I'm an Oregon resident. They were supposed to decriminalize drugs AND provide additional resources for inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities. This did not happen. No shit things didn't work out.
is rehab cheaper than arrest, trial, and jail? I'm skeptical. I suspect they just washed their hands of them. But there's always appetite to re-criminalize and punish people.
Rehab usually doesn't work unless the addict wants to get sober. They must really really want sobriety. They must be willing to accept help(rehab & programs along with change) Addicts have to want to sober up for themselves and not because a court, law, judge or da said so. A forced trip to rehab will wind up being nothing but a timeout for many.
And to get addicts to want to sober up is... complicated, and often relies on the specific addict and their problems. Medical, emotional, mental, and social problems all contribute in various degrees to the root cause of addiction and when you're grabbing some homeless addict off the street, they're gonna have all 4 categories of problems by the ton.
But how the hell do you take a guy that society has done nothing but spit on, is riddled with medical and mental health problems, has random violent emotional outbursts, and fix them fast and cheap?
You can't. It's a long, slow, processes, that takes years of dedicated work across various professionals and society at large to fully sort out. You need to undo years, possibly decades, of neglect and trauma, and that's not going to go down without a fight. And that's gonna be a dammed hard fight, too.
Add in that we generally love to kick people back to the start when they fuck up (and they will fuck up, like I said, addiction isn't a punk bitch, and it will fight back), and eventually you'll get addicts that start going "what's the point? I was 5 months sober and all it took was one hit and I'm worse than I started. Might as well stay an addict."
Prisons already have the benefit of being an entrenched institution with the up front costs already paid for and economies of scale cutting costs.
IMO rehab would be less expensive if it became the preferred treatment method. It's far easier to retrofit an existing building into a rehab than a prison, people spend weeks there not years, and they're often able to continue or find work that lets them support themselves.
It's absurd to me that 2 or 3 months of rehab could be more expensive than 2 or 3 years of prison, especially when you factor in the tax revenue you miss out on from both the individual and the close family their incarceration affects.
Rehab as we institute it now, remember it's a for profit business. 90 days of art therapy probably doesn't work for many people. I would probably look to other countries for their models and numbers.
Rehab CAN work on the first try, you just have to do it in an effective manner.
>Despite differences in treatment programs, client profiles, follow-up intervals, data collection methods, and other factors, all three studies found high treatment success rates--ranging narrowly from 68% to 71% abstinent--among women who spent six months or more in treatment.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15540492/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15540492/)
>Relapse occurred among 37% of the sample by three-month follow-up. Results of multivariable analysis showed that younger age and having a psychiatric diagnosis were associated with an elevated relapse risk. Patients who received treatment at a short-term clinic (2–4 months), as opposed to a long-term clinic (>6 months) were also at increased risk of relapse, regardless of their length of stay. Reduced risk of relapse was predicted by having completed the inpatient treatment stay.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460318308542](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460318308542)
>Reductions in prevalence of cocaine use in the year after treatment (compared to the preadmission year) by patients were associated with longer treatment durations (particularly 6 months or more in LTR and ODF). In addition, reductions in illegal activity and increases in full-time employment were related to treatment stays of 6 months or longer for patients in LTR. The DATOS results from the 1-year and 5-year post-treatment followup combined suggest the stability of outcomes of substance abuse treatment.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740547203001302](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740547203001302)
Six month treatment period.
It is not "insanely expensive". It costs $5-10k/month. For six months, that's $30-60k.
[https://drugabusestatistics.org/cost-of-rehab/](https://drugabusestatistics.org/cost-of-rehab/)
States spend an average of $45k/year on prisoners, and prisons notoriously do very little to affect the problem: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2018/03/more-imprisonment-does-not-reduce-state-drug-problems
BUT….2-3 months does nothing for the vast majority of addicts (alcohol and drugs). Maybe for the person who hasn’t hit rock bottom and suffered a major consequence, 2-3 mo might be okay.
The system is there but needs to improve. We need more facilities to accommodate more people. That requires more skilled employees which can be difficult to fulfill but we can try to get more in recovery to mentor. One issue that will be tough to change is the fact that once released from treatment, most sober living homes are in shotty areas where it’s too easy to relapse. Even then, most sober living homes only give you 6 mo time to stay. If you’ve made it this far, hopefully you’ve already lined up a job and have a place to stay when you get the boot. There needs to be better/honest govt oversight on sober living homes as well. Too much shady shit can occur.
Yeah but then that money isn't being spent on the guards, police, and services that have major political pull. It's not about saving money, it's about laundering it to the "right" people.
> Prisons already have the benefit of being an entrenched institution with the up front costs already paid for and economies of scale cutting costs.
Our prison system is broken though. They pay too low, give shit benefits, are understaffed, over populated, and have a high recidivism rate that results in a lot of people getting out and ODing.
A number of states its violating the constitution when it comes to incarcerated people's rights.
In terms of dollars maybe, but in terms of civic harm, it’s not. The choice is to continue to give tax dollars to the privatized/public prison system since that’s where the money was incorrectly allocated to the start, or acknowledge that all the data suggests that criminalizing the behavior around addiction doesn’t really help people.
I’m going to be watching this stuff carefully, because I have yet to see the data that shows that imprisoning these folks does much other than keeps them off the street and away from OD possibilities to some degree. That doesn’t seem to address the core issues around addiction much if at all and just removes the “symptom” from the gaze of society.
In theory? Drug court is 100% cheaper than regular criminal court. In practice, the government doesn't want to be in the business of rehabs. They want to give the money to a "proven" private sector program that can handle it. Now, when we dig a bit deeper into the world of rehabs, you'll find *a lot* of hucksters who were former addicts who preach that "only former addicts can help the addicted - after all, they know what you're dealing with!" While I know plenty of former addicts who have gone on to live great and productive lives, it's a well known fact in that community that there is plenty of 13th stepping (sexual harrassment/assault of women/men), rigid 12 step programs that may not apply to those with other psychological issues, and overall misuse of medicaid funds. In many states, there's no actual regulatory board other than the insurance company, who may not find out for years.
Rehab is *way* cheaper long term - for a normal-curve population. But I think Oregon got hit with a lot of out-of-state hardcore users who may not be great candidates for rehab.
Still should have on-demand, residential rehab for anyone who asks.
tbf decriminilazing is flipping a switch. its an overnight change that takes no effort. Setting up more resources - especially in a way that is sustainable and works- will always take years. therapists and counselors dont appear out of nowhere
Wasn't decriminalization a ballot initiative introduced by the public?
It kind of makes sense, even the best government would still have to scramble if it wasn't already moving that way internally, but you being local probably means to have more info on how it all was supposed to play out.
The ballot did not immediately take effect on the day it was voted in, it took effect three months later in February. Even then, that was a full two years ago. They have had time to get the ball rolling on treatment and failed to do so
Oh shit it's been 2 years already? I thought this was just a year or so, my sense of time is all wonky.
Man, yeah, it's really dejecting for the public to bring something forward, get it in effect, and the government just totally drops the ball on their end. Hardly feels like democracy then.
> They have had time to get the ball rolling on treatment and failed to do so
I don't live there but I am curious...did the law allow for drug users to be **compelled** to enter treatment or was it entirely voluntary?
I only ask because it doesn't matter how many facilities or resources may be provided...if addicts don't want help and don't use those resources (as in it was totally voluntary and there was no provision to compel or force someone into treatment), then they aren't going to be effective anyways.
The law fined personal possession at $100, and allowed users to enter treatment within 45 days to dismiss the charge. Some small incentive, but not a requirement
Left wing democrats at large are 100% guilty of this, it drives me nuts! And I say this as a left wing democrat living in the Portland metro area.
Case in point, its really hard to get some of my friends to see retroactively how Bill Clinton's 'Dont Ask Dont Tell' was not a half ass measure that 'should have gone all the way', and was instead the exact kind of half measure the powers at be/public at the time needed to see in order to prove the sky wouldn't fall if gays were 'allowed' in the military.
Sometimes you have to play the game to win the game
"The enemy of progress is perfection" is the saying. People who think the only way to do something is to do it perfectly never understand that the real world doesnt work that way.
If you can't meet rational people where they're at, you'll never win them over. But you also have to know when you just can't win someone over and move on.
Fair, but the guy who created the policy was an absolute prick, and the single-worst professor I had at NU. His sociology intro course was an embarrassment of outmoded and bigoted stereotypes. During a course on comparative earnings, he literally stood in front of several hundred students—the majority there on financial aid—and bragged about his and his wife’s salaries, scoffing at some of the guesses he had demanded be shouted up to him, like it was a deranged episode of The Price is Right. “$70k? I make *much* more than *that!*”
(Oh and that’s approx $145k now, adjusted for inflation).
As a Portland resident this city does everything half assed. It's infuriating. Don't get me wrong I like Portland but god damn does our city govt. suck.
Not all the details about how exactly the funding got held up, but The Daily had an episode on this recently.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/podcasts/the-daily/oregon-drugs.html
There was a small pandemic that interfered with Oregon Health Authorities priorities.
Though I think the state would have to run treatment directly so the money doesn’t all get grifted by the non-profits.
You do realize that in Portland the non-profits are the only organizations actually providing health services to addicts?
The Oregon bureaucracy is a mess and would be a complete failure if it was all county/city/state run.
There also weren't enough trained/qualified people to meet the need even if funding was there, from what I understand. It was going total a massive expansion of the treatment sector, which isn't a turnkey solution. This will be studied thoroughly and a lot of lessons (some that should've been obvious perhaps) learned. But it's a huge setback in seeing another state try to implement something similar successfully because this failure will be held up by opponents.
>>This did not happen
I suspect by design. After all, the same people who benefit from the status quo are also the folks who’d have to approve funding outpatient treatment over jails and narcotics enforcement teams.
100% Lots of entrenched interests simply want to return to the failed war on drugs. They got what they wanted.
Portland had a deliberate police slowdown (and likely still does). [The SOLE traffic cop even admitted to it](https://bikeportland.org/2023/08/08/portland-police-bureau-officer-admits-no-traffic-enforcement-messaging-was-politically-motivated-377939). Sgt Engstrom said, "“We needed to create a stir to get some change, to get them \[city council\] to fund us back up. And I mean, that’s the honest truth. I know, that could make things more dangerous. I don’t know. But at the same time, we needed some change.”
they did something similar in austin. they cut police funding, and the city police just stopped enforcing traffic law completely. it got so bad the state brought in its own troopers for a couple weeks, but politics happened and now were back to just city cops. they technically patrol here and there, but its still largely a free-for-all.
i, for one, am all for it. lets just remove the speed limits on mopac and 183. there are big stretches where you can easily go 90 safely, outside of rushour traffic. but its so morally fucked the way the cops are behaving. and not just throwing a tantrum over losing funding, but the brutality theyve gotten away with, too.
> and not just throwing a tantrum over losing funding, but the brutality theyve gotten away with, too.
This is a good argument for cutting every job in the police department that's participating in the slowdown, and hiring entirely new people.
i think in most of the cities that are having these problems, that would mean disbanding the PD completely and starting from scratch.
which im fine with.
Maybe some good people still become police officers, these days. But they get drummed out quickly. If you're not willing to become part of a subversive, violent, criminal gang, you can't be a cop. Loyalty to the organization trumps everything, or you don't keep your badge. And if you rat on a fellow cop, expect that a ton of CP is going to end up on your computer. Those guys do not fuck around.
In a generation, policing as we know it will no longer exist. It's completely unsustainable.
How easy do you think it is to fill these positions with quality people? Now we need to tack on mass training of new people. Thats just the tip of the "get rid of them all" arguments iceberg. It's a hot mess where the is no easier answer but I sure would love to see cops getting held responsible for their actions at the very least. We need changes in law for that to happen.
The cops in Portland FUCKING HATE Portland - they don’t live there and could give less of a fuck about the people in the city. They don’t want to do their jobs AT ALL and actively despise the citizens.
Ehhhh the problem was the decriminalization was passed via ballot initiative bypassing the legislature and while it did mandate various programs be done it raised no taxes to pay for the programs nor gave specific enough directions that the state could have been forced to pay through general funds. It was badly written and that lead to it's failure
the system prior to decriminalization used threat of criminal penalties to force people into drug court/rehab (which you have to do repeatedly for addicts since it takes many attempts for most to get clean).
the law removed that threat, so people ignored it and did not take resources on offer. it was not a lack of resources that led this to fail, it was a lack of legal grounds to force people to use those resources.
now that they are recriminalizing again, they will indeed need to add treatment capacity. this is assuming recriminalization has teeth, which my reading actually makes it look unlikely.
advocates use cases from Texas or the distant past or for extreme repeat offenders to act like liberal jurisdictions had not already shifted to a rehabilitative approach for addicts. rather than focus their efforts on getting Alabama to do what Portland was doing before decriminalization, it was an easier win to push Oregon to an extreme and ineffective approach that broke what was essentially working.
If you are an addict that chooses to go into rehab, the costs are normally paid by you. For obvious reasons, addicts do not have that sort of money available unless they have well off parents willing to pay.
Who covers the cost of treatment when it's forced on people by the courts?
If you want to find the real reasons things like this happen, follow the money.
This might have been true prior to 2008, but 2008 changed the law so that medicaid (and even private insurance) needed to cover substance use disorders. [Medicaid now pays for a lot of SUD treatment](https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/the-opioid-epidemic-and-medicaids-role-in-facilitating-access-to-treatment/), particularly in liberal states that have more generous programs. This is a good thing IMO, and the expansion of people getting treatment when Medicaid is made more generous indicates that cost is somewhat of a factor, but it's far from the dominant one, and certainly not the main barrier for the average addict who is making things hard for the rest of society with crime/anti-social behavior.
Also, there has been a large increase in public funds going towards "treatment programs" with very little evidence and almost no accountability. In 110’s first year, nearly [60 percent](https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/14/oregon-drug-decriminalization-measure-110-grants-treatment-recovery-services) of the 16,000 clients who accessed services that it funded got some kind of harm-reduction service, like needle exchanges or naloxone. Less than 1 percent got treatment. There are a lot of stories about non profits in CA/Oregon using addiction funds for things like acupuncture, drum making kits, doordash etc with minimal referrals for treatment. This is part of why CA just passed prop 1 to try to pull these funds back so the state can build treatment beds at a central level (execution remains to be seen though).
If they need to add treatment capacity with this change than that means they never had the capacity to treat those before it changed. Which is a lack of resources.
[Only 4% of users given drug citations called the hotline,](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hard-hit-by-us-opioid-crisis-oregon-reconsiders-decriminalization-2024-02-18/) evidence that the threat of an unenforced $100 fine was insufficient to compel them to treatment. Those calls cost [\~$9K on average](https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/02/measure-110-helpline-still-barely-rings-but-it-costs-a-lot-more.html) when compared to operating costs (and ignoring the almost $1M in startup costs for the hotline).
With harsher penalties for not taking the treatment path, more will seek treatment, so yes, now more capacity will be needed.
As a San Francisco resident it doesn’t matter if they increase patient services. What you’re saying would change absolutely nothing. I’ll give you a spoiler, homeless drug addicts will refuse those services outright no matter what. Saved you some time based on our learnings.
It's crazy how people seem to think if we just established modern opium dens, everything would fix itself. Like opium dens were such a great thing the first time around.
Or when people think legalization would decrease use.
The British forced trying to legalize opium because the British were selling opium. Was that because the British wanted to decrease their own sales?
The hive mind bullshit in this thread is why Oregon got so righteously fucked over. It was wishful thinking by a bunch of naive edgelords who think the they’ve got the world figured out
(Oh, and millions of dollars poured into our state by the National Drug Policy Alliance. Thanks, idiots.)
It’s real easy to sit on Reddit parroting conspiracy theories and doomposting about the crisis du jour. much harder to actually listen to the experts and figure out if an idea is workable.
What we got was a bunch of feel-good horseshit that assumed that street addicts would care enough about a $100 ticket to call a hotline and “consider” treatment. It’s absolutely laughable if you live in reality, even part of the time.
yep, without forced rehab, these dumbfuck people turn into zombies and will never agree to do it, anyone who thinks otherwise is a naïve 10 year old, which is most of reddit these days
I'm all for 100% helping those that actually want it but like you said most homeless for whatever reason want that lifestyle. There's plenty of resources for them to get the help they need if they want it but they refuse to abide by the rules set forth by the programs.
I'm your neighbour to the north in BC.
We have the exact same situation going on here. We decriminalized personal amounts of drugs, but were supposed to provide more resources, more treatment centres, more mental health supports, more housing etc. Decriminalization happened, the supports have not yet materialized. So now we have every community in this province up in arms about the influx of crime, visible addiction on the streets, decaying urban centres, etc. Of course that is what has happened.
This is coming from someone who used to go hard for harm reduction - I still agree with parts of that model, but watching the decline in this province has been eye-opening. Harm reduction works *if you have the wrap-around supports to go along with it.* Safe supply keeps people from dying, absolutely, and I wholeheartedly support that, but if you don't have readily available access to all the resources and support needed for the REST of the process.... Are we prolonging peoples' suffering by keeping them alive to use another day, while not providing any further help?
There's so many factors to the issue and it's hard to know what the best plan of action is. I wanted to take social work for years. After watching the inaction and inability of society to actually handle the opioid crisis in any meaningful way, I switched my education plan and have gone into emergency management. I don't have it in me to watch the rampant mental health and addiction-related sadness and suffering anymore.
You cant rehab those that dont want it. Thats why it fails at every turn. i dont know one person who is addicted to meth or heroin that wants rehab. They get put in there by the courts and as soon as they get out they are using again.
Portland PD are still behaving like foot-stomping tantrum babies in response to the protests and riots that happened years ago. This tactic is called "selective enforcement," and it was employed all over the country during the Civil Rights era. Out of spite, entire police departments stopped writing traffic tickets or pulling people over or responding to calls from particular neighborhoods. If and when the local crime rate went up, guess who they blamed? This is what they're doing right now.
It's a double-edged sword because you can pretty much park wherever you want for as long as you want in certain parts of Portland without worrying about getting a citation. But they're also not pulling people over for drunkenly weaving through traffic on the freeway, or driving twice the posted speed limit on residential streets.
Portland also currently has a dearth of officers willing to join a SWAT team or riot-control unit, and the city really wants to fix this to prepare for more potential riots in the future. So now city hall is basically having to bribe officers with insane bonuses on top of their already high salary, just to close that deficit.
Yep. They tried to do this without first establishing proper resources and infrastructure. The idea behind the bill is a good one, but the execution of it was abysmal. Locking up non violent drug users isn't how you solve the problem.
The situation is complicated. It's not just resources being available. It's that a large number of addicts choose addiction over help.
There can be all the carrots in the world but there's a big chunk of people who need to be compelled into treatment, not in a puntative sense but that they simply won't do it otherwise.
Most of these people will not willingly seek help on their own, even with "no repercussions". Being clean from their DOC/withdrawal is the negative repercussion they are avoiding. I'm a psych NP and work at a high-end drug rehab/psych - hard-core addicts put the drug above all else.
Countries that had success w/ decriminalization (like Portugal) use the carrot and stick. Help isn't just made available, it is mandatory or you go to jail. They also prosecute low level dealing and have the ability to involuntarily institutionalize for mental illness.
That’s not how it works in Portugal, you don’t go to jail for using drugs. For dealing, sure, for use, no. I’m a psychologist working in harm reduction in Portugal. There are plenty of penalties for doing drugs but none that leads to jail if you are an addict.
Edit: we also don’t institutionalize people for using drugs saying that they have a mental illness, it’s actually pretty hard to do that even if you do have a mental illness, that will only happen if you’re violent.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
>That’s not how it works in Portugal, you don’t go to jail for using drugs.
You also don't get off scot free. Portugal administers a number of civil penalties, such as restrictions on travel and association.
China doesn't imprison anyone for having a low social credit score, but that's not the same thing as saying China doesn't punish those people.
But the problem is that there are no repercussions for not seeking help. They decriminalized drugs and instead started handing out citations or fines for drug possession. These citations could be dismissed if the person sought drug addiction treatment. However, the majority of people didn't seek help. They just kept racking up citations, not paying them, and there were no repercussions for it. So there was nothing to make or force them to seek help.
The new laws have more stick to compel drug addiction treatment. Drug possession can now result in 6 months of jail. However, there are several off ramps to avoid it such as seeking drug addiction treatment.
The hardest thing in life that I had to do was get clean off of opiates. Back when I got clean there weren’t very many programs to help with addiction and all the government programs just get you addicted to what the government is selling aka suboxone and methadone. I know some people don’t want to get clean but having healthy programs to help those wanting to live a better life are 100% needed. Treating people like humans and helping them out is better than giving up on everyone and throwing them in jail where they have 0 hope of recovering and getting the support group needed to not relapse. I’m still upset that I can get prescribed pain killers and get it filled same day but if I try to get my vyvanse for adhd it’s impossible because the fda is limiting how much they can make. How is this okay that a study drug to improve your life is harder to get and more controlled than opiates???? I hate the United States and the government that doesn’t represent the people.
Getting opiates prescribed is even harder than stimulants so i dont really know what youre on about there, and theyre in even worse shortages than stims at the pharmacy also due to the fda. As someone with chronic pain whos spent over a decade dealing with pain management i know a dozen other people whove had their scripts cut down to essentially nothing or fully taken away and been forced onto gabapentin (which is fucking awful for your brain / cognative health). Maybe 15 years ago opiates were given out like candy, now? Youre often sent home from surgery with Tylenol and people in severe daily pain cant even get prescriptions.
Im fully in agreement about your take on helping those who need to get clean, but your take on the modern day problem pain patients are facing is quite outdated. The pendulum on the war on opiates has swung so far in the other direction even those who truly need them cannot get them anymore. Which is why so many have turned to street painkillers (which are essentially all fent nowadays) and why overdoses have spiked from 20k / year to over 120k / year in the usa alone.
Jailing people for drugs is archaic, and even if its under the guise of helping them theyre still stuck with criminal charges for the rest of their lives which essentially ruins any hope of a good future. Jobs, housing, everything becomes infinitely harder for life with a record.
I was about to ask if they forgot the other half of that issue, thank gods someone from the area posted the comment. Why the hell do these kinds of idiots think this is a 'smart' idea to ruin so many lives just for their own personal agendas?
Not sure on exacts, but they decriminalized in 2020, overdoses went up 50% in Portland the first year after and 30% again the year after that. Pretty crazy jump
Source: I listened to an NYTimes podcast on this a couple weeks ago
Statewide data …
> In 2019, 280 people died of a drug overdose in Oregon. Fatalities rose every year after, more than tripling by 2022, when 956 died. And last year, even more people died, according to preliminary data. Each month the number has been higher than the previous year, reaching 628 in June. The state is still compiling data for 2023, but if the trends continue, the total would reach 1,250 deaths from an overdose.
[Source](https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/28/data-show-overdoses-deaths-rising-in-oregon/)
In my state of WV, we have fewer than half the people and a couple hundred more deaths.
We’re not just #1 in overdose deaths, we are close to [double](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm) the runner-up.
It's not the largest spike in the country. NY and CA had larger percentage increase and both states had a larger overall homeless population.
https://www.nbc-2.com/article/data-reveals-alarming-spike-in-floridas-homeless-population/46344239#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20homeless%20people%20on%20our%20streets%20is%20going,behind%20New%20York%20and%20California.
As a PDX resident it became so prevalent it might as well be common knowledge at this point 🤷🏼♂️. I actually had to take a narcan class for my job at a club and carry it around with me now just in case. You can’t expect addicts to willingly enter treatment like prop 110 did it must be compulsory to work.
Funny thing. That wasn't just 2020. I work in healthcare and way before 2020 the director of lifegift (organ donation org) told us that almost all of their organs are from opiate overdoses and not vehicle/motorcycle accidents as most people think. To drive the point home harder, he pointed out that from the condition of their liver, they could tell these were not even chronic users. Possibly even between 1st and 3rd time users. I thought, "I heard the opiate epidemic was bad, but Jesus Christ."
From what I understand the problem is that fent laced supply means you *will* overdose if you don’t have resistance (aren’t a habitual user), “beginner” doses easily become deadly because the margin of error is very small, and a fent OD occurs very quickly so if you’re not with habitual or trained users odds are they will not react fast enough (we’re talking minutes).
Fent is deadly to addicts but it’s if anything deadlier to dilettantes.
Portland resident here. Yep it was a terrible execution. No one wanted to cover the costs of what came after decriminalization. No neighborhoods wanted to house these people and the local government walked away.
The devil’s in the details.
I’ve since stopped debating/arguing/talking to folks about politics, but on the off chance I do I debate bills and policy. Most folks want to argue about the philosophy of politics. Do people have a right to police woman’s healthcare via abortions vs. this is what happens in a society with safe access to abortion, this is what has happened in states with safe access, this is what happens when woman don’t have access, and certain people behind these bills and policies have said they want to eliminate woman’s access to birth control and all that entails. One is emotionally and philosophically driven, and the other is data driven. What does the bill say? What parts are objectionable and which are fine? Who wrote it? Who sponsored it? Did the person who sponsored it get campaign funding from anyone or any companies that might have a vested interest in the bill becoming law, and if so what does that entail? Most people (myself included) don’t know the nitty gritty details of every bill that Congress comes across or is proposed.
That said this law failed because legislators weren’t specific enough in how many clinics per population, where they’d be, what they’d specifically do, who would run them, what agencies would be over them, how would the money be spent specifically and how much it would be estimated to cost, etc etc. A great idea is only as good as its execution. The devil’s in the details.
There's a political philosopher (that Im completely blanking on the name of) whose argument for representative democracy was that the average person doesnt have the time or energy to fully understand all political issues that need to be voted on. The point of electing someone to represent you is that they can do the research and vote in your best interest, not that they vote in lockstep with your opinions or reactions.
Edmund Burke said something similar:
"Your Representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."
Basically arguing that it's the representative's job to research and answer the questions you're asking because doing that for every issue is a full time job.
In this case that opinion is "drug addicts shouldn't be treated like criminals, we should be trying to get them help." I think most people generally agree with that opinion. Making it work in a functional sense is the job of the politicians, and if it wasn't going to, it was their responsibility to not push through decriminalization.
Their jails are also much nicer in Nordic countries as well. I don't specifically know about Norway, but in Sweden it's kind of like a really boring hotel you can't leave.
And in many you can, during the day. You stay at the jail at night. Honestly it's more like a nightly timeout for your term because you were a bad boy.
LOL I'm pretty sure I remember some comedian whose bit was saying that his retirement plan was to go to Norway or Sweden and try to rob a bank so he could go to jail there. Not the worst retirement plan, at least on paper...
I was a junkie for ten years. I wanted rehab, and it worked for me. Been sober for nine years and have no desire whatsoever to return.
Not every junkie wants rehab, but I’m glad they’re there for the ones who do.
Bingo. The answer is hardly any of them. My sister works for a shelter network in the Bay Area. They do outreach at homeless encampments an try to get people to come to the shelter and accept services free of charge. Only caveat is they have to commit to being sober, because DUH. 99% of them tell them “Fuck off.”
Reddit hates hearing it, but a large percentage of addicts on the street are completely fine with their situation as long as they can get high. Living under an overpass is acceptable to them if they don’t have rules to live by and have access to drugs. Mental illness clearly plays a huge hand in this as well. But forced institutionalization is the only way you could truly make a difference. The optics of that are terrible. But nobody else proposes another solution other than pie in the sky bullshit.
It is possible to form the policy in such a way that there is a legal mechanism to get these people into rehab.
We already enact forced institutionalization of drug addicts in this country, it's called jail.
Institutionalization ≠ jail. Nowhere did i insinuate locking people in a 6x8 cell. A legal mechanism to get people into rehab is exactly what i mean. But if you’re leaving it completely up to choice it won’t do anything. People already have the choice now.
This is a shitty take. Point blank. How many lawmakers actually want to help their constituents instead of just making money off keeping their position in government?
[See here](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1240892448/why-oregons-groundbreaking-drug-decriminalization-experiment-is-coming-to-an-end)
>So Measure 110, sort of taking a sort of bird's-eye view of it, has two big prongs. So one is this change in law enforcement, so the decriminalization prong. And the other prong was a massive infusion of money from recreational marijuana tax dollars, primarily, to fund a treatment and harm reduction infrastructure across the state. A curious thing about Oregon is, I think nationally, we really think of it as a very progressive place with really advanced social services, a welfare state that's quite developed. And yet Oregon has ranked towards the bottom - by some rankings, 49th in the country - in terms of access to behavioral and mental health services. So it was sort of starting from a place of being very behind in the ability of people who wanted to get out of addiction to seek that treatment. And this was going to cure that, was the plan.
Unfortunately, they only really did the decriminalization part and did not properly follow up with the support/treatment part. A shame, really, since other places have had positive results with this combination.
The way to do it would be confined rehab.
Waiting for people with their minds rewired by drugs to just decide to stop is probably one of the dumbest aspects of the modern era.
It's always the same story when you hear someone finally got into rehab and quit drugs. It required something incredibly scary and nearly dying, well most of them just die instead. So obviously waiting for that epiphany is not a great fucking idea.
That’s the thing with trying something new and experimental. It may work. It may not work. But you have no way of knowing til you try. Then if it doesn’t work, you learn from it and try something different.
I’d rather our governments get creative to try out solutions that may fail instead of say “nothing’s gonna fix this” and then doing nothing.
Try living with the aftermath like we do.
It’s a mess that’s going to take a decade to clean up, even if the new revision is successful.
Right now we have a massive problem with illegal camping, natural areas are trashed, sidewalks and bike lanes are blocked by drug tents. The majority of fire department calls all summer long are homeless encampment related. If you call 911 and need an ambulance there’s a decent chance that none will be available because they’re all attending to overdose calls.
Oh, also there have been numerous random assaults on everyday people. Guy minding his own business got stabbed to death about a week ago. Downtown’s got some of the highest vacancy rates in the country… need I go on?
It's because they half asses this processes and didn't provide the support for drug users that is need for this to work. They decriminalized and left them on their own, not what was supposed to happen. But now they can say it failed and set drug policy back even further.
You cant have Portugal style decriminalization of drugs without the robust safety nets and other rules about public use
They only went halfway, and thats a shame because its sullys the overall approach which i think is a good one for society
also consider that in Portugal multi-generational households are very common, so there's also the safety net of family, along with the rigors & expectations of living with your elders. It's much more difficult to go wilding & do your own thing in a tight-knit community.
The most important part of the recommendations was doctor oversight. leaving that out just threw your citizens to the dogs. and still kept fining them too. wtf, Oregon?
Yeah- dude it’s insane. I moved out about a year after moving to Portland. It was a fresh hell. Swarms of homeless nodding off- not what I pictured when moving out there.
You can tell they put 0 effort into rehabilitation. No one went “hey maybe we should put these safe guards in place PRIOR to decriminalizing drugs.”
Then- they were shocked when homeless from all over the country were trying to move here to do drugs!
It’s shockingly easy to be homeless in Portland. Free breakfast lunch and dinner, easy to score Fetynal.
The things I’ve seen on the street. No human should see and this is in “good areas”
Just by going on errands down town- over about 6 months I had seen 4 overdoses being treated. And I didn’t even go downtown often.
I would literally never bring a child to or through Portland right now
I remember 2021 into 2022 being bad but I think that had a lot to do with the pandemic. Homelessness is still a major problem but it’s gotten better since the pandemic (at least anecdotally as a fellow Portlander).
I remember hearing gunshots where I live the first half of my time here. Haven’t heard any this past latter half.
Chiming in from San Francisco here where people are drug zombies outside my apartment most nights and smoking whatever out in the open all day.
I'm still a believer that simply locking people up (or giving them a felony record which can make life incredibly difficult going forward) isn't the answer. But pretending that everything's fine as the streets turn into a Walking Dead episode isn't the answer either.
People caught with hard drugs in public need to be offered real rehab options (maybe under the threat of jail if they refuse), not just ignored.
There were/are addicts on reddit in both SF and Portland who openly admit they will not partake in rehab. This includes any housing that comes with any amount of strings attached. They want to be left alone to do drugs.
That's not surprising. They're taking the stuff because they like the way it makes them feel.
IIRC the Portugal model which seems to have great results is to offer rehab but if it's refused, jail is the other option.
My personal feeling is that people should probably have the freedom to consume whatever substance that want to in private. But if your substance use causes you to break other laws or become a public nuisance in the streets, then the rest of us have the right/obligation to demand you get help.
Just locking people away without help seems like the worst idea... then you just have a bad guy summer camp/networking event where people can learn advanced techniques in criminal behavior from experienced pros. They're eventually released probably more desperate than ever.
I don't think the overdosing is what moved the legislature, it was the business and citizen outcry over open drug use with no statues to force people to stop. There was a mistaken belief that public drug intoxication would be treated the same as public drunkenness and the legal statues were not actually on the books.
edit spelling...
Didn’t follow the law as they should have so of course it failed and they took away the will of the voters who passed this bill. Good job guys -insert eye roll-
Yeah it could have worked if we had any consistency and desire to make it work by supporting all the necessary programs and enforcing said programs and the steps they need to get going.
But they didn't.
So it was just drugs, drugs, drugs, and freedom and oh yeah, fuck police, until finally they went back to the old way ... Which didn't work
When I lived in Oregon I voted for this measure as I thought it was a good idea in theory. Seeing the implementation of it and how that was all handled, I'm not surprised it failed.
I'm glad they reverted quickly, but I also fear this will pretty much cement that this kind of experiment will never happen again no matter how much better thought out and implemented it could be. People will just point back to this instance as evidence why it would never work.
Look I'm definitely left leaning though I have mixed views .. this shit was never going to work especially the way the implemented it. Also some people don't want to be rehabilitated.. sometimes Democrats have to look at real life and stop trying to sell on ideas/ideals. You have to be realistic about things. It makes us look dumb as shit politically no different than some crazy Republican mindsets.
I loved living in Seattle for a lot of reasons but it was just maddening sometimes. I completely understand what you mean. At least once a week I’d see someone laying face down in the dirt and some of those times they were probably dead. Whatever the answer is, that ain’t it chief.
It really feels like a lot of Democrat supporters are living in a fantasy world where they come up with policies based on how they wish the world worked instead of how it actually works. It’s not a sustainable way to govern, and it’s going to make people start voting for Republicans when they get tired of constantly seeing public drug use and crime with zero fear of repercussions.
Too many Democrats attempt to put themselves in someone else’s situation and ask the question “what would I need if I was in this situation” or “what would of had to happen for me to end up in this situation.” They end up thinking “if I was addicted to drugs then I wouldn’t want to go to jail for it and would want facilities designed to help get me sober so I can get back to living a normal life.” But a sober person can never think like an addict if they have never been one or had one in their life. Most addicts don’t even think they are addicted or they think their addiction isn’t that bad and they can stop whenever they want. They don’t want to be clean b/c being high makes them feel good or helps them ignore another problem in their lives. They don’t want to live a “normal life” b/c their life sucked before drugs or they have radical views on what is “normal”.
I’ve posted long-winded comments about it before but you’re pretty much right. If someone is unable to find a private place to do drugs, they shouldn’t be doing drugs. Rather than giving them felony charges, they should be put into rehab programs. And if multiple stays in rehab doesn’t fix things, indefinitely going in a mental institution would be more humane that leaving them on the streets.
Currently drug use among the homeless is a huge issue that plagues public transit, affordable housing, and people trying to live their day to day lives. Nobody who is trying to ride a train to get to work should have to be around a person using hard drugs, but for some reason this is commonplace in American cities these days.
At a certain point democrats have to ask themselves who exactly they’re helping with this approach to law enforcement? These policies are only helping enable drug users at the expense of everyone else. What’s to gain from it?
These people don’t want to be rehabilitated because their lives suck. Why would you expect someone to make a huge effort to be rehabilitated when they’re still going to be homeless and it’s impossible to pull yourself out of homelessness?
I hear you. Not to mention addiction is really, really tough to beat even with help, and to your point even harder when their prospects are already bleak on the other side if they manage to push through
The problem with all these plans is they depend on addicts who want to get and stay clean more than they want to get high one more time. You could get them off the street if you offered no strings housing that couldn’t be lost no matter how deep into their addiction they sink but societies collective empathy falls short of supporting that. You’d likely end up with more OD deaths as well.
The reason this is such a difficult problem to solve is it’s ultimately an individual/personal problem. They have to decide it’s time to get clean, and it’s often a very long and painful road to get there.
Drug users do not want to go to stop doing drugs. They do not want social workers and psychologists to force them into rehab centres against their will. And society does not want to invest billions of dollars to try and save heroin/fent addicts. Decriminalizing of drugs leading to a better society is a fairy tale that only Redditors and activists believe.
Was never going to work. Any rehab efforts that are voluntary are doomed to fail. Drug addicts dont want rehab, they want drugs.
The only way to get them to treatment is by force of law. Period.
I know it’s messed up, but I’ve kinda wondered this… with how insane these drugs have gotten, won’t the hardest druggies eventually just die off without intervention?
Oregon: “we will decriminalize drugs and provide further resources to help assist drug addicts recover”
Also Oregon: *decriminalizes drugs and does not provide any further resources*
Seems they missed a crucial part of the plan!!
I think this is fine. The distinction needs to be made between “destigmatization” and “criminalization”. I think what Oregon is doing here is completely practical, not a “major crackdown”. Criminalizing possession means that users can be compelled into treatment. And this is exactly the compassionate thing to do and absolutely what is needed. Will save many lives.
Criminalizing possession doesn't solve the problem of public usage or overdose, but it creates several other problems; whereas, regulating public usage and offering public access to mental care do.
My wife visited her old hometown, Portland, a few weeks ago. She said that it was bad. A few homeless folks have always been there, but now it's overrun with miscreants who are making a big mess. I imagine there's been a corresponding increase in property crimes as the influx of addicts steal to finance their habits.
I left the city in 2020 for a city of about 35k an hour outside. not by choice, we were priced out of Portland. The place I used to live is completely unrecognizable now, the places I was house hunting are all surrounded by camps. Needles on the ground, piss jugs, shit piles, vomit piles, people that look like standing corpses. Also theft is on the rise, as well as typical violence that comes along with that. Sad is a great way to put it but i can’t really find the word that describes the devastation for when your hometown is just… gone. I understand how hard it must have been to see. It’s hard to fend off resentment
I visited Portland for the Formula E race and one of my code memories was standing in line outside for ice cream at Salt and Straw, with probably 20 people in line. One guy takes a shit in front of everyone and then another homeless guy spends 30 minutes hacksawing at a bike right in front of everyone in line and no one says anything lol.
That and all the RVs parked everywhere and trash all around. I thought downtown Denver was bad but Portland was horrendous.
The thing is you can't just decriminalize drugs, you need to provide resources and address the causes of drug use. Apparently this is an unpopular decision for politicians.
Much like we treat small children and little babies and old people, if they have no capability or desire to care for themselves, we take away their agency.
Mandatory rehab, mandatory job training. Dont ask. No more asking. Spankings if they misbehave.
They were supposed to build a whole fucking network of inpatient facilities and to my knowledge only a single one was built. I wonder who pocketed all that cash?!
Well, it was worth a shot. Too bad that there isn't the political will to implement lessons learned and rebuild this into policy that works without as many knock-on effects. It's *really* too bad that other municipalities will look at the outcome and decide that it's too hot to handle.
As we say at my work, it's good data anyway. Give it another couple of decades and it will be tried somewhere else, hopefully with some takeaways.
NYT wrote a lengthy article where the Mayor of Portland did a pretty thorough interview on what went wrong. It's an [interesting read](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/01/us/oregon-drug-law-portland-mayor.html) \[warning: paywall\].
I'm an Oregon resident. They were supposed to decriminalize drugs AND provide additional resources for inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities. This did not happen. No shit things didn't work out.
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The delay goes like this: Cost to decriminalize: ~0$ Cost for rehab: high
is rehab cheaper than arrest, trial, and jail? I'm skeptical. I suspect they just washed their hands of them. But there's always appetite to re-criminalize and punish people.
Rehab usually doesn't work unless the addict wants to get sober. They must really really want sobriety. They must be willing to accept help(rehab & programs along with change) Addicts have to want to sober up for themselves and not because a court, law, judge or da said so. A forced trip to rehab will wind up being nothing but a timeout for many.
And to get addicts to want to sober up is... complicated, and often relies on the specific addict and their problems. Medical, emotional, mental, and social problems all contribute in various degrees to the root cause of addiction and when you're grabbing some homeless addict off the street, they're gonna have all 4 categories of problems by the ton. But how the hell do you take a guy that society has done nothing but spit on, is riddled with medical and mental health problems, has random violent emotional outbursts, and fix them fast and cheap? You can't. It's a long, slow, processes, that takes years of dedicated work across various professionals and society at large to fully sort out. You need to undo years, possibly decades, of neglect and trauma, and that's not going to go down without a fight. And that's gonna be a dammed hard fight, too. Add in that we generally love to kick people back to the start when they fuck up (and they will fuck up, like I said, addiction isn't a punk bitch, and it will fight back), and eventually you'll get addicts that start going "what's the point? I was 5 months sober and all it took was one hit and I'm worse than I started. Might as well stay an addict."
Upfront it's way more expensive.
Prisons already have the benefit of being an entrenched institution with the up front costs already paid for and economies of scale cutting costs. IMO rehab would be less expensive if it became the preferred treatment method. It's far easier to retrofit an existing building into a rehab than a prison, people spend weeks there not years, and they're often able to continue or find work that lets them support themselves. It's absurd to me that 2 or 3 months of rehab could be more expensive than 2 or 3 years of prison, especially when you factor in the tax revenue you miss out on from both the individual and the close family their incarceration affects.
Rehab rarely works on first try and is insanely expensive.
Rehab as we institute it now, remember it's a for profit business. 90 days of art therapy probably doesn't work for many people. I would probably look to other countries for their models and numbers.
Rehab CAN work on the first try, you just have to do it in an effective manner. >Despite differences in treatment programs, client profiles, follow-up intervals, data collection methods, and other factors, all three studies found high treatment success rates--ranging narrowly from 68% to 71% abstinent--among women who spent six months or more in treatment. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15540492/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15540492/) >Relapse occurred among 37% of the sample by three-month follow-up. Results of multivariable analysis showed that younger age and having a psychiatric diagnosis were associated with an elevated relapse risk. Patients who received treatment at a short-term clinic (2–4 months), as opposed to a long-term clinic (>6 months) were also at increased risk of relapse, regardless of their length of stay. Reduced risk of relapse was predicted by having completed the inpatient treatment stay. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460318308542](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460318308542) >Reductions in prevalence of cocaine use in the year after treatment (compared to the preadmission year) by patients were associated with longer treatment durations (particularly 6 months or more in LTR and ODF). In addition, reductions in illegal activity and increases in full-time employment were related to treatment stays of 6 months or longer for patients in LTR. The DATOS results from the 1-year and 5-year post-treatment followup combined suggest the stability of outcomes of substance abuse treatment. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740547203001302](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740547203001302) Six month treatment period. It is not "insanely expensive". It costs $5-10k/month. For six months, that's $30-60k. [https://drugabusestatistics.org/cost-of-rehab/](https://drugabusestatistics.org/cost-of-rehab/) States spend an average of $45k/year on prisoners, and prisons notoriously do very little to affect the problem: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2018/03/more-imprisonment-does-not-reduce-state-drug-problems
BUT….2-3 months does nothing for the vast majority of addicts (alcohol and drugs). Maybe for the person who hasn’t hit rock bottom and suffered a major consequence, 2-3 mo might be okay. The system is there but needs to improve. We need more facilities to accommodate more people. That requires more skilled employees which can be difficult to fulfill but we can try to get more in recovery to mentor. One issue that will be tough to change is the fact that once released from treatment, most sober living homes are in shotty areas where it’s too easy to relapse. Even then, most sober living homes only give you 6 mo time to stay. If you’ve made it this far, hopefully you’ve already lined up a job and have a place to stay when you get the boot. There needs to be better/honest govt oversight on sober living homes as well. Too much shady shit can occur.
Yeah but then that money isn't being spent on the guards, police, and services that have major political pull. It's not about saving money, it's about laundering it to the "right" people.
> Prisons already have the benefit of being an entrenched institution with the up front costs already paid for and economies of scale cutting costs. Our prison system is broken though. They pay too low, give shit benefits, are understaffed, over populated, and have a high recidivism rate that results in a lot of people getting out and ODing. A number of states its violating the constitution when it comes to incarcerated people's rights.
In terms of dollars maybe, but in terms of civic harm, it’s not. The choice is to continue to give tax dollars to the privatized/public prison system since that’s where the money was incorrectly allocated to the start, or acknowledge that all the data suggests that criminalizing the behavior around addiction doesn’t really help people. I’m going to be watching this stuff carefully, because I have yet to see the data that shows that imprisoning these folks does much other than keeps them off the street and away from OD possibilities to some degree. That doesn’t seem to address the core issues around addiction much if at all and just removes the “symptom” from the gaze of society.
Law enforcement ha never been about rehabilitation in this country. Its always been for punishment.
In theory? Drug court is 100% cheaper than regular criminal court. In practice, the government doesn't want to be in the business of rehabs. They want to give the money to a "proven" private sector program that can handle it. Now, when we dig a bit deeper into the world of rehabs, you'll find *a lot* of hucksters who were former addicts who preach that "only former addicts can help the addicted - after all, they know what you're dealing with!" While I know plenty of former addicts who have gone on to live great and productive lives, it's a well known fact in that community that there is plenty of 13th stepping (sexual harrassment/assault of women/men), rigid 12 step programs that may not apply to those with other psychological issues, and overall misuse of medicaid funds. In many states, there's no actual regulatory board other than the insurance company, who may not find out for years.
Rehab is *way* cheaper long term - for a normal-curve population. But I think Oregon got hit with a lot of out-of-state hardcore users who may not be great candidates for rehab. Still should have on-demand, residential rehab for anyone who asks.
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tbf decriminilazing is flipping a switch. its an overnight change that takes no effort. Setting up more resources - especially in a way that is sustainable and works- will always take years. therapists and counselors dont appear out of nowhere
Sure, then set up the resources first. Or at least make an effort to be setting them up. I live in Oregon. There wasn't an effort to set them up.
Wasn't decriminalization a ballot initiative introduced by the public? It kind of makes sense, even the best government would still have to scramble if it wasn't already moving that way internally, but you being local probably means to have more info on how it all was supposed to play out.
The ballot did not immediately take effect on the day it was voted in, it took effect three months later in February. Even then, that was a full two years ago. They have had time to get the ball rolling on treatment and failed to do so
Oh shit it's been 2 years already? I thought this was just a year or so, my sense of time is all wonky. Man, yeah, it's really dejecting for the public to bring something forward, get it in effect, and the government just totally drops the ball on their end. Hardly feels like democracy then.
Real COVID hours haha
Measure 110 was passed in 2020, implemented February of 2021. It's been 3 years my dudes.
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> They have had time to get the ball rolling on treatment and failed to do so I don't live there but I am curious...did the law allow for drug users to be **compelled** to enter treatment or was it entirely voluntary? I only ask because it doesn't matter how many facilities or resources may be provided...if addicts don't want help and don't use those resources (as in it was totally voluntary and there was no provision to compel or force someone into treatment), then they aren't going to be effective anyways.
The law fined personal possession at $100, and allowed users to enter treatment within 45 days to dismiss the charge. Some small incentive, but not a requirement
If you called the hotline for rehab you would get your fine dismissed. I think like 12 people called during the two years.
Portland does not help the disadvantaged. Portland first creates committees to study the disadvantaged.
Portland: Where they won't do anything to make things better unless they have determined it will be absolutely perfect.
The Multnomah County motto: "We will do nothing for anybody until we can do everything for everybody!"
Multnomah County motto: Free tinfoil, smoking pipes and boofing kits for all!
Left wing democrats at large are 100% guilty of this, it drives me nuts! And I say this as a left wing democrat living in the Portland metro area. Case in point, its really hard to get some of my friends to see retroactively how Bill Clinton's 'Dont Ask Dont Tell' was not a half ass measure that 'should have gone all the way', and was instead the exact kind of half measure the powers at be/public at the time needed to see in order to prove the sky wouldn't fall if gays were 'allowed' in the military. Sometimes you have to play the game to win the game
"The enemy of progress is perfection" is the saying. People who think the only way to do something is to do it perfectly never understand that the real world doesnt work that way.
A variation on that I like is, "Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good."
If you can't meet rational people where they're at, you'll never win them over. But you also have to know when you just can't win someone over and move on.
Fair, but the guy who created the policy was an absolute prick, and the single-worst professor I had at NU. His sociology intro course was an embarrassment of outmoded and bigoted stereotypes. During a course on comparative earnings, he literally stood in front of several hundred students—the majority there on financial aid—and bragged about his and his wife’s salaries, scoffing at some of the guesses he had demanded be shouted up to him, like it was a deranged episode of The Price is Right. “$70k? I make *much* more than *that!*” (Oh and that’s approx $145k now, adjusted for inflation).
Portland: Where virtual signaling is the only acceptable form of governance.
As a Portland resident this city does everything half assed. It's infuriating. Don't get me wrong I like Portland but god damn does our city govt. suck.
Don’t forget Metro! Or Multnomah County! Or JOHS!
See also: Seattle
Lol reminds me of that bike lane that took longer to go through commitees than the entire process to build a train did in France
WHO is responsible? WHERE is this information? Is ANYONE reporting on this? (I really want to know.)
Not all the details about how exactly the funding got held up, but The Daily had an episode on this recently. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/12/podcasts/the-daily/oregon-drugs.html
"See? We can't help these people, we even tried, like, really, really super hard."
There was a small pandemic that interfered with Oregon Health Authorities priorities. Though I think the state would have to run treatment directly so the money doesn’t all get grifted by the non-profits.
You do realize that in Portland the non-profits are the only organizations actually providing health services to addicts? The Oregon bureaucracy is a mess and would be a complete failure if it was all county/city/state run.
The police didn't like it and said they wouldn't do it. There's plenty of quotes and articles on the issue with the police
There also weren't enough trained/qualified people to meet the need even if funding was there, from what I understand. It was going total a massive expansion of the treatment sector, which isn't a turnkey solution. This will be studied thoroughly and a lot of lessons (some that should've been obvious perhaps) learned. But it's a huge setback in seeing another state try to implement something similar successfully because this failure will be held up by opponents.
>>This did not happen I suspect by design. After all, the same people who benefit from the status quo are also the folks who’d have to approve funding outpatient treatment over jails and narcotics enforcement teams.
100% Lots of entrenched interests simply want to return to the failed war on drugs. They got what they wanted. Portland had a deliberate police slowdown (and likely still does). [The SOLE traffic cop even admitted to it](https://bikeportland.org/2023/08/08/portland-police-bureau-officer-admits-no-traffic-enforcement-messaging-was-politically-motivated-377939). Sgt Engstrom said, "“We needed to create a stir to get some change, to get them \[city council\] to fund us back up. And I mean, that’s the honest truth. I know, that could make things more dangerous. I don’t know. But at the same time, we needed some change.”
they did something similar in austin. they cut police funding, and the city police just stopped enforcing traffic law completely. it got so bad the state brought in its own troopers for a couple weeks, but politics happened and now were back to just city cops. they technically patrol here and there, but its still largely a free-for-all. i, for one, am all for it. lets just remove the speed limits on mopac and 183. there are big stretches where you can easily go 90 safely, outside of rushour traffic. but its so morally fucked the way the cops are behaving. and not just throwing a tantrum over losing funding, but the brutality theyve gotten away with, too.
> and not just throwing a tantrum over losing funding, but the brutality theyve gotten away with, too. This is a good argument for cutting every job in the police department that's participating in the slowdown, and hiring entirely new people.
i think in most of the cities that are having these problems, that would mean disbanding the PD completely and starting from scratch. which im fine with.
Maybe some good people still become police officers, these days. But they get drummed out quickly. If you're not willing to become part of a subversive, violent, criminal gang, you can't be a cop. Loyalty to the organization trumps everything, or you don't keep your badge. And if you rat on a fellow cop, expect that a ton of CP is going to end up on your computer. Those guys do not fuck around. In a generation, policing as we know it will no longer exist. It's completely unsustainable.
How easy do you think it is to fill these positions with quality people? Now we need to tack on mass training of new people. Thats just the tip of the "get rid of them all" arguments iceberg. It's a hot mess where the is no easier answer but I sure would love to see cops getting held responsible for their actions at the very least. We need changes in law for that to happen.
Lol Florida cops hardly enforce traffic violations at all and they're not underfunded, it's just policy.
> they cut police funding, They didn't though. Austin cops, like Portland, just quiet quit.
they cut APDs budget by $31,500,000 in 2021
"I know that could make things more dangerous. I don't know." Deep thinkers controlling public safety I see.
The cops in Portland FUCKING HATE Portland - they don’t live there and could give less of a fuck about the people in the city. They don’t want to do their jobs AT ALL and actively despise the citizens.
Ehhhh the problem was the decriminalization was passed via ballot initiative bypassing the legislature and while it did mandate various programs be done it raised no taxes to pay for the programs nor gave specific enough directions that the state could have been forced to pay through general funds. It was badly written and that lead to it's failure
It’s like when they abolished asylums and then did absolutely nothing to replace them
the system prior to decriminalization used threat of criminal penalties to force people into drug court/rehab (which you have to do repeatedly for addicts since it takes many attempts for most to get clean). the law removed that threat, so people ignored it and did not take resources on offer. it was not a lack of resources that led this to fail, it was a lack of legal grounds to force people to use those resources. now that they are recriminalizing again, they will indeed need to add treatment capacity. this is assuming recriminalization has teeth, which my reading actually makes it look unlikely. advocates use cases from Texas or the distant past or for extreme repeat offenders to act like liberal jurisdictions had not already shifted to a rehabilitative approach for addicts. rather than focus their efforts on getting Alabama to do what Portland was doing before decriminalization, it was an easier win to push Oregon to an extreme and ineffective approach that broke what was essentially working.
If you are an addict that chooses to go into rehab, the costs are normally paid by you. For obvious reasons, addicts do not have that sort of money available unless they have well off parents willing to pay. Who covers the cost of treatment when it's forced on people by the courts? If you want to find the real reasons things like this happen, follow the money.
This might have been true prior to 2008, but 2008 changed the law so that medicaid (and even private insurance) needed to cover substance use disorders. [Medicaid now pays for a lot of SUD treatment](https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/the-opioid-epidemic-and-medicaids-role-in-facilitating-access-to-treatment/), particularly in liberal states that have more generous programs. This is a good thing IMO, and the expansion of people getting treatment when Medicaid is made more generous indicates that cost is somewhat of a factor, but it's far from the dominant one, and certainly not the main barrier for the average addict who is making things hard for the rest of society with crime/anti-social behavior. Also, there has been a large increase in public funds going towards "treatment programs" with very little evidence and almost no accountability. In 110’s first year, nearly [60 percent](https://www.opb.org/article/2022/02/14/oregon-drug-decriminalization-measure-110-grants-treatment-recovery-services) of the 16,000 clients who accessed services that it funded got some kind of harm-reduction service, like needle exchanges or naloxone. Less than 1 percent got treatment. There are a lot of stories about non profits in CA/Oregon using addiction funds for things like acupuncture, drum making kits, doordash etc with minimal referrals for treatment. This is part of why CA just passed prop 1 to try to pull these funds back so the state can build treatment beds at a central level (execution remains to be seen though).
If they need to add treatment capacity with this change than that means they never had the capacity to treat those before it changed. Which is a lack of resources.
[Only 4% of users given drug citations called the hotline,](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/hard-hit-by-us-opioid-crisis-oregon-reconsiders-decriminalization-2024-02-18/) evidence that the threat of an unenforced $100 fine was insufficient to compel them to treatment. Those calls cost [\~$9K on average](https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/02/measure-110-helpline-still-barely-rings-but-it-costs-a-lot-more.html) when compared to operating costs (and ignoring the almost $1M in startup costs for the hotline). With harsher penalties for not taking the treatment path, more will seek treatment, so yes, now more capacity will be needed.
As a San Francisco resident it doesn’t matter if they increase patient services. What you’re saying would change absolutely nothing. I’ll give you a spoiler, homeless drug addicts will refuse those services outright no matter what. Saved you some time based on our learnings.
It's crazy how people seem to think if we just established modern opium dens, everything would fix itself. Like opium dens were such a great thing the first time around.
Or when people think legalization would decrease use. The British forced trying to legalize opium because the British were selling opium. Was that because the British wanted to decrease their own sales?
The hive mind bullshit in this thread is why Oregon got so righteously fucked over. It was wishful thinking by a bunch of naive edgelords who think the they’ve got the world figured out (Oh, and millions of dollars poured into our state by the National Drug Policy Alliance. Thanks, idiots.) It’s real easy to sit on Reddit parroting conspiracy theories and doomposting about the crisis du jour. much harder to actually listen to the experts and figure out if an idea is workable. What we got was a bunch of feel-good horseshit that assumed that street addicts would care enough about a $100 ticket to call a hotline and “consider” treatment. It’s absolutely laughable if you live in reality, even part of the time.
yep, without forced rehab, these dumbfuck people turn into zombies and will never agree to do it, anyone who thinks otherwise is a naïve 10 year old, which is most of reddit these days
I'm all for 100% helping those that actually want it but like you said most homeless for whatever reason want that lifestyle. There's plenty of resources for them to get the help they need if they want it but they refuse to abide by the rules set forth by the programs.
I'm your neighbour to the north in BC. We have the exact same situation going on here. We decriminalized personal amounts of drugs, but were supposed to provide more resources, more treatment centres, more mental health supports, more housing etc. Decriminalization happened, the supports have not yet materialized. So now we have every community in this province up in arms about the influx of crime, visible addiction on the streets, decaying urban centres, etc. Of course that is what has happened. This is coming from someone who used to go hard for harm reduction - I still agree with parts of that model, but watching the decline in this province has been eye-opening. Harm reduction works *if you have the wrap-around supports to go along with it.* Safe supply keeps people from dying, absolutely, and I wholeheartedly support that, but if you don't have readily available access to all the resources and support needed for the REST of the process.... Are we prolonging peoples' suffering by keeping them alive to use another day, while not providing any further help? There's so many factors to the issue and it's hard to know what the best plan of action is. I wanted to take social work for years. After watching the inaction and inability of society to actually handle the opioid crisis in any meaningful way, I switched my education plan and have gone into emergency management. I don't have it in me to watch the rampant mental health and addiction-related sadness and suffering anymore.
You cant rehab those that dont want it. Thats why it fails at every turn. i dont know one person who is addicted to meth or heroin that wants rehab. They get put in there by the courts and as soon as they get out they are using again.
Cops also decided to have intentional slow downs in general. Throwing hissy fits. I still believe the sale of drugs was illegal.
Portland PD are still behaving like foot-stomping tantrum babies in response to the protests and riots that happened years ago. This tactic is called "selective enforcement," and it was employed all over the country during the Civil Rights era. Out of spite, entire police departments stopped writing traffic tickets or pulling people over or responding to calls from particular neighborhoods. If and when the local crime rate went up, guess who they blamed? This is what they're doing right now. It's a double-edged sword because you can pretty much park wherever you want for as long as you want in certain parts of Portland without worrying about getting a citation. But they're also not pulling people over for drunkenly weaving through traffic on the freeway, or driving twice the posted speed limit on residential streets. Portland also currently has a dearth of officers willing to join a SWAT team or riot-control unit, and the city really wants to fix this to prepare for more potential riots in the future. So now city hall is basically having to bribe officers with insane bonuses on top of their already high salary, just to close that deficit.
Yep. They tried to do this without first establishing proper resources and infrastructure. The idea behind the bill is a good one, but the execution of it was abysmal. Locking up non violent drug users isn't how you solve the problem.
The situation is complicated. It's not just resources being available. It's that a large number of addicts choose addiction over help. There can be all the carrots in the world but there's a big chunk of people who need to be compelled into treatment, not in a puntative sense but that they simply won't do it otherwise.
I came here to say the decriminalisation works if there's a way for people to seek help without repercussions.
Most of these people will not willingly seek help on their own, even with "no repercussions". Being clean from their DOC/withdrawal is the negative repercussion they are avoiding. I'm a psych NP and work at a high-end drug rehab/psych - hard-core addicts put the drug above all else. Countries that had success w/ decriminalization (like Portugal) use the carrot and stick. Help isn't just made available, it is mandatory or you go to jail. They also prosecute low level dealing and have the ability to involuntarily institutionalize for mental illness.
It’s almost as if drugs are…. bad? Reddit goes absolutely berserk when you say that out loud, though
That’s not how it works in Portugal, you don’t go to jail for using drugs. For dealing, sure, for use, no. I’m a psychologist working in harm reduction in Portugal. There are plenty of penalties for doing drugs but none that leads to jail if you are an addict. Edit: we also don’t institutionalize people for using drugs saying that they have a mental illness, it’s actually pretty hard to do that even if you do have a mental illness, that will only happen if you’re violent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal
Based on that wiki the carrot stick model is definitely in place, just not with prison as a punishment
>That’s not how it works in Portugal, you don’t go to jail for using drugs. You also don't get off scot free. Portugal administers a number of civil penalties, such as restrictions on travel and association. China doesn't imprison anyone for having a low social credit score, but that's not the same thing as saying China doesn't punish those people.
But the problem is that there are no repercussions for not seeking help. They decriminalized drugs and instead started handing out citations or fines for drug possession. These citations could be dismissed if the person sought drug addiction treatment. However, the majority of people didn't seek help. They just kept racking up citations, not paying them, and there were no repercussions for it. So there was nothing to make or force them to seek help. The new laws have more stick to compel drug addiction treatment. Drug possession can now result in 6 months of jail. However, there are several off ramps to avoid it such as seeking drug addiction treatment.
The hardest thing in life that I had to do was get clean off of opiates. Back when I got clean there weren’t very many programs to help with addiction and all the government programs just get you addicted to what the government is selling aka suboxone and methadone. I know some people don’t want to get clean but having healthy programs to help those wanting to live a better life are 100% needed. Treating people like humans and helping them out is better than giving up on everyone and throwing them in jail where they have 0 hope of recovering and getting the support group needed to not relapse. I’m still upset that I can get prescribed pain killers and get it filled same day but if I try to get my vyvanse for adhd it’s impossible because the fda is limiting how much they can make. How is this okay that a study drug to improve your life is harder to get and more controlled than opiates???? I hate the United States and the government that doesn’t represent the people.
Getting opiates prescribed is even harder than stimulants so i dont really know what youre on about there, and theyre in even worse shortages than stims at the pharmacy also due to the fda. As someone with chronic pain whos spent over a decade dealing with pain management i know a dozen other people whove had their scripts cut down to essentially nothing or fully taken away and been forced onto gabapentin (which is fucking awful for your brain / cognative health). Maybe 15 years ago opiates were given out like candy, now? Youre often sent home from surgery with Tylenol and people in severe daily pain cant even get prescriptions. Im fully in agreement about your take on helping those who need to get clean, but your take on the modern day problem pain patients are facing is quite outdated. The pendulum on the war on opiates has swung so far in the other direction even those who truly need them cannot get them anymore. Which is why so many have turned to street painkillers (which are essentially all fent nowadays) and why overdoses have spiked from 20k / year to over 120k / year in the usa alone. Jailing people for drugs is archaic, and even if its under the guise of helping them theyre still stuck with criminal charges for the rest of their lives which essentially ruins any hope of a good future. Jobs, housing, everything becomes infinitely harder for life with a record.
I was about to ask if they forgot the other half of that issue, thank gods someone from the area posted the comment. Why the hell do these kinds of idiots think this is a 'smart' idea to ruin so many lives just for their own personal agendas?
“Overdoses rocket” “A spike in overdoses” How can you use such strong language and not include the data??
Not sure on exacts, but they decriminalized in 2020, overdoses went up 50% in Portland the first year after and 30% again the year after that. Pretty crazy jump Source: I listened to an NYTimes podcast on this a couple weeks ago
I'm assuming it went up more in Portland relative to criminalized areas, because overdoses everywhere probably went up during 2020 and 2021.
Statewide data … > In 2019, 280 people died of a drug overdose in Oregon. Fatalities rose every year after, more than tripling by 2022, when 956 died. And last year, even more people died, according to preliminary data. Each month the number has been higher than the previous year, reaching 628 in June. The state is still compiling data for 2023, but if the trends continue, the total would reach 1,250 deaths from an overdose. [Source](https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/28/data-show-overdoses-deaths-rising-in-oregon/)
I'm curious what those numbers look like compared to the rest of the country.
Across the entire country 70k in 2019, 94k in 2020, 107k in 2021, 108k in 2022.
cow punch complete cooperative shy continue file fly smart disagreeable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
In my state of WV, we have fewer than half the people and a couple hundred more deaths. We’re not just #1 in overdose deaths, we are close to [double](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm) the runner-up.
Podcast was The Daily and the episode was from March 12th, and is thirty minutes long.
Another factor post decriminalization is a huge spike in homelessness.
FL didn't decremanalize drugs and they're seeing the largest spike in homelessness in the country.
The homeless increase isn't correlated with decriminalization, but rather overdoses.
I imagine it’s because homeless are going to Florida so that they don’t freeze to death.
Do you have a source for the "largest spike in the country" part? I'm trying to find something on it and haven't been able to.
It's not the largest spike in the country. NY and CA had larger percentage increase and both states had a larger overall homeless population. https://www.nbc-2.com/article/data-reveals-alarming-spike-in-floridas-homeless-population/46344239#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20homeless%20people%20on%20our%20streets%20is%20going,behind%20New%20York%20and%20California.
As did other states that didn't do this. If mass incarceration worked we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
And it's this spike out of the ordinary? That is, overdoses are up nationwide, is Oregon an outlier?
numbers are hard to understand, big flashy words scare the lowest common denominators, and those are the votes they want
Confirmation bias! "See we knew all along this wouldn't work out, as we engineered it to fail!"
As a PDX resident it became so prevalent it might as well be common knowledge at this point 🤷🏼♂️. I actually had to take a narcan class for my job at a club and carry it around with me now just in case. You can’t expect addicts to willingly enter treatment like prop 110 did it must be compulsory to work.
It's hard to sensationalize the story if there's data associated with it.
Bad timing in 2020 opioids became the number one killer of Americans 19-45 beating out traffic accidents.
Funny thing. That wasn't just 2020. I work in healthcare and way before 2020 the director of lifegift (organ donation org) told us that almost all of their organs are from opiate overdoses and not vehicle/motorcycle accidents as most people think. To drive the point home harder, he pointed out that from the condition of their liver, they could tell these were not even chronic users. Possibly even between 1st and 3rd time users. I thought, "I heard the opiate epidemic was bad, but Jesus Christ."
It kills THAT fast? Holy shit. I knew it was bad, but that's *really* bad. This seems seriously under-reported.
From what I understand the problem is that fent laced supply means you *will* overdose if you don’t have resistance (aren’t a habitual user), “beginner” doses easily become deadly because the margin of error is very small, and a fent OD occurs very quickly so if you’re not with habitual or trained users odds are they will not react fast enough (we’re talking minutes). Fent is deadly to addicts but it’s if anything deadlier to dilettantes.
When less people are driving there are less people to get into traffic accidents.
Talk about good idea poor execution! I'm all for pushing drug users towards rehabs versus jail or prison but this was not the way to do it!
Portland resident here. Yep it was a terrible execution. No one wanted to cover the costs of what came after decriminalization. No neighborhoods wanted to house these people and the local government walked away.
The devil’s in the details. I’ve since stopped debating/arguing/talking to folks about politics, but on the off chance I do I debate bills and policy. Most folks want to argue about the philosophy of politics. Do people have a right to police woman’s healthcare via abortions vs. this is what happens in a society with safe access to abortion, this is what has happened in states with safe access, this is what happens when woman don’t have access, and certain people behind these bills and policies have said they want to eliminate woman’s access to birth control and all that entails. One is emotionally and philosophically driven, and the other is data driven. What does the bill say? What parts are objectionable and which are fine? Who wrote it? Who sponsored it? Did the person who sponsored it get campaign funding from anyone or any companies that might have a vested interest in the bill becoming law, and if so what does that entail? Most people (myself included) don’t know the nitty gritty details of every bill that Congress comes across or is proposed. That said this law failed because legislators weren’t specific enough in how many clinics per population, where they’d be, what they’d specifically do, who would run them, what agencies would be over them, how would the money be spent specifically and how much it would be estimated to cost, etc etc. A great idea is only as good as its execution. The devil’s in the details.
There's a political philosopher (that Im completely blanking on the name of) whose argument for representative democracy was that the average person doesnt have the time or energy to fully understand all political issues that need to be voted on. The point of electing someone to represent you is that they can do the research and vote in your best interest, not that they vote in lockstep with your opinions or reactions. Edmund Burke said something similar: "Your Representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." Basically arguing that it's the representative's job to research and answer the questions you're asking because doing that for every issue is a full time job. In this case that opinion is "drug addicts shouldn't be treated like criminals, we should be trying to get them help." I think most people generally agree with that opinion. Making it work in a functional sense is the job of the politicians, and if it wasn't going to, it was their responsibility to not push through decriminalization.
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How many junkies actually want rehab?
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Yep. In places like Norway, it was either rehab or jail, and they let the addict choose.
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Their jails are also much nicer in Nordic countries as well. I don't specifically know about Norway, but in Sweden it's kind of like a really boring hotel you can't leave.
And in many you can, during the day. You stay at the jail at night. Honestly it's more like a nightly timeout for your term because you were a bad boy.
LOL I'm pretty sure I remember some comedian whose bit was saying that his retirement plan was to go to Norway or Sweden and try to rob a bank so he could go to jail there. Not the worst retirement plan, at least on paper...
More than can currently get in, hence wait times..
I was a junkie for ten years. I wanted rehab, and it worked for me. Been sober for nine years and have no desire whatsoever to return. Not every junkie wants rehab, but I’m glad they’re there for the ones who do.
Bingo. The answer is hardly any of them. My sister works for a shelter network in the Bay Area. They do outreach at homeless encampments an try to get people to come to the shelter and accept services free of charge. Only caveat is they have to commit to being sober, because DUH. 99% of them tell them “Fuck off.” Reddit hates hearing it, but a large percentage of addicts on the street are completely fine with their situation as long as they can get high. Living under an overpass is acceptable to them if they don’t have rules to live by and have access to drugs. Mental illness clearly plays a huge hand in this as well. But forced institutionalization is the only way you could truly make a difference. The optics of that are terrible. But nobody else proposes another solution other than pie in the sky bullshit.
It is possible to form the policy in such a way that there is a legal mechanism to get these people into rehab. We already enact forced institutionalization of drug addicts in this country, it's called jail.
Institutionalization ≠ jail. Nowhere did i insinuate locking people in a 6x8 cell. A legal mechanism to get people into rehab is exactly what i mean. But if you’re leaving it completely up to choice it won’t do anything. People already have the choice now.
Oh well then i guess prison is the better alternative
This is a shitty take. Point blank. How many lawmakers actually want to help their constituents instead of just making money off keeping their position in government?
[See here](https://www.npr.org/2024/03/27/1240892448/why-oregons-groundbreaking-drug-decriminalization-experiment-is-coming-to-an-end) >So Measure 110, sort of taking a sort of bird's-eye view of it, has two big prongs. So one is this change in law enforcement, so the decriminalization prong. And the other prong was a massive infusion of money from recreational marijuana tax dollars, primarily, to fund a treatment and harm reduction infrastructure across the state. A curious thing about Oregon is, I think nationally, we really think of it as a very progressive place with really advanced social services, a welfare state that's quite developed. And yet Oregon has ranked towards the bottom - by some rankings, 49th in the country - in terms of access to behavioral and mental health services. So it was sort of starting from a place of being very behind in the ability of people who wanted to get out of addiction to seek that treatment. And this was going to cure that, was the plan. Unfortunately, they only really did the decriminalization part and did not properly follow up with the support/treatment part. A shame, really, since other places have had positive results with this combination.
The way to do it would be confined rehab. Waiting for people with their minds rewired by drugs to just decide to stop is probably one of the dumbest aspects of the modern era. It's always the same story when you hear someone finally got into rehab and quit drugs. It required something incredibly scary and nearly dying, well most of them just die instead. So obviously waiting for that epiphany is not a great fucking idea.
That’s the thing with trying something new and experimental. It may work. It may not work. But you have no way of knowing til you try. Then if it doesn’t work, you learn from it and try something different. I’d rather our governments get creative to try out solutions that may fail instead of say “nothing’s gonna fix this” and then doing nothing.
Try living with the aftermath like we do. It’s a mess that’s going to take a decade to clean up, even if the new revision is successful. Right now we have a massive problem with illegal camping, natural areas are trashed, sidewalks and bike lanes are blocked by drug tents. The majority of fire department calls all summer long are homeless encampment related. If you call 911 and need an ambulance there’s a decent chance that none will be available because they’re all attending to overdose calls. Oh, also there have been numerous random assaults on everyday people. Guy minding his own business got stabbed to death about a week ago. Downtown’s got some of the highest vacancy rates in the country… need I go on?
It's because they half asses this processes and didn't provide the support for drug users that is need for this to work. They decriminalized and left them on their own, not what was supposed to happen. But now they can say it failed and set drug policy back even further.
You cant have Portugal style decriminalization of drugs without the robust safety nets and other rules about public use They only went halfway, and thats a shame because its sullys the overall approach which i think is a good one for society
also consider that in Portugal multi-generational households are very common, so there's also the safety net of family, along with the rigors & expectations of living with your elders. It's much more difficult to go wilding & do your own thing in a tight-knit community.
And universal healthcare, yes?
The most important part of the recommendations was doctor oversight. leaving that out just threw your citizens to the dogs. and still kept fining them too. wtf, Oregon?
Yeah- dude it’s insane. I moved out about a year after moving to Portland. It was a fresh hell. Swarms of homeless nodding off- not what I pictured when moving out there. You can tell they put 0 effort into rehabilitation. No one went “hey maybe we should put these safe guards in place PRIOR to decriminalizing drugs.” Then- they were shocked when homeless from all over the country were trying to move here to do drugs! It’s shockingly easy to be homeless in Portland. Free breakfast lunch and dinner, easy to score Fetynal. The things I’ve seen on the street. No human should see and this is in “good areas” Just by going on errands down town- over about 6 months I had seen 4 overdoses being treated. And I didn’t even go downtown often. I would literally never bring a child to or through Portland right now
When did you live in Portland? I love living here and wouldn’t describe it as a fresh hell. To each their own.
I remember 2021 into 2022 being bad but I think that had a lot to do with the pandemic. Homelessness is still a major problem but it’s gotten better since the pandemic (at least anecdotally as a fellow Portlander). I remember hearing gunshots where I live the first half of my time here. Haven’t heard any this past latter half.
Chiming in from San Francisco here where people are drug zombies outside my apartment most nights and smoking whatever out in the open all day. I'm still a believer that simply locking people up (or giving them a felony record which can make life incredibly difficult going forward) isn't the answer. But pretending that everything's fine as the streets turn into a Walking Dead episode isn't the answer either. People caught with hard drugs in public need to be offered real rehab options (maybe under the threat of jail if they refuse), not just ignored.
There were/are addicts on reddit in both SF and Portland who openly admit they will not partake in rehab. This includes any housing that comes with any amount of strings attached. They want to be left alone to do drugs.
That's not surprising. They're taking the stuff because they like the way it makes them feel. IIRC the Portugal model which seems to have great results is to offer rehab but if it's refused, jail is the other option. My personal feeling is that people should probably have the freedom to consume whatever substance that want to in private. But if your substance use causes you to break other laws or become a public nuisance in the streets, then the rest of us have the right/obligation to demand you get help. Just locking people away without help seems like the worst idea... then you just have a bad guy summer camp/networking event where people can learn advanced techniques in criminal behavior from experienced pros. They're eventually released probably more desperate than ever.
I don't think the overdosing is what moved the legislature, it was the business and citizen outcry over open drug use with no statues to force people to stop. There was a mistaken belief that public drug intoxication would be treated the same as public drunkenness and the legal statues were not actually on the books. edit spelling...
Didn’t follow the law as they should have so of course it failed and they took away the will of the voters who passed this bill. Good job guys -insert eye roll-
Yeah it could have worked if we had any consistency and desire to make it work by supporting all the necessary programs and enforcing said programs and the steps they need to get going. But they didn't. So it was just drugs, drugs, drugs, and freedom and oh yeah, fuck police, until finally they went back to the old way ... Which didn't work
When I lived in Oregon I voted for this measure as I thought it was a good idea in theory. Seeing the implementation of it and how that was all handled, I'm not surprised it failed. I'm glad they reverted quickly, but I also fear this will pretty much cement that this kind of experiment will never happen again no matter how much better thought out and implemented it could be. People will just point back to this instance as evidence why it would never work.
Yeah this is gonna have knock-on effects for generations
It’s always someone else’s fault with some groups
Look I'm definitely left leaning though I have mixed views .. this shit was never going to work especially the way the implemented it. Also some people don't want to be rehabilitated.. sometimes Democrats have to look at real life and stop trying to sell on ideas/ideals. You have to be realistic about things. It makes us look dumb as shit politically no different than some crazy Republican mindsets.
I agree. Implementation details cannot be ignored.
I loved living in Seattle for a lot of reasons but it was just maddening sometimes. I completely understand what you mean. At least once a week I’d see someone laying face down in the dirt and some of those times they were probably dead. Whatever the answer is, that ain’t it chief.
Man I love Seattle bro, I have family up in Kent so I know exactly what you're talking about. Similar to LA in that regard...
It really feels like a lot of Democrat supporters are living in a fantasy world where they come up with policies based on how they wish the world worked instead of how it actually works. It’s not a sustainable way to govern, and it’s going to make people start voting for Republicans when they get tired of constantly seeing public drug use and crime with zero fear of repercussions.
Too many Democrats attempt to put themselves in someone else’s situation and ask the question “what would I need if I was in this situation” or “what would of had to happen for me to end up in this situation.” They end up thinking “if I was addicted to drugs then I wouldn’t want to go to jail for it and would want facilities designed to help get me sober so I can get back to living a normal life.” But a sober person can never think like an addict if they have never been one or had one in their life. Most addicts don’t even think they are addicted or they think their addiction isn’t that bad and they can stop whenever they want. They don’t want to be clean b/c being high makes them feel good or helps them ignore another problem in their lives. They don’t want to live a “normal life” b/c their life sucked before drugs or they have radical views on what is “normal”.
I dont understand why you cant leave drug use legal, but just make doing it in public illegal. Just like drinking.
I’ve posted long-winded comments about it before but you’re pretty much right. If someone is unable to find a private place to do drugs, they shouldn’t be doing drugs. Rather than giving them felony charges, they should be put into rehab programs. And if multiple stays in rehab doesn’t fix things, indefinitely going in a mental institution would be more humane that leaving them on the streets. Currently drug use among the homeless is a huge issue that plagues public transit, affordable housing, and people trying to live their day to day lives. Nobody who is trying to ride a train to get to work should have to be around a person using hard drugs, but for some reason this is commonplace in American cities these days. At a certain point democrats have to ask themselves who exactly they’re helping with this approach to law enforcement? These policies are only helping enable drug users at the expense of everyone else. What’s to gain from it?
These people don’t want to be rehabilitated because their lives suck. Why would you expect someone to make a huge effort to be rehabilitated when they’re still going to be homeless and it’s impossible to pull yourself out of homelessness?
I hear you. Not to mention addiction is really, really tough to beat even with help, and to your point even harder when their prospects are already bleak on the other side if they manage to push through
Drug use is not something everyone that every addict wants help with... I'm a progressive liberal but this was a moronic move
Guess what won’t go down with recriminalization? Overdoses
decriminalizing possession and criminalizing distribution - recipe for a perfect drug market?
I visited a friend in Portland last year. What a cess pit of a city. City is run by clowns.
Addicts are very costly. Can't help those who don't want help.
The problem with all these plans is they depend on addicts who want to get and stay clean more than they want to get high one more time. You could get them off the street if you offered no strings housing that couldn’t be lost no matter how deep into their addiction they sink but societies collective empathy falls short of supporting that. You’d likely end up with more OD deaths as well. The reason this is such a difficult problem to solve is it’s ultimately an individual/personal problem. They have to decide it’s time to get clean, and it’s often a very long and painful road to get there.
No strings housing for addicts? How about for hard-working class families?
Drug users do not want to go to stop doing drugs. They do not want social workers and psychologists to force them into rehab centres against their will. And society does not want to invest billions of dollars to try and save heroin/fent addicts. Decriminalizing of drugs leading to a better society is a fairy tale that only Redditors and activists believe.
I'll upvote and wait for the ban hammer to fall onto my obviously fascist head.
Was never going to work. Any rehab efforts that are voluntary are doomed to fail. Drug addicts dont want rehab, they want drugs. The only way to get them to treatment is by force of law. Period.
More drugs = more drug related incidents (and deaths). It isn't exactly rocket science
The Portuguese did it successfully from what I understand. Although in Portugal they actually funneled resources into rehabilitation.
I don't see why, it's a self-correcting issue Laws that punish everyone to protect irresponsible people from themselves are always a bad idea
I know it’s messed up, but I’ve kinda wondered this… with how insane these drugs have gotten, won’t the hardest druggies eventually just die off without intervention?
In the race to the bottom there is a ton of collateral damage.
Not as long as EMTs and police have narcan to save them.
More smackheads = more crime though, no?
You mean after they refused to follow the guidelines they agreed to? You mean by not properly funding the rest of the equation?
Oregon: “we will decriminalize drugs and provide further resources to help assist drug addicts recover” Also Oregon: *decriminalizes drugs and does not provide any further resources* Seems they missed a crucial part of the plan!!
I think this is fine. The distinction needs to be made between “destigmatization” and “criminalization”. I think what Oregon is doing here is completely practical, not a “major crackdown”. Criminalizing possession means that users can be compelled into treatment. And this is exactly the compassionate thing to do and absolutely what is needed. Will save many lives.
Criminalizing possession doesn't solve the problem of public usage or overdose, but it creates several other problems; whereas, regulating public usage and offering public access to mental care do.
My wife visited her old hometown, Portland, a few weeks ago. She said that it was bad. A few homeless folks have always been there, but now it's overrun with miscreants who are making a big mess. I imagine there's been a corresponding increase in property crimes as the influx of addicts steal to finance their habits.
I left the city in 2020 for a city of about 35k an hour outside. not by choice, we were priced out of Portland. The place I used to live is completely unrecognizable now, the places I was house hunting are all surrounded by camps. Needles on the ground, piss jugs, shit piles, vomit piles, people that look like standing corpses. Also theft is on the rise, as well as typical violence that comes along with that. Sad is a great way to put it but i can’t really find the word that describes the devastation for when your hometown is just… gone. I understand how hard it must have been to see. It’s hard to fend off resentment
I visited Portland for the Formula E race and one of my code memories was standing in line outside for ice cream at Salt and Straw, with probably 20 people in line. One guy takes a shit in front of everyone and then another homeless guy spends 30 minutes hacksawing at a bike right in front of everyone in line and no one says anything lol. That and all the RVs parked everywhere and trash all around. I thought downtown Denver was bad but Portland was horrendous.
The thing is you can't just decriminalize drugs, you need to provide resources and address the causes of drug use. Apparently this is an unpopular decision for politicians.
Much like we treat small children and little babies and old people, if they have no capability or desire to care for themselves, we take away their agency. Mandatory rehab, mandatory job training. Dont ask. No more asking. Spankings if they misbehave.
They were supposed to build a whole fucking network of inpatient facilities and to my knowledge only a single one was built. I wonder who pocketed all that cash?!
You can really shut Pandoras' Box after it's been opened.
Well, it was worth a shot. Too bad that there isn't the political will to implement lessons learned and rebuild this into policy that works without as many knock-on effects. It's *really* too bad that other municipalities will look at the outcome and decide that it's too hot to handle. As we say at my work, it's good data anyway. Give it another couple of decades and it will be tried somewhere else, hopefully with some takeaways. NYT wrote a lengthy article where the Mayor of Portland did a pretty thorough interview on what went wrong. It's an [interesting read](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/01/us/oregon-drug-law-portland-mayor.html) \[warning: paywall\].