4 ms·

The legalization lobby is going to have to really get their shit together if we're going to arrive at a sensible and humane drug policy in this country. I'm gen

The legalization lobby is going to have to really get their shit together if we're going to arrive at a sensible and humane drug policy in this country. I'm generally in favor of legalization, but the latest approaches we've seen in the states where full decriminalization has happened have had some seriously awful effects - videos of open air drug markets in Philly and San Francisco showcase a level of human misery that almost makes prison look humane. To me, it seems obvious that there's a middle ground between the stupidity of the "drug war" and the suffering factories we're allowing to grow in some of our cities. There's got to be a way to thread the needle and not have legalization imply mass lawlessness in certain parts of our cities. But none of the places that have tried legalization on a big scale have successfully threaded that needle as far as I can tell, and I think the effect of that is going to entail a lot more skepticism from the general population when further legalization initiatives come to a vote.

catlifeonmars 3y ago
Honest question: has opioid drug use significantly proliferated because of open air drug markets in SF and Philly, or is it just surfacing a market that already existed? And what about the health outcomes of drug users? Have they improved or gotten worse?
- CPLX 3y ago
  Not sure this argument is as powerful as you think it is. Is the frequent shitting in the streets actually the result of more human shit being created, or is it just surfacing a quantity of feces that already existed but was being routed into bathrooms or other private areas?
  - catlifeonmars 3y ago
    Not making any particular argument. However, I don’t find this particularly convincing: > Is the frequent shitting in the streets actually the result of more human shit being created, or is it just surfacing a quantity of feces that already existed but was being routed into bathrooms or other private areas? In this hypothetical shituation (I’m very sorry - I couldn’t resist), it would be very useful to answer that research question as it would serve to reveal more about both the problem and the solution.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      Yeah I don’t think so. The point of the comment is to point out that putting human misery into people’s faces isn’t a value-neutral decision. I don’t want to see trauma surgery or graphic sex on the way to the park with my kids either, though I am of course fine with both existing in the world.
      - kerkeslager 3y ago
        > The point of the comment is to point out that putting human misery into people’s faces isn’t a value-neutral decision. That would be an arguable point, but you certainly didn't make that with your shit analogy. If you'd care to provide any evidence for that point whatsoever, I'd be happy to address that evidence, but you haven't provided any evidence for that point to even argue against. The shit analogy isn't evidence because the problems of putting shit in the streets aren't cause by its visibility, they're caused (mostly) by bacteria. > I don’t want to see trauma surgery or graphic sex on the way to the park with my kids either, though I am of course fine with both existing in the world. Again with the argument from analogy being fallacious. You likely won't see open air drug markets on the way to the park with your kids unless you already lived in a neighborhood where your children were already going to be exposed to drug use. These open air drug markets aren't opening in the Hamptons, they're opening in areas where the drug crisis was already pervasive.
        CPLX 3y ago
        Is that an argument? Because the open air drug markets exist in places that had drug use in them they are OK? How does B follow from A? The point is that open air drug markets full of human misery, and usually unsanitary and violent conditions, are bad, and we should not tolerate them as part of our society. It’s a sort of obvious mainstream view that everyone most likely shares outside of this sort of bizzare too-online culture that has developed. My comment is just pointing out that having them in places where people are trying to live normal lives and raise children is bad. The fact that this kind of thing will exist anyways isn’t a counter-argument any more than the argument that porn will always exist and is legal means it has to be allowed on billboards.
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    I've come to believe arguments from analogy are pretty much inherently fallacious. The pretty obvious difference is that routing shit into a bathroom makes a real, negative difference in the suffering caused by shit. Routing drug dealing into open air drug markets makes a real, positive difference, because you can police public markets to prevent violence in a way you can't police private areas, and you can provide services such as clean needles and rehab outreaches where they are most likely to reach people who need them. Such markets tend to arise in places where drug use was already rampant--i.e. they aren't creating new suffering. The only similarity your analogy is addressing is the visibility of the problems. In your analogy, you're making the problem more visible by removing the solution, which obviously has negative effects that don't apply to drug legalization, because drug legalization is removing a big part of the problem rather than removing the solution.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      > I've come to believe arguments from analogy are pretty much inherently fallacious. Good luck with that. Pretty much all arguments are by analogy. That's how you determine if a generalized rule applies to a specific instance.
      - kerkeslager 3y ago
        > Good luck with that. Pretty much all arguments are by analogy. I've made at least half a dozen arguments in this thread and not a single argument I've made in this argument is by analogy. In fact, the very argument you are making currently isn't by analogy. > That's how you determine if a generalized rule applies to a specific instance. That is an extraordinarily poor heuristic. If you have enough information to make a rule for a specific instance, why not just make a rule to apply to that specific situation? Why even bother trying to apply a generalized rule? I mean, you can say literally anything with analogies. Here, I'll offer my first argument by analogy: Drug prohibition is like letting churches handle child abuse: it allows harm to children to continue by hiding the harm. Why do you want to keep harming children? /s
        3y ago
- dmix 3y ago
  That’s a good question, I think most people just want street enforcement on open selling/use, not jailing over small possession. It seems our only options are either extremes bans vs mass open drugs areas, because cities/courts treat anyone poor enough to be selling/using on the street as a specially protected class…even when such behaviour predictably explodes in scale at the detriment of local communities.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Those aren't our only options. There are hundreds of large cities in developed countries and very few of them have anything like the open air drug encampments you see in the core downtown areas of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. It's a bizarre regional affliction that somehow comes with willful blindness to how odd and atypical it actually is.
    - dmix 3y ago
      Have you considered that those are the cities (or in Portland's case after passing a law, state) not enforcing it? This isn't some random phenomenon. Warm weather is only a part of it. DC, Philly, and NYC are all seeing large amounts of it and the only major change is basic street enforcement and judicial consequences. All 4 of your examples are notorious for not enforcing it at the local level and Seattle decided to blame simple drug possession again after it got out of control, but without heart by the city we'll see the same outcomes. It's more than what's written in the laws.
kerkeslager 3y ago
> [V]ideos of open air drug markets in Philly and San Francisco showcase a level of human misery that almost makes prison look humane. Sorry, what argument are you making exactly? There's zero evidence I know of that any of the suffering visible in open-air drug markets wasn't already happening pre-decriminalization. The suffering likely existed before, i.e., decriminalization isn't causing the suffering, it's just allowing it to become more visible. The root causes of the suffering you're seeing are almost entirely economic.
- epiccoleman 3y ago
  Yeah, sorry - I'm a bit all over the place, so let me be clear. I'm not arguing that decriminalization has caused the problem per se. My main point is that the proliferation of video of these open air drug markets is a PR disaster for efforts towards legalization because the perception is that this is what you get when you decriminalize. Part of my point also is that lack of enforcement of other laws worsens the issue - both for the users who hang out on these places and also for the perception of the voters who people in favor of saner drug policy are trying to sway.
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    Yeah, that's a really hard problem to solve, though. Some problems don't have pretty or hideable solutions, and that doesn't mean we should just not solve them. Homelessness is probably even more difficult in this regard: homeless men are dirty, smelly, and scary, and that turns a lot of people off from wanting to help them, which is why almost every program for the homeless I know of is geared toward making them less visible, even if doing so actively harms the homeless.
- exoverito 3y ago
  Overdose deaths have been increasing significantly, particularly due to fentanyl. There were 20k deaths in 2000, and more than 100k in 2021. The root causes for homelessness and drug abuse are in large part due to trauma and bad childhood. Soft White Underbelly has interviewed thousands of people from Skid Row, and invariably they suffered major abuses and instability as kids. I guess you could go full historical materialist and say that was caused by economics too, though historically most people were far more impoverished as subsistence farmers, yet still managed to maintain dignity and stability through culture and community. It should also be noted that other countries with fewer homeless also have higher rates of involuntary hospitalization, e.g. Japan. De-institutionalization of the mentally ill has directly led to the rise in homelessness. Portugal is routinely cited as a success story of decriminalization, yet they force treatment upon addicts as an alternative to jail. Progressives use all carrot and no stick, which is not going to work with people who have become mentally ill addicts.
wumeow 3y ago
See also states like Maine where legalization has led to a huge increase in illegal farms run by gangs and cartels.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  Could you link to information on this? I am searching but maybe missing the right keywords.
  - wumeow 3y ago
    https://www.themainewire.com/2023/11/triad-weed-illegal-chinese-marijuana-grows-are-all-over-maine/ https://www.themainewire.com/2023/11/triad-weed-illegal-chin... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/12/oregon-marijuana-illegal-farms-environment https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/12/oregon-marij...
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      Okay, I'm seeing these illegal farms exist, but where exactly is the evidence for a causal link between marijuana legalization and these illegal farms? I'm actually seeing some evidence that there's no connection between legalization and the illegal farms at all. For example, the first article says that most of the weed grown on illegal farms in Maine isn't being sold in Maine, it's being sold in Canada. I'm just not seeing how legalization in Maine would result in more marijuana being grown illegally and sold in Canada. The second article says, "A big part of the problem is rooted in the legalization of industrial hemp, which looks and smells like marijuana but won’t get you high." I.e. the article you posted directly disagrees with your assertion that legalization of marijuana is the cause.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - wumeow 3y ago
        > The second article says, "A big part of the problem is rooted in the legalization of industrial hemp, which looks and smells like marijuana but won’t get you high." The next sentence says farm-scale hemp production was legalized in 2010. When the price of hemp collapsed in 2018, which was after weed had been legalized, hemp farms started being used as cover for illegal weed farms, because legalization had created such a huge market for weed. > For example, the first article says that most of the weed grown on illegal farms in Maine isn't being sold in Maine, it's being sold in Canada. I'm just not seeing how legalization in Maine would result in more marijuana being grown illegally and sold in Canada. That was the opinion of a single anonymous weed grower. These farms didn't exist prior to Maine legalizing sale of recreational weed in 2020, and the more lax laws about possessing weed mean it's harder to get a warrant to search these residential grow houses.

catlifeonmars 3y ago

Honest question: has opioid drug use significantly proliferated because of open air drug markets in SF and Philly, or is it just surfacing a market that already existed? And what about the health outcomes of drug users? Have they improved or gotten worse?

CPLX 3y ago
Not sure this argument is as powerful as you think it is. Is the frequent shitting in the streets actually the result of more human shit being created, or is it just surfacing a quantity of feces that already existed but was being routed into bathrooms or other private areas?
- catlifeonmars 3y ago
  Not making any particular argument. However, I don’t find this particularly convincing: > Is the frequent shitting in the streets actually the result of more human shit being created, or is it just surfacing a quantity of feces that already existed but was being routed into bathrooms or other private areas? In this hypothetical shituation (I’m very sorry - I couldn’t resist), it would be very useful to answer that research question as it would serve to reveal more about both the problem and the solution.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Yeah I don’t think so. The point of the comment is to point out that putting human misery into people’s faces isn’t a value-neutral decision. I don’t want to see trauma surgery or graphic sex on the way to the park with my kids either, though I am of course fine with both existing in the world.
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      > The point of the comment is to point out that putting human misery into people’s faces isn’t a value-neutral decision. That would be an arguable point, but you certainly didn't make that with your shit analogy. If you'd care to provide any evidence for that point whatsoever, I'd be happy to address that evidence, but you haven't provided any evidence for that point to even argue against. The shit analogy isn't evidence because the problems of putting shit in the streets aren't cause by its visibility, they're caused (mostly) by bacteria. > I don’t want to see trauma surgery or graphic sex on the way to the park with my kids either, though I am of course fine with both existing in the world. Again with the argument from analogy being fallacious. You likely won't see open air drug markets on the way to the park with your kids unless you already lived in a neighborhood where your children were already going to be exposed to drug use. These open air drug markets aren't opening in the Hamptons, they're opening in areas where the drug crisis was already pervasive.
      - CPLX 3y ago
        Is that an argument? Because the open air drug markets exist in places that had drug use in them they are OK? How does B follow from A? The point is that open air drug markets full of human misery, and usually unsanitary and violent conditions, are bad, and we should not tolerate them as part of our society. It’s a sort of obvious mainstream view that everyone most likely shares outside of this sort of bizzare too-online culture that has developed. My comment is just pointing out that having them in places where people are trying to live normal lives and raise children is bad. The fact that this kind of thing will exist anyways isn’t a counter-argument any more than the argument that porn will always exist and is legal means it has to be allowed on billboards.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  I've come to believe arguments from analogy are pretty much inherently fallacious. The pretty obvious difference is that routing shit into a bathroom makes a real, negative difference in the suffering caused by shit. Routing drug dealing into open air drug markets makes a real, positive difference, because you can police public markets to prevent violence in a way you can't police private areas, and you can provide services such as clean needles and rehab outreaches where they are most likely to reach people who need them. Such markets tend to arise in places where drug use was already rampant--i.e. they aren't creating new suffering. The only similarity your analogy is addressing is the visibility of the problems. In your analogy, you're making the problem more visible by removing the solution, which obviously has negative effects that don't apply to drug legalization, because drug legalization is removing a big part of the problem rather than removing the solution.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    > I've come to believe arguments from analogy are pretty much inherently fallacious. Good luck with that. Pretty much all arguments are by analogy. That's how you determine if a generalized rule applies to a specific instance.
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      > Good luck with that. Pretty much all arguments are by analogy. I've made at least half a dozen arguments in this thread and not a single argument I've made in this argument is by analogy. In fact, the very argument you are making currently isn't by analogy. > That's how you determine if a generalized rule applies to a specific instance. That is an extraordinarily poor heuristic. If you have enough information to make a rule for a specific instance, why not just make a rule to apply to that specific situation? Why even bother trying to apply a generalized rule? I mean, you can say literally anything with analogies. Here, I'll offer my first argument by analogy: Drug prohibition is like letting churches handle child abuse: it allows harm to children to continue by hiding the harm. Why do you want to keep harming children? /s
      - 3y ago
dmix 3y ago
That’s a good question, I think most people just want street enforcement on open selling/use, not jailing over small possession. It seems our only options are either extremes bans vs mass open drugs areas, because cities/courts treat anyone poor enough to be selling/using on the street as a specially protected class…even when such behaviour predictably explodes in scale at the detriment of local communities.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Those aren't our only options. There are hundreds of large cities in developed countries and very few of them have anything like the open air drug encampments you see in the core downtown areas of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. It's a bizarre regional affliction that somehow comes with willful blindness to how odd and atypical it actually is.
  - dmix 3y ago
    Have you considered that those are the cities (or in Portland's case after passing a law, state) not enforcing it? This isn't some random phenomenon. Warm weather is only a part of it. DC, Philly, and NYC are all seeing large amounts of it and the only major change is basic street enforcement and judicial consequences. All 4 of your examples are notorious for not enforcing it at the local level and Seattle decided to blame simple drug possession again after it got out of control, but without heart by the city we'll see the same outcomes. It's more than what's written in the laws.

kerkeslager 3y ago

> [V]ideos of open air drug markets in Philly and San Francisco showcase a level of human misery that almost makes prison look humane. Sorry, what argument are you making exactly? There's zero evidence I know of that any of the suffering visible in open-air drug markets wasn't already happening pre-decriminalization. The suffering likely existed before, i.e., decriminalization isn't causing the suffering, it's just allowing it to become more visible. The root causes of the suffering you're seeing are almost entirely economic.

epiccoleman 3y ago
Yeah, sorry - I'm a bit all over the place, so let me be clear. I'm not arguing that decriminalization has caused the problem per se. My main point is that the proliferation of video of these open air drug markets is a PR disaster for efforts towards legalization because the perception is that this is what you get when you decriminalize. Part of my point also is that lack of enforcement of other laws worsens the issue - both for the users who hang out on these places and also for the perception of the voters who people in favor of saner drug policy are trying to sway.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  Yeah, that's a really hard problem to solve, though. Some problems don't have pretty or hideable solutions, and that doesn't mean we should just not solve them. Homelessness is probably even more difficult in this regard: homeless men are dirty, smelly, and scary, and that turns a lot of people off from wanting to help them, which is why almost every program for the homeless I know of is geared toward making them less visible, even if doing so actively harms the homeless.
exoverito 3y ago
Overdose deaths have been increasing significantly, particularly due to fentanyl. There were 20k deaths in 2000, and more than 100k in 2021. The root causes for homelessness and drug abuse are in large part due to trauma and bad childhood. Soft White Underbelly has interviewed thousands of people from Skid Row, and invariably they suffered major abuses and instability as kids. I guess you could go full historical materialist and say that was caused by economics too, though historically most people were far more impoverished as subsistence farmers, yet still managed to maintain dignity and stability through culture and community. It should also be noted that other countries with fewer homeless also have higher rates of involuntary hospitalization, e.g. Japan. De-institutionalization of the mentally ill has directly led to the rise in homelessness. Portugal is routinely cited as a success story of decriminalization, yet they force treatment upon addicts as an alternative to jail. Progressives use all carrot and no stick, which is not going to work with people who have become mentally ill addicts.

wumeow 3y ago

See also states like Maine where legalization has led to a huge increase in illegal farms run by gangs and cartels.

kerkeslager 3y ago
Could you link to information on this? I am searching but maybe missing the right keywords.
- wumeow 3y ago
  https://www.themainewire.com/2023/11/triad-weed-illegal-chinese-marijuana-grows-are-all-over-maine/ https://www.themainewire.com/2023/11/triad-weed-illegal-chin... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/12/oregon-marijuana-illegal-farms-environment https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/12/oregon-marij...
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    Okay, I'm seeing these illegal farms exist, but where exactly is the evidence for a causal link between marijuana legalization and these illegal farms? I'm actually seeing some evidence that there's no connection between legalization and the illegal farms at all. For example, the first article says that most of the weed grown on illegal farms in Maine isn't being sold in Maine, it's being sold in Canada. I'm just not seeing how legalization in Maine would result in more marijuana being grown illegally and sold in Canada. The second article says, "A big part of the problem is rooted in the legalization of industrial hemp, which looks and smells like marijuana but won’t get you high." I.e. the article you posted directly disagrees with your assertion that legalization of marijuana is the cause.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - wumeow 3y ago
      > The second article says, "A big part of the problem is rooted in the legalization of industrial hemp, which looks and smells like marijuana but won’t get you high." The next sentence says farm-scale hemp production was legalized in 2010. When the price of hemp collapsed in 2018, which was after weed had been legalized, hemp farms started being used as cover for illegal weed farms, because legalization had created such a huge market for weed. > For example, the first article says that most of the weed grown on illegal farms in Maine isn't being sold in Maine, it's being sold in Canada. I'm just not seeing how legalization in Maine would result in more marijuana being grown illegally and sold in Canada. That was the opinion of a single anonymous weed grower. These farms didn't exist prior to Maine legalizing sale of recreational weed in 2020, and the more lax laws about possessing weed mean it's harder to get a warrant to search these residential grow houses.