First US state to decriminalise hard drugs may be set for swift U-turn

In this case, I do not disagree with you that this was an ill conceived experiment. I am not a fan of throwing people in jail either, but maybe people can learn from this and do better next time around. Drugs are part of our society and culture, we better figure out how to deal with the one's most commonly abused in some fashion other than prison.

Meanwhile, why are the people in the UK writing a story about what is going on in Eugene, OR?

 

You gotta love an article saying a bunch of people are demanding something where basically one person is quoted, a business owner who is not a police chief, DA or city official.

 

Maybe they should consider supporting treatment?

 

Because this is the vibes based news of shitty journalism, you dont need to do actual reporting, just get an emailed statement from the Chamber of Commerce and off you go

 

Perhaps the Chamber should support higher taxes on businesses to make sure these people get treatment. I'll just hold my breath and wait.

 

I actually live out here and I don’t think we’ve seen a problem any different than other states are experiencing. This study supports that. Study says drug decriminalization in Oregon did not cause more overdose deaths - OPB

Overdoses haven’t changed from other similar states so it doesn’t illustrate a problem with Measure 110. I think there’s more of a societal problem - afterall, as a nation we have a severe drug problem compared to Portugal where drugs are decriminalized.

 

Portugal has been getting worse, for reasons that make me question my historic support for replicating their model here. After a decade of success, public officials slashed government funding for drug treatment programs, leaving it to NGOs. The impact has been that the addicts just stay addicts, and police forces feel impotent at doing anything.

We would absolutely have the same result here, only difference is that we likely wouldn't even get 10 years of success before the gov't funding for treatment was gutted.

 

Not sure about more recent numbers, but these were purportedly the CDC per capita overdose numbers from 2021. West Virginia was very high and a national outlier. Florida's rate was worse than Oregon. Interesting to me that Texas - a border state- had the lowest rate in the South. Maybe states have different reporting processes which could matter. I also suspect that economics plays a role, too.

Drug Overdose Mortality by State

 

Even the police quotes I saw say they don't want the law repealed, just changes to the implementation so they can go back forcing people to get treatment or into programs.

 

Seems like regardless of “legalization” on the possession side, they could still always charge public intoxication. Assuming the issue with pushing them into treatment is the lack of a criminal charge. I suspect in most cases the bigger issue is that the publicly offered treatment programs are nonexistent or grossly inadequate in relation to the scope of the drug problem.

 

legalizing drugs is liberal? Nanny statism is conservatism? Redonkulous pub perversion - wrapping the pop in bubble wrap is NOT conservatism. Freedom isn’t free!! Sounds like you don’t have the courage to be free!

 

Setting up additional treatment programs was part of the law, and they can still issue $100 fines for public drug use, but the $100 fine would be waived if made even a basic attempt to get help. I guess they thought that would be a mechanism that encourage drug abuser to get help -- save $100 -- but it's apparently not working and very few people qualified for the fine waiver.

 

My daughter lives in Southampton so I read a lot of the UK papers. I don't pay for the Times I just read what's not behind Pay walls. I don't know why but I can assure you the UK press is obsessed with us. For instance, I once read a story about a con man in Central Florida who conned women out of money, and presumably sex, by pretending to have cancer and appealing to their sympathy. It happened that I had met one of the women. I read about it in a UK paper not a local one. When I told the man I met her through he told me, although the con man lived with one of the women near Daytona, it was covered in Orlando. But I never saw it here in Lakeland. Why would the press in London have any interest in a foreign lothario? I assure you I've never read about a Cardiff cad in my hometown paper. It doesn't make sense to me but apparently our stories sell there.

 

Its basically what Florida is to the rest of the USA, America is just their hillbilly cousin "Florida Man"