Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

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> or even getting rid of fentanyl smoke on buses.

The burnt peanut butter smell is pretty rancid. Voters, even in Seattle, only have a finite amount of empathy to spare on this problem, and it has mostly been expended.

> It is expelling fentanyl users from society and expecting that will stop new users appearing. That's why they don't want to spend money on treatment or services. They think enabling the existence and recovery of existing users will encourage more.

We (King County at least) spend around $100k/junkie per year on services. And that still isn't considered enough. So should we double our property taxes or something to spend even more money on this problem?

> They think enabling the existence and recovery of existing users will encourage more.

If Seattle is the only place these people can get help across the whole country, that would definitely occur. You can't fight a national problem with local resources and not expect distortions (people are mobile).

I'm not arguing fentanyl smoke is nice. I'm arguing that people, apparently including you, refuse to do any of the well understood and successful things that would get rid of fentanyl smoke on buses because you don't want to make help available.

> around $100k/junkie per year

Absolute nonsense. We spend nothing of the sort. We are not even pretending to approach it. Sounds like you're getting your hot takes from Christopher Rufo misinterpreting the Puget Sound Business Journal speculation a couple years ago.

The lies spread by Rufo and his ilk certainly contribute to the unwillingness to do anything, by making people confidently delusional about what currently exists.

I am constantly amazed at Americans who seem to think that XYZ is an intractable problem with no solution, without bothering to even look outside their borders and notice the fact that almost no other country seems to have the same problem, or at least the same problem at a similar scale as the US.

Vancouver is right next door, they have similar problems. Maybe they deal with it slightly better, but the scale is the same.

This is a national problem and needs to be addressed (and funded) as such.

The war on drugs has failed miserably (for it's ostensible purpose (to "protect" us from dangerous drugs).

We need to legalize and regulate them all, and make their abuse a medical issue rather than a criminal issue.

For those that have no desire or ability to quit, we can put them in camps and hand out dope to keep them sedated and "safe" from questionable supplies. If they want to get clean, they can have the support to do that but otherwise are effectively interned on work farms.

This is the cheapest, safest, and most humane way of dealing with this problem.

You still fantasize about a world where everything and everyone is ”clean”.

That will never exist but you will destroy the humanity of yourself and others in an attempt to delude yourself.

Nah, getting dangerous people off the street is its own reward.

If they could get high without causing problems I couldn't care.

Exactly. Way cheaper than jail too.

I have lots of fantasies but that ain't one of them. The gist of my point is that there's going to be a subset of the population that is "broken" and is unable to function as a "productive member of society".

We are going to spend money on them one way or the other; my way would be far more effective than how it happens today (both in cost and in actual remediation).

How would this destroy my (and others) humanity? It's currently challenged by watching people live in tents, shit on the sidewalk, and pass out in public on dope. How is my suggestion worse?

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