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Oregon’s Drug Decriminalization Aimed to Make Cops a Gateway to Rehab, Not Jail. State Leaders Failed to Make It Work. (www.propublica.org)

submitted 9 months ago by einat2346@lemmy.today to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 51 points 9 months ago

Saved you a click: is because they started with cops. 🖕🏽

[-] Mandarbmax@lemmy.world 20 points 9 months ago

I'm shocked! Shocked! Well, not that shocked.

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 39 points 9 months ago

The Legislature, the court system and the bureaucracy under two governors ignored or rejected proposed solutions as seemingly straightforward as designing a specialized ticket to highlight treatment information. They declined to fund a proposed $50,000 online course that would have instructed cops how to better use the new law. They took no action on recommendations to get police, whose leaders campaigned against the ballot measure, talking with treatment providers after decriminalization passed.

It's gonna cost money to fix things. Spend a lot of money on trained people for outreach or you didn't do outreach. Counselors, social workers, whatever. You can't fix addiction without investment in the community.

[-] MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world 10 points 9 months ago

Oh, guaranteed they don't care about the money it would cost. They care about the money for profit prisons would be losing if their cattle were sent to rehab instead of prison.

[-] Encode1307@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

Oregon doesn't have any for profit prisons. Good job guaranteeing it though.

[-] MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Yeah, admittedly my comment was a knee jerk reaction and done with complete ignorance of the state. I'll leave it as to not hide me being an idiot though

[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 15 points 9 months ago

Oregon gov: "best I can do is no jail, no rehab"

[-] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

It's a fucking mess. Fentanyl costs less than a dollar. There's open street drug markets. It's not uncommon seeing people shooting up or smoking out of tinfoil. Tents are randomly everywhere with people doing drugs.

Portland used to be vibrant and clean. It's pretty much a toilet for the unhoused. Cleanup crews comb the early streets. I routinely see a guy spraying disinfectant on store fronts because people are peeing and shitting in doorways. I would guess that half of the businesses have left. Lots of stores are boarded up.

We have had recorded crime the last couple of years. Crime is finally starting to go down, but not as fast as similar cities.

I don't like addicts going to prison, but expecting them to just seek out treatment after getting a $100 ticket is dumb. When incentive is there?

The process failed because it was stupid to begin with. It should have required treatment and training was ready before decriminalizing.

[+] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi -22 points 9 months ago

I don't understand how decriminalizing hard drugs is supposed to help. Handing out a fine with a hotline number is laughable. Most addicts aren't going to seek out help on their own. Didn't Maine have a law that forced certain users to go through rehab/therapy? They established a bunch of clinics that constantly reached out to their patients and made sure they were getting treatment. But I'm pretty sure it didn't start with decriminalization.

[-] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

it's because treating the problem of drugs like a personal moral failing offers nothing but punishment, without addressing the root cause of people with addiction. Instead of putting people in prison for drugs, (in which they still have access to drugs) we would rather help them address the underlying cause of hardship that causes them to want to "check out" so badly. People in poverty, with untreated illness, little to no support system, without access to a safe place to live, are going to want to check out via drug use. Us punishing them isn't going to do anything but give them another reason to shoot up.

work programs, housing programs, food programs, and healthcare is what they truly need to stop. Not us spending the same amount of money it would take to help them, but on the prison industrial complex.

[-] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I agree putting people in prison won't solve addiction but that's why I mentioned what I somewhat remember Maine doing. It's about having a path towards rehabilitation (not in prison). Essentially you temporarily book offenders, then they get a court mandated ruling to go to these clinics to get better while they have consistent checkups. This way they get to stay out of prison while receiving treatment. I guess what I'm saying is you need the law to allow temporary detainment and to enable court rulings of certain treatments that otherwise many offenders would not receive otherwise. The problem I see isn't with these situations it's that oftentimes legislators are too lazy to implement laws that work to implement steps after being detained/fined. It's lazy to put people in jail and also to simply decriminalize substances. Because when substances are decriminalized you have no legal leg to stand on when you need to force treatment and to your point being sent to prison doesn't help either.

[-] cannibalkitteh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 9 months ago

It helps because if they know they aren't going to be imprisoned for it, they're more likely to seek help in situations that involve drugs. Getting people to quit drugs requires trust and social outreach. Decriminalization is about making sure that drug users aren't further stigmatized and abused, and thus more able to accept support.

[-] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi 0 points 9 months ago

I don't think that this should be a legalization issue. To your point, prison is not the solution. I think its about what you do after a user is detained temporarily. Instead of prison people need to be sent to rehab centers.

You need a legal backing to get these people help. Decriminalization means there's no legal backing to provide services to these people, oftentimes they don't want help. Like the article mentioned, no one ever bothers calling the helpline. Why would they? They either don't want to or cant. With a court order they can be taken care of, usually through tax payer money. Initially this may cost a decent amount of money but could fix the problem over time.

[-] cannibalkitteh@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 9 months ago

The problem there is a court order is enforced under threat of punishment. One is going to be less likely to seek help if they're subject to physical or sexual abuse if the mere mention of it could land them in legal trouble. Similarly, folks are less likely to seek help in overdose situations under threat of legal consequences.

[-] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi 0 points 9 months ago

Okay, so I have been misinterpreting decriminalization. I looked up some statistics and found this website that was helpful. In a nutshell I agree with decriminalization, however it seems like Oregon may not have implemented the law in a meaningful way, in my opinion. It's not a comprehensive approach to getting people help and stops at offering a drug screening (which seems like a non-solution) or a fine. May people never get a screening and many never pay the fine, so nothing actually happens. So on other words, Oregon politicians passed a meaningless bill. Portugal seems to have done a better job with this and it's a shame politicians can't look to places that work to emulate their laws.

https://www.publichealthdegrees.org/resources/drugs-decriminalization-and-public-health/

[-] dipshit@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

[removed by mod]

[-] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi -1 points 9 months ago

No need to be passive aggressive. I think a lot of people care. If you've read my other post you'd notice I said I agree with decriminalization but believe Oregon didn't implement the law in a meaningful way. I don't know if you've lived in an area where there are homeless encampments before but drug use is often a big issue there. LA, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle, all places I've lived in have this issue. So yes, for you this may be a non issue for you but for communities that live with this problem it is a legitimate issue. What do you mean when youre advocating for full legalization? We might not even be talking about the same thing. I don't care about weed, all for legalization for that. Under no circumstances should drugs like heroin or meth be legalized. Are you saying you don't care about people who are at the highest risk for drug abuse and need the most help? That's ideally the place where rehabilitation will help the most.

Feel free to look at the statistics for drug use and homelessness here. https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/homeless

[-] dvoraqs@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Is it the homeless encampments or the drug use that are the main problem for you? Or is it only a problem when they are combined?

Maybe depending on where you live, homeless encampments can be broken up (not making any statements now on whether that is right) without needing to attach drug charges into the situation.

[-] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 9 months ago

Its foremost the drug issue that's a problem for me. It hurts people and communities. I bring up homelessness because from what I've seen and what studies show, its a concentrated center of abuse. Its where people have the most need for intervention. It's personal to me because I've it ruins communities.

[-] dipshit@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

[removed by mod]

[-] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 9 months ago

I bring up homelessness because its relatable to what ive seen personally and can see where rehabilitation can do the most good. To me, they arent too far from each other. It sucks seeing communities struggling with suffering, needles all over the place and what amounts to people looking like zombies in the street. It's sad and ruins communities. In the link I attached there is a correlation between homelessness and drug use. Without proper treatment and intervention many will OD and their issues will go unresolved. I don't understand what you mean by casual relationship. There clearly is a correlation from what I've read. Do you have any data to prove otherwise?

I guess the crux of the issue is I just simply don't think full legalization of all drugs is a good idea. Hard drugs are bad for the community at large you can take a look at these studies https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/05/30/as-fatal-overdoses-rise-many-americans-see-drug-addiction-as-a-major-problem-in-their-community/ If you have some links to studies I'll gladly take a look at them that say otherwise.

I like the idea of harm reduction but I think that's one step of the larger approach of dealing with drug addiction.

[-] Encode1307@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

There are plenty of addicts that seek out help without legal compulsion. I work in a treatment center in Portland and we have way more people seeking help than we can accommodate. Housing is the biggest problem, often people wouldn't need a residential treatment bed if they had adequate housing.

[-] tiredcapillary@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 9 months ago

I can get behind that. But also from the article it says that these people often don't seek out help either. To your point, housing is another part of the problem that these lawmakers failed to address.

this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024

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