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Were they ever caught? This seems like assault (and battery?) all already illegal. Your problem doesn’t seem to be drugs but (probably) the defacto police work

Were they ever caught? This seems like assault (and battery?) all already illegal. Your problem doesn’t seem to be drugs but (probably) the defacto police work stoppage? That’s the problem in the Bay Area atleast [1] https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-francisco/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/03/police-staffing-crisis-san-...

losteric 3y ago
Getting assaulted sounds like the main problem. Police are a reactive force, they're useless to prevent or break up an assault unless it's a very ineffective (slow) attack
- toofy 3y ago
  > Police are a reactive force, they're useless to prevent or break up an assault unless it's a very ineffective (slow) attack This seems like you’re implying that stricter enforcement and tougher punishments are useless? I tend to agree, we saw bright and clear as day with the “war on drugs” that being more vicious to addicts didn’t work and the problem only grew. Im certainly no expert though, and what often seems to be missing from these conversations is actual experts who research and actively work amongst these addicted and homeless people. It’s wild how often we have conversations about incredibly complicated and wildly nuanced subjects with very little back and forth from those with far more expertise than ourselves. Then we scratch our heads and tilt our heads in confusion.
  - argiopetech 3y ago
    Addiction may have been the root cause of GP's assault, but there are any number of reasons you may be attacked in broad daylight. Despite the risk of prosecution to the perpetrator, many thousands are assaulted every year. Not even the threat of the noose kept the Old West safe. In the face of imminent threat, only personal preparedness is of value.
  - graeme 3y ago
    >I tend to agree, we saw bright and clear as day with the “war on drugs” that being more vicious to addicts didn’t work and the problem only grew. Drug use has grown much faster under the current regime of tolerance of drug use. There were lots of problems with the war on drugs, but the idea that it didn't reduce drug use isn't based on evidence. As an analogy, skin cancer had been rising despite sunscreen.
    - InSteady 3y ago
      Do you have any actual evidence of this? I would love to see it. I wouldn't be particularly shocked either way to find that drug use has increased faster in places that decriminalized or not, but it's an important starting point for discussions. Assuming everyone is being honest in their data-gathering as well as consistent in methods.
      - graeme 3y ago
        Sure. For one, prohibition keeps the equilibrium price higher, which reduces equilibrium consumption. This RAND report from 2000 estimated a free market cocaine price would be 3% of the price under prohibition. https://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP909.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP909.html 2nd, if you prefer a more direct account, this doctor describes the effects of BC's safe supply program. Basically they bought opiods and gave them out for free to addicts. These were often resold, crashing the market price, increasing consumption of these as a gateway drug. This is to illustate the expected effects of a lower price: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-must-end-the-unwitnessed-safe-supply-of-opioids/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-must-end-... This widely cited study on prohibition of alcohol in the USA found a long run 30% cut while prohibition was in force, with a sharper initial cut: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3675/w3675.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3675/w3675... Overall legal production is generally cheaper, and a cheaper price produces higher equilibrium use. You could of course tax legal drugs, but you'd need a war on illegal supply to enforce that.
felizuno 3y ago
Surprisingly yes, they were caught with much credit and appreciation to the detectives of SPD. In fact the police were very helpful in accessing support and counseling, and I should be completely honest that I would have described myself as loosely "anti police" until I had this experience. The issue was simply that these men were psychotic after using meth in an uninterrupted fashion, and emboldened by the fact that the police were not allowed to interrupt their daily drug use or property crimes. I'm very confident that if possession/use of meth had been treated criminally these men would not have been in our neighborhood and able to target me. During pretrial I was made aware that they had been contacted multiple times in the days before my assault but police were not allowed to arrest them despite the fact that they were using/in possession of methamphetamine.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - joemazerino 3y ago
    Incredible victim blaming here
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Where? Can you please quote the victim blaming? All I see is a claim that harsher drug laws would not have helped this victim. Also rudeness, but being rude is not victim blaming. Edit: Pretty please someone explain? Am I missing some obvious implication? From here it looks like people hate the grandparent comment so much that even incorrect criticism will get treated as true. Which is really bad for a discussion website. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I'm failing to find another way to read things.
  - sickofparadox 3y ago
    This rhetoric has only increased the suffering in the world and filled cities with an underclass of vagrants too drugged out to tell you the day of the week. People shouldn't go to jail for weed, fine, fair enough. But all you see in cities that have decriminalized harder drugs are frozen in time drug zombies. It's a terrible policy every time it's implemented in the States, but people are more concerned with the feel-good vibes of the policy.
1shooner 3y ago
Likewise, the problem isn't the drunk driver, it's that the drunk driver killed your family. Do you think an addict considers the closure rates on assault cases before harming a stranger?
- arp242 3y ago
  > Do you think an addict considers the closure rates on assault cases before harming a stranger? Actually, yes. These people are not instinct-driven animals completely incapable of thought. Similarly, if you know that drunk driving is very likely to get you caught then you will do that less than if you know there's 0% of getting caught.
  - shermantanktop 3y ago
    You can tell a lot about how someone thinks by listening for denial of agency. The CEO had to do it; that drug addict had no choice; he had to defend his honor; she couldn’t lie. Sometimes people have only one choice, but they almost always have agency.
    - 1shooner 3y ago
      Your experience of addiction must be significantly different than mine.
      - shermantanktop 3y ago
        I was referring to the language people use to convert other humans into objects or automatons. But if you deny the addict any agency, you deny the possibility of eventual recovery. One could also point to the Sacklers as the ones with agency in that scenario. But somebody made choices; it didn’t just happen and there’s nothing that anyone could have done.
- pj_mukh 3y ago
  Well no, the problem is transit-poor environments that force every old trip to be a car trip [1]. What you're asking for is recompense, what I'm asking for is a system wide permanent fix. EDIT: Rephrased retribution->recompense, that is to say recompense is good, but is not optimized for avoidance in the future (i.e. a system-wide fix) [1]: https://urbanist.co/public-transportation-reduces-drunk-driving-deaths/ https://urbanist.co/public-transportation-reduces-drunk-driv...

losteric 3y ago

Getting assaulted sounds like the main problem. Police are a reactive force, they're useless to prevent or break up an assault unless it's a very ineffective (slow) attack

toofy 3y ago
> Police are a reactive force, they're useless to prevent or break up an assault unless it's a very ineffective (slow) attack This seems like you’re implying that stricter enforcement and tougher punishments are useless? I tend to agree, we saw bright and clear as day with the “war on drugs” that being more vicious to addicts didn’t work and the problem only grew. Im certainly no expert though, and what often seems to be missing from these conversations is actual experts who research and actively work amongst these addicted and homeless people. It’s wild how often we have conversations about incredibly complicated and wildly nuanced subjects with very little back and forth from those with far more expertise than ourselves. Then we scratch our heads and tilt our heads in confusion.
- argiopetech 3y ago
  Addiction may have been the root cause of GP's assault, but there are any number of reasons you may be attacked in broad daylight. Despite the risk of prosecution to the perpetrator, many thousands are assaulted every year. Not even the threat of the noose kept the Old West safe. In the face of imminent threat, only personal preparedness is of value.
- graeme 3y ago
  >I tend to agree, we saw bright and clear as day with the “war on drugs” that being more vicious to addicts didn’t work and the problem only grew. Drug use has grown much faster under the current regime of tolerance of drug use. There were lots of problems with the war on drugs, but the idea that it didn't reduce drug use isn't based on evidence. As an analogy, skin cancer had been rising despite sunscreen.
  - InSteady 3y ago
    Do you have any actual evidence of this? I would love to see it. I wouldn't be particularly shocked either way to find that drug use has increased faster in places that decriminalized or not, but it's an important starting point for discussions. Assuming everyone is being honest in their data-gathering as well as consistent in methods.
    - graeme 3y ago
      Sure. For one, prohibition keeps the equilibrium price higher, which reduces equilibrium consumption. This RAND report from 2000 estimated a free market cocaine price would be 3% of the price under prohibition. https://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP909.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP909.html 2nd, if you prefer a more direct account, this doctor describes the effects of BC's safe supply program. Basically they bought opiods and gave them out for free to addicts. These were often resold, crashing the market price, increasing consumption of these as a gateway drug. This is to illustate the expected effects of a lower price: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-must-end-the-unwitnessed-safe-supply-of-opioids/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-must-end-... This widely cited study on prohibition of alcohol in the USA found a long run 30% cut while prohibition was in force, with a sharper initial cut: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3675/w3675.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w3675/w3675... Overall legal production is generally cheaper, and a cheaper price produces higher equilibrium use. You could of course tax legal drugs, but you'd need a war on illegal supply to enforce that.

felizuno 3y ago

Surprisingly yes, they were caught with much credit and appreciation to the detectives of SPD. In fact the police were very helpful in accessing support and counseling, and I should be completely honest that I would have described myself as loosely "anti police" until I had this experience. The issue was simply that these men were psychotic after using meth in an uninterrupted fashion, and emboldened by the fact that the police were not allowed to interrupt their daily drug use or property crimes. I'm very confident that if possession/use of meth had been treated criminally these men would not have been in our neighborhood and able to target me. During pretrial I was made aware that they had been contacted multiple times in the days before my assault but police were not allowed to arrest them despite the fact that they were using/in possession of methamphetamine.

KennyBlanken 3y ago
[flagged]
- joemazerino 3y ago
  Incredible victim blaming here
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Where? Can you please quote the victim blaming? All I see is a claim that harsher drug laws would not have helped this victim. Also rudeness, but being rude is not victim blaming. Edit: Pretty please someone explain? Am I missing some obvious implication? From here it looks like people hate the grandparent comment so much that even incorrect criticism will get treated as true. Which is really bad for a discussion website. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I'm failing to find another way to read things.
- sickofparadox 3y ago
  This rhetoric has only increased the suffering in the world and filled cities with an underclass of vagrants too drugged out to tell you the day of the week. People shouldn't go to jail for weed, fine, fair enough. But all you see in cities that have decriminalized harder drugs are frozen in time drug zombies. It's a terrible policy every time it's implemented in the States, but people are more concerned with the feel-good vibes of the policy.

1shooner 3y ago

Likewise, the problem isn't the drunk driver, it's that the drunk driver killed your family. Do you think an addict considers the closure rates on assault cases before harming a stranger?

arp242 3y ago
> Do you think an addict considers the closure rates on assault cases before harming a stranger? Actually, yes. These people are not instinct-driven animals completely incapable of thought. Similarly, if you know that drunk driving is very likely to get you caught then you will do that less than if you know there's 0% of getting caught.
- shermantanktop 3y ago
  You can tell a lot about how someone thinks by listening for denial of agency. The CEO had to do it; that drug addict had no choice; he had to defend his honor; she couldn’t lie. Sometimes people have only one choice, but they almost always have agency.
  - 1shooner 3y ago
    Your experience of addiction must be significantly different than mine.
    - shermantanktop 3y ago
      I was referring to the language people use to convert other humans into objects or automatons. But if you deny the addict any agency, you deny the possibility of eventual recovery. One could also point to the Sacklers as the ones with agency in that scenario. But somebody made choices; it didn’t just happen and there’s nothing that anyone could have done.
pj_mukh 3y ago
Well no, the problem is transit-poor environments that force every old trip to be a car trip [1]. What you're asking for is recompense, what I'm asking for is a system wide permanent fix. EDIT: Rephrased retribution->recompense, that is to say recompense is good, but is not optimized for avoidance in the future (i.e. a system-wide fix) [1]: https://urbanist.co/public-transportation-reduces-drunk-driving-deaths/ https://urbanist.co/public-transportation-reduces-drunk-driv...