[HN Gopher] Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today
___________________________________________________________________
Drug decriminalization in Oregon begins today
Author : undefined1
Score : 210 points
Date : 2021-02-01 18:38 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (drugpolicy.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (drugpolicy.org)
| TerminalWarrior wrote:
| Finally, the beginning of the end to the Drug War.
|
| If Biden has a brain and guts he will accelerate this trend. With
| Kamala Harris as VP, a woman who made her career locking up minor
| drug offenders, it will be an uphill battle. I guess being a
| black woman counts for more than having a horrible track record
| these days.
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| The not-homeless, not-drug-addict rest-of-society is already well
| on its way with its response...gated communities. No homeless, no
| open drug use...all protected by private property laws and
| private security. Get ready for more of them. It doesn't matter
| what laws you will pass, you don't get past the front gate unless
| your card scans.
|
| In the end, the only people who will be forced to look at open
| drug use and homelessness will be people who can't afford to buy
| a unit in a SafeStreets(tm) community (YC Winter 25!).
|
| edit since HN is rate-limiting me: my point is, you aren't going
| to be happy with the response everyone-else has to social-
| engineering legislation they don't agree with. If you don't want
| more inequality and social divisions, stop giving people a reason
| to build a moat.
| Noos wrote:
| To be honest, can you blame them?
|
| The petty crimes fueled by drug use don't go away if you
| decriminalize it. We keep throwing money at homelessness but it
| doesn't seem to work at all because a lot of the problem
| homeless really need to be involuntarily committed for long
| term treatment of mental illness or addiction. Not many people
| want to go down that route, because we still don't really trust
| or are comfortable with that.
|
| People are going to compensate the only way they can. You
| aren't going to chide them for locking their doors when
| policies make it easier for people to rob others.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Decriminalizing possession doesn't make burglary legal.
| Noos wrote:
| Decriminalizing possession doesn't stop the need for people
| to steal to afford drugs, though. It also means people who
| do them will only interface with the criminal justice
| system when they commit these kinds of support crimes.
|
| They won't get scooped up for a lesser offense, yes. But if
| anything, it means when they do get scooped up it will be
| for a worse one, and it will happen.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm having a hard time seeing, though, that it will
| really change the number of drug users substantially. So
| the ones who were going to resort to burglary still will,
| and we will catch them and put them into the criminal
| justice system. But the users who manage to be otherwise
| gainfully employed (or at least self-sufficient enough
| without crime), we can forget about.
| cjaybo wrote:
| > when policies make it easier for people to rob others.
|
| Which policies are those?
| gedy wrote:
| https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_
| P...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Gated communities are quite rare in Oregon. Sure, they exist,
| but they are very much the exception. Even in areas with multi-
| million dollar homes (this ain't California, remember ;-)), the
| roads are usually public (or private but ungated). I can't see
| simple drug decriminalization changing that here, and I haven't
| seen anything to suggest a desire to head that way.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Looks like you're getting downvoted for raising a valid point.
| Further evidence of the reddit crowd infecting HN with their
| downvotes of anything that raises an uncomfortable debate.
|
| I'm proud of Oregon for trying this, but I worry that having
| one state go it alone will result in problems resulting from
| unequal strain on Oregon's social safety nets. Many drug users
| are productive members of society, but many are not. Hopefully
| this does not cause a homeless migration to Oregon.
| andybak wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're saying here. For a start you're
| conflating drug use, open drug use and drug addiction.
| Homelessness obviously has some correlation with some types of
| drug use but there's a lot of non-homeless, non-addicted drug
| users. And you haven't touched on hard vs soft, addictive vs
| non-addictive drug use.
|
| I'm not disagreeing because I'm genuinely not sure what point
| you're making?
| kolbe wrote:
| Say what you will about your opinion of what the results of this
| will be, it does create an experiment for us to learn with. I
| think one of the great tragedies of politics is that we do not
| experiment enough, so when ones like this pop up naturally, it'll
| give us great data.
| blhack wrote:
| I'm curious what metrics we should track to determine if this
| is good or not.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Does drug use increase?
|
| Does crime increase?
|
| What impact does it have on the prison population and public
| health?
| treeman79 wrote:
| What happens with kids?
|
| I adopted a teen who was in the system for 10 years because
| parents were constantly stoned.
|
| Police had to bring kids home from school many times
| because The bio parents were so out of it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I'm not sure putting the parents in prison would fix that
| or change it much in any way.
|
| If parents are stone/ drunk so regularly they shouldn't
| parent, it's child neglect/ abuse regardless of whether
| the drugs are legal.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think the real solution here is to better empower
| potential parents to have more freedom to make the choice
| of whether to become parents or not. If someone doesn't
| want to become a parent then I think it's a good idea to
| remove any obstacles between them and avoiding being a
| parent.
|
| Too often that choice is forced on folks and the major
| impact that has on your life can leave people resentful
| and angry which just isn't a good place to start being a
| parent from.
| betenoire wrote:
| The experiment doesn't have to be on people, it can be on
| budgets and resources. Tracking whether or not or how many
| people get help vs punished might be a place to start
| m463 wrote:
| > one of the great tragedies of politics is that we do not
| experiment enough
|
| I kind of agree, but we do have 50 states, each running their
| own experiments. Massachusetts has right to repair. Nevada has
| legalized gambling. Some states have stronger employee freedom,
| some stronger employer freedom. Lots of different educational
| experiments. Helmet laws, concealed carry, state income tax, no
| state income tax. Can you pump your own gas?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Can you pump your own gas?
|
| Oh stop it, that's not nice. We are slowly, slowly increasing
| the ability for people to pump their own gas. Right about the
| time nobody needs to pump gas any more, we will fully
| legalize it.
|
| We also have no sales tax, and I consider that a pretty big
| plus.
| m463 wrote:
| So sorry, that was not a jab. I was just listing
| differences off the top of my head. It does look that way
| and of course it's not editable now, bleh.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| No worries, I was only mock-offended. We are used to
| being taunted about the self-service gas law, and
| everyone I know who lives here would like to see it
| changed.
| imperio59 wrote:
| Experimenting with people's lives is not a responsible way to
| experiment.
|
| No one is denying these drugs are harmful, yet Oregon is
| basically saying "go ahead, it's fine, use these drugs".
|
| Seeing what is happening with the Marijuana lobbies coming in
| and putting in billions in lobbying should scare everybody. We
| have big tobacco to look at for where this leads.
|
| The next obvious step is to legalize all drugs, and let these
| lobbies profit off the back of addicts and their families and
| their ruined lives.
|
| Unless we as a society take a stand on some of these issues, we
| will be in deep trouble in a few years.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| > No one is denying these drugs are harmful
|
| Everything is harmful when used incorrectly, but useful when
| used correctly. I for one think these drugs are not
| inherently harmful, everything has a use. Why should doctors
| get to be a gatekeeper of my health if I choose to self
| medicate?
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Not only are they not inherently harmful, humans have a
| many millennia long history of consuming substances to
| alter perception. I argue that drug use is part of who we
| are.
| lambda_obrien wrote:
| Agreed, I think it's important to disrupt your normal
| thought process sometimes to get a new perspective that's
| still close to your heart, and I think there are several
| drugs that are good for that with little side effects
| when used responsibly. I think it's only in the past
| century that most drugs have been seen as evil,
| previously they were well used often for medicinal or
| religious or philosophical reasons.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Oregon is basically saying "go ahead, it's fine, use these
| drugs".
|
| Not at all. Oregon is saying they are going to stop using
| police resources to punish people for self-destructive
| behavior. Most drug users are struggling to begin with.
| Adding prison time for something which is not hurting others
| is cruel.
|
| > The next obvious step is to legalize all drugs, and let
| these lobbies profit off the back of addicts and their
| families and their ruined lives.
|
| As opposed to ruining people's lives for a behavior which
| isn't inherently harmful to others.
| aksss wrote:
| The idealist in me wants to agree, but drug use does often
| hurt others by way of crime, social disfunction and
| destroying family relationships/unity (which is a hurt that
| can affect a subsequent generation at least).
|
| Not always, but often.
|
| The self-contained, highly functional, occasional heroin
| user is real but there are plenty that do not live up to
| the expectation of being responsible drug users.
|
| Prison works as a stand in for involuntary rehab, and a
| very poor one. But While thinking Oregon is over
| correcting, I will watch from afar with an open mind to see
| the outcome.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Drug use is very harmful to society, and people who deny
| that just fall into the opposite end of the reality-
| denial spectrum opposed to those who deny that mass
| incarceration is harmful. Aside from all of the
| antisocial behaviour associated with drug use, having a
| large group of people who are a drain on society's
| resources is certainly a harm to society as a whole.
| Which may sound callous, but it's a very real consequence
| of large scale drug dependency.
|
| I still think this is likely a good law though, because
| the justice systems current approach to drug crimes
| creates such a tremendous harm to society, there has to
| be some rather obvious benefits to curtailing that. If
| you look at how relatively minor drug convictions can
| affect people's lives, it's beyond any measure of
| proportionality. It's just a harm easier to ignore
| because it mostly affects societal out-groups.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Just keep in mind, we're not legalizing drugs.
|
| Possessing small quantities is no longer a crime.
|
| The state can still crack down on dealers and supply
| chains. They can also prosecute for related crimes.
|
| We've had this weird state for a long time where it is
| legal to own and abuse anti-depressants and opioids, but
| you can go to prison for a long time for owning small
| quantities of far less destructive/ addictive drugs like
| LSD.
|
| This brings things back into a bit of parity.
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Yes, this is much worse than a criminal justice system that
| chews up and spits out these same people.
| yboris wrote:
| The best book I've read on this topic is _Legalize This_ by
| Douglas Husak
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Legalize-This-Decriminalizing-
| Practic...
|
| He argues (convincingly) that all drugs should be
| decriminalized. Putting someone in jail is the most extreme
| thing that our society does, and needs a serious
| justification. Every individual being put in jail deserves an
| answer, and no satisfactory answer can be given for putting
| someone in jail for a nonviolent drug use (or possession).
| 2III7 wrote:
| This is not experimenting, other countries have done it
| before with positive results. Criminal punishment for drug
| posession/use is only making matters worse for those involved
| with "street drugs".
| [deleted]
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Every state in the United States is its own little experiment
| in democracy, and every law passed therein experiments with
| someone's life, somehow. That's not a reasonable barrier to
| change.
| [deleted]
| cammikebrown wrote:
| The way I think of it is, people will do drugs whether or not
| they're legal. The current system is to throw drug users in
| jail, which has been proven to cost a lot of money and not do
| anything to rehabilitate the drug user. They need treatment,
| not jail time. This bill has greatly expanded access to
| treatment programs, which will help much more than
| incarceration ever could.
| cecja wrote:
| The english and the chinese want a word with you about that
| opium experiment they had running for a long time over
| there.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Well, I mean it's pretty hard to stay using if you're in
| jail. Yes some contraband does leak in but it's far less
| available than on the street. So a stretch in jail will
| very likely have you sober whether you like it or not. It's
| all the other negative attributes and consequences of
| prison that are the problem.
| daenz wrote:
| Your first sentence isn't necessarily true. Speaking from
| 1st and 2nd hand experience, there are people who would
| have experimented with harder drugs if they were easy to
| obtain.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| > let these lobbies profit off the back of addicts and their
| families and their ruined lives
|
| This already happens and has been the case for a long time.
| People get addicted to drugs regardless of their legality.
| The way to address addiction is through proper support
| programs and good healthcare for the people that suffer from
| it.
| worik wrote:
| As the English demonstrated in the 1960s the best way to
| deal with addiction, in their case opiates, is to supply
| the addicts with good quality drugs.
|
| The drugs and the addiction do no harm (opiates, nicotine
| is very harmful - and legal).
|
| The ISA made the English stop the programmes which was a
| catastrophe for the addicts
| rjbwork wrote:
| >The next obvious step is to legalize all drugs, and let
| these lobbies profit off the back of addicts and their
| families and their ruined lives.
|
| Nah, the next obvious step is to legalize them and have pure
| supplies of known purity and dosage distributed by the
| government at near-cost + tax to exclusively fund social
| programs and rehab. There's no need to bring profit into it.
|
| Prohibition doesn't work. We've seen it time and time again.
| Let's be adults about the fact that addicts have, do, and
| will exist in our societies and take steps the minimize the
| harms to both them and society at large from their existence.
| Noos wrote:
| I don't think this works, relevant city journal article
| here:
|
| https://www.city-journal.org/harm-reduction-san-francisco-
| ho...
| mr-wendel wrote:
| I'd love to no end if there is a major emphasis on the
| "rehab" part so the incentives AND disincentives are
| aligned. Less money flowing? Less need for remediation.
| More money flowing? More need for remediation. More money
| than we know how to spend efficiently? Spend it on
| neglected public infrastructure fixes.
|
| Personally, I worry when "sin tax" money is used to fuel
| unrelated social programs. The incentives are now inverted.
| If drug usage goes down and the money flow decreases we're
| jeopardizing the foundation of other important things.
| Maybe its better to take the money when/where you can get
| it and deal with the problem down the road? I dunno.
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| Why would anyone enter rehab if the government is providing
| free, high-quality drugs?
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| You think people enter rehab because they can't get
| drugs? What?
| triceratops wrote:
| To live a better life.
| theptip wrote:
| Many drug addicts don't actually want to be drug addicts;
| they started off as drug users and then lost control.
|
| Consider if alcohol was free; would you expect alcoholics
| to still want to enter rehab? I think the answer is quite
| obviously yes. I think it's a common error of reasoning
| to think that illegal drugs are very different to
| alcohol.
| worik wrote:
| Why would they need to?
| austincheney wrote:
| Unless administered by the government drug use, in the common
| parlance, isn't government experimentation of peoples' lives.
| People are experimenting with their own lives when taking
| drugs/narcotics.
|
| The reasons to decriminalize drugs, or not, from a government
| perspective is policy that can be typically measured as cold
| numbers. Such numbers can include:
|
| * cost of drug treatment / rehabilitation
|
| * cost of lost/missing work
|
| * decreases in numbers of incarceration
|
| * changes in traffic fatalities
|
| * changes in rates/frequencies of drug consumption
|
| Then there are second and third order effects are large
| policy changes that aren't immediately clear such as related
| petty crime, homelessness, changes in education attainment,
| changes to medical insurance expenses and so forth. More
| complicated than that are social changes that everybody wants
| to guess at, but are really a wild card.
|
| Portugal has had great results with drug decriminalization,
| primarily that demand dramatically tanked. It isn't clear
| similar results will be achieved in the US due to cultural
| differences, but I applaud Oregon for being a test experiment
| that other states can learn from.
|
| Please note that I have not stated any personal opinion
| for/against drug policy changes.
| Karsteski wrote:
| Who are you to legislate what people can and cannot do with
| their bodies? Regardless of the harms, I am glad we are
| moving towards personal autonomy, and not the nanny state
| that every country's people has had to endure for over a
| century.
|
| The destruction of so many lives... For absolutely zero gain.
| The initial facial motivations for these laws in the first
| place is all you need to figure out that they should never
| have been put in place.
|
| And for the millions of people whose lives were destroyed by
| this unjust criminalization? They will get zero compensation.
| Isn't the world fantastic?
| Noos wrote:
| the problem is we aren't going all the way, and removing
| societal support from those who use their personal autonomy
| for that kind of self abuse. The thing is, you want the
| nanny state to take care of drug users instead of jailing
| them; this is because drug use still destroys lives
| anyways.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| > Unless we as a society take a stand on some of these
| issues, we will be in deep trouble in a few years.
|
| You say that like there isn't a mental health epidemic
| already going on _right now_ that 's being ignored. Solve
| that and we're 99.9% of the solving your doomsday scenario...
| kolbe wrote:
| I think it's very juvenile to equate legality with
| encouragement.
|
| [edit below]
|
| > Experimenting with people's lives is not a responsible way
| to experiment.
|
| I find it to be much better than the alternative where we
| make a choice with no experimental data, and instead of a
| small test small test sample being impacted by the decision,
| we have an entire country impacted by it. I really don't
| understand the hesitancy among some HN participates to
| experimentation in political decisions. In theory, people
| here all have jobs where the products and changes they ship
| are thoroughly tested and justified with experimentation.
| Medicine experiments with peoples lives all the time. To me,
| it's no different with laws. If we want good ones, don't just
| dive all-in based on some feel-goody sentiments: justify it
| with data.
| mr-wendel wrote:
| Meanwhile, there are reasonable arguments that to at-risk
| individuals (the youth in particular) making things like
| this illegal is a near-certain way to draw their attention
| to it and make it even more exciting.
|
| It's not a perfect comparison, but there was an interview
| given by Alice Cooper about city officials in London trying
| to prevent him from doing a concert there back in his
| earlier days. The amount of publicity and attention it got
| him only helped make him more of a success, and he
| subsequently sent nice flowers and cigars to two notable
| detractors involved to say thanks.
| apsec112 wrote:
| There's a huge gulf between saying "X is fine to eat" and "we
| will put you in jail for owning X". Drinking bleach is a
| horrible idea, but is completely legal, and nobody wants to
| put bleach owners in jail.
| worik wrote:
| There is no law against drinking bleach because it is
| uncontroversially bad for you
|
| There have to be laws against LSD or MDMA because they are
| enormous fun, and very safe.
| count wrote:
| Why these drugs, and not caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, refined
| sugar, and others? Where does personal responsibility come
| into your thinking?
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| People are going to use drugs regardless of legality. There
| has been great harm to individuals from ingesting substances
| of questionable purity. Legalizing cannabis has allowed
| adults that choose to consume get consistent quality and
| avoid sketchy circumstances when purchasing.
|
| As for society as a whole it costs less to help people that
| abuse drugs than it does to imprison all drug users. We
| should not punish adults for what they choose to put in their
| bodies on their own time.
| worik wrote:
| " it costs less to help people that abuse drugs "
|
| Even less if you leave the people who use drugs alone in
| their pleasures!
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| It would probably be helpful to define abuse of drugs as
| not being able to function in society as a result of use.
| The clinical definition of using more than the prescribed
| dose isn't very helpful. Depending on the drug a higher
| dose can be desirable for different reasons.
|
| If somebody wants to check out of society I don't want to
| stop them. That is their choice. But if they are trying
| to participate in society and struggling with drug abuse
| we should try to help them.
| worik wrote:
| "If somebody wants to check out of society I don't want
| to stop them"
|
| In my world that is not what drug users are doing.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Some, not all. You can see escapist users with nearly all
| drugs that provide it. I have encountered users that are
| consuming because they dont want to feel anything at
| least for a little while, to "check out". But most users
| of a variety of drugs are doing it for entertainment or
| experience, to enjoy living.
| abhorrence wrote:
| Everything you've said about marijuana applies to the alcohol
| industry. I'm not sure if you're suggesting marijuana should
| continue to be outlawed, but if that's what you believe, do
| you also believe we should outlaw alcohol?
| worik wrote:
| I deny these drugs are harmful.
|
| It has been prohibition that has caused most of the harm.
|
| People have problems. Often people who have problems get
| lost, in madness, in violence, in drugs. Stop blaming
| madness, violence and drugs.
|
| The people who have problems need help from their community,
| quite often. It seems (from the outside) that in the USA
| community is being deprecated.
|
| Most people who use drugs have fun. They do not come to any
| harm, so long as they do not get busted by police, or beaten
| by the crooks that sell the drugs.
|
| Time to get the law out of it. Time to start being kind to
| each other. People with problems do not need to be punished,
| usually that does not help.
|
| Legalising drugs will lead, probably, to better drugs.
| Powdered injectable heroin came about because it is the best
| way to market such a illegal product. In the nineteenth
| century opium was mostly used in tinctures.
|
| In South America cocaine was traditionally used completely
| differently chewed with lime (?)
|
| Prohibition has been a catastrophe for the victims and good
| on you Oregon for looking for a way out.
| sbussard wrote:
| This post being downvoted into oblivion is what irks me about
| the hacker news community. It's not enough to disagree, you
| have to silence the dissenter by graying out their comments.
| That's real democratic
| Karsteski wrote:
| Yea I agree with you. I heavily disagree with the
| commenter's opinion but I will never down vote on this
| site, simply because it suppresses a person's comment and
| that's not what I want.
|
| Although the app that I use (Harmonic) shows all comments
| the same, which is nice :)
| cptskippy wrote:
| If your concern for the legalization of drugs is businesses
| exploiting people, maybe the focus should be on preventing
| businesses from exploiting people and not limiting people's
| autonomy to make decisions about their own lives?
| cronix wrote:
| I'm curious how will it be different from the experiment that's
| been going on in Seattle for the last few years? Has hard drug
| use decreased there? Are there fewer needles on the streets?
| Fewer people visible in public that are obviously under the
| influence? Has drug-related crime gone down? Are there more
| people housed who were previously not housed due to their
| addiction?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-cri...
| daenz wrote:
| As a libertarian leaning person, I agree with this. However, I
| still think it will have a lot of negative consequences that
| people will be eager to sweep under the rug. Even if the net
| effect is positive, we still need to be honest about any negative
| results that we may see from this.
| chapium wrote:
| I think the key takeaway from other countries that have
| implemented this is to treat addiction clinically, not
| criminally. This makes a lot of sense really, given the effects
| on the body. Ethical sourcing of drugs is another issue, and
| should be looked at through a legal lens.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yes, to me this experiment hinges on following through on the
| treatment side. I hope to see some ongoing reporting on
| whether the funding that used to be spent on police
| enforcement, prosecution, and punishment of drug possession
| is actually diverted to treatment. If counties instead try to
| "save taxpayer money" on this I think it will end badly.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| That's become the status-quo with all policy changes these days
| though. e.g. it's not enough to say that "The Green New Deal"
| is poor policy, you have to say "Global Warming is a Hoax"
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| I really hope this leads to more research on the effect of
| psychedelics on treatment-resistant depression. People with
| depression suffer unimaginable anguish every day - we owe it to
| them to give them the best treatment options possible.
| undefined1 wrote:
| Right, psychedelics are really promising as a treatment.
|
| Which I think makes it criminal that psychedelics are criminal.
| driverdan wrote:
| This isn't legalization and has no impact on federal laws. It
| won't help with direct research.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The federal-state dynamic is certainly interesting. The
| federal government doesn't have the resources to enforce all
| the laws they have on the books and rely on states to enact
| similar laws to enforce most of them. I wonder if they will
| ever increase enforcement or if this state-level
| defiance/contradictions will continue to grow and spread to
| other states. I think there has been some talk of similar
| movements for gun rights.
| notJim wrote:
| Oregon also legalized research into psychedelics, but that was
| a separate measure. I think it will take longer to get off the
| ground, because a committee needs to be established to figure
| out how to conduct the research.
| throwaway2121bx wrote:
| I'm a proponent for legalizing drugs. But I believe there will be
| negative long-term consequences from drug use becoming normalized
| and so easy to obtain. People who wouldn't otherwise use drugs
| could be forgiven (after reading about legalization in the binary
| and positive way it is often reported, or from walking around a
| city with an upmarket weed shop every few blocks) for believing
| it can't be that bad for you and trying it out. I can say from
| first hand experience with weed that it slows down your cognition
| and makes you less productive, and it can easily become habitual
| and hard to stop. I hate to think of how many new addicts we
| might get if the hard stuff like heroin becomes normalized. I
| think legalized drugs should come with scarier warnings, like
| cigarettes, and there should be marketing campaigns against their
| use, like with alcohol. The primary objective is to not lock
| people up for drugs, to give them support they need, and to move
| their sale (to people who are buying them anyway) from the black
| market to a taxed and regulated one. There should be a secondary
| objective to not get a whole lot of new people hooked.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Of the people that wouldn't use drugs there will be some that
| legality is their only reason for not consuming. But most in
| the non-consuming group wouldn't consume even if it was legal
| for a myriad of other reasons.
|
| I prefer the warnings to be helpful for informing adults
| weighing risks in their decision. Scarier warnings like on
| cigarette packs are a means of forcing personal or governmental
| ideals on others through fear. Provide all the known facts and
| let people make their choice.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| Yeah I think overall harm minimisation would have to take into
| account negative externalities.
|
| Even if you decriminalised meth, for example, and removed the
| need for property crime to get it, it could still cause a lot
| of bad effects for people proximate to the users.
|
| People stay awake for days, become irrational and violent.
| Prolonged use can trigger psychotic episodes.
|
| There needs to be a balance between taking into account the
| safety and freedom of users and the safety and freedom of wider
| society.
| notJim wrote:
| I used to favor full legalization, but now I think it's a bad
| idea. If you can simply go to a store to buy heroin (like you
| can with weed in many places now), I think we will inevitably
| have more heroin addicts. People will get addicting just trying
| it out, and get addicted because they are self-medicating.
|
| There are middle-grounds between full legalization and full
| prohibition. It seems obvious that prohibition has been a
| failure. I think instead we should base it on how harmful and
| addictive they are. Drugs with low harm and low addiction
| potential should be easy to get. Other drugs should be legally
| obtainable (and manufactured and distributed by legitimate
| means) by addicts, but hard to get for most people.
|
| Sometimes people bring up the case of alcohol, which seems to
| have relatively high addiction potential and harm, yet is still
| legal. I think this is a case of path dependence though. I
| don't know if I would advocate making a similarly harmful drug
| legal and easily obtainable today, but the cat is out of the
| bag on that one.
| travbrack wrote:
| Don't you think most people who would be interested in buying
| heroin in the store can already get it?
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| I think oxycontin is an interesting example.
|
| A lot of people got (get) "incidentally" addicted, due to
| overprescription / easy supply.
|
| Regulatory failure and corruption didn't help, of course.
| brewdad wrote:
| Sure, but there's a huge difference between meeting up with
| "a guy" in secret to buy it versus popping into the shop
| and picking some up while running errands.
|
| There's also an implied suitability in the sense that
| "stores wouldn't be allowed to sell if it was really that
| harmful". This may or may not be true but it certainly
| impacts our cultural mindset around alcohol.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| I've thought for a while that "hard" drugs ought to be made
| available with a license. Every year you check up with your
| doctor and a mental health specialist, and if things seem to
| be in order (no physiological damage from drug use, no
| arrests, no job loss from drug abuse etc) you get your
| license to buy consumer quantities of cocaine, mushrooms,
| whatever.
|
| I'm sure there are solid arguments against a license
| structure but I haven't imagined a better middle ground
| between total prohibition and 19th century style cocaine in
| cough syrup.
| potsandpans wrote:
| hard to imagine a take more braindead
| [deleted]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Sure, there will be some consequences. But think about all of
| the people who won't enter adulthood already excluded from the
| (good) job market because they have a criminal record? I feel
| pretty confident that this law is going to be a net positive.
| throwaway2121bx wrote:
| Full agreement that it's a net positive. Nobody should ever
| get a criminal record for using. I just hope that the
| messaging is clear that because its legal/decriminalized
| doesn't mean its good for you.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Totally agree. Especially since I have two children rapidly
| entering that phase of their lives when they will be
| exposed to the most peer pressure. I hope we take a bunch
| of the money we'll save on useless enforcement and put it
| towards education, in addition to rehab and other diversion
| programs.
| anm89 wrote:
| Drug use is already normalized and drugs are already easy to
| obtain.
| zappo2938 wrote:
| Meanwhile drug users who often don't want to stop will now move
| to Oregon.
| worik wrote:
| That would be wise.
| catstack wrote:
| I welcome anyone who is suffering from addiction to move to
| Oregon. I hope that as a society we can help them overcome
| their addiction instead of treating them as a criminals and
| perpetuating the cycle. It's a suffering human and I don't care
| what state they live in. I hope other states will move to enact
| similar policies. We are in this together.
|
| I truly believe that legalizing drugs, taxing them, and
| offering treatment and rehabilitation is the way to go.
| aksss wrote:
| I think there's a group of people that will view Oregon as a
| promising hospital and a another group that will view it as
| Disneyland. These reforms will welcome both.
| catstack wrote:
| "a group of people that will view Oregon as a promising
| hospital"
|
| I don't follow you on this. Do you mean people will think
| that Oregon has good health care and will make a move based
| on that?
|
| "another group that will view it as Disneyland"
|
| I mean, yeah... It's going to be easier to get substances
| in Oregon than it will be in other states. I would like to
| see a study on this but I couldn't imagine a significant
| amount of people who are suffering from addition is going
| to make the move to Oregon because of this. Do you know
| someone who has been or is dealing with addiction? I'm not
| saying that in a condescending way.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Be aware that we don't have any idea how to deal with
| homelessness, however. And there are plenty of other ways law
| enforcement can ruin your day.
| aksss wrote:
| Undoubtedly there will be people that do this. I used to hang
| out with a group that would have considered Oregon a Mecca if
| such a law had passed. I'm sure that subculture still exists.
| Maybe Oregon will be the scapegoat for the country. Maybe our
| labs of democracy should specialize in things - a state for
| gambling and gambling addiction recovery; a state for drug use
| and drug use recovery, etc.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| And one for single payer healthcare, one for basic income,
| etc.
|
| Maybe a really adventurous one will do all the above.
| BooneJS wrote:
| What happens to people in the justice system for violations of
| the old law?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| AFAIK, nothing. Unless the governor does some kind of sweeping
| commutation, every case that has already been adjudicated is
| not automatically affected by this law. Admittedly, I only
| skimmed the text before voting yes. I imagine it could be used
| as an argument if the convict can get their case before a judge
| on appeal.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Just to make things clear, decriminalization is not legalization.
| Drugs are still illegal, and users risk a $100 fine, especially
| if they are uncooperative. The difference is that it is now a
| civil violation instead of a crime, so no record, no jail time,
| kind of like a parking ticket.
|
| Drug trafficking is still a crime.
| pacifist wrote:
| "especially if they are uncooperative." Oh yeah. I really don't
| like the idea of an officer having discretion in these
| situations. First sign of bad legislation IMHO.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Police officers _always_ have discretion. It would be
| impossible to legislate that away. It 's been a while since I
| read the law (I'm an Oregon resident, so I read it before I
| voted for it), but I'd imagine that the law doesn't give any
| particular discretion in enforcement, but in the real world
| an officer can always choose not to issue a ticket/make an
| arrest.
| pacifist wrote:
| Really? How about in the case of armed robbery? Or murder?
| Can they choose not to arrest? Yes, but there will be
| serious consequences. BTW I voted for it too.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| If a single officer is the only witness to a murder, what
| consequences will there be if the officer chooses not to
| make an arrest? Yes, there's nuance and as soon as
| multiple people are involved there's the risk of public
| outcry, but as far as I know, there's not a legal
| obligation for a peace officer to make an arrest just
| because they have witnessed a crime. Whether there is a
| social obligation to make an arrest is highly situational
| and depends on not only the crime but the surrounding
| circumstances.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm curious where the definition of a class E violation can be
| found. I didn't find anything through a search.
|
| It seems odd to me that the government can charge a fine
| without a crime being committed. In my mind, this would remove
| the rights and protections that someone would have under a
| criminal charge.
| jaywalk wrote:
| What are you talking about? It's a civil violation, like a
| speeding ticket or almost every other ticket that cops write
| that don't involve you being hauled off to jail.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Speeding is a crime. If a cop suspect you of speeding they
| can pull you over, search your car and basically ruin your
| entire day if they so choose. Proper decriminalization
| would mean that cops, even with strong suspicions that you
| are carrying drugs, would not be allowed to stop/search.
| That would be akin to a parking ticket.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| THey still need cause to search your car. Not that they
| won't manufacture it if they want to. But I've been
| pulled over for speeding, expired tags, and other minor
| traffic issues a few times and have never had my car
| searched.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> But I've been pulled over
|
| So you did get pulled over. So you were in
| detention/arrest (insert lawyer debate here) as in you
| were physically stopped. At that point the cop can search
| your car. He probably did. He almost certainly looked in
| the back seat and counted the number of
| passengers/objects there, something he could not do as
| you sped by. He then examined your life in that he looked
| to see if you had outstanding warrants and whether your
| insurance/license/registration was all in order. Had he
| wanted to, he could remove you from the vehicle and pat
| you down for weapons. Speeding, being a crime, allowed
| him to do these things that parking tickets do not.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Speeding, being a crime, allowed him to do these things
| that parking tickets do not."
|
| That's not entirely true (excluding the pat down). The
| "search" you are talking about is simply plain
| sight/smell/etc. A cop writing a parking ticket can look
| through the window of your car and run the plates to see
| if it's stolen, lacking registration, etc. In either case
| they need probable cause to do an actual search of your
| vehicle.
|
| Not to mention, they can stop (in most states) you even
| if you didnt commit a crime, like at a DUI checkpoint.
| brewdad wrote:
| Funny enough, DUI checkpoints are illegal in Oregon.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Good, they should be. It's too bad so many others allow
| it.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The level of what qualifies as probable cause varies by
| state too. For example, I've heard that the courts in MD
| have held that police can pull you over and search your
| car on the basis that the owner has a carry permit from
| another state (as shown in NCIC when scanning your
| plate).
| giantg2 wrote:
| An offense doesn't need to result in imprisonment or
| custody to be criminal. A citation is an arrest without
| custody - you are promising to appear at court. This is
| generally how summary offenses are handled in many states.
| This includes summary traffic citations. If you look at the
| rules for judicial proceedings they will fall under the
| criminal proceedings. They will also show up on your
| record. That's how my state and neighboring states work.
|
| I guess maybe your state is very different. Which is part
| of what I was asking about. Any offense, civil or criminal,
| must be defined in statute or code. So can you point me to
| that?
| frongpik wrote:
| What counts as drug trafficking? Carrying weed across county
| lines?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| In most states any amount over some small amount can be
| prosecuted as trafficking. I dunno what the limits are for
| Oregon.
|
| I'm pretty sure they get the same people who think a six pack
| is "binge drinking" and one range day's worth of ammo is a
| "stockpile" to come up with those limits.
| recursive wrote:
| Drinking a six-pack at a time does sound kind of binge-y to
| me.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Start with dinner at 6 and go to bed at 9 and that's
| 2/hr. Not exactly keg stands and jungle juice territory.
| The human body processes 1-2 drinks/hr so at the end
| you'll have a buzz on the order of one stiff mixed drink
| (~3-4 shots of stuff in the 40% ballpark spread out over
| a tall glass of sugary fruity stuff).
|
| Edit: And since apparently this needs saying "drink" =
| "the standard alcohol/drink unit that all the
| professionals who measure this stuff use"
| whycombagator wrote:
| What quantity would you say is binge drinking? Or rather,
| if a six pack before bed (6pm-9pm) isn't binge drinking
| what quantity of beer is?
| DanBC wrote:
| In the UK "binge" is defined as
|
| > 8 units of alcohol in a single session for men
|
| > 6 units of alcohol in a single session for women
|
| Assuming the beer is 5% you'd need to drink 1.6 litres to
| hit 8 units of alcohol. If each can / bottle is 330 ml
| that's 1.9 litres.
| recursive wrote:
| I have no doubt that much higher levels of consumption
| are possible.
|
| I don't really have a position on what "binge" _should_
| mean, but that doesn 't exactly sound like it's not.
| Could just be my perspective. I probably drink most days.
| Usually one beer. Rarely, I might have two in a day. I
| can't remember that last time I had more than that.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I roughly define binge as any amount of drinking that
| leaves you with a hangover the next day. That usually
| indicates that you have consumed enough to lose your
| judgment on when to stop.
| leesalminen wrote:
| That's a similar heuristic to what I use to define binge
| drinking. It doesn't have to mean drinking a 30 rack in
| an evening.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| "1-2 drinks/hr" is not a well defined metric. It's better
| to use units of alcohol:
|
| https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-
| alc...
|
| And more than 1 5% beer is outside of almost all people's
| ability to "process" in an hour.
|
| I would wager the majority of people based on size/weight
| can't process a single 5% beer in an hour.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| When people are drinking 6-packs, it's much more likely
| to be Coors Light (4.2%) than something like an Arrogant
| Bastard.
|
| According to 5 seconds of googling, the typical weight of
| an American man in 2016 was 197lbs.
|
| You might well lose your wager.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| My estimate was based on half of the population being
| women, and the fact that fat doesn't assist with
| processing alcohol as much as muscle, and most American
| men are not exactly muscular.
|
| https://mcwell.nd.edu/your-well-being/physical-well-
| being/al...
| nitrogen wrote:
| The most muscular dude I ever knew was so solely because
| he had so much weight to carry. Unless you are
| wheelchair-bound, fat necessitates at least some
| additional leg and core muscle.
| ketzo wrote:
| The original commenter might not have been using "drink"
| this way, but theoretically there is such a thing as a
| "standard drink": roughly 14 grams of pure alcohol, which
| is about 12oz of beer, 5oz of wine, or 1.5oz of liquor.
|
| This "standard drink" is what an average person can
| _roughly_ process per hour. It 's all fuzzy because of
| how many confounding variables there are with alcohol
| (and because "average person" is kind of a nonsense
| phrase), but there you go.
|
| Source: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-
| health/overview-a...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That website just defines a "standard drink" in the US as
| 14 grams of alcohol. It doesn't say anything about how
| much an average person can "process" in an hour. I can't
| even come up with a good reason for the utility of a
| measure of alcohol without it being a ratio of how much
| can be processed in an hour.
|
| That's why the NHS metric is better suited for
| discussions about how much alcohol per unit of time one
| can/should drink, or to discuss the effects of different
| rates of alcohol consumption over time.
|
| From the NHS website:
|
| >One unit equals 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol, which is
| around the amount of alcohol the average adult can
| process in an hour.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Depends if it's piss-water or a quality stout or IPA.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| A six pack of piss-water is still 12 units of alcohol,
| definitely far above what one should regularly consume if
| you want to minimize health risks:
|
| https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-
| alc...
|
| My whole life I've been watching the "safe" amount of
| alcohol go down and down, study after study. The idea of
| casually drinking multiple beers after work every day is
| crazy to me.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Oh if we're talking about health, it's a whole other
| question. I was just looking at the effects of alcohol
| consumption.
|
| Drinking a six pack of anything every night is likely the
| sign you are an alcoholic.
| ben_w wrote:
| Despite not being a beer drinker, this feels like the
| right time to mention BrewDog and their ongoing battle to
| sell the strongest beer in the world.
|
| I first heard of this with Tactical Nuclear Penguin
| (32%); their latest HD Strength In Numbers, which is
| _57.8%_.
|
| https://www.brewdog.com/eu_en/brewdog-vs-schorschbrau-
| streng...
| S_A_P wrote:
| I feel like they "cold brewing" process they use(at least
| that was what they were doing a few years ago when I read
| up on it) has more in common to distillation than finding
| high ABV tolerant yeast strains and actually brewing high
| gravity beer. I have taken apple cider and done a similar
| process to make Applejack. Its just a matter of freezing
| out the water/other non alcohol components. I mean, its
| interesting and all, but I dont really feel like its beer
| at that point.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| In Oregon, drinking a six pack way well be binge drinking.
| High alcohol content beers are pretty common.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Indeed. Six of my favorite microbrews from Cascade
| Brewing and I would be very drunk. Heck, a single 750ml
| bottle of Sang Noir will last me a whole evening.
| Speaking of which, I have a bottle in the cupboard right
| now. Hmmmm.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| It's mostly quantity limits.
|
| https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/11/here-are-the-
| dru...
|
| The measure makes it a noncriminal violation similar to a
| traffic ticket to possess the following: Less
| than 1 gram of heroin Less than 1 gram, or less than 5
| pills, of MDMA Less than 2 grams of methamphetamine
| Less than 40 units of LSD Less than 12 grams of
| psilocybin Less than 40 units of methadone Less
| than 40 pills of oxycodone Less than 2 grams of cocaine
|
| The measure reduces from a felony to a misdemeanor simple
| possession of substances containing: 1 to 3
| grams of heroin 1 to 4 grams of MDMA 2 to 8 grams
| of methamphetamine 2 to 8 grams of cocaine
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm confused why people are saying non-criminal traffic
| tickets. In my state, traffic violations are usually
| summary offenses. I'm not familiar with how all the states
| handle it, but I haven't come across non-criminal traffic
| citations.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| What is a "unit" of LSD? Is that like International Units?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I'm not quite sure.
|
| LSD is effective in such small quantities and it's been
| delivered in so many different forms I think the normal
| "grams"/ "ounces" metrics are irrelevant. The one time I
| used it, it was a single "hit" about half the size of a
| micro SD card and paper thin.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Drug trafficking is still a crime.
|
| Which is how this should be for many drugs.
|
| Though I would like a clean source for the occasional dose of
| LSD. Just... you know once a month or so.
| notJim wrote:
| It actually seems really problematic for drug trafficking to
| be a crime while consumption is decriminalized. It creates an
| easier market for organized crime to sell into, which reduces
| their risk. IMO instead we should do something along the
| lines of allowing doctors to prescribe pure versions of
| illegal drugs to people who are addicted. Then the drugs can
| be made by legitimate firms that can be regulated heavily.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Reducing risk for traffickers is probably a good thing.
| Because it will flood the market with competitors.
| Organized crime thrives because of the risk, not in spite
| of it. They are the only ones willing to take the risk, so
| they own the market.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| They are also inclined to violently remove competition,
| or force competitors to operate under their control, so I
| think it remains to be seen how it will play out.
| encoderer wrote:
| A few doses of LSD likely saved my marriage. Things were very
| frozen and the drug let us really talk for the first time in
| a year+ (having kids is hard lol)
|
| It's insane to me that doctors can't prescribe this stuff. If
| there was any justice in the world you could go to your
| doctor for a safe dose of anything on your birthday.
| ttul wrote:
| I wholeheartedly disagree with you. Criminalization of drug
| production and distribution has been an abject policy failure
| from the start. Ending the criminalization of drugs and
| bringing all drugs into a regulatory framework that is guided
| by health outcomes rather than the one-size-fits-all goal of
| eradication is the only path that has a hope of reducing the
| harms associated with the hardest of drugs.
|
| You can't stop people from using even the most devastating
| drugs simply by making drugs illegal to produce and
| distribute. There will always be someone willing to take the
| risk, regardless of the penalties. Criminalization is the
| WORST form of regulation. Instead of ending up with a
| dangerous, yet pure product, from a trusted, regulated
| supplier, you end up with an impure and potentially deadly
| product from an unregulated and completely untrusted
| supplier.
|
| You can judge drug users all day long, but they're going to
| seek these drugs regardless of the prohibitions. And there
| will always be a criminal willing to supply the addiction,
| because the demand is 100% inelastic (i.e. totally unrelated
| to price).
|
| Drug criminalization has created a $400B global market that
| fuels terrorism, human trafficking, child exploitation, and
| the destruction of democracy in many corners of the world.
| crazydoggers wrote:
| Very well said. The real world pain caused by drug money
| going to black market criminals can't be ignored. It's easy
| to bury our heads in the sand and ignore how drug money
| fuels victimization through exploitation and human
| trafficking.
|
| And I'm sure someone will pipe up that they know some nice
| weed dealers etc, but you have to realize that's a nice
| little bubble you're living in. For many, the drug dealers
| are linked to some very nasty individuals, and the
| criminalization of drugs has simply given them huge income
| streams.
| ttul wrote:
| Rest assured that the friendly weed dealer is buying
| upstream from someone who is significantly less friendly.
| And the person he or she is buying from is likely a
| murderous psychopath. _By definition_, the most
| successful in the drug trade are those who are willing to
| do anything for profit.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> bringing all drugs into a regulatory framework that is
| guided by health outcomes
|
| Outcomes for who? The individual or the population?
| Seriously. Ask a doctor and they would probably agree that,
| for a particular patient, having access to legal safe
| alternatives is a good thing. But ask them about drugs as a
| whole, for the entire population, and the answer will
| always be "less is better but zero is best." Stemming the
| supply will damage current users, but illegality also
| suppresses uptake by new users.
|
| Opioids are different than pot. LSD is different than
| rohypnol. Cocaine is not the same as ketamine. Balling all
| "drugs" into one category and declaring them legal for
| traffic and sale is a horrible idea. I don't want to see
| GHB to ever be sold or transported openly.
| ttul wrote:
| I'm not advocating selling heroin at the corner store.
| Perhaps it should be sold over the counter at pharmacies?
| A licensed pharmacist can advice the buyer of the risks
| and can connect them with resources to help with
| addiction if there is a desire for that.
|
| We already massively promote and sell alcohol nearly
| everywhere. It's a deadly drug that is more dangerous to
| use than many illegal drugs. Tobacco is similarly broadly
| distributed, yet causes cancer and early death in
| millions of people.
|
| If drugs were regulated based on their risk level, then
| it's likely that tobacco would be sold in plain packaging
| at pharmacies and MDMA would be available in a vending
| machine...
| umvi wrote:
| > We already massively promote and sell alcohol nearly
| everywhere.
|
| Two wrongs don't make a right. Alcohol and tobacco are
| "grandfathered in" to the current system due to
| widespread usage for centuries. If I were king for a day,
| alcoholic beverage marketing would be made immediately
| illegal, but in our current democracy there's no way the
| alcohol lobby would allow that.
| leakybit wrote:
| Most people wouldn't need heroin if big pharma, doctors,
| and pharmacists didn't flood the country with oxycodone
| in the first place.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _illegality also suppresses uptake by new users._
|
| Clearly that's not true, as evidenced by the enormous
| illegal drug trade. Highly regulated availability of
| safer substitutes for the worst drugs _might_ reduce
| uptake of those worse drugs.
|
| _Balling all "drugs" into one category and declaring
| them legal for traffic and sale is a horrible idea._
|
| That's not what the parent comment said. They
| specifically said based on health.
| umvi wrote:
| > Clearly that's not true, as evidenced by the enormous
| illegal drug trade. Highly regulated availability of
| safer substitutes for the worst drugs might reduce uptake
| of those worse drugs.
|
| Hold on, that logic isn't sound. You are saying because
| the illegal drug trade is enormous, therefore the illegal
| status of drugs has no suppressive effect on new user
| uptake? Why can't both statements be true? "The illegal
| trade is enormous _and_ making drugs legal would make the
| drug user base even _more_ enormous "
|
| Illegality status might suppress 50% of new users and
| impulse buyers, who knows. You can claim illegality does
| _not_ suppress 100% (that much is clear), but I guarantee
| illegality has suppressed some non-zero % of potential
| users from trying it.
| ttul wrote:
| Legalization probably increases the user base somewhat.
| But does it increase negative outcomes? The evidence is
| already in: the legalization of alcohol after the 1930s
| definitely improved outcomes.
| netizen-9748 wrote:
| Why would you ask a doctor? Ask a pharmacologist, the
| person who researches it.
| valuearb wrote:
| Drug "trafficking" should absolutely be legal. While
| Decriminalization is laudatory and beneficial, it solves far
| fewer problems than outright legalization.
|
| With decriminalization:
|
| 1) drug users will still not know what they are actually
| consuming. They can very easily invest drugs heavily mixed
| with other drugs, or dangerous chemicals. This will lead to
| far higher levels of accidental overdoses and is a path to
| more addictive substances.
|
| 2) Drug sellers will still be subject to lengthy prison
| terms. This directly creates to massive amounts of drug
| violence. If you are a dealer, you will commonly hold large
| amounts of cash and valuable drugs, making you a prime target
| for robbery including home invasions.
|
| Since you cannot rely on banks to deposit your sales, nor
| police to protect your property, you will need to be heavily
| armed.
|
| And if you suspect a partner or customer to actually be an
| informant who can net you a sentence nearly as long as
| murder, there is almost no downside to killing them. How many
| innocent kids have been buried in fields because of the
| paranoia of their dealer?
|
| 3) Our individual rights have been reduced significantly
| because of drug sales prohibition. Because of the war on
| drugs, police can get no knock warrants to burst in your
| house, kill your dogs, maybe even you, and not even apologize
| when it turns out their "tip" was wrong.
|
| If you are driving or flying with a large amount of cash,
| police can simply take it from you without showing it was
| linked to any crime, and force you to spend thousands on a
| lawyer to even have a chance of seeing it returned.
|
| Then there are zero tolerance laws that allowed police to
| seize your property because anyone on it was using drugs.
|
| We all pay the price for the drug prohibition, whether we use
| drugs or not. Time to end it completely.
| umvi wrote:
| Whenever I see these discussions I only ever see the
| drawbacks of restricting drug manufacturing and
| distribution and never the drawbacks of legalization. An
| honest analysis would acknowledge the drawbacks of
| legalization too. It's difficult to tell exactly what the
| long term consequences of complete drug legalization are,
| and I guarantee there are some negative consequences.
|
| For example, legalization might _reduce the scale_ of drug
| trafficking, but I doubt it would eliminate it completely.
| Tobacco is completely legal yet due to high taxes there is
| still a large multi-billion dollar bootlegging business to
| smuggle cigarettes across tax gradients. Also, highly taxed
| drugs will likely result in an increase in related crimes
| like theft. I had a friend from high school who was
| addicted to heroin. When he ran out of money he was willing
| to mug old ladies to come up with the cash for more. If
| heroin were instead legal... why wouldn 't he just steal
| directly from the legal distribution source now that the
| threat of violence is no longer there? You don't steal from
| the dealer because you might be killed, but stealing from
| Walmart or CVS or whoever is carrying it? Why not?
| Corporate policy probably says not to do anything.
|
| Lastly, unless marketing is _highly_ restricted,
| legalization of drugs will absolutely lead to an increase
| in usage across all demographics. And a net increase in
| usage will cause some % increase in DWI rates, overdose
| rates, health care impact, etc.
|
| We will pay some price for legalization as well, it's just
| TBD and nebulous at this point.
| triceratops wrote:
| > If heroin were instead legal...
|
| It would be so cheap your friend from high school could
| afford it with a standard burger flipping job. He'd have
| no need to resort to violent crimes to afford heroin.
| umvi wrote:
| How much are we talking? Is this pre or post taxes?
| Cigarettes are super cheap pre-taxes, but post-taxes they
| can be extremely expensive, especially in places like
| NYC.
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| Heroin is a simple chemical readily extractable from an
| agricultural crop. I wouldn't expect the base price to be
| higher than vitamin supplements. Of course how high
| that's pushed by sin taxes is a matter for legislatures.
| triceratops wrote:
| Are there a lot of armed robberies committed by smokers
| in NYC because they can't afford cigarettes?
|
| They might buy from bootleggers if they can't afford the
| fully-taxed cigs. That's a crime too, obviously, but
| somewhat less serious than armed robbery.
| umvi wrote:
| > Are there a lot of armed robberies committed by smokers
| in NYC because they can't afford cigarettes?
|
| I can't really quantify "a lot" or whether the thieves
| were smokers that couldn't afford them, but it's clearly
| happening. Here are some armed robberies from 2020 in NYC
| that involved stealing cigarettes at gunpoint: [0][1][2]
|
| > They might buy from bootleggers if they can't afford
| the fully-taxed cigs
|
| I would guess this is the preferable option to robbing
| stores, but if you literally have no money, even bootleg
| cigarettes are off the table.
|
| [0] https://abc7ny.com/armed-suspect-pulls-out-gun-
| steals-cigare...
|
| [1] https://nypost.com/2020/02/18/robber-armed-with-
| rifle-hits-n...
|
| [2] https://patch.com/new-york/parkslope/man-robs-
| nyc-7-elevens-...
| TylerE wrote:
| > highly taxed drugs will likely result in an increase in
| related crimes like theft.
|
| Even if taxed at 100%, I have a really hard time
| believing that will result in most in drugs being _more
| expensive_.
| umvi wrote:
| Depends on the location. Using cigarettes as an
| analogue... they are really cheap to manufacture, but
| some places like NYC tax at a rate even greater than 100%
| (nearly $6/pack flat tax last I checked, which means once
| you add in margin and vendor costs you are looking at
| $10+/pack which is brutal for an impoverished pack-a-day
| addict). So as a result there is a massive bootleg market
| where cigarettes are smuggled in from low or no-tax areas
| and sold illicitly.
|
| I'm not super familiar with street prices of drugs, but
| if politicians tax drugs the way they tax cigarettes and
| alcohol, it will be burdensome for drug addicts and cause
| increased theft and bootleg operations that have some
| (but not all) of the same problems as drug trafficking.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> drawbacks of restricting drug manufacturing
|
| Ya, like how if you get the recipe for a drug only
| slightly wrong you turn it from useful tool to deadly
| poison. I want the FDA inspecting facilities. I want them
| testing purity, and then testing the tests that they use
| test the previously tested test. When I buy aspirin I
| want to know it is aspirin and not anything else. "Let
| the market decide" doesn't help me once I'm poisoned.
| Please government, regulate drug manufacturers.
| valuearb wrote:
| Are you seriously comparing tobacco bootlegging with drug
| trafficking? Wake me up when tobacco bootleggers are
| having gang wars in large cities using semi-automatic
| weapons and responsible for a large percentage of our
| murder rate.
|
| Tax avoidance happens everywhere and it's contribution to
| our violent crime rate is minute.
|
| And why would your friend rob anyone if his heroin cost a
| fraction of today's price, and he could easily procure
| it? And if he faced no Neil time for buying it legally?
| totony wrote:
| >I had a friend from high school who was addicted to
| heroin. When he ran out of money he was willing to mug
| old ladies to come up with the cash for more. If heroin
| were instead legal... why wouldn't he just steal directly
| from the legal distribution source now that the threat of
| violence is no longer there?
|
| That seems like more of a net positive IMO. Theft of
| institutions must be less deadly/detrimental than the
| alternative. Even if people were to steal _more_ from
| (say) Walmart than rob grandmas, it 'd still be positive.
|
| >And a net increase in usage will cause some % increase
| in DWI rates, overdose rates, health care impact, etc.
|
| This might not be the case because of increase
| purity/social and institutional support because of
| destigmatization/re-invested profits taken from taxing
| the product.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I'm not going to argue this because I agree in many (most?)
| cases.
|
| But I do think there is value in taking a measured approach
| to the problem as opposed to opening the flood gates.
| valuearb wrote:
| The measured approach is a problem too. You see it in
| marijuana legalization, where some state's are so
| restrictive about licensing sakes outlets that legal weed
| costs more than illegal.
|
| How can that kill off a dangerous black market?
|
| Someone who is going to try heroin is going to try
| heroin. They can live a mostly long, healthy, productive
| life if they get clean drugs and needles. Where are they
| going to get that from decriminalization?
|
| An idea I've noodled around with is adding drug (and
| alcohol) consumption as a badge to your drivers license.
| Every time you go to a drug dispensary you have to show
| your license.
|
| If you get out of line, driving intoxicated, or commit
| any crimes while drunk or high they take your license
| until you complete rehab. And if you go too far off the
| deep end, maybe they keep your badges off your license
| for a very long time.
|
| At least that way we can eliminate all the other crimes
| the war on drugs helps create.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > The measured approach is a problem too. You see it in
| marijuana legalization, where some state's are so
| restrictive about licensing sakes outlets that legal weed
| costs more than illegal.
|
| I don't think this is as big a problem as people make it
| out to be.
|
| In NYC, there is a black market for smuggled cigarettes
| because of the large taxes on them. Most people buy them
| from legit places regardless because it's much more
| convenient.
|
| There are high alcohol taxes in Oregon and Washington,
| yet very little modern bootlegging. People prefer to buy
| legal alcohol in spite of the fact that moonshine is
| cheaper.
|
| The risks of dealing with illegally manufactured
| substances are worse than the increased cost of buying
| from legitimate sources.
| briffle wrote:
| I agree, I see this in many forms: (From IT projects, to
| dealing with huge homeless problems, to drug crime)
|
| We shouldn't do this, because this doesn't 'solve' the
| problem in 100% of cases.
|
| That is how nothing ever gets done. I think we should
| absolutely hit the low hanging fruit.
|
| I mean, a few years ago, Oregon legalized Weed. This last
| election, they legalized shrooms (in certain clinical
| settings). Once people see progress being made, they are
| much more likely to go with the next step.
| cylon13 wrote:
| Why should we force drug trafficking in to the underground,
| creating a black market and all the murder that comes with
| enforcing contracts within it, when people are just going to
| buy and consume drugs anyway? Because drugs are bad for you?
| The trade-off doesn't seem worth it.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Mostly agree. I think a lot of drugs should be legalized.
|
| Some which I think are addictive/ destructive enough where
| they should be kept illegal. Bath salts, crack cocaine, are
| good examples of the latter.
|
| I also think we should be deliberate in how we tread this
| path.
| netizen-9748 wrote:
| What compound is 'bath salts'? Is there more than one? Do
| they do different things?
| klyrs wrote:
| Apparently, synthetic compounds analogous to those found
| in Khat. From what I gather, there are several compounds
| that qualify as "cathinones" and I expect they have
| varied effects. Drugs often have different effects on
| different people, too (see alcohol intolerance). Also,
| with any home-cooked organic chemistry, there will be a
| lot of variance in the product. Also, with any street
| supply, you never know what it's cut with (even if it
| appears to be beautiful dank nugs).
|
| https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/syntheti
| c-c...
| ogre_codes wrote:
| As I said, it should be a deliberate approach with
| specifics. Blowing it open all at once might be... really
| bad.
| [deleted]
| ttul wrote:
| "Bath salts" are popular because far better alternatives
| are illegal... If pure meth, cocaine, heroin, MDMA, and
| other "hard" drugs were made available in a regulated
| format, many destructive and dangerous alternatives would
| no longer have a market.
| leakybit wrote:
| is meth, heroin, and cocaine supposed to be safe for you?
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Is that the metric we use for what is legal?
|
| Because alcohol and sugar are hardly safe to use long
| term, yet no problems with legality.
| ttul wrote:
| Absolutely not. Those are very dangerous substances to
| take. Now add in the additional dangers posed by criminal
| production. How does a drug user know whether it's really
| cocaine? Of course, they don't. It's completely
| unregulated the most extreme manner possible.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| Is alcohol and smokes supposed to be safe for you?
| kansface wrote:
| Meth is actually available by prescription in the US for
| ADHD and obesity [1] (at a much lower dosage than what
| addicts take)! Opiates obviously are as well.
|
| 1. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-
| amphetamines
| netizen-9748 wrote:
| Nothing is supposed to be anything. Its all about
| education and preventive maladaptive use patterns, which
| criminalization does nothing to solve.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| This is the big concern about making (any) drugs illegal.
| There is zero way for a user to ensure safe supply or
| with consistent dosages. This puts an additional burden
| on our healthcare system.
| tyingq wrote:
| Here's what's meant by "a small amount" in Oregon law:
| Less than 1 gram of heroin. Less than 1 gram, or less
| than 5 pills, of MDMA. Less than 2 grams of
| methamphetamine. Less than 40 units of LSD. Less
| than 12 grams of psilocybin. Less than 40 units of
| methadone. Less than 40 pills of oxycodone. Less
| than 2 grams of cocaine.
|
| https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2021/01/31/what-...
|
| Also interesting from that article is that the law changes
| things for "reasonable suspicion", so they may see fewer
| arrests for more than one reason.
|
| _" This prevents law enforcement from then searching vehicles
| because they can't develop reasonable suspicion, which is the
| grounds that allows them to ultimately continue to search for
| evidence of a crime, Parosa said."_
| JulianMorrison wrote:
| I'm wondering how they measure those. Like, one gram of dried
| mushroom is a whole heck of a lot smaller than the pile of
| mushrooms you'd need to get one gram of extractable
| psilocybin.
| tyingq wrote:
| _" Twelve grams or more of a mixture or substance
| containing a detectable amount of psilocybin or psilocin."_
|
| From: https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/475.752
|
| So, it sounds like 12 grams, regardless of strength. I
| guess don't get caught with one undried mushroom :)
| cbsks wrote:
| IANAL, but it looks to me that the text of the law doesn't
| differentiate between dried mushrooms that contain
| psilocybin, and pure psilocybin of the same weight.
|
| > (B) Twelve grams or more of a mixture or substance
| containing a detectable amount of psilocybin or psilocin.
|
| http://oregonvotes.org/irr/2020/044text.pdf
|
| I wouldn't bet on that actually holding up in court. 12g of
| pure psilocybin is about 600 doses, which a judge may
| determine is illegal based on the intent of the law.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Why are you allowed to have up to 40 tabs of LSD but no more
| than 5 pills of MDMA?
|
| In general, possession-vs-dealing is such a weird line to cut
| based on quantity of the drug.
|
| The fact that 10 pills of MDMA in someone's possession likely
| means that it won't just be one person consuming all of those
| doesn't necessarily turn that person into a professional
| dealer. Not any more than a pack of cigarettes turns someone
| into a tobacco company if someone bums a smoke off of you.
| [deleted]
| anm89 wrote:
| I am strongly in support of this and have been for a long time.
| But having seen how things are playing out in Seattle has
| definitely given me more nuance to my support for this.
|
| The major one is that decriminalizing drugs cannot mean
| decriminalizing crime(theft) done to support addiction. Seattle
| has moved in this direction which has thrown its legal system
| into utter chaos as it has pretty much legalized petty crime for
| a certain class of people.
|
| Being compassionate does not mean letting people do whatever they
| want. That being said, not treating people as criminals for
| putting substances into their own bodies is a great step and I
| hope other cities follow suit.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > Today, Oregon became the first state in the United States to
| decriminalize possession of small amounts of all drugs and
| greatly increase access to treatment, recovery, harm reduction
| and other services.
|
| There are other states where drug possession is only a
| misdemeanor, e.g.:
|
| https://apnews.com/article/0216054dc6cd453f8d83de8bbc84caeb
|
| https://www.cga.ct.gov/2015/ACT/pa/pdf/2015PA-00002-R00HB-07...
| jMyles wrote:
| > There are other states where drug possession is only a
| misdemeanor, e.g.:
|
| You say "other" as if that's the case in Oregon. As of today,
| it's no longer a misdemeanor (or in some cases, a felony).
| ericholscher wrote:
| Of interest, this is mostly a non-story in Oregon after it has
| passed. Our largest newspaper isn't even running a story on it:
| https://www.oregonlive.com/
|
| Life continues as normal, just with fewer people in prison. As it
| should be.
| pacifist wrote:
| The real story is the fact that mainstream media is ignoring
| it. The silence is deafening and trumpets their allegiance to
| big pharma and the criminal injustice complex.
|
| Edit: I live in Oregon and voted for this. So yay, we're moving
| in the right direction.
| lipstone wrote:
| Why would pharma not want legalization? At worst, it doesn't
| affect them. At best, it's another revenue stream.
| pacifist wrote:
| I typed this into duckduckgo: "big pharma lobbies against
| drug decriminalization"
|
| and got this: https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/the-
| top-5-industries-lo...
|
| I wouldn't care to venture a guess as to their thinking but
| the intent is clear: they don't want drug
| decriminalization.
| jonas21 wrote:
| There was lots of mainstream coverage when the law was
| passed. A few examples:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/09/politics/oregon-
| decriminalize...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/04/election-
| dr...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/ballot-measures-
| propos...
|
| In fact, I think you would be hard-pressed to find any news
| outlet that didn't cover it.
|
| That the law goes into effect today is a bit of a
| technicality, so it's not surprising that most of the
| coverage was back in November.
| nexthash wrote:
| Why would you think the mainstream media isn't covering it? A
| cursory search on Google for 'oregon drug legalization'
| revealed these results:
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/oregon-1st-
| state-d...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/04/election-
| dr...
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/best-
| states/articles/2020-12-10/...
|
| I would consider these outlets more or less mainstream. I
| think the 'real story' in this case is not a conspiracy of
| big pharma and the prison-industrial complex, but the slow
| change of attitudes and policy in the US. Occam's razor.
| pacifist wrote:
| "but the slow change of attitudes and policy in the US" as
| shepherded by the mainstream media. Yes, we disagree as to
| the complicity of the media and criminal justice system. I
| believe that they sold their souls for a paycheck a long
| time ago. We all have our price but I hope I would get a
| more than that in the bargain.
| ndiscussion wrote:
| The changes this policy drives will be apparent after several
| years, not several weeks.
| random_savv wrote:
| Good. This has worked well in other countries, particularly
| Portugal:
|
| https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portuga...
| lanevorockz wrote:
| Slightly hard to believe in data these days ... I went to uni
| in portugal and it was rare to find a student that didn't use
| weed. I guess this is why it was so easy to legalise it.
|
| Then the data says 10% ... it's laughable.
| cjaybo wrote:
| I went to college in the US, in a state that has pretty
| heavy-handed drug penalties, and my experience doesn't sound
| much different from yours.
|
| As another comment mentioned, using college-aged kids as a
| representative sample for the entire population is inherently
| flawed, especially when it comes to things like drug use.
| nooyurrsdey wrote:
| > I went to uni in portugal and it was rare to find a student
| that didn't use weed
|
| On the other hand, this is also subjective and anecdotal? I'm
| not doubting that data can have errors, but I'm having hard
| time criticizing data because it's not what someone "expects"
| it to be.
| [deleted]
| InitialLastName wrote:
| You don't think it's probable that a) university years
| (18-22) are likely the peak point for consumption of all
| drugs (as they are where I live) and b) There's a substantial
| availability bias in which people you know who (you knew)
| were cannabis users vs the intersection of people you didn't
| know and people who didn't use cannabis without making a big
| deal out of it?
| TamDenholm wrote:
| Well that 10% is highly unlikely to be evenly distributed
| amoungst the population. The percentage of those that smoke
| weed from a sample of university students is likely to be
| higher than the same sample taken from the age groups of 60yr
| old and above. You can make statistics say whatever you want,
| pretty sure I could get a pretty high percentage of weed
| usage if i limit my sample size to Bob Marley and Snoop Dogg.
| meowfly wrote:
| I had a stopover in Amsterdam and ended up sharing drinks
| with a Norwegian who was there to party with friends after
| graduating from a prestigious school in Bergen.
|
| I was actually taken aback at how negative his views on weed
| were. He made it sound like successful people in Norway won't
| touch the stuff. In contrast, I can't think of anyone in in
| my circle who would have shared his views.
|
| It was a reminder of how we all live in our own bubbles.
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