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It's interesting, that's what happened in Portland, right? It is really curious to think about the cartels as large startups. If you take that leap, it would b
by xrd 4y ago
It's interesting, that's what happened in Portland, right?
It is really curious to think about the cartels as large startups. If you take that leap, it would be logical that they would be violently opposed to decriminalization. Like competing gangs would be killing people, and the cartels would be doing anything they can to convince the local government to redact that decision.
I'm not saying I've got any evidence that cartels are committing crimes in places where drugs are legalized to change laws, but it is interesting that Portland crime has increased a lot. Many people will say that's because of liberal politicians. But there is other information that says that more policing almost never reduces crime directly. And the corollary is that reducing police, either by defunding or attrition, wouldn't cause increases in crime, right?
If anyone has perspectives on what Portland did wrong, I'm interested in hearing it. It is really bizarre to me as a native Portlander that crime seems so excessive. I never felt unsafe in the prior forty years and things seem very different now. The only two big differences were the endless protests against police brutality and the legalization of drugs. Why did this crime surge increase so much in Portland?
- bobthepanda 4y agoOne other thing to note is that the drugs have changed. In general as the years have went on, drugs have increased in potency and side effects. An interesting piece from the Atlantic about how meth has changed: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...
- xrd 4y agoThat's an incredible and scary article. Thank you.
- twelve40 4y agowhoa this reads almost exactly like the script for Breaking Bad... 2006 p2p vs sudafed, all the details even the Czech Republic...
- xrd 4y agoThey mention in the article it was a subplot on the show! That show was so good because it felt so close to reality, and turns out, it was.
- seizethecheese 4y agoThe supply side of the drugs is still done by illegal organizations. Portland decriminalized demand which increased the total amount of drug trade without formalizing the drug trade. More violence is a natural consequence.
- xrd 4y agoBut why? I'm open to this idea, but it seems antithetical to what I believe about human nature. Simply using drugs isn't IMHO a pathway to violence. That comes, again IMHO, from desperation and other factors. If you decriminalize drugs, the theory is that you would remove the desperation and could fund recovery through taxation. I'm sure it is more complicated than that, but the drug war isn't working either and at far greater cost. But maybe the vested interests prefer it that way?
- bobthepanda 4y agoFor harder drugs, the desperation is still there, because ultimately it's harder to keep a job down with harder drugs than it is with, say, weed, which plenty of people are using without impacting job performance.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y agoThe key point here is cost. A drunk can beg for enough money to drink their way to an early grave every day. A heroin or meth addict cannot possibly beg enough to support such a habit at street prices. Reduce cost watch crime plummet.
- bobthepanda 4y agoFentanyl is much, much cheaper. Crime is doing the exact opposite of plummeting.
- twelve40 4y agoAccording to the Atlantic article posted above, the prices for some drugs are plummeting already (10x drop in the last decade): > With labs popping up everywhere, the price of a pound of meth fell to nearly $1,000 for the first time on U.S. streets by the late 2010s—a 90 percent drop from a decade earlier in many areas.