7 ms·

What was done in Oregon, based on the successful policy in Portugal, was decriminalising use and possession of very small quantities. Distribution and sale are

• fooker 3y ago
  It is always easy to blame the execution rather than the policy, if you are ideologically biased to believe in the policy.
  • wobbly_bush 3y ago
    Isn't the opposite also true?
    • brightlancer 3y ago
      > Isn't the opposite also true? Not PP, but the onus is always on the person or group making the affirmative claim. It _might_ be that the policy is sound but the execution is in error, but we should not _assume_ that the policy is sound.
      • Aeolun 3y ago
        I’m kind of of the opinion that we shouldn’t hold addicts to account for their addictions. By the time they’re addicted they’re not rational actors any more. By the same count we don’t judge the mentally unwell and children as if they’re well-functioning adults.
        • lmm 3y ago
          OK, so what does that concretely mean as a policy? "Not judge", fine - does that mean no arrests, no involuntary holds, not touching them? We used to take the view that we could confine people for things that weren't their fault when there was an overwhelming public interest (e.g. people with infectious diseases).
        • inferiorhuman 3y ago
          By the same count we don’t judge the mentally unwell and children as if they’re well-functioning adults. Sure we do (or we did up until recently). Bill Clinton famously presided over the execution of a man missing a chunk of his brain to appear tough on crime during his presidential campaign.
        • caddemon 3y ago
          Children and those deemed mentally unwell in a legal sense lack various individual freedoms though. There's always some trade off.
        • ali_m 3y ago
          I don't think it's that simple. No one acts 100% rationally all of the time. In this respect, addicts, children, and the mentally unwell differ from the rest of us by degree - they may have diminished responsibility for their own actions, but I don't think it makes sense to try to draw a sharp line where you're either responsible for your own actions or you're not. Recovery from addiction requires assuming responsibility for one's actions.
      • AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > Not PP, but the onus is always on the person or group making the affirmative claim. But they're both making an affirmative claim. One says that legalization is better and all these addicts are an error in execution. The other says that criminalization is better and all this widespread disrespect for the law and erosion of civil liberties and mass incarceration and cartel murder squads are an error in execution. In general the burden should be on the party who wants make something illegal.
    • fooker 3y ago
      No, this is the Russel's teapot logical paradox. The onus is on you to prove your positive statement. If you like and implement a policy, you can't hand wave a failure blaming random stuff.
  • troutwine 3y ago
    Sure, and if you're ideologically opposed to a policy you can make a comment like this. What's needed is data on many alternative approaches, what policies _and_ executions taken as one promote better outcomes? Over what timeframes? Otherwise it's just all shouting into a windstorm.
    • brightlancer 3y ago
      "I'm rubber and you're glue, it's harder to make an argument that saying it's just about you."
    • jjcon 3y ago
      No, we should take policy results at face value. If it failed if failed, if it succeeded it succeeded. No need to play no true scotsman.
      • troutwine 3y ago
        That’s… what I’m arguing? There’s a hard problem to be solved with uncertain paths toward a solution — or uncertainty of what “solved” means in this case, maybe, depending on whether endemic is an acceptable outcome — and every attempt at a solution that doesn’t work out, or doesn’t work out sufficiently well, is data added to the project of getting better outcomes for all. I’m not entirely sure what you’ve read in my comment but I’m certainly not saying we shouldn’t view things plainly. I would also challenge your implicit notion here that there is a binary pass/fail solution to societal levels of drug addiction. Like any seriously hard problem there are policies that have been proposed and implemented around that world that have some positive outcomes in some regards and negatives in others. Incarceration (the Drug War) theoretically makes serious drug addiction absent from public life, a positive, but with the result of growing the police state, a negative. Vice versa for Oregon’s policy, now that it’s run for a while. I think we’re recently finding that Portugal’s approach which Oregon based their policy on also does not have better than expected outcomes, although the data is early yet.
      • creata 3y ago
        Taking results at face value is silly when your sample size is 1.
  • livinginfear 3y ago
    Looking on from the UK, the only answer American liberals seem to have for the failures of American liberalism is that America just wasn't liberal enough.
    • tivert 3y ago
      That's the only explanation for policy failures when you're right by definition.
    • Nursie 3y ago
      The UK that dismisses or suppresses its own reports into drug policy and fires its leading experts because their views are not politically expedient, that UK? I think even if we don't know what is the right way to go about drug policy, we can probably agree that sticking your head in the sand and pretending there's no debate to be had is probably not the best approach.
• lossolo 3y ago
  > based on the successful policy in Portugal There are doubts about success of that policy now. Article from a few weeks ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-dru...
  • wpwpwpw 3y ago
    Portugal had more than 1% of its population addicted to drugs in the 80's. Check today's stats and compare it to other countries.
• jorvi 3y ago
  Tolerating use but keeping sale / production illegal means you are creating a billion dollar market that by default can only be serviced by criminal organizations. Legalize and harm reduction have been the tenets for so so long. No one does it.
  • caddemon 3y ago
    What is harm reduction though? The catch with severe addiction is that those suffering actively fight against treatment as a result of the disease. Is there a point of functioning at which we can force an opioid addict into treatment? Or is harm reduction just to let those folks live in oblivion indefinitely? I'm genuinely asking because I've mostly thought of "harm reduction" as actions to prevent issues like the spread of disease through needles or the lacing of street drugs. Which are important no doubt, and perhaps legalization (w/ heavy regulations) + harm reduction would be better than the current highly flawed system. There are just some drugs that are so destructive to their users that I don't see how they can be sufficiently fought without some force at some step.
• dvt 3y ago
  > Basically I think this is the right approach. Drug use at low levels in endemic. I don't think it makes sense for huge swathes of otherwise law abiding citizens to be technically criminals. While I do agree that prohibition is probably not the answer, calling the Portuguese policy a "success" kind of misses the forest for the trees[1]. The most obvious problem is funding (which Porto is running out of): life-long support for a drug addict is going to be significantly more expensive than throwing them in jail for a few years. Not to mention that the latter is also more popular with voters. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/once-hailed-for-decriminalizing-drugs-portugal-is-now-having-doubts/ar-AA1dxFl3 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/once-hailed-for-decrimi...
  • fireflash38 3y ago
    Do you think the person pops out of jail completely cured of their addiction? Or would they consume more societal resources afterwards.
  • Turskarama 3y ago
    >life-long support for a drug addict is going to be significantly more expensive than throwing them in jail for a few years Citation needed, you might be underestimating how much it costs to jail someone. If a drug user actually manages to get clean (which with proper support, most can) then the cost of support is basically checking up on them a couple of times a year. Meanwhile they can hold down a job and live a normal life. That's as opposed to the significant costs of keeping someone in prison, which is significantly more than they would be earning if they were free.
    • dvt 3y ago
      > If a drug user actually manages to get clean... Ah, I was assuming the drug addict (or at least a signification portion) wouldn't be getting clean. A large part of Portugal's policy is focused on safe drug use (decriminalization, clean needles, drug dispensaries, etc.).
      • Turskarama 3y ago
• jasonfarnon 3y ago
  "based on the successful policy in Portugal" How are you defining successful? The linked article links to a recent wapo article from last week "Once hailed for decriminalizing drugs, Portugal is now having doubts". I don't know one way or the other, I'm just trying to collect more data points. Didn't Vancouver BC try something similar? (Seems a little odd that this Atlantic article, the Wapo article questioning Portugal's policy, and yesterday's Times article about weed addiction have all appeared in a week's span. Since none of them seems triggered by an external reporting event.)
  • inferiorhuman 3y ago
    Beyond the headline Portugal is having doubts because they decided to gut funding. Where it was seen as promising or successful, now it's basically decriminalized drug use and no treatment or enforcement. Which kinda sounds like what Oregon is doing now and what Reagan did with mental health care in California.
    • nelox 3y ago
      In addition, the policy in Portugal was to radically increase funding for community health and other programs as well as decriminalize drugs. I’m not sure that has been replicated in Oregon or San Francisco.
    • username332211 3y ago
      Could you (or anyone else reading this) define "gut funding" in quantitative terms? I'm asking because I've noticed newspapers have somehow acquired the ability to imply that spending on this or that program is being cut, when in fact it isn't. Often simply refusing to let a program grow at an exponential rate is supposed to be a "spending cut". And sometimes mere exponential growth is not enough. To give an example, if one trusts the newspapers of the United Kingdom, the NHS is supposed to have been "underfunded" ever since Cameron became prime minister in 2010. The reality is that expenditures on that system have remained at around 9.7% of GDP until COVID when they rose to 12%, remaining at that level since then. And GDP is a quantity that's growing every year. If "properly funding" hard drug legalization would require expenditures on rehab programs that steadily grow until they reach a third of all government revenues, that in and of itself makes legalization a horrible policy.
• reissbaker 3y ago
  Portugal's program is very different than Oregon's. It's "decriminalized," sure... But with nonetheless strong state-enforced repercussions for doing hard drugs. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal): The [Portugese drug offense] committees have a broad range of sanctions available to them when ruling on the drug use offence. These include: Fines, ranging from €25 to €150. These figures are based on the Portuguese minimum wage of about €485 (Banco de Portugal, 2001) and translate into hours of work lost. Suspension of the right to practice if the user has a licensed profession (e.g. medical doctor, taxi driver) and may endanger another person or someone's possessions. Ban on visiting certain places (e.g. specific clubbing venues). Ban on associating with specific other persons. Foreign travel ban. Requirement to report periodically to the committee. Withdrawal of the right to carry a gun. Confiscation of personal possessions. Cessation of subsidies or allowances that a person receives from a public agency. Meanwhile Oregon's (and much of the West Coast's) idea of "decriminalization" is just... No consequences for doing hard drugs! Here's Oregon's law, from the article: To achieve this goal, Measure 110 enacted two major changes to Oregon’s drug laws. First, minor drug possession was downgraded from a misdemeanor to a violation, similar to a traffic ticket. Under the new law, users caught with up to 1 gram of heroin or methamphetamine, or up to 40 oxycodone pills, are charged a $100 fine, which can be waived if they call a treatment-referral hotline. Second, the law set aside a portion of state cannabis tax revenue every two years to fund a statewide network of harm-reduction and other services. You don't even have to pay the fine! You can just call a hotline. No follow up, no ensuring that you go to treatment... Just a phone call. The idea that you can have no consequences for hard drug use, and that people will just voluntarily check themselves into "services" (or that "harm reduction" services will dissuade people from using hard drugs) is I think at this point dead in the water. I used to be in favor of broad drug decriminalization. But the opioid epidemic changed my mind: some drugs are so bad that even when administered by a regulated medical system, large numbers of people's lives can be ruined simply by giving them access to the drug. Allowing street usage of similar drugs like heroin, fentanyl, etc can't be safer than that. I don't necessarily think jail is the best option, but zero-consequence + entirely-optional treatment for opiate abuse is not a working policy, and IMO jail is actually a better policy than that: at least in jail you have a chance at forcing them off the drug. My preferred policy at this point would probably look more like mandatory state-enforced rehab in a confined setting without long-term legal implications like a criminal record, though. Less-addictive drugs like marijuana, ketamine, MDMA, etc I think probably should be legal for adults, with some guardrails around access similar to e.g. Sudafed. But effectively having an open season for using opiates is asking for trouble.
• deleted 3y ago
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• horns4lyfe 3y ago
  Portugal also forces people into treatment if they can’t function as a member if society. Oregon will never do that. The treatment is there but people won’t voluntarily go to it. If they continue this policy they’ll see the same degradation of public spaces that I’ve seen living in Portland since this was enacted.