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I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in San Francisco h

by tlogan 3y ago

I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in San Francisco has made me think differently. Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll say the numbers are wrong, or focus on wedge issues like transgender, guns, but they're not going to do anything on hard issues like this one. Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Should we make drugs illegal again and force people into rehab? Should we require drug tests for homeless people to receive government help like SF CAAP payments?

anotherhue 3y ago
I suggest the drug user equivalent of an insane asylum. If you've shown you're a danger to yourself and/or others you get a place in a retreat/monastery/rehab centre/prison island where you get the care you need. Fraught with opportunities for abuse but not arguably more than the current situation and at least the rest of us can have our public spaces back.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > I suggest the drug user equivalent of an insane asylum. If you've shown you're a danger to yourself and/or others you get a place in a retreat/monastery/rehab centre/prison island where you get the care you need. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals." - C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock" To be fair, I used to think it would be best to use the courts to force medical treatment; the problem is that it invariably leads to labeling folks as "ill" and using courts to imprison them for their own safety.
  - anotherhue 3y ago
    It's a great quote, pity it came from a literal Christian apologist. Art/Artist etc. This was around the time of chemical castrations and other such 'cures' so it's quite meaningful. I'm personally much less interested in their care then the safety of our public spaces, but I think we can all agree one leads to the other.
sniglom 3y ago
For other possibly dangerous things in society there are things like taking a license and renewing that license. Perhaps that should be a requirement for buying hard drugs where it's legal.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  Exactly. You can buy pseudoephedrine or codeine at the pharmacy, but not too much or too frequently. Party sized amounts of safe drugs could be made available. People who go to far get directed to treatment.
rvcdbn 3y ago
We have built a society where the best options for these people are to do what they are doing. Nobody starts using because they have a great life but they’re just curious what a bit of meth feels like and then accidentally get hooked. They do it because there’s no better life path open to them. It’s really a form of suicide. Criminalizing will make the suicide process faster and less visible to you. It won’t stop anyone from using but it will make using more dangerous. There is no easy solution. We need societal change. Making it illegal would be like criminalizing sugar because of the obesity epidemic.
- tlogan 3y ago
  I understand. But what is the solution? Just wait for them to all die? Here in San fransciso we have 3 overdose death per day. That is 40% spike from last years. In 2017 we had 222 overdose death for entire year and we reached that number by march 15h this year. [1] https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/2021%2005_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/2021%2005_OCME%20...
  - rvcdbn 3y ago
    The solution that seems most likely to work IMO seems to be a European-style welfare state. All drugs have long been decriminalized in Portugal and you don’t see that kind of thing on the streets of Lisbon. But I don’t see that happening any time soon in the USA.
    - tlogan 3y ago
      > you don’t see that kind of thing > on the streets of Lisbon. Actually that is exactly what I saw on the streets of Lisbon. Please do visit by yourself.
      - rvcdbn 3y ago
        I visited before the pandemic when last did you visit SF because I think it’s a totally different scale. EDIT: just googled the stats and the number of homeless in SF is roughly the same as the whole of Portugal
antisyzygy 3y ago
I think we're missing part of the equation there. Decriminalization isn't legalization. Legalization would mean controlling purity, and strength where the drug is licensed to be sold. Marijuana legalization hasn't lead to any major problems. People don't even bother getting it on the black market anymore where it is legal. They go for what's convenient. Beyond that simply throwing people in prison doesn't mean that we reduced the number of drug addicts. It just means you don't see them anymore. Decriminalization actually would mean you see more of them out on the streets because they're not being locked away in prison. Drugs will always be a part of the human experience. People will continue to use them whether it's legal or not. The other side of it is most cities don't spend much money on harm reduction strategies or treatment options because of the stigma associated with drug users. Tax payers look at them as subhuman and don't do the math. It costs more to let a drug addict run around town stealing and breaking things, or getting sick and going to the ER, than it does to mandate they spend some time in a State funded mental hospital. Prisons also cost a lot. It costs a full time job's worth of money ~35k to imprison 1 person per year. Not only did you take a potential worker out of the work force, but now you're sinking a full time jobs worth of money into keeping them in prison. For a murderer, that seems worth it because they literally cost the world a full time worker and maybe more. But for a homeless drug addict it really doesn't seem worth it to me.
- adamredwoods 3y ago
  >> Marijuana legalization hasn't lead to any major problems. People don't even bother getting it on the black market anymore where it is legal. They go for what's convenient. This is actually bigger than people realize. Fentanyl lacing is a MASSIVE problem. With purity, people can rely that there's no fentanyl. https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html https://www.colorado.edu/health/blog/fentanyl https://www.colorado.edu/health/blog/fentanyl https://wellbeing.missouri.edu/wellness-services/substance-use-education/fentanyl-lacing/ https://wellbeing.missouri.edu/wellness-services/substance-u... https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/programs/opioid-and-fentanyl-awareness-initiative https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/programs/opioid-and-fentan...
  - 3y ago
ecf 3y ago
I don’t have any evidence to back this feeling up so take it with a grain of salt: San Francisco has a drug problem simply because it’s one of few places in the country where it’s safe to have a drug problem. Other states pay for addicts/homeless to be shipped off to California and all of a sudden it becomes our taxpayer problem. If drugs were legalized country-wide then SF wouldn’t have the concentration it does and it would seem like a nice place.
- burkaman 3y ago
  This is a common theory but it isn't true. There are a lot of homeless people in San Fransisco because there are a lot of people there and it's hard to afford a home. From a huge recent survey of homelessness in California: > Nine out of ten participants lost their last housing in California; 75% of participants lived in the same county as their last housing. https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Executive_Summary_62023.pdf https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CA...
  - cyberax 3y ago
    This data is st00pid. It relies on self-reporting, and the questions are coached to get the "required" result. A while ago I did an experiment, I found the list of people convicted for typical "homeless" crimes in SF, and did a background search on them. About 90% had extensive crime records in other states, far away from CA. This is not a definitive result for sure, but it's suggestive.
    - coding123 3y ago
      Either you are lying or the mainstream media is lying. I am not having ANY luck with mainstream media, but I can't just trust you either. Show me your data.
      - cyberax 3y ago
        Here ya go: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-drug-tourism-arrests-tenderloin-18156424.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-drug-to... > Nearly 95% of people arrested for drug use in San Francisco since May 30 are from out of town, Police Chief Bill Scott said at a public hearing this week, corroborating perceptions that many residents already have — that their city has become a magnet for the narcotics trade. Honestly, just do the same exercise, get the booking records from jails and run background search on the names.
kouru225 3y ago
How does this compare to Portugal’s wild success when it comes to decriminalizing hard drugs? Seems like SF is a way less useful example.
- tlogan 3y ago
  Portugal is disaster. I went there but here is a link [1] :( [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-dru...
  - tremon 3y ago
    It's due to budget cuts over the last decade: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-portugal-drugs-idUSBRE87C0N120120813 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-portugal-drugs-idUSBRE87C... (2012) > APDES, a non-governmental agency for social projects, warned in a report earlier this year that a range of harm reduction service providers were facing bankruptcy, while the “IDT closure endangers the future of the drug treatment system in general”. The last paragraph has some essential observation: > "There is a lesson there [..] Such spending has to be countercyclical. People need it the most in downturns, not when your economy is growing."
- anon84873628 3y ago
  I suspect there may be a network effects / regulatory arbitrage problem. If only a small number of places decriminalize drugs, that will attract lots of drug addicts without being able to support them. The policies need to be more universal in order for them to bear fruit... Though I realize this sounds like doubling down on failure. It would explain why a country wide program like Portugal could be more successful.
- epolanski 3y ago
  It backlashed in Portugal in recent years actually.
deleted 3y ago
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brightlancer 3y ago
San Francisco doesn't have a problem with marijuana, it has a problem with store robbery, muggings, crazies smoking/ shooting "hard" drugs on the metro and on sidewalks, etc. For too long, San Francisco and California more broadly have rejected The Stick in favor of The Carrot -- and they didn't improve the balance, they just through it out of balance in a different direction. If folks want to fry their brain on whatever, I think that's their right. They don't have the right to do that on the sidewalk in front of my house, in the park where kids play, on the subway, etc. SF and CA lost the plot.
- sixQuarks 3y ago
  Exactly, some cities don’t even allow smoking cigarettes in public parks, we can surely make it difficult to do hard drugs in public.
runako 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults Is this true? The US consumes a lot of hard drugs, but my perception is that most users not have their lives fall apart as a result. Curious if there are estimates on the % of e.g. cocaine users who are recreational vs those who eventually end up on the street as a result of their use.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  I interpret that to mean, "people who use drugs habitually" not just those who dabbled in particular contexts.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    That’s completely wrong too. Most people are habitual users of some drugs. I guess they mean people with serious underlying mental health issues who are self medicating with hard drugs and unable to keep a job
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    I think you're giving too much credit. It's more likely GP was talking BS than that they made an absolute statement where they really meant a very specific nuanced statement.
  - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
    I'm sure someone will turn up with evidence to support this any moment now
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  No, but there seem to be a lot of folks in this thread who get their information on this exclusively from DARE and Jordan Peterson.
- altacc 3y ago
  No, it’s not true. 13% of Americans over 12 are recent drug users but 13% of Americans aren’t living on the streets due to drug abuse. https://drugabusestatistics.org/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/ And let’s not forget that the drugs that are considered ‘bad’ & illegal are done so totally arbitrarily. Alcohol is the drug with the most negative effects on society but is culturally, politically and legally acceptable whilst something like LSD, with very low rates of harm, is considered a hard drug and very illegal.
alphazard 3y ago
Why is there something to do? Your questions seem predicated on a false assumption that no one likes to say out loud: Drug users have a better life waiting for them after they stop using. Daily drug use may actually be the correct way for some people to maximize the integral of happiness over their lifetime. Especially for those at the bottom with limited prospects. I don't think most of HN can fathom what it's like to actually be completely useless. You're delusional if you think the homeless problem is a bunch of software engineers who tried heroin once, and left FAANG to get high every day. > Should we require drug tests for homeless people to receive government help like SF CAAP payments? This is a great idea. If you want society to invest in you, you have to take basic steps to be a worthy investment. But even this is predicated on the idea that what these drugs users are doing is wrong, and that they should instead do something that lets the rest of us reap the benefits of their productivity. Who are we to demand someone be more productive for our own benefit? We're right to want something in exchange for our investment, but there's no place to stand and say a drug user is wrong for not taking the deal.
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  Okay, then build a camp for them out in the desert. There's no reason to have them shitting on the streets of downtown SF.
  - RoyalHenOil 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - Aunche 3y ago
      If you had real empathy, you would understand how people would be upset that their streets are covered by used needles and feces rather than accuse them of being sociopaths. Anyways, I'm pretty sure GP was being facetious. If using drugs is were optimal choice for a bum, then, it would be a much better outcome for everyone involved if California diverted funding from million dollar per unit "affordable housing" into camps in the dessert that provide free hard drugs and basic necessities, and ship homeless people there, where they're likely to overdoes in a few weeks. That your immediate reaction is that of disgust suggests that the premise that drugs are good for the bottom of society is wrong.
singpolyma3 3y ago
The point is that putting them in prison doesn't solve the problem and giving power to police results in inconsistent enforcement harmful to communities. The point isn't that using some of these substances is "fine" but that it should be treated as a public health problem (like smoking) not a criminal problem.
- anon84873628 3y ago
  Isn't prison one of the easiest places to get drugs??
GeoAtreides 3y ago
I used to strongly support people getting fat. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in the US has made me think differently. Most people who get fat eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll say the numbers are wrong, or focus on wedge issues like transgender, guns, but they're not going to do anything on hard issues like this one. Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Should we make fast food illegal again and force people into rehab? Should we require weight tests for homeless people to receive government help like CAAP payments?
- basicoperation 3y ago
  This but unironically
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- styren 3y ago
  Not sure what point you're trying to make here? Policymaking to limit access to unhealthy food isn't particularly controversial and if there weren't more pressing issues were I live I'd love for politicians to push it further.
  - seadan83 3y ago
    Limiting access to any kind of food AFAIK is extremely controversial! For starters there are the massive astro-turf campaigns that make a lot of noise. Beyond this, food regulation is catnip for the culture wars. > Taxes on sugar‐sweetened beverages reduce consumption, but a strong public backlash holds that they compromise consumers’ liberty, freedom, and autonomy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6916313/#:~:text=One%20such%20initiative%E2%80%94taxes%20on,with%20individuals'%20freedom%20and%20autonomy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6916313/#:~:tex.... Recall when there was a hint that Biden would limit hamburgers? (This idea was a bad extrapolation, nobody was proposing it as law - but nonetheless the mere mentioned brewed a holy-shit storm of foaming at the mouth outrage): - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/conservatives-beef-with-biden-over-false-red-meat-claims https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/conservatives-beef-with-bi... - https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/04/27/fact-check-joe-biden-isnt-banning-burgers-politicians-fuel-narrative/4855501001/ https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/202... - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/26/republicans-meat-biden-climate-plan/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/26/republicans...
photochemsyn 3y ago
A robust public health system that includes treatment for drug and alcohol addiction as part of the services offered to the public would be helpful. It's true that many people won't use such services because of distrust, however (would you want a medical record stating you were a recovering drug or alcohol addict, or mentally ill?). Legalizing and quality controlling drugs would also help - but the problem there is that we live in a advertising-driven consumer society. Alcohol, tobacco and sugar-laced soft drinks are all unhealthy, but that's a profitable enterprise, so people are incentivized to block public health campaigns, restrictions on sales, etc. At some point, the problems become so deeply entrenched and societal in nature that passing laws and setting up government programs doesn't really help. For some reason in the USA, a lot of people are really miserable and their only relief is to turn to drugs and alcohol. That's the more fundamental problem.
hmmokidk 3y ago
If drugs were legal, two of my friends would not be dead from fentanyl. That’s already enough of a case to legalize. Make it safe. Then address the root of the issue.
patrickmay 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Got a cite for that? I doubt it's true. We're seeing the same problems with drug prohibition that we saw with alcohol prohibition. It's time for the government to stop destroying people's lives.
throw__away7391 3y ago
I have suffered tremendously from the drug use of family and friends. Way too much attention and undeserved sympathy is given to drug users while basically nothing at all to the people around them whose lives they derail for no fault of their own. As far as what to do, half of this is cultural. People in the US need to grow up, we can’t have a nation of people who require perpetual care of their community, there just aren’t enough “adults” to go around anymore. The US is super rich compared even to other “first world”/G20 countries, even so-called poor people in the US have US dollars to get drugs smuggled to them, creating endless human misery outside the country as well as in.
buttercraft 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Maybe you just don't notice the ones who live like normal adults because... they live like normal adults.
mock-possum 3y ago
Is it really ‘most people’ that end up that way though? Or are those people simply the most visible? I mean, how can you tell if someone is a functional user - you can’t, they look just everybody else, you know? It’s not about the substances themselves, it’s the way that they’re used - and abused. It’s helplessness in the face of addiction that’s the problem - addiction will drive the afflicted to trade the rest of their life to get a fix.
- lacy_tinpot 3y ago
  I think the main problem is that we lack the other side of this equation. Namely that we don't have an avenue for addicts or even "functional users" to go to when things get tough. No way to prevent their addiction. No way to take these people in and actually really rehabilitate them into society. Instead we throw these people into jail. And if even that gets too burdensome we let people rot in the streets. So yes. Decriminalize addiction because addiction is NOT a crime. It is an illness.
- icpmacdo 3y ago
  Same for 'no one willingly goes to get help or treatment'
epolanski 3y ago
> Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Tackle the issue at the root: mental health. It's an error to focus too much on the substance (illegal drugs) when alcohol, legal drugs, food and many other forms of abuse and dependency can lead to similar or worse outcomes.
- BizarroLand 3y ago
  The phrase "mental health" makes light of the realities of addiction. From what I understand, an addict can't mental health their way into being someone who isn't an addict. If that is the case, after they have become an addict, they can only mental health themselves into being someone who refuses to indulge in their addiction. If they refuse to indulge long enough, the craving loses its power over their reasoning, but they still have the capacity to be immediately back to where they started if they indulge a single time. In my opinion, the best thing is to never use a drug you don't have to use. The next best thing is to use them extremely sparingly or for a specific purpose. If you go past this point, you begin to run the risk of becoming addicted.
StimDeck 3y ago
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deepsun 3y ago
Can you make the same argument for children? Children don't know the world yet, cannot contain their urges, and can get their brain chemistry permanently altered after trying heroin. Now here's the trick -- all adults are children, just older. Some can contain the emotions better than others.
chrisweekly 3y ago
"Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults." Many drugs are incredibly dangerous, addictive and harmful, but that's still a wild overstatement.
bsder 3y ago
> Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Heathcare facilities for the mentally ill is a really good start. But, you know, that's, like, expensive.
alfalfasprout 3y ago
Part of the problem frankly is that not all drugs are created equal. There's very little reason for opioids to be freely available. But weed, psychadelics, mdma, etc. why not?
happytiger 3y ago
I think the lessons are there in what Portugal has done with their insane heroin wave (it was reported that 1 entire percent of the population was reported to have an addiction to hard drugs). The parallels in Van, SF and Portland are striking, except now it’s not Heroin it’s Fentanyl. Here’s a good primer: https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/ https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decrim...
stouset 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. This isn’t even remotely true. The number of people in SF who use marijuana, cocaine, LSD, ketamine, MDMA, GHB, 2-CB and/or a laundry list of other substances would astonish you. The majority of them successfully hold jobs: many of them highly paid ones as tech company engineers and execs. What you associate with “not living like normal adults” is poverty plus opiates.
whycome 3y ago
I support making drugs legal. But, it also requires an extensive framework around that legalization. Social supports. Information. Safety nets/healthcare. Without that, it's gonna fails.
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  I'll pick your comment out of the pack to pick on, though I think we agree. Yours, and dozens of others, talk about "drugs". That's like talking about banning "food" when there is a problem with people eating five cheeseburgers a day. --- The problem is not with cannabis, or mushrooms, or aspirin. It's with meth, heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioids. Drugs need to be *properly* ranked by government and restricted accordingly. * How easy is it to acutely overdose on a substance? * How chemically addictive is the substance? * How damaging is chronic use of the drug over time to the body and mind? * Is there any medical benefit? The fact that cannabis is federally ranked as the most controlled level of drug in the US shows we have a broken system. I support the legalization/decriminalization of many drugs too, but our Congress, the Biden administration and the DEA are too inept or corrupt to make reform a priority.
  - whycome 3y ago
    Yep, we entirely agree. I think what you describe (honest ranking + relevant and contextual supports) is part of that framework. Heroin requires different supports than marijuana. And I think a big part of legalization is an emergent social aspect. Government legalization of marijuana in Canada has meant that my father has actually had real conversations about the drug instead of just treating it as evil. He's now open to using it for treatment of pain or as a means of 'relaxation'. His peers/friends are also in that group. Nothing about the drugs abilities has changed -- just his perception and ability to speak openly in his social circles.
    - zer8k 3y ago
      It's not support network it's societal harm. There are many things that were de facto "illegal" but now completely out in he open. Heroin or cocaine for example are not drugs you can support your way into safe use. The difference between weed and heroin, for example, is when someone runs out of weed historical data shows they don't kill people and commit crimes. The answer to this is not to make heroin easier to access. Then you just have a ticking time bomb you constantly reset the clock on. IMO the key is for so-called "hard drugs" to develop the corrective measures. Arrest them, but instead of throwing a simple user in jail adjudicate them into a treatment program. I've watched two people in my life go from "functional" heroin addicts (as in I couldn't outwardly tell) to missing a week of the drug and breaking into homes to steal. It is not possible to "dabble" in hard drugs like one might have a beer on the weekend or a cigar at a bar. It's 0-100. Watch interviews with former heroin addicts. Chasing the dragon starts from the first hit. Societal danger should modify the way we treat a drug. Most people agree the solution to alcoholism is not to give alcoholics more alcohol. So too, we should not be giving hard drug users more hard drugs. Treat them.
pkulak 3y ago
The assumption behind your entire post is that temporarily putting people in prison for drug use limits their use. I'm pretty sure it just makes people do drugs where you can't see them. That's probably good enough for most folks though.
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
The most heavily abused drugs are the legal ones. That is the primary argument against legalization / decriminalization. MJ legalization has led to a 20% increase in use already. It's a very good argument. The only argument I have for legalization is the current situation we have with Mexico (and Guatemala, etc). Our inability to not control/treat drug addiction has led to a fundamentally destabilized country in a de facto civil war (against cartels we trained in the School of the Americas, an entirely different nutso side). Those cartels are supported by the economics of illegal drugs. Not just that, with the fall of our puppet regime in Afghanistan, we will be enriching the Taliban regime by paying for the output of their poppy fields. What is mindblowing is listening to all my right leaning relatives scream at the top of their lungs about the illegal immigration flood, but they are the ones supporting the side that most opposes dealing with the drug problem in a constructive way. IMO the fundamental way to fight illegal drugs is to decriminalize, replace the supply / undermine the economics with medically or governmentally supply (at prices that undercut mafia economics), and make treatment zero-cost available as part of the drug availability. Of course that will probably lead to something like Purdue Pharma and painkillers / Medicaid fraud. But the War on Drugs has to end.
- mptest 3y ago
  >Mj legalization has led to increased use already Has it also reduced the consumption of any other substances? I wonder what % replaced a different habit.
dr_dshiv 3y ago
1. Licenses or prescriptions should be required for all drugs; either can be taken away. Also, people need education. 2. Start a better public works program. Employment is good for mental health. 3. Maybe require a month of service or something, just to have a way to resocialize people when they break. 4. Have people pick up their benefits somewhere not in the city. Some reason to move. 5. Forced rehab to those engaged in harm; nature and nutrition. 6. Need to avoid cultures of homelessness. Need good policy. Look to Amsterdam, a city with virtually no homelessness. 7. Make better drugs available? Fentanyl seems like the worst.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  I'd vote for you.
- androidbishop 3y ago
  Wow, legalizing across the board and requiring licensing was the idea I had. Force some kind of education requirements, pay into funds to provide treatment, and revoke licenses for those that abuse the privilege. This is what we do for other high risk activities like driving, skydiving, scuba diving, etc., it just makes sense to do it for drugs. This list is fantastic, it should be shouted across the nation. You have my vote.
deleted 3y ago
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DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
keep them legal. but also invest in social workers. finally a model like the Portugal approach won't yield results if the basics aren't there (healthcare, housing, etc)
lm28469 3y ago
> you should be able to do what you want. I'm still baffled at how this argument makes it anywhere paste high school. Living a single second makes it plain obvious that no, you don't do what you want. Living in any type of society or even the most basic and smallest community will tell you that
- havblue 3y ago
  I've heard that this is a generational difference: xers thought of free speech as being an essential value and to hell with the sanctimonious totalitarians who are telling you that you can't listen to rap music. This gave way to accepting any and all behavior, social contact be damned. So social stigmas themselves are repressive and it doesn't matter if you're hurting your heath, that's your choice as an individual. La vie boheme!
  - whiddershins 3y ago
    Xers continue to have thoughts.
4gotunameagain 3y ago
It is clear that the need/desire for drugs will not disappear. Not only that, but drug usage seems to be on quite the incline. One of the biggest problems with drugs is the paraeconomy that is created, funnelling millions to the wrong hands, and ending up with fentanyl spiked dope on the market. If we accept that the need for drugs will not go away, then they need to be legalized, controlled, taxed, and regulated so that not only the cartels aren't funded, but the state receives their profit and turns it into measures for controlling drug abuse, for offering help, etc. Now how do we handle the general lack of meaning that the west is experiencing which is turning people into mice hitting the dopamine level forever running on the hedonistic treadmill, that's a different question.
rqtwteye 3y ago
It was clear that making drugs legal wouldn't solve all problems. What needs to happen is that the budgets that got spent on prosecuting and imprisoning drug users now gets spent on treatment options.
sircastor 3y ago
> Should we make drugs illegal again and force people into rehab? Should we require drug tests for homeless people to receive government help like SF CAAP payments? I think this is dealing with the problem far too late for it to be effective. Rehab treats the drug as though it's the problem. The drug is not the problem. The person using the drug is trying to manage some sort of stress or situation that they otherwise can't deal with. If you get a person off drugs but don't address their health, home-security, childhood trauma, abusive relationships, etc. At best they're simply going to shift to dealing with that issue through some other way: Food addiction, sex addiction, video games, abusing a loved-one, etc. And if it's not obvious, this is a repeating cycle. We need to do a better job of taking care of people in our communities. Before they end up using drugs (or other types of dangerous coping mechanisms). If we can't get to them before, we need to pick them up and start taking care of them. The trouble is (at least in the US), our approach to community support is contrary to our sense of individual freedoms - we don't want the government to support struggling individuals at the cost of individual freedoms (see healthcare, food and housing subsidy, etc)
antihero 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Most people who use drugs function like completely normal adults or eventually get bored or reduce usage as they age. You are seeing the fringes.
darkclouds 3y ago
> And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. I trust health experts as much as the Nasa scientists who lost contact with voyager2 and the nasa scientists are working under much less pressure than an ER room!
pyuser583 3y ago
The solution is simple: we treat Im drug addiction as a disease. This means using testing as to detect outbreaks. Schools should be allowed and encouraged to test students, as long as a positive test results in a trip to the doctor, not prison. We shouldn’t force law abiding adults into treatment, but if they break the law, like vagrancy, treatment should be an alternative to gradually increasing prison time. Treat it like we treat COVID. Test and treat. Vaccinate and manage. But if you refuse testing and treatment, you’re on your own.
MisterTea 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. I have a close family member who has been addicted to heroin for most of their life and they are in their late 60's. They go to a clinic and receive methadone which they can then go outside and trade for whatever else. Basically a flea market of intoxicants and they are found around every major rehab clinic. The problem is they are so used to being in a stupor most of the day that reality is something they cant handle anymore. When they become sober they are faced with a loud, bright world of sensory overload along with physical discomfort, pain and headaches (I had addiction issues so this is my perception). You want to go back to lala land and forget about all the bullshit seemingly clawing at you. These extreme cases become hollowed out vessels - the person becomes a kind of animal that knows only one thing: defend the mind against reality. They don't care about family, friends, jobs, hobbies, ad nauseam. They need SERIOUS help - help that I don't think we can provide as how do you rebuild a human mind and life?
glonq 3y ago
I fully support decriminalization of all drugs, as long as it's far away from me and from anybody else who is just trying to live their best life. Let's go build a 10-acre island that is full of free housing and free drugs for anybody who wants it.
- terminatornet 3y ago
  I assume you're being somewhat sarcastic, but I'd bet giving drug addicts stable housing would probably help at least some people with rehab.
  - unparagoned 3y ago
    From what I’ve heard is that they will just trash the place and be back on the streets in no time. Housing doesn’t fix mental health and drug addiction problems.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  Interesting, I feel the same way about MLM salespeople, Jordan Peterson fans, gun nuts, Elon Musk fans, and a whole other host of behaviors that are pretty objectively harmful. Actually, I don't at all, but see how asinine it sounds?
  - glonq 3y ago
    Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
irthomasthomas 3y ago
I'm not surprised. Since the market is still controlled by drug dealers. Legalise the whole supply chain and let people buy opium and cocaine at the apothecary, like they did in olden days, see how things are then.
barbs 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. Citation needed. Seriously though, the amount of unsubstantiated opinions that get thrown around as facts on HN whenever drugs are discussed is ridiculous.
P_I_Staker 3y ago
With a more controlled supply, softer drug options, and social supports, it’s not a stretch to say there’s are important options being neglected. Lots of people get pushed into harder options, when it becomes a race to the bottom. Meth and hard opioids are massive problems in the US. AFAIK most similar counties have lower usage of meth, and fent, though I’m sure opioids are in the picture. Don’t underestimate how many of these cases are deaths of despair, due to our cultural issues, not just poverty. I suspect we’re seeing the costs of our toxic culture, income inequality, and lack of safety nets. Oregon IMO was set up for failure. Decrime is overrated. In some ways it may be the worst of both worlds. Even moreso when you do it during a drug poisoning pandemic… that’s a really good time to start distributing verified product.
laverya 3y ago
The Singapore (and rest of Southeast Asia) solution set might work here, but there's no way we have the political will for it. If we won't execute the vast majority of murderers, there's no way we'll do it for people just running a kilo of coke or weed. Not to mention "works" and "worth it" are not quite the same thing.
- throw16180339 3y ago
  Singapore can do this because they're a city state without jury trials, a bill of rights, or the Kennedy v. Louisiana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana) decision. It's doubtful that the Supreme Court would allow a similar policy. If they did then the cost of appeals make this approach too expensive to implement it.
  - laverya 3y ago
    Yeah, executing drug dealers/smugglers at scale would require significant and likely negative rollbacks to our system of jurisprudence. The US used to do things like this though! (I say likely negative because a system of trials that didn't cost 100k+ and take years for an actual defense would be a dramatic improvement)
causality0 3y ago
It's principles vs pragmatism. We have an example of one approach that works: Singapore. Mandatory execution of drug dealers, carried out three years after conviction, not three decades. That obliterates drug addiction as a societal ill. On the other hand, the philosophical stance I agree with is that one human being does not have the right to dictate what another human being does with their own body, so long as they are an informed adult. Our unwillingness to truly commit to our beliefs and values, whatever they are, gives us the worst of both approaches.
yodog 3y ago
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matheusmoreira 3y ago
> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Yes. Claiming people can use these things without consequences is just wrong. Anyone who thinks otherwise has clearly never dealt with addicts. The only possible argument for drug decriminalization is getting rid of all the violent crime surrounding it. That's a worthy reason but must certainly be weighed against the significant risks presented by drugs. Lots of people out there have literally never witnessed the extent an opioid addict's drug seeking behavior.
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  Dealing with addicts is proof that all people who use drugs will become addicts?
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    I said "significant risks". I also explicitly mentioned opioids. I assumed that's what was meant by "hard drugs" since I don't think there's anything harder than opioids.
balderdash 3y ago
The legalization of drugs (alcohol included) comes with catastrophic consequences. The benefit is that it allows for 1) freedom of choice and 2) it is (theoretically) better than the alternative (defunds criminal gangs, provides tax revenues to fund treatment, etc.) However, we seemed to have completely dropped the ball on #2, just look at the untaxed marijuana sales on New York City streets, where are all the new rehab facilities paid for with drug tax revenues. Why are gangs and cartels still making so much form the drug trade and still commuting violent crime?
andrei_says_ 3y ago
Gabor Mate who has worked with patients dealing with addiction for decades speaks of drug addiction as a symptom of other issues, mostly trauma, hopelessness etc. What we could do is shift our priorities from turning the country into a feudal system pressure cooker scenario and provide opportunities and resources for most. No wait that’s just crazy. On another thought maybe we should just make harsher punishments for drug users and “clean the streets” by moving all the homeless to jail cells at $80k/year/person in taxpayer money. Because mentioning a similar UBI amount is also crazy.
StanislavPetrov 3y ago
>I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. I agree with this statement, but it should only hold true in your own home, on your own property, or on the property of someone who is amenable to whatever behavior you are engaged in. >Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Should we make drugs illegal again and force people into rehab? Very simply we cannot have a functional society if we don't have rules about what behavior is allowed in public spaces. Just because every adult should be free to do drugs that doesn't (or at least shouldn't if we want a functional society) give license to these adults to break the rules we have set up for public spaces, whether or not their rule-breaking is a result of their drug use. I don't believe anyone who isn't breaking the rules of our public spaces should be locked up or forced into rehab for their drug use. But if they are stealing, harassing others, vandalizing, doing drugs on public property or engaging in a variety of other illegal behaviors, then they should be arrested and offered the choice between jail and rehab (in a locked facility).
theptip 3y ago
One important observation is that drug use is largely downstream of homelessness. Being homeless is awful, and drives people to self-medication/-numbing. (Of course some homelessness is caused by prior drug addiction but I’ve seen compelling analysis suggesting it’s mostly the other way around.) SF primarily has a cost-of-living problem, which produces a homelessness problem, which produces a drug problem. Programs that address homelessness (like housing-first, or work training) will also reduce drug abuse/deaths. And upstream stuff like really buying into building housing stock will also help with homelessness. Part of the whole package of drug legalization is that if you actually dismantle the war on drugs machinery, you will have a huge budget to direct to social programs that can reduce the upstream causes of drug abuse, not just providing treatment after the fact. It sounds like Oregon didn’t get those programs in place yet.
- starkparker 3y ago
  > you will have a huge budget to direct to social programs that can reduce the upstream causes of drug abuse, not just providing treatment after the fact. It sounds like Oregon didn’t get those programs in place yet. If anything, Portland's actively pushed back against the county's efforts to put programs in place because the mayor wants the money to instead sweep ad-hoc encampments into city-run encampments: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/12/portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-struggles-to-reel-in-millions-from-multnomah-county-for-homeless-camping-ban.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/12/portland-mayor-t... https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2023/05/mayor-ted-wheeler-threatens-to-end-portland-multnomah-county-homeless-services-partnership-if-he-doesnt-get-20m-for-mass-shelters.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2023/05/mayor-ted-wheele...
- whiddershins 3y ago
  Citation needed. What you are saying is the precise opposite of everything I’ve ever observed or heard.
protastus 3y ago
> But what I've seen in San Francisco has made me think differently. Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The U.S. healthcare system is deeply broken, so it's tremendously difficult for someone who is poor and sick/mentally ill/addicted to drugs to regain control of their life. Irrespective of the legal status of hard drugs.
acchow 3y ago
I wouldn't be opposed to exploring the idea of an alcohol+drug consumption license. Mandatory checkins every few months to make sure you're doing ok > Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults It is definitely not "most". There are people who are highly prone to drug addiction. Add on depression or lack of a stable life/job/community/friends/family and the risks go way up. There are tons of people who do plenty of drugs recreationally, and it is safer than alcohol for many.
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AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Should we make drugs illegal again and force people into rehab? You should make the negative behaviors associated with drug abuse illegal and force those people into rehab. Use all the drugs you want until you go to break some other law, then you get arrested and don't get to go home until you're clean.
- bill_joy_fanboy 3y ago
  Might it not be smart to prevent those crimes from happening by preventing drug use/abuse in the first place?
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    A precrime division doesn't belong in any law enforcement agency.
    - bill_joy_fanboy 3y ago
      Yeah, why prevent anything bad from happening, LOL BTW, if it's a crime to use certain drugs, and you use those drugs and are arrested, and that arrest prevents further crimes, this was NOT an example of "pre-crime". You committed a crime. You used illegal drugs. "Pre-crime" is not an accurate description of what I'm talking about.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Yeah, why prevent anything bad from happening, LOL This is not the role of the police. Their role is solely punishment and deterrence. And if drug use leads to other crimes and other crimes leads to punishment then they're already providing that deterrent, to the thing we actually want to deter. If you want to prevent drug abuse in response to economic woes etc. then try building more housing and otherwise lowering the cost of living. (Sometimes people hate this because it's very "everything is connected" and they don't want to have to solve somebody else's problem in order to solve their problem, but sometimes that's actually the best solution.) > BTW, if it's a crime to use certain drugs, and you use those drugs and are arrested, and that arrest prevents further crimes, this was NOT an example of "pre-crime". You committed a crime. You used illegal drugs. Passing a law against drug use is pre-crime when the only real justification for the law is to prevent other crimes.
deleted 3y ago
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ryukoposting 3y ago
Measure 110 (and the Republican platform on drugs, for that matter) assumes that rehabilitation and punishment cannot coexist for petty drug crimes. I believe they can. As the article mentions, Measure 110 specifically prohibits recepients of funding from requiring abstinence in their programs. I'm not a psychologist, but it's probably a lot harder to get people to stop doing drugs if you aren't allowed to tell them to stop doing drugs. Hard drugs have to be seen in a negative light in the social zeitgeist, period. On the other hand, the sheriff's quote basically says "we don't think these rehab programs will work, so we aren't going to give tickets to drug users." That's just as counterproductive as anti-abstinence. The criminal-justice reform side of Measure 110 is pretty good. Small amounts of drugs shouldn't be punishable with incarceration or huge fines. IMO the asinine rules for rehab programs, and the broken bureaucracy surrounding them, seem like a good place to start.
whiddershins 3y ago
Just because something is legal doesn’t mean bad behavior related to it should be. Or that it should be legal in all or most or any public areas. This distinction allows us to keep alcohol legal, but punish people for getting into bar fights or urinating on the sides of buildings. We could legalize all drug use while criminalizing illegal behavior around it, such as shoplifting, littering, etc. Might not work but what if we just tried that. Only make things illegal that overtly affect other people negatively.
burnte 3y ago
Decriminalization is 25% of the problem. Lack of universal healthcare, well funded housing support, and rehab-to-work programs are the other 75%. Source: I worked in chemical dependency rehab for 5 years. We had a great in-patient residential program that didn't use suboxone as a substitute, but as a bridge to not taking ANY drugs. 7-14 days for most patients and that's it. And we had a huge success rate, but our patients tended to have great support in their lives. The ones who failed were the ones who had no support. Not putting people in jail isn't enough, putting them into treatment is the goal.
dclowd9901 3y ago
Supporting legalizing drugs across the board is so naive. If you’ve ever had a family member who’s had addiction problems, you know how much a person’s addiction can wreck the lives of so many people. In some ways, they’re like a sinkhole that just keeps expanding. I include alcohol addiction in this. That said, I don’t think Portland was wrong with the decision to decriminalize. I think they just did it in the wrong order. They should have had strong support set up _before_ ever going the route of decriminalizing.
onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
It's possible for drugs to be legal and for it to be illegal to turn parks and sidewalks into your personal drug den. If people want to do drugs, that's one thing. If people want to turn the few nice outdoor spaces in the city into their personal camp - that's a separate issue. You also don't need to be like SF and stop enforcing all crimes just because you make drugs legal.
ryanSrich 3y ago
The solution is what measure 110 was _supposed_ to be. Not what it turned into. At least that was my understanding when I voted in favor of it a few years ago. The problem is that is has now manifested into default legal possession and consumption. That was not the idea. What should happen is that if you’re caught doing drugs like meth, fentanyl, etc. you either go to rehab, or you go to jail. Instead, at least here in Portland, the police LITERALLY doing absolutely nothing. Partly because they are genuinely understaffed, partly because they despise the voter base (understandably so). That still doesn’t excuse the complete lack of enforcement. This isn’t specific to just drug use either. Day time camping is illegal now in Portland. The police won’t enforce it. Stealing a vehicle is illegal in Portland. The police tell you over the phone it’s not worth looking for your stolen vehicle and they refer you to a Facebook group that tracks stolen cars (I shit you not). Traffic stops, missing tags, no insurance, etc. anything related to traffic is unenforced to a laughable degree. I know people who haven’t registered their vehicles since 2020. They somehow still have a valid drivers license.
rjbwork 3y ago
We haven't made drugs legal. We've just stopped locking people up for doing them. It's a very different thing. I'm still 100% for full legalization. Decriminalization just causes what we're currently seeing. It's a nonsense policy that is only slightly better than prohibition. Legalize it, produce it in pure dosages of known substance and dosage, and encourage people to get treatment. That's the best we can do. It was the solution to alcohol prohibition and history will show that it is the solution to the bulk of negative externalities from drug prohibition. We'll always have problems stemming from substance use, as consciousness modulation appears to be a drive inherent to humans as a species, but we are choosing as a society to inflict a far greater harm upon both individuals and the society collectively by pursuing a policy of prohibition, including destabilizing our second biggest trading partner into a near-failed narcostate.
Gustomaximus 3y ago
I've felt legal was bad, while decriminalisation was for the best, at a personal level as it focuses resources to dealers and importers and leaves social serves for the addicts as jail doesn't seem to be a working solution, but that probably to do with the prison system also. I recall decriminalisation worked well in Portugal, and maybe it's not repeatable but I wonder if there are other variables beyond the drugs here. I couldn't read the article as behind a paywall but US seems to have other more significant issues where crimes themself are not getting dealt with in these areas. You don't charge addicts for drug use, but when they are stealing or fighting etc they need to be caught and charged. Also there needs to be social support which seems lacking in US compared to other western countries. And bigger picture, when I watch iterviews with people caught in this life so many grow with parents and communities like this. This cycle needs to be broken somehow but doing so going into ethical grey zones, like Project Prevention, where I feel it's a difficult positive to push for but for the best outcome (in my view) but respect that people can be totally valid feeling otherwise. At the moment it really seems one of those unsolvable issues. Such a shame it can't be stopped at the supply side.
dirtyid 3y ago
Decriminalize in a few non productive regions far from everything. Boot down everywhere else except soft stuff. Push all the users to Hamsterdam / Escape from LA.
TheBigSalad 3y ago
I feel like people wouldn't overdose if drugs were legal. They could be cheap with no fentanyl. You'd know the exact dose you are getting.
blake929 3y ago
I'm not sure SF is a good example. It's not a healthy city, but it's problems go way beyond drug use and it doesn't have the same policies as what Oregon adopted.
blablabla123 3y ago
I never thought much about legalization of hard drugs. While for Marijuana there are direct benefits like drug tests, health checks so people don't wake a latent psychosis, for hard drugs it's more complicated. But the people who take those, don't they usually suffer from very serious problems anyway? Probably it's true, if systemic problems don't get solved then fully legalizing hard drugs might make things worse. But if things get legalized in a controlled way, that's actually an opportunity to create a social net for these people.
godelski 3y ago
> Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? How I see it is the main problem exists because the dog and pony show is allowed to persist. The reason it persists is because we humans like to believe things are simple. That we'll ignore any evidence of complexity to justify such simplicity. And that when complexity is added (such as in conspiracy theories) the basis is functionally equivalent to "wizards did it." The whole "if it weren't for <insert opposing tribe> then everything would be great." Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The problem is that the simplicity of a lie is unbounded, but the simplicity of truth is. There is a minimum floor for critical thinking and knowledge required to understand truth. That the precision of the understanding of the truth is proportional to that floor (thankfully this usually asymptotically approaches full precision). So what do we do? We don't let people sell us the snake oil of simplicity. We don't let non-experts wildly conjecture about things without demonstrating understanding (which would turn them into experts). We ourselves stop personally pulling things out of our asses and make assumptions. Especially when there is evidence to the contrary. We ourselves seek out possible counter arguments to our own predispositions rather than expecting others to do it for us. We ourselves stop being lazy. I suspect this is a tall order. I suspect this is possibly one of the many great filters. I don't suspect that this is an impossible task. I do suspect such a notion can be codified into localized groups and propagate through the system due to no groups being adjoint to any other group (can be pockets, but I suspect quite rare). Accountability may only be possible at a local group level, but I see no reason this accountability can't propagate. It definitely should be possible within such parent-groups like Hacker News. I suspect that this tall order would resolve a lot of other issues as well.
ignoramceisblis 3y ago
Hold those who support destructive policies accountable.

by tlogan 3y ago

anotherhue 3y ago

I suggest the drug user equivalent of an insane asylum. If you've shown you're a danger to yourself and/or others you get a place in a retreat/monastery/rehab centre/prison island where you get the care you need. Fraught with opportunities for abuse but not arguably more than the current situation and at least the rest of us can have our public spaces back.

brightlancer 3y ago
> I suggest the drug user equivalent of an insane asylum. If you've shown you're a danger to yourself and/or others you get a place in a retreat/monastery/rehab centre/prison island where you get the care you need. "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals." - C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock" To be fair, I used to think it would be best to use the courts to force medical treatment; the problem is that it invariably leads to labeling folks as "ill" and using courts to imprison them for their own safety.
- anotherhue 3y ago
  It's a great quote, pity it came from a literal Christian apologist. Art/Artist etc. This was around the time of chemical castrations and other such 'cures' so it's quite meaningful. I'm personally much less interested in their care then the safety of our public spaces, but I think we can all agree one leads to the other.

sniglom 3y ago

For other possibly dangerous things in society there are things like taking a license and renewing that license. Perhaps that should be a requirement for buying hard drugs where it's legal.

anon84873628 3y ago
Exactly. You can buy pseudoephedrine or codeine at the pharmacy, but not too much or too frequently. Party sized amounts of safe drugs could be made available. People who go to far get directed to treatment.

rvcdbn 3y ago

We have built a society where the best options for these people are to do what they are doing. Nobody starts using because they have a great life but they’re just curious what a bit of meth feels like and then accidentally get hooked. They do it because there’s no better life path open to them. It’s really a form of suicide. Criminalizing will make the suicide process faster and less visible to you. It won’t stop anyone from using but it will make using more dangerous. There is no easy solution. We need societal change. Making it illegal would be like criminalizing sugar because of the obesity epidemic.

tlogan 3y ago
I understand. But what is the solution? Just wait for them to all die? Here in San fransciso we have 3 overdose death per day. That is 40% spike from last years. In 2017 we had 222 overdose death for entire year and we reached that number by march 15h this year. [1] https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/2021%2005_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-05/2021%2005_OCME%20...
- rvcdbn 3y ago
  The solution that seems most likely to work IMO seems to be a European-style welfare state. All drugs have long been decriminalized in Portugal and you don’t see that kind of thing on the streets of Lisbon. But I don’t see that happening any time soon in the USA.
  - tlogan 3y ago
    > you don’t see that kind of thing > on the streets of Lisbon. Actually that is exactly what I saw on the streets of Lisbon. Please do visit by yourself.
    - rvcdbn 3y ago
      I visited before the pandemic when last did you visit SF because I think it’s a totally different scale. EDIT: just googled the stats and the number of homeless in SF is roughly the same as the whole of Portugal

antisyzygy 3y ago

I think we're missing part of the equation there. Decriminalization isn't legalization. Legalization would mean controlling purity, and strength where the drug is licensed to be sold. Marijuana legalization hasn't lead to any major problems. People don't even bother getting it on the black market anymore where it is legal. They go for what's convenient. Beyond that simply throwing people in prison doesn't mean that we reduced the number of drug addicts. It just means you don't see them anymore. Decriminalization actually would mean you see more of them out on the streets because they're not being locked away in prison. Drugs will always be a part of the human experience. People will continue to use them whether it's legal or not. The other side of it is most cities don't spend much money on harm reduction strategies or treatment options because of the stigma associated with drug users. Tax payers look at them as subhuman and don't do the math. It costs more to let a drug addict run around town stealing and breaking things, or getting sick and going to the ER, than it does to mandate they spend some time in a State funded mental hospital. Prisons also cost a lot. It costs a full time job's worth of money ~35k to imprison 1 person per year. Not only did you take a potential worker out of the work force, but now you're sinking a full time jobs worth of money into keeping them in prison. For a murderer, that seems worth it because they literally cost the world a full time worker and maybe more. But for a homeless drug addict it really doesn't seem worth it to me.

adamredwoods 3y ago
>> Marijuana legalization hasn't lead to any major problems. People don't even bother getting it on the black market anymore where it is legal. They go for what's convenient. This is actually bigger than people realize. Fentanyl lacing is a MASSIVE problem. With purity, people can rely that there's no fentanyl. https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html https://www.colorado.edu/health/blog/fentanyl https://www.colorado.edu/health/blog/fentanyl https://wellbeing.missouri.edu/wellness-services/substance-use-education/fentanyl-lacing/ https://wellbeing.missouri.edu/wellness-services/substance-u... https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/programs/opioid-and-fentanyl-awareness-initiative https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/programs/opioid-and-fentan...
- 3y ago

ecf 3y ago

I don’t have any evidence to back this feeling up so take it with a grain of salt: San Francisco has a drug problem simply because it’s one of few places in the country where it’s safe to have a drug problem. Other states pay for addicts/homeless to be shipped off to California and all of a sudden it becomes our taxpayer problem. If drugs were legalized country-wide then SF wouldn’t have the concentration it does and it would seem like a nice place.

burkaman 3y ago
This is a common theory but it isn't true. There are a lot of homeless people in San Fransisco because there are a lot of people there and it's hard to afford a home. From a huge recent survey of homelessness in California: > Nine out of ten participants lost their last housing in California; 75% of participants lived in the same county as their last housing. https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CASPEH_Executive_Summary_62023.pdf https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/CA...
- cyberax 3y ago
  This data is st00pid. It relies on self-reporting, and the questions are coached to get the "required" result. A while ago I did an experiment, I found the list of people convicted for typical "homeless" crimes in SF, and did a background search on them. About 90% had extensive crime records in other states, far away from CA. This is not a definitive result for sure, but it's suggestive.
  - coding123 3y ago
    Either you are lying or the mainstream media is lying. I am not having ANY luck with mainstream media, but I can't just trust you either. Show me your data.
    - cyberax 3y ago
      Here ya go: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-drug-tourism-arrests-tenderloin-18156424.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/san-francisco-drug-to... > Nearly 95% of people arrested for drug use in San Francisco since May 30 are from out of town, Police Chief Bill Scott said at a public hearing this week, corroborating perceptions that many residents already have — that their city has become a magnet for the narcotics trade. Honestly, just do the same exercise, get the booking records from jails and run background search on the names.

kouru225 3y ago

How does this compare to Portugal’s wild success when it comes to decriminalizing hard drugs? Seems like SF is a way less useful example.

tlogan 3y ago
Portugal is disaster. I went there but here is a link [1] :( [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-dru...
- tremon 3y ago
  It's due to budget cuts over the last decade: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-portugal-drugs-idUSBRE87C0N120120813 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-portugal-drugs-idUSBRE87C... (2012) > APDES, a non-governmental agency for social projects, warned in a report earlier this year that a range of harm reduction service providers were facing bankruptcy, while the “IDT closure endangers the future of the drug treatment system in general”. The last paragraph has some essential observation: > "There is a lesson there [..] Such spending has to be countercyclical. People need it the most in downturns, not when your economy is growing."
anon84873628 3y ago
I suspect there may be a network effects / regulatory arbitrage problem. If only a small number of places decriminalize drugs, that will attract lots of drug addicts without being able to support them. The policies need to be more universal in order for them to bear fruit... Though I realize this sounds like doubling down on failure. It would explain why a country wide program like Portugal could be more successful.
epolanski 3y ago
It backlashed in Portugal in recent years actually.

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brightlancer 3y ago

San Francisco doesn't have a problem with marijuana, it has a problem with store robbery, muggings, crazies smoking/ shooting "hard" drugs on the metro and on sidewalks, etc. For too long, San Francisco and California more broadly have rejected The Stick in favor of The Carrot -- and they didn't improve the balance, they just through it out of balance in a different direction. If folks want to fry their brain on whatever, I think that's their right. They don't have the right to do that on the sidewalk in front of my house, in the park where kids play, on the subway, etc. SF and CA lost the plot.

sixQuarks 3y ago
Exactly, some cities don’t even allow smoking cigarettes in public parks, we can surely make it difficult to do hard drugs in public.

runako 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults Is this true? The US consumes a lot of hard drugs, but my perception is that most users not have their lives fall apart as a result. Curious if there are estimates on the % of e.g. cocaine users who are recreational vs those who eventually end up on the street as a result of their use.

anon84873628 3y ago
I interpret that to mean, "people who use drugs habitually" not just those who dabbled in particular contexts.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  That’s completely wrong too. Most people are habitual users of some drugs. I guess they mean people with serious underlying mental health issues who are self medicating with hard drugs and unable to keep a job
- brightlancer 3y ago
  I think you're giving too much credit. It's more likely GP was talking BS than that they made an absolute statement where they really meant a very specific nuanced statement.
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  I'm sure someone will turn up with evidence to support this any moment now
seattle_spring 3y ago
No, but there seem to be a lot of folks in this thread who get their information on this exclusively from DARE and Jordan Peterson.
altacc 3y ago
No, it’s not true. 13% of Americans over 12 are recent drug users but 13% of Americans aren’t living on the streets due to drug abuse. https://drugabusestatistics.org/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/ And let’s not forget that the drugs that are considered ‘bad’ & illegal are done so totally arbitrarily. Alcohol is the drug with the most negative effects on society but is culturally, politically and legally acceptable whilst something like LSD, with very low rates of harm, is considered a hard drug and very illegal.

alphazard 3y ago

Why is there something to do? Your questions seem predicated on a false assumption that no one likes to say out loud: Drug users have a better life waiting for them after they stop using. Daily drug use may actually be the correct way for some people to maximize the integral of happiness over their lifetime. Especially for those at the bottom with limited prospects. I don't think most of HN can fathom what it's like to actually be completely useless. You're delusional if you think the homeless problem is a bunch of software engineers who tried heroin once, and left FAANG to get high every day. > Should we require drug tests for homeless people to receive government help like SF CAAP payments? This is a great idea. If you want society to invest in you, you have to take basic steps to be a worthy investment. But even this is predicated on the idea that what these drugs users are doing is wrong, and that they should instead do something that lets the rest of us reap the benefits of their productivity. Who are we to demand someone be more productive for our own benefit? We're right to want something in exchange for our investment, but there's no place to stand and say a drug user is wrong for not taking the deal.

sbierwagen 3y ago
Okay, then build a camp for them out in the desert. There's no reason to have them shitting on the streets of downtown SF.
- RoyalHenOil 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Aunche 3y ago
    If you had real empathy, you would understand how people would be upset that their streets are covered by used needles and feces rather than accuse them of being sociopaths. Anyways, I'm pretty sure GP was being facetious. If using drugs is were optimal choice for a bum, then, it would be a much better outcome for everyone involved if California diverted funding from million dollar per unit "affordable housing" into camps in the dessert that provide free hard drugs and basic necessities, and ship homeless people there, where they're likely to overdoes in a few weeks. That your immediate reaction is that of disgust suggests that the premise that drugs are good for the bottom of society is wrong.

singpolyma3 3y ago

The point is that putting them in prison doesn't solve the problem and giving power to police results in inconsistent enforcement harmful to communities. The point isn't that using some of these substances is "fine" but that it should be treated as a public health problem (like smoking) not a criminal problem.

anon84873628 3y ago
Isn't prison one of the easiest places to get drugs??

GeoAtreides 3y ago

I used to strongly support people getting fat. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. But what I've seen in the US has made me think differently. Most people who get fat eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The problem will stick around because politicians care more about how things look. They'll say the numbers are wrong, or focus on wedge issues like transgender, guns, but they're not going to do anything on hard issues like this one. Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Should we make fast food illegal again and force people into rehab? Should we require weight tests for homeless people to receive government help like CAAP payments?

basicoperation 3y ago
This but unironically
deleted 3y ago
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styren 3y ago
Not sure what point you're trying to make here? Policymaking to limit access to unhealthy food isn't particularly controversial and if there weren't more pressing issues were I live I'd love for politicians to push it further.
- seadan83 3y ago
  Limiting access to any kind of food AFAIK is extremely controversial! For starters there are the massive astro-turf campaigns that make a lot of noise. Beyond this, food regulation is catnip for the culture wars. > Taxes on sugar‐sweetened beverages reduce consumption, but a strong public backlash holds that they compromise consumers’ liberty, freedom, and autonomy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6916313/#:~:text=One%20such%20initiative%E2%80%94taxes%20on,with%20individuals'%20freedom%20and%20autonomy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6916313/#:~:tex.... Recall when there was a hint that Biden would limit hamburgers? (This idea was a bad extrapolation, nobody was proposing it as law - but nonetheless the mere mentioned brewed a holy-shit storm of foaming at the mouth outrage): - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/conservatives-beef-with-biden-over-false-red-meat-claims https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/conservatives-beef-with-bi... - https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/04/27/fact-check-joe-biden-isnt-banning-burgers-politicians-fuel-narrative/4855501001/ https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/202... - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/26/republicans-meat-biden-climate-plan/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/26/republicans...

photochemsyn 3y ago

A robust public health system that includes treatment for drug and alcohol addiction as part of the services offered to the public would be helpful. It's true that many people won't use such services because of distrust, however (would you want a medical record stating you were a recovering drug or alcohol addict, or mentally ill?). Legalizing and quality controlling drugs would also help - but the problem there is that we live in a advertising-driven consumer society. Alcohol, tobacco and sugar-laced soft drinks are all unhealthy, but that's a profitable enterprise, so people are incentivized to block public health campaigns, restrictions on sales, etc. At some point, the problems become so deeply entrenched and societal in nature that passing laws and setting up government programs doesn't really help. For some reason in the USA, a lot of people are really miserable and their only relief is to turn to drugs and alcohol. That's the more fundamental problem.

hmmokidk 3y ago

If drugs were legal, two of my friends would not be dead from fentanyl. That’s already enough of a case to legalize. Make it safe. Then address the root of the issue.

patrickmay 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Got a cite for that? I doubt it's true. We're seeing the same problems with drug prohibition that we saw with alcohol prohibition. It's time for the government to stop destroying people's lives.

throw__away7391 3y ago

I have suffered tremendously from the drug use of family and friends. Way too much attention and undeserved sympathy is given to drug users while basically nothing at all to the people around them whose lives they derail for no fault of their own. As far as what to do, half of this is cultural. People in the US need to grow up, we can’t have a nation of people who require perpetual care of their community, there just aren’t enough “adults” to go around anymore. The US is super rich compared even to other “first world”/G20 countries, even so-called poor people in the US have US dollars to get drugs smuggled to them, creating endless human misery outside the country as well as in.

buttercraft 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Maybe you just don't notice the ones who live like normal adults because... they live like normal adults.

mock-possum 3y ago

Is it really ‘most people’ that end up that way though? Or are those people simply the most visible? I mean, how can you tell if someone is a functional user - you can’t, they look just everybody else, you know? It’s not about the substances themselves, it’s the way that they’re used - and abused. It’s helplessness in the face of addiction that’s the problem - addiction will drive the afflicted to trade the rest of their life to get a fix.

lacy_tinpot 3y ago
I think the main problem is that we lack the other side of this equation. Namely that we don't have an avenue for addicts or even "functional users" to go to when things get tough. No way to prevent their addiction. No way to take these people in and actually really rehabilitate them into society. Instead we throw these people into jail. And if even that gets too burdensome we let people rot in the streets. So yes. Decriminalize addiction because addiction is NOT a crime. It is an illness.
icpmacdo 3y ago
Same for 'no one willingly goes to get help or treatment'

epolanski 3y ago

> Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Tackle the issue at the root: mental health. It's an error to focus too much on the substance (illegal drugs) when alcohol, legal drugs, food and many other forms of abuse and dependency can lead to similar or worse outcomes.

BizarroLand 3y ago
The phrase "mental health" makes light of the realities of addiction. From what I understand, an addict can't mental health their way into being someone who isn't an addict. If that is the case, after they have become an addict, they can only mental health themselves into being someone who refuses to indulge in their addiction. If they refuse to indulge long enough, the craving loses its power over their reasoning, but they still have the capacity to be immediately back to where they started if they indulge a single time. In my opinion, the best thing is to never use a drug you don't have to use. The next best thing is to use them extremely sparingly or for a specific purpose. If you go past this point, you begin to run the risk of becoming addicted.

StimDeck 3y ago

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deepsun 3y ago

Can you make the same argument for children? Children don't know the world yet, cannot contain their urges, and can get their brain chemistry permanently altered after trying heroin. Now here's the trick -- all adults are children, just older. Some can contain the emotions better than others.

chrisweekly 3y ago

"Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults." Many drugs are incredibly dangerous, addictive and harmful, but that's still a wild overstatement.

bsder 3y ago

> Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Heathcare facilities for the mentally ill is a really good start. But, you know, that's, like, expensive.

alfalfasprout 3y ago

Part of the problem frankly is that not all drugs are created equal. There's very little reason for opioids to be freely available. But weed, psychadelics, mdma, etc. why not?

happytiger 3y ago

I think the lessons are there in what Portugal has done with their insane heroin wave (it was reported that 1 entire percent of the population was reported to have an addiction to hard drugs). The parallels in Van, SF and Portland are striking, except now it’s not Heroin it’s Fentanyl. Here’s a good primer: https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/ https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decrim...

stouset 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. This isn’t even remotely true. The number of people in SF who use marijuana, cocaine, LSD, ketamine, MDMA, GHB, 2-CB and/or a laundry list of other substances would astonish you. The majority of them successfully hold jobs: many of them highly paid ones as tech company engineers and execs. What you associate with “not living like normal adults” is poverty plus opiates.

whycome 3y ago

I support making drugs legal. But, it also requires an extensive framework around that legalization. Social supports. Information. Safety nets/healthcare. Without that, it's gonna fails.

unethical_ban 3y ago
I'll pick your comment out of the pack to pick on, though I think we agree. Yours, and dozens of others, talk about "drugs". That's like talking about banning "food" when there is a problem with people eating five cheeseburgers a day. --- The problem is not with cannabis, or mushrooms, or aspirin. It's with meth, heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioids. Drugs need to be *properly* ranked by government and restricted accordingly. * How easy is it to acutely overdose on a substance? * How chemically addictive is the substance? * How damaging is chronic use of the drug over time to the body and mind? * Is there any medical benefit? The fact that cannabis is federally ranked as the most controlled level of drug in the US shows we have a broken system. I support the legalization/decriminalization of many drugs too, but our Congress, the Biden administration and the DEA are too inept or corrupt to make reform a priority.
- whycome 3y ago
  Yep, we entirely agree. I think what you describe (honest ranking + relevant and contextual supports) is part of that framework. Heroin requires different supports than marijuana. And I think a big part of legalization is an emergent social aspect. Government legalization of marijuana in Canada has meant that my father has actually had real conversations about the drug instead of just treating it as evil. He's now open to using it for treatment of pain or as a means of 'relaxation'. His peers/friends are also in that group. Nothing about the drugs abilities has changed -- just his perception and ability to speak openly in his social circles.
  - zer8k 3y ago
    It's not support network it's societal harm. There are many things that were de facto "illegal" but now completely out in he open. Heroin or cocaine for example are not drugs you can support your way into safe use. The difference between weed and heroin, for example, is when someone runs out of weed historical data shows they don't kill people and commit crimes. The answer to this is not to make heroin easier to access. Then you just have a ticking time bomb you constantly reset the clock on. IMO the key is for so-called "hard drugs" to develop the corrective measures. Arrest them, but instead of throwing a simple user in jail adjudicate them into a treatment program. I've watched two people in my life go from "functional" heroin addicts (as in I couldn't outwardly tell) to missing a week of the drug and breaking into homes to steal. It is not possible to "dabble" in hard drugs like one might have a beer on the weekend or a cigar at a bar. It's 0-100. Watch interviews with former heroin addicts. Chasing the dragon starts from the first hit. Societal danger should modify the way we treat a drug. Most people agree the solution to alcoholism is not to give alcoholics more alcohol. So too, we should not be giving hard drug users more hard drugs. Treat them.

pkulak 3y ago

The assumption behind your entire post is that temporarily putting people in prison for drug use limits their use. I'm pretty sure it just makes people do drugs where you can't see them. That's probably good enough for most folks though.

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

The most heavily abused drugs are the legal ones. That is the primary argument against legalization / decriminalization. MJ legalization has led to a 20% increase in use already. It's a very good argument. The only argument I have for legalization is the current situation we have with Mexico (and Guatemala, etc). Our inability to not control/treat drug addiction has led to a fundamentally destabilized country in a de facto civil war (against cartels we trained in the School of the Americas, an entirely different nutso side). Those cartels are supported by the economics of illegal drugs. Not just that, with the fall of our puppet regime in Afghanistan, we will be enriching the Taliban regime by paying for the output of their poppy fields. What is mindblowing is listening to all my right leaning relatives scream at the top of their lungs about the illegal immigration flood, but they are the ones supporting the side that most opposes dealing with the drug problem in a constructive way. IMO the fundamental way to fight illegal drugs is to decriminalize, replace the supply / undermine the economics with medically or governmentally supply (at prices that undercut mafia economics), and make treatment zero-cost available as part of the drug availability. Of course that will probably lead to something like Purdue Pharma and painkillers / Medicaid fraud. But the War on Drugs has to end.

mptest 3y ago
>Mj legalization has led to increased use already Has it also reduced the consumption of any other substances? I wonder what % replaced a different habit.

dr_dshiv 3y ago

1. Licenses or prescriptions should be required for all drugs; either can be taken away. Also, people need education. 2. Start a better public works program. Employment is good for mental health. 3. Maybe require a month of service or something, just to have a way to resocialize people when they break. 4. Have people pick up their benefits somewhere not in the city. Some reason to move. 5. Forced rehab to those engaged in harm; nature and nutrition. 6. Need to avoid cultures of homelessness. Need good policy. Look to Amsterdam, a city with virtually no homelessness. 7. Make better drugs available? Fentanyl seems like the worst.

seattle_spring 3y ago
I'd vote for you.
androidbishop 3y ago
Wow, legalizing across the board and requiring licensing was the idea I had. Force some kind of education requirements, pay into funds to provide treatment, and revoke licenses for those that abuse the privilege. This is what we do for other high risk activities like driving, skydiving, scuba diving, etc., it just makes sense to do it for drugs. This list is fantastic, it should be shouted across the nation. You have my vote.

deleted 3y ago

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DyslexicAtheist 3y ago

keep them legal. but also invest in social workers. finally a model like the Portugal approach won't yield results if the basics aren't there (healthcare, housing, etc)

lm28469 3y ago

> you should be able to do what you want. I'm still baffled at how this argument makes it anywhere paste high school. Living a single second makes it plain obvious that no, you don't do what you want. Living in any type of society or even the most basic and smallest community will tell you that

havblue 3y ago
I've heard that this is a generational difference: xers thought of free speech as being an essential value and to hell with the sanctimonious totalitarians who are telling you that you can't listen to rap music. This gave way to accepting any and all behavior, social contact be damned. So social stigmas themselves are repressive and it doesn't matter if you're hurting your heath, that's your choice as an individual. La vie boheme!
- whiddershins 3y ago
  Xers continue to have thoughts.

4gotunameagain 3y ago

It is clear that the need/desire for drugs will not disappear. Not only that, but drug usage seems to be on quite the incline. One of the biggest problems with drugs is the paraeconomy that is created, funnelling millions to the wrong hands, and ending up with fentanyl spiked dope on the market. If we accept that the need for drugs will not go away, then they need to be legalized, controlled, taxed, and regulated so that not only the cartels aren't funded, but the state receives their profit and turns it into measures for controlling drug abuse, for offering help, etc. Now how do we handle the general lack of meaning that the west is experiencing which is turning people into mice hitting the dopamine level forever running on the hedonistic treadmill, that's a different question.

rqtwteye 3y ago

It was clear that making drugs legal wouldn't solve all problems. What needs to happen is that the budgets that got spent on prosecuting and imprisoning drug users now gets spent on treatment options.

sircastor 3y ago

> Should we make drugs illegal again and force people into rehab? Should we require drug tests for homeless people to receive government help like SF CAAP payments? I think this is dealing with the problem far too late for it to be effective. Rehab treats the drug as though it's the problem. The drug is not the problem. The person using the drug is trying to manage some sort of stress or situation that they otherwise can't deal with. If you get a person off drugs but don't address their health, home-security, childhood trauma, abusive relationships, etc. At best they're simply going to shift to dealing with that issue through some other way: Food addiction, sex addiction, video games, abusing a loved-one, etc. And if it's not obvious, this is a repeating cycle. We need to do a better job of taking care of people in our communities. Before they end up using drugs (or other types of dangerous coping mechanisms). If we can't get to them before, we need to pick them up and start taking care of them. The trouble is (at least in the US), our approach to community support is contrary to our sense of individual freedoms - we don't want the government to support struggling individuals at the cost of individual freedoms (see healthcare, food and housing subsidy, etc)

antihero 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Most people who use drugs function like completely normal adults or eventually get bored or reduce usage as they age. You are seeing the fringes.

darkclouds 3y ago

> And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. I trust health experts as much as the Nasa scientists who lost contact with voyager2 and the nasa scientists are working under much less pressure than an ER room!

pyuser583 3y ago

The solution is simple: we treat Im drug addiction as a disease. This means using testing as to detect outbreaks. Schools should be allowed and encouraged to test students, as long as a positive test results in a trip to the doctor, not prison. We shouldn’t force law abiding adults into treatment, but if they break the law, like vagrancy, treatment should be an alternative to gradually increasing prison time. Treat it like we treat COVID. Test and treat. Vaccinate and manage. But if you refuse testing and treatment, you’re on your own.

MisterTea 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. I have a close family member who has been addicted to heroin for most of their life and they are in their late 60's. They go to a clinic and receive methadone which they can then go outside and trade for whatever else. Basically a flea market of intoxicants and they are found around every major rehab clinic. The problem is they are so used to being in a stupor most of the day that reality is something they cant handle anymore. When they become sober they are faced with a loud, bright world of sensory overload along with physical discomfort, pain and headaches (I had addiction issues so this is my perception). You want to go back to lala land and forget about all the bullshit seemingly clawing at you. These extreme cases become hollowed out vessels - the person becomes a kind of animal that knows only one thing: defend the mind against reality. They don't care about family, friends, jobs, hobbies, ad nauseam. They need SERIOUS help - help that I don't think we can provide as how do you rebuild a human mind and life?

glonq 3y ago

I fully support decriminalization of all drugs, as long as it's far away from me and from anybody else who is just trying to live their best life. Let's go build a 10-acre island that is full of free housing and free drugs for anybody who wants it.

terminatornet 3y ago
I assume you're being somewhat sarcastic, but I'd bet giving drug addicts stable housing would probably help at least some people with rehab.
- unparagoned 3y ago
  From what I’ve heard is that they will just trash the place and be back on the streets in no time. Housing doesn’t fix mental health and drug addiction problems.
seattle_spring 3y ago
Interesting, I feel the same way about MLM salespeople, Jordan Peterson fans, gun nuts, Elon Musk fans, and a whole other host of behaviors that are pretty objectively harmful. Actually, I don't at all, but see how asinine it sounds?
- glonq 3y ago
  Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

irthomasthomas 3y ago

I'm not surprised. Since the market is still controlled by drug dealers. Legalise the whole supply chain and let people buy opium and cocaine at the apothecary, like they did in olden days, see how things are then.

barbs 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. Citation needed. Seriously though, the amount of unsubstantiated opinions that get thrown around as facts on HN whenever drugs are discussed is ridiculous.

P_I_Staker 3y ago

With a more controlled supply, softer drug options, and social supports, it’s not a stretch to say there’s are important options being neglected. Lots of people get pushed into harder options, when it becomes a race to the bottom. Meth and hard opioids are massive problems in the US. AFAIK most similar counties have lower usage of meth, and fent, though I’m sure opioids are in the picture. Don’t underestimate how many of these cases are deaths of despair, due to our cultural issues, not just poverty. I suspect we’re seeing the costs of our toxic culture, income inequality, and lack of safety nets. Oregon IMO was set up for failure. Decrime is overrated. In some ways it may be the worst of both worlds. Even moreso when you do it during a drug poisoning pandemic… that’s a really good time to start distributing verified product.

laverya 3y ago

The Singapore (and rest of Southeast Asia) solution set might work here, but there's no way we have the political will for it. If we won't execute the vast majority of murderers, there's no way we'll do it for people just running a kilo of coke or weed. Not to mention "works" and "worth it" are not quite the same thing.

throw16180339 3y ago
Singapore can do this because they're a city state without jury trials, a bill of rights, or the Kennedy v. Louisiana (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana) decision. It's doubtful that the Supreme Court would allow a similar policy. If they did then the cost of appeals make this approach too expensive to implement it.
- laverya 3y ago
  Yeah, executing drug dealers/smugglers at scale would require significant and likely negative rollbacks to our system of jurisprudence. The US used to do things like this though! (I say likely negative because a system of trials that didn't cost 100k+ and take years for an actual defense would be a dramatic improvement)

causality0 3y ago

It's principles vs pragmatism. We have an example of one approach that works: Singapore. Mandatory execution of drug dealers, carried out three years after conviction, not three decades. That obliterates drug addiction as a societal ill. On the other hand, the philosophical stance I agree with is that one human being does not have the right to dictate what another human being does with their own body, so long as they are an informed adult. Our unwillingness to truly commit to our beliefs and values, whatever they are, gives us the worst of both approaches.

yodog 3y ago

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matheusmoreira 3y ago

> Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. Yes. Claiming people can use these things without consequences is just wrong. Anyone who thinks otherwise has clearly never dealt with addicts. The only possible argument for drug decriminalization is getting rid of all the violent crime surrounding it. That's a worthy reason but must certainly be weighed against the significant risks presented by drugs. Lots of people out there have literally never witnessed the extent an opioid addict's drug seeking behavior.

seattle_spring 3y ago
Dealing with addicts is proof that all people who use drugs will become addicts?
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  I said "significant risks". I also explicitly mentioned opioids. I assumed that's what was meant by "hard drugs" since I don't think there's anything harder than opioids.

balderdash 3y ago

The legalization of drugs (alcohol included) comes with catastrophic consequences. The benefit is that it allows for 1) freedom of choice and 2) it is (theoretically) better than the alternative (defunds criminal gangs, provides tax revenues to fund treatment, etc.) However, we seemed to have completely dropped the ball on #2, just look at the untaxed marijuana sales on New York City streets, where are all the new rehab facilities paid for with drug tax revenues. Why are gangs and cartels still making so much form the drug trade and still commuting violent crime?

andrei_says_ 3y ago

Gabor Mate who has worked with patients dealing with addiction for decades speaks of drug addiction as a symptom of other issues, mostly trauma, hopelessness etc. What we could do is shift our priorities from turning the country into a feudal system pressure cooker scenario and provide opportunities and resources for most. No wait that’s just crazy. On another thought maybe we should just make harsher punishments for drug users and “clean the streets” by moving all the homeless to jail cells at $80k/year/person in taxpayer money. Because mentioning a similar UBI amount is also crazy.

StanislavPetrov 3y ago

>I used to strongly support making drugs legal. I thought: this is a free country, you should be able to do what you want. I agree with this statement, but it should only hold true in your own home, on your own property, or on the property of someone who is amenable to whatever behavior you are engaged in. >Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? Should we make drugs illegal again and force people into rehab? Very simply we cannot have a functional society if we don't have rules about what behavior is allowed in public spaces. Just because every adult should be free to do drugs that doesn't (or at least shouldn't if we want a functional society) give license to these adults to break the rules we have set up for public spaces, whether or not their rule-breaking is a result of their drug use. I don't believe anyone who isn't breaking the rules of our public spaces should be locked up or forced into rehab for their drug use. But if they are stealing, harassing others, vandalizing, doing drugs on public property or engaging in a variety of other illegal behaviors, then they should be arrested and offered the choice between jail and rehab (in a locked facility).

theptip 3y ago

One important observation is that drug use is largely downstream of homelessness. Being homeless is awful, and drives people to self-medication/-numbing. (Of course some homelessness is caused by prior drug addiction but I’ve seen compelling analysis suggesting it’s mostly the other way around.) SF primarily has a cost-of-living problem, which produces a homelessness problem, which produces a drug problem. Programs that address homelessness (like housing-first, or work training) will also reduce drug abuse/deaths. And upstream stuff like really buying into building housing stock will also help with homelessness. Part of the whole package of drug legalization is that if you actually dismantle the war on drugs machinery, you will have a huge budget to direct to social programs that can reduce the upstream causes of drug abuse, not just providing treatment after the fact. It sounds like Oregon didn’t get those programs in place yet.

starkparker 3y ago
> you will have a huge budget to direct to social programs that can reduce the upstream causes of drug abuse, not just providing treatment after the fact. It sounds like Oregon didn’t get those programs in place yet. If anything, Portland's actively pushed back against the county's efforts to put programs in place because the mayor wants the money to instead sweep ad-hoc encampments into city-run encampments: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/12/portland-mayor-ted-wheeler-struggles-to-reel-in-millions-from-multnomah-county-for-homeless-camping-ban.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/12/portland-mayor-t... https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2023/05/mayor-ted-wheeler-threatens-to-end-portland-multnomah-county-homeless-services-partnership-if-he-doesnt-get-20m-for-mass-shelters.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2023/05/mayor-ted-wheele...
whiddershins 3y ago
Citation needed. What you are saying is the precise opposite of everything I’ve ever observed or heard.

protastus 3y ago

> But what I've seen in San Francisco has made me think differently. Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults. And no one willingly goes to get help or treatment. The U.S. healthcare system is deeply broken, so it's tremendously difficult for someone who is poor and sick/mentally ill/addicted to drugs to regain control of their life. Irrespective of the legal status of hard drugs.

acchow 3y ago

I wouldn't be opposed to exploring the idea of an alcohol+drug consumption license. Mandatory checkins every few months to make sure you're doing ok > Most people who use drugs eventually end up not being able to live like normal adults It is definitely not "most". There are people who are highly prone to drug addiction. Add on depression or lack of a stable life/job/community/friends/family and the risks go way up. There are tons of people who do plenty of drugs recreationally, and it is safer than alcohol for many.

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AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> Should we make drugs illegal again and force people into rehab? You should make the negative behaviors associated with drug abuse illegal and force those people into rehab. Use all the drugs you want until you go to break some other law, then you get arrested and don't get to go home until you're clean.

bill_joy_fanboy 3y ago
Might it not be smart to prevent those crimes from happening by preventing drug use/abuse in the first place?
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  A precrime division doesn't belong in any law enforcement agency.
  - bill_joy_fanboy 3y ago
    Yeah, why prevent anything bad from happening, LOL BTW, if it's a crime to use certain drugs, and you use those drugs and are arrested, and that arrest prevents further crimes, this was NOT an example of "pre-crime". You committed a crime. You used illegal drugs. "Pre-crime" is not an accurate description of what I'm talking about.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > Yeah, why prevent anything bad from happening, LOL This is not the role of the police. Their role is solely punishment and deterrence. And if drug use leads to other crimes and other crimes leads to punishment then they're already providing that deterrent, to the thing we actually want to deter. If you want to prevent drug abuse in response to economic woes etc. then try building more housing and otherwise lowering the cost of living. (Sometimes people hate this because it's very "everything is connected" and they don't want to have to solve somebody else's problem in order to solve their problem, but sometimes that's actually the best solution.) > BTW, if it's a crime to use certain drugs, and you use those drugs and are arrested, and that arrest prevents further crimes, this was NOT an example of "pre-crime". You committed a crime. You used illegal drugs. Passing a law against drug use is pre-crime when the only real justification for the law is to prevent other crimes.

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ryukoposting 3y ago

Measure 110 (and the Republican platform on drugs, for that matter) assumes that rehabilitation and punishment cannot coexist for petty drug crimes. I believe they can. As the article mentions, Measure 110 specifically prohibits recepients of funding from requiring abstinence in their programs. I'm not a psychologist, but it's probably a lot harder to get people to stop doing drugs if you aren't allowed to tell them to stop doing drugs. Hard drugs have to be seen in a negative light in the social zeitgeist, period. On the other hand, the sheriff's quote basically says "we don't think these rehab programs will work, so we aren't going to give tickets to drug users." That's just as counterproductive as anti-abstinence. The criminal-justice reform side of Measure 110 is pretty good. Small amounts of drugs shouldn't be punishable with incarceration or huge fines. IMO the asinine rules for rehab programs, and the broken bureaucracy surrounding them, seem like a good place to start.

whiddershins 3y ago

Just because something is legal doesn’t mean bad behavior related to it should be. Or that it should be legal in all or most or any public areas. This distinction allows us to keep alcohol legal, but punish people for getting into bar fights or urinating on the sides of buildings. We could legalize all drug use while criminalizing illegal behavior around it, such as shoplifting, littering, etc. Might not work but what if we just tried that. Only make things illegal that overtly affect other people negatively.

burnte 3y ago

Decriminalization is 25% of the problem. Lack of universal healthcare, well funded housing support, and rehab-to-work programs are the other 75%. Source: I worked in chemical dependency rehab for 5 years. We had a great in-patient residential program that didn't use suboxone as a substitute, but as a bridge to not taking ANY drugs. 7-14 days for most patients and that's it. And we had a huge success rate, but our patients tended to have great support in their lives. The ones who failed were the ones who had no support. Not putting people in jail isn't enough, putting them into treatment is the goal.

dclowd9901 3y ago

Supporting legalizing drugs across the board is so naive. If you’ve ever had a family member who’s had addiction problems, you know how much a person’s addiction can wreck the lives of so many people. In some ways, they’re like a sinkhole that just keeps expanding. I include alcohol addiction in this. That said, I don’t think Portland was wrong with the decision to decriminalize. I think they just did it in the wrong order. They should have had strong support set up _before_ ever going the route of decriminalizing.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago

It's possible for drugs to be legal and for it to be illegal to turn parks and sidewalks into your personal drug den. If people want to do drugs, that's one thing. If people want to turn the few nice outdoor spaces in the city into their personal camp - that's a separate issue. You also don't need to be like SF and stop enforcing all crimes just because you make drugs legal.

ryanSrich 3y ago

The solution is what measure 110 was _supposed_ to be. Not what it turned into. At least that was my understanding when I voted in favor of it a few years ago. The problem is that is has now manifested into default legal possession and consumption. That was not the idea. What should happen is that if you’re caught doing drugs like meth, fentanyl, etc. you either go to rehab, or you go to jail. Instead, at least here in Portland, the police LITERALLY doing absolutely nothing. Partly because they are genuinely understaffed, partly because they despise the voter base (understandably so). That still doesn’t excuse the complete lack of enforcement. This isn’t specific to just drug use either. Day time camping is illegal now in Portland. The police won’t enforce it. Stealing a vehicle is illegal in Portland. The police tell you over the phone it’s not worth looking for your stolen vehicle and they refer you to a Facebook group that tracks stolen cars (I shit you not). Traffic stops, missing tags, no insurance, etc. anything related to traffic is unenforced to a laughable degree. I know people who haven’t registered their vehicles since 2020. They somehow still have a valid drivers license.

rjbwork 3y ago

We haven't made drugs legal. We've just stopped locking people up for doing them. It's a very different thing. I'm still 100% for full legalization. Decriminalization just causes what we're currently seeing. It's a nonsense policy that is only slightly better than prohibition. Legalize it, produce it in pure dosages of known substance and dosage, and encourage people to get treatment. That's the best we can do. It was the solution to alcohol prohibition and history will show that it is the solution to the bulk of negative externalities from drug prohibition. We'll always have problems stemming from substance use, as consciousness modulation appears to be a drive inherent to humans as a species, but we are choosing as a society to inflict a far greater harm upon both individuals and the society collectively by pursuing a policy of prohibition, including destabilizing our second biggest trading partner into a near-failed narcostate.

Gustomaximus 3y ago

I've felt legal was bad, while decriminalisation was for the best, at a personal level as it focuses resources to dealers and importers and leaves social serves for the addicts as jail doesn't seem to be a working solution, but that probably to do with the prison system also. I recall decriminalisation worked well in Portugal, and maybe it's not repeatable but I wonder if there are other variables beyond the drugs here. I couldn't read the article as behind a paywall but US seems to have other more significant issues where crimes themself are not getting dealt with in these areas. You don't charge addicts for drug use, but when they are stealing or fighting etc they need to be caught and charged. Also there needs to be social support which seems lacking in US compared to other western countries. And bigger picture, when I watch iterviews with people caught in this life so many grow with parents and communities like this. This cycle needs to be broken somehow but doing so going into ethical grey zones, like Project Prevention, where I feel it's a difficult positive to push for but for the best outcome (in my view) but respect that people can be totally valid feeling otherwise. At the moment it really seems one of those unsolvable issues. Such a shame it can't be stopped at the supply side.

dirtyid 3y ago

Decriminalize in a few non productive regions far from everything. Boot down everywhere else except soft stuff. Push all the users to Hamsterdam / Escape from LA.

TheBigSalad 3y ago

I feel like people wouldn't overdose if drugs were legal. They could be cheap with no fentanyl. You'd know the exact dose you are getting.

blake929 3y ago

I'm not sure SF is a good example. It's not a healthy city, but it's problems go way beyond drug use and it doesn't have the same policies as what Oregon adopted.

blablabla123 3y ago

I never thought much about legalization of hard drugs. While for Marijuana there are direct benefits like drug tests, health checks so people don't wake a latent psychosis, for hard drugs it's more complicated. But the people who take those, don't they usually suffer from very serious problems anyway? Probably it's true, if systemic problems don't get solved then fully legalizing hard drugs might make things worse. But if things get legalized in a controlled way, that's actually an opportunity to create a social net for these people.

godelski 3y ago

> Does anyone have ideas on what we should do? How I see it is the main problem exists because the dog and pony show is allowed to persist. The reason it persists is because we humans like to believe things are simple. That we'll ignore any evidence of complexity to justify such simplicity. And that when complexity is added (such as in conspiracy theories) the basis is functionally equivalent to "wizards did it." The whole "if it weren't for <insert opposing tribe> then everything would be great." Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The problem is that the simplicity of a lie is unbounded, but the simplicity of truth is. There is a minimum floor for critical thinking and knowledge required to understand truth. That the precision of the understanding of the truth is proportional to that floor (thankfully this usually asymptotically approaches full precision). So what do we do? We don't let people sell us the snake oil of simplicity. We don't let non-experts wildly conjecture about things without demonstrating understanding (which would turn them into experts). We ourselves stop personally pulling things out of our asses and make assumptions. Especially when there is evidence to the contrary. We ourselves seek out possible counter arguments to our own predispositions rather than expecting others to do it for us. We ourselves stop being lazy. I suspect this is a tall order. I suspect this is possibly one of the many great filters. I don't suspect that this is an impossible task. I do suspect such a notion can be codified into localized groups and propagate through the system due to no groups being adjoint to any other group (can be pockets, but I suspect quite rare). Accountability may only be possible at a local group level, but I see no reason this accountability can't propagate. It definitely should be possible within such parent-groups like Hacker News. I suspect that this tall order would resolve a lot of other issues as well.

ignoramceisblis 3y ago

Hold those who support destructive policies accountable.