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Comment by ericholscher | Hacker News Reader

Of interest, this is mostly a non-story in Oregon after it has passed. Our largest newspaper isn't even running a story on it: https://www.oregonlive.com/

Life continues as normal, just with fewer people in prison. As it should be.

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The changes this policy drives will be apparent after several years, not several weeks.

The real story is the fact that mainstream media is ignoring it. The silence is deafening and trumpets their allegiance to big pharma and the criminal injustice complex.

Edit: I live in Oregon and voted for this. So yay, we're moving in the right direction.

Why would pharma not want legalization? At worst, it doesn't affect them. At best, it's another revenue stream.

I typed this into duckduckgo: "big pharma lobbies against drug decriminalization"

and got this: https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/the-top-5-industries-lo...

I wouldn't care to venture a guess as to their thinking but the intent is clear: they don't want drug decriminalization.

This amazing Ted talk [1] on the potential for ketamine as a miracle anti-depressant presents at least one reason; namely, that they don't own the patents to the drugs and therefore can't monopolize their production. Instead, iterative waves of SSRIs are pushed to the public, as Big Pharma stands to profit more from SSRIs they hold the patent to, even if they're arguably much less effective and more harmful.

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/rebecca_brachman_could_a_drug_prev...

Why would you think the mainstream media isn't covering it? A cursory search on Google for 'oregon drug legalization' revealed these results:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/oregon-1st-state-d...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/04/election-dr...

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/...

I would consider these outlets more or less mainstream. I think the 'real story' in this case is not a conspiracy of big pharma and the prison-industrial complex, but the slow change of attitudes and policy in the US. Occam's razor.

"but the slow change of attitudes and policy in the US" as shepherded by the mainstream media. Yes, we disagree as to the complicity of the media and criminal justice system. I believe that they sold their souls for a paycheck a long time ago. We all have our price but I hope I would get a more than that in the bargain.

There was lots of mainstream coverage when the law was passed. A few examples:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/09/politics/oregon-decriminalize...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/04/election-dr...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/ballot-measures-propos...

In fact, I think you would be hard-pressed to find any news outlet that didn't cover it.

That the law goes into effect today is a bit of a technicality, so it's not surprising that most of the coverage was back in November.

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