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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2741 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 1, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Aside: I would post this in the main CW thread but it's Sunday and don't want it to get lost when the thread rolls over. So I'll just do a lower effort slightly trashier post here.

HAS LIBERALISM PEAKED IN OREGON?(!)

In 2020, the state of Oregon passed a referendum, ballot Measure 110, which decriminalized all drugs(!) with a vote of 58% in favor.

Voters in Oregon (such as myself) believed this was the path to enlightened drug policy, being informed by the revered Portugal model. Tacked onto the referendum was a bit of social justice theory as well: the police would be required to document in detail the race of anyone they stopped from now on for any reason. To ensure the police weren't disproportionately harassing the, say, 5 black people who live in Oregon. (okay okay they're 2.3% of the population)

The ensuing data was an almost perfect A/B test, the kind you'd run with no shame over which kind of font improved e-commerce site checkout conversions. By 2023, Oregon's drug overdose rate was well outpacing the rest of the country, so much so that the police officers regularly Narcan with them and revive people splayed out in public parks. Sometimes the same person from week to week. It's true this coincides with the fentanyl epidemic, which could confound the data and have bumped up overdoses everywhere but that wouldn't explain alone why deaths have especially increased in Oregon. The timing fits M110.

Anyway! At some point someone decided to compare notes with Portugal's system. Some stark differences!

https://gooddrugpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/PortugalvOregon1.pdf

Briefly, Portugal uses a carrot and stick model with a lot of negative incentive, whereas Oregon just kinda writes a $100 ticket and suggests calling a hotline for your raging drug problem maybe lol.

In the first 15 months after Measure 110 took effect, state auditors found, only 119 people called the state’s 24-hour hotline. That meant the cost of operating the hotline amounted to roughly $7,000 per call. The total number of callers as of early December of last year had only amounted to 943.

The absence of stick appears to not be very effective in encouraging users to seek treatment.

Are the kids having fun at least? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/31/health/portland-oregon-drugs.html (paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/fHxWk)

“Portland [not Portugal, just to be clear --ed] is a homeless drug addict’s slice of paradise,” said Noah Nethers, who was living with his girlfriend in a bright orange tent on the sidewalk against a fence of a church, where they shoot and smoke both fentanyl and meth.

Yes. At least, that's the brightest part of the article. The rest is pretty depressing and sad and sickening and worrisome.

After a few years of this, the Oregon legislature yesterday finished voting to re-criminalize drugs.

The NYT again: https://archive.ph/3zksH

Critics are out in force, arguing that the legislature overrode the will of voters (remember it was passed by referendum) and that the state sabotaged the program by not efficiently distributing treatment resources to addicts. This poster believes the low uptake and missing negative incentives prove that drug harm reduction is not primarily about access to treatment, but about incentive not to use.

The governor has indicated that she would sign.

tbh I'm surprised Oregon repealed this so quickly. Has liberalism peaked in Oregon?

As someone who voted for the referendum back in 2020, I'm a little sad that some of the overdose deaths are on my hands. Kind of. Like 1 millionth of the overdose deaths perhaps. It's good to run experiments though, right? This was a pretty good experiment. We at least have an upper bound on how liberal a drug policy we should pursue.

Aside: I would post this in the main CW thread but it's Sunday and don't want it to get lost when the thread rolls over. So I'll just do a lower effort slightly trashier post here.

I understand where you're coming from, but this post is a poor fit for this thread: per the title, there's nothing "fun" about a huge spike in overdose deaths.

Fair enough, perhaps my sense of humor is too dark and absurdist. Should I delete?

It's probably too late now that there are comments on the post.

Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse have made the point more than once that American progressives often cite Portugal as an example of drug decriminalisation done right, and yet the decriminalisation policies implemented in American cities are often much more extreme than in Portugal. I can't remember where but they interviewed a Portuguese cop and asked him "what would happen if a man was openly injecting heroin on the street in Portugal?" The cop replied "oh, he'd be arrested, immediately". My understanding is that this is not what happens in San Francisco.

I first wanted to write "It's like this with almost everything in EU vs America" but actually, it's like this with absolutely everything. People just want to take the parts they like and ignore those they don't, even if they work together or worse, the latter are the ones keeping the society running. Schools yes please, but requiring kids to go is mean; Universities yes please, but testing aptitude is mean; Generous welfare yes please, but having to look for work as a requirement is mean, and so on.

Aside: I would post this in the main CW thread but it's Sunday and don't want it to get lost when the thread rolls over

We should post a CW thread every two days and take it down once it's four days old. That way we can eliminate the discontinuity on Sunday. Mods, please get on it.

Anyway! At some point someone decided to compare notes with Portugal's system. Some stark differences!

https://gooddrugpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/PortugalvOregon1.pdf

And yet the use trend in both places is increasing.

I'd definitely prefer for this content go in one of the CW threads. Maybe wait a day?

Not a fan of the every two days suggestion; it's better to have things in one place.

Yes that's the irony of it. The Portugal model is still not a shining example.

As someone who voted for the referendum back in 2020, I'm a little sad that some of the overdose deaths are on my hands. Kind of. Like 1 millionth of the overdose deaths perhaps. It's good to run experiments though, right? This was a pretty good experiment. We at least have an upper bound on how liberal a drug policy we should pursue.

Doing the math, you're responsible for 26 minutes of each casualty's life. Pretty okay trade for advancing humanity's knowledge about what policies are effective.

That's a bargain. A paltry price to pay, if it's a price at all and not a bonus.

Drug-related decriminalization is something that intersects between libertarians and the progressive left. However, libertarians are more on board with the notion that more liberty may mean less protection of some people from themselves. Libertarians would also be more comfortable with addressing and punishing drug addicts if and when such addicts violate the non-aggression principle in terrorizing others in public or private spaces.

One can't try-out small bites of lax drug-law omelettes if one can't accept losing a few dregs.

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