7 ms·

I actually don't think we should decriminalize. Just legalize it and let people get pure product at dirt cheap prices. There's no reason to fund crime (drug d

• losteric 3y ago
  That's an orthogonal issue to dealing with addiction, which would be a problem regardless of legalization status...
• running101 3y ago
  Illogical thinking
• chmod600 3y ago
  What does "legalize and regulate" mean? Isn't that true of most drugs? We are talking about what those regulations should be and what to do when people break the regulations.
  • rjbwork 3y ago
    Probably as many regulations as there are on alcohol or tobacco or pharmaceuticals (which I'm also not a fan of the doctor/pharmaceutical gated access to other drugs). If you produce it has to be pure, tested, not adulterated, with standards for production facilities. If you consume, only in particular establishments or at home, and you can't drive while under the influence. If someone breaks those regulations, then they face similar kinds of penalties as people who produce and consume alcohol would. I really do not understand why people do not draw the same conclusion as if we don't already have a terribly destructive drug that society has more or less made peace with.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • chmod600 3y ago
      So you'd arrest all of the homeless addicts and put them in jail for consuming in an unapproved place?
      • amluto 3y ago
        If it’s genuinely dangerous for passersby when people are on the streets and have high doses of meth in them, then maybe? I don’t know nearly enough about the behavior of mentally ill homeless people and how it varies with addiction status and current meth levels, but I think there is no shortage of recent reports of dangerous addicts in various cities.
        • chmod600 3y ago
          You're the one who proposed the regulation ("particular establishments or at home"), and now you are already second-guessing whether it should actually be enforced (asking if it's "genuinely dangerous... maybe"). Regulation sounds good, but it doesn't just happen because it's written down. Enforcement is the messy part.
          • amluto 3y ago
            > You're the one who proposed the regulation ("particular establishments or at home") I am?
            • chmod600 3y ago
              My mistake. My question stands, then: does "legalize and regulate" mean that there would be regulations preventing the stated problems in Portland, and that they'd be actually enforced? Or is it essentially just the same as plain legalization?
      • tomjen3 3y ago
• boh 3y ago
  Oxycontin was legal, how well did that go?
  • amluto 3y ago
    It’s not clear to me that making it legal was the problem. The marketing was catastrophic. The amount of messaging, in doctors’ offices and otherwise, about using long-acting painkillers, getting ahead of the pain, making sure your pain was treated, etc was ridiculous. Nowadays, the messaging is quite different. And we’re starting to learn that the opioids may not even work for the things people like using them for, regardless of how dangerous they are: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)00404-X/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Yes, that’s an RCT with oxycodone users reporting more pain after 6 weeks compared to placebo.
    • boh 3y ago
      I'm sure the marketing for legalized Meth will be more responsible (just like it is for everything else that isn't good for us). What is the compulsion to find some tiny fragment of an argument to go against the obvious? Maybe it's because you'd need an absolutely idealized scenario to take legalizing drug use seriously. You know those countries that legalized drugs? Feel free to look up how well that's going.
      • overgard 3y ago
        Well, legalized meth is essentially ritalin/adderall (not exactly the same thing, but same class)
        • boh 3y ago
          Thankfully those have posed absolutely zero problems so I guess we should legalize meth.
          • overgard 3y ago
• mensetmanusman 3y ago
  You may have survivorship bias. Most humans can't handle it being legal.
• billy99k 3y ago
  Selling hard drugs as a legitimate business owner has lots of liability attached, so prices will never be 'dirt cheap'. In addition to this, drug legalization is only sold to the masses if the cities/states that legalize them get tax revenue. Again, this will not lead to less expensive drugs. What's already started happening is that the black market prices continue to be cheaper (because dealers don't have to pay taxes, insurance, or any other costs associated with legitimate businesses) and legitimate businesses can't compete, and they go under. It's interesting to me that the same people the scream about muh socialism and want legal drugs aren't willing to pay the price for it.
  • pcthrowaway 3y ago
    Socialize the drug distribution then. The government can manufacture and distribute drugs at dirt cheap prices. I don't want legal drugs for me, but to get rid of the criminal distribution networks, and reduce the lengths addicts need to go to in order to procur drugs (which may often culminate in robbery and theft)
    • boh 3y ago
      Why can "the government" distribute drugs at dirt cheap prices? Maybe you come from a country where that happens but in the US the government couldn't distribute masks during a pandemic. Plus cheaper, easier accessible drugs lower crime, overdoses...how?
      • magicalhippo 3y ago
        The way Ive heard this done is you get a prescription from you doctor, you go to a dedicated facility where you get your prescribed dose and fresh gear, and you have to take your dose there under supervision by medical staff. This lets the addicts get their hits without overdosing, without them having to steal or sell themselves to buy the next hit, and they're not funding narco cartels and terrorists.
    • ilikehurdles 3y ago
      Sweet, let’s have a government that profiteers off providing their people with extremely addictive, life-destroying, undeniably harmful substances. I’m sure that’ll work out great and not be corrupted ever. As long as you short-sighted folks keep this idiotic social experimentation out of Oregon, go nuts. We’ve had enough of being the nation’s testbed of half-assed radical policy.
• graeme 3y ago
  This doesn't really address the comment. Decriminalize = production is criminal, consumption is legal. Legalize = production is legal, consumption is legal. The parent comment was complaining that legal consumption made the environment threatening. >maim and kill users, push users into poverty, and generate and push the externalizes of drug use onto the rest of society. None of these appear to hinge on decriminalization vs. legalization. Alcohol, for example, maims and kills users, pushes severely addicted users into poverty, and externalizes the problems of its use onto society. Use went down during prohibition, use went up during legalization. So in effect you're proposing we increase these problems as related to meth and other hard drugs. (This is not an argument for prohibition of alcohol, it is merely listing the cons of legalization)
  • jorvi 3y ago
    > The parent comment was complaining that legal consumption made the environment threatening. What the top comment is implying as far as I can see is that going soft on drugs (“philosophical”, “internet argument”) is a solution for pen-pushers. Fucked up as his story may be, what has the war on drugs really ended up accomplishing? Do we really think amping it up will make things better? Legalization combined with harm reduction and strictly regulated point of sales (think how Sweden treats alcohol by selling it through systembogalets) is what will ultimately pull us out of the pit. Nothing else will. A good chunk of society wants to get high, as long as they’re not serviced legally they are financing criminal empires. Not only are you getting no tax on those sales, you have to spend buckets of money on law enforcement to fight those criminal empires. Not to mention you’ll also have to spend money on police, EMT, hospital hours etc to cope with the less stable subsect of drug users, because they are currently out of government purview and thus unmanageable. It shouldn’t even be a partisan thing, the right could easily sell it as increasing government revenue and restoring law and order. All without it costing the regular taxpayer a penny, as you can fund the new system with the drug tax.
    • chmod600 3y ago
      "what has the war on drugs really ended up accomplishing?" A lot of comments here have a "Portland was a lot better before decriminalization" theme. So at least some people might think the war on drugs was working out better than the current policies. I'm not saying we should bring back the war on drugs, but the argument you are making can no longer be taken for granted.
• Aurornis 3y ago
  > Just legalize it and let people get pure product at dirt cheap prices. Having traveled to Portland recently and witnessed the public drug problem first hand, I have no idea how anyone would think that increasing availability of the drugs would improve the situation. The only thing legalization and widespread availability would help is reducing deaths from tainted drugs. While that is a significant problem, anything that increases the availability and reduces the price of a drug addiction will also fuel drug use among the public. I've heard people try to argue the inverse, but removing penalties, decreasing prices, and improving availability simply cannot do anything other than increase consumption.
  • randombits0 3y ago
    The biggest problem with dying by overdose is measuring the dose. Legal drugs presume quality control and standardized dosing. This, alone, could prevent the majority of opioid deaths.
    • Aurornis 3y ago
      > This, alone, could prevent the majority of opioid deaths Reduce, yes, but it's not a magic bullet. Many opioid deaths are from people taking pharmaceuticals in precisely measured doses, often in conjunction with other drugs. Others are from people who misjudge their tolerance after extended breaks, such as after relapsing. Regardless, it's an entirely separate discussion than the problem in the main article: Increasing availability of drugs will worsen the societal problems in places like Portland. I suspect increased availability of drugs would also lead to more deaths from polydrug abuse. People who normally take one drug might be more tempted to start mixing drugs if it's as easy as picking up some extra pills at the drug center down the street.
    • bloaf 3y ago
      You're missing the point. If you're a politician, "making drug addicts not poison themselves" is a nice-to-have, but "making drug users not victimize others" is basically mandatory. Zero political parties are going to win on a platform of "its ok that drug addicts are making the streets unsafe, the real problem is that their drugs are not affordable or high enough quality."
• thegrim33 3y ago
  There are countries all over the world that take a much stricter prohibitionist approach, and overwhelmingly do not have the same problem with drugs. Your claims instantly fall apart given the numerous counter examples of countries that DO successfully criminalize drugs.
• clnq 3y ago
  I think selling hard drugs being criminal is OK. But the US should actually do something with the severe addicts rather than just tossing them in prison, or creating laws against that and leaving them on the streets. Mandatory rehabilitation would do a lot. But rehabilitation would work much worse in an environment where relapse is easily attainable, anyone who has had any kind of addiction will tell you that. I think part of the problem is people with no real experience pushing their narrative. Many honest drug addicts will tell you the actual solutions that will be around wholistic rehabilitation: withdrawals treatments, reintegration into society, no permanent records, removing stigma. And some would prefer to be funneled into that rather than go to rehabilitation by free will. Free will stands no chance against a heroin or meth addiction. My family member works in a psychiatric clinic in Central Europe. They deal with severe addictions. They have proper rehabilitation programs with dedicated facilities where people with severe addictions that have led to mental disorders learn to reintegrate with life, attend job interviews, take care of themselves, and so on. I have spent my childhood around these people as family members of clinicians would attend various events (Christmas parties, weddings, funerals, other outings, etc) and I have not felt threatened by anyone in rehabilitation. But yeah, what I see in West Coast cities is threatening. It’s a day and night difference between that and proper care for hard drug addicts though. West Coast is what ignoring the problem looks like. Central Europe is what solving the problem looks like. In both cases, hard drug sales are not legal. And the solution is ridiculously simple. If someone is acting out in public due to drugs, police would be called. The police would deliver them to a psychiatric clinic in a municipal hospital. The clinic would put them in a ward and on a rehab program, start withdrawals management, set up a social worker for employment, and so on. It would take several months to rehabilitate someone and some people would go through the program a few times. Not all of it is easy and the taxpayer pays for the healthcare. But that’s the cost of solving this problem, and that does solve it.