Hacker News Reader

Comment by cronix | Hacker News Reader

Right, like in Oregon they recently decriminalized "personal amounts" of all drugs. Crack, heroin, meth, fentanyl, etc. Whatever you want...it's now just a misdemeanor offense like a parking ticket as long as you're under some limit. So personal amounts are "ok," but how does one obtain a "personal" amount from someone else unless they have more than a personal amount? In other words, on one hand it's illegal to deal the drugs, but after you've obtained them illegally it's ok. That logic doesn't square.

> Just because small amounts are decriminalized, it doesn't apply when a person has more than is specified under the law.

> "Possession of larger amounts of drugs, manufacturing and distribution are still crimes," Fox said.

https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2021/01/31/what-...

View on HN

The point of decriminalizing personal amounts of drugs is to change police behavior because they are doing more harm than good in this area.

You want to arrest the people who are dealing drugs or causing other crimes, not permanently ruining the lives of people who are doing no harm to society.

It's not strictly true that they do no harm to society. A lot of deeply addicted people are still objectively a blight on their surroundings, even if you view it as a health issue that calls for help rather than a moral issue that calls for punishment.

Let's not underplay that damage drugs and addicts do. They're not the source of the problem, they shouldn't be the focus of the solution but let's be honest.

Drugs aren't magical life-ruiners, that suddenly descend on unsuspecting healthy people and destroy them. The people you're describing are mostly already damaged by their own lives, hurting badly, and unable to emotionally function on their own. If you removed heroin or meth from the equation, they'd get drunk, instead... And they'd be roughly the same blight on their surroundings, regardless of their choice of substance.

Our drug problems are, at root, a mental health issue. And neither will ever be resolved in a society that doesn't understand that both problems are one.

Just to add - much of the damage of Heroin, and other drugs cut with fentanyl is precisely BECAUSE it is illegal.

Heroin is smuggled in from Colombia in some mule's intestines and then injected DIRECTLY into the user's bloodstream. This causes many different kinds of fatal blood clots and bacterial infections.

When Heroin was legal in this country (given as a cough medicine to young kids in the 1920s) it didn't lead to a reduction in the life expectancy of the users.

If you are saying addicts commit crimes e.g. burglary well then prosecute them for those crimes, that’s the only way I can take the “blight on their surroundings. Taken a different way, there are a lot of humans in the us who use other drugs, alcohol e.g. who are not considered a blight on their surroundings. Street drugs could be like those drug, and in fact during prohibition alcohol was an illegal “street” drug.

Prosecute the addicts for the crimes they commit instead of criminalizing addiction.

Why not just legalize them completely?

That makes sense to me. Chasing consumers is a waste of time and money. The arrest itself might cause more societal damage than the drugs if it ruins people's lives or is used to target minorities.

Some people argue that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement is the main purpose of laws against drug consumers.

Smell marijuana > Search vehicle

I didn't know there was a term for that. It's exactly what I was thinking about.

At the very least, it makes it hard to prosecute low level drug offenders, which is where the most abuse (originating from the government) is in the system.

In a perfect world, I would like to see all drugs decriminalized. I would like to see drugs given to people by the government free of charge. Of course they would have to sit through a common sense education movies, titled "Ok you want to ruin your life with hard drugs--fine, but sit through this educational film."

Until we get there; I am fine with small amounts of illegial drugs being an infraction.

I like decriminalization, but don't like government production.

The film idea is funny, but I still disagree with that too. As anyone can tell from my commentary, I'm a crazy no government guy, so that's just my bias.

The enforcement objectives are like a horseshoe.

The police have an incentive to get collars for petty possession, mostly to bank warrants for future trouble, and to go after big or brazen networks.

The people in the middle are mostly free of interference. I used to work in a building that was about a block away from the county court, 4 blocks from a police precinct hq. Yet I watched three guys sell drugs across the street for the two years that I worked there.

It has its ups and downs. In my state, with bail reform, woke stuff, and marijuana possession decriminalization, there has been a wave of shootings and murders as the gangs reorg and the cops are caught with their pants down.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com