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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

Does Finland have a problem with Mexican cartel meth and fentanyl being dumped by the truckloads into its communities?

To be clear, there are many types of homeless in the US. But the ones that get the most attention and seem to cause the most problems are those pushed into mental illness by drug use. And, yes, drug use does not always cause mental illness and many mentally ill are not on drugs, but as those of us with direct experience with meth and other 'hard' drug users can attest to, a meth habit is not conducive to mental wellness. There is an acute phase of reality detachment that gets better with cessation, but even then, the hard core meth addicts I've known have mental scars that linger indefinitely.

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Yes, most of the homelessness in Finland is driven by substance abuse and mental illness too.

It's mostly alcohol, amphetamines (meth included), buprenorfine and benzos from Eastern European organized crime and fentanyl is not as common, but the landscape is similar.

if you don't have fentanyl you have no clue what the problem is.

Benzos are more addictive and far harder to get off off than fentanyl.

No, Finland isn't waging a ridiculous War on Drugs, doesn't have long ties between its three letter agencies and sponsoring drug lords in the more tropical neighbours, nor a broken and corrupted police, justiciary and political system.

The drug issue in the USA is not the problem. It is just a symptom of a more systemic and substantial disease.

Plenty of drugs are still making it to Scandinavia. I can't speak for Finland specifically, but in the past couple of months over 1600kg of cocaine was found in Oslo and over 100kg were found in western Norway. So yes, drugs are readily available here. There was also an article several years ago that estimated Norway was the 5th cheapest country for drugs compared to average wages.

https://www.newsinenglish.no/2023/04/17/more-cocaine-seized-... https://www.newsinenglish.no/2023/04/18/more-cocaine-seized-... https://www.lifeinnorway.net/norway-surges-in-world-vice-ind...

Finland has a really long, shared border with Russia, a country that is much worse than Mexico in about every aspect I am aware of.

That said, I think most drugs that comes into Scandinavia comes in freights from European ports or by couriers, at least that is how I understand it from the news.

> Does Finland have a problem with Mexican cartel meth and fentanyl being dumped by the truckloads into its communities?

All I hear are excuses

Homelessness in the US is driven by cost of housing, not by drugs or mental illness [0].

[0] https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/everything-you-think-you-k...

Well I became homeless when my landlord decided he needed to sell up and gave me notice to leave (much more than legally required, I should add). He eventually sold the house at auction for a sum 3 times smaller than I currently have sitting in a bank account.

This was over ten years ago and, obviously, house prices have increased a lot and I eventually got back on my feet but, the point is that you can find yourself in a situation that you're not mentally equipped to deal with at that moment in time regardless of all other external factors.

Sounds to me like the reason you became homeless was exactly because of housing prices, like the parent said.

The reason I became homeless was because I had to find another home whilst suffering from depression. To cut a long story short, I put off doing what I should have done until it was too late and then made a series of poor decisions.

The cost of housing was nothing to do with it, I didn't have a lot of cash available at the time but I know plenty of people who did. My landlord even offered me another place for the same rent but I turned it down.

When you are depressed you avoid making decisions, and then when you eventually do, those decisions can turn out to be the wrong ones.

I would say that making a series of poor decisions is the most likely way to end up on the streets. This may be a result of mental health issues, pure stupidity, simple bad luck or a combination of the three.

The cost issue may be a factor but the majority of people manage to cope with this somehow. As I said, I became homeless when housing was still considered to be easily affordable.

The cost of housing was presumably a major factor in your landlord deciding to sell.

He was selling because his wife was divorcing him and claiming half the estate. So yes, even if the house was just worth £1, it was a major factor.

Since you are determined to be right, no matter what, I am going to concede defeat.

There's not just one type of homeless person.

No, but Finland has it's own problems like the one with alcohol abuse. https://yle.fi/a/74-20010916

This is also very much a problem which the US engages in its own way. Would the meth and opiods be sold under a state monopoly to addicts for the manufacturing price, the cartels wouldn't have a market. Why do I mention that? Well... https://www.concealedwines.com/business-opportunities-scandi...

ever heard of oxycontin? It was a FDA approved drug (and still is), a powerful opoid that probably killed hundreds of thousands of people in the US, because it was used to train any kind of chronic pain and turned normal folks into drug addicts. It was all legal, until the people realized what was happening and the FDA acted 10 years late.

Legal opoids just lead to more dead bodies piling up, which is why many countries put heavy restrictions on legal opoids.

It was legal, but sold for profit. And the problem ballooned because the state and society did not care. It was legal, lots of people made lots of money, everything was great apart from the fact many people died.

What I am arguing for is the exact opposite. The drugs should be sold with no profit and only to addicts, thus eliminating the motivation to sell more and enlarge the market.

Something similar is done in Switzerland, with state provided safe injection rooms, or in Portugal. But for that the mindset would have to change and I am not sure whether this is possible.

The US government half-assed it. They pulled the rug out from under a huge population, and then acted surprised when they fell over. It was clearly being abused, and needed to be better controlled, but in making it impossible to prescribe rather quickly, and to not provide any help to the addicted, the US government created this mess. Where are the massive social programs to get users off opiates, legal or illegal. Where's the bridge to getting better, a helping hand to get over the hump?

The rich can afford to take a couple months off in a resort in a tropical location, and then resume their now drug-free lives. The poor get no such luxury. They get fired, and then lose housing, and become homeless. Which doesn't lead to a good mental state, so they unsurprisingly turn to drugs even harder than before.

It was viscous and punitive to end the prescription of oxycontin that way, and it's resulted in problems that could largely have been avoided. But America hates the poor, so they must be punished for doing bad things.

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