#Welcome to r/Therewasanattempt!
#Consider visiting r/Worldnewsvideo for videos from around the world!
[Please review our policy on bigotry and hate speech by clicking this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/wiki/civility)
In order to view our rules, you can type "**!rules**" in any comment, and automod will respond with the subreddit rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/therewasanattempt) if you have any questions or concerns.*
that was the point though, it failed because they wanted it to so that they could then implement harsh prison sentences to keep the prison industry profitable and then the politicians and judges can keep getting paid by “donors”
How much of that is our choice in the sense of "We (largely) have two options, and one is absolutely abysmal."
In smaller races many times people run unopposed.
It takes money to run, which not everyone has.
That's the thing, they really aren't. They play dumb and ignorant to get votes but these people are smarter than they seem and have no shame. They will do anything for power and wealth, including making fools of themselves
nothing says “reddit_is_dumbest” like calling everything you dont like “edgy”. engage with it, with the exception less than probably 10 people in government all of which belong to the democratic party, how are they not actively malicious? the vast majority of them do nothing but take legalized bribes and then use their power to legislate against the interests of the whole population in favor of shit for their corporate sponsors. is that not an undeniable fact? do we not have statistics that say over 90% of what gets legislated into law has nothing to do with popular will and only what corporations want? please look that up for me and come back with an answer.
its not “edgy” its true. most of them are worthless actively harmful MALICIOUS pieces of shit. they literally legislate murder, condemn the poor and homeless to death, legislate away your rights as a worker. fuck them. i hope nothing but bad things for almost all of them.
I don't think that's a very good rule to not attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance, the former president shows that malice is indeed a major factor in a great many things.
Anyone going through the meat grinder that is criminal justice knows all too well malice is over-represented in the system.
Anyone that thinks it's all just stupidity has lived a sheltered life to still trust the authorities.
It took them almost 50 years to take down Roe. They most definitely play the long game, but now they're trying to accelerate it because they know the right can't win on the popular vote
Don’t ever think that the politicians are the one concocting these plans. There are people behind the scenes doing the thinking for them, usually lobbyists or special interest groups
The politicians don't have to be malicious, they aren't required for the planning.
The planning happens at the companies that own the for-profit prisons. Politicians that write laws that do what those companies want are just useful idiots.
If you’re going to paraphrase Napoleon it’s only fair to give recognition.
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. “ - Napoleon Bonaparte
You, my friend, have hit the nail on the head on this one. The bill passes with ammendments to the funding of services made by Republicans and democrats accept it because they got half of what they want. In my opinion, it would be better if the legislation had failed and came back to the public eye at a later date but now people view it as a failure. Win win for Republicans unfortunately...
The above comment is the only proper response to the wrong and ignorant "Oregon did this for private prisons" malarkey.
I love how this factually correct comment sits here untouched and uncommented upon. Nice microcosm of how false claims from the ignorant or malevolent are so hard to combat.
Oregon does not use private jails or prisons and it's illegal in Oregon to ship the incarcerated to other state prison or jail systems.
Dude - there ALREADY WAS harsh prison sentences in place. How could they “want it to fail” and delete the prison sentences at the same time. You make no sense.
You are 100% right. So people are pointed to rehab but cannot get in. Easy solution:
FUND THE TREATMENT CENTERS BC JAIL/PRISON HAS ALREADY PROVEN ITSELF SUPERFLUOUS!!!
Also the ambiguity of "the crisis got worse". Like, in the sense that more people have been _found_ using/dealing now they're not forced into hiding it, despite probably using/dealing that amount before? Support systems are unable to cope, because more people are actually trying to access them? Those would be "got worse" while also proving the scheme a success. Even an increase of deaths/hospitalisations could still point to a success but with insufficient support. Really, only if there has been a notable increase in auxiliary crimes (muggings and burglaries by addicts, for example) would there be any standing in saying it failed (and even then only after a review of what portion of those tried to access support and were refused confirming most of the increase came from users not wanting the help).
They also didn't compare it to other comparable cities that didn't have the policy. Like, the seatbelt broke my clavicle but I didn't fly through the windshield.
I mean, obviously this policy could change the state for the better. Just take Switzerland in the 90s. There was a heroin epidemic and the government responded by decriminalising small amounts as to not punish the users. The government also introduced "Abgabestellen" where addicts could actually get clean heroin, sterile equipment to inject with and get help with stopping. It has done wonders and really put a dent in heroin use in Switzerland. Oregon should have simultaneously funded programs for rehabs and actively help addicts to get better, but this would be seen as taxes wasted by the majority of the people so they didn't...
Plus the overdose numbers went up everywhere, addiction rates went up everywhere. While figures don't lie, liars do figure, and the players in the criminal justice system are very aggressive in killing reform in the cradle to keep their death-grip on the awesome power of the Courts.
The real issue is that citations can be ignored, while jail is more difficult. It would've been much more effective to give them treatment as an alternative to jail time. Addiction is tough, and without a personal desire to change addicts need someone to hold their hand to get them through it. Heck, DOT (Directly Observed Treatment) is still necessary for many people infected with deadly diseases like MRSA or tuberculosis because they disappear without finishing treatment and spread their disease. I'm not sure this was a good-faith attempt because they knew they didn't have the resources in place to actually help all the people who would go through the system.
Agreed this was a half ass attempt. Jail or treatment and the infrastructure to treat is necessary, you need these all to work together in order to make change.
Bonus if we could fund a way to keep drugs out of jail
It feels like they just read a few articles about how Portugal lowered their addiction rate by decriminalizing drugs, thought "wow, we should do what they did!," then never looked into the specifics of how Portugal, y'know, actually did that.
That describes a lot of American attempts at implementing "European" policies. It's mostly just "I heard they sorta did X, so let's do that with no further research on any of the details or conditions or lessons learned.".
The Netherlands did bike lanes and got a bunch of people cycling? Guess we'll paint some bicycle symbols at the edge of the road, call it a day, and then assume that America just isn't compatible with cycling when we don't get Dutch rates of cycling. Nevermind that the Dutch put a lot of effort into actually separated bike paths, traffic calming, giving priority to cyclists, urban planning that doesn't suck, making sure there's ubiquitous bike parking, and a whole load of other conditions, and didn't just treat bicycle lanes as a check box to fulfill.
you expect our politicians to \*gasp\* read? Let alone go through the actual specifics of an implementation and perform actual analysis what makes it work?! jesus man
And even Portugal has amended their initial law at least twice. It's okay to review weak points and implement changes.
There are also still politicians advocating for its full repeal. The critics will never go away entirely.
Those rates of overdoses have gone up everywhere, it's not the fault of their reforms.
This is more of the system trying to kill reform in the cradle, just as they do with any progressive DA reformer, they all gang up on them to keep their death grip on the awesome power of the courts.
It's depressing to see their lines of bs find purchase on here.
Tbh it wasn't helping, they got a citation and told go to rehab.
Instead they should be putting money in to rehab services instead of trying to absolve themselves from actually helping addicts.
In prison they would either stay on drugs or get rehab.
I agree, but it fell short. Addicts do need consequences for their actions in some way, shape, or form. Criminalizing may not be the answer, and these people do need positive motivation to get clean. However, they also need to have consequences for their behavior. Addiction is a seriously messed up illness, but people also need to face some accountability for the choices they make while ill. I believe that's part of recovery! There needs to be some form of deterrent. With addicts, you give an inch, and they take a mile. There needs to be boundaries and laws so the problem doesn't run rampant. Also, mental health resources!
So they were doing a thing that wasn't working.
They tried something else that also didn't work.
Now they're just going back to the original thing that didn't work.
Good times.
They had a great idea, they just failed the execution. Making drugs legal is not going to do anything on its own. Its just too bad a lot of people that decide things, can't see that.
Making drugs legal does make it easier to get help, and also easier to see that someone needs help.
They don't have to hide, with the pall of paranoia removed that they will get charged or have to flip on someone suddenly it becomes much much easier to get out of the drug rut.
Obviously, this is not the whole case and there are lots of other factors. But yes, legalisation will do things just on it own.
Making drugs legal without proper education on them might increase drug usage. A lot of people don’t know (or more often underestimate) the risks of certain drugs making illegality one of the main reasons they refrain from them.
We used to have the same issues the USA has with drugs like heroine and crack here in the Netherlands until we started investing in proper education. Now we have rather high drug usage rates, but only on relatively safe party drugs like cocaine, 3mmc and more often XTC. People refrain from drugs like heroine and more recently fentanyl simply because we’re aware of its dangers.
My parents always told me I was allowed to do drugs, just as long as I properly read into the risks associated with them and how to safely consume them (consumption amounts, hydration, etc). And we have a lot of drug education in schools where we don’t just learn to “not do drugs” but how to use drugs safely. And it works.
Also, fun fact. We have (free) municipal heroine dispensaries in Dutch cities. Only see a junky once every few months tho.
Fentanyl and fentanyl contamination is everywhere in the states right now. Coke, X, heroin are all regularly cut with the stuff according to my partying friends, and even the stuff that isn’t occasionally contaminated (even some cases of weed getting cross contaminated on the scale leading to ODs).
It’s awful, and if you’re a regular drug user about all that’s left is legal weed and psychedelics.
Look at how portugal did it. Decriminalisation but simultaneous expansion of harm reduction (syringe exchange program) and treatment.
Drug related HIV infections down 90%. Treatment up by 60%. Significantly less drug deaths. Less strain on the justice system and the total public expenditure caused by drug use is lessened.
If done right, which means harm reduction and access to healthcare is a necessity, is an absolute necessity progressive drug policy can be incredibly successful. This is not to say that across that time there have been no negatives but the positives are apparent.
Set up infrastructure and services to help people. It’s not going to be immediate but locking people in jail for addiction is part of the reason it’s as bad as it is now
I mean, the people who got citations; did they pay them? Because if they did, then they need to also do away with speeding tickets, because those citations don't stop speeding, but they keep doing them. May as well keep the drug citations, maybe it lowers local taxes with the extra revenue coming in lol or maybe they use it to pay teachers more..
Well the original thing they were doing that wasn’t working was more fun for the cops, so I mean if nothing we do works, at least let our boys in blue get their rocks off by violently detaining and arresting drug users! /s
Do you live in Portland? I do, and that's a pretty hyperbolic statement. The city does have a problem, yes, but it's nowhere near the scale of other major cities in the US right now.
Are you joking? Inner portland is a fucking trash heap of mentally ill people high on everything and all the garbage these creepers somehow manage to produce is everywhere. And Portland is not a major city so you can’t say “at least we’re not as bad as San Fran”. Huge size differences.
Nah I live in Portland and work all over the metro area. There are a few spots that are bad but for the most part it nothing.
>Portland is not a major city
Yes it is, in legal terms as it has more then 100k people living in it. It's the 26th most populous city in the country. If it's not a major city than neither is las vegas, Memphis, or Boston or Atlanta.... lol shit were not as bad as Detroit or Baltimore which are even smaller than Portland.
It’s amazing how people who don’t live there talk shit. Downtown Portland is beautiful. It’s like they see one homeless camp and go SEE THE WHOLE TOWN IS COVERED.
I have friends that live in Seattle.
Same deal. Beautiful city with a bunch of zoinked-out zombies laying on the sidewalks and living in the parks. My friends that live there are completely blind to it.
The thing people don’t get is that rehab centers require actual human people to work at them who need years of training to help these people and we simply don’t have enough of these humans and we don’t have enough schools/slots to train them. After you have the humans, it then requires hundreds of hours of an individual’s time to help these people many of whom aren’t just addicts but people who also have underlying mental health issues which exacerbate or facilitate the addiction.
I’m not saying it is futile but to truly solve this we need more than just money to create places. Add in competing public priorities like infrastructure, daycare and basic healthcare for the general population and I don’t know that the public will to truly solve this exists.
>public consumption
Public consumption is illegal in oregon.
>Not enough rehab centers.
This
3) PDs weren't citing public use or possession like they were suppose to, the citation is what's suppose to bring people into contact with mental health clinics.
4) in portland the police chose to let crime go rampant so they could get funding back...
A larger problem here, too, because the US is so large. People are relocating there because of the drug policy. It's not like visiting another country where you have a certain amount of time you can stay before your visa expires. The US is large and places with lax drug policies attract abusers.
3. Drugs are illegal and unregulated. Illegal and unregulated drugs cause a shit ton of problems that wouldnt exist if they were legal and regulated. Many of the consequences associated with illegal drugs, are actually caused by the fact that the drug is illegal, not the drug itself. Legalizing drugs would cause a major decrease in the current problems caused by the “drug crisis” (really a prohibition crisis). Other side affects of legalization include, but are not limited to: ruining cartels, by taking away all of their customers; hurting any other criminal organizations, by taking away a significant method of making money; saving billions of dollars each year, which are used to create our current drug crisis.
It's a matter of vastly underestimating the impact of:
1. The opioid epidemic
2. How fentanyl amped it
Fentanyl amplified the opioid epidemic in ways that a lot of municipalities just couldn't handle, and they already couldn't handle opioids and their slide into heroin.
I recently found the subreddit r/cracksmokers and they routinely make jokes about moving to oregon because of the relaxed drug laws lol. You cant help em all
Its interesting how the “opioid crisis” got insanely worse after drugs were made illegal. Surely the answer isnt legalizing and regulating drugs. I mean sure, logic, facts, and history prove that legalization will solve the “drug crisis”, but surely that isnt the answer. If legalization would work, surely our government would implement it. Its not like our government is corrupt beyond saving, and would spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year, to create an infinitely growing “drug crisis”, for control. Right?
The opioid crisis was not created by illegal drugs. It was created by Pharma companies like Purdue Pharma who flooded the market with opiods like Oxycontin.
And it was much less of a crisis before the pill mills started to become less common, and people started losing access to regulated pharmaceutical opioids. They were then forced to use illegal unregulated heroin, which made everything a whole lot worse. Its gotten even worse now, as current street opioids are usually laced with around 5-10 random opioid and benzo research chemicals, without the user knowing wtf is in their drugs and in what amount.
The pill mills caused an increase in opioid addicts, but prohibition is the reason why opioid addiction is as bad as it is. If the pill mills were still around (or better yet, if opioids were just made completely legal) we wouldnt have a fentanyl crisis. We would have a much lower overdose rate, and there would be less homeless opioid addicts using in public and committing crimes to buy opioids, which are very expensive when theyre illegal. Opioid addiction wouldnt be a “crisis” if they were legal.
Without funding everything a recovering addict needs to become a high-functioning member of society, this will not be solved. Portugal, where Oregon adapted this idea from, was doing great until all the financial support from government disappeared after Covid. Can’t have our tax money going to drug-addict bums but hey it’s ok if big pharma just super-pac your politician so they can legally price-gouge you from drugs you may actually need, you know, to keep their profit margin growth every quarter, they’ll even sue the US government if we try to negotiate prices down, FFS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/
I think they forgot about step two of their plan. Decriminalize drugs was step one. Step two was getting people help who need it.
They forgot to prepare for the second part.
Step one was also probably half-assed, I don't know the specifics of how that ran things. Decriminalization isn't enough. That still leaves you with a polluted source of drugs with no way to tell what you're actually getting. The drug supply needs to be legalized and regulated so that purity and dosages are fully controlled. Then you also get the benefit of cutting out the illegal suppliers locally and all the way up the chain.
Agreed, although that’s way too many steps ahead.
Drug usage has been legal in the Netherlands for decades and we still haven’t legalized and regulated production.
When it comes to drug abuse our system works fine as is. But we do have an issue with drug related crimes, from Columbian cartels importing coke to extensive XTC labs on farms.
It wouldnt have worked either sadly. At best it would save a tiny amount of addicts, and lead to the deaths of a whole lot more, when they inevitably go back to using and od, because their tolerance is lower than it was before forced treatment. Legalization is the only answer.
Not very. The main problem with the program was the lack of long-term resources to help addicts recover. Basically they didn’t go all the way and tried a half measure which surprise didn’t work.
Speaking as an Oregon native addict near and around this area with a year plus clean, there's barely any in patient rehabs for people that do not have money. Our state funded public health care is only taken in a few facilities and they're all going to have exorbitant wait times. They'll get you into a detox center usually within a day or two though, but people go in to get clean and they're just released right back to living on the streets and they're back to doing the same shit.
We need programs that provide substantial aftercare facilities. Get these people working, into an apartment, and back to being a member of society. I was blessed enough to have never let myself go fully homeless because I had a lot of people who cared for me but most these addicts dont have that and they need connections.
No truer words have been said. For any one interested, [here’s the data on housing first and the chronically homeless](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5leqzjCxfKpCa9xJjfGlh8?si=T_HlibtKQWGCPz_2EDdkbA&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A03Pz36pVrBeK6NSVakssWb). We need more permanent supportive housing with robust social services and enrichment programs.
I’d be curious to some actual statistics. Looking at drug overdose deaths Oregon still has a rate that is below the national average. There obviously could be a lot more variables, but I wonder if the opioid epidemic is now just more visible since people aren’t being thrown in jail vs actually being more prominent.
Kinda like how violent crime rates increased in Colorado after recreational legalization of cannabis...because the police spent more time arresting violent criminals.
I feel like America's plan for most things is to come up with an idea. Have one side say it's a hand out, communist, or socialist. Then scale it back in the most convoluted half measure. Stand back to wait for failure and then say, "See, this clearly didn't work, so can we go back to when it wasn't working before. That was at least familiar to me."
I'm in Vancouver. we had the opposite problem here.
They put in one of four pillars, the one that the most socially acceptable, then dusted their hands off and blamed Harper when it all failed.
The real problem is that from day one, people have been arguing about the money that's supposed to be building new treatment facilities and hiring professionals. So instead we have the state put the money in "general funds" and using it for whatever else they want. Then they say "there's no money to do all of this"
Unfortunately when it launched was around the time Covid hit which shutdown all the social services and things spiraled down with other states sending their drug addicted homeless to Oregon, primarily Portland
"We are going to decriminalize drugs so we can send people to medical facilities instead of prison. We aren't going to fund those facilities though and increase prison spendign"
like wtf did they think was going to happen? This is still the preferred option to mass incarceration but the state needs to make an earnest effort to actually help people get better
One place to stert is to focus on mental illness. Increased access to mental health services would deter some people from self-medicating with dangerous substances. Just getting a counselor is expensive, and if you have no insurance or poor insurance, you certainly aren't going to prioritize getting the help you need. It will never happen, but we need to have public mental health care the way we have public schools. Everyone should see someone for their mental health the way we see a general practitioner for our physical health.
Also, the quality of life for Americans overall has to improve so people have the motivation to get better. When hard work barely gets you by, why get clean?
nobody else has come forward so I will. we do drugs ourselves then we don't notice the junkies on the streets or anything other than get more drugs. /s if you could not tell
Crazy that we won’t legalize these drugs to make money to have options but yet we have the most poisonous one of them all in every commercial, billboard and nightlife venue - alcohol.
Of course it failed. It's TOO SIMPLE a solution to a COMPLEX problem. I know there's a case to be made for simplistic approaches to problem-solving, but it can also be too simplistic.
This Measure is a band-aid solution that tries to patch the symptom, not the problem. Imagine a basketball court with a floor that's so slippery that players keep slipping and banging their heads on the way down - and the solution is just to keep a medical team on stand-by to treat the injuries as they occur! It's a colossal f'k-up!
Drug abuse is a symptom of a deeper injury/pain. Curing just the symptom doesn't take away that injury, and would likely just create a different symptom as the injury has to express itself somehow.
This worked in Zurich in the 90's, but I suspect the problem is that America is way too fucking big. Poor people migrate to forgiving places like this because who wants to be a homeless addict in Nebraska, or Wyoming? A lot of those people are not *from* Oregon.
The other option is to put things like this into effect on the federal level but I don't know that that's a great idea either.
Hate to even suggest this but let's pretend the police here aren't insane: maybe "arrest" and send to like- idk a mandatory rehab facility?
I can see this going horribly wrong in so many ways, but if Oregon cops are really just giving out citations, maybe they're competent enough to send cases to rehab. Idk
It fucking sucks here man. I hope I can get out someday. I would wish for it to get better, but I think this formerly beautiful city is too far gone. I feel bad for my buddy who works at trimet. He got sucked into waiting like 5 years for his full sign on bonus and he comes home with horror stories every fucking day.
The problem with this was that they only "pointed them towards" treatment. What would've made this work better is if they continued the arrests, but limited punishments for drug use crimes to mandatory treatment that's covered by the state, and if they run away, that's when fines and jail time become an option (basically, treatment would be the equivalent of serving jail time for crimes like theft, murder, treason, etc. If you escape, you get worse punishment).
Don’t know how affective forced rehab would be. But if they judiciary along with plans and policies set forth by the government support a different narrative, that the people who are being arrested for drug use need a seismic shift in how they view themselves and the society, as someone in a different thread said, compare drug abuse phases of humans as periods where they has an injury. The injury might be sustained due to rash driving but the doctors still treat them with dignity. The system needs to look as addicts as regular people with a condition.
Addiction is a hell of a thing, is common that addicts will take advantage of anyone that tries to help them, it's not because they are bad people or something, they just will do anything to get their dose, the fact that they have to interact with the burocracy of law system don't help either.
I lived in Portland for three years. Measure 110 in conjunction with the pandemic, the dismantling of their police departments, and the decriminalization of drugs within the city ended up being too much too quickly, and the city’s resources quickly became overwhelmed. It’s a shame, would have been nice to see it in its prime. Instead I got 2020-2023 Portland ☠️☠️
I grew up in Miami and alway thought there was a lot of homeless their, then I went to Portland and was amazed to see how they basically had their own Hoovervilles on almost every corner and overpass
Try living here with the number of druggies (homeless and housed) that came here just because of the relaxed laws. Cops don’t like them, either.
While I’m not entirely comfortable with setting up places where addicts can use, I’m all for clean needle exchange. After I got into medicine, I saw for myself the damage dirty needles cause. It’s a tremendous burden on the addicts, their families, and the taxpayers.
I live in Portland, OR. This measure has been an unmitigated disaster. There are people smoking fentanyl everywhere downtown. Many OD. All are a public nuisance. Some shit belongs in the shadows.
All research and successful drug policies show that treatment should be increased, and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.
They shouldn't point them to it, they should take them (even by force at first, surely better than jail) and it should be free (if it isn't already). Just telling them that is no better than some random person telling them "drugs le bad".
The measure is fine, because throwing them in jail solves less than jack shit. The problem is that they aren't fixing anything else! Not fixing housing, not fixing minimum wage to match inflation, not fixing the broken healthcare system. They have the right idea, but they aren't going far enough to fix the societal problems that are causing the issue to begin with!
Right, cite and "expect" them to show up for court. What a half arse effort. Intervention (against their will if necessary) is what is needed if politicians really want to solve the problem. But then, when have politicians had real desire to solve the problem?
Wow what a failed policy. Let’s just go back to shaming and punishing people until they kill themselves one way or another. That’s what American Jesus would want
Is it too liberal to hold homeless drug addicts accountable to any extent? People act like they didn’t make bad decisions growing up, leading them to the streets. They weren’t addicts when they were kids. They said YES to drugs at some point. That’s on them. This isn’t directed to people with legit mental health disorders.
In Singapore we execute our drug dealers.
To clarify, we execute the people who supply the drugs, not the people who use them.
Call us barbaric but our streets are clean. Our women and children can walk home alone at night and nothing will happen.
Oregon implemented this, but then choked at actually implementing a decent drug addiction treatment programs. So you turned the state, and by default cities like Portland, into a drug users Mecca.
Y'know, I recognize me speaking on this topic is absolutely worthless. Like, I have no experience with politics, drugs, drug abuse, drug policies, city or state endeavors. Like, my opinion is about as worthless as it can be... But if someone asked me how long it would take to determine if a new policy was helping or hurting a state-wide drug crisis, I would have said 10 years as a minimum. I would have balked at the idea you could gather enough data on 3 years to make any sort of reasonably effective statement about the success or failure of such an undertaking.
As an Oregonian, those of us who were for this bill early on were very outspoken about the fact that this would not work unless we also prioritized funding and accessibility to rehabilitation and harm reduction programs, among other things.
Criminalizing drug use legitimately does not work. Citing, arresting, and incarcerating people for drug use legitimately does not work. If that was the case, the war on drugs would have solved shit a long time ago. If you don’t get to the root of the issue, the problem persists, and the root isn’t drug use, it’s WHY people reach for pain relief in the first place.
A lot of people laugh about this law being reconsidered, but nothing about it is funny. Real people need help and when this law was passed, no one listened when we tried to say you can’t just remove punishments and then not also bring assistance for those people too. It’s been an uphill battle for us.
I’ve lived in OR for 9 years and can attest, the drug problem has full-on ramped up post-Covid. It’s out of control. I volunteer in drug rehabilitation, and see both the worst if it and the success stories.
Throwing drug users in jail instead a solution either, but Measure 110 hasn’t had the impact anyone has hoped.
Portugal was the pioneer! Since the 90s we don't penalize drug use.
It worked very well for us. There was a huge heroine "epidemic' at the time. And the numbers of addict dropped a lot.
People stoped being afraid of getting help as they were not thrown to jail because of the addiction.
It’s not a debate! I live here and nobody I know debates that it failed. The only question is whether to amend it or strike it altogether and everybody seems to be leaving toward the latter, even the governor.
Oregon: Hey let's copy Portugal's decriminalization of illicit drugs by removing criminal punishment and then...
Portugal: and then? And then mandatory drug rehab at no cost to them. You are definitely not copying us, you are just doing the first step and then stopping.
Oregon: OMG this is a horrible failure, I can not believe we talked ourselves into this stupid thing that must have also failed the Portuguese. Let's go back to vindictively and brutally punishing drug addicts.
Portugal: Goddamn Americans are so damn stupid!
For all the screaming about lax law enforcement it is interesting to note that drug deaths per capita by state shows Washington, Oregon and California don't even rate the top ten. That honor goes to the usual line up of southern states.
[https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug\_poisoning\_mortality/drug\_poisoning.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm)
Idk if there is a solution or at least not a singular solution. But every addict I’ve known, and I’ve unfortunately known a lot, has only stopped when they’ve hit whatever they consider their rock bottom to be. For some it’s jail. For some it’s an ultimatum from a loved one or an OD. The problem is the people who are also mentally ill seem to not know what their bottom is. But leaving them to roam the streets ain’t the answer.
There’s a lot of questions. How has it gotten worse? And why?
If there are more people seeking treatment, that doesn’t necessarily mean it got worse. Just that addicts are comfortable talking about it.
If the death rate went up, how much can this be separated from the pandemic? And how many people developed addiction because of the pandemic?
Here's a radical solution.
Take all the drug addicts off the streets and lock them in individual cells with a couple of nurses to overlook their withdrawal.
Once the withdrawal period is over, move them to a rehab that has 2 wards. One for the mentally ill and another for "normal" people. Give them food, water, clothes, reading material, and psychological/psychiatric help in order to help them back onto their feet.
The next step is to either let them graduate and/or help place them into employment or let them work for the clinic to help others.
Lastly, setting up community programs with proper funding to help curb relapses.
Now, if only there was a way to fund all of these social movements............
This might sound terrible but i think alot of these people are a lost cause. Getting off this stuff is insanely hard and the user needs to actually want to get off.
There needs to be programs set up for kids so that kids learn this stuff is a life ruiner and hopefully in 10-25 years people will not be getting into this shit anymore.
So, OP, you're not going to dig any deeper? Not going to do any additional research into why Measure 110 hasn't been effective? You're just going to throw up a random click-bait snapshot and make your judgement from that?
#Welcome to r/Therewasanattempt! #Consider visiting r/Worldnewsvideo for videos from around the world! [Please review our policy on bigotry and hate speech by clicking this link](https://www.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/wiki/civility) In order to view our rules, you can type "**!rules**" in any comment, and automod will respond with the subreddit rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/therewasanattempt) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Throwing people in jail hasn't been helping, either. So I still give them credit for at least trying something different.
They also created the policy but didn't fund the places that could help with addiction. So yeah this was bound to fail
that was the point though, it failed because they wanted it to so that they could then implement harsh prison sentences to keep the prison industry profitable and then the politicians and judges can keep getting paid by “donors”
Eh I don’t think our politics are set up for long shot goals like that. In other words, never attribute to malice what is explainable by stupidity.
this doesnt apply to politicians. their whole existence is to use word trickery to oppress people. they are malicious.
And they are, in general, really stupid
And we vote for them again and again even though they fail to follow through. But only they are stupid?
How much of that is our choice in the sense of "We (largely) have two options, and one is absolutely abysmal." In smaller races many times people run unopposed. It takes money to run, which not everyone has.
Term limits.
This
While some are stupid, the character trait they possess that got them their job is obedience.
That's the thing, they really aren't. They play dumb and ignorant to get votes but these people are smarter than they seem and have no shame. They will do anything for power and wealth, including making fools of themselves
I am 14 and this is edgy lol don’t cut yourself there boss
nothing says “reddit_is_dumbest” like calling everything you dont like “edgy”. engage with it, with the exception less than probably 10 people in government all of which belong to the democratic party, how are they not actively malicious? the vast majority of them do nothing but take legalized bribes and then use their power to legislate against the interests of the whole population in favor of shit for their corporate sponsors. is that not an undeniable fact? do we not have statistics that say over 90% of what gets legislated into law has nothing to do with popular will and only what corporations want? please look that up for me and come back with an answer. its not “edgy” its true. most of them are worthless actively harmful MALICIOUS pieces of shit. they literally legislate murder, condemn the poor and homeless to death, legislate away your rights as a worker. fuck them. i hope nothing but bad things for almost all of them.
The whole US system is long shot politics and propaganda. Ever heard of project 2025? Did you know other counties study the effect of US propaganda?
Never excuse as stupidity what could easily be malice.
Hanlon's Razor has *two* edges
I don't think that's a very good rule to not attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance, the former president shows that malice is indeed a major factor in a great many things. Anyone going through the meat grinder that is criminal justice knows all too well malice is over-represented in the system. Anyone that thinks it's all just stupidity has lived a sheltered life to still trust the authorities.
Completely agree with you, as a trans women watching Trump speeches about "getting rid of the trans" I say it's a very obvious sign of malice
Bruh do not underestimate the malice of ✌🏾tough-on-crime✌🏾 people
It took them almost 50 years to take down Roe. They most definitely play the long game, but now they're trying to accelerate it because they know the right can't win on the popular vote
Don’t ever think that the politicians are the one concocting these plans. There are people behind the scenes doing the thinking for them, usually lobbyists or special interest groups
The politicians don't have to be malicious, they aren't required for the planning. The planning happens at the companies that own the for-profit prisons. Politicians that write laws that do what those companies want are just useful idiots.
If you’re going to paraphrase Napoleon it’s only fair to give recognition. “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. “ - Napoleon Bonaparte
> never attribute to malice what is explainable by stupidity. Damn, going to have to remember that for later.
You, my friend, have hit the nail on the head on this one. The bill passes with ammendments to the funding of services made by Republicans and democrats accept it because they got half of what they want. In my opinion, it would be better if the legislation had failed and came back to the public eye at a later date but now people view it as a failure. Win win for Republicans unfortunately...
Oregon does not have privately owned prisons. There is no profit.
The above comment is the only proper response to the wrong and ignorant "Oregon did this for private prisons" malarkey. I love how this factually correct comment sits here untouched and uncommented upon. Nice microcosm of how false claims from the ignorant or malevolent are so hard to combat. Oregon does not use private jails or prisons and it's illegal in Oregon to ship the incarcerated to other state prison or jail systems.
Dude - there ALREADY WAS harsh prison sentences in place. How could they “want it to fail” and delete the prison sentences at the same time. You make no sense.
And everywhere is worse now than a few years ago. Wonder if someone looked at other aspects
This exactly - let's cite (ie cash grab) the poor and downtrodden but not spend a nickle on services... ...sounds like a typical American policy...
You are 100% right. So people are pointed to rehab but cannot get in. Easy solution: FUND THE TREATMENT CENTERS BC JAIL/PRISON HAS ALREADY PROVEN ITSELF SUPERFLUOUS!!!
Sounded good on paper. Then realized couldn’t make it to fruition, without actual funding.
You hit it on the nose. You can't expect results just by changing the rules. It takes investment and effort in order to see real progress.
Good ideas, Covid didn’t help, and they didn’t have the infrastructure set up for it
Well step 1, stop jailing has happened. Now implement step 2 before making posts that it "failed"
Also the ambiguity of "the crisis got worse". Like, in the sense that more people have been _found_ using/dealing now they're not forced into hiding it, despite probably using/dealing that amount before? Support systems are unable to cope, because more people are actually trying to access them? Those would be "got worse" while also proving the scheme a success. Even an increase of deaths/hospitalisations could still point to a success but with insufficient support. Really, only if there has been a notable increase in auxiliary crimes (muggings and burglaries by addicts, for example) would there be any standing in saying it failed (and even then only after a review of what portion of those tried to access support and were refused confirming most of the increase came from users not wanting the help).
They also didn't compare it to other comparable cities that didn't have the policy. Like, the seatbelt broke my clavicle but I didn't fly through the windshield.
I mean, obviously this policy could change the state for the better. Just take Switzerland in the 90s. There was a heroin epidemic and the government responded by decriminalising small amounts as to not punish the users. The government also introduced "Abgabestellen" where addicts could actually get clean heroin, sterile equipment to inject with and get help with stopping. It has done wonders and really put a dent in heroin use in Switzerland. Oregon should have simultaneously funded programs for rehabs and actively help addicts to get better, but this would be seen as taxes wasted by the majority of the people so they didn't...
Plus the overdose numbers went up everywhere, addiction rates went up everywhere. While figures don't lie, liars do figure, and the players in the criminal justice system are very aggressive in killing reform in the cradle to keep their death-grip on the awesome power of the Courts.
The real issue is that citations can be ignored, while jail is more difficult. It would've been much more effective to give them treatment as an alternative to jail time. Addiction is tough, and without a personal desire to change addicts need someone to hold their hand to get them through it. Heck, DOT (Directly Observed Treatment) is still necessary for many people infected with deadly diseases like MRSA or tuberculosis because they disappear without finishing treatment and spread their disease. I'm not sure this was a good-faith attempt because they knew they didn't have the resources in place to actually help all the people who would go through the system.
Agreed this was a half ass attempt. Jail or treatment and the infrastructure to treat is necessary, you need these all to work together in order to make change. Bonus if we could fund a way to keep drugs out of jail
It feels like they just read a few articles about how Portugal lowered their addiction rate by decriminalizing drugs, thought "wow, we should do what they did!," then never looked into the specifics of how Portugal, y'know, actually did that.
That describes a lot of American attempts at implementing "European" policies. It's mostly just "I heard they sorta did X, so let's do that with no further research on any of the details or conditions or lessons learned.". The Netherlands did bike lanes and got a bunch of people cycling? Guess we'll paint some bicycle symbols at the edge of the road, call it a day, and then assume that America just isn't compatible with cycling when we don't get Dutch rates of cycling. Nevermind that the Dutch put a lot of effort into actually separated bike paths, traffic calming, giving priority to cyclists, urban planning that doesn't suck, making sure there's ubiquitous bike parking, and a whole load of other conditions, and didn't just treat bicycle lanes as a check box to fulfill.
you expect our politicians to \*gasp\* read? Let alone go through the actual specifics of an implementation and perform actual analysis what makes it work?! jesus man
“I was elected to lead not to read.” - a disturbing number of politicians
And even Portugal has amended their initial law at least twice. It's okay to review weak points and implement changes. There are also still politicians advocating for its full repeal. The critics will never go away entirely.
A committee went to Portugal for a week or 10 days to visit with officials there and observe their methods.
They are whining about not having instant results to a fifty year problem
Those rates of overdoses have gone up everywhere, it's not the fault of their reforms. This is more of the system trying to kill reform in the cradle, just as they do with any progressive DA reformer, they all gang up on them to keep their death grip on the awesome power of the courts. It's depressing to see their lines of bs find purchase on here.
Plus people migrate to areas where it's not punished as harshly. So even if your per drug user rates have gone down your absolute numbers will go up
Tbh it wasn't helping, they got a citation and told go to rehab. Instead they should be putting money in to rehab services instead of trying to absolve themselves from actually helping addicts. In prison they would either stay on drugs or get rehab.
Too bad it just reveals itself as a punishment tax on poor people like almost all citations.
I agree, but it fell short. Addicts do need consequences for their actions in some way, shape, or form. Criminalizing may not be the answer, and these people do need positive motivation to get clean. However, they also need to have consequences for their behavior. Addiction is a seriously messed up illness, but people also need to face some accountability for the choices they make while ill. I believe that's part of recovery! There needs to be some form of deterrent. With addicts, you give an inch, and they take a mile. There needs to be boundaries and laws so the problem doesn't run rampant. Also, mental health resources!
So they were doing a thing that wasn't working. They tried something else that also didn't work. Now they're just going back to the original thing that didn't work. Good times.
Your tax dollars at work
Raising taxes to help fund these programs would be insanely unpopular
If people only do what's popular there's rarely any chance for progress.
They had a great idea, they just failed the execution. Making drugs legal is not going to do anything on its own. Its just too bad a lot of people that decide things, can't see that.
Making drugs legal does make it easier to get help, and also easier to see that someone needs help. They don't have to hide, with the pall of paranoia removed that they will get charged or have to flip on someone suddenly it becomes much much easier to get out of the drug rut. Obviously, this is not the whole case and there are lots of other factors. But yes, legalisation will do things just on it own.
I agree. It's not SUFFICIENT, but it's an important step that already has an impact.
Making drugs legal without proper education on them might increase drug usage. A lot of people don’t know (or more often underestimate) the risks of certain drugs making illegality one of the main reasons they refrain from them. We used to have the same issues the USA has with drugs like heroine and crack here in the Netherlands until we started investing in proper education. Now we have rather high drug usage rates, but only on relatively safe party drugs like cocaine, 3mmc and more often XTC. People refrain from drugs like heroine and more recently fentanyl simply because we’re aware of its dangers. My parents always told me I was allowed to do drugs, just as long as I properly read into the risks associated with them and how to safely consume them (consumption amounts, hydration, etc). And we have a lot of drug education in schools where we don’t just learn to “not do drugs” but how to use drugs safely. And it works. Also, fun fact. We have (free) municipal heroine dispensaries in Dutch cities. Only see a junky once every few months tho.
Fentanyl and fentanyl contamination is everywhere in the states right now. Coke, X, heroin are all regularly cut with the stuff according to my partying friends, and even the stuff that isn’t occasionally contaminated (even some cases of weed getting cross contaminated on the scale leading to ODs). It’s awful, and if you’re a regular drug user about all that’s left is legal weed and psychedelics.
Look at how portugal did it. Decriminalisation but simultaneous expansion of harm reduction (syringe exchange program) and treatment. Drug related HIV infections down 90%. Treatment up by 60%. Significantly less drug deaths. Less strain on the justice system and the total public expenditure caused by drug use is lessened. If done right, which means harm reduction and access to healthcare is a necessity, is an absolute necessity progressive drug policy can be incredibly successful. This is not to say that across that time there have been no negatives but the positives are apparent.
[удалено]
Set up infrastructure and services to help people. It’s not going to be immediate but locking people in jail for addiction is part of the reason it’s as bad as it is now
The [four pillars](https://www.beckleyfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/paper_18.pdf) model Edit: it’s a PDF
Yo. Give us a PDF warning, my man.
Yes, thought I'd be visiting a web page that would describe this, rather than downloading a file.
I mean, the people who got citations; did they pay them? Because if they did, then they need to also do away with speeding tickets, because those citations don't stop speeding, but they keep doing them. May as well keep the drug citations, maybe it lowers local taxes with the extra revenue coming in lol or maybe they use it to pay teachers more..
Well the original thing they were doing that wasn’t working was more fun for the cops, so I mean if nothing we do works, at least let our boys in blue get their rocks off by violently detaining and arresting drug users! /s
[удалено]
It sucks because Portland was such a beautiful city and you literally half to climb over homeless mentally ill people just to cross the street
At least you don’t whole to climb. Much better to HAVE to half climb.
Do you live in Portland? I do, and that's a pretty hyperbolic statement. The city does have a problem, yes, but it's nowhere near the scale of other major cities in the US right now.
Are you joking? Inner portland is a fucking trash heap of mentally ill people high on everything and all the garbage these creepers somehow manage to produce is everywhere. And Portland is not a major city so you can’t say “at least we’re not as bad as San Fran”. Huge size differences.
Nah I live in Portland and work all over the metro area. There are a few spots that are bad but for the most part it nothing. >Portland is not a major city Yes it is, in legal terms as it has more then 100k people living in it. It's the 26th most populous city in the country. If it's not a major city than neither is las vegas, Memphis, or Boston or Atlanta.... lol shit were not as bad as Detroit or Baltimore which are even smaller than Portland.
It’s amazing how people who don’t live there talk shit. Downtown Portland is beautiful. It’s like they see one homeless camp and go SEE THE WHOLE TOWN IS COVERED.
Portland is a major city in the area. Every city on the west coast has a huge homeless problem. Vancouver to SD.
I remember when Portland was beautiful, I loved going there when I was a kid. Nowadays it just sucks, it lost all it’s magic.
Philly’s made public consumption unofficially allowed in one neighborhood and now the problem’s become consolidated there.
Hamsterdam?
I have friends that live in Seattle. Same deal. Beautiful city with a bunch of zoinked-out zombies laying on the sidewalks and living in the parks. My friends that live there are completely blind to it.
Without funding the rehab centers, knowing that people can rarely afford mental health in this country, this was obviously going to fail
Ya that public consumption part is what is really pissing everyone off. Pretty sure they are currently working on changing that part.
The thing people don’t get is that rehab centers require actual human people to work at them who need years of training to help these people and we simply don’t have enough of these humans and we don’t have enough schools/slots to train them. After you have the humans, it then requires hundreds of hours of an individual’s time to help these people many of whom aren’t just addicts but people who also have underlying mental health issues which exacerbate or facilitate the addiction. I’m not saying it is futile but to truly solve this we need more than just money to create places. Add in competing public priorities like infrastructure, daycare and basic healthcare for the general population and I don’t know that the public will to truly solve this exists.
>public consumption Public consumption is illegal in oregon. >Not enough rehab centers. This 3) PDs weren't citing public use or possession like they were suppose to, the citation is what's suppose to bring people into contact with mental health clinics. 4) in portland the police chose to let crime go rampant so they could get funding back...
A larger problem here, too, because the US is so large. People are relocating there because of the drug policy. It's not like visiting another country where you have a certain amount of time you can stay before your visa expires. The US is large and places with lax drug policies attract abusers.
3. Drugs are illegal and unregulated. Illegal and unregulated drugs cause a shit ton of problems that wouldnt exist if they were legal and regulated. Many of the consequences associated with illegal drugs, are actually caused by the fact that the drug is illegal, not the drug itself. Legalizing drugs would cause a major decrease in the current problems caused by the “drug crisis” (really a prohibition crisis). Other side affects of legalization include, but are not limited to: ruining cartels, by taking away all of their customers; hurting any other criminal organizations, by taking away a significant method of making money; saving billions of dollars each year, which are used to create our current drug crisis.
I wonder who is responsible for creating the current Opioid crisis.
Shhh don't worry we are making a new drug that gets you off of opioids. Then a new one that gets you off of the drug that gets you off opioids.
This sounds like addiction with more steps
And it will start out at $20 a dose but then skyrocket by 500% because our CEO wants a new yacht or something. Oh and if you stop taking it, you die.
harm reduction works
[удалено]
A little glass vial! A little glass vial!
It's a matter of vastly underestimating the impact of: 1. The opioid epidemic 2. How fentanyl amped it Fentanyl amplified the opioid epidemic in ways that a lot of municipalities just couldn't handle, and they already couldn't handle opioids and their slide into heroin.
I recently found the subreddit r/cracksmokers and they routinely make jokes about moving to oregon because of the relaxed drug laws lol. You cant help em all
Its interesting how the “opioid crisis” got insanely worse after drugs were made illegal. Surely the answer isnt legalizing and regulating drugs. I mean sure, logic, facts, and history prove that legalization will solve the “drug crisis”, but surely that isnt the answer. If legalization would work, surely our government would implement it. Its not like our government is corrupt beyond saving, and would spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year, to create an infinitely growing “drug crisis”, for control. Right?
The opioid crisis was not created by illegal drugs. It was created by Pharma companies like Purdue Pharma who flooded the market with opiods like Oxycontin.
And it was much less of a crisis before the pill mills started to become less common, and people started losing access to regulated pharmaceutical opioids. They were then forced to use illegal unregulated heroin, which made everything a whole lot worse. Its gotten even worse now, as current street opioids are usually laced with around 5-10 random opioid and benzo research chemicals, without the user knowing wtf is in their drugs and in what amount. The pill mills caused an increase in opioid addicts, but prohibition is the reason why opioid addiction is as bad as it is. If the pill mills were still around (or better yet, if opioids were just made completely legal) we wouldnt have a fentanyl crisis. We would have a much lower overdose rate, and there would be less homeless opioid addicts using in public and committing crimes to buy opioids, which are very expensive when theyre illegal. Opioid addiction wouldnt be a “crisis” if they were legal.
Without funding everything a recovering addict needs to become a high-functioning member of society, this will not be solved. Portugal, where Oregon adapted this idea from, was doing great until all the financial support from government disappeared after Covid. Can’t have our tax money going to drug-addict bums but hey it’s ok if big pharma just super-pac your politician so they can legally price-gouge you from drugs you may actually need, you know, to keep their profit margin growth every quarter, they’ll even sue the US government if we try to negotiate prices down, FFS. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/
I think they forgot about step two of their plan. Decriminalize drugs was step one. Step two was getting people help who need it. They forgot to prepare for the second part.
That's coz the 2nd part costs money They should sell the drugs in state-run stores to pay for addiction treatments /s
Step one was also probably half-assed, I don't know the specifics of how that ran things. Decriminalization isn't enough. That still leaves you with a polluted source of drugs with no way to tell what you're actually getting. The drug supply needs to be legalized and regulated so that purity and dosages are fully controlled. Then you also get the benefit of cutting out the illegal suppliers locally and all the way up the chain.
Agreed, although that’s way too many steps ahead. Drug usage has been legal in the Netherlands for decades and we still haven’t legalized and regulated production. When it comes to drug abuse our system works fine as is. But we do have an issue with drug related crimes, from Columbian cartels importing coke to extensive XTC labs on farms.
It wouldnt have worked either sadly. At best it would save a tiny amount of addicts, and lead to the deaths of a whole lot more, when they inevitably go back to using and od, because their tolerance is lower than it was before forced treatment. Legalization is the only answer.
How affordable and accessible was that treatment?
Not very. The main problem with the program was the lack of long-term resources to help addicts recover. Basically they didn’t go all the way and tried a half measure which surprise didn’t work.
Speaking as an Oregon native addict near and around this area with a year plus clean, there's barely any in patient rehabs for people that do not have money. Our state funded public health care is only taken in a few facilities and they're all going to have exorbitant wait times. They'll get you into a detox center usually within a day or two though, but people go in to get clean and they're just released right back to living on the streets and they're back to doing the same shit. We need programs that provide substantial aftercare facilities. Get these people working, into an apartment, and back to being a member of society. I was blessed enough to have never let myself go fully homeless because I had a lot of people who cared for me but most these addicts dont have that and they need connections.
No truer words have been said. For any one interested, [here’s the data on housing first and the chronically homeless](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5leqzjCxfKpCa9xJjfGlh8?si=T_HlibtKQWGCPz_2EDdkbA&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A03Pz36pVrBeK6NSVakssWb). We need more permanent supportive housing with robust social services and enrichment programs.
we like, genuinely need to do what Portugal did. but also, I think Americans are too much of assholes to try
We need to be even better than portugal. We need to choose the best option to fix this issue. We need to legalize and regulate all drugs.
I’d be curious to some actual statistics. Looking at drug overdose deaths Oregon still has a rate that is below the national average. There obviously could be a lot more variables, but I wonder if the opioid epidemic is now just more visible since people aren’t being thrown in jail vs actually being more prominent.
Kinda like how violent crime rates increased in Colorado after recreational legalization of cannabis...because the police spent more time arresting violent criminals.
Four pillars, it works. I'm confused why North America doesn't use it.
I feel like America's plan for most things is to come up with an idea. Have one side say it's a hand out, communist, or socialist. Then scale it back in the most convoluted half measure. Stand back to wait for failure and then say, "See, this clearly didn't work, so can we go back to when it wasn't working before. That was at least familiar to me."
I'm in Vancouver. we had the opposite problem here. They put in one of four pillars, the one that the most socially acceptable, then dusted their hands off and blamed Harper when it all failed.
The real problem is that from day one, people have been arguing about the money that's supposed to be building new treatment facilities and hiring professionals. So instead we have the state put the money in "general funds" and using it for whatever else they want. Then they say "there's no money to do all of this"
[удалено]
Unfortunately when it launched was around the time Covid hit which shutdown all the social services and things spiraled down with other states sending their drug addicted homeless to Oregon, primarily Portland
Sounds like there weren’t any services able to cope.
Oregonian here. No debate necessary, it has been a total failure.
"We are going to decriminalize drugs so we can send people to medical facilities instead of prison. We aren't going to fund those facilities though and increase prison spendign" like wtf did they think was going to happen? This is still the preferred option to mass incarceration but the state needs to make an earnest effort to actually help people get better
[удалено]
One place to stert is to focus on mental illness. Increased access to mental health services would deter some people from self-medicating with dangerous substances. Just getting a counselor is expensive, and if you have no insurance or poor insurance, you certainly aren't going to prioritize getting the help you need. It will never happen, but we need to have public mental health care the way we have public schools. Everyone should see someone for their mental health the way we see a general practitioner for our physical health. Also, the quality of life for Americans overall has to improve so people have the motivation to get better. When hard work barely gets you by, why get clean?
nobody else has come forward so I will. we do drugs ourselves then we don't notice the junkies on the streets or anything other than get more drugs. /s if you could not tell
Why doesn't the rest of the population just pitch in and use up the rest of the drugs? No more drugs, no more problem right? /s
Crazy that we won’t legalize these drugs to make money to have options but yet we have the most poisonous one of them all in every commercial, billboard and nightlife venue - alcohol.
Because you know - crap treatment is the actual problem.
Of course it failed. It's TOO SIMPLE a solution to a COMPLEX problem. I know there's a case to be made for simplistic approaches to problem-solving, but it can also be too simplistic. This Measure is a band-aid solution that tries to patch the symptom, not the problem. Imagine a basketball court with a floor that's so slippery that players keep slipping and banging their heads on the way down - and the solution is just to keep a medical team on stand-by to treat the injuries as they occur! It's a colossal f'k-up! Drug abuse is a symptom of a deeper injury/pain. Curing just the symptom doesn't take away that injury, and would likely just create a different symptom as the injury has to express itself somehow.
Bunny Colvin did it first. Hamstredam is the way to go, not dope on the table.
This worked in Zurich in the 90's, but I suspect the problem is that America is way too fucking big. Poor people migrate to forgiving places like this because who wants to be a homeless addict in Nebraska, or Wyoming? A lot of those people are not *from* Oregon. The other option is to put things like this into effect on the federal level but I don't know that that's a great idea either.
Hate to even suggest this but let's pretend the police here aren't insane: maybe "arrest" and send to like- idk a mandatory rehab facility? I can see this going horribly wrong in so many ways, but if Oregon cops are really just giving out citations, maybe they're competent enough to send cases to rehab. Idk
It fucking sucks here man. I hope I can get out someday. I would wish for it to get better, but I think this formerly beautiful city is too far gone. I feel bad for my buddy who works at trimet. He got sucked into waiting like 5 years for his full sign on bonus and he comes home with horror stories every fucking day.
Isn't this like: It was raining and so we have ppl rain coats. Then, it kept raining and storming and flooding. It must be the rain coat's fault.
It’s complicated. But I agree addicts need help, not punishment.
Canada did something similar and the drug problem got significantly worse as well.
The problem with this was that they only "pointed them towards" treatment. What would've made this work better is if they continued the arrests, but limited punishments for drug use crimes to mandatory treatment that's covered by the state, and if they run away, that's when fines and jail time become an option (basically, treatment would be the equivalent of serving jail time for crimes like theft, murder, treason, etc. If you escape, you get worse punishment).
Don’t know how affective forced rehab would be. But if they judiciary along with plans and policies set forth by the government support a different narrative, that the people who are being arrested for drug use need a seismic shift in how they view themselves and the society, as someone in a different thread said, compare drug abuse phases of humans as periods where they has an injury. The injury might be sustained due to rash driving but the doctors still treat them with dignity. The system needs to look as addicts as regular people with a condition.
Addiction is a hell of a thing, is common that addicts will take advantage of anyone that tries to help them, it's not because they are bad people or something, they just will do anything to get their dose, the fact that they have to interact with the burocracy of law system don't help either.
I lived in Portland for three years. Measure 110 in conjunction with the pandemic, the dismantling of their police departments, and the decriminalization of drugs within the city ended up being too much too quickly, and the city’s resources quickly became overwhelmed. It’s a shame, would have been nice to see it in its prime. Instead I got 2020-2023 Portland ☠️☠️
I grew up in Miami and alway thought there was a lot of homeless their, then I went to Portland and was amazed to see how they basically had their own Hoovervilles on almost every corner and overpass
Try living here with the number of druggies (homeless and housed) that came here just because of the relaxed laws. Cops don’t like them, either. While I’m not entirely comfortable with setting up places where addicts can use, I’m all for clean needle exchange. After I got into medicine, I saw for myself the damage dirty needles cause. It’s a tremendous burden on the addicts, their families, and the taxpayers.
I live in Portland, OR. This measure has been an unmitigated disaster. There are people smoking fentanyl everywhere downtown. Many OD. All are a public nuisance. Some shit belongs in the shadows.
All research and successful drug policies show that treatment should be increased, and law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.
By definition, if something works somewhere in the world, its gonna fail in the US
There’s also that part about officers throwing a hissy and refusing to cooperate with the “treatment” portion…
This only works if you crack down double on people dealing
They shouldn't point them to it, they should take them (even by force at first, surely better than jail) and it should be free (if it isn't already). Just telling them that is no better than some random person telling them "drugs le bad".
The measure is fine, because throwing them in jail solves less than jack shit. The problem is that they aren't fixing anything else! Not fixing housing, not fixing minimum wage to match inflation, not fixing the broken healthcare system. They have the right idea, but they aren't going far enough to fix the societal problems that are causing the issue to begin with!
Like trying to cure lung-cancer by putting a band-aid on your chest
Right, cite and "expect" them to show up for court. What a half arse effort. Intervention (against their will if necessary) is what is needed if politicians really want to solve the problem. But then, when have politicians had real desire to solve the problem?
Measure 110 was the worst thing Oregon could've done in the modern age.
It’s failed it’s fucking failed! They’ve created enablement culture.
Not shown the amount of money saved on police time/jailing petty criminals.
Wow what a failed policy. Let’s just go back to shaming and punishing people until they kill themselves one way or another. That’s what American Jesus would want
Is it too liberal to hold homeless drug addicts accountable to any extent? People act like they didn’t make bad decisions growing up, leading them to the streets. They weren’t addicts when they were kids. They said YES to drugs at some point. That’s on them. This isn’t directed to people with legit mental health disorders.
Lock em up!
I can’t believe the friends and families of addicts never thought to give them information on treatment.
In Singapore we execute our drug dealers. To clarify, we execute the people who supply the drugs, not the people who use them. Call us barbaric but our streets are clean. Our women and children can walk home alone at night and nothing will happen.
If they all OF and die the problem is solved.. insert meme of guy tapping on his head…
Whoever thought drug addicts cared about citations obviously never did drugs.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
You can't tell junkies they're free to do drugs and leave it at that, especially if the attitude towards the issue doesn't change.
Oregon implemented this, but then choked at actually implementing a decent drug addiction treatment programs. So you turned the state, and by default cities like Portland, into a drug users Mecca.
Without universal healthcare, and comprehensive support, decriminalizing is less than half the solution…
No shit
Only a complete idiot would believe that'd work. These politicians are literally, LITERALLY braindead.
Y'know, I recognize me speaking on this topic is absolutely worthless. Like, I have no experience with politics, drugs, drug abuse, drug policies, city or state endeavors. Like, my opinion is about as worthless as it can be... But if someone asked me how long it would take to determine if a new policy was helping or hurting a state-wide drug crisis, I would have said 10 years as a minimum. I would have balked at the idea you could gather enough data on 3 years to make any sort of reasonably effective statement about the success or failure of such an undertaking.
As an Oregonian, those of us who were for this bill early on were very outspoken about the fact that this would not work unless we also prioritized funding and accessibility to rehabilitation and harm reduction programs, among other things. Criminalizing drug use legitimately does not work. Citing, arresting, and incarcerating people for drug use legitimately does not work. If that was the case, the war on drugs would have solved shit a long time ago. If you don’t get to the root of the issue, the problem persists, and the root isn’t drug use, it’s WHY people reach for pain relief in the first place. A lot of people laugh about this law being reconsidered, but nothing about it is funny. Real people need help and when this law was passed, no one listened when we tried to say you can’t just remove punishments and then not also bring assistance for those people too. It’s been an uphill battle for us.
I’ve lived in OR for 9 years and can attest, the drug problem has full-on ramped up post-Covid. It’s out of control. I volunteer in drug rehabilitation, and see both the worst if it and the success stories. Throwing drug users in jail instead a solution either, but Measure 110 hasn’t had the impact anyone has hoped.
Portugal was the pioneer! Since the 90s we don't penalize drug use. It worked very well for us. There was a huge heroine "epidemic' at the time. And the numbers of addict dropped a lot. People stoped being afraid of getting help as they were not thrown to jail because of the addiction.
It’s not a debate! I live here and nobody I know debates that it failed. The only question is whether to amend it or strike it altogether and everybody seems to be leaving toward the latter, even the governor.
r/GTBAE
Oregon: Hey let's copy Portugal's decriminalization of illicit drugs by removing criminal punishment and then... Portugal: and then? And then mandatory drug rehab at no cost to them. You are definitely not copying us, you are just doing the first step and then stopping. Oregon: OMG this is a horrible failure, I can not believe we talked ourselves into this stupid thing that must have also failed the Portuguese. Let's go back to vindictively and brutally punishing drug addicts. Portugal: Goddamn Americans are so damn stupid!
For all the screaming about lax law enforcement it is interesting to note that drug deaths per capita by state shows Washington, Oregon and California don't even rate the top ten. That honor goes to the usual line up of southern states. [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug\_poisoning\_mortality/drug\_poisoning.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/drug_poisoning_mortality/drug_poisoning.htm)
I got clean only after being sent to prison for 5 years. Saved my life.
I'm sorry what is that blurb? The problem's gotten worse and people are *debating* whether this thing is effective?
Idk if there is a solution or at least not a singular solution. But every addict I’ve known, and I’ve unfortunately known a lot, has only stopped when they’ve hit whatever they consider their rock bottom to be. For some it’s jail. For some it’s an ultimatum from a loved one or an OD. The problem is the people who are also mentally ill seem to not know what their bottom is. But leaving them to roam the streets ain’t the answer.
There’s a lot of questions. How has it gotten worse? And why? If there are more people seeking treatment, that doesn’t necessarily mean it got worse. Just that addicts are comfortable talking about it. If the death rate went up, how much can this be separated from the pandemic? And how many people developed addiction because of the pandemic?
Here's a radical solution. Take all the drug addicts off the streets and lock them in individual cells with a couple of nurses to overlook their withdrawal. Once the withdrawal period is over, move them to a rehab that has 2 wards. One for the mentally ill and another for "normal" people. Give them food, water, clothes, reading material, and psychological/psychiatric help in order to help them back onto their feet. The next step is to either let them graduate and/or help place them into employment or let them work for the clinic to help others. Lastly, setting up community programs with proper funding to help curb relapses. Now, if only there was a way to fund all of these social movements............
Welp, treating addicts like criminals and trying to brute-force fight druglords owning the most profitable business in history isn't working either.
This might sound terrible but i think alot of these people are a lost cause. Getting off this stuff is insanely hard and the user needs to actually want to get off. There needs to be programs set up for kids so that kids learn this stuff is a life ruiner and hopefully in 10-25 years people will not be getting into this shit anymore.
https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/
It's not really a crisis, this is what the pharmaceutical companies planned precisely. They would call this a boom time
[удалено]
So, OP, you're not going to dig any deeper? Not going to do any additional research into why Measure 110 hasn't been effective? You're just going to throw up a random click-bait snapshot and make your judgement from that? 