Oregon voters passed the measure in 2020, but have changed their minds regarding the decriminalization of heroin, meth, cocaine, and fentanyl in Oregon.
I voted for decriminalization in CA not understanding the ramifications. Cops told me the vote took away an important tool they possessed - pushing addicts toward treatment. And I had no idea that the relatively harmless weed of my youth is not the same with genetically/chemically modified plants. As Alex Berenson has written about, they are addictive and dangerous. Yesterday, I drove down a main boulevard where a man slept naked on the sidewalk. This no longer phases me, but I wonder what tourists on tour buses must think. Tour buses hawk seeing the glamorous life of LA. It is time for them to change their ads to hawk the dark side of LA. And to add one more tidbit, the uptick in homelessness came with Obamacare. Drug addicts would be flown into the state with promises of addiction recovery. However, these centers were not properly regulated, and when the insurance ran out, so did the shelter over their head. A local newspaper did a great expose on this years ago. But with Covid, such journalism got kicked to sidewalk as well.
Unfortunately, allowing/denying access to narcotics is are real problem, not a phony problem (like trans genocide and systemic racism). There seems to be no simple solution. Allowing a large segment of the population to get addicted to drugs that kill them and/or make them crazy is too big a disaster to just allow it to happen.
But what is the alternative? Give the cops and politicians ever more power and money to fight a war that can't be won, while drug cartels cause mass murder and chaos in poor countries? I'm sure of one thing, I don't know the answer. And if I did, the government wouldn't be interested in hearing it.
I lean Libertarian so that’s why I voted for decriminalization. But I didn’t realize the grow of the homeless industrial complex. Years ago I heard a non profit guy argue that their salaries needed to be on par with the profit industry. At the time it seem to make sense. Now I see what an error it was. Too much money has entered the space
I voted for decriminalization in CA not understanding the ramifications. Cops told me the vote took away an important tool they possessed - pushing addicts toward treatment. And I had no idea that the relatively harmless weed of my youth is not the same with genetically/chemically modified plants. As Alex Berenson has written about, they are addictive and dangerous. Yesterday, I drove down a main boulevard where a man slept naked on the sidewalk. This no longer phases me, but I wonder what tourists on tour buses must think. Tour buses hawk seeing the glamorous life of LA. It is time for them to change their ads to hawk the dark side of LA. And to add one more tidbit, the uptick in homelessness came with Obamacare. Drug addicts would be flown into the state with promises of addiction recovery. However, these centers were not properly regulated, and when the insurance ran out, so did the shelter over their head. A local newspaper did a great expose on this years ago. But with Covid, such journalism got kicked to sidewalk as well.
Unfortunately, allowing/denying access to narcotics is are real problem, not a phony problem (like trans genocide and systemic racism). There seems to be no simple solution. Allowing a large segment of the population to get addicted to drugs that kill them and/or make them crazy is too big a disaster to just allow it to happen.
But what is the alternative? Give the cops and politicians ever more power and money to fight a war that can't be won, while drug cartels cause mass murder and chaos in poor countries? I'm sure of one thing, I don't know the answer. And if I did, the government wouldn't be interested in hearing it.
I lean Libertarian so that’s why I voted for decriminalization. But I didn’t realize the grow of the homeless industrial complex. Years ago I heard a non profit guy argue that their salaries needed to be on par with the profit industry. At the time it seem to make sense. Now I see what an error it was. Too much money has entered the space