- recreational drug possession became a ticketable offense, similar to traffic violations. You have the choice of fighting the ticket or going to treatment
- funded treatment with $300mm from cannabis taxes
The problem is Oregon took years to decide who to give the treatment money to. Only last year did they actually start funding treatment.
In the meantime, police hadn't been writing tickets, since the treatment options didn't actually exist yet.
Essentially drug use was entirely ignored for a couple years.
So is measure 110 a failure? It's too soon to say. Certainly the rollout has been.
One unintended consequence is that Oregon has no law against public drug use, leaving this issue to cities/counties. If they don't have such a law, public drug use is essentially legal, since police used to rely on possession to stop it.
One thing that has gone right is the reduction of the burden on the court system. The state saved about $40mm over the first 3 years.
Every time I read about how "decriminalization of X was a failure" it's because the governmental bodies responsible didn't properly set up the support structures and procedures that were meant to mitigate the problems that arise (or more accurately, already exist but are ignored). If I weren't so ready to lean on incompetence as the most likely reason, I would think it's sabotage.
Also just for some context, a perennial problem in Oregon is that many of the people in government agencies are opposed to the majority view of Oregonians.
One simple example of this is cannabis legalization. After the ballot measure passed, the Oregon Liquor Commission dragged its heels on implementation deliberately. The agency is primarily staffed by people who live in Salem or the surrounding area, and are considerably more conservative than the average Oregonian, due to how our population is concentrated in Portland. In the end the legislature had to force the OLC to implement things, and they basically chose the "Do what CO did" route which ironically enough was even more liberal than what was decided on before OLC started obstruction.
Another example is the Oregon DOT. All they focus on is freeway and highway expansion. They are actively hostile to multimode transportation and mass transit. Near where I live there's been a years long battle over widening I5. They want to encroach on an elementary school where particulate levels are already high enough often the kids aren't allowed outside at recess. DOT's plan would bring the highway practically right up to the side of the building. And the worst thing is adding 2 more lanes will not accomplish anything long term. The most simple thing we could do to help traffic on that section of I5 is ban trucks heading further north from using I5 through the city, and force them onto I205 to go around instead. It even takes roughly the same amount of time, but all the long haul truckers just robotically go right through the core of downtown.
And finally, saying the police aren't writing tickets because treatment wasn't available is being too charitable to them. They're opposed to these policies and are deliberately trying to sabotage them. If they hand out tickets and no treatment option is available a judge can simply wave the fine.
So please, when you hear stories about Oregon and Portland, please understand we're in a decades long siege against our own police and bureaucrats, who are far more conservative than the average voter here. Thanks to the alt right weirdos, Portland and Oregon are now a favorite punching bag in media, who never want to provide this context to what's happening.
This general story outline is very common: some initiative that has a good idea at core has poor execution; it “fails” in its popular perception; the initiative’s ideological opponents claim that the failure is a result of the original idea being bad.
Just a cautionary tale about how execution can be equally as important as being right about the main idea.
There are many examples I could cite for this pattern, but one simple one: the street that runs past my apartment was adapted to provide separate bike lanes. Great! But it was done in a non-sensical way, resulting in a one-way road that dead-ends into another one-way road, requiring cyclists to cross from one side of the street to the other in the middle of the intersection, and motorists who continually violate the posted signs and turn through the flexible barriers. Now everybody hates the new road, cyclists and drivers alike.
The article says a police officer stopped arresting people and started handing out tickets to a drug rehab helpline once the measure went into effect. He stopped a few months later because it felt like a waste of time, as so few were following through.
It doesn't seem to me that there are any who actually sought help but were held back by lack of available funding.
The sense I get from the article is that very few addicts are in a state of mind to voluntarily seek help.
fully agree on the failure of the rollout. There's also going to be issues with rolling anything out involving medical treatment into our gutted public health system and fragmented private system, so it has to be done through a lengthy (and apparently trivially abused) system of private organizations applying for the money, but the new treatment infrastructure should have been at least somewhat in place before changing the laws.
Also agree on the unintended consequence, and that in retrospect a carefully worded law about the degree to how public of drug use would be decriminalized would have had a drastic impact on opinion.
In contrast to the blame being assigned to Measure 110 (much before it was even implemented), and even with the problems rolling out treatment, by the numbers the impacts of decriminalization have been better than expected. 911 calls have not gone up, in terms of deviation from previous (and national) trends OD fatalities have not gone up, big administrative savings you pointed out, etc. So what did change? Visibility.
The wider impacts of this are very real with hotel bookings, conferences, tourism, etc. down because of this perception, and that is causing harm to businesses and residents here.
It's decently likely because of this that 110 will be rolled back rather than iterated on, and nothing substantial will change, but without the specific political focal point we'll likely hear about less it as its own issue but rather it will get rolled back into the general narrative funneling blame for the problems of urbanization.
IMO the bigger thing the measure 110 whiplash is showing is how completely social media has supplanted news and data in particular in shaping people's view of the world. The visible drug use is 100% a problem, but this time around personal experiences are serving as confirmation of everything they've already been seeing online more than anything. There are enough cameras and enough people to fuel very lucrative social media accounts drip feeding incidents of any particular issue every day (with very questionably accurate attribution) to and from a global stage. I live here and regularly hear about it in unrecognizably hysterical terms from family and people I interact with for work across the country almost daily.
This thing where decisions are made too early, too polar-ly: this rush to judgement & condemnation feels like one of the most damned & sad trends, such a strong sap of societies good energies. There are some more known cases, but not being so sure to rush into negative judgement feels like such a relieving positive sign, is so much what I seek as a trust marker.
What is a failure is legalizing the use of drugs. You're getting into the technicalities.
When you lower law enforcement surrounding addictive drugs to a state where it's basically equivalent to legalizing drugs and you take this action independent of other actions like treatment and other stuff, you get net bad effects to society.
> In the meantime, police hadn't been writing tickets, since the treatment options didn't actually exist yet.
I mean it doesn't really matter, because even if they have treatment options less than 1% of the ones they write tickets to actually do anything about it.
Here's how it goes. The drug user gets a ticket and has to either pay a fine or go to rehab. I think less than 100 people, out of thousands of tickets, decided to actually even call the number to get information on the rehab program. It doesn't matter thaht they don't exist because no one wants them
Decriminalization is a cowardly half-measure that is doomed to fail. It doesn't resolve any of the actual issues that cause harm. Drugs are still impure, contaminated and hard to dose. They still must be purchased via an often-violent black market. It does absolutely nothing to prevent drugs being sold to minors. It doesn't create connections between addicts and services that can help them. It generates no revenue to fund those desperately-needed services.
Legalization with regulation is the one way to manage addictive substances in a free society. The rest of us are waiting around for you all to stop clutching your pearls so we can do what needs to be done. In the meantime, addicts will keep dying and law enforcement will keep ruining lives.
I feel these two go together. One reason that we have such a patchwork of messy ineffective policy is because the policymakers are pulled in different directions by a deeply divided society. Just look at this thread - there’s very little clear consensus about what exactly the right answer is. Everybody has an opinion. People vote. Policy lurches.
> do what needs to be done
In contrast, this kind of tough talk is more fitting of a non-free society where sweeping decisions get made by steamrolling stakeholders. The populace gets tired of pusillanimous party politicians, so they elect a strongman who can do what needs to be done. But will the strongman do the right thing? Strongmen don’t have a great track record.
Marijuana was legalized. But, the government heaped so many punitive taxes, regulations, and licensing restrictions on it that it left the black market a very profitable opportunity.
2 or 3 decades ago Canada decided to heap big taxes on cigarettes. A black market promptly emerged, complete with drive-by shootings. Canada rescinded those taxes and the black market (and its associated crime) evaporated.
> Decriminalization is a cowardly half-measure that is doomed to fail.
How is failure or success determined? Did we know what the goals were for decriminalization? Was improving drug purity a goal? Were legal markets supposed to appear? Was it supposed to reduce access to minors? Was some mechanism for connecting addicts to social services to help them supposed to appear?
What would "help" mean in this context anyway? Does it only mean get sober or could it also involve helping addicts continue to use as safely as possible?
I agree that legalization/regulation should be the end goal but it isn't a prerequisite for creating connections between addicts and health care services. In many of the western european countries there have been "drug consumption rooms" for decades now and the general opinion about them seems to be very positive[1]. They are essentially supervised rooms where addicts can get clean needles and use their drugs in a clean and supervised setting as well as having a change to speak to social workers if they want to.
I don't know if Oregon has any system like that in place right now. If they don't, it would seem like the reasonable first step considering that one of the major complaints seems to be drug use in public.
I'm not exactly on the ACAB bandwagon, but I do feel that governments are willing to do half-measures as a way of reinforcing the perceived need for a stronger police state.
I don't think I want the government to be spending money to ascertain the quality of recreational drugs -- it seems like an endorsement of such drugs. In theory, brands that earn a reputation for high quality could develop.
Does "working" mean it prevents people from using drugs? In that case, throwing millions of people into prison must be a great idea! I call bullshit.
We need to be explicit about our goals! The goal I support is treatment.
Yes, decriminalization is failing to provide treatment. Of course it is! That wasn't its intended purpose in the first place. The purpose was to stop punishing victims with incarceration and felony conviction.
We still need to replace the broken system with a useful one. That means regulated production and distribution of drugs instead of turning a blind eye to the black market. That means programs that heavily encourage treatment, not just "I gave them a ticket to go if they feel like it".
Just imagine if our society put half the effort we put into getting people to drink Coca-Cola into getting people healthcare.
"People sprawled on sidewalks and using fentanyl with no fear of consequence have become a common sight in cities such as Eugene and Portland. Business owners and local leaders are upset, but so are liberal voters who hoped decriminalization would lead to more people getting help. In reality, few drug users are taking advantage of new state-funded rehabilitation programs."
Decriminalizing drug usage is just a small but necessary part to mitigate this problem.
As usual these people didn't learn or "forgot" all the other hard parts.
This particular article doesn't mention it, but I'm getting sick of hearing "Portugal decriminalized drug usage in the 90s and solved the drug problem" - Really? that simple? Even Hollywood westerns were more deep than that.
On of the key aspects to "solve" this problem is also culture, family support, personal responsibility and that's when you hear the tires screeching and nothing will get done or ever work.
> culture, family support, personal responsibility
Abstinence is not an inevitable consequence of a stable life - plenty of kids from comfortable backgrounds discover they really really like drugs. We need to accept that "getting high" is a basic human motivation that won't go away. The existential realities of the human condition is enough to seek escape. Some of us are born with dopamine regulation issues that doom us towards substance use. Despite being sober for a long time I still had bad cravings for alcohol and nicotine but an adult ADHD diagnosis and medication quieted that insatiable hunger for stimulation... by regular administration of stimulants! The hereditary aspects explained a lot about my family.
IMHO the real solution should be to design better drugs. Consider it the "Steam" argument - we need to outcompete the damaging drugs with products along the lines proposed by David Nutt. e.g.
- no overdose risk or organ damage
- cheap and make available for free so no crime required to acquire
- easy reversal of the effects e.g. with a common product like OJ
- no dependence issues
When you discuss investing in this research, you quickly discover that many of those who claim to be solving tragedies of addiction are actually trying to enforce an ideology that considers getting high to be a moral crime. Even if there were no personal or societal harms they still believe drugs should be violently prohibited. Their ideology actively seeks to cause harm. Of course they are hypocrites getting their stimulation from drink, food, sex, religion, abuse/control of others or whatever they manage to carve out as acceptable.
I think presenting voters with "decriminalize drug use" was a deceptive play to start with. Most voters picture themselves smoking weed on the weekend or doing mushrooms at Coachella, not the people unescapably trapped by drugs.
Habitual drug addicts don't have personal responsibility, family support, or a community of non-drug addicts to depend on. Forced incarceration in a treatment program is literally their only chance at breaking the cycle long enough to get them support for the underlying issues that led to addiction.
I have to agree, if the secret ingredient to making decriminalization work is enlisting timeless conservative values, we’re toast. A more unlikely coalition has never been seen.
Ah, personal responsibility. Declension, in my experience, is usually as follows -
*They* deserve their fate because they are weak, stupid and bad.
*You* have made some bad choices and may work to recover from them.
*I* have merely made a small mistake and deserve a second chance.
Compared to what? Do we think throwing everyone in jail and having the cops spend their time chasing around after drug users is a success?
If people are upset at drug users using drugs in public (which seems to be the thing everyone actually has a problem with) give them somewhere to use their drugs that isn’t in public.
For a lot of these changes, you need a motivated and engaged enforcer/system-owner who will work through these challenges. It takes time and effort to change the culture of a group. I can't imagine someone wanting to change unless they either gain a strong motivation (highly unlikely given that they have been in the current condition for a while themselves) or they are given the right framework/setup by someone else (govt. in this case). So, this is a hard problem and one shouldn't get disheartened due to no progress so far.
We need to not treat all drugs the same. Heroin, Fentanyl, Meth are absolutely destructive forces and possession should force people into rehab or jail (their choice). Weed, acid, maybe coke should just be tickets and you can't do it/carry it around publically, openly sell it, etc.
When I saw the headline, I was struck by two thoughts:
* what constitutes "working", and
* "working" for whom?
The article makes it clear to me that the main problem is that since there are no criminal sanctions, there is less incentive to hide drug-taking activity. The streets are now cluttered with filthy, homeless fentanyl and meth addicts. Many right-thinking citizens are upset by how untidy it all looks.
What a surprise that not making an addict's life harder by locking them up has not magically led to them getting clean. The uptake on support services is not what one would hope.
Some people would like to return to criminalisation, presumably because "out of sight, out of mind". I think people with poverty, addiction and mental health problems should be given more support instead.
Looks to me the law is working, addicts don't end up in jail for being addicts.
Did it solve the drug problem, no. This is not enough and such a problem cannot be solved in 3 years, nor can it be solved state wide because addicts who don't want to be harassed by law enforcement will move to states that let them live.
Looks like people just don't care about the drug problem, and its impact on criminality, economy and general well being of their fellow human being. People just don't care there are addicts, they care about seeing them out in public only.
The reason why drug production and consumption should be legal is not that this will necessarily lead to better social outcomes as measured by conventional standards, it is because prohibitions on drugs are an insult to liberty. It is ridiculous for a supposedly free society to try to stop people from putting substances into their own bodies just like it would be a ridiculous for a free society to try to stop people from, for example, having consensual sex with each other.
Drug prohibition is in principle incompatible with liberty.
If you want a free society, some things must be legal even if the social impact of allowing them to be legal seems to many people to be negative. There are already laws against many of the things that people blame on drugs. I know that it is tempting to many people to criminalize drugs rather than to try to do a more effective job of policing things that people blame on drugs. But this is the same kind of mentality that would, for example, get rid of free speech because sometimes free speech leads people to commit violence. That kind of mentality is a pathway towards the US becoming like China.
Another issue with the drug war is unfair enforcement. Well-off people have absolutely no problem getting illegal drugs. A huge number of successful professionals do illegal drugs on a regular basis and only rarely even come close to potentially getting in legal trouble. Meanwhile poor people and dealers are probably more likely to get busted.
The drug war, by artificially making certain substances sell at prices that are vastly higher than what it costs to manufacture them, also creates a type of black market currency that enables the activities of all sorts of groups that engage in actually harmful behavior like killing people.
Big picture, it’s kind of funny seeing a community assume it has new insights into human nature and burn down the metaphorical Chesterton fence only to learn the hard way.
“I pride myself on being a bit cynical, but obviously I was very naive.”
The preface to your quote, from the article, makes the irony that much more palpable.
“There is constant problems all over town—it doesn’t matter where you live—with people strung out on drugs,” said Loew, who described herself as a communist. “I pride myself on being a bit cynical, but obviously I was very naive.”
The horror of the current approach is the concentrated influx of drug users from other states that magnified the issue in California and Oregon. I am resigned to the fact that everyone waits around for the current wave of users to simply die off. If the decriminalization was distributed evenly among the states, there would be a chance for somewhat orderly transition.
Just for the sake of argument here, supposing someone is addicted to drugs in private, and legalization is at a stage where they can get quality product that they're not going to overdose on easily. Is that actually a problem for society? Like, if you prefer to live a lifestyle where you sleep under a bridge and spend the money you would've used for housing on drugs, maybe that's just a personal choice that's yours to make? The only problem I see here is -- how is it that these drug addicts are funding their habit? I'm thinking through criminal activity in many cases?
Possibly there is a correlation between public policy that promotes "jacking around" and the subsequent "finding out".
Restated: perhaps there was wisdom in prohibitions against drugs heavier than nicotine/alcohol? Maybe there was a line that stabilized society in general?
Will there be a sufficient level of "finding out" this side of the grave that will trigger thought?
> Officer Jose Alvarez stopped arresting people for possession and began giving out tickets with the number for a rehab helpline. Most of the people smoking fentanyl or meth on this city’s streets balled them up and tossed them onto the ground. “Those tickets frankly seemed like a waste of time,” said Alvarez
Maybe the drugs are fulfilling some need, so simply escaping the addiction is counter-productive to their lives. Maybe the rehab to escape the addiction needs to be packaged with other sorts of rehabs that help them obtain healthier alternatives to fulfill those needs that are being met by the drugs.
Quick search online:
> Addiction isn’t as simple a concept as it may seem on the surface. From an outside perspective, addiction can be seen as a simple propensity for substance abuse. However, on mental, physical and emotional levels, there’s a lot more to addiction. From a behavioral perspective, using drugs becomes a way of life. Most friends and social situations revolve around drugs, especially as drugs start to replace former social connections and hobbies. --- https://fherehab.com/learning/mind-motives-addicted-drugs/
So, at least, rehab on building healthy social connections is also needed.
Finding a better solution to the drug problem is unlikely to be as simple as just decriminalizing.
I also wonder if the fact that decriminalization is done in a patch-work manner location-wise is also part of the problem. I wonder if it's easier or harder for homeless people to relocate to places where their activities aren't criminal. They likely have less material things tying them down to a location, but they may also rely more on the face-to-face social ties they already have.
We shouldn't forget that a measurably significant percentage of the population is almost guaranteed to become drug addicts provided any access to drugs. This is due to a variety of mental and neurological defects that result in addiction craving behavior and a near complete absence of inhibition regulation. This is tricky because for these people you cannot fight demand and counseling will not work as the problem is the hardware not the personality. The only partial solution is certain forms of medications and the only absolute solution is to forcefully separate that population from addictive substances and other people eager seeking such substances.
[+] [-] anonym29|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nursie|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dminor|2 years ago|reply
- recreational drug possession became a ticketable offense, similar to traffic violations. You have the choice of fighting the ticket or going to treatment
- funded treatment with $300mm from cannabis taxes
The problem is Oregon took years to decide who to give the treatment money to. Only last year did they actually start funding treatment.
In the meantime, police hadn't been writing tickets, since the treatment options didn't actually exist yet.
Essentially drug use was entirely ignored for a couple years.
So is measure 110 a failure? It's too soon to say. Certainly the rollout has been.
One unintended consequence is that Oregon has no law against public drug use, leaving this issue to cities/counties. If they don't have such a law, public drug use is essentially legal, since police used to rely on possession to stop it.
One thing that has gone right is the reduction of the burden on the court system. The state saved about $40mm over the first 3 years.
[+] [-] scheeseman486|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonwatkinspdx|2 years ago|reply
One simple example of this is cannabis legalization. After the ballot measure passed, the Oregon Liquor Commission dragged its heels on implementation deliberately. The agency is primarily staffed by people who live in Salem or the surrounding area, and are considerably more conservative than the average Oregonian, due to how our population is concentrated in Portland. In the end the legislature had to force the OLC to implement things, and they basically chose the "Do what CO did" route which ironically enough was even more liberal than what was decided on before OLC started obstruction.
Another example is the Oregon DOT. All they focus on is freeway and highway expansion. They are actively hostile to multimode transportation and mass transit. Near where I live there's been a years long battle over widening I5. They want to encroach on an elementary school where particulate levels are already high enough often the kids aren't allowed outside at recess. DOT's plan would bring the highway practically right up to the side of the building. And the worst thing is adding 2 more lanes will not accomplish anything long term. The most simple thing we could do to help traffic on that section of I5 is ban trucks heading further north from using I5 through the city, and force them onto I205 to go around instead. It even takes roughly the same amount of time, but all the long haul truckers just robotically go right through the core of downtown.
And finally, saying the police aren't writing tickets because treatment wasn't available is being too charitable to them. They're opposed to these policies and are deliberately trying to sabotage them. If they hand out tickets and no treatment option is available a judge can simply wave the fine.
So please, when you hear stories about Oregon and Portland, please understand we're in a decades long siege against our own police and bureaucrats, who are far more conservative than the average voter here. Thanks to the alt right weirdos, Portland and Oregon are now a favorite punching bag in media, who never want to provide this context to what's happening.
[+] [-] yowzadave|2 years ago|reply
Just a cautionary tale about how execution can be equally as important as being right about the main idea.
There are many examples I could cite for this pattern, but one simple one: the street that runs past my apartment was adapted to provide separate bike lanes. Great! But it was done in a non-sensical way, resulting in a one-way road that dead-ends into another one-way road, requiring cyclists to cross from one side of the street to the other in the middle of the intersection, and motorists who continually violate the posted signs and turn through the flexible barriers. Now everybody hates the new road, cyclists and drivers alike.
Bad execution kills good ideas!
[+] [-] 0xpgm|2 years ago|reply
It doesn't seem to me that there are any who actually sought help but were held back by lack of available funding.
The sense I get from the article is that very few addicts are in a state of mind to voluntarily seek help.
[+] [-] insanejudge|2 years ago|reply
Also agree on the unintended consequence, and that in retrospect a carefully worded law about the degree to how public of drug use would be decriminalized would have had a drastic impact on opinion.
In contrast to the blame being assigned to Measure 110 (much before it was even implemented), and even with the problems rolling out treatment, by the numbers the impacts of decriminalization have been better than expected. 911 calls have not gone up, in terms of deviation from previous (and national) trends OD fatalities have not gone up, big administrative savings you pointed out, etc. So what did change? Visibility.
The wider impacts of this are very real with hotel bookings, conferences, tourism, etc. down because of this perception, and that is causing harm to businesses and residents here.
It's decently likely because of this that 110 will be rolled back rather than iterated on, and nothing substantial will change, but without the specific political focal point we'll likely hear about less it as its own issue but rather it will get rolled back into the general narrative funneling blame for the problems of urbanization.
IMO the bigger thing the measure 110 whiplash is showing is how completely social media has supplanted news and data in particular in shaping people's view of the world. The visible drug use is 100% a problem, but this time around personal experiences are serving as confirmation of everything they've already been seeing online more than anything. There are enough cameras and enough people to fuel very lucrative social media accounts drip feeding incidents of any particular issue every day (with very questionably accurate attribution) to and from a global stage. I live here and regularly hear about it in unrecognizably hysterical terms from family and people I interact with for work across the country almost daily.
[+] [-] jauntywundrkind|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corethree|2 years ago|reply
When you lower law enforcement surrounding addictive drugs to a state where it's basically equivalent to legalizing drugs and you take this action independent of other actions like treatment and other stuff, you get net bad effects to society.
[+] [-] anon291|2 years ago|reply
I mean it doesn't really matter, because even if they have treatment options less than 1% of the ones they write tickets to actually do anything about it.
Here's how it goes. The drug user gets a ticket and has to either pay a fine or go to rehab. I think less than 100 people, out of thousands of tickets, decided to actually even call the number to get information on the rehab program. It doesn't matter thaht they don't exist because no one wants them
[+] [-] standardUser|2 years ago|reply
Legalization with regulation is the one way to manage addictive substances in a free society. The rest of us are waiting around for you all to stop clutching your pearls so we can do what needs to be done. In the meantime, addicts will keep dying and law enforcement will keep ruining lives.
And black markets will keep getting richer.
[+] [-] jl6|2 years ago|reply
> in a free society
I feel these two go together. One reason that we have such a patchwork of messy ineffective policy is because the policymakers are pulled in different directions by a deeply divided society. Just look at this thread - there’s very little clear consensus about what exactly the right answer is. Everybody has an opinion. People vote. Policy lurches.
> do what needs to be done
In contrast, this kind of tough talk is more fitting of a non-free society where sweeping decisions get made by steamrolling stakeholders. The populace gets tired of pusillanimous party politicians, so they elect a strongman who can do what needs to be done. But will the strongman do the right thing? Strongmen don’t have a great track record.
[+] [-] WalterBright|2 years ago|reply
2 or 3 decades ago Canada decided to heap big taxes on cigarettes. A black market promptly emerged, complete with drive-by shootings. Canada rescinded those taxes and the black market (and its associated crime) evaporated.
[+] [-] criddell|2 years ago|reply
How is failure or success determined? Did we know what the goals were for decriminalization? Was improving drug purity a goal? Were legal markets supposed to appear? Was it supposed to reduce access to minors? Was some mechanism for connecting addicts to social services to help them supposed to appear?
What would "help" mean in this context anyway? Does it only mean get sober or could it also involve helping addicts continue to use as safely as possible?
[+] [-] Stagnant|2 years ago|reply
I don't know if Oregon has any system like that in place right now. If they don't, it would seem like the reasonable first step considering that one of the major complaints seems to be drug use in public.
1: https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/media/publications...
[+] [-] bdcravens|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface_74|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbelder|2 years ago|reply
But people should be in charge of their own behavior, even if self-destructive.
[+] [-] Bostonian|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulddraper|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|2 years ago|reply
Does "working" mean it prevents people from using drugs? In that case, throwing millions of people into prison must be a great idea! I call bullshit.
We need to be explicit about our goals! The goal I support is treatment.
Yes, decriminalization is failing to provide treatment. Of course it is! That wasn't its intended purpose in the first place. The purpose was to stop punishing victims with incarceration and felony conviction.
We still need to replace the broken system with a useful one. That means regulated production and distribution of drugs instead of turning a blind eye to the black market. That means programs that heavily encourage treatment, not just "I gave them a ticket to go if they feel like it".
Just imagine if our society put half the effort we put into getting people to drink Coca-Cola into getting people healthcare.
[+] [-] paulddraper|2 years ago|reply
You could read the article.
"People sprawled on sidewalks and using fentanyl with no fear of consequence have become a common sight in cities such as Eugene and Portland. Business owners and local leaders are upset, but so are liberal voters who hoped decriminalization would lead to more people getting help. In reality, few drug users are taking advantage of new state-funded rehabilitation programs."
[+] [-] comte7092|2 years ago|reply
Gonna have to correct you here. Measure 110 was supposed to bring decriminalization and treatment. The treatment just never really materialized.
[+] [-] PedroBatista|2 years ago|reply
As usual these people didn't learn or "forgot" all the other hard parts.
This particular article doesn't mention it, but I'm getting sick of hearing "Portugal decriminalized drug usage in the 90s and solved the drug problem" - Really? that simple? Even Hollywood westerns were more deep than that.
On of the key aspects to "solve" this problem is also culture, family support, personal responsibility and that's when you hear the tires screeching and nothing will get done or ever work.
[+] [-] Fluorescence|2 years ago|reply
Abstinence is not an inevitable consequence of a stable life - plenty of kids from comfortable backgrounds discover they really really like drugs. We need to accept that "getting high" is a basic human motivation that won't go away. The existential realities of the human condition is enough to seek escape. Some of us are born with dopamine regulation issues that doom us towards substance use. Despite being sober for a long time I still had bad cravings for alcohol and nicotine but an adult ADHD diagnosis and medication quieted that insatiable hunger for stimulation... by regular administration of stimulants! The hereditary aspects explained a lot about my family.
IMHO the real solution should be to design better drugs. Consider it the "Steam" argument - we need to outcompete the damaging drugs with products along the lines proposed by David Nutt. e.g.
- no overdose risk or organ damage
- cheap and make available for free so no crime required to acquire
- easy reversal of the effects e.g. with a common product like OJ
- no dependence issues
When you discuss investing in this research, you quickly discover that many of those who claim to be solving tragedies of addiction are actually trying to enforce an ideology that considers getting high to be a moral crime. Even if there were no personal or societal harms they still believe drugs should be violently prohibited. Their ideology actively seeks to cause harm. Of course they are hypocrites getting their stimulation from drink, food, sex, religion, abuse/control of others or whatever they manage to carve out as acceptable.
[+] [-] mike_d|2 years ago|reply
Habitual drug addicts don't have personal responsibility, family support, or a community of non-drug addicts to depend on. Forced incarceration in a treatment program is literally their only chance at breaking the cycle long enough to get them support for the underlying issues that led to addiction.
[+] [-] ip26|2 years ago|reply
I have to agree, if the secret ingredient to making decriminalization work is enlisting timeless conservative values, we’re toast. A more unlikely coalition has never been seen.
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Nursie|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BirAdam|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] romafirst3|2 years ago|reply
If people are upset at drug users using drugs in public (which seems to be the thing everyone actually has a problem with) give them somewhere to use their drugs that isn’t in public.
[+] [-] YeBanKo|2 years ago|reply
Why can’t they use them at home?
[+] [-] hcnews|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BeetleB|2 years ago|reply
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/27/oregon-drug-decrimina...
This is definitely not a decided issue.
[+] [-] MilStdJunkie|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mimikatz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naruhodo|2 years ago|reply
* what constitutes "working", and
* "working" for whom?
The article makes it clear to me that the main problem is that since there are no criminal sanctions, there is less incentive to hide drug-taking activity. The streets are now cluttered with filthy, homeless fentanyl and meth addicts. Many right-thinking citizens are upset by how untidy it all looks.
What a surprise that not making an addict's life harder by locking them up has not magically led to them getting clean. The uptake on support services is not what one would hope.
Some people would like to return to criminalisation, presumably because "out of sight, out of mind". I think people with poverty, addiction and mental health problems should be given more support instead.
[+] [-] prmoustache|2 years ago|reply
Did it solve the drug problem, no. This is not enough and such a problem cannot be solved in 3 years, nor can it be solved state wide because addicts who don't want to be harassed by law enforcement will move to states that let them live.
Looks like people just don't care about the drug problem, and its impact on criminality, economy and general well being of their fellow human being. People just don't care there are addicts, they care about seeing them out in public only.
[+] [-] hax0ron3|2 years ago|reply
Drug prohibition is in principle incompatible with liberty.
If you want a free society, some things must be legal even if the social impact of allowing them to be legal seems to many people to be negative. There are already laws against many of the things that people blame on drugs. I know that it is tempting to many people to criminalize drugs rather than to try to do a more effective job of policing things that people blame on drugs. But this is the same kind of mentality that would, for example, get rid of free speech because sometimes free speech leads people to commit violence. That kind of mentality is a pathway towards the US becoming like China.
Another issue with the drug war is unfair enforcement. Well-off people have absolutely no problem getting illegal drugs. A huge number of successful professionals do illegal drugs on a regular basis and only rarely even come close to potentially getting in legal trouble. Meanwhile poor people and dealers are probably more likely to get busted.
The drug war, by artificially making certain substances sell at prices that are vastly higher than what it costs to manufacture them, also creates a type of black market currency that enables the activities of all sorts of groups that engage in actually harmful behavior like killing people.
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|2 years ago|reply
“I pride myself on being a bit cynical, but obviously I was very naive.”
[+] [-] joenot443|2 years ago|reply
“There is constant problems all over town—it doesn’t matter where you live—with people strung out on drugs,” said Loew, who described herself as a communist. “I pride myself on being a bit cynical, but obviously I was very naive.”
[+] [-] FlyingBears|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xDEAFBEAD|2 years ago|reply
Just for the sake of argument here, supposing someone is addicted to drugs in private, and legalization is at a stage where they can get quality product that they're not going to overdose on easily. Is that actually a problem for society? Like, if you prefer to live a lifestyle where you sleep under a bridge and spend the money you would've used for housing on drugs, maybe that's just a personal choice that's yours to make? The only problem I see here is -- how is it that these drug addicts are funding their habit? I'm thinking through criminal activity in many cases?
[+] [-] smitty1e|2 years ago|reply
Restated: perhaps there was wisdom in prohibitions against drugs heavier than nicotine/alcohol? Maybe there was a line that stabilized society in general?
Will there be a sufficient level of "finding out" this side of the grave that will trigger thought?
[+] [-] jolmg|2 years ago|reply
Maybe the drugs are fulfilling some need, so simply escaping the addiction is counter-productive to their lives. Maybe the rehab to escape the addiction needs to be packaged with other sorts of rehabs that help them obtain healthier alternatives to fulfill those needs that are being met by the drugs.
Quick search online:
> Addiction isn’t as simple a concept as it may seem on the surface. From an outside perspective, addiction can be seen as a simple propensity for substance abuse. However, on mental, physical and emotional levels, there’s a lot more to addiction. From a behavioral perspective, using drugs becomes a way of life. Most friends and social situations revolve around drugs, especially as drugs start to replace former social connections and hobbies. --- https://fherehab.com/learning/mind-motives-addicted-drugs/
So, at least, rehab on building healthy social connections is also needed.
Finding a better solution to the drug problem is unlikely to be as simple as just decriminalizing.
I also wonder if the fact that decriminalization is done in a patch-work manner location-wise is also part of the problem. I wonder if it's easier or harder for homeless people to relocate to places where their activities aren't criminal. They likely have less material things tying them down to a location, but they may also rely more on the face-to-face social ties they already have.
[+] [-] beej71|2 years ago|reply
There is funding in Oregon as part of 110 to do more than just decriminalize. Unfortunately that wasn't used for effect.
[+] [-] austin-cheney|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bb88|2 years ago|reply
Part of it is the frustration that drug companies got rich from opioids, yet the addicts got to serve the crimes.