I really hate how this has been playing out in the US. Lawmakers are entirely unresponsive to the idea that the war on drugs has failed, and so voters find ways to sidestep the problem by voting...
Exemplary
I really hate how this has been playing out in the US. Lawmakers are entirely unresponsive to the idea that the war on drugs has failed, and so voters find ways to sidestep the problem by voting to decriminalize small amounts of drugs. They point to locales like the Netherlands and Portugal as proof that drugs can be decriminalized and society doesn't have to suffer. What's lost in these ideas, unfortunately, is the need for strong social welfare to support the people who struggle with these drugs. It's easy to overlook this, when the war on drugs has never supported this and the countries in which decriminalization has worked all already support this, but it's an integral piece of the puzzle that's missing from this piecemeal approach. The end result is that voter sentiment towards decriminalizing shifts as they see the downsides of decriminalizing without any support for those who struggle with addictions and it happens much faster than anyone can win support to provide social safety nets for those who suffer.
It's a particularly fraught time, as well, as the proliferation of drugs such as fentanyl and xylazine compound the problem in ways which we haven't seen before. These drugs are extremely cheap to manufacture, are propped up by overseas manufacturing, involve precursors or chemicals that are difficult to track or involve such small active doses that monitoring the precursors is problematic and are drugs we don't really understand super well so preventing overdoses and damages to the body are lagging due to the slow nature of research.
I worry that we're going to reverse ship and double down on the war on drugs as well as grow a larger negative sentiment towards the unhoused, which will just result in even more deaths and the alienation of humanity.
I would partially disagree. Fentanyl in particular is very well understood. It’s been approved for medical use for a long time. There’s a well known antidote to overdose, naloxone, which is the...
These (…) are drugs we don't really understand super well so preventing overdoses and damages to the body are lagging due to the slow nature of research.
I would partially disagree. Fentanyl in particular is very well understood. It’s been approved for medical use for a long time. There’s a well known antidote to overdose, naloxone, which is the same as other opioid drugs. It acts the same way as other drugs of its class, with the exception being its extreme potency, especially when you consider there are also analogs that are even more potent out there.
The problem with fentanyl isn’t really that we don’t understand it. It’s that we suck at treating opioid dependence in general, and all the usual issues with addiction and overdose get worse when the drug gets more potent.
There's a big difference between fentanyl use in medicine and fentanyl use on the streets. While we do understand medications that can help with an overdose when someone has this kind of issue in...
There's a big difference between fentanyl use in medicine and fentanyl use on the streets. While we do understand medications that can help with an overdose when someone has this kind of issue in a hospital, they already have an IV or can get one set fairly quickly. Hospitals are also just a different environment in which case administration is always done with a proper IV as opposed to sticking oneself and maybe even potentially missing the vein or blowing it out. Understanding how to rapidly reverse an overdose in the field is a very different problem. Unfortunately, it's also very difficult to understand when fentanyl poisoning happens and dealing with poly drug combinations can be rather difficult, especially when you don't know what has been administered.
You're correct, however, that in the case of fentanyl we have more understanding than we do of another substance like xylazine. Either way, we need more information and we need more solutions to deal with some of the downsides of the realistic ways that people use these drugs and the drugs they typically co-administer them with.
Of particular note here is that there are very rarely safe injection sites and even when there are, it's difficult to know what substances are being used. In some other countries, the drugs themselves are sourced by the government so that you can be sure that they are not compromised or cut with other substances. These are also sites at which there are trained medical staff as well as the drugs needed to reverse overdoses as well as manage other clinical conditions that can be present with individuals who chronically abuse drugs.
Naloxone administration has come a long way. In Portland, one can go to a clinic and get naloxone nasal spray for free anonymously in less than 15min. They'll show you how to administer it, but it...
Naloxone administration has come a long way. In Portland, one can go to a clinic and get naloxone nasal spray for free anonymously in less than 15min. They'll show you how to administer it, but it is as simple as insert the device and depress the sprayer, and it can be administered to an unconscious person. Admittedly, nasal spray isn't as fast as IV or intra-muscular (IM). The clinics will also provide naloxone solution and needles for IM and demonstrate their use (without actually jabbing of course). IM administration requires finding a good bit of muscle, no need to worry about missing. Although IM also isn't quite as fast as IV.
This isn't intended to take away from your point. On the contrary, I mean to support it, because it is due to the work into safe recreational drug use that these are now available.
Yep, we're getting a lot better at it. I live in SF and I have a box of nasal spray naloxone at home because every once in awhile someone yells out in the street that they need help....
Yep, we're getting a lot better at it. I live in SF and I have a box of nasal spray naloxone at home because every once in awhile someone yells out in the street that they need help. Unfortunately, however, naloxone via nasal spray takes longer to take effect than IV or IM administration, and that time can result in brain damage due to hypoxia. There's unfortunately very little high quality evidence on this in humans for obvious ethical reasons, but studies in other animals show that even via atomized nasal administration (slightly faster absorption) there can be significant lag time between the two routes.
I can certainly tell you first hand that it's not uncommon for someone to receive several nasal narcan doses and still be unresponsive until EMS shows up and does an IV or IM administration. It may simply be that we need to create easy to follow guidelines, an acronym or something of the sort in conjunction with handing out more doses of nasal narcan to help revive patients in a quicker yet still effective and risk mitigated fashion.
I’m not familiar with naloxone or fentanyl or the risks, but when you say “intramuscular” is that like how an epipen is supposed to be used in the side of the thigh? Would a naloxone pen with the...
I’m not familiar with naloxone or fentanyl or the risks, but when you say “intramuscular” is that like how an epipen is supposed to be used in the side of the thigh? Would a naloxone pen with the same kind of mechanism be effective or am I misunderstanding something?
In that whole paragraph I'm talking about fentanyl. I'm saying that the antidote to overdose is the same for fentanyl as it is for other opioid drugs, such as heroin, morphine, oxycodone, etc.,...
In that whole paragraph I'm talking about fentanyl. I'm saying that the antidote to overdose is the same for fentanyl as it is for other opioid drugs, such as heroin, morphine, oxycodone, etc., namely naloxone.
The US desperately needs a means to vote for an entire party platform rather than simple representatives of the parties in power. There are other things that a number of progressives want that...
The US desperately needs a means to vote for an entire party platform rather than simple representatives of the parties in power. There are other things that a number of progressives want that also need holistic changes made to the federal government, like UBI or universal healthcare. Without a nearly wholesale replacement of the representatives in congress or an attempt to circumvent them, I feel there is little hope for these kinds of massive changes.
To a certain extent, the party primary elections are exactly this. Even if a candidate doesn't win the primary, a candidate that wins 10% of the primary vote sends a loud message to the victor....
To a certain extent, the party primary elections are exactly this. Even if a candidate doesn't win the primary, a candidate that wins 10% of the primary vote sends a loud message to the victor. This happened in 2020 when Bernie Sanders won 28% of the total delegates for the Democratic primaries. He was able to get Biden to include some more progressive policies in his plans due to the support he saw. Andrew Yang also popularized UBI even though he didn't have enough support to influence Biden.
The problem of course being that a large election every 2/4/8/indefinite years for a candidate that may have those qualities is hardly ideal. Especially since primarying incumbants is frowned...
The problem of course being that a large election every 2/4/8/indefinite years for a candidate that may have those qualities is hardly ideal. Especially since primarying incumbants is frowned upon.
It's quite obtuse how to actually participate in party politics in a way that registering to be a member is not. And that seems....antiquated at best.
Beyond that, there's a very wide gulf between influence and conviction. Conviction is what gets you universal healthcare, while influence gets you the ACA (obamacare). Influence always has limits,...
Beyond that, there's a very wide gulf between influence and conviction. Conviction is what gets you universal healthcare, while influence gets you the ACA (obamacare). Influence always has limits, and in very real terms it means that we get things like one congressperson holding up laws that are wanted by the rest of the party.
What’s terrible is I am sure very few people that oppose drug decriminalization and legalization have said anything about the requirement for affordable housing, universal health care, and a...
What’s terrible is I am sure very few people that oppose drug decriminalization and legalization have said anything about the requirement for affordable housing, universal health care, and a minimum wage that you can live comfortably on. And now they’re gloating about how right they were the whole time. That addicts are just fundamentally bad, unfixable people.
I’m a programmer. I know there is a pattern of software engineers thinking they’re the smartest and they can solve any problem in any industry. I’m not trying to make any such claim. But as someone that needs to manage slightly complicated distributed computer systems I understand quite well that as you’re making changes to a system you’ll need to do so in many many little steps, reading the reaction from the system constantly and adjusting your approach as you go. Even if you know something is possible and generally understand how to get from A to B, you might need to go through dozens of iterations as you discover various unknowns. Passing one or two big laws every few years with widely varied philosophies will not work for today’s big problems. Any legislator involved is either too foolish to know that or is smart enough and cursed to eat their own lies just to keep moving forward.
Well said. This is a problem that extends far beyond the war on drugs. Any meaningful change to policing, education, or homelessness will require stronger social welfare programs as well. There's...
Well said.
What's lost in these ideas, unfortunately, is the need for strong social welfare to support the people who struggle with these drugs. It's easy to overlook this, when the war on drugs has never supported this and the countries in which decriminalization has worked all already support this, but it's an integral piece of the puzzle that's missing from this piecemeal approach.
This is a problem that extends far beyond the war on drugs. Any meaningful change to policing, education, or homelessness will require stronger social welfare programs as well. There's no easy fix for systemic issues. Unfortunately, I don't see that type of overhaul happening any time soon in this political climate.
Case in point, although not perfect, is Melbourne where you having "shooting centres" where people can shoot up drugs under strict supervision and under a generous social service. Granted they...
Case in point, although not perfect, is Melbourne where you having "shooting centres" where people can shoot up drugs under strict supervision and under a generous social service. Granted they don't do dangerous drugs, and they only do programs to help addicts wean off the drugs through adjacent substitutions.
Indeed it seems the US and some other Western countries suffer from a chronic case of executing good ideas in purposely half-assed ways just to set them up to fail to make them look ineffective,...
Indeed it seems the US and some other Western countries suffer from a chronic case of executing good ideas in purposely half-assed ways just to set them up to fail to make them look ineffective, when truly its not the idea that failed but our lousy implementation
It's like claiming that a government service X, Y, or Z is failing when the truth is it's operating fine just not properly funded, etc. Politicians love to pull funding for something then claim that the unfunded thing failed on its own, as if it wasn't directly their fault
I think a better way to frame it is that ideas aren’t inherently good or bad and nothing succeeds or fails “on its own.” It’s always context-dependent. Some ideas may not work in one place that do...
I think a better way to frame it is that ideas aren’t inherently good or bad and nothing succeeds or fails “on its own.” It’s always context-dependent.
Some ideas may not work in one place that do work elsewhere because the implementation will be “half-assed.”
Is there evidence that the decriminalization in Oregon was purposefully setup to fail? I don't know much about it, so this is a genuine question. With my limited background here, I just imagine it...
Is there evidence that the decriminalization in Oregon was purposefully setup to fail? I don't know much about it, so this is a genuine question.
With my limited background here, I just imagine it being more likely that people really thought decriminalization would help. If you'd asked me before the law went into effect, I would've been one of those fighting for it, and I would've assumed the law was going to be successful in reducing harm.
I worry that we are generally too quick attributing things to malice, which makes the world feel colder and meaner than it really is.
As an Oregon voter, it is a real shame to see how this ballot measure has been turned into a political football after being passed by the entire state. Oregon voters recognize that this isn't...
Exemplary
As an Oregon voter, it is a real shame to see how this ballot measure has been turned into a political football after being passed by the entire state. Oregon voters recognize that this isn't working, but the general sentiment is not that we should recriminalize drugs, but rather, that we should follow through with the proposal and actually build the safety net that is needed to care for those who are addicted to drugs. There were two parts to the ballot measure, it was not simply decriminalization. There was also a requirement that the state legislature put in place and infrastructure to handle addiction.
I think about this like baseball. Players on the diamond either have a bat or a glove. The bat is reactive, and you can't necessarily send the ball where you want when it comes your way. The glove is proactive, because it will allow you to receive the ball safely, and then throw it to your other player. Without either, you are a sitting duck, and a baseball is likely to hit you in the face. Even if you have the bat, and make contact, the ball can still deflect into your face. Having a glove is safer, which is why baseball players do not wear a helmet when they are fielding.
Decriminalization removed the reactive bat. The state legislature failed to provide a proactive glove. The situation got worse, because now there is a player on the field who had neither a bat nor a glove, and is expected to face the consequences.
Decriminalization works. I voted for it before and I would vote for it again. The problem is the lack of support and genuine addiction treatment that the legislature failed to provide.
This is a policy choice.
I got 40% of my state income tax back this year because of a budget surplus. Our "kicker credit" applies when we collect too many funds, over $5.6 billion last year, or over $1000/citizen.
Needless to say the costs associated with the drug treatment infrastructure which was passed by a ballot measure and thus is law would cost substantially less.
No, the voters don't want recriminalization, we want the law carried out as we voted on it. Take the bat away, but give the player a glove. Right now, those addicted to drugs are defenseless, and everyone is suffering as a result.
tl;dl Oregon voted to decriminalize all drugs in 2021. Instead of arrests, police will now give out $100 citations that can be rendered null by calling a help hotline. Since the decriminalization,...
tl;dl Oregon voted to decriminalize all drugs in 2021. Instead of arrests, police will now give out $100 citations that can be rendered null by calling a help hotline.
Since the decriminalization, drug use and overdose statistics skyrocketed, and locals say that urban areas have deteriorated in safety.
In 2024, voters voted to re-criminalize hard drugs in Oregon with overwhelming support, ending one of the largest experiments in hard drug decriminalization, that some hoped would be adopted by other states, including Washington and eventually California. Now, in California a proposition is being made to increase penalties for drug use.
Other NYTimes reporting, since the OP is a podcast:
I think you've been suckered by bad statistics and law enforcement propaganda, just like our legislature was. Here is a hint. You should not be asking, "did Oregon's drug use and overdose deaths...
Exemplary
I think you've been suckered by bad statistics and law enforcement propaganda, just like our legislature was.
Here is a hint. You should not be asking, "did Oregon's drug use and overdose deaths go up?" You should be asking, "did these rates go up in Oregon more than in states that didn't decriminalize drugs?"
Because if you don't, it's entirely possible that we will now see soaring overdose and use rates. After all, we're in the middle of a nationwide opioid epidemic. Maybe decriminalizing drugs actually kept things from getting a lot worse than they would otherwise be.
Also, keep in mind, we the voters did not vote to recriminalize drugs. The legislature did. This was the legislature overruling the will of the voters. If voters really did want to repeal this, the legislature could have passed the act as as ballot initiative. They didn't trust the people to produce the outcome they wanted, so they didn't put it up to the people. And it was largely pushed by law enforcement. And the law enforcement lobby really seemed to be motivated more by an anger that they could no longer violate the 4th amendment than they were legitimately concerned with drug use.
The real push for this was because the criminalization of drug possession is a great boon to law enforcement, as it allows them to effectively bypass the 4th Amendment. It is trivial for a police officer to manufacture probable cause if drug possession is illegal. There is a long list of vague symptoms associated with drug use, and an officer can simply claim your eyes looked weird, you were acting vaguely erratically, etc. In states with illegal cannabis, they can lie and claim they smelled marijuana. In order to prove that they violated your 4th amendment rights, you have to prove something about the officer's subjective mental state and observations, which is impossible to do.
Police have been spoiled rotten in the War on Drugs era. They've grown lazy and used to operating in an environment where the 4th Amendment has effectively been repealed. And drug decriminalization took this power from them. They've fought the law from the beginning, and they've refused to use what tools they do have under the law to combat drug use.
This isn't really about drug use and overdoses. The legislature just condemned hundreds of more people to drug overdose deaths by doing this. The police are just mad they can't flagrantly violate the 4th amendment. That is the real source of the political pressure that repealed the law.
I get what you're saying, but the data doesn't actually support it at all. You claim it's just law enforcement propaganda, and that article says the data says Oregon is comparable to its neighbors...
I get what you're saying, but the data doesn't actually support it at all. You claim it's just law enforcement propaganda, and that article says the data says Oregon is comparable to its neighbors and to not believe your lying eyes, but...maybe actually look at the data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
Oregon went up 32% from '22 to '23. The only other nearby state at all comparable was Washington which was the only other state which essentially decriminalized drugs in '21, having drug possession changed from a felony to a misdemeanor with two mandatory diversion services before being prosecuted. California and Idaho stayed flat, although counties bordering Oregon like Del Norte and Siskiyou saw huge increases where Oregon's problem spilled over.
The only other states with a >9% increase were Alaska and Nevada. Overall, drug deaths in the United States dropped over the same time frame. The facts absolutely make Oregon stand out as one of the fastest degrading states in this area.
I don't have much of a dog in this fight either way, but if you look at other states before 2022, you'll find that many of them had similarly-large spikes in that 32%-ish range - whereas at the...
I don't have much of a dog in this fight either way, but if you look at other states before 2022, you'll find that many of them had similarly-large spikes in that 32%-ish range - whereas at the same time, Oregon remained flat.
Unless those other states implemented decriminalization before 2022, I don't know if it is fair to place the blame for an increase in overdose deaths solely at the feet of decriminalization. It's a lot of data to parse, and a single factor is seldom if ever to blame.
Even if you go back to the end of 2019 where most states were pretty stable, the US average was 2.5% of deaths being overdose to now 3.5% of deaths being drug overdoses. In the same time, Oregon...
Even if you go back to the end of 2019 where most states were pretty stable, the US average was 2.5% of deaths being overdose to now 3.5% of deaths being drug overdoses. In the same time, Oregon went from 1.6% of deaths being overdose to now being 4%. Most states saw an increase throughout COVID, but not as big as Oregon did and they didn't keep going up afterwards.
It's a glib response, but "most states" is not "all states". Arkansas saw its death rate from overdoses increase by around 41% from 2020 to 2021. In that same time, Oregon only increased by around...
It's a glib response, but "most states" is not "all states".
Arkansas saw its death rate from overdoses increase by around 41% from 2020 to 2021. In that same time, Oregon only increased by around 30% or so.
Virginia saw a similarly-sized increase to Arkansas as well.
I'm not saying things are "better" in Oregon than elsewhere. I'm making an argument that things may look different a few years on, when more data is available and longer trends can be reviewed.
The measure was implemented February 1, 2021, so the only other annual period would be '21–'22. The US as a whole increased 13–14% in that time frame. Oregon and bordering states were: Oregon:...
Exemplary
The measure was implemented February 1, 2021, so the only other annual period would be '21–'22. The US as a whole increased 13–14% in that time frame. Oregon and bordering states were:
Oregon: +41%
Washington: +29%
Idaho: +29%
Nevada: +6%
California: +17%
Overall, in the 2½ years afterwards with data, the US increased 16%, California increased 28%, and Oregon increased 102%. It takes a huge amount of denialism to believe anything other than the simple truth that passing Measure 110 has directly killed hundreds of people.
It's on the same page on the CDC's website there, but they don't let you view the rate of change for other years directly. You either have to change the state on the top map or download the raw...
It's on the same page on the CDC's website there, but they don't let you view the rate of change for other years directly. You either have to change the state on the top map or download the raw data and do the math yourself. :/
I was replying to you. Specifically the part: This is law enforcement propaganda. Not all propaganda is made of lies. Partial truths make just as effective propaganda. They've been endlessly...
I was replying to you. Specifically the part:
Since the decriminalization, drug use and overdose statistics skyrocketed, and locals say that urban areas have deteriorated in safety.
This is law enforcement propaganda. Not all propaganda is made of lies. Partial truths make just as effective propaganda. They've been endlessly pushing the "overdoses are up" line, but they never mention that Oregon is actually doing very well in comparison to other states. Yes, we've had an increase, but less of an increase than other states. The flawed logic of repeal opponents has been endlessly pointed out during this debate, to the point where it's an undeniable omission at this point. Advocates for repeal have been repeatedly told that they're using flawed figures, but they do not care. The lack of vital context provides a narrative for what their real goal is, increasing police power and repealing the 4th Amendment in Oregon.
Also, you claimed that Oregon voters repealed the measure. This is not correct.
I'm not opining on the subject, though? It's a summary of the podcast, since many people probably wouldn't want to listen to it. If there's inaccuracy to the podcast contents itself, I can edit it...
I'm not opining on the subject, though? It's a summary of the podcast, since many people probably wouldn't want to listen to it. If there's inaccuracy to the podcast contents itself, I can edit it in post.
I suppose I'm addressing the podcast then, assuming the podcast didn't provide the vital context. I was replying to your summary of the podcast. If they included this context but you left it out...
I suppose I'm addressing the podcast then, assuming the podcast didn't provide the vital context. I was replying to your summary of the podcast. If they included this context but you left it out of the summary, then I'm replying to you.
I listened to The Daily this morning, I thought they actually did well highlighting that the social services were never really implemented and COVID confounded it's roll out. They also bring up...
I listened to The Daily this morning, I thought they actually did well highlighting that the social services were never really implemented and COVID confounded it's roll out. They also bring up that Oregon is one of the worst places to try this since it was already the worst state for drug rehab services. So they decriminalized without a support network and then didn't build the funded support network.
In particular they were very explicit "this isn't a fair assessment of these types of policies but unfortunately it's spooked too many legislators so it'll be a long time until someone tries again."
The grass is always greener. It's a shame to see what has happened to Portland. I visited last year and was disgusted at the state of what used to be a beautiful and vibrant city.
The grass is always greener. It's a shame to see what has happened to Portland. I visited last year and was disgusted at the state of what used to be a beautiful and vibrant city.
Be careful. It's easy to see what's right in front of you while missing the larger context. For example, do you have evidence that Portland's drug use and homelessness problems are greater than...
Be careful. It's easy to see what's right in front of you while missing the larger context. For example, do you have evidence that Portland's drug use and homelessness problems are greater than comparable cities, or even to smaller towns on a per-capita basis? Portland is one of the cities the American right has chosen to highlight in its propaganda efforts. Fox endlessly provides out-of-context reports on the safety of Democrat-lead cities like Portland and Chicago. They'll have reports breathlessly stating that these cities are anarchist hellholes, and cite figures like raw numbers of arrests or crimes, not even trying to calculate things on a per-capita basis.
As Portland is one of the right's chosen propaganda targets, I'm wary of anyone vilifying it. It's even a meme among Portlanders. "Yeah, I got murdered three times just walking down the street last week." Or "it's a miracle my house hasn't been burned down by all the roving Mad Max gangs wandering the city that Fox tells us about. In fact, my whole neighborhood and all the other surrounding neighborhoods have also been lucky. Truly we are blessed!"
Portland is a punching bag of the right, precisely because it is a liberal city. The right wants to portray every left-leaning city as a lawless hellscape, and they form all their news coverage around that narrative.
Yeah, I'm commenting solely on what I saw right in front of me, not based on the news or whatever studies people try to come up with. I'm ignoring the political aspect of all of this and just...
It's easy to see what's right in front of you while missing the larger context.
Yeah, I'm commenting solely on what I saw right in front of me, not based on the news or whatever studies people try to come up with.
I'm ignoring the political aspect of all of this and just talking about what I've noticed while traveling to various cities throughout the country. In my own personal observations while traveling, downtown Portland stuck out as having a high concentration of people who were strung out on what I could only assume was fentanyl. It certainly exists in other cities, but I haven't noticed it nearly to the level that I did in Portland where you could see multiple people strung out no matter where you looked. Perhaps related, most businesses had private security in tactical vests posted outside of their doors as well. Overall, it was worse (at least while I was there) than San Francisco, which has also turned into a mess for its own reasons.
I agree completely as an Oregonian. We can have discussions about issues with PTown, but if anyone out of state attacks Portland I'm gonna rip into them. The media attacks during the BLM protests...
I agree completely as an Oregonian. We can have discussions about issues with PTown, but if anyone out of state attacks Portland I'm gonna rip into them. The media attacks during the BLM protests were vile. And I'm amazed at how many people took that as fact.
I should clarify and say that this was my experience specifically in downtown Portland. The Portland area as a whole is indeed a beautiful place, but the downtown area is a shell of its former self.
I should clarify and say that this was my experience specifically in downtown Portland. The Portland area as a whole is indeed a beautiful place, but the downtown area is a shell of its former self.
The last time I went (before my visit last year) was 2018 or 2019. We had an office in Lake Oswego that I used to have to visit every couple of years prior to that, and I would stay downtown. I...
The last time I went (before my visit last year) was 2018 or 2019. We had an office in Lake Oswego that I used to have to visit every couple of years prior to that, and I would stay downtown. I didn't really notice much of a difference in prior years but it wasn't really much on my mind. Yeah, you'd occasionally see drugs and homelessness but that's there in any city. But the difference in my visit last year compared to prior years was absolutely staggering.
So your previous visit, to a city that has been hit hard by the ongoing opioid epidemic, in a region that itself has been hit hard by said epidemic, was 5 years ago - before said epidemic reached...
So your previous visit, to a city that has been hit hard by the ongoing opioid epidemic, in a region that itself has been hit hard by said epidemic, was 8 5 years ago - before said epidemic reached its current heights (and before COVID). Homelessness, too, has hit the west coast particularly hard, and Portland is no exception.
In addition, Portland has undergone several instances of protests, particularly in 2020 as a result of George Floyd. Said protests have often made national news - in part, overblown by the media - but fairly significant protests nonetheless.
Just saying, there are a lot of compounding factors that have led to Portland being where it is today, for better or for worse. I don't live in the city, but I have several friends that do - and they don't seem to make particular note of "how bad things have gotten", at least in terms of how bad things are in Portland when compared to the rest of the country.
So... 5 years (2018-2023) between my previous 2 visits. But like I said, I travel a lot. And in my recent travels, Portland has stood out as being in particularly rough shape compared to what it...
So... 5 years (2018-2023) between my previous 2 visits. But like I said, I travel a lot. And in my recent travels, Portland has stood out as being in particularly rough shape compared to what it was, especially when compared to other cities that I've also visited across the years. That's all I'm saying here.
Fixed, on my part. I can count, I promise! Myself and others are likely reading more into your statements than you intended, but your first post: ... implies that the city is no longer beautiful...
Fixed, on my part. I can count, I promise!
Myself and others are likely reading more into your statements than you intended, but your first post:
The grass is always greener. It's a shame to see what has happened to Portland. I visited last year and was disgusted at the state of what used to be a beautiful and vibrant city.
... implies that the city is no longer beautiful nor vibrant. I'm also curious about what other cities you've visited in the same 2018-2023 time period, so that we know what you're comparing against.
I know that my city is undergoing similar issues related to public drug use, overdose deaths, and the like. My city hasn't decriminalized drug use, but we're seeing much more visible signs of overdosing in the past few years. Similarly, the cost of living has skyrocketed, housing vacancy rates are less than 1%, and the cost of housing has more than doubled in the past decade while wages have remained largely stagnant.
So in the context of an article discussing decriminalization of drug use, a glib two-sentence answer seeming to indicate that drugs are the reason that "Portland is no longer beautiful" seems to do the discussion a disservice.
Mostly New York, Boston, Houston, Vancouver, Phoenix, San Jose and San Francisco. I'm also taking into consideration my local cities - Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte. While the last 5 years have...
I'm also curious about what other cities you've visited in the same 2018-2023 time period, so that we know what you're comparing against.
Mostly New York, Boston, Houston, Vancouver, Phoenix, San Jose and San Francisco. I'm also taking into consideration my local cities - Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte.
While the last 5 years have affected every place in some way, mostly negatively, Portland still stands and the most stark difference in my book. Perhaps there are worse places, but my comment was based on my own experience and this has been my experience.
San Francisco has had a similar downfall, but with less public drug use (in my limited observation). I actually used to go there multiple times a year for conferences, but companies seem to have stopped hosting conferences there, so I only visited there for a day on a trip with my wife last year.
I'm not trying to say that the entire region Portland is a hazardous wasteland. There's a lot to like about the region. I'm just saying that what used to be a thriving downtown seems to have turned into a mini Kensington Ave. Is that all due to the legalization of drugs? I don't know, but seeing so much drug use out on the open streets does make me wonder if it's a factor in some way.
It's interesting to see this posted shortly after reading this piece about medication-based addiction treatments in the US. I recommend reading it, but to sum up: these treatments have been...
It's interesting to see this posted shortly after reading this
piece about medication-based addiction treatments in the US. I recommend reading it, but to sum up: these treatments have been extremely effective outside the US and the US's aversion to them is a mix of established dogma, from 12-step-like programs, that the only "legitimate" recovery is quitting cold-turkey, and greed on behalf of the clinics currently licensed to provide that treatment in the very limited way they are "allowed" to, as these limitations give them a monopoly on the most effective treatment available.
Others on here have already commented on how there needs to be a support system in place to help people actually recover after we've stopped punishing them for being sick. But I'd like to add to that point, that it doesn't need to be hard. Giving easy access to medicinal treatment might just be the only missing piece here.
They talked about towards the end how instead of having a ballot proposition that decriminalizes drug use in California, there's actually now a proposition to increase drug penalties, which made...
They talked about towards the end how instead of having a ballot proposition that decriminalizes drug use in California, there's actually now a proposition to increase drug penalties, which made me curious since they just glossed over it. As far as I know, this is what they're talking about
I want to clarify that the title of the post/article: "voters now regret it" is subjective at best and an agenda promoting lie at worst The repeal, which was actually only a repeal of certain...
I want to clarify that the title of the post/article: "voters now regret it" is subjective at best and an agenda promoting lie at worst
The repeal, which was actually only a repeal of certain parts of the measure, was enacted by lawmakers, voters weren't part of it.
Much of the media seems to have settled on the narrative that this means decriminalization failed. That's not what happened at all. Lawmakers failed.
Portland failed to figure out how to clean up downtown Portland following the pandemic policy of looking the other way at homeless people taking over downtown. The result was a lot of open drug use in areas of the city that, once upon a time, were pristine.
It wasn't a good look, and people started avoiding downtown.
To their credit, they did try to solve the problem in a humane way, but they absolutely didn't succeed.
As time goes on, and credible numbers come out, I'll think we'll see that the measure was actually a success, practically speaking. The optics, though, not so much.
On the bright side, most of the parts of the measure that added funding for support and treatment survived the repeal, and more money for those types of things was added.
This proposition seems to be about theft and drug dealing rather than simple possession. (There is a penalty for possession while armed with a loaded firearm that’s presumably aimed at a certain...
This proposition seems to be about theft and drug dealing rather than simple possession. (There is a penalty for possession while armed with a loaded firearm that’s presumably aimed at a certain kind of drug dealer.) It seems designed to appeal even to voters who are otherwise interested in decriminalizing drugs.
I really hate how this has been playing out in the US. Lawmakers are entirely unresponsive to the idea that the war on drugs has failed, and so voters find ways to sidestep the problem by voting to decriminalize small amounts of drugs. They point to locales like the Netherlands and Portugal as proof that drugs can be decriminalized and society doesn't have to suffer. What's lost in these ideas, unfortunately, is the need for strong social welfare to support the people who struggle with these drugs. It's easy to overlook this, when the war on drugs has never supported this and the countries in which decriminalization has worked all already support this, but it's an integral piece of the puzzle that's missing from this piecemeal approach. The end result is that voter sentiment towards decriminalizing shifts as they see the downsides of decriminalizing without any support for those who struggle with addictions and it happens much faster than anyone can win support to provide social safety nets for those who suffer.
It's a particularly fraught time, as well, as the proliferation of drugs such as fentanyl and xylazine compound the problem in ways which we haven't seen before. These drugs are extremely cheap to manufacture, are propped up by overseas manufacturing, involve precursors or chemicals that are difficult to track or involve such small active doses that monitoring the precursors is problematic and are drugs we don't really understand super well so preventing overdoses and damages to the body are lagging due to the slow nature of research.
I worry that we're going to reverse ship and double down on the war on drugs as well as grow a larger negative sentiment towards the unhoused, which will just result in even more deaths and the alienation of humanity.
I would partially disagree. Fentanyl in particular is very well understood. It’s been approved for medical use for a long time. There’s a well known antidote to overdose, naloxone, which is the same as other opioid drugs. It acts the same way as other drugs of its class, with the exception being its extreme potency, especially when you consider there are also analogs that are even more potent out there.
The problem with fentanyl isn’t really that we don’t understand it. It’s that we suck at treating opioid dependence in general, and all the usual issues with addiction and overdose get worse when the drug gets more potent.
There's a big difference between fentanyl use in medicine and fentanyl use on the streets. While we do understand medications that can help with an overdose when someone has this kind of issue in a hospital, they already have an IV or can get one set fairly quickly. Hospitals are also just a different environment in which case administration is always done with a proper IV as opposed to sticking oneself and maybe even potentially missing the vein or blowing it out. Understanding how to rapidly reverse an overdose in the field is a very different problem. Unfortunately, it's also very difficult to understand when fentanyl poisoning happens and dealing with poly drug combinations can be rather difficult, especially when you don't know what has been administered.
You're correct, however, that in the case of fentanyl we have more understanding than we do of another substance like xylazine. Either way, we need more information and we need more solutions to deal with some of the downsides of the realistic ways that people use these drugs and the drugs they typically co-administer them with.
Of particular note here is that there are very rarely safe injection sites and even when there are, it's difficult to know what substances are being used. In some other countries, the drugs themselves are sourced by the government so that you can be sure that they are not compromised or cut with other substances. These are also sites at which there are trained medical staff as well as the drugs needed to reverse overdoses as well as manage other clinical conditions that can be present with individuals who chronically abuse drugs.
Naloxone administration has come a long way. In Portland, one can go to a clinic and get naloxone nasal spray for free anonymously in less than 15min. They'll show you how to administer it, but it is as simple as insert the device and depress the sprayer, and it can be administered to an unconscious person. Admittedly, nasal spray isn't as fast as IV or intra-muscular (IM). The clinics will also provide naloxone solution and needles for IM and demonstrate their use (without actually jabbing of course). IM administration requires finding a good bit of muscle, no need to worry about missing. Although IM also isn't quite as fast as IV.
This isn't intended to take away from your point. On the contrary, I mean to support it, because it is due to the work into safe recreational drug use that these are now available.
Yep, we're getting a lot better at it. I live in SF and I have a box of nasal spray naloxone at home because every once in awhile someone yells out in the street that they need help. Unfortunately, however, naloxone via nasal spray takes longer to take effect than IV or IM administration, and that time can result in brain damage due to hypoxia. There's unfortunately very little high quality evidence on this in humans for obvious ethical reasons, but studies in other animals show that even via atomized nasal administration (slightly faster absorption) there can be significant lag time between the two routes.
I can certainly tell you first hand that it's not uncommon for someone to receive several nasal narcan doses and still be unresponsive until EMS shows up and does an IV or IM administration. It may simply be that we need to create easy to follow guidelines, an acronym or something of the sort in conjunction with handing out more doses of nasal narcan to help revive patients in a quicker yet still effective and risk mitigated fashion.
I’m not familiar with naloxone or fentanyl or the risks, but when you say “intramuscular” is that like how an epipen is supposed to be used in the side of the thigh? Would a naloxone pen with the same kind of mechanism be effective or am I misunderstanding something?
It's really sad seeing billboards advertising to carry Naloxone.
On the east coast here, so not even related to Oregon.
In that whole paragraph I'm talking about fentanyl. I'm saying that the antidote to overdose is the same for fentanyl as it is for other opioid drugs, such as heroin, morphine, oxycodone, etc., namely naloxone.
The US desperately needs a means to vote for an entire party platform rather than simple representatives of the parties in power. There are other things that a number of progressives want that also need holistic changes made to the federal government, like UBI or universal healthcare. Without a nearly wholesale replacement of the representatives in congress or an attempt to circumvent them, I feel there is little hope for these kinds of massive changes.
To a certain extent, the party primary elections are exactly this. Even if a candidate doesn't win the primary, a candidate that wins 10% of the primary vote sends a loud message to the victor. This happened in 2020 when Bernie Sanders won 28% of the total delegates for the Democratic primaries. He was able to get Biden to include some more progressive policies in his plans due to the support he saw. Andrew Yang also popularized UBI even though he didn't have enough support to influence Biden.
The problem of course being that a large election every 2/4/8/indefinite years for a candidate that may have those qualities is hardly ideal. Especially since primarying incumbants is frowned upon.
It's quite obtuse how to actually participate in party politics in a way that registering to be a member is not. And that seems....antiquated at best.
Beyond that, there's a very wide gulf between influence and conviction. Conviction is what gets you universal healthcare, while influence gets you the ACA (obamacare). Influence always has limits, and in very real terms it means that we get things like one congressperson holding up laws that are wanted by the rest of the party.
What’s terrible is I am sure very few people that oppose drug decriminalization and legalization have said anything about the requirement for affordable housing, universal health care, and a minimum wage that you can live comfortably on. And now they’re gloating about how right they were the whole time. That addicts are just fundamentally bad, unfixable people.
I’m a programmer. I know there is a pattern of software engineers thinking they’re the smartest and they can solve any problem in any industry. I’m not trying to make any such claim. But as someone that needs to manage slightly complicated distributed computer systems I understand quite well that as you’re making changes to a system you’ll need to do so in many many little steps, reading the reaction from the system constantly and adjusting your approach as you go. Even if you know something is possible and generally understand how to get from A to B, you might need to go through dozens of iterations as you discover various unknowns. Passing one or two big laws every few years with widely varied philosophies will not work for today’s big problems. Any legislator involved is either too foolish to know that or is smart enough and cursed to eat their own lies just to keep moving forward.
Well said.
This is a problem that extends far beyond the war on drugs. Any meaningful change to policing, education, or homelessness will require stronger social welfare programs as well. There's no easy fix for systemic issues. Unfortunately, I don't see that type of overhaul happening any time soon in this political climate.
Case in point, although not perfect, is Melbourne where you having "shooting centres" where people can shoot up drugs under strict supervision and under a generous social service. Granted they don't do dangerous drugs, and they only do programs to help addicts wean off the drugs through adjacent substitutions.
Indeed it seems the US and some other Western countries suffer from a chronic case of executing good ideas in purposely half-assed ways just to set them up to fail to make them look ineffective, when truly its not the idea that failed but our lousy implementation
It's like claiming that a government service X, Y, or Z is failing when the truth is it's operating fine just not properly funded, etc. Politicians love to pull funding for something then claim that the unfunded thing failed on its own, as if it wasn't directly their fault
I think a better way to frame it is that ideas aren’t inherently good or bad and nothing succeeds or fails “on its own.” It’s always context-dependent.
Some ideas may not work in one place that do work elsewhere because the implementation will be “half-assed.”
Is there evidence that the decriminalization in Oregon was purposefully setup to fail? I don't know much about it, so this is a genuine question.
With my limited background here, I just imagine it being more likely that people really thought decriminalization would help. If you'd asked me before the law went into effect, I would've been one of those fighting for it, and I would've assumed the law was going to be successful in reducing harm.
I worry that we are generally too quick attributing things to malice, which makes the world feel colder and meaner than it really is.
This is the OG enshittification.
As an Oregon voter, it is a real shame to see how this ballot measure has been turned into a political football after being passed by the entire state. Oregon voters recognize that this isn't working, but the general sentiment is not that we should recriminalize drugs, but rather, that we should follow through with the proposal and actually build the safety net that is needed to care for those who are addicted to drugs. There were two parts to the ballot measure, it was not simply decriminalization. There was also a requirement that the state legislature put in place and infrastructure to handle addiction.
I think about this like baseball. Players on the diamond either have a bat or a glove. The bat is reactive, and you can't necessarily send the ball where you want when it comes your way. The glove is proactive, because it will allow you to receive the ball safely, and then throw it to your other player. Without either, you are a sitting duck, and a baseball is likely to hit you in the face. Even if you have the bat, and make contact, the ball can still deflect into your face. Having a glove is safer, which is why baseball players do not wear a helmet when they are fielding.
Decriminalization removed the reactive bat. The state legislature failed to provide a proactive glove. The situation got worse, because now there is a player on the field who had neither a bat nor a glove, and is expected to face the consequences.
Decriminalization works. I voted for it before and I would vote for it again. The problem is the lack of support and genuine addiction treatment that the legislature failed to provide.
This is a policy choice.
I got 40% of my state income tax back this year because of a budget surplus. Our "kicker credit" applies when we collect too many funds, over $5.6 billion last year, or over $1000/citizen.
Needless to say the costs associated with the drug treatment infrastructure which was passed by a ballot measure and thus is law would cost substantially less.
No, the voters don't want recriminalization, we want the law carried out as we voted on it. Take the bat away, but give the player a glove. Right now, those addicted to drugs are defenseless, and everyone is suffering as a result.
tl;dl Oregon voted to decriminalize all drugs in 2021. Instead of arrests, police will now give out $100 citations that can be rendered null by calling a help hotline.
Since the decriminalization, drug use and overdose statistics skyrocketed, and locals say that urban areas have deteriorated in safety.
In 2024, voters voted to re-criminalize hard drugs in Oregon with overwhelming support, ending one of the largest experiments in hard drug decriminalization, that some hoped would be adopted by other states, including Washington and eventually California. Now, in California a proposition is being made to increase penalties for drug use.
Other NYTimes reporting, since the OP is a podcast:
Oregon Is Recriminalizing Drugs, Dealing Setback to Reform Movement
Oregon Leaders Declare Drug Emergency in Portland
I think you've been suckered by bad statistics and law enforcement propaganda, just like our legislature was.
Here is a hint. You should not be asking, "did Oregon's drug use and overdose deaths go up?" You should be asking, "did these rates go up in Oregon more than in states that didn't decriminalize drugs?"
Because if you don't, it's entirely possible that we will now see soaring overdose and use rates. After all, we're in the middle of a nationwide opioid epidemic. Maybe decriminalizing drugs actually kept things from getting a lot worse than they would otherwise be.
Also, keep in mind, we the voters did not vote to recriminalize drugs. The legislature did. This was the legislature overruling the will of the voters. If voters really did want to repeal this, the legislature could have passed the act as as ballot initiative. They didn't trust the people to produce the outcome they wanted, so they didn't put it up to the people. And it was largely pushed by law enforcement. And the law enforcement lobby really seemed to be motivated more by an anger that they could no longer violate the 4th amendment than they were legitimately concerned with drug use.
What research we do have suggests that by doing this, repealing decriminalization, the Oregon legislature has condemned many people to deaths by overdose. Yes, overdose rates in Oregon have gone up, but less so than other states. And criminalization makes people avoid treatment and raises overdose death rates.
The real push for this was because the criminalization of drug possession is a great boon to law enforcement, as it allows them to effectively bypass the 4th Amendment. It is trivial for a police officer to manufacture probable cause if drug possession is illegal. There is a long list of vague symptoms associated with drug use, and an officer can simply claim your eyes looked weird, you were acting vaguely erratically, etc. In states with illegal cannabis, they can lie and claim they smelled marijuana. In order to prove that they violated your 4th amendment rights, you have to prove something about the officer's subjective mental state and observations, which is impossible to do.
Police have been spoiled rotten in the War on Drugs era. They've grown lazy and used to operating in an environment where the 4th Amendment has effectively been repealed. And drug decriminalization took this power from them. They've fought the law from the beginning, and they've refused to use what tools they do have under the law to combat drug use.
This isn't really about drug use and overdoses. The legislature just condemned hundreds of more people to drug overdose deaths by doing this. The police are just mad they can't flagrantly violate the 4th amendment. That is the real source of the political pressure that repealed the law.
I get what you're saying, but the data doesn't actually support it at all. You claim it's just law enforcement propaganda, and that article says the data says Oregon is comparable to its neighbors and to not believe your lying eyes, but...maybe actually look at the data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
Oregon went up 32% from '22 to '23. The only other nearby state at all comparable was Washington which was the only other state which essentially decriminalized drugs in '21, having drug possession changed from a felony to a misdemeanor with two mandatory diversion services before being prosecuted. California and Idaho stayed flat, although counties bordering Oregon like Del Norte and Siskiyou saw huge increases where Oregon's problem spilled over.
The only other states with a >9% increase were Alaska and Nevada. Overall, drug deaths in the United States dropped over the same time frame. The facts absolutely make Oregon stand out as one of the fastest degrading states in this area.
I don't have much of a dog in this fight either way, but if you look at other states before 2022, you'll find that many of them had similarly-large spikes in that 32%-ish range - whereas at the same time, Oregon remained flat.
Unless those other states implemented decriminalization before 2022, I don't know if it is fair to place the blame for an increase in overdose deaths solely at the feet of decriminalization. It's a lot of data to parse, and a single factor is seldom if ever to blame.
Even if you go back to the end of 2019 where most states were pretty stable, the US average was 2.5% of deaths being overdose to now 3.5% of deaths being drug overdoses. In the same time, Oregon went from 1.6% of deaths being overdose to now being 4%. Most states saw an increase throughout COVID, but not as big as Oregon did and they didn't keep going up afterwards.
It's a glib response, but "most states" is not "all states".
Arkansas saw its death rate from overdoses increase by around 41% from 2020 to 2021. In that same time, Oregon only increased by around 30% or so.
Virginia saw a similarly-sized increase to Arkansas as well.
I'm not saying things are "better" in Oregon than elsewhere. I'm making an argument that things may look different a few years on, when more data is available and longer trends can be reviewed.
The measure was implemented in 2020. What about the other years?
The measure was implemented February 1, 2021, so the only other annual period would be '21–'22. The US as a whole increased 13–14% in that time frame. Oregon and bordering states were:
Overall, in the 2½ years afterwards with data, the US increased 16%, California increased 28%, and Oregon increased 102%. It takes a huge amount of denialism to believe anything other than the simple truth that passing Measure 110 has directly killed hundreds of people.
Do you have a link to the other years data? I can't seem to find a way to access it on that site.
It's on the same page on the CDC's website there, but they don't let you view the rate of change for other years directly. You either have to change the state on the top map or download the raw data and do the math yourself. :/
Who are you talking to? Oregon voters? Mike Baker?
I was replying to you. Specifically the part:
This is law enforcement propaganda. Not all propaganda is made of lies. Partial truths make just as effective propaganda. They've been endlessly pushing the "overdoses are up" line, but they never mention that Oregon is actually doing very well in comparison to other states. Yes, we've had an increase, but less of an increase than other states. The flawed logic of repeal opponents has been endlessly pointed out during this debate, to the point where it's an undeniable omission at this point. Advocates for repeal have been repeatedly told that they're using flawed figures, but they do not care. The lack of vital context provides a narrative for what their real goal is, increasing police power and repealing the 4th Amendment in Oregon.
Also, you claimed that Oregon voters repealed the measure. This is not correct.
I'm not opining on the subject, though? It's a summary of the podcast, since many people probably wouldn't want to listen to it. If there's inaccuracy to the podcast contents itself, I can edit it in post.
I suppose I'm addressing the podcast then, assuming the podcast didn't provide the vital context. I was replying to your summary of the podcast. If they included this context but you left it out of the summary, then I'm replying to you.
I listened to The Daily this morning, I thought they actually did well highlighting that the social services were never really implemented and COVID confounded it's roll out. They also bring up that Oregon is one of the worst places to try this since it was already the worst state for drug rehab services. So they decriminalized without a support network and then didn't build the funded support network.
In particular they were very explicit "this isn't a fair assessment of these types of policies but unfortunately it's spooked too many legislators so it'll be a long time until someone tries again."
If anything, they make the best propaganda. It's much easier to debunk an outright lie.
This was a decision by lawmakers, AIUI. As an Oregon voter, I don't believe I got a vote!
The grass is always greener. It's a shame to see what has happened to Portland. I visited last year and was disgusted at the state of what used to be a beautiful and vibrant city.
Be careful. It's easy to see what's right in front of you while missing the larger context. For example, do you have evidence that Portland's drug use and homelessness problems are greater than comparable cities, or even to smaller towns on a per-capita basis? Portland is one of the cities the American right has chosen to highlight in its propaganda efforts. Fox endlessly provides out-of-context reports on the safety of Democrat-lead cities like Portland and Chicago. They'll have reports breathlessly stating that these cities are anarchist hellholes, and cite figures like raw numbers of arrests or crimes, not even trying to calculate things on a per-capita basis.
As Portland is one of the right's chosen propaganda targets, I'm wary of anyone vilifying it. It's even a meme among Portlanders. "Yeah, I got murdered three times just walking down the street last week." Or "it's a miracle my house hasn't been burned down by all the roving Mad Max gangs wandering the city that Fox tells us about. In fact, my whole neighborhood and all the other surrounding neighborhoods have also been lucky. Truly we are blessed!"
Portland is a punching bag of the right, precisely because it is a liberal city. The right wants to portray every left-leaning city as a lawless hellscape, and they form all their news coverage around that narrative.
Yeah, I'm commenting solely on what I saw right in front of me, not based on the news or whatever studies people try to come up with.
I'm ignoring the political aspect of all of this and just talking about what I've noticed while traveling to various cities throughout the country. In my own personal observations while traveling, downtown Portland stuck out as having a high concentration of people who were strung out on what I could only assume was fentanyl. It certainly exists in other cities, but I haven't noticed it nearly to the level that I did in Portland where you could see multiple people strung out no matter where you looked. Perhaps related, most businesses had private security in tactical vests posted outside of their doors as well. Overall, it was worse (at least while I was there) than San Francisco, which has also turned into a mess for its own reasons.
I agree completely as an Oregonian. We can have discussions about issues with PTown, but if anyone out of state attacks Portland I'm gonna rip into them. The media attacks during the BLM protests were vile. And I'm amazed at how many people took that as fact.
It's still plenty beautiful and vibrant here.
I should clarify and say that this was my experience specifically in downtown Portland. The Portland area as a whole is indeed a beautiful place, but the downtown area is a shell of its former self.
How often have you been to Portland, prior to your most recent observations?
The last time I went (before my visit last year) was 2018 or 2019. We had an office in Lake Oswego that I used to have to visit every couple of years prior to that, and I would stay downtown. I didn't really notice much of a difference in prior years but it wasn't really much on my mind. Yeah, you'd occasionally see drugs and homelessness but that's there in any city. But the difference in my visit last year compared to prior years was absolutely staggering.
So your previous visit, to a city that has been hit hard by the ongoing opioid epidemic, in a region that itself has been hit hard by said epidemic, was
85 years ago - before said epidemic reached its current heights (and before COVID). Homelessness, too, has hit the west coast particularly hard, and Portland is no exception.In addition, Portland has undergone several instances of protests, particularly in 2020 as a result of George Floyd. Said protests have often made national news - in part, overblown by the media - but fairly significant protests nonetheless.
Just saying, there are a lot of compounding factors that have led to Portland being where it is today, for better or for worse. I don't live in the city, but I have several friends that do - and they don't seem to make particular note of "how bad things have gotten", at least in terms of how bad things are in Portland when compared to the rest of the country.
So... 5 years (2018-2023) between my previous 2 visits. But like I said, I travel a lot. And in my recent travels, Portland has stood out as being in particularly rough shape compared to what it was, especially when compared to other cities that I've also visited across the years. That's all I'm saying here.
Fixed, on my part. I can count, I promise!
Myself and others are likely reading more into your statements than you intended, but your first post:
... implies that the city is no longer beautiful nor vibrant. I'm also curious about what other cities you've visited in the same 2018-2023 time period, so that we know what you're comparing against.
I know that my city is undergoing similar issues related to public drug use, overdose deaths, and the like. My city hasn't decriminalized drug use, but we're seeing much more visible signs of overdosing in the past few years. Similarly, the cost of living has skyrocketed, housing vacancy rates are less than 1%, and the cost of housing has more than doubled in the past decade while wages have remained largely stagnant.
So in the context of an article discussing decriminalization of drug use, a glib two-sentence answer seeming to indicate that drugs are the reason that "Portland is no longer beautiful" seems to do the discussion a disservice.
Mostly New York, Boston, Houston, Vancouver, Phoenix, San Jose and San Francisco. I'm also taking into consideration my local cities - Raleigh, Durham and Charlotte.
While the last 5 years have affected every place in some way, mostly negatively, Portland still stands and the most stark difference in my book. Perhaps there are worse places, but my comment was based on my own experience and this has been my experience.
San Francisco has had a similar downfall, but with less public drug use (in my limited observation). I actually used to go there multiple times a year for conferences, but companies seem to have stopped hosting conferences there, so I only visited there for a day on a trip with my wife last year.
I'm not trying to say that the entire region Portland is a hazardous wasteland. There's a lot to like about the region. I'm just saying that what used to be a thriving downtown seems to have turned into a mini Kensington Ave. Is that all due to the legalization of drugs? I don't know, but seeing so much drug use out on the open streets does make me wonder if it's a factor in some way.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/DTJ8S
It's interesting to see this posted shortly after reading this
piece about medication-based addiction treatments in the US. I recommend reading it, but to sum up: these treatments have been extremely effective outside the US and the US's aversion to them is a mix of established dogma, from 12-step-like programs, that the only "legitimate" recovery is quitting cold-turkey, and greed on behalf of the clinics currently licensed to provide that treatment in the very limited way they are "allowed" to, as these limitations give them a monopoly on the most effective treatment available.
Others on here have already commented on how there needs to be a support system in place to help people actually recover after we've stopped punishing them for being sick. But I'd like to add to that point, that it doesn't need to be hard. Giving easy access to medicinal treatment might just be the only missing piece here.
They talked about towards the end how instead of having a ballot proposition that decriminalizes drug use in California, there's actually now a proposition to increase drug penalties, which made me curious since they just glossed over it. As far as I know, this is what they're talking about
Theft and drug crackdown? Proposed measure to reform Prop 47 gathers last signatures for November ballot (CBS)
I want to clarify that the title of the post/article: "voters now regret it" is subjective at best and an agenda promoting lie at worst
The repeal, which was actually only a repeal of certain parts of the measure, was enacted by lawmakers, voters weren't part of it.
Much of the media seems to have settled on the narrative that this means decriminalization failed. That's not what happened at all. Lawmakers failed.
Portland failed to figure out how to clean up downtown Portland following the pandemic policy of looking the other way at homeless people taking over downtown. The result was a lot of open drug use in areas of the city that, once upon a time, were pristine.
It wasn't a good look, and people started avoiding downtown.
To their credit, they did try to solve the problem in a humane way, but they absolutely didn't succeed.
As time goes on, and credible numbers come out, I'll think we'll see that the measure was actually a success, practically speaking. The optics, though, not so much.
On the bright side, most of the parts of the measure that added funding for support and treatment survived the repeal, and more money for those types of things was added.
I'm not quite sure how that's relevant to the California ballot proposal? Did you mean for this to be top level?
Yes, my mistake
This proposition seems to be about theft and drug dealing rather than simple possession. (There is a penalty for possession while armed with a loaded firearm that’s presumably aimed at a certain kind of drug dealer.) It seems designed to appeal even to voters who are otherwise interested in decriminalizing drugs.