country don’t know a victim or offender of gun violence, while they do know several law-abiding gun owners leading them to believe that inner city issues—not guns—are the real driver of gun violence. This is how I perceive the debate; I’m not advocating for either side.
- javagram 7y ago
  You don’t know anyone who’s ever been robbed at gunpoint or something like that? I think it might depend on who you define as a victim, but if you include suicides and robberies that didn’t result in a homicide this claim doesn’t seem unreasonable to me. I guess one thing is that it may be generational, as violent crime was far higher 20-50 years ago. Since the mid 1990s violent crime including gun crime has dropped dramatically so Gen Z and younger millennials would be less likely to have experienced it.
  - baddox 7y ago
    > You don’t know anyone who’s ever been robbed at gunpoint Uhhh, no? Is that a question you would expect people to answer Yes to?
    - tasty_freeze 7y ago
      > You don’t know anyone who’s ever been robbed at gunpoint If you live in the US, then yes, I think it wouldn't be too uncommon. In fact if you listen to 2A advocates, crime is rampant and they love telling stories about how having a gun saved their bacon. Two different kids in my high school that I personally knew, in the suburbs west of Chicago, killed themselves with guns (separate incidents), early 1980s. I'm sure there have since been other suicides, but I'm out of touch with my HS classmates. Sunnyvale, 1986: I was in a 7-11 waiting to turn onto a street, but I had to cross lanes quickly to get to into turn position. Traffic started moving but I was unable to cross. The guy in the car behind me got irate that he was stuck behind me, pulled his car next to mine, and waved a gun in my direction. I pulled into traffic even though it lead me in a direction I didn't want to go to. The guy followed me, pulled up in parallel, rolled down his window and was shouting at me, spitting mad, to pull over ... I guess he wanted to fight. Fat chance. Although the trigger wasn't pulled, it sure felt like an assault. Mid 1990s -- a good friend was robbed at gunpoint at an ATM in downtown Palo Alto at about 7pm. About 2011 -- my sleepy neighborhood in Austin got the news that a murder had been committed and the killer was on the loose. The house was about one block away. It was a nerve-wracking 24+ hours until they caught the guy. It turns out he and his girlfriend were visiting friends for the 4th of july weekend, and after a night of drinking, he shot her and fled. I've always lived in low crime areas, and yet I can think of the above situations. I'm sure I know others who have experienced gun violence but I simply don't know about it.

wtdata 7y ago

Same-sex marriage is about LGB. I really don't understand (or actually I do, I just think it's devious) why we keep mixing sexual preferences in partners (i.e. Lesbian Gay Bisexual), and sexual identity (Transsexual, Queer). These two things are not in the same category at all.

mistermann 7y ago

> I see parallels with the legalisation of same-sex marriage. I saw somewhere that there is a correlation between support of same-sex marriage and actually knowing that a family member or friend is LQBTQ. > It seems to me that once people can empathise on a personal level, new approaches become acceptable (/ enter the Overton Window). I 100% agree, and believe the significance of this general phenomenon is very underappreciated. I would generalize this phenomenon as "From a psychological perspective, once individuals can empathize on a personal level with a given topic, it opens their mind to being changed". As we saw (so it would seem) with same-sex marriage, and general acceptance of non-heterosexual relationships, once a critical mass in society reaches some tipping point, what had looked like an unbreakable impasse suddenly started to break down, and a wave of widespread and willing (eventually, mostly) changing of minds took place relatively rapidly. Cultural evolution in action, via normal evolutionary forces. My question is: why can we not accelerate or bypass the "normal evolutionary forces" approach. Fields like math, science, and engineering evolve at a far faster rate than we seem to be able to achieve in sociology and psychology, for obvious reasons (the former are far, far simpler) - but are we utterly helpless to improve things? Is there no way? Have we tried everything we can think of? What have we even really* tried, besides arguing in the political (and now social media) realms. I believe the answer lies in epistemology, and epistemic humility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_humility If we could achieve widespread understanding and competence within these fields across members of a group, might it be possible to get people to realize how so many of their beliefs are in reality, little more than an illusion? That the facts they think they are working with are actually opinions? I think it can be done. But how might we go about this? How might we perform some experimentation to test this theory, in smaller population than than the entirety of the world? Is there a smaller, segregated population, preferably of higher than average intelligence, upon which we could test this theory? Where, oh where, might such a population be hiding? Right in front of our noses perhaps?