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Comment by pierat | Hacker News Reader

What's the saying... "My body, My choice" ?

Well, some people will choose, willingly, to waste their life away living on the streets from one high to the next. The difference between most types of poverty and this, is that they *chose* this path.

Bodily autonomy has powerful upsides, as well as downsides. Here's one of the downsides.

If they wanted to 'get out', I'd be there to help them if I knew them. But they have to want to. Forcing your viewpoint on them makes you just as a horrible person as the judges throwing people in locked boxes for decades for a bit of white powder they injected.

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The problem of course is that it's not strictly about one's own body, in this case. "Bodily autonomy" doesn't cover the petty crimes addicts often commit to get money to buy drugs - the impossibility of biking anywhere knowing your vehicle is almost guaranteed to get stolen, the economic deserts created because businesses can't operate in certain areas due to theft and safety, the property damage that needs to be paid for over and over; the cost - of shelters, food banks, etc. - of supporting those who, in the depths of their addiction, can no longer support themselves; the public spaces damaged and deprived to others by the homeless encampments that flood parks and obstruct sidewalks; the danger of used needles lying around; the trauma experienced by people who have to see dead bodies littering the streets.

In an ideal world, I guess these things would all be prevented and/or prosecuted, rather than the drugs themselves, of course, so as best to preserve bodily autonomy. I think you can make the case that the Oregon experiment is showing how in practice that doesn't happen.

It also doesn't cover the cost in terms of tying up a major resource: Paramedics, Police and Fire.

Overdoses are at an all time high in Portland. The entity that responds usually gives the person overdosing Narcan, addiction help is then offered for those who recover and 99% of those offered recovery options refuse.

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2023/08/01/overdose-911-call...

Firefighters (and others) are quitting due to the trauma of responding to these calls over and over and over, with no concrete progress. It takes it's toll mentally to respond these calls which are taking up and increasing percentage of the calls they have to respond to.

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/portland-do...

The main failure of this experiment, imho, is the missing component of forcing detox/rehab/etc when x amount of drug related crimes are committed. The measure explicitly said the addict has to seek the help on their own volition. That might work for alcohol and cannabis, but the vast majority of opioid based drugs are so addictive they can't even fathom not getting their next high or life without it.

We can make it cover the costs. We just choose not to.

Fentanyl is popular because it so cheap (a large Asian country produces it cheaply). If it was taxed anywhere near the damage it causes, it would be too expensive to buy, and smuggling it in via Mexico would still occur.

Make other aspects expensive. Drug crimes and related crimes get huge penalties. No medical treatment if you have certain drugs in your system. Make it so the cost of using fentanyl is so high that there is some deterrence.

Half the people in this thread are saying they don't want drug deterrence. IMHO I'm with you though.

> No medical treatment if you have certain drugs in your system

Have you thought this through? This is beyond evil. Same energy as "no organ transplant if you didn't get the vaccine"

> Overdoses are at an all time high in Portland.

Also in many many places that aren't Portland, so not sure why that's relevant?

Guessing that the comment author lives there, and it’s the major city in the state referenced in the article?

But if overdoses are peaking in a lot of places outside of Oregon than pointing out that overdoses are going up quickly in Portland is being deceptive. (Note that I do not myself have any clue as to what the truth here is, but if magicalist is correct it certainly undermines this part of cronix's argument, which--whether it was intended to or not <- that is kind of irrelevant, as the interpretation is in the readers--seems to be using that as part of the rhetoric.)

What typically happens when something goes recreational in one area is the following:

1) Drug runners drive to Oregon (or wherever - but it's always going to be Oregon first) and pick things up and take them back to their home state.

2) When the first state goes recreational - people expect that things are generally becoming more LAX and eventually it will be allowed there too. And often that LAX expectation is what literally pushes that state to go there too, voters gonna vote.

But I'm definitely guessing the pandemic in general was just a huge event that has pushed probably millions (potentially billions worldwide) of people into general depression.

They were giving a specific example... It doesn't preclude other places having overdoses...

If the justification for criminalizing a drug is its propensity to cause societal damage, then by far the most important drug to ban is alcohol. Heroin addiction may promote theft and property damage, but that doesn't even come close to the mayhem, permanent injury and death caused by drunk driving accidents (as well as the social service costs of managing our country's subpopulation of alcoholics). Because alcohol remains legal, I believe less harmful drugs, including many if not all of the drugs decriminalized by Oregon, should be legal as well.

>> "I guess these things would all be prevented and/or prosecuted, rather than the drugs themselves" I agree with this statement. Criminalizing hard drug use simply because it is associated with behaviour causing societal damage is not only inconsistent with the legality of alcohol use, it is also a slippery slope to justifying far more insidious laws. For example, a similar justification could be used to criminalize violent tv shows/movies/video games if the government believes consumption of such media is associated with societal harm.

The obvious solution is to simply criminalize the acts, such as theft and property damage, that actually harm others/society, rather than indirect upstream actions such as drug use. This "Oregon experiment" involves far more than just decriminalizing drug use, but also (effectively) decriminalizing many other domains of crime such as retail theft, daylight robbery, urban camping, property damage, etc. not unlike what we have here in SF.

Crack, heroine, meth, and opioids are demonstrably more damaging to the individual than alcohol. You're conflating total magnitude (individual harm * number of users) with individual harm.

You can show the bodily autonomy argument is nonsense with a simple thought experiment. What if it were someone you actually cared about? Your son or daughter, sibling, loved one? Would you say "oh well, I guess I have to respect their bodily autonomy". No, you'd drag them into rehab whether they wanted to go or not. Because you know that is ultimately better for them. That's what you do when you care about someone. You don't let them rot and die on the street. Clearly the folks pushing for letting people die on the street do not care about the well-being of those people.

You're missing influence vs force. If I care about someone I will do everyone in my power to get them into rehab but I would never force them, even if I had parental authority over them to do so. The only time in my life I have ever deprived someone of their bodily autonomy is with their consent, "hey when I'm drunk don't let me smoke."

That’s because you’re an individual. We imbue the government with the power to use force to protect both individuals and the general public from the negative effects of antisocial behavior like fouling up a public space so you can do drugs in a tent.

The "doing drugs" part seems basically immaterial, if they were doing those same drugs in a house I doubt would you care at all. If you want to just ban being homeless in a tent in shared public spaces then go off king, I'll vote for it. If possible I would just want there to be some actual shelter for them to go to. We somehow have the money to feed, clothe, and house a bunch of people in prison, we could make shelters of comparable sizes and amenities.

The two are interconnected. If they weren't addicted to drugs, they probably wouldn't be homeless living in a tent. There's probably no scenario where you get a homeless drug addict into housing and they are able to maintain a normal lifestyle and have a job, take care of themselves, and contribute to society while still being addicted to drugs, so getting them off of drugs is going to be a necessary part of getting their life back on track.

Sure, if someone is addicted to drugs but is still able to maintain a home and otherwise take care of themselves, then that's not society's problem, at least, yet. I still think they'd be better off not doing drugs, but it's not yet to the point where their problems are imposing on other people.

It’s totally a selection bias: if someone is doing drugs but isn’t running around screaming half naked in the street having a fent crisis, you would hardly notice them would you? It is for the same reason that homelessness has been wrongly equivocated with drug addiction (you don’t notice the ones that aren’t shoplifting to support their habit or having a crisis on the street for one drug related reason or another).

Surely there are adults and kids doing this in their homes, and we usually don’t notice them until a tragedy occurs (eg a teenager tries fent for the first time…and they are dead).

I am skeptical that there are large numbers of casual Fentanyl users who are just injecting a little Fentanyl after work to relax and otherwise leading normal lives. If there are any, they probably don’t stay that way for very long.

Oh, ya, probably. Although I wonder if the Fentanyl crisis is just limited to the people we see going nuts on the streets, or much broader than that.

> What's the saying... "My body, My choice" ?

Someone needs to be of sound mind to make a choice. Clearly you can't sign life-changing legal documents, or testify in court while drunk.

A range of other conditions, like deep depression, state of shock, etc. count. Does addiction?

Surely a definition of addiction is that you cannot stop, i.e. its a mental condition.

Like if someone ia diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, do we ask them if they want treatment? No, we have to treat then anyway.

I do not think this is a slippery slope, the conditions are fairly well defibed.

> if someone is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, do we ask them if they want treatment? No, we have to treat then anyway.

That is not true in all US states. One cannot be committed to a mental institution against one’s will unless ordered by a judge. And one can’t be forced to ingest antipsychotics unless committed against one’s will. It’s a very high bar to get a judge to commit a person against their will, and it only lasts 30 days or less.

People don't necessarily choose their life circumstances. A drug addict is a disabled person, their brains soaked in chemicals inhibiting from any logical reasoning. Sometimes they may experience monetary lapses of consciousness where they can feel both physical and emotional pain. Many of them have parents, siblings and children, and may have decided to stay away from their love ones because of shame. So obviously this social experiment was absurd, you are facilitating the trade of drugs within a vulnerable community. Everyone would agree that a 10 year old kid should not have legal access to alcohol, so why we think a mentally disabled addict should be able to buy drugs? Sobering up is a monumental challenge when you are on hard drugs, you need at minimum a doctor and weekly therapies designed for your particular type of addiction and health/psychological condition, and a strong support system of relatives and friends around you almost 24/7. So expecting that an addict all by themselves voluntarily wants to "get out" and seek or receive help is as ridiculous as the idea of a legal market for hard drugs. Addicts need to be forced into rehab where they can receive the right treatment and eventually be reunited with their families and slowly get back on their feet. This should not be hard to do for a country like the US but no one wants to have the hard talk, so we brush the problem under the rug and call for legalization of drugs and affordable housing

Bodily autonomy isn’t a moral principle, it’s a rhetorical device. Literally every law on the books interferes with your autonomy. Trying to apply it as the former is as nonsensical as arguing when someone says “nobody goes there anymore” when some people in fact still do.

I think you leave out a couple things here.

Externalities: the costs of caring for the addicted are high, and the quality of life in neighborhoods where addicts congregate is horrendous, between violence, insecurity and insalubriousness. I don't think a lot of people feel comfortable raising kids in places where there's public defecation on the daily. So yes I feel somewhat entitled to force that much of a "viewpoint" on my fellow citizens.

That addicts "chose" the path that they're in, I think reasonable people could disagree about it. To some folks, all behavior is the responsibility of the individual, and claiming otherwise is paternalistic overreach. Personally, I think it's fairly well established that some substances cause powerful long-term addiction in some people, well above the person's willpower. I don't care for locking up users, but I do think dealers and traffickers deserve the worst punishments for knowingly causing long-term harm to users.

>Forcing your viewpoint on them makes you just as a horrible person as the judges throwing people in locked boxes for decades for a bit of white powder they injected

Are you an anarchist? If not, then please explain how every law you support is not forcing your viewpoint on others?

I have no problem with people abusing drugs as long as (a) the property crime that comes with it is heavily cracked down on and (b) society isn’t on the hook to fund drug treatment. Both are libertarian viewpoints: society exists mainly to protect property rights, and my property shouldn’t be stolen to recover from someone else’s bad decisions.

What bugs me most, communities like the one I am referring to will denigrate anyone pushing back about homeless Uber all agenda. They are open to the distribution of needles without support services. Anything against this line of thought, one is a hater, anti homeless, etc. Yet these same people do nothing personally to help those on the streets and do not want oversight in effectiveness of plans/etc.

In this case, the individual forsake his parents and his kid. What about the rights of the teenager having to watch / know their father will likely die because the powers that be will do nothing?

> In this case, the individual forsake his parents and his kid. What about the rights of the teenager having to watch / know their father will likely die because the powers that be will do nothing

Do you want to live in a world were the "powers that be" can force medical intervention and/or forced detention for a competent person who's opposed to it? As the cops mentioned: being a dick isn't illegal, and there's no societal-level solutions to dicks, the best we can do is try to avoid them as individuals.

I'm all for rehabilitation - but it has to be voluntary (and humane, probably has to be well-funded too) - that's what liberty is. Anything less is too authoritarian for my tastes.

I'm not OP, but when someone is a repeat offender of some petty crimes, and they're assessed to be mentally ill and/or addicted to drugs, they should be given a choice: help or jail.

(Ideally, jail would just _be_ help, but unfortunately that's not the case. And there's a long tail of criminals who _aren't_ mentally ill or addicts, so let's assume jail still exists.)

I am a _staunch_ supporter of liberty, but I reject the notion that you can repeatedly pollute, steal, and commit violent acts on the streets without any recourse from the rest of society. And I absolutely support compassion as the first step of that recourse! Housing, counselors, harm reduction, and other treatments for addiction (esp opiate blockers) should all be on the table for people that need it.

But the alternative to that choice has to be jail. Because the status quo is not cutting it, and you're not "free" to infringe on people, their homes, and their businesses.

America already has the highest incarceration rate in the developed world. I don't think that locking even more people up is going to help. I don't think that putting a mentally ill person in an overcrowded, underfunded jail will do anything to resolve their mental health problems. I don't see any evidence to suggest that coercing people into treatment actually treats their addiction.

Being a drug addict is utterly miserable. We can all see that misery with our own eyes. I don't think we are willing to confront the much wider epidemic of misery that is driving people into addiction and perpetuating addiction.

I also doubt reducing incarnation will improve the situation either. Though its mostly being used as damage control as many people in our society come apart at the seams. it wont just require money, education and humane asylums, but a rethinking of modern social values. Humanity is more idiosyncratic and irrational than required to sustain classical liberalism.

> and they're assessed to be mentally ill and/or addicted to drugs

I think this is where you'll get a lot push back because I have absolutely zero trust in my or any government to make this determination and not abuse it. I'm "mentally ill" a few times over, Johns Hopkins says 24% of adults have a mental disorder.

As much as I agree with you in theory that getting people help is good it requires a government of angels. It's the same thing with the war on drugs, the reality is much much worse than the theory.

> but when someone is a repeat offender of some petty crimes, and ...

This is a critical part of the comment you are talking about. Everything you say is irrelevant if you're already objectively guilty of crime.

Legalization of drugs doesn't mean legalization of behavior caused by drugs.

>> but when someone is a repeat offender of some petty crimes, and ...

> This is a critical part of the comment you are talking about. Everything you say is irrelevant if you're already objectively guilty of crime

This sounds like an expansion of "three strike" laws to include petty crimes.

Sure, but if you wouldn't jail them for their petty crimes then I don't think it's right to force them into a mental institution or rehab either. So as long as it's only an alternative to jail I agree.

Yes. I think more people wouldn’t be so annoyed by decriminalization in Portland or other places if police would actually throw people in jail for property crimes that go along with drug decriminalization.

I think forced rehabilitation is a better alternative to jail for people who are causing harm to others with their addiction (I'm not talking about, "their family is sad", I mean assaulting people, cutting drugs with dangerous adulterants and then selling them, or theft).

I'm all for living and let live for people don't harm others, whether they're addicted to drugs or not.

I think most addicts are also casualties of the drug war. If the government supplied clean drugs with very little markup from the production costs, and intervened for users who harmed others (using some combination of imprisonment, forced rehab, and counseling) I think we'd be much better off.

Add to that, drugs could be both cheaper than current street prices (less motivation for things like theft), on top of being a source of revenue to fund the social programs

Drugs are really cheap right now, basically fentanyl is cheap and they just lace it into everything else to reduce costs. It is hard to imagine (a) fentanyl being even cheaper than it is and (b) that any taxation on it wouldn’t make it a magnitude more expensive than it currently is. Heck, just having real businesses distribute it rather than other addicts would increase prices significantly.

I mean, if heroin was the same price for an equivalent dose, wouldn't people use that? I know (many? most?) addicts prefer fentanyl, but that's because it's cheaper for a better high. It's much more effective at a much smaller dose, so a kg of fentanyl smuggled in goes much further than a kg of heroin.

But I don't think people actually prefer the sensation of the high, right? Like, you can do enough heroin for an equivalent sensation, you just have to do a lot more of it.

So it sets up this situation where fentanyl is the easiest to smuggle in 1 billion doses, so it's the cheapest, so people prefer it, but it's actually way more dangerous because the difference between a dose that feels nice and a dose that kills you is too small to measure for most people.

Yeah, maybe don't make fentanyl legal, but make heroin legal and make it price competitive with fentanyl

edit: and really, isn't fentanyl like $10 / dose on the street? I'm pretty sure heroin could be produced for a fraction of that if it was done legally. Sell it for $5 for an equivalent dose, people will make the switch

> Add to that, drugs could be both cheaper than current street prices

Too late to edit, but I forgot another massive benefit of this: Cutting out the cartels, and funding of global terrorism in general. But I'm not convinced the powers that be aren't doing dirty dealings, and thus want to maintain existing power structures

I once read a quote, I can't remember where, it might've been in a Buddhist text but it was something like: Your body does not belong to you, it's not yours to abuse. It does not belong to the ego.

I never thought of it this way but it gelled with me immediately and I really think it's true, the body supports the mind which supports the concept of self. So if the self decides to trash the body, something isn't right about that contract.

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