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IMO, battling poverty by way of a war on drugs is like fighting chicken pox by pressing the bumps flat. The underlying causes need to be addressed, else you'll

IMO, battling poverty by way of a war on drugs is like fighting chicken pox by pressing the bumps flat. The underlying causes need to be addressed, else you'll simply get a new batch.

WalterBright 4y ago
I'm not defending the War on Drugs, which has proven to be an abysmal failure. I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it.
- crtified 4y ago
  By focusing solely upon drug addiction, one runs the risk of overlooking the myriad other complex factors which lead these people to where they are. The actual causes go further back than the addictions themselves. A person desperate enough to descend into substance abuse is already damaged. It's that damage we need to prevent, if one truly wants a 'fix'.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Sure, but that's not what's happening. They simply ignore the fact of drug addiction.
    - crtified 4y ago
      That's unfortunate because, whatever other factors may exist, it's undeniable that heavy addiction to certain drugs like alcohol or heroin can be completely debilitating in it's own right. But it's also true that as long as society has outcasts, it will also have people who turn to desperate, normally-undesirable ends. No matter what drugs are available, or where.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it. Drug addiction is, in fact, not the cause of most of it, abd ignoring the homeless problem is, in terms of actual real policy failures, more of a problem for dealing with drug addiction than ignoring drug addiction is for dealing with the homelessness problem (they are intertwined amd both underaddressed, but homelessness is far more underaddressed in the context of addressing addiction than vice versa.)

IMO, battling poverty by way of a war on drugs is like fighting chicken pox by pressing the bumps flat. The underlying causes need to be addressed, else you'll simply get a new batch.

WalterBright 4y ago

I'm not defending the War on Drugs, which has proven to be an abysmal failure. I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it.

crtified 4y ago
By focusing solely upon drug addiction, one runs the risk of overlooking the myriad other complex factors which lead these people to where they are. The actual causes go further back than the addictions themselves. A person desperate enough to descend into substance abuse is already damaged. It's that damage we need to prevent, if one truly wants a 'fix'.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Sure, but that's not what's happening. They simply ignore the fact of drug addiction.
  - crtified 4y ago
    That's unfortunate because, whatever other factors may exist, it's undeniable that heavy addiction to certain drugs like alcohol or heroin can be completely debilitating in it's own right. But it's also true that as long as society has outcasts, it will also have people who turn to desperate, normally-undesirable ends. No matter what drugs are available, or where.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> I'm saying that the homeless problem cannot be fixed while one is pretending that drug addiction is not the cause of most of it. Drug addiction is, in fact, not the cause of most of it, abd ignoring the homeless problem is, in terms of actual real policy failures, more of a problem for dealing with drug addiction than ignoring drug addiction is for dealing with the homelessness problem (they are intertwined amd both underaddressed, but homelessness is far more underaddressed in the context of addressing addiction than vice versa.)