The few modern efforts, of say Oregon, only eliminate criminal charges for posession. This will do NOTHING to defund the cartels, or stop the overdoses due to unknown strength/dosing.
You seem to support it, how would you address the externalities?
To play Devil's advocate for the opposition though, perhaps we need Fentanyl Island where we send people that want everything legal. Okay, not a serious proposal ... or maybe I'm channelling Brave New World — a book I have come to believe was in fact supposed to represent a Utopian future after all.
I dunno. We tried making alcohol illegal for a while in the US. Alcohol is pretty addictive, isn't it? And we ran into the same problems we have with other illegal drugs, for the same reason.
I don't really think that's the case. Prohibition is what enables all the evils we hate. If all of these drugs were legal, and cheap, and sold at or below cost by the government, _and all other sales were illegal_, then guess what would disappear overnight? Dealers, smugglers, junkies supporting an expensive habit by fencing stolen goods.... and most overdoses. Actual deaths. You still have your addicts, and maybe you get _some_ new ones - but they're getting safer drugs from a place where there are also resources for getting yourself clean. It really, really sounds like a win/win/win.
Am I, though? As the fundamental claim behind your dismissal of all the other benefits, including the massive death tolls, it behooves you to back this one up.
> there are many countries with harsh punishments for drug dealing and the culture around drug usage just does not exist like it does in the US
Oh, they're harsh here, too. Can you show that the harshness of the penalties has led to a reduction in drug use?
> Some places will even shun addicts and not help them with their addiction
Cruelty and brutality can certainly influence peoples' behavior. So can compassion and understanding. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree about how morally righteous it would be to just crush and brutalize anyone involved in the illegal drug trade. Whatever "illegal" is defined as, based on our government's criteria (and disregarding groups like the AMA).
https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-exp...
Nobody thinks drug crime is good. I discussed a solution that would instantly end drug crime, because I think drug crime is a horrible, unacceptable problem.
> but it really goes to show that we do not have to tolerate open crimes and accepting criminal behavior
It really feels like you didn't understand the fundamental concept of legalizing drugs. That doesn't mean legalizing crime. And it doesn't have to mean legalizing public intoxication any more than legalizing alcohol did.
In a lot of countries you can drink in public and it's fine.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...
This is obviously proscribed under most localities' current regulations, since we mostly ban regular tobacco smoking indoors. Legalization advocates are not advocating for tolerating involuntary exposure or other externalities. Enforce the existing laws against second hand smoke, DUI, etc.
> we have people using in my neighborhood park
Annoying for sure. In my neighborhood, dog shit and hobo piss are omnipresent sidewalk hazards. But I don't think there's a solution to the dregs of society being a highly visible/smellable nuisance - real estate tends to be stratified by class, and I'm not financially equipped to insulate myself like the upper ones. Until we decide to actually deal with the economics that produce these frictions, it's just a fact of life.
Just as sort of an analogy to what I'm saying, citizens of all the states had access to some gambling addiction hotline even before gambling was widely legalized.
I live in Oregon and that's not true: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-11-23/oregon-pu...
> we have people using in my neighborhood park and on public transit. I stopped taking the train after a ride where we had to evacuate because someone was smoking fentanyl (apparently even the second-hand smoke can affect a person).
This happens regardless of the legality. The big question is whether they can be encouraged to take their usage to safe sites, which is why the whole encampments thing that people don't want was key to a plan involving decriminalization. That's to say, the big picture matters in harm reduction, not the individual steps. We have a large system of incentives that drives the industrial prison complex that have all been in place a long time. You won't see material improvements with one law passed.
> You seem to support it, how would you address the externalities?
The first step is getting our police count up; we had 300 cops for the entire city and were only answering active violent calls. They've hired 300 more. The next step is getting the people who are ready to get off the streets off by opening up the transitional sites that the city and county are fighting over. After all that, we need to invest in non-12 step recovery centers for anyone battling chemical addiction. What you're left with after that is manageable.
I say all of this as someone who has lost a lot of friends to the opioid crisis and has watched Portland's meth problem first hand. I watched heavy-handed policies fail time and time again, deity-focused 12 step programs try to shame people into recovery and fail, and watched as forces of power used those failures to fuel a drug war and prison complex that rivaled no other country on Earth. This isn't just about doing things differently; it's about stopping the hard-nose crap that got us here with no end in sight and actually addressing the problem. The journey will be painful as the journey to here has been painful but it'll be worth it.
Argh, that makes it even worse!
> I say all of this as someone who has lost a lot of friends to the opioid crisis and has watched Portland's meth problem first hand.
Sorry to hear that. I’ve been fortunate not to have friends or family caught up in it, but we lost a neighbor last year.
I hope you’re right that things will get better.
In the meantime, it feels disingenuous to act like the impact so far has been positive for everyone, or like legalizing and hard-nose crap are the only options. I think it undermines trust and pits different parts of Portland against each other. It’s easy to get a laugh or an eye roll from my neighbors on the north side of town when I pass along some of the ”obvious” solutions my friends and colleagues from the west side have shared with me. Please consider our perspective: even if we double the police force and start addressing crime more promptly, our neighborhood is still worse off because we have more crime. Other parts of the city don’t seem to appreciate that.
I definitely didn't mean to give that impression. They are not positive times; my point was that these times were expected. An entire system has been built around the industrial prison complex that compounds these issues. We won't see improvement for a bit.
> Please consider our perspective: even if we double the police force and start addressing crime more promptly, our neighborhood is still worse off because we have more crime.
100%. Money was diverted away from neighborhood groups and given to racial identity groups years ago. That's when this decline started; just this week that money has been reallocated to neighborhood groups. The county has picked up funding of the racial identity groups; if you notice, those donations come from one person and most of these organizations help that person get elected materially.
> Other parts of the city don’t seem to appreciate that.
I'm still newish to Portland, but if it's any comfort I live in SouthEast. These points aren't just forum talking points to me, they are the very way I understand my immediate world and experiences.
Cartels, and predatory businesses who happen to be legal, make their money off of the suffering of others. Society, that is the collective will of the people, has the choice of choosing tolerance, compassion, and empathy to dry up the source of the evil poison that corrodes people and the places they live.
Yet it causes no greater societal issues, because it is legal.
And I say this as someone who really likes wine and would drink it pretty much every day, if it weren't for that whole "can permanently ruin your brain" business.
Source: https://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-meth-fentanyl-and-t...
That said, there will always be demand and that demand would be better served if not criminalized. These drugs should be made available for legal purchase but we need to find ways to incentivize minimizing the sale and consumption of such.
I fail to see the difference between letting an adult drink themselves to death vs doping themselves into oblivion. The former is both legal and acceptable whereas the latter is not; but they're effectively the same.
It's better to use prescription drugs than mystery substance available on the streets. At least you know what you are taking.
Addictiveness, long term health detriment and short term OD chance should all be factored into legalization discussions.
Things that should probably be legalized ASAP: Psychedelics, cannabis
Things that may be safe to use occasionally but with high OD risk: cocaine (example). Perhaps with a prescription?
Things that have extremely high risk to long term mental/physical health and overdose: Heroin, PCP, meth, fentanyl
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Point being: No, I disagree, even in a world where the choice of the individual should have high weight, there are some things that should not be allowed to flourish (particularly with profit motives) and must be stamped out.
and methamphetamines are not much different: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-amphetamines