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Nowhere in these comments have I see anybody take the position that decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. I have a close f

Nowhere in these comments have I see anybody take the position that decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. I have a close friend whose relative is a heroin addict. According to her, a lot of overdoses are due to almost no "heroin" actually being heroin, rather its fentanyl cut to varying degrees of strength. Not knowing what you're taking, and not knowing how strong it is, can lead to a lot of problems. If people knew what they were getting, and it was legal, you could have "functional addicts" that cause little or no societal harm. My friend's relative was a functional addict on and off for 20 years. She held down a job, paid rent, paid taxes, etc. She decided to get clean only when she had a close brush with death thanks to fentanyl. Think of it this way: My drug of choice is tequila. When I buy a bottle of 80 proof tequila, I buy it from a state licensed store. I have confidence that its 40% alcohol, and that its safe to drink. It is sold by a reputable company with a brand reputation. What we have today with illegal or "decriminalized" drugs is the equivalent of people dying from drinking bathtub gin during prohibition.

cscurmudgeon 3y ago
This is not a strong argument as it doesn't consider all aspects. 1. Public drunkness is still a problem 2. Drunk driving still kills a lot of people. Legalization of alcohol doesn't help.
- d1str0 3y ago
  Its definitely interesting how some places are outright banning tobacco sales, and other places are decriminalizing hard drugs.
- Kim_Bruning 3y ago
  History shows that making it illegal didn't work either.
  - chmod600 3y ago
    When it comes to dangerous drugs, nothing "works". We have to choose the least-bad policies. A lot of people, including me, thought the war on drugs was pretty much the worst policy position. Now I'm seeing that there are (perhaps) worse policies. We need to be quantitative and nuanced, not speak in sweeping characterizations.
    - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
      Right. The reason the prohibition failed was because it was not very nuanced. Whatever is done needs to be done in a controlled, nuanced way.
    - czbond 3y ago
      To paraphrase an unknown Marine drill Sergeant: "Everyone either needs the carrot or the stick, it's my job to figure out which".
  - nullc 3y ago
    The fact that _drunk driving_ is illegal reduces it dramatically.
  - cscurmudgeon 3y ago
    Execution matters. See Singapore.
xenospn 3y ago
I think the actual problem is people can’t seem to just use enough to stay functional. Given the legal opportunity to purchase heroin, most people will absolutely overdo it.
- stillwithit 3y ago
  So? Then they’re out of the way. One or way or another, none of us are getting out of this alive. Not sure where the religious conviction we must save all souls comes from or has any value.
  - WillPostForFood 3y ago
    Even if one ascribes to this nihilist POV, it isn't an answer. We see the negative effects on communities, families, and people around addicts. Even if you don't care that people are destroying themselves, when they take out the surrounding area it is a problem we share.
    - stillwithit 3y ago
      Yeah and humans have seen it for centuries and failed to stop it Who is to say any progress we make won’t be undid by another pandemic we cannot predict, or some nutter launching the nukes We have political agents hell bent on war and subjugating undesirables, rather than pushback against them let’s focus on some people who don’t want to live? Why not ask Oceangate how the war against physics is going. It will always win and erode any social progress we think we made
      - nomel 3y ago
        > failed to stop it I don't think that's the goal. The goal is to attempt to reduce harm of something that removes freedom. Try asking a drug addict if they want to keep taking drugs. I suspect you'll be surprised at the answer. Stopping drugs would be like achieving abstinence as the primary form of contraceptive. Both are impossible because they work on the same soup of chemicals, but one has evolved with some form of continuation in mind. The other is a direct injection, orders of magnitude stronger, that just fucks up all the machinery of the brain.
gosub100 3y ago
Has there been any research into how to measure potency (of fentanyl) and cut it properly? Maybe we could keep the government out of it, and instead give information and supplies to measure the potency correctly? I've heard that one way OD's happen is the substance is not homogeneous, so they can consume half the bag fine, then one dose is super-charged and puts them into OD (because fent can be up to thousands of times stronger than a morphine equivalent). Maybe teach addicts how to dissolve their dope in a liquid and reconstitute it so it's homogeneous in potency? Addicts can be extremely cunning with their drive to get money for dope, so I dont see why they can't use that will power to their advantage. I wonder if they could also get a primitive CPAP machine to keep them breathing if they do OD? IIRC death comes from lack of breathing, not acute toxicity or anything.
- wintogreen74 3y ago
  Your post is a prime example of the classic engineering approach of efficiently solutioning the immediate technical problem without solving the actual root cause because it's too complex or messy. I mean, CPAP machines for drug addicts because street fentanyl is too potent and inconsistent?
  - gosub100 3y ago
    Your post is a prime example of avoiding everything I said with "thE ActUal RoOt CaUsE" hand-waving nonsense.
- prawn 3y ago
  Are many of them going to care? I imagine testing would be useful for pill-takers at festivals, but something that is a daily addiction dominating life seems a different case.
  - vineyardmike 3y ago
    > I imagine testing would be useful for pill-takers at festivals And many people bring test kits to festivals and raves and clubs and bars already. So this is 100% a proven solution for light recreational party usage. I agree with skepticism about addicts (especially someone living on the street, etc)
Eumenes 3y ago
Your argument is tired. There is no such thing as a functional heroin addict. Most don't quit after a 20 year on and off relationship with it. They die and usually cause mayhem in the process - to society, their loved ones, the healthcare system, law enforcement, etc. I'm dealing with a very serious addict in my life right now and how "clean" the drug is makes no difference. They steal and lie non-stop. They cause massive amounts of anxiety and stress to people who love them. They disappear for weeks on end and every time you get a text or call, you think its someone saying they're dead. They treat you like a monster if you don't want to engage with their BS anymore. They claim to want "help" but when push comes to shove, they want to be enabled. After many years of this, you realize that some people simply want to live this lifestyle. The war on drugs was extreme in one direction, and your suggestion, is in the other.
- skyyler 3y ago
  Neither of you are posting sources, so you're both just talking about your opinions.
  - Eumenes 3y ago
    The source is my personal experience dealing with individuals involved in addiction. No amount of "experts" claiming we need to legalize hardcore drugs is going to change my opinion, thats for sure.
    - skyyler 3y ago
      So you're not even interested in hearing people that actually have done research, you're just going to run with your assumptions? That's a rather emotional place to make an argument, in my opinion.
      - silent_cal 3y ago
        This is the fallacy of scientism. You don't have to do a peer-reviewed research paper to see the truth. Firsthand observation is still the primary way we know the truth. Research depends on observations, not the other way around.
cpncrunch 3y ago
Heroin is very different from Tequila, so I don't think it's fair to compare them just because they are both "drugs". Prior to fentanyl, what was the percentage of high functioning heroin addicts compared to people living on the street? I can't find any research on that question, and I'm somewhat skeptical that your friend is the norm.
- runarberg 3y ago
  How valid the comparison is between Tequila and Heroine is irrelevant. What is relevant here is harm reduction for the addict. In both cases legalization result in harm reduction. Yes legalized and regulated heroine is still very harmful for an addict, but unregulated and illegal heroine has the potential to be way more harmful then a regulated legal one, potentially deadly. The same logic also applies to illegal and unregulated gin (just to a lesser extent).
  - ALittleLight 3y ago
    And legalized heroin has the potential to create more addicts who would be subjected to the harm of addiction, and their friends and families would be subjected to the harms of seeing their loved ones addicted.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  That heroin is illegal and prosecuted is going to massively skew the number of people who are likely ever try it or could develop a safe habit around it.
- notfed 3y ago
  > Heroin is very different from Tequila, so I don't think it's fair to compare them just because they are both "drugs". Very true, alcohol is much worse by most metrics, both in terms of number of addicts, number of deaths/year [1][2] and general damage done to the body. [3][4]. (I'm not trying to be cynical, just stating facts.) > Prior to fentanyl, what was the percentage of high functioning heroin addicts compared to people living on the street? I can't find any research on that question, and I'm somewhat skeptical that your friend is the norm. There's no data on self-reported addiction, for obvious reasons, but there is data on overdoses: "Fatalities involving only heroin appear to form a minority of overdose occasions, the presence of other drugs (primarily central nervous system depressants such as alcohol and benzodiazepines) being commonly detected at autopsy." [5] I've met good people addicted to heroin. They've been through more hell than the rest of us can ever understand, almost entirely because of those times when they couldn't access it. If I could press a button to forever ban them access to any opioid, I'd press that button; they'd get over it in a few months and thank me. But that's impossible. The second best option is to allow them access to a clean, low-cost, prescription of it for the rest of their life. [1] https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-abuse-statistics/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-abuse-statistics/ [2] https://drugabusestatistics.org/heroin-statistics/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/heroin-statistics/ [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002239997490052X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002239... [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7328574/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7328574/ [5] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1360-0443.1996.911217652.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1360-0443....
legitster 3y ago
Well, also the only reason a lot of people turned to heroin in the first place was that OxyContin was taken away from them. There was a lot of illegal OxyContin use but most of it was well regulated and under the control of doctors and pharmacists.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  Well a lot of reasons people turns to drugs in the USA is because doctors and pharmacists give them strong painkillers way to easily to begin with. For instance oxycodone and many powerful painkillers are afaik not available as tablets in many countries, only given through IV's and injections in hospitals for serious enough conditions, or under serious constraints like palliative treatments. If you are recovering from an injury and are allowed to leave hospital, all what you should be allowed to take is paracetamol or ibuprofen for a limited time and that's it. We shouldn't have to enter war against pain. Pain is not necessarily harmful, they are useful signals that can let people assess their recovery and physical state. Trying to avoid pain is trying to avoid reality. It is deemed to fail. Nobody should take opiods painkillers for minor injuries and ailments, it just doesn't make sense.
kazinator 3y ago
> According to her, a lot of overdoses are due to almost no "heroin" actually being heroin, rather its fentanyl cut to varying degrees of strength. Anyone knows that who followed current events during the opiod epidemic and read some Wikipedia on it. And actually, it's not just fentanyl, but fentanyl-like compounds that, even if controlled to the same concentration, have varying degrees of strength. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fentanyl_analogues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fentanyl_analogues "The structural variations among fentanyl-related substances can impart profound pharmacological differences between these drugs, especially with respect to potency and efficacy" You don't know which fentanyl analog is in that heroin dose, and how much of it.
- notfed 3y ago
  > more than 1400 compounds from [the fentanyl analogue] family have been described Astounding.
  - quchen 3y ago
    It’s a lot, but not a crazy amount. Chemistry scales combinatorically, so if you find a single nitrogen to put a little e.g. acidic group on you’ve got yourself a couple of hundred possible substituents, many of which may have a similar effect on the body.
xkjyeah 3y ago
Literally, fentanyl is legal and regulated. It's used as an anaesthetic.
- hn72774 3y ago
  Not the stuff coming in from Mexico and China.
- babyshake 3y ago
  The only time I've ever been on fentanyl was in a hospital, and the nurse described it to me as the "Michael Jackson drug". I actually enjoyed the gallows humor of the nurses, as I felt it brought down the tension in an otherwise serious environment.
  - doubled112 3y ago
    Wasn't that Propofol, a sedative?
  - 0x0000000 3y ago
    I thought propofol was the "Michael Jackson drug", not fentanyl.
  - hydrok9 3y ago
    That's even funnier because fentanyl is the Prince drug, not MJ's
- drewg123 3y ago
  Its very different, in that I can walk in off the street and buy alcohol. As far as I know, there is noplace I can legally buy fentanyl without a prescription.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    Indeed! I think the point is that "legalization" and "regulation" can take pretty different forms, not necessarily the for of the substance being generally available.
davesque 3y ago
I mean, I remember how things were before fentanyl came around (as an outside observer, not as a user) and heroin was a horrible, life-destroying drug addiction back then as well. And I think it was and is convincingly argued that it is much more addictive than alcohol.
- tdeck 3y ago
  It's my understanding that street drugs like Heroin were frequently cut to varying, sometimes unpredictable degrees prior to the introduction of fentanyl. So you could still easily misjudge your dose and OD due to the lack of any kind of consistency. Presumably this would also make it even harder to try to taper off the addiction gradually.
- nine_k 3y ago
  Opioids keep the top spot of addictiveness. The second place firmly belongs to nicotine. It's way more addictive than. say, cocaine. Why not ban nicotine, by the same logic as heroin? The key difference is that nicotine is a mere stimulant, while heroin alters your perception, it literally changes the way you see good and bad, because it's the ultimate feel-good substance. I have zero qualms about legalizing LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, etc. Likely even cocaine. But legalization of opioids would require a lot of preliminary work, to somehow allow the addicts function in a socially compatible way when badly wanting a dose. It must be noted that a physiological addiction to opiates does not form from a first dose, and not even from the first ten doses, so infrequent recreational use is possible, given a right psychological preparation. This is similar to alcohol.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - imstate 3y ago
    > Why not ban nicotine, by the same logic as heroin? because nicotine doesn't increase crime rates on society.
    - etchalon 3y ago
huytersd 3y ago
Not all addictions are the same. Nicotine is extremely addictive but you will never have a total breakdown of your life which is essentially a guarantee with heroin, whether you get it legally or not. There is no such thing as a functional heroin addict (outside of extremely rare cases). Even if they received very pure heroin for free they would be dead within the next decade or two.
grecy 3y ago
You should watch what is happening in British Colombia, Canada right now. They have decriminalized possessing less than 2.5 grams of - Opioids (such as heroin, morphine, and fentanyl) - Crack and powder cocaine - Methamphetamine (Meth) - MDMA (Ecstasy) It's a trial basis from Jan 31 2023 until Jan 31 2026, so we should get a good amount of data and evidence to see if this leads to better or worse outcomes for people and society as a whole. [1] https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/overdose/decriminalization https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/overdose/decriminalizatio...
noduerme 3y ago
>> decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. This has been an increasingly popular argument here in Portland since decriminalization. It's deployed, generally, in terms of re-criminalizing hard drugs until there's a well thought out framework for safe, regulated legalization. While I agree in principle [edit: let's say I did agree, but my views on this subject have shifted radically since I voted in favor of decriminalization - and I'll admit I was naive and wrong], I think that while decriminalization without regulation is clearly catastrophic, legalization with regulation would also not be desirable so long as it's confined to one local city, county or state, in the midst of a nationwide fentanyl crisis. Portland simply does not have the capacity or infrastructure to accept further waves of addicts from all over the country who come here to live on the street. Legalization means more regulatory burden, more services for out of town addicts paid by a dwindling local tax base that's quickly being displaced and/or opting to leave. To do that experiment and do it right, it needs to be nationwide. In any case, Portland can't go it alone anymore. And remember - we did have a long experiment with legally prescribed opioids, and their widespread availability contributed to the current addiction crisis.
- varelse 3y ago
  Yes drugs should be legalized and regulated nationally just like Portugal did. But also we should absolutely unambiguously no excuses house and feed the homeless the end full stop we have plenty of money. It just needs to be redirected to doing something productive other than paying endless assemblies of bureaucrats competing with each other to virtue signal the loudest. Because the reason people get hooked on to drugs is they have nothing better to do with their lives and they've run out of Hope but that runs straight into the effective altruist and effective acceleration as the gender here so it's not going to happen.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    >> just like Portugal did Portugal arrests and jails people for dealing drugs, as well as for public displays of disorder.[0] >> Police take the person to a police station and weigh the drugs. If the weight exceeds amounts specified for personal use, then the person is charged and tried as a drug trafficker and can receive prison sentences of 1–14 years. Otherwise, the next day, the person appears at the Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction for an interview by a psychologist or social worker. Next comes an appearance before a three-person panel that will provide guidance about how to stop drug use. This is the stick which accompanies the carrot. The trouble with decriminalization in Portland is that there's no stick. Sure - make drugs legal, I don't care what people do with their bodies! But make sure they don't become a menace. Housing the homeless is really a separate topic. I'm all for making sure that no one in this country is ever homeless. The drug culture, however, in Portland is comprised mostly of able young men and women under the age of 30. They're willfully homeless because they've given up the idea of having a life, in favor of the drugs they're on. You say there are no excuses about housing and feeding the homeless. But facts on the ground are: There is a highly visible group of people who are choosing to be homeless, robbing people and serving their own addiction, and (1) people who are actually homeless not by their own fault are the first victims of this, and (2) the general population here who are extremely caring are absolutely sick of it. The backlash is inevitable, and no amount of moralizing will change that. I don't believe in "effective altruism" or "acceleration" - I think a 4-day work week or a universal basic income is a recipe for disaster. People need to feel a purpose. Hell, even dogs and horses need a purpose, or they get depressed. Accommodating their worst impulses is worse than doing nothing at all. [0] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-portugals-drug-decriminalization-a-failure-or-success-the-answer-isnt-so-simple/ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-portugals-dru...
achates 3y ago
If at first you don't succeed, double down.
23B1 3y ago
Feel free to experiment with this in your own city, ideally in your own neighborhood. Sincerely, Portland Native
anonygler 3y ago
Hard disagree. Decriminalizing drugs has skyrocketed schizophrenia and homelessness. Drugs should only be legalized in specific, medically necessary situations. Recreational use should be stigmatized and dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated. The crime of the War on Drugs was that we had double standards, not that we had a War on Drugs.
- jefftk 3y ago
  Do you apply this logic to alcohol? (And if no to alcohol, then what about marijuana?)
  - Daz1 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- thrawy2to15 3y ago
  > Recreational use should be stigmatized and dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated. Are you arguing that no recreational or unsanctioned use of any banned substance should be tolerated? For context: - MDMA shows promise treating PTSD. Currently Schedule 1 - total ban - Psilocybin and other psychedelics reportedly beneficial for end-of-life care, notably in the case of cancer patients. Currently Schedule 1 - total ban - Marijuana is also still Schedule 1 at the federal level Schedule 1 is normally also a ban on research but luckily we've seen some improvement in this area. Why? Because the illegal market still exists, and people __do__ discover genuine medical uses for currently banned substances
- pydry 3y ago
  Homelessness skyrocketed in line with rents. That could just be a coincidence though - that increasing the price of homes caused people to stop being able to afford them.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
snapplebobapple 3y ago
to me it seems like you need a strongly enforced social norm that doesn't include all the worst bits of drug abuse (crime, public defecation, graffiti, other public nuisance/problem things) regardless of whether you legalize and regulate or make it extremely illegal. My preference would be for legalize and regulate and social order enforcement because it would cause a lot less misery but I don't see how this works if people are going to be allowed to leave needles everywhere, routinely vandalize and break into cars and buildings, etc. We should have never gotten rid of the enforcement aspect for the bad behavior when we we getting rid of the criminal aspect of the drug use.
vasco 3y ago
> She decided to get clean only when she had a close brush with death thanks to fentanyl. Under your system she would've never decided to get clean then? Also dying much earlier than she would've had to and probably adding a bunch of burden to the health system. People chastice cigarete smokers for much less.
- drewg123 3y ago
  I'm genuinely curious why you think she should get clean. I fail to see what sort of burden she'd put on the health care system. AFAIK, long term opoid use is less dangerous than cigarette smoking, and the highest danger is of falls. (https://fpm.ac.uk/opioids-aware-clinical-use-opioids/long-term-harms-opioids https://fpm.ac.uk/opioids-aware-clinical-use-opioids/long-te...) That's when the user knows what they're taking..
  - vasco 3y ago
    Because the few people I knew in real life that did it died and all the people I know that didn't do it are still alive. One of them was a single mom and left a 12 year old alone. If you ask that guy who is today an adult, I can tell you he doesn't have second thoughts and would probably punch you in the face if you told him that heroine had no bad effects.
overgard 3y ago
Considering that alcohol is, by far, the most dangerous drug and it's completely legal, I think there's something to be said for your point. I gotta say though, it's sort of complicated when you're talking about legalizing things that are already legal as prescription drugs (like opiates and benzos). Alcohol is different because it doesn't really have any medical use outside of disinfecting things (it's fairly terrible as an anesthetic or as a tranquilizer), but there's something kind of weird about having former prescription drugs just be legal over the counter. How many people might bypass their doctor and start using strong opiates for pain that might not need it and end up in a bad spot? I don't think you can go so far as like w/ alcohol where you just show an ID and buy whatever you want, but it does seem like there needs to be some way to ensure the product is safe. Maybe a compromise might be some sort of free testing kits, or something like narcan on hand in a safe space.
- defrost 3y ago
  Sydney and a large number of other cities about the globe have injecting centres and decades of public reporting on crime, death, etc. in the vicinty of such centres. They're an interesting middle ground - dedicated medical centres that allow users to inject with clean needles, test drugs for purity, and have narcan and crash carts available for complications. You arrive, show ID, inject your drugs, chill for 20 minutes or so, and then leave. The long term results are no increase in crime, reduction in death from overdose and dirty needle infections, HIV, etc, improvement in drug quality (now that the users can readily test quality there's more discernment in the market and a reduction in blatant over cutting bad mixes into the illegal supply). Public drug use | shooting up is still illegal - this is reduced as there is a centre to go to, etc. One other benefit is being able to easily and routinely survey drug users and adapt public policy to changing situations on the ground, early detection of changes in illegal supply, etc. They cost money to run, they save money on reduction in public funds spent on the problems they reduce.
  - eloisius 3y ago
    It sounds like the primary benefit is reduced ODs for the drug addicts. Does it do anything to benefit productive members of society? Do libraries go back to to being libraries? Do parks once again serve as a place to relax and recreate with family or friends? Does it clean the sidewalk and make them disability-accessible again? Does it stop the property crimes that are committed to buy drugs? It's an absurd level of misdirected empathy to redirect such massive parts of the society's collective effort to benefit a few people who had some amount of agency in ruining their own lives.
arp242 3y ago
> you could have "functional addicts" that cause little or no societal harm Yeah, I don't know about that – plenty of "functional alcoholics" around, sure, but also plenty of not-so-functional alcoholics around, as well as the wife-and-kid-beater alcoholics. Heroin is not alcohol and doesn't induce aggression in the same way, but it's also a lot more addictive, and especially at low wages getting your daily dose can be a challenge – so "junkies" will not be eliminated outright. I consider it an open question whether they will be reduced – it's very possible (perhaps even plausible), but I certainly wouldn't consider it a forgone conclusion. > My friend's relative was a functional addict on and off for 20 years. Dick van Dyke was a chain-smoker until well in to his 70s and he's currently doing well at the age of 97. These are the sort of things where you really need to look at overall effects and statistics, rather than individual cases.
n8cpdx 3y ago
In Portland and generally agree. And the people saying alcohol isn’t comparable should look at the stats - death from alcohol is a huge, but normalized and largely invisible issue. Legalizing will reduce violence, reduce accidental overdoses and poisonings, and give the state regular contact points with users (to hopefully funnel them to assistance). Safe use sites would go some way towards hiding the problem if managed well. Legalizing will not solve the problem of addiction. It will not solve overdoses (many overdoses are not caused by surprise differences in dose; people often overdose after relapse, or deliberately seek out stronger than usual supplies). We have to accept that legalizing will solve some problems, but will likely keep killing at least some people. Housing is another solution to hiding the problem. But housing just hides the drug use problem. It will probably also kill people - people who overdose on the sidewalk are more likely to be narcaned than people using alone. Free housing + free drugs for opiate addicts would go a long ways towards solving the issue for everyone who isn’t an opiate addict, and probably cheaper than imprisoning or healing addicts. I’d prefer treatment but the local officials have already proven incapable of that. The county is already very good at handing out needles, smoking kits, and boofing literature, so handing out fetty should be a very light lift administratively.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Housing plus making it legal to use in shared spaces is a good start. E.g some shelters in Seattle have a covered/seating location outside, in sight of the front desk, and residents are encouraged to use there instead of in their rooms so that they can be seen and cared for.
lazyasciiart 3y ago
Decriminalizing test kits that let you identify the presence of fentanyl in other drugs would be a great start - but those are instead illegal and classified as “paraphernalia”.
- n8cpdx 3y ago
  That law was already fixed in Portland (and the rest of Oregon). Test strips are still classified as paraphernalia, but there’s a carve out making them legal now. https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Measures/Analysis/HB2395 https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Measures/Analy...
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    Oh, nice. Effective August 2023.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
perryizgr8 3y ago
> drugs need to be legalized and regulated. Surely we can solve this inability to regulate with even more regulation. Just one more regulation bro... trust me bro. Just a bit more power and money to the government bro. It's all gonna be great! Just give a little bit more in taxes, bro. It's going to be a utopia, you'll see!
xkekjrktllss 3y ago
[dead]

cscurmudgeon 3y ago

This is not a strong argument as it doesn't consider all aspects. 1. Public drunkness is still a problem 2. Drunk driving still kills a lot of people. Legalization of alcohol doesn't help.

d1str0 3y ago
Its definitely interesting how some places are outright banning tobacco sales, and other places are decriminalizing hard drugs.
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
History shows that making it illegal didn't work either.
- chmod600 3y ago
  When it comes to dangerous drugs, nothing "works". We have to choose the least-bad policies. A lot of people, including me, thought the war on drugs was pretty much the worst policy position. Now I'm seeing that there are (perhaps) worse policies. We need to be quantitative and nuanced, not speak in sweeping characterizations.
  - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
    Right. The reason the prohibition failed was because it was not very nuanced. Whatever is done needs to be done in a controlled, nuanced way.
  - czbond 3y ago
    To paraphrase an unknown Marine drill Sergeant: "Everyone either needs the carrot or the stick, it's my job to figure out which".
- nullc 3y ago
  The fact that _drunk driving_ is illegal reduces it dramatically.
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  Execution matters. See Singapore.

xenospn 3y ago

I think the actual problem is people can’t seem to just use enough to stay functional. Given the legal opportunity to purchase heroin, most people will absolutely overdo it.

stillwithit 3y ago
So? Then they’re out of the way. One or way or another, none of us are getting out of this alive. Not sure where the religious conviction we must save all souls comes from or has any value.
- WillPostForFood 3y ago
  Even if one ascribes to this nihilist POV, it isn't an answer. We see the negative effects on communities, families, and people around addicts. Even if you don't care that people are destroying themselves, when they take out the surrounding area it is a problem we share.
  - stillwithit 3y ago
    Yeah and humans have seen it for centuries and failed to stop it Who is to say any progress we make won’t be undid by another pandemic we cannot predict, or some nutter launching the nukes We have political agents hell bent on war and subjugating undesirables, rather than pushback against them let’s focus on some people who don’t want to live? Why not ask Oceangate how the war against physics is going. It will always win and erode any social progress we think we made
    - nomel 3y ago
      > failed to stop it I don't think that's the goal. The goal is to attempt to reduce harm of something that removes freedom. Try asking a drug addict if they want to keep taking drugs. I suspect you'll be surprised at the answer. Stopping drugs would be like achieving abstinence as the primary form of contraceptive. Both are impossible because they work on the same soup of chemicals, but one has evolved with some form of continuation in mind. The other is a direct injection, orders of magnitude stronger, that just fucks up all the machinery of the brain.

gosub100 3y ago

Has there been any research into how to measure potency (of fentanyl) and cut it properly? Maybe we could keep the government out of it, and instead give information and supplies to measure the potency correctly? I've heard that one way OD's happen is the substance is not homogeneous, so they can consume half the bag fine, then one dose is super-charged and puts them into OD (because fent can be up to thousands of times stronger than a morphine equivalent). Maybe teach addicts how to dissolve their dope in a liquid and reconstitute it so it's homogeneous in potency? Addicts can be extremely cunning with their drive to get money for dope, so I dont see why they can't use that will power to their advantage. I wonder if they could also get a primitive CPAP machine to keep them breathing if they do OD? IIRC death comes from lack of breathing, not acute toxicity or anything.

wintogreen74 3y ago
Your post is a prime example of the classic engineering approach of efficiently solutioning the immediate technical problem without solving the actual root cause because it's too complex or messy. I mean, CPAP machines for drug addicts because street fentanyl is too potent and inconsistent?
- gosub100 3y ago
  Your post is a prime example of avoiding everything I said with "thE ActUal RoOt CaUsE" hand-waving nonsense.
prawn 3y ago
Are many of them going to care? I imagine testing would be useful for pill-takers at festivals, but something that is a daily addiction dominating life seems a different case.
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  > I imagine testing would be useful for pill-takers at festivals And many people bring test kits to festivals and raves and clubs and bars already. So this is 100% a proven solution for light recreational party usage. I agree with skepticism about addicts (especially someone living on the street, etc)

Eumenes 3y ago

Your argument is tired. There is no such thing as a functional heroin addict. Most don't quit after a 20 year on and off relationship with it. They die and usually cause mayhem in the process - to society, their loved ones, the healthcare system, law enforcement, etc. I'm dealing with a very serious addict in my life right now and how "clean" the drug is makes no difference. They steal and lie non-stop. They cause massive amounts of anxiety and stress to people who love them. They disappear for weeks on end and every time you get a text or call, you think its someone saying they're dead. They treat you like a monster if you don't want to engage with their BS anymore. They claim to want "help" but when push comes to shove, they want to be enabled. After many years of this, you realize that some people simply want to live this lifestyle. The war on drugs was extreme in one direction, and your suggestion, is in the other.

skyyler 3y ago
Neither of you are posting sources, so you're both just talking about your opinions.
- Eumenes 3y ago
  The source is my personal experience dealing with individuals involved in addiction. No amount of "experts" claiming we need to legalize hardcore drugs is going to change my opinion, thats for sure.
  - skyyler 3y ago
    So you're not even interested in hearing people that actually have done research, you're just going to run with your assumptions? That's a rather emotional place to make an argument, in my opinion.
    - silent_cal 3y ago
      This is the fallacy of scientism. You don't have to do a peer-reviewed research paper to see the truth. Firsthand observation is still the primary way we know the truth. Research depends on observations, not the other way around.

cpncrunch 3y ago

Heroin is very different from Tequila, so I don't think it's fair to compare them just because they are both "drugs". Prior to fentanyl, what was the percentage of high functioning heroin addicts compared to people living on the street? I can't find any research on that question, and I'm somewhat skeptical that your friend is the norm.

runarberg 3y ago
How valid the comparison is between Tequila and Heroine is irrelevant. What is relevant here is harm reduction for the addict. In both cases legalization result in harm reduction. Yes legalized and regulated heroine is still very harmful for an addict, but unregulated and illegal heroine has the potential to be way more harmful then a regulated legal one, potentially deadly. The same logic also applies to illegal and unregulated gin (just to a lesser extent).
- ALittleLight 3y ago
  And legalized heroin has the potential to create more addicts who would be subjected to the harm of addiction, and their friends and families would be subjected to the harms of seeing their loved ones addicted.
fbdab103 3y ago
That heroin is illegal and prosecuted is going to massively skew the number of people who are likely ever try it or could develop a safe habit around it.
notfed 3y ago
> Heroin is very different from Tequila, so I don't think it's fair to compare them just because they are both "drugs". Very true, alcohol is much worse by most metrics, both in terms of number of addicts, number of deaths/year [1][2] and general damage done to the body. [3][4]. (I'm not trying to be cynical, just stating facts.) > Prior to fentanyl, what was the percentage of high functioning heroin addicts compared to people living on the street? I can't find any research on that question, and I'm somewhat skeptical that your friend is the norm. There's no data on self-reported addiction, for obvious reasons, but there is data on overdoses: "Fatalities involving only heroin appear to form a minority of overdose occasions, the presence of other drugs (primarily central nervous system depressants such as alcohol and benzodiazepines) being commonly detected at autopsy." [5] I've met good people addicted to heroin. They've been through more hell than the rest of us can ever understand, almost entirely because of those times when they couldn't access it. If I could press a button to forever ban them access to any opioid, I'd press that button; they'd get over it in a few months and thank me. But that's impossible. The second best option is to allow them access to a clean, low-cost, prescription of it for the rest of their life. [1] https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-abuse-statistics/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/alcohol-abuse-statistics/ [2] https://drugabusestatistics.org/heroin-statistics/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/heroin-statistics/ [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002239997490052X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002239... [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7328574/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7328574/ [5] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1360-0443.1996.911217652.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1360-0443....

legitster 3y ago

Well, also the only reason a lot of people turned to heroin in the first place was that OxyContin was taken away from them. There was a lot of illegal OxyContin use but most of it was well regulated and under the control of doctors and pharmacists.

prmoustache 3y ago
Well a lot of reasons people turns to drugs in the USA is because doctors and pharmacists give them strong painkillers way to easily to begin with. For instance oxycodone and many powerful painkillers are afaik not available as tablets in many countries, only given through IV's and injections in hospitals for serious enough conditions, or under serious constraints like palliative treatments. If you are recovering from an injury and are allowed to leave hospital, all what you should be allowed to take is paracetamol or ibuprofen for a limited time and that's it. We shouldn't have to enter war against pain. Pain is not necessarily harmful, they are useful signals that can let people assess their recovery and physical state. Trying to avoid pain is trying to avoid reality. It is deemed to fail. Nobody should take opiods painkillers for minor injuries and ailments, it just doesn't make sense.

kazinator 3y ago

> According to her, a lot of overdoses are due to almost no "heroin" actually being heroin, rather its fentanyl cut to varying degrees of strength. Anyone knows that who followed current events during the opiod epidemic and read some Wikipedia on it. And actually, it's not just fentanyl, but fentanyl-like compounds that, even if controlled to the same concentration, have varying degrees of strength. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fentanyl_analogues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fentanyl_analogues "The structural variations among fentanyl-related substances can impart profound pharmacological differences between these drugs, especially with respect to potency and efficacy" You don't know which fentanyl analog is in that heroin dose, and how much of it.

notfed 3y ago
> more than 1400 compounds from [the fentanyl analogue] family have been described Astounding.
- quchen 3y ago
  It’s a lot, but not a crazy amount. Chemistry scales combinatorically, so if you find a single nitrogen to put a little e.g. acidic group on you’ve got yourself a couple of hundred possible substituents, many of which may have a similar effect on the body.

xkjyeah 3y ago

Literally, fentanyl is legal and regulated. It's used as an anaesthetic.

hn72774 3y ago
Not the stuff coming in from Mexico and China.
babyshake 3y ago
The only time I've ever been on fentanyl was in a hospital, and the nurse described it to me as the "Michael Jackson drug". I actually enjoyed the gallows humor of the nurses, as I felt it brought down the tension in an otherwise serious environment.
- doubled112 3y ago
  Wasn't that Propofol, a sedative?
- 0x0000000 3y ago
  I thought propofol was the "Michael Jackson drug", not fentanyl.
- hydrok9 3y ago
  That's even funnier because fentanyl is the Prince drug, not MJ's
drewg123 3y ago
Its very different, in that I can walk in off the street and buy alcohol. As far as I know, there is noplace I can legally buy fentanyl without a prescription.
- nine_k 3y ago
  Indeed! I think the point is that "legalization" and "regulation" can take pretty different forms, not necessarily the for of the substance being generally available.

davesque 3y ago

I mean, I remember how things were before fentanyl came around (as an outside observer, not as a user) and heroin was a horrible, life-destroying drug addiction back then as well. And I think it was and is convincingly argued that it is much more addictive than alcohol.

tdeck 3y ago
It's my understanding that street drugs like Heroin were frequently cut to varying, sometimes unpredictable degrees prior to the introduction of fentanyl. So you could still easily misjudge your dose and OD due to the lack of any kind of consistency. Presumably this would also make it even harder to try to taper off the addiction gradually.
nine_k 3y ago
Opioids keep the top spot of addictiveness. The second place firmly belongs to nicotine. It's way more addictive than. say, cocaine. Why not ban nicotine, by the same logic as heroin? The key difference is that nicotine is a mere stimulant, while heroin alters your perception, it literally changes the way you see good and bad, because it's the ultimate feel-good substance. I have zero qualms about legalizing LSD, psilocybin, ketamine, etc. Likely even cocaine. But legalization of opioids would require a lot of preliminary work, to somehow allow the addicts function in a socially compatible way when badly wanting a dose. It must be noted that a physiological addiction to opiates does not form from a first dose, and not even from the first ten doses, so infrequent recreational use is possible, given a right psychological preparation. This is similar to alcohol.
- deleted 3y ago
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- imstate 3y ago
  > Why not ban nicotine, by the same logic as heroin? because nicotine doesn't increase crime rates on society.
  - etchalon 3y ago

huytersd 3y ago

Not all addictions are the same. Nicotine is extremely addictive but you will never have a total breakdown of your life which is essentially a guarantee with heroin, whether you get it legally or not. There is no such thing as a functional heroin addict (outside of extremely rare cases). Even if they received very pure heroin for free they would be dead within the next decade or two.

grecy 3y ago

You should watch what is happening in British Colombia, Canada right now. They have decriminalized possessing less than 2.5 grams of - Opioids (such as heroin, morphine, and fentanyl) - Crack and powder cocaine - Methamphetamine (Meth) - MDMA (Ecstasy) It's a trial basis from Jan 31 2023 until Jan 31 2026, so we should get a good amount of data and evidence to see if this leads to better or worse outcomes for people and society as a whole. [1] https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/overdose/decriminalization https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/overdose/decriminalizatio...

noduerme 3y ago

>> decriminalization is not enough; drugs need to be legalized and regulated. This has been an increasingly popular argument here in Portland since decriminalization. It's deployed, generally, in terms of re-criminalizing hard drugs until there's a well thought out framework for safe, regulated legalization. While I agree in principle [edit: let's say I did agree, but my views on this subject have shifted radically since I voted in favor of decriminalization - and I'll admit I was naive and wrong], I think that while decriminalization without regulation is clearly catastrophic, legalization with regulation would also not be desirable so long as it's confined to one local city, county or state, in the midst of a nationwide fentanyl crisis. Portland simply does not have the capacity or infrastructure to accept further waves of addicts from all over the country who come here to live on the street. Legalization means more regulatory burden, more services for out of town addicts paid by a dwindling local tax base that's quickly being displaced and/or opting to leave. To do that experiment and do it right, it needs to be nationwide. In any case, Portland can't go it alone anymore. And remember - we did have a long experiment with legally prescribed opioids, and their widespread availability contributed to the current addiction crisis.

varelse 3y ago
Yes drugs should be legalized and regulated nationally just like Portugal did. But also we should absolutely unambiguously no excuses house and feed the homeless the end full stop we have plenty of money. It just needs to be redirected to doing something productive other than paying endless assemblies of bureaucrats competing with each other to virtue signal the loudest. Because the reason people get hooked on to drugs is they have nothing better to do with their lives and they've run out of Hope but that runs straight into the effective altruist and effective acceleration as the gender here so it's not going to happen.
- noduerme 3y ago
  >> just like Portugal did Portugal arrests and jails people for dealing drugs, as well as for public displays of disorder.[0] >> Police take the person to a police station and weigh the drugs. If the weight exceeds amounts specified for personal use, then the person is charged and tried as a drug trafficker and can receive prison sentences of 1–14 years. Otherwise, the next day, the person appears at the Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction for an interview by a psychologist or social worker. Next comes an appearance before a three-person panel that will provide guidance about how to stop drug use. This is the stick which accompanies the carrot. The trouble with decriminalization in Portland is that there's no stick. Sure - make drugs legal, I don't care what people do with their bodies! But make sure they don't become a menace. Housing the homeless is really a separate topic. I'm all for making sure that no one in this country is ever homeless. The drug culture, however, in Portland is comprised mostly of able young men and women under the age of 30. They're willfully homeless because they've given up the idea of having a life, in favor of the drugs they're on. You say there are no excuses about housing and feeding the homeless. But facts on the ground are: There is a highly visible group of people who are choosing to be homeless, robbing people and serving their own addiction, and (1) people who are actually homeless not by their own fault are the first victims of this, and (2) the general population here who are extremely caring are absolutely sick of it. The backlash is inevitable, and no amount of moralizing will change that. I don't believe in "effective altruism" or "acceleration" - I think a 4-day work week or a universal basic income is a recipe for disaster. People need to feel a purpose. Hell, even dogs and horses need a purpose, or they get depressed. Accommodating their worst impulses is worse than doing nothing at all. [0] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-portugals-drug-decriminalization-a-failure-or-success-the-answer-isnt-so-simple/ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-portugals-dru...

achates 3y ago

If at first you don't succeed, double down.

23B1 3y ago

Feel free to experiment with this in your own city, ideally in your own neighborhood. Sincerely, Portland Native

anonygler 3y ago

Hard disagree. Decriminalizing drugs has skyrocketed schizophrenia and homelessness. Drugs should only be legalized in specific, medically necessary situations. Recreational use should be stigmatized and dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated. The crime of the War on Drugs was that we had double standards, not that we had a War on Drugs.

jefftk 3y ago
Do you apply this logic to alcohol? (And if no to alcohol, then what about marijuana?)
- Daz1 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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thrawy2to15 3y ago
> Recreational use should be stigmatized and dealers should be handled as Duterte advocated. Are you arguing that no recreational or unsanctioned use of any banned substance should be tolerated? For context: - MDMA shows promise treating PTSD. Currently Schedule 1 - total ban - Psilocybin and other psychedelics reportedly beneficial for end-of-life care, notably in the case of cancer patients. Currently Schedule 1 - total ban - Marijuana is also still Schedule 1 at the federal level Schedule 1 is normally also a ban on research but luckily we've seen some improvement in this area. Why? Because the illegal market still exists, and people __do__ discover genuine medical uses for currently banned substances
pydry 3y ago
Homelessness skyrocketed in line with rents. That could just be a coincidence though - that increasing the price of homes caused people to stop being able to afford them.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago

snapplebobapple 3y ago

to me it seems like you need a strongly enforced social norm that doesn't include all the worst bits of drug abuse (crime, public defecation, graffiti, other public nuisance/problem things) regardless of whether you legalize and regulate or make it extremely illegal. My preference would be for legalize and regulate and social order enforcement because it would cause a lot less misery but I don't see how this works if people are going to be allowed to leave needles everywhere, routinely vandalize and break into cars and buildings, etc. We should have never gotten rid of the enforcement aspect for the bad behavior when we we getting rid of the criminal aspect of the drug use.

vasco 3y ago

> She decided to get clean only when she had a close brush with death thanks to fentanyl. Under your system she would've never decided to get clean then? Also dying much earlier than she would've had to and probably adding a bunch of burden to the health system. People chastice cigarete smokers for much less.

drewg123 3y ago
I'm genuinely curious why you think she should get clean. I fail to see what sort of burden she'd put on the health care system. AFAIK, long term opoid use is less dangerous than cigarette smoking, and the highest danger is of falls. (https://fpm.ac.uk/opioids-aware-clinical-use-opioids/long-term-harms-opioids https://fpm.ac.uk/opioids-aware-clinical-use-opioids/long-te...) That's when the user knows what they're taking..
- vasco 3y ago
  Because the few people I knew in real life that did it died and all the people I know that didn't do it are still alive. One of them was a single mom and left a 12 year old alone. If you ask that guy who is today an adult, I can tell you he doesn't have second thoughts and would probably punch you in the face if you told him that heroine had no bad effects.

overgard 3y ago

Considering that alcohol is, by far, the most dangerous drug and it's completely legal, I think there's something to be said for your point. I gotta say though, it's sort of complicated when you're talking about legalizing things that are already legal as prescription drugs (like opiates and benzos). Alcohol is different because it doesn't really have any medical use outside of disinfecting things (it's fairly terrible as an anesthetic or as a tranquilizer), but there's something kind of weird about having former prescription drugs just be legal over the counter. How many people might bypass their doctor and start using strong opiates for pain that might not need it and end up in a bad spot? I don't think you can go so far as like w/ alcohol where you just show an ID and buy whatever you want, but it does seem like there needs to be some way to ensure the product is safe. Maybe a compromise might be some sort of free testing kits, or something like narcan on hand in a safe space.

defrost 3y ago
Sydney and a large number of other cities about the globe have injecting centres and decades of public reporting on crime, death, etc. in the vicinty of such centres. They're an interesting middle ground - dedicated medical centres that allow users to inject with clean needles, test drugs for purity, and have narcan and crash carts available for complications. You arrive, show ID, inject your drugs, chill for 20 minutes or so, and then leave. The long term results are no increase in crime, reduction in death from overdose and dirty needle infections, HIV, etc, improvement in drug quality (now that the users can readily test quality there's more discernment in the market and a reduction in blatant over cutting bad mixes into the illegal supply). Public drug use | shooting up is still illegal - this is reduced as there is a centre to go to, etc. One other benefit is being able to easily and routinely survey drug users and adapt public policy to changing situations on the ground, early detection of changes in illegal supply, etc. They cost money to run, they save money on reduction in public funds spent on the problems they reduce.
- eloisius 3y ago
  It sounds like the primary benefit is reduced ODs for the drug addicts. Does it do anything to benefit productive members of society? Do libraries go back to to being libraries? Do parks once again serve as a place to relax and recreate with family or friends? Does it clean the sidewalk and make them disability-accessible again? Does it stop the property crimes that are committed to buy drugs? It's an absurd level of misdirected empathy to redirect such massive parts of the society's collective effort to benefit a few people who had some amount of agency in ruining their own lives.

arp242 3y ago

> you could have "functional addicts" that cause little or no societal harm Yeah, I don't know about that – plenty of "functional alcoholics" around, sure, but also plenty of not-so-functional alcoholics around, as well as the wife-and-kid-beater alcoholics. Heroin is not alcohol and doesn't induce aggression in the same way, but it's also a lot more addictive, and especially at low wages getting your daily dose can be a challenge – so "junkies" will not be eliminated outright. I consider it an open question whether they will be reduced – it's very possible (perhaps even plausible), but I certainly wouldn't consider it a forgone conclusion. > My friend's relative was a functional addict on and off for 20 years. Dick van Dyke was a chain-smoker until well in to his 70s and he's currently doing well at the age of 97. These are the sort of things where you really need to look at overall effects and statistics, rather than individual cases.

n8cpdx 3y ago

In Portland and generally agree. And the people saying alcohol isn’t comparable should look at the stats - death from alcohol is a huge, but normalized and largely invisible issue. Legalizing will reduce violence, reduce accidental overdoses and poisonings, and give the state regular contact points with users (to hopefully funnel them to assistance). Safe use sites would go some way towards hiding the problem if managed well. Legalizing will not solve the problem of addiction. It will not solve overdoses (many overdoses are not caused by surprise differences in dose; people often overdose after relapse, or deliberately seek out stronger than usual supplies). We have to accept that legalizing will solve some problems, but will likely keep killing at least some people. Housing is another solution to hiding the problem. But housing just hides the drug use problem. It will probably also kill people - people who overdose on the sidewalk are more likely to be narcaned than people using alone. Free housing + free drugs for opiate addicts would go a long ways towards solving the issue for everyone who isn’t an opiate addict, and probably cheaper than imprisoning or healing addicts. I’d prefer treatment but the local officials have already proven incapable of that. The county is already very good at handing out needles, smoking kits, and boofing literature, so handing out fetty should be a very light lift administratively.

lazyasciiart 3y ago
Housing plus making it legal to use in shared spaces is a good start. E.g some shelters in Seattle have a covered/seating location outside, in sight of the front desk, and residents are encouraged to use there instead of in their rooms so that they can be seen and cared for.

lazyasciiart 3y ago

Decriminalizing test kits that let you identify the presence of fentanyl in other drugs would be a great start - but those are instead illegal and classified as “paraphernalia”.

n8cpdx 3y ago
That law was already fixed in Portland (and the rest of Oregon). Test strips are still classified as paraphernalia, but there’s a carve out making them legal now. https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Measures/Analysis/HB2395 https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Measures/Analy...
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Oh, nice. Effective August 2023.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

perryizgr8 3y ago

> drugs need to be legalized and regulated. Surely we can solve this inability to regulate with even more regulation. Just one more regulation bro... trust me bro. Just a bit more power and money to the government bro. It's all gonna be great! Just give a little bit more in taxes, bro. It's going to be a utopia, you'll see!

xkekjrktllss 3y ago

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