2y ago

Decriminalizing Drug Possession Doesn't Lead to More Fatal Overdoses

“There's always the hope that states function as laboratories of democracy, and when one state does something that makes sense and seems to work, that other states will adopt it,” says Davis. “Arrests went way down, overdoses didn’t change: To me, that’s an improvement over the previously existing system.”

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The people who oppose decriminalizing drugs don’t care about overdoses, hell they see it as a bonus because they care about regulating “morality”
- "The only moral drugs are my drugs!"
  my alcoholic pothead benzo-popping mom
  
  I'm sure you're aware but benzos and booze are a deadly combination
- That and the corporate vampires of the prison industrial complex lobby against decriminalization because it costs them their (predominantly POC) slave labor. Selective enforcement against communities the people in power don't like (i.e. POC and/or poor) is an added bonus.
It's almost as though the entire war on drugs was used to give police an excuse to selectively enforce drug laws against minorities whose communities Republicans wanted to disrupt, leading to the overincarceration of demographics Republicans don't want voting.
You know who don't want drugs decriminalized?
Drug cartels.
Legalization is an existential threat to the cartels, and the only one they've faced since the war on drugs started.
- I still remember mexico asking US to legalize marijuana as their cartels still had a market here.
  
  The cartels are everywhere. It sucks.
- Unfortunately the Cartels have begun to diversify their portfolios into "legitimate business."
  Avocado farms are apparently getting squeezed really hard for "protection fees" now.
- Also whack ass gangs. So sick of hearing rappers still trapping and acting like it gives them a one up over literally any other human being. They collect junkies to run the pressure and intimidation game like the pussies they are.
  No gives a single fuck about your clique of poor pussies that do dirt for a free globe hit.
  Why don't American patriots use the guns to fuck up gangs, lol. ...they'd never dare.... because America is equally run by the underworld as much as the mainstream.
Shockeroo. Furthermore, controlling the drug trade means a lot less deaths from toxic impurities.
- Also less deaths from attempting to avoid legal repercussions. Occasionally you'll hear the horror story of friends dumping the comatose body of a friend that's OD'ed at a hospital and trying to flee to avoid getting caught.
- For real. In my much younger days and I was out and someone offered me a bump, id do it. Worst case, you snort a little baking soda. These days I'd be so afraid I wouldn't fuck around.
  
  People are buying cocaine laced with fentanyl and dying. Crazy shit.
No shit, we've known this for years ever since Portugal did it
- However...
  "The number of Portuguese adults who reported prior use of illicit adult drugs rose from 7.8% in 2001 to 12.8% in 2022 — still below European averages but a significant rise nonetheless. Overdose rates now stand at a 12-year high and have doubled in Lisbon since 2019. Crime, often seen as at least loosely related to illegal drug addiction, rose 14% just from 2021 to 2022. Sewage samples of cocaine and ketamine rank among the highest in Europe (with weekend spikes) and drug encampments have appeared along with a European rarity: private security forces." source, which is a good read with more context on the situation
  Portugal simply shifted a few stats, but they made their drug problem worse over the years.
  
  Thanks for the stats, a shift over 1 year is not representative though, even more so because it was during corona, which everyone knows fucked up all social statistics
There's been an intense effort to walk back drug decriminalization in Oregon. Many people who voted for it have changed their minds after seeing perceived increases in property crime and homelessness. They think decrim caused those problems, ignoring the fact that Oregon crime, overdoses, and homelessness didn't increase more than other states.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Measure 110, the citizen initiative that removed serious legal penalties for all illicit drug possession and directed millions of dollars of state resources toward harm-reduction and treatment programs, has been painted by local and national media as insufficient at best and destructive at worst since its implementation in 2021.
News stories this summer portrayed Portland as afflicted by rising opioid overdose rates and suggested that Measure 110 played a role in their increase.
Spruha Joshi, an assistant professor in epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and co-lead author of the study, acknowledges the difficulty of capturing a comprehensive look at the public-health impacts of Measure 110 and Washington’s analog.
Aside from decriminalization, Measure 110 allocated more than $260 million in tax dollars from Oregon’s legal cannabis industry to harm-reduction and treatment centers for substance users statewide, but “most of that money didn't start flowing until almost the end of our study period,” says Davis.
An ongoing study has found widespread opposition among the state’s police officers, and in mid-September, a group of business and political leaders filed voter initiatives to walk back decriminalization, including making any amount of methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin illegal to possess.
Advocates of decriminalization see these pushes as attempts to kill a new strategy before it’s even had a chance to work, and say that complaints about increased drug activity throughout the state should prompt lawmakers to build upon Measure 110 rather than abandon it.
The original article contains 789 words, the summary contains 243 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Oh, no shit. I've been waiting to try the brown stuff but it's not legal where I live. /S
As someone from Asia, I'm going to offer the unpopular opinion: That last quote in the summary shows that you've lost control of the situation.
- Isn't it a better indication that there's no control to be had? At least not with arrests anyways
  
  It depends I suppose, lots of factors to consider. I do agree the situation in the USA is likely to have been uncontrollable for a long time.

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