News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Oregonian here... Measure 110 is an absolute shit show.
Yes, it decriminalized drugs and funded treatment programs, but the problem was the treatment programs were 100% optional.
Here's how it "worked":
Get busted with drugs, it's a $100 fine.
Fine can get waived if you call a toll free number to ask about treatment.
Note: All you had to do was call the number. You didn't have to actually GET treatment.
Initially 16,000 or so people were cited in the first year, 0.85% (~136) sought treatment.
https://www.oregonlive.com/health/2022/09/oregons-drug-decriminalization-effort-sends-less-than-1-of-people-to-treatment.html
The rest were looking for free needle exchanges, free methadone, free naloxone.
There are no real consequences, and unlike booze and pot, there are no laws banning public use of hard drugs.
So we get open air drug markets, run by cartels from Honduras, in this case mere blocks from police HQ:
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2023/03/25/whos-running-downtown-portlands-open-air-fentanyl-market/
https://www.koin.com/news/crime/feds-drug-traffickers-using-honduran-nationals-to-funnel-fentanyl-into-portland/
https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/honduran-man-arrested-portland-trafficking-rainbow-fentanyl-and-firearms-charged-federal
As those articles you linked point out, it is illegal to sell drugs and the police arrest people who do. What exactly are you recriminalizing? Is this a case where the POLICE do not want to actively solve the drug selling problem because they want to return to the days when the state money was being funneled to them and not treatment programs? We lived with possession being criminalized and nothing working since the 80s. I think we can try decriminalizing possession for long enough to get the treatment programs running.
Drug use is way up in states that are not Oregon. Fentanyl and Covid have changed the game. The timing is unfortunate sadly to try something new.
Bingo. The state hasn't actually funded any new treatment centers and things like using drugs in a park are already illegal. This is just a way for the state to get off the hook for actually funding treatment centers while throwing a bone to police who are butthurt that they lost one of their easiest, low effort methods to arrest someone. Most of the stats thrown around about drug use in this state were from before this law even passed, so how will going right back to the old system improve anything? Democrats are lucky that Republican legislators are such pieces of trash because otherwise they'd actually be held accountable for being such huge disappointments to the population.
The police don't arrest people who do, that's part of the problem. They can be embarrased into action by the media, they take action if the problem gets "bad enough".
Meanwhile:
Overdoses are through the roof:
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/portland-downtown-firefighter-overdose-calls-narcan-deaths/283-a37b7402-c199-40ce-a120-bb6aec149365
"In June alone, firefighters from Station 1 responded to 300 overdoses.
Portland police data shows that back in 2020 nearly 90 people died from overdoses. The number jumped to 135 in 2021, then to 159 in all of 2022. So far this year there have been 151 deaths, all in less than seven months. Police expect that number to be around 300 by year's end.
Portland firefighters are responding to more overdoses than fires — and when they do respond to a fire, it’s often-homeless camp related."
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2023/04/pills-petty-crime-despair-a-perfect-storm-batters-heart-of-downtown-portland.html
Drug related theft is through the roof:
https://www.koin.com/news/crime/retail-theft-linked-to-drugs-stolen-vehicles-in-portland/
I generally agree with your take on what is happening. But drug overdoses are way up in all states because of Fentanyl and Covid related breakdown of social programs. Since overdoses increased in other states too, I find it unlikely that we need to recriminalize to reduce them. Additionally, we have DECADES of criminalization that wasted billions without fixing the problem. How will this criminalization do what was not done in all that time in all those states. If it won’t fix it, why do we want to dump money into the police and courts?
I support a lot of actions to reduce the nuisance. I hate cleaning up needles and seeing public spaces turned into inhospitable areas. I just don’t think criminalization of possession is going to fix that. It didn't for the last 40 years. It won’t now.