4 ms·

American law is so disjointed. On one hand, we're decriminalizing drugs. Pot is widely legal now. Other states are allowing mushrooms and LSD. Cocaine and h

American law is so disjointed. On one hand, we're decriminalizing drugs. Pot is widely legal now. Other states are allowing mushrooms and LSD. Cocaine and heroin are not legal, but have all but been decriminalized on the West Coast. Meanwhile it's harder than ever to get pain killers from your doctor, even when you have a demonstrated need for them. Same with ephedrine -- a very useful drug -- it's very difficult to get even when in need. And if you mention enjoying tobacco products, you're treated as a leper. I wish we had a self-consistent view of the issue.

coward123 5y ago
>all but been decriminalized on the West Coast. There's talk that WA is going to introduce a bill in the next session to completely decriminalize.
rangersanger 5y ago
I just finished reading The Urge: Our history of Addiction. If you're interested in some background on how we got here, the author does a great job of laying out the historical, legal, and social constructs that have resulted in the inconsistent mess. https://www.harvard.com/book/the_urge/ https://www.harvard.com/book/the_urge/
noobermin 5y ago
There is probably some truth to this but it is worth noting the opiod epidemic is largely why it's hard to get pain killers now. A few of the pharma companies have settled that they sort of knew people were taking them from pharmacies and selling them on the black market.
ianai 5y ago
“Cocaine and heroin are not legal, but have all but been decriminalized on the West Coast.” Citation needed. Never heard this before now. Or is this just some California thing?
- svnt 5y ago
  In several cities they are now citations. You may get a fine for possession but you will not be arrested. In Portland for example the ticket is around $150, which is about the same as the fee for an expired vehicle registration. This change in policies has basically stopped enforcement. As you can imagine it is not a profitable practice to ticket the unhoused.
munificent 5y ago
It's not inconsistent to treat different things differently and different drugs are radically different in their individual health and societal effects. I live in Seattle where marijuana is legal. Alcohol and marijuana are widely consumed and I rarely see any large-scale problems from it. Obviously, there are many people who can't handle either of those, but their failure to handle it well seems to not impinge on others as much. And, compared to them, there are a huge number of people able to consume alcohol and marijuana in a safe, healthy, non-problematic way. I also live next to a couple of homeless encampments. Many of the people living there are clearly addicted to opioids and/or meth. In just this month and within a mile of my house: * I saw a woman, topless, brandishing an umbrella, wandering between the sidewalk and into the street screaming at no one. * A man was shot in the stomach in front of a food bank. * Another man was shot in the neck at an encampment. * A drive-by shot up an RV and car. (The people inside fortunately weren't hit.) There's more I'm sure but these are just the ones I know about in the last few weeks. It's entirely consistent to say that we should treat drugs that lead to the latter behavior differently from drugs that don't. Opioids and meth are incredibly destructive. I'm not saying what specific policies I advocate for them, just that it is reasonable to have different policies for those drugs compared to others.
- afiori 5y ago
  I believe the parent is referring to policies about how addiction is defined; a good article on the matter is https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudoaddiction/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo... Essentially by rules a patient asking for higher dosage of an addictive drug is automatically seen as a sign of addiction, even if sometime it might just be that the current dosage is too low.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  You don't see anyone who is using opioids in the privacy of their own home who aren't out on the streets, so your sampling is massively biased. And the way we should look at drug addition with opiates isn't by looking at the homeless users, but consider the fact that we're all potentially one bad car accident away from getting hooked on pain killers, and asking what kind of support we would need to avoid winding up homeless due to that. Punishment via the criminal justice system is what is likely to wind up with you losing your job and winding up out there in that camp with them. So how should you be treated if it happens to you? And the glib answer of "put a bullet in my head" or whatever isn't an acceptable response. Treat the problem seriously and propose how society helps you help yourself to get clean without at trip through a homeless camp. And the people who refuse to deal with the reality that it could happen to them or engage with the problem are likely those most at risk of lacking the self-awareness to recognize when it starts happening to them.

coward123 5y ago

>all but been decriminalized on the West Coast. There's talk that WA is going to introduce a bill in the next session to completely decriminalize.

rangersanger 5y ago

I just finished reading The Urge: Our history of Addiction. If you're interested in some background on how we got here, the author does a great job of laying out the historical, legal, and social constructs that have resulted in the inconsistent mess. https://www.harvard.com/book/the_urge/ https://www.harvard.com/book/the_urge/

noobermin 5y ago

There is probably some truth to this but it is worth noting the opiod epidemic is largely why it's hard to get pain killers now. A few of the pharma companies have settled that they sort of knew people were taking them from pharmacies and selling them on the black market.

ianai 5y ago

“Cocaine and heroin are not legal, but have all but been decriminalized on the West Coast.” Citation needed. Never heard this before now. Or is this just some California thing?

svnt 5y ago
In several cities they are now citations. You may get a fine for possession but you will not be arrested. In Portland for example the ticket is around $150, which is about the same as the fee for an expired vehicle registration. This change in policies has basically stopped enforcement. As you can imagine it is not a profitable practice to ticket the unhoused.

munificent 5y ago

It's not inconsistent to treat different things differently and different drugs are radically different in their individual health and societal effects. I live in Seattle where marijuana is legal. Alcohol and marijuana are widely consumed and I rarely see any large-scale problems from it. Obviously, there are many people who can't handle either of those, but their failure to handle it well seems to not impinge on others as much. And, compared to them, there are a huge number of people able to consume alcohol and marijuana in a safe, healthy, non-problematic way. I also live next to a couple of homeless encampments. Many of the people living there are clearly addicted to opioids and/or meth. In just this month and within a mile of my house: * I saw a woman, topless, brandishing an umbrella, wandering between the sidewalk and into the street screaming at no one. * A man was shot in the stomach in front of a food bank. * Another man was shot in the neck at an encampment. * A drive-by shot up an RV and car. (The people inside fortunately weren't hit.) There's more I'm sure but these are just the ones I know about in the last few weeks. It's entirely consistent to say that we should treat drugs that lead to the latter behavior differently from drugs that don't. Opioids and meth are incredibly destructive. I'm not saying what specific policies I advocate for them, just that it is reasonable to have different policies for those drugs compared to others.

afiori 5y ago
I believe the parent is referring to policies about how addiction is defined; a good article on the matter is https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudoaddiction/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo... Essentially by rules a patient asking for higher dosage of an addictive drug is automatically seen as a sign of addiction, even if sometime it might just be that the current dosage is too low.
lamontcg 5y ago
You don't see anyone who is using opioids in the privacy of their own home who aren't out on the streets, so your sampling is massively biased. And the way we should look at drug addition with opiates isn't by looking at the homeless users, but consider the fact that we're all potentially one bad car accident away from getting hooked on pain killers, and asking what kind of support we would need to avoid winding up homeless due to that. Punishment via the criminal justice system is what is likely to wind up with you losing your job and winding up out there in that camp with them. So how should you be treated if it happens to you? And the glib answer of "put a bullet in my head" or whatever isn't an acceptable response. Treat the problem seriously and propose how society helps you help yourself to get clean without at trip through a homeless camp. And the people who refuse to deal with the reality that it could happen to them or engage with the problem are likely those most at risk of lacking the self-awareness to recognize when it starts happening to them.