4 ms·
Looking at all the tranq zombies in CA, I strongly disagree with that last statement no matter the drug. Unfortunately, I'll have to concede that jail is likely
by _blk 3y ago
Looking at all the tranq zombies in CA, I strongly disagree with that last statement no matter the drug. Unfortunately, I'll have to concede that jail is likely not the right place either. I think we can all agree that those people need hope and something to live for long-term. Drugs have proven not to be that solution to everyone except those in their bondage. In that sense, I fail to see how decriminalization of possession is going to send anything but wrong signals. Kids don't do drugs, just keep them in your pockets. How's that sound if it was your kid?
- bobthepanda 3y agoThe real root problem is that we refuse to pay to treat any of the actual root causes of any of this, whether that is on the street or in a jail cell. The health system has a shortage of mental health and drug treatment spaces and practitioners, and what exists often isn't affordable to those who need it. At the same time, we don't pay for those things in prison either, and it's also expensive to have a bunch of disruptive, unhinged prisoners constantly needing to be contained after damaging stuff when they have an episode or whatever. Bail and sentencing reform was often kicked off by conservatives initially, because a low-tax state cannot afford the very expensive cost of locking up every single drug user. California has been sued multiple times over the fact that its prison system is chronically overcrowded, and lost at the Supreme Court level: https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/crim/overcrowding_080511.aspx https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/crim/overcrowding_080511.asp.... But there is no appetite to pay more to open new prisons, which are nearly impossible to site even if there was funding (do you want to live next to a prison?)