12 ms·

What about the other quotes from the article that have nothing to do with funding... > “When you first back off enforcement, there are not many people walking

• doalldrugs 3y ago
  > Why fund services that go unused?...Tent cities don't exist solely in places without access to housing, and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence. Sounds like they've already dying. Would you suggest we stop all drug treatment and let the fire burn itself out so to speak?
• dan-robertson 3y ago
  I thought the implementations in the US were very different from those in Portugal though?
• WeylandYutani 3y ago
  When the Netherlands had a heroine junkie problem in the 80s/early 90s the solution was to accept that most of them were going to die. So the government tried to make their death reasonably comfortable. Economic fortunes turned and the nation became decadent and filthy rich again so the problem was fixed. Drug use is correlated to the economy and the happiness of the population. Portugal needs to fix unemployment and get some economic growth going.
• jabradoodle 3y ago
  The first is a hand wavey opinion, the second is basically an anecdote and the third relates to a very different implementation of decriminalisation than Portugal's.
  • jhoechtl 3y ago
    > and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence. sounds very plausible, where is the fallacy?
    • Etheryte 3y ago
      Many things sound plausible without having any real connection to reality, we shouldn't rely on trust-me-bro when we're talking about people's lives.
      • shuckles 3y ago
        In San Francisco, where I am most familiar, SROs which are used to house homeless junkies are the primary location of overdose deaths, even though they house fewer junkies than the streets surrounding them.
        • Retric 3y ago
          Different populations, you really need to randomly assign people to each group to discover if it’s harmful or a side effect of the selection criteria. I would expect people in SF SROs to OD more for multiple reasons, but I haven’t seen any research on the specifics.
          • shuckles 3y ago
            While it's true that shelter placement has some advantages for high needs folks (e.g. older, women, or disabled), those themselves don't correlate with opioid overdose deaths. There was a randomized trial of permanent supportive housing, which is a stronger intervention than simple housing, in Santa Clara (DOI 10.1111/1475-6773.13553) where those who received PSH died at slightly higher rates than those did not and never found housing of their own.
• Broken_Hippo 3y ago
  Tent cities don't exist solely in places without access to housing "Access to housing" isn't enough. You might have "access" to health care but unable to afford it. You need housing as a right - even without payment - alongside enough adequate housing for everyone. And allow folks to do things in their own home. If they cannot do it at their home with other people, the person in question does not have adequate housing. And that last bit - about a death sentence? That is only for a few addicts. A subset of addicts die. If you have to get clean to get housing, housing is inadequate. I'd probably not go for rehab if I were homeless: I'd just have to be sober for the misery. And that's what we give people. That's what we are offering. Various forms of misery.
  • rscrawfo 3y ago
    This is a real question, not a retort. But I have known addicts, they don’t exactly take care of their things. It’s very easy to imagine that much of the state supplied housing would quickly become unsafe and or destroyed. How do you handle that?
    • thebigjewbowski 3y ago
      I’m almost scared to post this but — have you been in / around public housing in the US? (Genuine not rhetorical) It’s not uncommon for it to be unsafe and destroyed.
      • rscrawfo 3y ago
        That’s the reasoning for my question. Just last night I was reading about a local homeless man who was scared to go to the local shelter and had things stolen when he had. But I also wanted to ask the OP (who mentioned housing as a right) how that could be avoided.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • K0balt 3y ago
      Concrete. Everything concrete. Anything not concrete is removable.
• Avshalom 3y ago
  > Of two dozen street people who use drugs and were asked by The Post, not one said they’d ever appeared before one of Portugal’s Dissuasion Commissions, envisioned as conduits to funnel people with addiction into rehab. This feels like it could be a direct result of no funding.
• hef19898 3y ago
  Also, why not getting feed-back from the people directly involved in Portugal? Last time I checked, Oregon wasn't in Portugal, nor was Obama President there...
  • momirlan 3y ago
    people can be happy in many ways. misery is awfully similar though.
• lukeschlather 3y ago
  https://msdh.ms.gov/page/44,0,382.html https://msdh.ms.gov/page/44,0,382.html Drug overdoses are a nationwide problem in the USA. Mississippi also had a 49% increase in overdoses in 2020. Shelter is a basic human need and depriving people of it on the grounds that they might overdose doesn't seem like it follows. I know plenty of addicts who take care of their things just fine. They're addicted to coffee and alcohol and cigarettes. It's possible that the problem is not the drug itself but the social stigma attached to the drug. Although I suspect both you and I know people addicted to other things, and we are simply unaware because we don't see any of the outward signs that we associate with "bad drug" addiction.
  • donatj 3y ago
    > They're addicted to coffee and alcohol and cigarettes. It's possible that the problem is not the drug itself but the social stigma attached to the drug. I assure you there is a difference between coffee/cigarettes and methamphetamine beyond just stigma. Coffee and tobacco both improve your mental capabilities without short-term downsides. No one’s been fired for showing up with a coffee or tobacco buzz and being more productive. Very few people would rob their friends and families for mocha money were Starbucks suddenly illicit. Alcohol is obviously less defensible as many people do end up on the streets over it.
    • DropInIn 3y ago
      When meth was literally 15$ a gram back in my youth (shipping hub) there was no one robbing anyone for it, as an hour or two at any job would pay for a GRAM (large amount) of Pure meth (and I mean high quality pure without any opacity nor color). Back then most people I knew were using it, in the same way they would use an energy drink, and there were nearly no problems aside from the morons who wouldn't stop parting for a week at a time (but those folks would do the same with Any substance). Really... Where I grew up the literal mayor was doing coke on the regular and also owned many businesses including the baseball team... And so were most of the successful people doing lots of drugs particularly uppers. What happened was as they pushed enforcement against the drugs the quality decreased and the cost went up, posing a more immediate health risk and inducing crimes respectively. I know from first hand experience with both the products and the propel that the biggest issue is the mere fact of thier illegality and extreme markups. A key is to not have the government view the drug as a profit centre, as Canada did with pot, as that only grows the black market and strengthens them rather than destroy them.
• HWR_14 3y ago
  > Of two dozen street people who use drugs and were asked by The Post, not one said they’d ever appeared before one of Portugal’s Dissuasion Commissions, envisioned as conduits to funnel people with addiction into rehab. This is entirely driven by funding. The article explained its a multi year wait for treatment (funding issue) and so the police aren't making people appear before the commissions because all they can do is release them. Meanwhile, the article says when it was funded 20 years ago, it effectively reduced the amount of heroin used.
• pmoriarty 3y ago
  "Then word gets out that there’s an open market, limits to penalties, and you start drawing in more drug users. Then you’ve got a more stable drug culture, and, frankly, it doesn’t look as good anymore.” What's wrong with having a "drug culture" exactly? "Meanwhile, overdoses this year in Portland, the state’s largest city, have surged 46 percent." First, Portland is not Portugal. Second, are the overdoses happening in people who use legal drugs? From what I understand, overdoses usually happen when people don't know the dose they're getting, which is a consequence of them using illegal drugs which have no quality control and no reliable labeling as to dosage. So not only do you not know what you're getting, but may get a dose that's much larger than you anticipated. Having access to legal, high quality drugs which are clearly labeled should eliminate most of the risks of unintentional overdose.
  • 4RealFreedom 3y ago
    I've made that argument for years. Decriminalization doesn't work because it enables the black market - people should do everything in their power to eliminate the black market. This means real legalization. It's the only way to actually fix the overdose problem. Our number 1 priority should be to keep people from dying. I'm open to harsh penalties on public use, though. This shouldn't be happening in front of schools and in parks.
    • dumpsterlid 3y ago
      Imagine still thinking the war on drugs is a good idea in 2023
  • prirun 3y ago
    I have read that some overdoses occur when an addict gets clean for a while then relapses. They think they can tolerate the same dosage they were taking when they quit but their body can't handle tolerate it now, ie, they have to work back up to that dosage. Not sure how common that is, but better labeling and higher-quality drugs wouldn't help, though I agree, letting pharma companies manufacture street drugs and selling them legally would be a good thing.
• andrepd 3y ago
  Those "other quotes" are personal hunches and random people on the street? "I asked random people on the street", really? Come on... The simple fact is that after drug decriminalisation in 1999 the number of (1) new HIV infections and (2) overdose deaths fell to less than half in a couple years. After cuts in funding, it started performing worse. Who would have think.
  • mike4ty4 3y ago
    Yep, exactly - get rid of the alternative methods and leave no method and then that's a problem.
    • fragmede 3y ago
      which, governments behave stupidly because that's patiently obvious but what did the US do with that opioid crisis? got rid the method, oxycontin, left no legal supported method, leading to street heroin, and hey guess what we have a huge problem with today.
• l1tany11 3y ago
  Alcohol is an interesting parallel. Probably most people know, or know of someone who is an alcoholic. How many of them want to quit? How many think they have a problem? It’s not surprising that many addicts of other drugs don’t seek treatment. It’s like obesity. Just stop eating so much! Just stop drinking! Just stop smoking crack! Just say no! How well is that going? Human psychology is nuts. Big is beautiful! Track marks are sexy! I have no idea how you solve this sort of thing. Does anyone?
  • karp773 3y ago
    China did solve it in the 50s.
  • fragmede 3y ago
    Which sort of thing? Capitalism? Because the article we're commenting on is about the privatization and the cutting of funding to the systems that are necessary to support the legalization of heroine and cocaine. We have problems with the government privatizing industries everywhere there is capitalism. Solving drug addiction as a society in the world is possible if the western world had the political capital to do so. But like you said, human psychology is nuts. the thing to look at is Hong Kong back in '97. 1897, that is. It was a British colony in the wake of the Opium wars, for 100 years. The allure of being high on opium was a significant drag on the economy and the Chinese government wasn't putting up with that. While they lost the war, and Hong Kong's current political situation is fraught, a country fighting an enemy, the British, is able to unite in a way that war against concepts like war or poverty can't. (Communism is an exception because there were countries with that system to unite against. We'll note that opium dens still exist, but not in the same capacity as before, and while China also has its share of drug addicts, they don't have downtown Philly or San Francisco. So how do we fight it? Well, a war on drugs, but not one fought by men with guns and illegalization and demonization, but one fought by therapists and psychologists, with harm reduction and governmental and societal support. It's a radically different shape of society if the government genuinely cares about its people. You'd have to give everyone housing and feed everybody. and not just a subsistence living but thriving community. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can't be had without a life worth living, and a life without hope for a better future is not worth living.
• shermozle 3y ago
  One of the quotes being discussed is a concrete budgetary cut. The other is the opinion of a drug warrior on the losing side of the war. Oh and for some reason you included some anecdata collected by the (I would argue) compromised reporter.