11 ms·

Incredibly disingenuous article. Other than pot at the state level, and psychedelics in Oregon, the US has not liberalised drug laws - especially laws around th

by dbspin 5y ago

Incredibly disingenuous article. Other than pot at the state level, and psychedelics in Oregon, the US has not liberalised drug laws - especially laws around the kind of drugs that result in addiction, death and mass incarceration. The author confounds police taking a hands off approach to enforcement of drug laws (i.e.: ignoring public nuisance behaviour from addicts) with liberalisation. i.e.: treating addiction as a public health issue, adequate service provision, provision of clean drugs etc. All policies proven to be effective in reducing use and reducing public nuisance. He also wilfully ignores the context of the (most recent) opiate crisis in America - mass evictions beginning during the sub-prime crisis, and continuing to this day. Precarious employment protections. A radically dysfunctional health care system, offering little to know protection in cases of severe mental illness and chronic illness. Not to mention the context of the first opiate crisis in the 1980s - mass unemployment amongst the urban poor, the closure of state mental health facilities, and the collapse of service provision for inner cities under Reganomics.

55555 5y ago
> the US has not liberalised drug laws - especially laws around the kind of drugs that result in addiction, death and mass incarceration. You are effectively allowed to smoke meth in public now in LA and some other cities on the west coast. There are countless videos on social media of people smoking meth on public transit and breathing second-hand meth smoke in other people's faces. Commenters say that the police refuse to do anything about it. Here's a video of a homeless lady smoking meth in public and telling the person videotaping her that "crystal [meth] is legal now". https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZObCSDWPh/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZObCSDWPh/ "Law" is not just legislation. It's one part legislation, one part precedent, and one part enforcement. You may not think it's legal, but I trust the homeless lady smoking meth in public to better know what she's allowed to get away with.
misja111 5y ago
The US as a whole might not have liberalised drug laws, but California definitely has. Here is some data about California drug overdoses (until 2018, after that the trend continues): https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-summaries-by-state/california-opioid-involved-deaths-related-harms https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-summari... As you can see the amount has gone up by 50% since 1998, despite, or maybe because of, the more liberal laws in CF.
55555 5y ago
America's love and abuse of hard drugs is, like our love of violence, mostly a cultural problem. There are many poor countries where people are much worse off where these problems are far less severe. However I do understand that a relative change in these factors is likely to have contributed in a pretty massive way. I just think these discussions always overlook the biggest factor, which is culture, which is too bad, even if it's partly because we don't know how to fix culture like we know how to fix housing, employment, etc.

by dbspin 5y ago

55555 5y ago

> the US has not liberalised drug laws - especially laws around the kind of drugs that result in addiction, death and mass incarceration. You are effectively allowed to smoke meth in public now in LA and some other cities on the west coast. There are countless videos on social media of people smoking meth on public transit and breathing second-hand meth smoke in other people's faces. Commenters say that the police refuse to do anything about it. Here's a video of a homeless lady smoking meth in public and telling the person videotaping her that "crystal [meth] is legal now". https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZObCSDWPh/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZObCSDWPh/ "Law" is not just legislation. It's one part legislation, one part precedent, and one part enforcement. You may not think it's legal, but I trust the homeless lady smoking meth in public to better know what she's allowed to get away with.

misja111 5y ago

The US as a whole might not have liberalised drug laws, but California definitely has. Here is some data about California drug overdoses (until 2018, after that the trend continues): https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-summaries-by-state/california-opioid-involved-deaths-related-harms https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-summari... As you can see the amount has gone up by 50% since 1998, despite, or maybe because of, the more liberal laws in CF.

55555 5y ago

America's love and abuse of hard drugs is, like our love of violence, mostly a cultural problem. There are many poor countries where people are much worse off where these problems are far less severe. However I do understand that a relative change in these factors is likely to have contributed in a pretty massive way. I just think these discussions always overlook the biggest factor, which is culture, which is too bad, even if it's partly because we don't know how to fix culture like we know how to fix housing, employment, etc.