29 ms·

Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today

253 points by undefined1 6y ago

TerminalWarrior 6y ago
Finally, the beginning of the end to the Drug War. If Biden has a brain and guts he will accelerate this trend. With Kamala Harris as VP, a woman who made her career locking up minor drug offenders, it will be an uphill battle. I guess being a black woman counts for more than having a horrible track record these days.
kolbe 6y ago
Say what you will about your opinion of what the results of this will be, it does create an experiment for us to learn with. I think one of the great tragedies of politics is that we do not experiment enough, so when ones like this pop up naturally, it'll give us great data.
- blhack 6y ago
  I'm curious what metrics we should track to determine if this is good or not.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Does drug use increase? Does crime increase? What impact does it have on the prison population and public health?
    - treeman79 6y ago
      What happens with kids? I adopted a teen who was in the system for 10 years because parents were constantly stoned. Police had to bring kids home from school many times because The bio parents were so out of it.
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        I'm not sure putting the parents in prison would fix that or change it much in any way. If parents are stone/ drunk so regularly they shouldn't parent, it's child neglect/ abuse regardless of whether the drugs are legal.
        munk-a 6y ago
        I think the real solution here is to better empower potential parents to have more freedom to make the choice of whether to become parents or not. If someone doesn't want to become a parent then I think it's a good idea to remove any obstacles between them and avoiding being a parent. Too often that choice is forced on folks and the major impact that has on your life can leave people resentful and angry which just isn't a good place to start being a parent from.
  - betenoire 6y ago
    The experiment doesn't have to be on people, it can be on budgets and resources. Tracking whether or not or how many people get help vs punished might be a place to start
- imperio59 6y ago
  Experimenting with people's lives is not a responsible way to experiment. No one is denying these drugs are harmful, yet Oregon is basically saying "go ahead, it's fine, use these drugs". Seeing what is happening with the Marijuana lobbies coming in and putting in billions in lobbying should scare everybody. We have big tobacco to look at for where this leads. The next obvious step is to legalize all drugs, and let these lobbies profit off the back of addicts and their families and their ruined lives. Unless we as a society take a stand on some of these issues, we will be in deep trouble in a few years.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cammikebrown 6y ago
    The way I think of it is, people will do drugs whether or not they’re legal. The current system is to throw drug users in jail, which has been proven to cost a lot of money and not do anything to rehabilitate the drug user. They need treatment, not jail time. This bill has greatly expanded access to treatment programs, which will help much more than incarceration ever could.
    - cecja 6y ago
      The english and the chinese want a word with you about that opium experiment they had running for a long time over there.
    - throwawayboise 6y ago
      Well, I mean it's pretty hard to stay using if you're in jail. Yes some contraband does leak in but it's far less available than on the street. So a stretch in jail will very likely have you sober whether you like it or not. It's all the other negative attributes and consequences of prison that are the problem.
    - daenz 6y ago
      Your first sentence isn't necessarily true. Speaking from 1st and 2nd hand experience, there are people who would have experimented with harder drugs if they were easy to obtain.
- m463 6y ago
  > one of the great tragedies of politics is that we do not experiment enough I kind of agree, but we do have 50 states, each running their own experiments. Massachusetts has right to repair. Nevada has legalized gambling. Some states have stronger employee freedom, some stronger employer freedom. Lots of different educational experiments. Helmet laws, concealed carry, state income tax, no state income tax. Can you pump your own gas?
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    > Can you pump your own gas? Oh stop it, that's not nice. We are slowly, slowly increasing the ability for people to pump their own gas. Right about the time nobody needs to pump gas any more, we will fully legalize it. We also have no sales tax, and I consider that a pretty big plus.
    - m463 6y ago
      So sorry, that was not a jab. I was just listing differences off the top of my head. It does look that way and of course it's not editable now, bleh.
      - rootusrootus 6y ago
        No worries, I was only mock-offended. We are used to being taunted about the self-service gas law, and everyone I know who lives here would like to see it changed.
- cronix 6y ago
  I'm curious how will it be different from the experiment that's been going on in Seattle for the last few years? Has hard drug use decreased there? Are there fewer needles on the streets? Fewer people visible in public that are obviously under the influence? Has drug-related crime gone down? Are there more people housed who were previously not housed due to their addiction? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-crisis-drug-seattle.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-cri...
gautamcgoel 6y ago
I really hope this leads to more research on the effect of psychedelics on treatment-resistant depression. People with depression suffer unimaginable anguish every day - we owe it to them to give them the best treatment options possible.
- notJim 6y ago
  Oregon also legalized research into psychedelics, but that was a separate measure. I think it will take longer to get off the ground, because a committee needs to be established to figure out how to conduct the research.
- undefined1 6y ago
  Right, psychedelics are really promising as a treatment. Which I think makes it criminal that psychedelics are criminal.
- driverdan 6y ago
  This isn't legalization and has no impact on federal laws. It won't help with direct research.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    The federal-state dynamic is certainly interesting. The federal government doesn't have the resources to enforce all the laws they have on the books and rely on states to enact similar laws to enforce most of them. I wonder if they will ever increase enforcement or if this state-level defiance/contradictions will continue to grow and spread to other states. I think there has been some talk of similar movements for gun rights.
- t1mmen 6y ago
  There is significant research happening in this space, though most clinical trials seem to be happening outside the US. Canada is taking major steps towards psychedelics as treatment for depression/MDD, palliative/end-of-life care, PTSD, anxiety, etc. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00187-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00187-9 is one of the many, many recent articles on the topic.
random_savv 6y ago
Good. This has worked well in other countries, particularly Portugal: https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight/ https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portuga...
- lanevorockz 6y ago
  Slightly hard to believe in data these days ... I went to uni in portugal and it was rare to find a student that didn't use weed. I guess this is why it was so easy to legalise it. Then the data says 10% ... it's laughable.
  - nooyurrsdey 6y ago
    > I went to uni in portugal and it was rare to find a student that didn't use weed On the other hand, this is also subjective and anecdotal? I'm not doubting that data can have errors, but I'm having hard time criticizing data because it's not what someone "expects" it to be.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    You don't think it's probable that a) university years (18-22) are likely the peak point for consumption of all drugs (as they are where I live) and b) There's a substantial availability bias in which people you know who (you knew) were cannabis users vs the intersection of people you didn't know and people who didn't use cannabis without making a big deal out of it?
  - TamDenholm 6y ago
    Well that 10% is highly unlikely to be evenly distributed amoungst the population. The percentage of those that smoke weed from a sample of university students is likely to be higher than the same sample taken from the age groups of 60yr old and above. You can make statistics say whatever you want, pretty sure I could get a pretty high percentage of weed usage if i limit my sample size to Bob Marley and Snoop Dogg.
daenz 6y ago
As a libertarian leaning person, I agree with this. However, I still think it will have a lot of negative consequences that people will be eager to sweep under the rug. Even if the net effect is positive, we still need to be honest about any negative results that we may see from this.
- chapium 6y ago
  I think the key takeaway from other countries that have implemented this is to treat addiction clinically, not criminally. This makes a lot of sense really, given the effects on the body. Ethical sourcing of drugs is another issue, and should be looked at through a legal lens.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    Yes, to me this experiment hinges on following through on the treatment side. I hope to see some ongoing reporting on whether the funding that used to be spent on police enforcement, prosecution, and punishment of drug possession is actually diverted to treatment. If counties instead try to "save taxpayer money" on this I think it will end badly.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  That's become the status-quo with all policy changes these days though. e.g. it's not enough to say that "The Green New Deal" is poor policy, you have to say "Global Warming is a Hoax"
zappo2938 6y ago
Meanwhile drug users who often don't want to stop will now move to Oregon.
- worik 6y ago
  That would be wise.
- catstack 6y ago
  I welcome anyone who is suffering from addiction to move to Oregon. I hope that as a society we can help them overcome their addiction instead of treating them as a criminals and perpetuating the cycle. It's a suffering human and I don't care what state they live in. I hope other states will move to enact similar policies. We are in this together. I truly believe that legalizing drugs, taxing them, and offering treatment and rehabilitation is the way to go.
  - aksss 6y ago
    I think there’s a group of people that will view Oregon as a promising hospital and a another group that will view it as Disneyland. These reforms will welcome both.
    - catstack 6y ago
      "a group of people that will view Oregon as a promising hospital" I don't follow you on this. Do you mean people will think that Oregon has good health care and will make a move based on that? "another group that will view it as Disneyland" I mean, yeah... It's going to be easier to get substances in Oregon than it will be in other states. I would like to see a study on this but I couldn't imagine a significant amount of people who are suffering from addition is going to make the move to Oregon because of this. Do you know someone who has been or is dealing with addiction? I'm not saying that in a condescending way.
      - aksss 6y ago
        Hospital - people will move there for a perceived openness to alternative drug therapy (however you want to interpret that), perceived safety nets including addiction treatment advantages. Suffering from addiction - friend, I came of age in the nineties, and had friends hooked on everything you can imagine back then (and did my share). I’ve had friends die from and survive overdoses. I’ve done CPR on a man dying from an OD in a public restroom within the last three years (who lived, incidentally). The last close friend that died from an overdose was only about five years ago - a highly functional businesswoman. I’ll tell you this, a lot of people suffering from addiction don’t know or care that they have an addiction. Not every drug user thinks themselves a victim - in fact those that do, IME, are the exception, not the rule, but I’m sure that varies with time and place. Will those people that do move to Oregon? Probably not, but I’ve known a lot of personalities that would travel there for the fun of it, and wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few die there too. I perceive by your comments that you feel very earnestly about the upside in this policy. I have no dog in the fight, and respect your hopefulness.
BooneJS 6y ago
What happens to people in the justice system for violations of the old law?
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  AFAIK, nothing. Unless the governor does some kind of sweeping commutation, every case that has already been adjudicated is not automatically affected by this law. Admittedly, I only skimmed the text before voting yes. I imagine it could be used as an argument if the convict can get their case before a judge on appeal.
GuB-42 6y ago
Just to make things clear, decriminalization is not legalization. Drugs are still illegal, and users risk a $100 fine, especially if they are uncooperative. The difference is that it is now a civil violation instead of a crime, so no record, no jail time, kind of like a parking ticket. Drug trafficking is still a crime.
- frongpik 6y ago
  What counts as drug trafficking? Carrying weed across county lines?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    In most states any amount over some small amount can be prosecuted as trafficking. I dunno what the limits are for Oregon. I'm pretty sure they get the same people who think a six pack is "binge drinking" and one range day's worth of ammo is a "stockpile" to come up with those limits.
    - recursive 6y ago
      Drinking a six-pack at a time does sound kind of binge-y to me.
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        Start with dinner at 6 and go to bed at 9 and that's 2/hr. Not exactly keg stands and jungle juice territory. The human body processes 1-2 drinks/hr so at the end you'll have a buzz on the order of one stiff mixed drink (~3-4 shots of stuff in the 40% ballpark spread out over a tall glass of sugary fruity stuff). Edit: And since apparently this needs saying "drink" = "the standard alcohol/drink unit that all the professionals who measure this stuff use"
        recursive 6y ago
        I have no doubt that much higher levels of consumption are possible. I don't really have a position on what "binge" should mean, but that doesn't exactly sound like it's not. Could just be my perspective. I probably drink most days. Usually one beer. Rarely, I might have two in a day. I can't remember that last time I had more than that.
Alex3917 6y ago
> Today, Oregon became the first state in the United States to decriminalize possession of small amounts of all drugs and greatly increase access to treatment, recovery, harm reduction and other services. There are other states where drug possession is only a misdemeanor, e.g.: https://apnews.com/article/0216054dc6cd453f8d83de8bbc84caeb https://apnews.com/article/0216054dc6cd453f8d83de8bbc84caeb https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/ACT/pa/pdf/2015PA-00002-R00HB-07104SS1-PA.pdf https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/ACT/pa/pdf/2015PA-00002-R00HB-07...
- jMyles 6y ago
  > There are other states where drug possession is only a misdemeanor, e.g.: You say "other" as if that's the case in Oregon. As of today, it's no longer a misdemeanor (or in some cases, a felony).
ericholscher 6y ago
Of interest, this is mostly a non-story in Oregon after it has passed. Our largest newspaper isn't even running a story on it: https://www.oregonlive.com/ https://www.oregonlive.com/ Life continues as normal, just with fewer people in prison. As it should be.
- ndiscussion 6y ago
  The changes this policy drives will be apparent after several years, not several weeks.
- pacifist 6y ago
  The real story is the fact that mainstream media is ignoring it. The silence is deafening and trumpets their allegiance to big pharma and the criminal injustice complex. Edit: I live in Oregon and voted for this. So yay, we're moving in the right direction.
  - lipstone 6y ago
    Why would pharma not want legalization? At worst, it doesn't affect them. At best, it's another revenue stream.
    - pacifist 6y ago
      I typed this into duckduckgo: "big pharma lobbies against drug decriminalization" and got this: https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/the-top-5-industries-lobbying-against-cannabis-legalization-will https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/the-top-5-industries-lo... I wouldn't care to venture a guess as to their thinking but the intent is clear: they don't want drug decriminalization.
    - hmsimha 6y ago
      This amazing Ted talk [1] on the potential for ketamine as a miracle anti-depressant presents at least one reason; namely, that they don't own the patents to the drugs and therefore can't monopolize their production. Instead, iterative waves of SSRIs are pushed to the public, as Big Pharma stands to profit more from SSRIs they hold the patent to, even if they're arguably much less effective and more harmful. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_brachman_could_a_drug_prevent_depression_and_ptsd/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_brachman_could_a_drug_prev...
anewaccount2021 6y ago
The not-homeless, not-drug-addict rest-of-society is already well on its way with its response...gated communities. No homeless, no open drug use...all protected by private property laws and private security. Get ready for more of them. It doesn't matter what laws you will pass, you don't get past the front gate unless your card scans. In the end, the only people who will be forced to look at open drug use and homelessness will be people who can't afford to buy a unit in a SafeStreets(tm) community (YC Winter 25!). edit since HN is rate-limiting me: my point is, you aren't going to be happy with the response everyone-else has to social-engineering legislation they don't agree with. If you don't want more inequality and social divisions, stop giving people a reason to build a moat.
- andybak 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you're saying here. For a start you're conflating drug use, open drug use and drug addiction. Homelessness obviously has some correlation with some types of drug use but there's a lot of non-homeless, non-addicted drug users. And you haven't touched on hard vs soft, addictive vs non-addictive drug use. I'm not disagreeing because I'm genuinely not sure what point you're making?
- Noos 6y ago
  To be honest, can you blame them? The petty crimes fueled by drug use don't go away if you decriminalize it. We keep throwing money at homelessness but it doesn't seem to work at all because a lot of the problem homeless really need to be involuntarily committed for long term treatment of mental illness or addiction. Not many people want to go down that route, because we still don't really trust or are comfortable with that. People are going to compensate the only way they can. You aren't going to chide them for locking their doors when policies make it easier for people to rob others.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    Decriminalizing possession doesn't make burglary legal.
    - 6y ago
throwaway2121bx 6y ago
I'm a proponent for legalizing drugs. But I believe there will be negative long-term consequences from drug use becoming normalized and so easy to obtain. People who wouldn't otherwise use drugs could be forgiven (after reading about legalization in the binary and positive way it is often reported, or from walking around a city with an upmarket weed shop every few blocks) for believing it can't be that bad for you and trying it out. I can say from first hand experience with weed that it slows down your cognition and makes you less productive, and it can easily become habitual and hard to stop. I hate to think of how many new addicts we might get if the hard stuff like heroin becomes normalized. I think legalized drugs should come with scarier warnings, like cigarettes, and there should be marketing campaigns against their use, like with alcohol. The primary objective is to not lock people up for drugs, to give them support they need, and to move their sale (to people who are buying them anyway) from the black market to a taxed and regulated one. There should be a secondary objective to not get a whole lot of new people hooked.
- potsandpans 6y ago
  hard to imagine a take more braindead
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  Sure, there will be some consequences. But think about all of the people who won't enter adulthood already excluded from the (good) job market because they have a criminal record? I feel pretty confident that this law is going to be a net positive.
  - throwaway2121bx 6y ago
    Full agreement that it's a net positive. Nobody should ever get a criminal record for using. I just hope that the messaging is clear that because its legal/decriminalized doesn't mean its good for you.
anm89 6y ago
I am strongly in support of this and have been for a long time. But having seen how things are playing out in Seattle has definitely given me more nuance to my support for this. The major one is that decriminalizing drugs cannot mean decriminalizing crime(theft) done to support addiction. Seattle has moved in this direction which has thrown its legal system into utter chaos as it has pretty much legalized petty crime for a certain class of people. Being compassionate does not mean letting people do whatever they want. That being said, not treating people as criminals for putting substances into their own bodies is a great step and I hope other cities follow suit.

253 points by undefined1 6y ago

Finally, the beginning of the end to the Drug War. If Biden has a brain and guts he will accelerate this trend. With Kamala Harris as VP, a woman who made her career locking up minor drug offenders, it will be an uphill battle. I guess being a black woman counts for more than having a horrible track record these days.

kolbe 6y ago

Say what you will about your opinion of what the results of this will be, it does create an experiment for us to learn with. I think one of the great tragedies of politics is that we do not experiment enough, so when ones like this pop up naturally, it'll give us great data.

blhack 6y ago
I'm curious what metrics we should track to determine if this is good or not.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Does drug use increase? Does crime increase? What impact does it have on the prison population and public health?
  - treeman79 6y ago
    What happens with kids? I adopted a teen who was in the system for 10 years because parents were constantly stoned. Police had to bring kids home from school many times because The bio parents were so out of it.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      I'm not sure putting the parents in prison would fix that or change it much in any way. If parents are stone/ drunk so regularly they shouldn't parent, it's child neglect/ abuse regardless of whether the drugs are legal.
      - munk-a 6y ago
        I think the real solution here is to better empower potential parents to have more freedom to make the choice of whether to become parents or not. If someone doesn't want to become a parent then I think it's a good idea to remove any obstacles between them and avoiding being a parent. Too often that choice is forced on folks and the major impact that has on your life can leave people resentful and angry which just isn't a good place to start being a parent from.
- betenoire 6y ago
  The experiment doesn't have to be on people, it can be on budgets and resources. Tracking whether or not or how many people get help vs punished might be a place to start
imperio59 6y ago
Experimenting with people's lives is not a responsible way to experiment. No one is denying these drugs are harmful, yet Oregon is basically saying "go ahead, it's fine, use these drugs". Seeing what is happening with the Marijuana lobbies coming in and putting in billions in lobbying should scare everybody. We have big tobacco to look at for where this leads. The next obvious step is to legalize all drugs, and let these lobbies profit off the back of addicts and their families and their ruined lives. Unless we as a society take a stand on some of these issues, we will be in deep trouble in a few years.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cammikebrown 6y ago
  The way I think of it is, people will do drugs whether or not they’re legal. The current system is to throw drug users in jail, which has been proven to cost a lot of money and not do anything to rehabilitate the drug user. They need treatment, not jail time. This bill has greatly expanded access to treatment programs, which will help much more than incarceration ever could.
  - cecja 6y ago
    The english and the chinese want a word with you about that opium experiment they had running for a long time over there.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    Well, I mean it's pretty hard to stay using if you're in jail. Yes some contraband does leak in but it's far less available than on the street. So a stretch in jail will very likely have you sober whether you like it or not. It's all the other negative attributes and consequences of prison that are the problem.
  - daenz 6y ago
    Your first sentence isn't necessarily true. Speaking from 1st and 2nd hand experience, there are people who would have experimented with harder drugs if they were easy to obtain.
m463 6y ago
> one of the great tragedies of politics is that we do not experiment enough I kind of agree, but we do have 50 states, each running their own experiments. Massachusetts has right to repair. Nevada has legalized gambling. Some states have stronger employee freedom, some stronger employer freedom. Lots of different educational experiments. Helmet laws, concealed carry, state income tax, no state income tax. Can you pump your own gas?
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Can you pump your own gas? Oh stop it, that's not nice. We are slowly, slowly increasing the ability for people to pump their own gas. Right about the time nobody needs to pump gas any more, we will fully legalize it. We also have no sales tax, and I consider that a pretty big plus.
  - m463 6y ago
    So sorry, that was not a jab. I was just listing differences off the top of my head. It does look that way and of course it's not editable now, bleh.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      No worries, I was only mock-offended. We are used to being taunted about the self-service gas law, and everyone I know who lives here would like to see it changed.
cronix 6y ago
I'm curious how will it be different from the experiment that's been going on in Seattle for the last few years? Has hard drug use decreased there? Are there fewer needles on the streets? Fewer people visible in public that are obviously under the influence? Has drug-related crime gone down? Are there more people housed who were previously not housed due to their addiction? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-crisis-drug-seattle.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-cri...

gautamcgoel 6y ago

I really hope this leads to more research on the effect of psychedelics on treatment-resistant depression. People with depression suffer unimaginable anguish every day - we owe it to them to give them the best treatment options possible.

notJim 6y ago
Oregon also legalized research into psychedelics, but that was a separate measure. I think it will take longer to get off the ground, because a committee needs to be established to figure out how to conduct the research.
undefined1 6y ago
Right, psychedelics are really promising as a treatment. Which I think makes it criminal that psychedelics are criminal.
driverdan 6y ago
This isn't legalization and has no impact on federal laws. It won't help with direct research.
- giantg2 6y ago
  The federal-state dynamic is certainly interesting. The federal government doesn't have the resources to enforce all the laws they have on the books and rely on states to enact similar laws to enforce most of them. I wonder if they will ever increase enforcement or if this state-level defiance/contradictions will continue to grow and spread to other states. I think there has been some talk of similar movements for gun rights.
t1mmen 6y ago
There is significant research happening in this space, though most clinical trials seem to be happening outside the US. Canada is taking major steps towards psychedelics as treatment for depression/MDD, palliative/end-of-life care, PTSD, anxiety, etc. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00187-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00187-9 is one of the many, many recent articles on the topic.

random_savv 6y ago

Good. This has worked well in other countries, particularly Portugal: https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight/ https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portuga...

lanevorockz 6y ago
Slightly hard to believe in data these days ... I went to uni in portugal and it was rare to find a student that didn't use weed. I guess this is why it was so easy to legalise it. Then the data says 10% ... it's laughable.
- nooyurrsdey 6y ago
  > I went to uni in portugal and it was rare to find a student that didn't use weed On the other hand, this is also subjective and anecdotal? I'm not doubting that data can have errors, but I'm having hard time criticizing data because it's not what someone "expects" it to be.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  You don't think it's probable that a) university years (18-22) are likely the peak point for consumption of all drugs (as they are where I live) and b) There's a substantial availability bias in which people you know who (you knew) were cannabis users vs the intersection of people you didn't know and people who didn't use cannabis without making a big deal out of it?
- TamDenholm 6y ago
  Well that 10% is highly unlikely to be evenly distributed amoungst the population. The percentage of those that smoke weed from a sample of university students is likely to be higher than the same sample taken from the age groups of 60yr old and above. You can make statistics say whatever you want, pretty sure I could get a pretty high percentage of weed usage if i limit my sample size to Bob Marley and Snoop Dogg.

daenz 6y ago

As a libertarian leaning person, I agree with this. However, I still think it will have a lot of negative consequences that people will be eager to sweep under the rug. Even if the net effect is positive, we still need to be honest about any negative results that we may see from this.

chapium 6y ago
I think the key takeaway from other countries that have implemented this is to treat addiction clinically, not criminally. This makes a lot of sense really, given the effects on the body. Ethical sourcing of drugs is another issue, and should be looked at through a legal lens.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  Yes, to me this experiment hinges on following through on the treatment side. I hope to see some ongoing reporting on whether the funding that used to be spent on police enforcement, prosecution, and punishment of drug possession is actually diverted to treatment. If counties instead try to "save taxpayer money" on this I think it will end badly.
aidenn0 6y ago
That's become the status-quo with all policy changes these days though. e.g. it's not enough to say that "The Green New Deal" is poor policy, you have to say "Global Warming is a Hoax"

zappo2938 6y ago

Meanwhile drug users who often don't want to stop will now move to Oregon.

worik 6y ago
That would be wise.
catstack 6y ago
I welcome anyone who is suffering from addiction to move to Oregon. I hope that as a society we can help them overcome their addiction instead of treating them as a criminals and perpetuating the cycle. It's a suffering human and I don't care what state they live in. I hope other states will move to enact similar policies. We are in this together. I truly believe that legalizing drugs, taxing them, and offering treatment and rehabilitation is the way to go.
- aksss 6y ago
  I think there’s a group of people that will view Oregon as a promising hospital and a another group that will view it as Disneyland. These reforms will welcome both.
  - catstack 6y ago
    "a group of people that will view Oregon as a promising hospital" I don't follow you on this. Do you mean people will think that Oregon has good health care and will make a move based on that? "another group that will view it as Disneyland" I mean, yeah... It's going to be easier to get substances in Oregon than it will be in other states. I would like to see a study on this but I couldn't imagine a significant amount of people who are suffering from addition is going to make the move to Oregon because of this. Do you know someone who has been or is dealing with addiction? I'm not saying that in a condescending way.
    - aksss 6y ago
      Hospital - people will move there for a perceived openness to alternative drug therapy (however you want to interpret that), perceived safety nets including addiction treatment advantages. Suffering from addiction - friend, I came of age in the nineties, and had friends hooked on everything you can imagine back then (and did my share). I’ve had friends die from and survive overdoses. I’ve done CPR on a man dying from an OD in a public restroom within the last three years (who lived, incidentally). The last close friend that died from an overdose was only about five years ago - a highly functional businesswoman. I’ll tell you this, a lot of people suffering from addiction don’t know or care that they have an addiction. Not every drug user thinks themselves a victim - in fact those that do, IME, are the exception, not the rule, but I’m sure that varies with time and place. Will those people that do move to Oregon? Probably not, but I’ve known a lot of personalities that would travel there for the fun of it, and wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few die there too. I perceive by your comments that you feel very earnestly about the upside in this policy. I have no dog in the fight, and respect your hopefulness.

BooneJS 6y ago

What happens to people in the justice system for violations of the old law?

rootusrootus 6y ago
AFAIK, nothing. Unless the governor does some kind of sweeping commutation, every case that has already been adjudicated is not automatically affected by this law. Admittedly, I only skimmed the text before voting yes. I imagine it could be used as an argument if the convict can get their case before a judge on appeal.

GuB-42 6y ago

Just to make things clear, decriminalization is not legalization. Drugs are still illegal, and users risk a $100 fine, especially if they are uncooperative. The difference is that it is now a civil violation instead of a crime, so no record, no jail time, kind of like a parking ticket. Drug trafficking is still a crime.

frongpik 6y ago
What counts as drug trafficking? Carrying weed across county lines?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  In most states any amount over some small amount can be prosecuted as trafficking. I dunno what the limits are for Oregon. I'm pretty sure they get the same people who think a six pack is "binge drinking" and one range day's worth of ammo is a "stockpile" to come up with those limits.
  - recursive 6y ago
    Drinking a six-pack at a time does sound kind of binge-y to me.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Start with dinner at 6 and go to bed at 9 and that's 2/hr. Not exactly keg stands and jungle juice territory. The human body processes 1-2 drinks/hr so at the end you'll have a buzz on the order of one stiff mixed drink (~3-4 shots of stuff in the 40% ballpark spread out over a tall glass of sugary fruity stuff). Edit: And since apparently this needs saying "drink" = "the standard alcohol/drink unit that all the professionals who measure this stuff use"
      - recursive 6y ago
        I have no doubt that much higher levels of consumption are possible. I don't really have a position on what "binge" should mean, but that doesn't exactly sound like it's not. Could just be my perspective. I probably drink most days. Usually one beer. Rarely, I might have two in a day. I can't remember that last time I had more than that.

Alex3917 6y ago

> Today, Oregon became the first state in the United States to decriminalize possession of small amounts of all drugs and greatly increase access to treatment, recovery, harm reduction and other services. There are other states where drug possession is only a misdemeanor, e.g.: https://apnews.com/article/0216054dc6cd453f8d83de8bbc84caeb https://apnews.com/article/0216054dc6cd453f8d83de8bbc84caeb https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/ACT/pa/pdf/2015PA-00002-R00HB-07104SS1-PA.pdf https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/ACT/pa/pdf/2015PA-00002-R00HB-07...

jMyles 6y ago
> There are other states where drug possession is only a misdemeanor, e.g.: You say "other" as if that's the case in Oregon. As of today, it's no longer a misdemeanor (or in some cases, a felony).

ericholscher 6y ago

Of interest, this is mostly a non-story in Oregon after it has passed. Our largest newspaper isn't even running a story on it: https://www.oregonlive.com/ https://www.oregonlive.com/ Life continues as normal, just with fewer people in prison. As it should be.

ndiscussion 6y ago
The changes this policy drives will be apparent after several years, not several weeks.
pacifist 6y ago
The real story is the fact that mainstream media is ignoring it. The silence is deafening and trumpets their allegiance to big pharma and the criminal injustice complex. Edit: I live in Oregon and voted for this. So yay, we're moving in the right direction.
- lipstone 6y ago
  Why would pharma not want legalization? At worst, it doesn't affect them. At best, it's another revenue stream.
  - pacifist 6y ago
    I typed this into duckduckgo: "big pharma lobbies against drug decriminalization" and got this: https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/the-top-5-industries-lobbying-against-cannabis-legalization-will https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/the-top-5-industries-lo... I wouldn't care to venture a guess as to their thinking but the intent is clear: they don't want drug decriminalization.
  - hmsimha 6y ago
    This amazing Ted talk [1] on the potential for ketamine as a miracle anti-depressant presents at least one reason; namely, that they don't own the patents to the drugs and therefore can't monopolize their production. Instead, iterative waves of SSRIs are pushed to the public, as Big Pharma stands to profit more from SSRIs they hold the patent to, even if they're arguably much less effective and more harmful. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_brachman_could_a_drug_prevent_depression_and_ptsd/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_brachman_could_a_drug_prev...

anewaccount2021 6y ago

The not-homeless, not-drug-addict rest-of-society is already well on its way with its response...gated communities. No homeless, no open drug use...all protected by private property laws and private security. Get ready for more of them. It doesn't matter what laws you will pass, you don't get past the front gate unless your card scans. In the end, the only people who will be forced to look at open drug use and homelessness will be people who can't afford to buy a unit in a SafeStreets(tm) community (YC Winter 25!). edit since HN is rate-limiting me: my point is, you aren't going to be happy with the response everyone-else has to social-engineering legislation they don't agree with. If you don't want more inequality and social divisions, stop giving people a reason to build a moat.

andybak 6y ago
I'm not sure what you're saying here. For a start you're conflating drug use, open drug use and drug addiction. Homelessness obviously has some correlation with some types of drug use but there's a lot of non-homeless, non-addicted drug users. And you haven't touched on hard vs soft, addictive vs non-addictive drug use. I'm not disagreeing because I'm genuinely not sure what point you're making?
Noos 6y ago
To be honest, can you blame them? The petty crimes fueled by drug use don't go away if you decriminalize it. We keep throwing money at homelessness but it doesn't seem to work at all because a lot of the problem homeless really need to be involuntarily committed for long term treatment of mental illness or addiction. Not many people want to go down that route, because we still don't really trust or are comfortable with that. People are going to compensate the only way they can. You aren't going to chide them for locking their doors when policies make it easier for people to rob others.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  Decriminalizing possession doesn't make burglary legal.
  - 6y ago

throwaway2121bx 6y ago

I'm a proponent for legalizing drugs. But I believe there will be negative long-term consequences from drug use becoming normalized and so easy to obtain. People who wouldn't otherwise use drugs could be forgiven (after reading about legalization in the binary and positive way it is often reported, or from walking around a city with an upmarket weed shop every few blocks) for believing it can't be that bad for you and trying it out. I can say from first hand experience with weed that it slows down your cognition and makes you less productive, and it can easily become habitual and hard to stop. I hate to think of how many new addicts we might get if the hard stuff like heroin becomes normalized. I think legalized drugs should come with scarier warnings, like cigarettes, and there should be marketing campaigns against their use, like with alcohol. The primary objective is to not lock people up for drugs, to give them support they need, and to move their sale (to people who are buying them anyway) from the black market to a taxed and regulated one. There should be a secondary objective to not get a whole lot of new people hooked.

potsandpans 6y ago
hard to imagine a take more braindead
deleted 6y ago
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rootusrootus 6y ago
Sure, there will be some consequences. But think about all of the people who won't enter adulthood already excluded from the (good) job market because they have a criminal record? I feel pretty confident that this law is going to be a net positive.
- throwaway2121bx 6y ago
  Full agreement that it's a net positive. Nobody should ever get a criminal record for using. I just hope that the messaging is clear that because its legal/decriminalized doesn't mean its good for you.

anm89 6y ago

I am strongly in support of this and have been for a long time. But having seen how things are playing out in Seattle has definitely given me more nuance to my support for this. The major one is that decriminalizing drugs cannot mean decriminalizing crime(theft) done to support addiction. Seattle has moved in this direction which has thrown its legal system into utter chaos as it has pretty much legalized petty crime for a certain class of people. Being compassionate does not mean letting people do whatever they want. That being said, not treating people as criminals for putting substances into their own bodies is a great step and I hope other cities follow suit.