[comfortabledoug]

What about the other quotes from the article that have nothing to do with funding...

> “When you first back off enforcement, there are not many people walking over the line that you’ve removed. And the public think it’s working really well,” said Keith Humphreys, former senior drug policy adviser in the Obama administration and a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. “Then word gets out that there’s an open market, limits to penalties, and you start drawing in more drug users. Then you’ve got a more stable drug culture, and, frankly, it doesn’t look as good anymore.”

> Of two dozen street people who use drugs and were asked by The Post, not one said they’d ever appeared before one of Portugal’s Dissuasion Commissions, envisioned as conduits to funnel people with addiction into rehab.

And in Oregon...

> extremely few people are seeking voluntary rehabilitation. Meanwhile, overdoses this year in Portland, the state’s largest city, have surged 46 percent.

Why fund services that go unused?...Tent cities don't exist solely in places without access to housing, and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence.

[HWR_14]

> Of two dozen street people who use drugs and were asked by The Post, not one said they’d ever appeared before one of Portugal’s Dissuasion Commissions, envisioned as conduits to funnel people with addiction into rehab.

This is entirely driven by funding. The article explained its a multi year wait for treatment (funding issue) and so the police aren't making people appear before the commissions because all they can do is release them.

Meanwhile, the article says when it was funded 20 years ago, it effectively reduced the amount of heroin used.

[jabradoodle]

The first is a hand wavey opinion, the second is basically an anecdote and the third relates to a very different implementation of decriminalisation than Portugal's.

[tgv]

It replies to a post that's even more hand-waivy. At least threshold lowering effects exist (eg. in gambling, alcohol and nicotine addiction).

[jhoechtl]

> and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence.

sounds very plausible, where is the fallacy?

[Etheryte]

Many things sound plausible without having any real connection to reality, we shouldn't rely on trust-me-bro when we're talking about people's lives.

[shuckles]

In San Francisco, where I am most familiar, SROs which are used to house homeless junkies are the primary location of overdose deaths, even though they house fewer junkies than the streets surrounding them.

[Retric]

Different populations, you really need to randomly assign people to each group to discover if it’s harmful or a side effect of the selection criteria.

I would expect people in SF SROs to OD more for multiple reasons, but I haven’t seen any research on the specifics.

[shuckles]

While it's true that shelter placement has some advantages for high needs folks (e.g. older, women, or disabled), those themselves don't correlate with opioid overdose deaths. There was a randomized trial of permanent supportive housing, which is a stronger intervention than simple housing, in Santa Clara (DOI 10.1111/1475-6773.13553) where those who received PSH died at slightly higher rates than those did not and never found housing of their own.

[criley2]

It's easy to find fallacies if you think about it. For example I could say the opposite

> giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is the key that unlocks recovery

I've constructed my argument identically and provided the same amount of evidence for my position.

When you compare both positions side by side, I think you can easily see that neither is valuable. They are both opinions being presented as facts (begging the question / assumption of truth / unwarranted assumption).

[peoplefromibiza]

> giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is the key that unlocks recovery

except that when we talk about privacy for addicts, we are actually talking about extreme loneliness.

which is the fastest route towards OD.

evidence show that

adults with mental health issues are more than twice as likely to experience loneliness as those with strong mental health [1]

Loneliness can increase the risk of early mortality by 26% [2]

editor's note: loneliness alone, imagine loneliness + mental health issues + severe drug addiction.

addicts don't need privacy, on the contrary, they need sociality. 4 walls shared with other people could provide that, 4 walls alone won't and will probably make things worse.

[1] https://newsroom.thecignagroup.com/loneliness-epidemic-persi...

[2] Holt-Lunstad et al., ‘Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review’, Perspectives on psychological science 10.2 (2015), pp. 227-237.

[DropInIn]

The 4 walls they get are literally a single room... If you put another person in there outcomes will be even worse.

What everyone's missing is the Quality of the housing.

If the place is so roach infested and you fight bed bugs others bring in and you constantly lose everything you own to the conditions of the building, then in what mind would that have better outcomes than on the street?

The depression that they term loneliness isn't just loneliness, it's a complete sense of defeat and pointlessness resultant directly from environment.

Really....

[peoplefromibiza]

> The 4 walls they get are literally a single room.

Theoretically yes.

In practice, no.

I've dealt with heroin addiction in my family, believe me when I say that privacy is not the solution, the solution is giving people a purpose outside of their constant quest to find ways to shoot up.

As I said, 4 walls can be beneficial, unless it's 4 walls to hide and keep everybody else out, except their dealers.

I'm all for reducing the damage, it works, but it doesn't mean simply giving them a hone, it means giving them a home to go back to, after they did something useful outside of that home.

The 4 walls should represent going back to a normal life.

> If the place is so roach infested and you fight bed bugs others bring in and you constantly lose everything you own to the conditions of the building, then in what mind would that have better outcomes than on the street?

if addicts cared about that, there would be no problem.

[mike4ty4]

This is a big valid point here - absolutely none of us (myself included) have presented any real evidence. So it's all just circlejerking.

[momirlan]

your statement doesn't only have to be logic, it should also even remotely resemble reality. it doesn't.

[DropInIn]

This doesn't fit my Prejudices so it must be wrong

^ that's you

[DropInIn]

Alcoholics

Most use until they die of "old age" or long term damage from use.

Key terms being Old Age and Long Term.

[pmoriarty]

"Then word gets out that there’s an open market, limits to penalties, and you start drawing in more drug users. Then you’ve got a more stable drug culture, and, frankly, it doesn’t look as good anymore.”

What's wrong with having a "drug culture" exactly?

"Meanwhile, overdoses this year in Portland, the state’s largest city, have surged 46 percent."

First, Portland is not Portugal.

Second, are the overdoses happening in people who use legal drugs?

From what I understand, overdoses usually happen when people don't know the dose they're getting, which is a consequence of them using illegal drugs which have no quality control and no reliable labeling as to dosage. So not only do you not know what you're getting, but may get a dose that's much larger than you anticipated.

Having access to legal, high quality drugs which are clearly labeled should eliminate most of the risks of unintentional overdose.

[4RealFreedom]

I've made that argument for years. Decriminalization doesn't work because it enables the black market - people should do everything in their power to eliminate the black market. This means real legalization. It's the only way to actually fix the overdose problem. Our number 1 priority should be to keep people from dying. I'm open to harsh penalties on public use, though. This shouldn't be happening in front of schools and in parks.

[dumpsterlid]

Imagine still thinking the war on drugs is a good idea in 2023

[prirun]

I have read that some overdoses occur when an addict gets clean for a while then relapses. They think they can tolerate the same dosage they were taking when they quit but their body can't handle tolerate it now, ie, they have to work back up to that dosage. Not sure how common that is, but better labeling and higher-quality drugs wouldn't help, though I agree, letting pharma companies manufacture street drugs and selling them legally would be a good thing.

[LorenPechtel]

Anyone who was hooked when they enter jail should have a one-day class on habituation to reduce how many fall into this trap.

[Avshalom]

> Of two dozen street people who use drugs and were asked by The Post, not one said they’d ever appeared before one of Portugal’s Dissuasion Commissions, envisioned as conduits to funnel people with addiction into rehab.

This feels like it could be a direct result of no funding.

[hef19898]

Also, why not getting feed-back from the people directly involved in Portugal? Last time I checked, Oregon wasn't in Portugal, nor was Obama President there...

[momirlan]

people can be happy in many ways. misery is awfully similar though.

[lukeschlather]

https://msdh.ms.gov/page/44,0,382.html

Drug overdoses are a nationwide problem in the USA. Mississippi also had a 49% increase in overdoses in 2020. Shelter is a basic human need and depriving people of it on the grounds that they might overdose doesn't seem like it follows. I know plenty of addicts who take care of their things just fine. They're addicted to coffee and alcohol and cigarettes. It's possible that the problem is not the drug itself but the social stigma attached to the drug.

Although I suspect both you and I know people addicted to other things, and we are simply unaware because we don't see any of the outward signs that we associate with "bad drug" addiction.

[donatj]

> They're addicted to coffee and alcohol and cigarettes. It's possible that the problem is not the drug itself but the social stigma attached to the drug.

I assure you there is a difference between coffee/cigarettes and methamphetamine beyond just stigma.

Coffee and tobacco both improve your mental capabilities without short-term downsides. No one’s been fired for showing up with a coffee or tobacco buzz and being more productive.

Very few people would rob their friends and families for mocha money were Starbucks suddenly illicit.

Alcohol is obviously less defensible as many people do end up on the streets over it.

[DropInIn]

When meth was literally 15$ a gram back in my youth (shipping hub) there was no one robbing anyone for it, as an hour or two at any job would pay for a GRAM (large amount) of Pure meth (and I mean high quality pure without any opacity nor color).

Back then most people I knew were using it, in the same way they would use an energy drink, and there were nearly no problems aside from the morons who wouldn't stop parting for a week at a time (but those folks would do the same with Any substance).

Really... Where I grew up the literal mayor was doing coke on the regular and also owned many businesses including the baseball team... And so were most of the successful people doing lots of drugs particularly uppers.

What happened was as they pushed enforcement against the drugs the quality decreased and the cost went up, posing a more immediate health risk and inducing crimes respectively.

I know from first hand experience with both the products and the propel that the biggest issue is the mere fact of thier illegality and extreme markups.

A key is to not have the government view the drug as a profit centre, as Canada did with pot, as that only grows the black market and strengthens them rather than destroy them.

[colonCapitalDee]

I'm sorry, but what? Meth is not an "energy drink". Meth is a highly addictive substance, both physiologically and psychologically. Its use destroys the human body and mind. Meth is too dangerous to be used casually, in the same way that Russian Roulette is too dangerous to be played at board game night.

[DropInIn]

See, that there is what we call failure to engage in basic reading comprehension.

I didn't say meth is like an energy drink, I said these people Used it Like an energy drink...

Reading comprehension, it's important.

And btw ephedra laced drinks were the norm at the time, so they were actually far more similar than now.

[donatj]

To my point though, if you took away cheep coffee, everything is fine. Take away cheap meth, everything is not fine.

[DropInIn]

I dare you to take away cheap coffee.... Things will most certainly Not be fine...

I think you severely underestimate the importance of coffee to the stability of many people's psychology....

I know I'd be far more prone to violent outbursts during the first half of my day if my brain wasn't jump started by coffee.... Literally, I suffer from sleep drunkenness and without coffee my first four hours I'm little more than a drunken moron who is prone to irrational outbursts of instinctive rage at sensory triggers (loudness, brightness, unexpected touch etc).

For me that definitely part of a disorder resultant from a combo of genetics and multiple brain injuries but given what I've seen of others I highly doubt it's any different for many.

A quickly accessed link kind of supports this https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/08/22/neighborhood-in...

Theres a reason tea and coffee shops were the birth places of revolutions: Coffee stimulates the mind and brings clarity and calm many can't find absent it. The absence would be felt in increased consumption of alcohol and the resulting problems.

And really, do you think banning coffee would actually eliminate it? No. It would just become another meth and people would be killed to protect the industry etc, just like with every other substance.

Disbelieve? Look at chinese "medicine" and it's absurd contraband items that are still ridiculously prevalent despite there being literally zero effects from it, no high no health boost just bullshit. And still we have poachers and traffickers murdering thousands of people a year over that shit...

But coffee, it's an exception /s

[mike4ty4]

However, even if there is, why does that mean the answer needs to be the _specific_ extraordinarily-severe-by-nature method of criminal punishment? It seems the article, again, was basically suggesting the problem was there is no sort of incentive AT ALL, when it should be that we should be looking for "neither-nor" solutions that are neither the old method nor "just sit back and do nothing".

[baanlox]

107,000 people in the US died of drug overdoses in the 2022.

400,000 US service members died in WW2.

I think the problem has become so large we are basically in a state of denial and can't put the size of the problem in the proper context.

[WeylandYutani]

When the Netherlands had a heroine junkie problem in the 80s/early 90s the solution was to accept that most of them were going to die. So the government tried to make their death reasonably comfortable. Economic fortunes turned and the nation became decadent and filthy rich again so the problem was fixed.

Drug use is correlated to the economy and the happiness of the population. Portugal needs to fix unemployment and get some economic growth going.

[l1tany11]

Alcohol is an interesting parallel. Probably most people know, or know of someone who is an alcoholic. How many of them want to quit? How many think they have a problem?

It’s not surprising that many addicts of other drugs don’t seek treatment.

It’s like obesity. Just stop eating so much! Just stop drinking! Just stop smoking crack! Just say no!

How well is that going?

Human psychology is nuts. Big is beautiful! Track marks are sexy!

I have no idea how you solve this sort of thing. Does anyone?

[fragmede]

Which sort of thing? Capitalism? Because the article we're commenting on is about the privatization and the cutting of funding to the systems that are necessary to support the legalization of heroine and cocaine. We have problems with the government privatizing industries everywhere there is capitalism.

Solving drug addiction as a society in the world is possible if the western world had the political capital to do so. But like you said, human psychology is nuts. the thing to look at is Hong Kong back in '97. 1897, that is. It was a British colony in the wake of the Opium wars, for 100 years. The allure of being high on opium was a significant drag on the economy and the Chinese government wasn't putting up with that. While they lost the war, and Hong Kong's current political situation is fraught, a country fighting an enemy, the British, is able to unite in a way that war against concepts like war or poverty can't. (Communism is an exception because there were countries with that system to unite against.

We'll note that opium dens still exist, but not in the same capacity as before, and while China also has its share of drug addicts, they don't have downtown Philly or San Francisco.

So how do we fight it? Well, a war on drugs, but not one fought by men with guns and illegalization and demonization, but one fought by therapists and psychologists, with harm reduction and governmental and societal support. It's a radically different shape of society if the government genuinely cares about its people. You'd have to give everyone housing and feed everybody. and not just a subsistence living but thriving community. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can't be had without a life worth living, and a life without hope for a better future is not worth living.

[karp773]

China did solve it in the 50s.

[andrepd]

Those "other quotes" are personal hunches and random people on the street? "I asked random people on the street", really? Come on...

The simple fact is that after drug decriminalisation in 1999 the number of (1) new HIV infections and (2) overdose deaths fell to less than half in a couple years.

After cuts in funding, it started performing worse. Who would have think.

[mike4ty4]

Yep, exactly - get rid of the alternative methods and leave no method and then that's a problem.

[fragmede]

which, governments behave stupidly because that's patiently obvious but what did the US do with that opioid crisis? got rid the method, oxycontin, left no legal supported method, leading to street heroin, and hey guess what we have a huge problem with today.

[doalldrugs]

> Why fund services that go unused?...Tent cities don't exist solely in places without access to housing, and giving an addict 4 walls and privacy is a death sentence.

Sounds like they've already dying.

Would you suggest we stop all drug treatment and let the fire burn itself out so to speak?

[shermozle]

One of the quotes being discussed is a concrete budgetary cut. The other is the opinion of a drug warrior on the losing side of the war. Oh and for some reason you included some anecdata collected by the (I would argue) compromised reporter.

[dan-robertson]

I thought the implementations in the US were very different from those in Portugal though?

[Broken_Hippo]

Tent cities don't exist solely in places without access to housing

"Access to housing" isn't enough. You might have "access" to health care but unable to afford it. You need housing as a right - even without payment - alongside enough adequate housing for everyone. And allow folks to do things in their own home. If they cannot do it at their home with other people, the person in question does not have adequate housing.

And that last bit - about a death sentence? That is only for a few addicts. A subset of addicts die.

If you have to get clean to get housing, housing is inadequate. I'd probably not go for rehab if I were homeless: I'd just have to be sober for the misery.

And that's what we give people. That's what we are offering. Various forms of misery.

[rscrawfo]

This is a real question, not a retort.

But I have known addicts, they don’t exactly take care of their things. It’s very easy to imagine that much of the state supplied housing would quickly become unsafe and or destroyed.

How do you handle that?

[thebigjewbowski]

I’m almost scared to post this but — have you been in / around public housing in the US? (Genuine not rhetorical)

It’s not uncommon for it to be unsafe and destroyed.

[rscrawfo]

That’s the reasoning for my question. Just last night I was reading about a local homeless man who was scared to go to the local shelter and had things stolen when he had.

But I also wanted to ask the OP (who mentioned housing as a right) how that could be avoided.

[Broken_Hippo]

Fix things. You know, by spending money. And do better than we do now with state supplied housing. Plus, not everyone is going to fall into this category and we don't always have to use state housing, depending on the person. I think we should do the same with everyone, not just addicts.

And have different sorts of housing. Some folks - not just addicts - could really benefit from a place modeled after a motel or hotel: Cleaning services and so on, private room and private bath. Some folks could do with a kitchen or provided food. Some folks could use these things yet would be better with a seperate bedroom and living room... well, you get the picture.

At no time is everyone - addict or not - going to be able to take care of things. We should help those folks.

[mike4ty4]

Spend more of your hard earned cash to do the upkeep. YOU suffer a little more for it and I'm all down for that happening to you because we gotta spread the burden around given it's going to be there, period.

[fragmede]

it becomes assisted living, like for seniors. they can't live like that, so you get a maid service in every week. it works if just pour money into it, just like rasing children by the government.

the 70's abolition of mental asylums by Regan. We closed the thing with no alternative and expected anything but a disaster?

[K0balt]

Concrete. Everything concrete. Anything not concrete is removable.

[mensetmanusman]

Concrete has poor tensile strength and is wash to damage with a hammer. Also as a building material is very expensive...

[gruez]

So the equivalent of putting them in jail cells, minus the bars?

[K0balt]

At the lowest levels, yes, because people at that level destroy everything they touch.. and if they are above that level then they can decorate as they wish, rugs and furniture are a thing.

[pmoriarty]

"And that last bit - about a death sentence? That is only for a few addicts. A subset of addicts die."

Not only that, but most drug users aren't addicts.

To the general public, when they hear the words "drug user" they immediately equate that with "addict", and many can't even imagine that people could use drugs and not get addicted.

But that's not true, as addicts are a small minority of drug users.

Drug policy affects far more than just addicts. Lots of non-addicted users are affected too.

[leesalminen]

> addicts are a small minority of drug users.

Do you have any reliable data to back up that claim? In my experience users who purport to not be addicts are indeed addicts in massive denial about their poor choices.

[volkl48]

For one argument, consider the disparities between the # of people who've used a type of drug at some point in their life, vs the # that have used them in the past year, vs the # that have used them in the past month.

While some % of those are people who got help and quit in the past year, or people on the start of a downward spiral/addiction, plenty of those seem to just be infrequent users.

Unless the drug kills you so frequently/quickly that you can't sustain use for long or is rapidly gaining users for a new addiction crisis, the level of greater than monthly users should be higher if most of those infrequent users are going to become addicts.

https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt3...

You can further see that the spread of yearly vs monthly use is closer for substances typically considered more addictive and wider for those less thought to be. (not a lot of LSD addicts out there, relatively speaking).

-------

My experience is that a lot of people are very quiet about their drug use outside the environment where they dabble in it and never mention it at all in company where they're uncertain about how it'll be viewed, so I also suspect that you may not recognize most of those people as people who'd use drugs at all.

I'm a big live music person and being around people using drugs somewhat comes with the territory, especially festival-type environments. But most of the people I've met at those things don't do much of those substances otherwise aside from possibly weed. They've got their once or twice a year time of hitting up the party drugs for their weekend of fun + music, but that's it.

[Broken_Hippo]

I've known a lot of folks that smoke pot on the weekends. I don't always mind heavy pot users: Generally better than alcoholics.

I've known a lot of folks that use hallucinogens: You aren't addicted to those, in general.

I've known a lot of folks with a liking to cocaine, but they can't afford to use more than a couple times a year. Or it just isn't something they want to feel every day. This applies to a lot of drug use.

I've met a lot of folks that only use drugs (or alcohol) when they have a sitter for their children.

You probably don't have reliable data to back up your claim either, and have the added mental block of deciding that all of the folks have poor choices. And unfortunately, you aren't using what you know about, say, alcohol and applying that to other druts. Most folks that drink alcohol aren't addicts or alcoholics. Even if they drink more than you, it doesn't mean they are alcoholics.

[LorenPechtel]

I think both are true.

Different drugs have wildly different addiction rates. Most people who use drugs are using the non-addictive stuff.

However, the people we traditionally view as addicts are almost certainly addicts even if they pretend they could quit anytime.

[thriftwy]

A billion people across the world may want a house "as right" in San Francisco. It may only fit three order of magnitudes people realistically, though.

[Broken_Hippo]

Why would the right to housing stop in san francisco?

Most places can do this. The US can do it. Everything contrary is just excuses.

[thriftwy]

San Francisco has better placement than 99,9% of Earth.

Most of places on Earth has snow, heat waves, no coasts, biting insects, or a combination of that. They are also not located in the richest country, in a place which historically produces jobs.

So, under this regime specifically San Francisco will get population influx until it is not usable for absolute majority of people (think a bro dormitory the size of SF), and that process will be repeated for many other lucrative locations on Earth (heck, many cities are arguably already going that route).

I don't see how free housing differs from sacrificing every place you like to tragedy of the commons on grand scale, until there is nothing for you to like there anymore and you move on yourself.

Other than that, there are places on Earth with basically free housing. Check out Vorkuta.

[K0balt]

Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs.

Honestly, if a person isn’t up for it, we need to stop trying to convince them to stay around and be miserable. Elective suicide should be a basic right, and drugs are one way out. We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want hep.

Criminalize public drug use.

Provide basic unregulated housing, not unlike squattable buildings. Set up AI monitored surveillance and prohibit attempts to form any kind of exploitative enterprise. Self registration with biometric access. Provide fentanyl dispensers. Come through once a day and dispose of the dead.

Create an exit ramp where those that wish to can easily climb out through rehab into a viable path forward. Just by walking out they can register for rehab and get on a bus to a facility with an on-ramp to society.

Let them live in the stark misery that they choose so they can confront it head on and decide if that’s what they want. But keep them outside of the general population during their self destruction process.

Provide stepping-stone housing, mental health services, and educational on-ramps for people that need housing and can test clean of the typical death-spiral drugs.

It should be made clear that certain kinds of drug use are part of a suicide process. Make it unattractive to flirt with, and limit it to private spaces.

Social drugs such as alcohol and thc are not so incompatible with society and don’t really need regulatory interference aside from limiting access to minors.

[HumblyTossed]

> Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs.

> Honestly, if a person isn’t up for it, we need to stop trying to convince them to stay around and be miserable. Elective suicide should be a basic right, and drugs are one way out. We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want hep.

What an absolutely miserable outlook on life.

All life is precious and fleeting. We should respect it.

[K0balt]

We should, I agree. But not everyone wants to participate.

I believe life is wonderful and precious… but it is , by default, misery.

If you do nothing (the default condition) to sustain or improve your existence, you will be miserable. That is the never ending tyranny of imperative action.

That is the fundamental nature of life, and not everyone is up for it. And that’s ok.

[tiffanyg]

As another commenter noted, you're making lots of assumptions. For example, your mindset sounds, to me, entirely "modern 'western'".

I would suggest that the fundamental issue with your assumptions is a blurring of the lines when it comes to the objective and subjective. Specifically, nature and certain realms of human existence ARE objectively "harsh", unforgiving, uncomfortable, etc. However, that does not mean that all who exist or have existed in such realms are miserable.

If you've not seen this before, this show is just one (of a great many materials not so prevalent in modern western intensely consumer / advertising / so-called "achievement"-oriented cultures) reference with some real views of massive differences in (subjective) experience people can have across various "objective" realities:

https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/83990-the-kindness-diaries?lan...

In any case, your policy proposals earlier would, IMO, add up to poor outcomes. Not because they are inherently so bad / worse than what's been tried - more just due to the nature of the problem. Our tools / these sorts of tools are incredibly blunt compared to the complexity of the problem. And, trying to put in place some of what you propose, would definitely harm some people - in part simply in making the changes.

I am not claiming to be able to do any better, though, for sure.

[K0balt]

I didn’t mean to imply that living in harsh conditions is inherently miserable. I have lived in “natural” subsistence conditions in the Alaskan bush for extended periods of time, and while it was often acutely uncomfortable, it was not any kind of existential misery. Misery comes from unmanageable circumstances or personal outlook.

But, I agree with you that my off the cuff policy proposal has many flaws and would harm some people. I think it might do less harm than good, but without a good bit of (probably unethical) a/b testing I’m really not sure.

[HumblyTossed]

>If you do nothing (the default condition) to sustain or improve your existence, you will be miserable. That is the never ending tyranny of imperative action.

You're making LOTS of assumptions here.

[K0balt]

Im pretty sure you are correct, but I’m struggling with imagining situations where the statement “If you do nothing (the default condition) to sustain or improve your existence, you will be miserable. “ does not apply.

I would be genuinely greatful if you could provide me with realistic examples of where this statement is incorrect.

The only ones I can think of are ones where someone else does the sustenance and improvement of your existence, like in the case of being a child or a ward of the state, perhaps? Also obviously where you are paying others to do so, but there you have actually caused this to happen and therefore are “doing” it.

[robocat]

> Social drugs such as alcohol and thc are not so incompatible with society

Alcohol is very unsociable - calling it social seems odd to me. Anecdotally alcohol seems pretty destructive to me. I am middle-aged so perhaps I have seen more of the deeper long-term destructive effects than you? New Zealanders generally have quite a problem with alcohol abuse.

[JTon]

It's both isn't it. It has to be. Have you ever been to a wedding or convention that is serving? Alcohol absolutely is a social lubricant

[robocat]

That does not make it social.

By your definition ecstasy is a social drug or any drug at a rave is social (Note I have never seen MDMA turn anti-social).

In my experience most drugs are “social” - the heroin users I knew were a tight crowd! Weed is definitely social for those that partake.

Serve cocaine, MDMA and meth at a wedding and everybody will have a social blast too.

[alsetmusic]

I don’t see an argument against the social merit of alcohol here. I dated an enabler who knew that alcohol helped ease my social anxiety around strangers. She told me we’d get a couple of drinks into me at the bar when going to office parties. It worked. Made me very sociable.

I’m genuinely curious how you define sociability of a drug or substance. I know alcohol is detrimental to society at large. On an individual basis, I find it quite attractive for social gatherings.

[K0balt]

For some people alcohol and even THC can be very negative. That is true.

But we have learned that the social costs of prohibition of those drugs is higher than the benefit to society.

The same may be true of certain classes of hallucinogenic substances, especially since people tragically turn to solvents and extremely toxic substances as substitutes.

[DropInIn]

Alcohol is the drug with the highest correlation with violence etc as well as producing the highest number of deaths and long term health problems...

[alsetmusic]

It’s also the most readily available. The health problems don’t happen in a bubble. I’d bet heroin is far more destructive per user, but I’m just guessing at that.

[DropInIn]

Theres no need to guess, we can just look to before it was prohibited.

And it was alcohol that was worse.

Most people don't care to use it (heroin) at all let alone regularly. Opiates cause nausea and retching in most areas drug abuse levels....

Alcohol was far more popular and consistently harmful...

Just ask the wives of the time what they'd rather thier husbands use....

[4RealFreedom]

Completely agree with you. The only reason drugs are expensive is because they've been made illegal. Don't get me started on the secondary aspects like people not being able to get pain killers after surgery. Legalize all of them and make them cheap or just hand them out. Public use should be met with harsh penalties. The war on drugs has been so expensive in cash money and the human cost. We need to try something radically different.

[reducesuffering]

> should be met with harsh penalties

> war on drugs has been so expensive

> we need to try something radically different

You want something different and then advocate for the same?

[4RealFreedom]

What!? Really!? That's your takeaway? I don't even know what to say other than taking select talking points and attempting to use those as a gotcha is disingenuous. Argue against what was posted. The point was I don't think children should be exposed to drug use. Why do you think that's a good idea? If it's not, then how do we keep children from seeing it?

[mike4ty4]

If you say they are just self-destroying and "want to create suicide" and "don't want to help those who don't want help" then why not both not help AND not punish at the same time, and just let "nature" do it all? That is, you have elective suicide AND you say they have a free pass out of punishment (basically they can whinny out of public use without ANYTHING adverse), and because "life is misery" just you yourself endure the misery of living in a society where that dealing with the externalities of their highly public drug use as they die/don't "want to climb out" is just a part and parcel of YOUR life. Suffer a little by NOT punishing. You're already doing it, so just do more of it and screw your complaining.

Basically, that is, do everything you say while NOT punishing the public drug use and you just eating the social cost of that as part of life's natural consequences (or else, if you do criminalize it, make a criminal conviction for it both not affect the availability of rehab at all and make the conviction vanish entirely upon successful completion of the rehab and then eat and endure permanently the social consequences of THAT on the "life is misery by default" logic).

[K0balt]

Because their actions are endangering others. Our rights to self determination end where we infringe upon the rights of others. Public drug abuse has deleterious externalities. So just do it in your home, or go get a free home to do it in, no questions asked.

[andrepd]

> Life is misery by default, as a natural consequence of life itself. The never ending tyranny of the need to eat and avoid being eaten is the normal state of affairs.

Edgy, I would definitely have posted that on myspace when I was 14. Of course, that's not true. We are not hunter-gatherers, or pre-industrial farmers. We have abundance of all of life's necessities and even more.

>We only create misery by “helping” people that don’t want help.

You clearly haven't met any addicts, only observed them from a sneering distance and concluded whatever you wanted to conclude.

Suffice to say: I have. Several people who were on self-destructive paths, of whom you could have said "well fuck him, the fucker doesn't want help and is a burden to those around him, why should I waste money and effort with him?". With the necessary support they are now entirely different persons.

>Provide basic unregulated housing, not unlike squattable buildings. Set up AI monitored surveillance and prohibit attempts to form any kind of exploitative enterprise. Self registration with biometric access. Provide fentanyl dispensers. Come through once a day and dispose of the dead.

I sure am glad you don't make public policy, but you might have a future in dystopian fiction.

[gruez]

>Suffice to say: I have. Several people who were on self-destructive paths, of whom you could have said "well fuck him, the fucker doesn't want help and is a burden to those around him, why should I waste money and effort with him?". With the necessary support they are now entirely different persons.

I didn't get the impression that the parent was against help. He explicitly mentioned providing rehab programs to those who wanted them.

[nickserv]

Putting a bunch of addicts in an abandoned building so they can live in misery doesn't seem very helpful.

[K0balt]

Addicts actively reject housing with rules and seek out abandoned buildings. The idea is to provide them with safe refuge where they do not have to be compliant except to be nonviolent, while keeping them in immediate proximity to a rehab on-ramp that would move them out of that situation into inpatient rehab.

They already move out of housing to seek out abandoned buildings because their choices are incompatible with society at large.

My idea is an attempt to align incentives for a better outcome.

[gruez]

As per the parent comment, they're free to move into rehab if they so choose. They're not forced to live in misery.

[K0balt]

Maybe you missed the parts in my comments where anyone who wants to move back into society just has to walk outside and get on a bus?

And by default, I mean if you take no action. If you don’t believe me, try it some time. Do literally nothing to improve or maintain your living situation and see if that does not lead to misery.

People up inhere acting like I’m locking up addicts in death camps lol, but if you read my comment you can clearly see that what I am advocating is to let people do what they want without screwing up society at large.

[momirlan]

that is the premise of a good distopian movie. or a book, if you prefer.

[K0balt]

Letting people do what they want does unfortunately lead to some pretty dystopian optics.

Still a better love story than twilight.

[softsound]

With new diabetes drugs coming out they found them to have anti-addiction properties from food, smoking to shopping addiction, etc. You might say all these people don't want help but what if we just started putting them on anti-addiction drugs in the future? It could change their whole life, my diabetic mom now also has one of those stickers that tells her when her blood sugar gets too high and now she feels guilty when she eats badly because we all can hear it when her alarm goes off from the sticker and phone app. She also told me when she got on some of these drugs she doesn't feel as hungry anymore and started losing some weight. Her last doctor didn't care about her having diabetes so she didn't either, her new doctor is like, "yeah let's fix this, we'll get rid of this this year". And sometimes just having someone believe you can change makes all the difference.

Also what really makes people struggle with suicide can be quite different then just drug use.

Suicide thinking is an inflammation of the body that happens to all creatures when put under extreme stress. Their body is starting to control their mind. They aren't imagining pain, their body is literally in pain. Figuring what is causing the stress and how to reduce it is key.

Instead of saying oh they don't want to live, look at what is going on with their body. Overworked people get really suicidal would you want to get an exit ramp for them?

A lot of suicidal people also have been through a lot of unprocessed trauma that plain old consulting won't fix (as someone who went to 10 psychologist I personally find most of it useless as well, few people understand CPTSD and in fact I have had some psychologist blaming me for my problems and really badly mislabeling me. I was smart enough not to believe them but a lot of people might not. Most people don't understand what's like to live in bad circumstances for years they just think it's a personality disorder. This psychologist also never even asked if I grew up with a family history of violence because I seemed too normal in some ways. They were really bad at their job but at the time I thought if I could bully myself into changing myself with this psychologist help, maybe I could improve... It's only after some family died I realized what I was actually going through and found a term for it.)

Also by this logic of addicted users don't want to change it's like saying poor people choose to be poor, it's really hard to get out of systems and thought patterns to improve your circumstances. People spiral for a reason and it can be tough to overcome. Also really smart people can still be poor, being born in the wrong country or at the wrong time, or in the wrong circumstances etc etc can make a lot of difference. Having empathy for people and helping them understand themselves can make a lot of difference. I've helped a lot of suicidal people improve their circumstances (though it's hard), and it can be popular to be suicidal as a cultural thing too especially the more disconnected and trapped people feel. With suicide rates increasing you have to understand we have some systemic issues going on, it's not their fault they feel bad most of the time, it's just a bad system they are in, change the system change the people. Especially the youth. Also almost drug use abuse is because people feel disconnected from others. Which is largely a systemic issue now with loneliness shock rocketing.

[fragmede]

That drug, btw, is Semaglutide, brand name Ozempic. it's been featured in a number of articles as being the cure for addiction and is having a bit of a Viagra moment. Weight loss is big business but curbing addiction to drugs (inc alcohol), gambling, and spending would be an even bigger one.

[oceanplexian]

I’m gonna guess that most people on this board lead productive lives and can handle drugs and alcohol, so it’s going to cause some bias and self-selection. But there are folks out there that who have never had a drink in their lives, have one, and then immediately spiral out of control and become violent.

I’ve seen it first hand. Really nice guys, had no issues or violent tendencies, then got a hold of alcohol or drugs and it completely changed them. In the worst cases it went to the ultimate extreme and they wound up killing others.

Once you realize this, your perspective on the laissez-faire attitude changes. The reality is that some people are fundamentally incompatible with drugs and alcohol and society needs to put up boundaries to prevent collateral damage, even if we were OK with them killing themselves. I think some drugs are worse than others (For example I’ve never seen someone get violent after smoking Cannabis) but messing with your brain chemistry is not a trivial thing like the pro-legalize-everything camp wants to proclaim.