Drugs, warning decriminalization doesn't work !

Watched a program a few months ago on this, people overdosing in the street and outright slum area's (great if you own a funeral home) where you could 'score' anything and people doing anything for their next hit.....

Good on Oregon for giving it a go, but it proves that there's a very fine line between recreational use and full on addiction.

I really hate to admit it but in this example our Govco does need to enforce the law and stand up to the new age freedom dreamer hippies and protect the majority of the population from themselves !

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...IQFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3lFx-1E41COpTH7wqmztbL

 

It seems to have worked pretty well for Portugal!

When I was there last year, I did not see junkies, needles or anything that I'd say was drug related.
I must admit that I didn't go looking for it either and was only there for 5 days, but we went to a couple of low socio economic areas as well and it wasn't an apparent problem.

 

There's more to it. I'd needs to be done at a federal level and Decriminalisation is just one part of it. You've got to back it up with education and support services otherwise you get an Oregon.

Do it properly and you get a Portugal.

 

Don't swallow the decriminalisation arguments. It's somewhat like the argument that having no gun laws works because people can be educated, 'responsible' gun owners. When you decriminalise something, you get more of it. Willing to bet there are more drug users where drugs are decriminalised.

For every person harmed by criminalisation (who may have ultimately become a high productive human were they not branded a criminal and instead supported), there are many, many people saved from a life of drugs (or being shot in the case of guns) by the existence of the deterrent in the first place.

 

Mexico's socilaist president has a different take



As for Portugal, it's not all rainbows and unicorns
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/

 

I'm not sure this argument holds here.
Portugal's drug deaths have significantly decreased since decriminalisation came in. But as stated above, this wasn't done in isolation and supportive measures are very important.

 

No one is saying that it is. It's not about eliminating harm and suffering but about reducing it.

 

So a bit more like NewZealands smoking rules ?
We've all been told for decades that SMOKING KILLS......
I think NZ went about it the right way, it's just a shame that they dumped the ban so quickly in favor of tax cuts
Money talks and

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...QQFnoECDMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1kGATM-fjuO2go76re8poD

 

The alternative approach, and not a position I am advocating for, is the Singapore model on drugs. All banned, and if caught with certain amounts, it is considered trafficking with a quick court process and death. Smaller amounts bring about the rattan cane and long jail time. Singapore has few social and crime issues with drugs.

 

Yep really tough penalties would make more people reconsider the crime.
Imagine that IF you were caught in a stolen car it was an instant 15 year jail term, not the person that stole it even and just joining in for a joyride, I bet all these kids stealing cars in Aus would find a better hobby very quickly indeed

 

I just find it interesting that the powers to be, with all their surveillance cameras and satellites know where you are this very minute and who has a small market garden in their backyard but somehow the drugs just seem to slip into the country. How is this so ?
And it seems like when someone does get caught, another one is ready to take their place;

 

America has a fentanyl epidemic. Decriminalization may not solve that problem in the short term but Americas drug laws did nothing to prevent it.

Society is progressing towards decimalisation; the alternative isn’t helping.

 

From the link posted by OP.....


Oregon's decriminalization efforts coincided with fentanyl explosion

Instead of making clear headway in addressing substance use deaths after the implementation of Measure 110, Oregon saw a 13-fold increase in overdose deaths from synthetic opioids from 2019 through the 12-month period ending June 30, 2023, from 84 deaths to more than 1,100.

That can’t be blamed on decriminalization, Frederique said.

Rather, the fentanyl crisis across the entire United States has brought with it sharp increases in overdoses and deaths. Illegally manufactured fentanyl came onto the scene in the eastern U.S. beginning in about 2014 but didn’t immediately make its way to the western part of the country, so Oregon didn’t feel its effects until more recently, experts say.

It was not until right about the time Oregonians were making the push for decriminalization that fentanyl began to dominate the illegal drug market there, Frederique estimated. Other states felt that burden much sooner, she said.

 

Drug use in Australia has been normalised thru TV, movies and social media.

Suggested solution for Australia (all states):

• Initiate a transition period of 12-24 months (before full effects come into effect)
• Double, triple or quadruple the drug dealing penalties including a capital punishment element for major dealers (maybe not as strict as Singapore , but at least have a limit where that is enacted if not enforced)
• Set up legalities for pharmacies to administer certain drugs to registered “dependants” (aka addicts) for a fee but affordable and way less than black market supply. (ie. an extension of the pharmacy single dose methadone plan that currently exists across Australia)
• In parallel, government sets up many more similar scheme for addicts to self-administer (similar to what exists now known as shooting galleries)
• Additionally, have governments enforce censorship films with high drug content use are made to have a “D” rating limiting it to adults (rather than normalising it on every streamed video)

BTW, the above suggestions may take 10-20 years to eliminate the main problem, but that is the reality.

Now I know a lot of people will say **** that, lets jail the pricks, however those same people will be your brothers and sisters or close relatives.

An addict or junkie doesn’t think logically, they just need their fix taken care of.

Been there and seen a family member check out, so yes I have 1st hand experience.

 

Illicit drug use was a product of the upper class that slowly filtered down to ordinary people over many decades. Where the rich had means to manage addiction, the poor just ended up on the street. This, like many other ideological and social movements, inflicts enormous harm on ordinary people and destablises cultures. Glorification of illicit drug use as a rite of passage only makes things worse. The goal is to find meaning in life so drugs don't fill that void.
Unfortunately our society does its best to say meaning is derived from meaningless traits of identity or hedonistic pursuits.

 

I'll add that we should educate parents and instill more responsibility into the family to deal with these matters.

 

Good points. Its interesting that first world countries like south korea and Singapore have a very small drug problem comparative to most western countries. Is this because of sterner penalties and actual enforcement? Or maybe stronger family and stricter moral values? Probably a bit of both. Its common to say the war on drugs has failed. But maybe stern punishment and actual enforcement do work. A uni student or yuppie might think twice if a friend is locked up for a few months. The reality is it is already legal to use in practise as i dont think anyone ever gets locked up for drug use.

 

Isn't this also the same for Vancouver where it spiralled out of control? My folks just visited USA - California and Canada - Vancouver and Toronto last year and said the drug problem there was horrendous.

What are people's thoughts on the injecting centre in Richmond (Vic)? It was always pretty dangerous even before it I see no real diff?

I've noticed societies that have somewhat better success like Denmark, Sweden etc. have much smaller populations. Then you have heavy handed societies and societal stigmatic societies in Asia where it's somewhat also worked but I don't think given the different values we have here can be implemented either,

Both but then again look at the South Korean actor in Parasite (The Rich bloke) and then committed suicide because his drug story came out into the open. "Face" value is still extremely important in these societies where as a public figure you're expected to uphold a squeaky clean image. Once it's tarnished...

Then you also have culture....growing up in Australia with an Asian background, we were pretty grounded lol vs the locals. Everyone happened much later in life i.e. dating etc.

I used to joke to my Asian peers that we experience stuff "5 years later" than what the locals had. Most of us didn't have a girlfriend/boyfriend till at least 17/18, some even 20 and none of us travelled outside Australia without our folks till at least mid 20s. We were tame, very very tame. Though I believe everything has 2 sides, fact that we discovered things much on later in life, we didn't get bored of things i.e. novelty factor wore off nor did we start running out of things to do.
You also don't generally have that rampant drug culture as well absent in Asian sports. My wife who grew up in Asia used to say what was considered a "wild child" in Asia seems very "normal" or "tame" over here LOL.

I guess a further probably overlooked fact is that China knows the dangers of drugs on society, just look at how Opium ravaged it's society...lesser known is that Japan was also high on drugs post WW2, I can't remember the actual drug but it was to give workers stimulation to work long hours and have like 2-3 hrs of sleep a day. Drugs were a massive problem in both Hong Kong and Singapore in the 60s to 70s as well. This is why Asia in general has very strict laws.

Never is a perfect world...I remember that drug kingpin in Myammar - Khun Sa or something? who offered to sell or give up the drugs to the US when Clinton was in charge or something but he did mention saying if he quit there are 1,000 blokes who would take his place?

Only works in city states like Singapore - very small, nanny state, citizens are in general much more afraid and law abiding. It's almost like those car figures, everything is nice and smooth in a controlled environment. Having said this go back to the 50s/60s/70s where Singapore was a drug ridden society? The more developed societies in Asia are all run by consensus based culture like Japan and Singapore. No one dares or wants to be the odd one out of these societies.

A Japanese colleague once told us she made the boldest move in her life coming to Australia in the late 80s where life in Japan was still grand but reckons best move ever saying she didn't feel the need to conform and feel so restricted. She was telling stories of how she and a lot of other women she knew hated wearing daily makeup but this was "standard and expected" in most Japanese companies.

Added the fact that Japan's cleanliness is a massive illusion, it was propped up by the post war government to show the world how developed it got but said most are just as filthy as the next person convincing us that it's just a manufactured trait by mental force. She was explaining how they used to have wardens in the neighbourhood and if your house was unkempt and messy back in the day her dad would get a few stern words LOL.

I don't condone drugs but you need to admit, some of the best music was made by artists under some sort of drug. There are some industries where I think this somewhat helps like Arts and Entertainment. Heck, Steven Jobs reckons without them we was not able to create some of the best things at Apple.

 

illicit drug use is a product of alcohol lobby advocating for making drugs illicit in the first place.

 

it doesn't work like that. there are plenty of studies that prove that stern punishment doesn't deter people from committing crimes, because when they are committing them they think they won't be caught in the first place.

the only thing that stern penalties usually achieve is more corruption in the society, along with more violence.

people have used various drugs for thousands of years for various purposes. it's only the last century or two, when governments decided to make them illegal, and fight the "war" on drugs. but that decision has nothing to do with trying to protect the society, it's a result of lobbying by the companies that sell drugs that remained legal, like alcohol and tobacco.

if we were serious about it, we would rank all the drugs according to their addictivity and harms to the health of users and the society, and then ban those that exceed a certain threshold. which would result in complete ban of alcohol, as that's the drug that causes the most harm.