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Comment by brianjking | Hacker News Reader

What if we...i don't know, actually helped people!?

Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change until this country starts actually helping people.

* Quality drug treatment that is paid for by the state/federal level.

* Job training/retraining that is paid for at the state/federal level.

* Affordable, high quality education that helps people not get interested in, have time for, be so full of despair that they resort to these hard drugs.

* Quality, affordable, accessible mental health services IN ADVANCE of a crisis.

Locking people up or making drugs illegal will change nothing but cause there to be more pain.

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> Locking people up or making drugs illegal will change nothing but cause there to be more pain.

Making drugs illegal and locking people up, or straight up executing them, is actually extremely effective at stopping drug addiction, as seen in many east Asian countries, particularly Japan, Korea and Singapore. As well as the middle east.

It's an uncomfortable truth for the Western world because we don't like strict punishments for nonviolent crimes, and for good reason. But let's not pretend that the heavy-handed corporal punishment approach doesn't work.

Did you leave out the Philippines on purpose? Isn't it kind of the posterboy for executions of this nature?

I do not know where the collective delusion that strict punishments do not work has come from. The data shows they work exceedingly well globally.

Not to mention every street interview with a criminal involves them gleefully detailing how they only get a misdemeanor and let out easily.

https://youtu.be/fbTrLyqL_nw?si=18V5sysqmf68LYr-&t=434

https://youtu.be/3eGbX-2VB_Q?si=0Lu5xny7Jbz7v_Tw&t=34

It's pretty ominous to see "Death under Singapore Law for Drug Trafficking" printed on their declaration forms.

Most crimes committed by adults should carry much harsher penalties across the board. There's far too much sympathy for the criminals and not nearly enough for the victims and communities that have to tolerate their nonsense.

Having worked in shelters, these are all nice ideas and would take an amount of funding and staffing tantamount to freeway construction. Except freeway construction pays more and is a lot more pleasant.

> Locking people up or making drugs illegal will change nothing but cause there to be more pain.

All your suggestions are depend on locking people up to force it. Your post is just saying we need "corrective" prisons.

> What if we...i don't know, actually helped people!?

This I support 100%.

> paid for by the state/federal level

This I can't. That's not "we" in any sense or form; that's other people's money taken away from them by violence or threat of violence.

If you encourage people to help others (as we should!), then we should help people ourselves. Not delegate it to others, especially if they're not doing it voluntarily.

So in your worldview, all "helping" should happen voluntarily, with no state/federal assistance.

And if no individual is feeling charitable that day, then no help would be provided?

If we ever end up in a situation where nobody is feeling charitable then we are screwed as a society no matter what.

If I was charitable yesterday, I would probably donate to an organisation that knows how not to spend it all in one day.

> If you encourage people to help others (as we should!), then we should help people ourselves. Not delegate it to others, especially if they're not doing it voluntarily.

What if that reduces our policies, in every area, to zero effectiveness?

Then it means it was below zero before.

You’re assuming a populace that doesn’t already have 90% of what you just proposed and still ignores it instead to commit immoral acts and destroy society

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