Why is Oregon about to re-criminalize psychedelics in response to opioid crisis?
vox.com
vox.com
How can this be reconciled? At the very least, anti-social / anti-societal behavior, eg crime, must be dealt with even or especially if the root cause is drug use. But then you get in the argument, well they're sick and addicted, is it really their fault, do they deserve to be punished for the resultant crime? They made the first decision to act so ultimately they have to be held responsible for the downstream consequences, I guess.
And then, is being homeless a crime? I don't think so. But how about littering, or using public spaces as urinals? We've decided that, for our vision of society, littering is against the law, and so is public urination / defecation. So why not enforce that, maybe especially if you're addicted to drugs?
We’re just not willing to pay the bills.
The same people that talk talk will pull a NIMBY.
Same with politicians, propose something bold and daring, just not in their lobbyst backyard.
I think one obvious solution is to stop grouping all drugs together. No one is robbing a place to feed their DMT addiction and no one is shooting up psilocybin outside our homes. The criminalization of these types of drugs does far more harm than the drugs themselves. The issue with opioids and speed is more complicated, but I think the options and solutions for the most addictive and harmful drugs will become more clear once we stop muddying the waters by grouping them with party drugs and psychedelics.
Ultimately, it's part of why I like regulated legalization more then decriminalization, users could at least be pushed from things like cocaine over towards Adderall or some other pharmaceutical that might not be sexy but at least it won't have a 50/50 chance of being cut with fentanyl like a lot of street drugs these days.
The entire reason the decriminalization failed was because it had no nuance. It copied something that worked in a much different culture, and didn’t copy the other supports that caused it to work. Nothing to address the other side, the benefits of jailing addicts (i.e. preventing them from committing other crimes).
What you're describing is cargo-culting. They missed at least half the picture, that's not a nuance.
Are you talking about Portugal?
Last I read they had a similarly disastrous outcome with the policy, though it took a longer to break down.
On Portugul, it's worth asking why it's failing after many years of being such a success that the model was copied around the world. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-dru...
> After years of economic crisis, Portugal decentralized its drug oversight operation in 2012. A funding drop from 76 million euros ($82.7 million) to 16 million euros ($17.4 million) forced Portugal’s main institution to outsource work previously done by the state to nonprofit groups, including the street teams that engage with people who use drugs. The country is now moving to create a new institute aimed at reinvigorating its drug prevention programs.
> Twenty years ago, “we were quite successful in dealing with the big problem, the epidemic of heroin use and all the related effects,” Goulão said in an interview with The Washington Post. “But we have had a kind of disinvestment, a freezing in our response … and we lost some efficacy.”