I was in the city this month and it is very sad to see this first hand. I think this is why we need to legalize drugs and get these people help. I live north of San Francisco and the homeless problem is worse here too. It seems like the 2008 recession left a whole bunch of people unemployable and they are officially off the "books" now and out in the streets. This is just my observation but it seems like homelessness increased and not decreased and with unemployment % going down.
We need to REPORT the ISSUE with the city - use the "311" phone number to report people behaving suspiciously or who obviously need support. This generates METRICS.
Then, the CITY can use the metrics to justify ACTION. Politicians can feel "safe" by responsibly spending $$ beaucoup bucks $$ without fear of voter reprisal come election-time.
The PEOPLE can use the metrics to justify SOCIAL CHANGE. Why does the US face this problem? Is it because of our "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality? How can the US adopt a holistic social approach, to accept and respond healthily to the fact that some people have harder times than others? There needs to be a change in attitudes.
300 million were recently voted as an increase in the budget to solve this issue. If more money is the issue we should see a decrease as this enters the system.
But who are we kidding, it is not. A huge portion of them are too mentally ill to take proper care of them selves; A huge portion prefers the freedom and the drugs and another portion needs forced drug treatment.
But all we ever hear is more money is needed, never what that money should be spent on. Because we both know it won't be spend on more cops to arrest people who shit in public, to keep those arrested for drugs from the places they previously frequented, or to raize illegal homeless camps.
Yeah - our politicians can allocate the funds to implement the priorities requested by the citizens.
At the same time the citizens need to establish more holistic expectations around what their society is all about.
Materialism, identity defined by an individuals job, tribalism all help and hurt. I think we're missing a kind of consideration / a kind of subsystem in our societal system, resulting in the "unsolvable" situation we find ourselves in now. With a different perspective I think we could find new solutions.
I hate this kind of argument. "Oh no it's my money, I don't want to pay for these fuck ups, I pay for my own healthcare and I work hard". Dude, just help the people around you, don't tell me you couldn't leave with less money.
Everytime I bring up prop C here people tell me that spending more money on the problem won't improve anything, that these people are just never going to leave the streets and that they want to be there. The amount of bullshit people are willing to make up just so that they can live with the fact that there are people dying next to their tesla.
Do you think there might be a cultural issue as well? I think individuals might be hesitant to report offenses because it might make them feel like they're trash-shaming the homeless/neighbors. I know for myself that I hesitate to cause any ruckus, and let people be, but I think the residents of SF take that view to the 10th degree.
SF residents do take extreme stances sometimes, yes. Shaming a disadvantaged person seems unhelpful, to me.
Culturally I'm thinking about something which might not be what you were asking about -- the responsibility of the society to care for its disadvantaged or "ill fitting" citizens. US does have some programs to help but it's also famously still crushing large groups of its population.
Drugs are already completely legal for the underclass - basically, any and all petty crimes are. Our judges dismiss the citations (~65K in one case!), our juries acquit them, our DA refuses to prosecute them, and our cops don't bother at all anymore.
Legalization would provide some additional things, such as standard dose/strength/purity quality-control, i.e. people would know what they are buying and not get a suprise OD by a fentanyl cut that was not adequately mixed. It would also make it easier for treatment providers to operate, get insurance, take insurance/medicaid or cash payments without tainting themselves with "drug money" and potentially having their assets forfeited. In theory, taxes on the sales could fund treatment/recovery.
Legalize Meth? Some of the most utilized “gateway drugs” are already legal (opiods et al). The police rarely arrests homeless drug users, and there’s plenty of foundations to supoort them. I don’t think the issue has to do with legalization...
Legalization means non-leo intervention such as medical intervention and crises counseling. LEOs aren't interested in drug users because all they can do is arrest them which fixes nothing.
The issue with the legalization approach is lack of intervention infrastructure to help them.
Legalization also means they can use the existing support structures without worrying about being thrown in prison because of what they may have in their pockets.
Yes, we should legalize drugs like meth. We need to bring "hard" drug use "into the light". That's the whole idea behind safe injection sites - doctors can monitor the opioid user for respiratory depression, and have an opportunity to convince them to enroll in some sort of program. (disclaimer: I'm not GP)
Look no further than Portugal and their solution to heroin problem - decriminalization of drugs. This enables NGOs to work with people more easily, removes the stigma, provides access to save consumption sites and safer drugs, allows for funding of new drug-abuse programs (such as better access to anti-opioids for medical staff), etc...
it's not hard to figure out that whatever you're doing in the US is not working. I've been to SF and just walking past Tenderloin is not a preety sight.
Decriminalization of drugs in Portugal didn't result in reduced drug use. It resulted in significant reduced heroin use among youth (which was also reduced in the same time period in other countries that didn't decriminalize it), but that reduction was more than made up by increased rate of use of other drugs by the youth, especially ecstasy.
In the general Portugal population, since the decriminalization, cannabis use is increased, heroin use decreased (thought much less than it decreased among the youth, which means that it likely increased in older groups), cocaine use is increased, amphetamine use is basically the same, LSD use is increased, ecstasy use is increased, and hallucinogenic mushroom use is increased.
If drug decriminalization in Portugal led to increased total drug use, and increased heroin use among people over 35, why exactly you believe that doing the same in the US would solve any problems here?
One should compare against other countries that didn’t change their laws.
Increased use could be explained by increased availability that is independent of legality (eg: better smuggling routes or larger synthetic batches).
Anyways, reduced opiate use and increased use of the other drugs mentioned generally sounds like a win to me.
I’d also consider more widespread recreational use by previous non-users. I’m not sure if that’s a problem for the lower-dependence risk drugs mentioned.
In Germany, which didn't change its laws, prevalence of drug use fell during the same period.
Also note that it's significantly reduced opiate use among youth (15-34 y.o.): total opiate use only went down a little, which means that it likely has increased among people over 35.
Point is, even if overall drug problems decreased in Portugal (which is not clear to me at all, since total drug use increased), evidence that it's the decriminalization that helped, is flimsy at best.
Use increased, but did the problems associated with it increase or decrease? Taking drugs is not terrible in itself (except for your health and your wallet I guess), but the associated organized crime does a lot of harm.
Vancouver[1] does all of this, short of making drugs flat-out-legal, and it is currently in the middle of an overdose crisis (In addition to the homelessness crisis that you would expect when rents and home prices skyrocket.)
I don't think any solution short of the government/pharmacies selling/giving clean drugs to people with addictions (As long as they are actively attending counselling programs, that aren't one-size-fits-all 12-step nonsense) is going to work.
[1]
Also, a hospital bed to detox in is free, but good luck getting your shit together after you go through withdrawal.
In practice, given a person who wants to get clean, what works better than a 12-step program? I was under the impression that those were effective. Is the "higher power" thing what you are thinking of when you say "nonsense?" In many programs that is not specifically religious as much as it is admitting that your problem is bigger than yourself. And I think having a sponsor to help you through is a huge part of why these programs work.
I have never been through a 12-step process but I know a few people who have done it for alcohol and it works for them (I know, survivorship bias etc.)
We know that people with an opioid addiction need a medically assisted treatment programme for any real chance of sucess.
The evidence base for 12 step programmes isn't great.
Unfortunately the US has a load of wilderness-retreat style camps using some half-assed version of a 12 step program. They're very good at getting people's money and attention, but pretty poor at sucessful treatment.
Beth Macey has a good book about the Opioid Crisis and some of it is alarming.
> In practice, given a person who wants to get clean, what works better than a 12-step program?
For some people, it's fixing whatever drove them to a situation where shooting heroin into their arm is a better decision then not shooting heroin their your arm.
For other people, it's switching a dependency on a street drug to a dependency on a prescription drug.
Telling people that they have zero agency in their lives, and that only Jesus can magically cure them - definitely works for some people, but not for everyone.
AA has a success rate of, depending on which study you cite, between 5% and 25%, over doing nothing.
Vancouver has special problems to deal with, it is the only year-long livable city in Canada so a lot of people end up congregating here, additionally the housing market is absolutely bonkers.
There is no significant provided housing in the city and it's causing the problem to get much worse - decriminalizing drugs has helped quite a bit with street safety though.
Street safety from gangs and drug traffickers may be better, but property crime is up, and my friends bitch non-stop about used needles, and having to share public space with aggressive homeless people.
Also, 'All the homeless people moving to Vancouver' is a problem, but only a part of it. Most of the non-locals are from small dying towns in the BC interior. They aren't really suited, financially, to dealing with the social problems[1] that result - yet Vancouver would rather close its eyes, and pretend that they don't exist.
Even so, if we sent everyone who isn't originally from Vancouver back to the towns they came from, there would still be a catastrophe of homelessness, overdose deaths, etc.
[1] Yes, it would be much cheaper to provide housing for homeless persons, within their communities, instead of in the most expensive city in Canada. Sadly, nobody in Victoria seems to be keen on fixing this, on a province-wide level. The Liberals didn't care, and the NDP care, but aren't doing anything.
I’m not sure I understand how legalization would help. There’s nothing stopping access or use of these drugs now. Honest question: is any place enforcing drug laws against heroin, and is it making things worse somehow?
Intuitively it seems to me like the opposite would be better, if you could not get heroin you couldn’t get addicted to it. But my minimal understanding is it’s too easy to make for enforcement to be practical.
Legalization opens the door for constructive treatment and therapy options to step in, e.g. injection sites where users can inject safely with clean needles while being exposed to opportunities for treatment. Users have a higher likelihood of accepting help at places like this, versus something like drug court.
Correct, decriminalization is the answer, NOT legalization. Handing out free needles to addicts while suggesting that they stop is never going to get an addict off their drug.
I think a slightly less risky version of legalization would be to legalize selling buprenorphine/naltrexone (Suboxone) and extended-release methylphenidate under-the-counter at pharmacies without a prescription.
