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I'm not really aware of the measures that were taken but the situation you originally described seemed wonderful. What were the problems solved by the legalizat
by noufalibrahim 2y ago
I'm not really aware of the measures that were taken but the situation you originally described seemed wonderful. What were the problems solved by the legalization?
- afavour 2y agoAs I understand it the intention behind decriminalization was to accept the reality of the situation that addicts aren’t likely to be dissuaded from taking drugs simply because it’s illegal. Rather than push them to the fringes of society (where they’ll likely spiral into deeper and deeper depths) you should try to keep them closer than help them out of the addiction. Obviously this didn’t work. I have sympathy with the viewpoint though. Far too often when we’re faced with difficult situations like this our instinct is to throw someone in jail. It doesn’t help them and it doesn’t really help us in the long term, it just lets us put it out of sight and out of mind in the short term. (as someone who spent some time in Vancouver long before decriminalization… there were areas incredibly rough with homeless and drug use back then too. It didn’t magically arrive when decriminalization was passed, I doubt it’ll disappear with recriminalization)
- porknubbins 2y agoIt was easy to think, because of movies or pop culture, that cops are a bunch of mean uptight jerks throwing harmless kids in jail for “smoking the reefer”. But that view was a little naive. It now seems that everyone from citizens who call the cops to judges and parole boards are not just arbitrarily cruel but have a pretty fine tuned sense of “this person is harmless” or “this person is an antisocial menace and needs to be off the street”. At least this has become my view after working with prisons. We were doing an ok job and have changed in the name of progress.
- pigpang 2y agoI.e. don't throw bad apples into bin, because they will rot deeper, but keep them closer to healthy apples with hope that healthy apples will heal bad ones. Nice idea, I like it too.
- dbfifodabdjdb 2y agoI really struggle with this fact. Some % of people are going to murder, steal, etc no matter what you do. They are going to live in a manner the majority of us do not want to permit. Anything I can think of ends up either too authoritarian (no path to redemption) or too chaotic (see the article above).
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoI eat a lot of apples: if you keep a moldy apple near a healthy apple, you get two moldy apples. I'm not sure what your message was going to imply, I tried to read between the lines, but I'm afraid mother nature twisted your message, lol
- deanCommie 2y ago> Obviously this didn’t work. There are two things here to challenge. 1/ is it absolutely maybe has. Just because something was out of sight and out of mind before doesn't mean the problem was less prevalent. It all depends on the definition of the problem. Is the problem: "There are people in poverty, in drug addiction, and they're dying?" Or is the problem "Sensible moderate tax payers have to interact with icky drug addicts in their day to day life" The truth is because of Fentanyl both problems actually got worse. But in theory treating addiction as not a crime probably DOES save lives relative to the alternative. But make no mistake, we're not now challenging the status quo because of problem 1 and the fentanyl epidemic. There's a backlash becaue of problem 2. Truth is, people don't want to see visible poverty or addiction. They associate with crime and feel unsafe (even if it's illogical). People agree that you shouldn't have to go to jail for doing heroin, but when faced with the choice of passed out heroin users in their alley regularly, or have them in jail, most are happy to find the excuse to get them out of their sight and into jail. So 2/, the real reason decriminalization didn't work is because decriminalization isn't enough. Decriminalization is "cheap" to implement. But it's nothing without more social programs to help people get out of poverty, subsidized housing to get them off the streets, and mental health support for those that need it (a huge % of homeless addicts). But nobody - even in progressive places like Vancouver - wants to fund those enough. So, we try decriminalization, watch it fail, and then roll things back. And so the pendulum will go back and forth.
- nobodyandproud 2y agoI think some addictions are powerful that they are effectively chronic diseases. The problem is that managing this disease may require government or some other entity to be a drug dealer for highly-addictive substances. I can’t speak for others, but that’s a step too far for me.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago> "Sensible moderate tax payers have to interact with icky drug addicts in their day to day life" You phrased this in a way to make it sound absurd, but the fact is that this is absolutely part of the problem. "Sensible moderate tax payers" are participating into society because it makes them feel safer, and it abstracts away a lot of the details of building important infrastructure like roads and hospitals. Those Sensible Moderate Tax payers are generally ok with paying taxes that they know will go to things that don't benefit them directly, partly because they believe it will make their overall society better. They pay for schools even though they don't have kids, or their kids already are finished their education. They pay for roads, even ones they don't drive on. And yes, they even pay for housing for homeless and help for addicts, even though most of them have never been homeless or an addict, and never will be But those Sensible Moderate Taxpayers aren't stupid. They can see when a policy is not actually improving the world around them. Sure they don't have the research or stats to back it up, but they are often the ones who actually have to bear the negative externalities of bad policy. They're the ones who have roads riddled with potholes, or kids in schools with overcrowded classrooms and overworked teachers. And they're the ones stepping over unconscious heroin addicts on their way to work, or sitting quietly on a bus while someone on fentanyl rages at people while everyone tries not to make eye contact These interactions make people's lives worse. Yeah, the person on Fentanyl raging on the bus is probably not having a good day, but they are also making everyone else's day worse. They are arguably making society worse. So yeah. The Sensible Moderate Taxpayer has to ask themselves why they are paying taxes to support such people who don't participate in the same society or behave with the same social norms. Especially since it seems to be making their own life worse as a result By the way.. > They associate with crime and feel unsafe (even if it's illogical) It's not illogical. People who are addicts are often not behaving rationally, they are unpredictable and that makes them potentially dangerous. It's not "illogical" to feel unsafe when confronted by someone behaving aggressively and erratically, even if statistically they don't tend to cause harm. And homeless people often have little to lose. Which similarly makes them potentially dangerous. Especially if they are panhandling they are sometimes invading people's space and maybe shouting at people, which always comes across aggressive. Again, it's not illogical to feel threatened and unsafe when people are actually behaving aggressively towards you Anyways, all this to say, ignore the opinions of the Sensible Moderate Taxpayer at your peril. If you have an interest in guiding policy a certain way, you will have to convince them your policy won't make their lives worse
- wk_end 2y agoLet's be clear here: the decriminalization may have made things worse, but the problems were there well before. That particular McDonald's was ruined mostly because a shelter and various other supports opened up down the block, and kind of turned the area into a mini-Skid Row. Victoria has the best year-round weather in the country: it tends to attract people who are living on the street, and there's big intersections there between that group and the mentally unwell, anti-social, and/or drug addicted. As for why the mentally unwell, anti-social, and/or drug addicted have become a bigger problem in recent years, well, take your pick: laxer drug laws and/or enforcement, laxer enforcement of laws in general, safe injection sites, housing crisis, cost-of-living crisis, Fent and/or "super meth", cuts to mental health care programs, lack of God, you name it.