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Comment by PedroBatista | Hacker News Reader

Decriminalizing drug usage is just a small but necessary part to mitigate this problem.

As usual these people didn't learn or "forgot" all the other hard parts.

This particular article doesn't mention it, but I'm getting sick of hearing "Portugal decriminalized drug usage in the 90s and solved the drug problem" - Really? that simple? Even Hollywood westerns were more deep than that.

On of the key aspects to "solve" this problem is also culture, family support, personal responsibility and that's when you hear the tires screeching and nothing will get done or ever work.

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> culture, family support, personal responsibility

Abstinence is not an inevitable consequence of a stable life - plenty of kids from comfortable backgrounds discover they really really like drugs. We need to accept that "getting high" is a basic human motivation that won't go away. The existential realities of the human condition is enough to seek escape. Some of us are born with dopamine regulation issues that doom us towards substance use. Despite being sober for a long time I still had bad cravings for alcohol and nicotine but an adult ADHD diagnosis and medication quieted that insatiable hunger for stimulation... by regular administration of stimulants! The hereditary aspects explained a lot about my family.

IMHO the real solution should be to design better drugs. Consider it the "Steam" argument - we need to outcompete the damaging drugs with products along the lines proposed by David Nutt. e.g.

- no overdose risk or organ damage

- cheap and make available for free so no crime required to acquire

- easy reversal of the effects e.g. with a common product like OJ

- no dependence issues

When you discuss investing in this research, you quickly discover that many of those who claim to be solving tragedies of addiction are actually trying to enforce an ideology that considers getting high to be a moral crime. Even if there were no personal or societal harms they still believe drugs should be violently prohibited. Their ideology actively seeks to cause harm. Of course they are hypocrites getting their stimulation from drink, food, sex, religion, abuse/control of others or whatever they manage to carve out as acceptable.

So… coffee?

What's going on in the streets of Portland isn't happy healthy kids that like to get high.

No, it's just the natural consequence of an economic and medical system that is completely incapable of dealing with drugs.

Or the consequence of people who would rather take drugs than deal with life and it’s often harsh and painful realities?

That there are sharp edges economically and medically is inevitable. Making it less sharp helps, but requires a lot of time, energy, and focus/agreement that is rarely there. And there is no perfect.

As far as I can tell marijuana ticks all those marks but junkies still go for harder drugs anyway.

I think presenting voters with "decriminalize drug use" was a deceptive play to start with. Most voters picture themselves smoking weed on the weekend or doing mushrooms at Coachella, not the people unescapably trapped by drugs.

Habitual drug addicts don't have personal responsibility, family support, or a community of non-drug addicts to depend on. Forced incarceration in a treatment program is literally their only chance at breaking the cycle long enough to get them support for the underlying issues that led to addiction.

I don't think anyone in Portland was being deceived. They have had a huge issue with homelessness and drug addicts for the better part of the last decade.

Tents are everywhere. On the side streets, on the interstate right of ways. It's been that way for a decade.

> Habitual drug addicts don't have personal responsibility, family support, or a community of non-drug addicts to depend on.

survivorship_bias_plane.png

There are millions of habitual hard drug users that do have some personal responsibility, some family support, some sober people around them encouraging them. They are holding down jobs and paying for their own housing, they've already quit multiple times but have gotten pulled back in. For those people forced incarceration could maybe solve their addiction at the cost of their housing and their job.

The forced incarceration is more about trying to tactically solve the specific pain point (people doing drugs on a doorstep), not solving the bigger problem.

Which even trying to agree on what the bigger problem is, near as I can tell, is impossible.

culture, family support, personal responsibility

I have to agree, if the secret ingredient to making decriminalization work is enlisting timeless conservative values, we’re toast. A more unlikely coalition has never been seen.

Ah, personal responsibility. Declension, in my experience, is usually as follows -

  *They* deserve their fate because they are weak, stupid and bad.
  *You* have made some bad choices and may work to recover from them.
  *I* have merely made a small mistake and deserve a second chance.

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