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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   31395 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 30, 2024

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And the US drug prohibition has not, regardless of your protestations, covered itself in glory.

Decriminalization has been a disaster. The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020. The data cuts off, but it's even worse now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_drug_overdose_death_rates_and_totals_over_time

Over 100,000 people died due to overdoses in the United States last year.

And of course the negative effects of the War on Drugs are highly overstated as well.

The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020.

That is not the time window over which hard drug decriminalization occurred for a small portion of the national population. In fact that time window is so much wider that I accept this as evidence that unrelated social trends are swamping the data.

"Deaths of despair" from opiates blow up in regions across the country. Mostly in areas that certainly didn't legalize recreational fentanyl. I'm blaming something other than Oregon state law.

Decriminalization has been a disaster. The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020. The data cuts off, but it's even worse now.

It's impossible to untangle recent decrim efforts from the recently increased popularity of fentanyl if you are looking at OD rate as a metric -- it is just much easier to OD on, and I'd argue that the popularity (which we are probably now stuck with) was a direct result of the WOD enforcement regime.

I agree that fentanyl is the biggest cause.

But, c'mon, the overdose rate in places that decriminalized has spiked by huge amounts. In King County, where I live, deaths TRIPLED between 2019 and 2023. In 2023, one in 1700 people in King County died of an overdose. This is massive.

https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/health-safety/medical-examiner/reports-dashboards/overdose-deaths-dashboard

What changed after 2019? Fentanyl was already out there. The difference was open air drug markets with ZERO enforcement.

In good news, deaths will be lower in 2024 than in 2023. And, as coincidence would have it, when I drive by 12th and Jackson now, there are only a handful of junkies, not the 100 or so that used to congregate there. Drug enforcement works.

It's right there on page 1 -- non-fentanyl-involved ODs are flat.

I haven't been to Seattle lately, but just north in Vancouver there have been lightly enforced open-air drug-marts for decades. I think Portland too? Decriminalization is just a recognition of the de facto situation -- as such it doesn't really change things much. Actual legalization such that the drug supply is not left in the hands of brutal smuggling gangs might help -- but I think it's probably too late now that the hardcore opiates users are hooked on fentanyl in particular, and actively prefer it to other less finicky opiates. This intractable situation came about entirely because fentanyl is easier/cheaper to smuggle -- which is a direct result of the War on Drugs.

Actual legalization would alleviate accidental fentanyl overdoses because they are due to insufficiently good manufacturing. There's plenty of margin between a dose which gets you high and a dose which kills you if you can get a consistent dose.

I know that New York City has had an issue with unlicensed weed shops. The licensed weed shops have complained that because of their higher expenses that stem from obtaining and maintaining a license, they can’t compete with the unlicensed.

I wonder how much actual legalization would alleviate accidental fentanyl overdoses, given the huge problem with fentanyl is it is so cheap to produce. It winds up in all sorts of other drugs as it is a cost-effective way to boost another drug’s high. Could the cost of actually-legalized drugs be brought down enough that people shy away from street drugs like most would currently with bathtub gin?

Could the cost of actually-legalized drugs be brought down enough that people shy away from street drugs like most would currently with bathtub gin?

Not sure about cocaine (or LSD I guess -- neither are prescribed very much), but prescription versions of all the other popular ones are already way cheaper than the street versions. (not including marijuana of course, since it's roughly as hard to grow as lettuce and various regulations tend to make the official versions more expensive to produce than the ways the black market has already figured out)

I know that New York City has had an issue with unlicensed weed shops. The licensed weed shops have complained that because of their higher expenses that stem from obtaining and maintaining a license, they can’t compete with the unlicensed.

Licensing isn't legalization. Licensing is making something illegal unless you have special permission from the state to do it. New York's City process to get that special permission is hugely expensive but their enforcement is terrible, hence the illegal shops.

But you do need a license to sell alcohol, and to make alcohol for commercial purposes — there is all kinds of regulation. Why is no one going blind from bathtub gin?

Because alcohol licensing isn't quite costly enough to make bathtub gin look attractive to customers.

How many people are too stupid to read and follow the directions?

Hundreds of people OD on Tylenol every year in the US. I cannot imagine the carnage that would result from OTC fentanyl.

How many people are too stupid to read and follow the directions?

It's easier than measuring a dose of heroin, which druggies manage without instructions all the time.

Hundreds of people OD on Tylenol every year in the US.

Mostly deliberately.

Is that the fault of decriminalization? Rates have basically only gone up since 1979.

Oregon’s policy was a disaster, but didn’t exactly show up in overdose deaths. Take that result with a tiny, but still incredibly lethal, grain of fent. It still suggests that the 2400% insanity isn’t due to decriminalization. No, people are just doing harder stuff, whether or not they can get arrested for it.

I can't find the article at the moment but I believe overdose deaths in Oregon exceeded the rest of the country during the measure 110 period.

Decriminalization has been a disaster. The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020.

Which includes a large part of the drug war. Which hasn't stopped.

The overdose death rate increased by 2,400% between 1980 and 2020

When prohibition was in full effect across the united states?

This just suggests that prohibition or no prohibition is largely drowned out by other factors in terms of the harms inflicted by drugs

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