Breakdown In Civil Order

[Jimmy Higgins]

A similar program already exists in San Francisco Tenderloin area that is a failure but by golly, the progressives will press ahead anyway;

Los Angeles could soon become one of three cities in California to provide supervised injection sites under legislation passed by the state Senate Monday and heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk. Newsom said in 2018 he was "very, very open" to the idea of a pilot program to allow legal drug injection sites, splitting with his predecessor Jerry Brown, who vetoed a similar bill that same year. The bill, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, passed the state Senate by a 21-11 vote Monday. It would allow the city and county of Los Angeles -- along with San Francisco and Oakland -- to provide spaces where people can consume pre-obtained drugs with provided clean needles. Trained professionals would be on site with supplies such as Narcan to assist in the event of an overdose.

News

Isn’t it better to help people get of these drugs than to encourage their drug dependency?

YES! Of course, chemical addiction has been around for centuries... so "encouraging" them to stop using drugs might be umm... what's the word.... hard to impossible? So when we recognize that chemical dependency exists and it can't easily be remediated, we look at remediating the costs to society of their chemical dependencies.

 

[Copernicus]

...You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

That's a bit vague. You seem to be suggesting that the government should just try to ignore addicts. Pretend they don't exist and that addiction is not a problem that needs to be dealt with. Is that what you are suggesting?

 

[Elixir]

...You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

That's a bit vague. You seem to be suggesting that the government should just try to ignore addicts. Pretend they don't exist and that addiction is not a problem that needs to be dealt with. Is that what you are suggesting?

I think not.
The Portugal model, again.
The money that would have been spent on prosecution and incarceration (or some fraction of that bloated amount the "war on drugs" costs), is instead spent on support systems.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A similar program already exists in San Francisco Tenderloin area that is a failure but by golly, the progressives will press ahead anyway;

Los Angeles could soon become one of three cities in California to provide supervised injection sites under legislation passed by the state Senate Monday and heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk. Newsom said in 2018 he was "very, very open" to the idea of a pilot program to allow legal drug injection sites, splitting with his predecessor Jerry Brown, who vetoed a similar bill that same year. The bill, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, passed the state Senate by a 21-11 vote Monday. It would allow the city and county of Los Angeles -- along with San Francisco and Oakland -- to provide spaces where people can consume pre-obtained drugs with provided clean needles. Trained professionals would be on site with supplies such as Narcan to assist in the event of an overdose.

News

Isn’t it better to help people get of these drugs than to encourage their drug dependency?

Except it doesn't work that way. Until somebody truly wants to be free of their addiction there's nothing to be done.

My wife does acupuncture, she's done some work with helping people quit smoking. (Note: Smoking is an addiction.) More than once I've seen her tell someone that they want to want to quit, but they don't truly want to quit, failure is inevitable and she won't take their money. (And before you criticize acupuncture as woo--when I described what she did to my mother--a psychologist--she immediately recognized that it was functionally identical with what she did to help people quit smoking and would be equally or more effective even if the needles did absolutely nothing. I'm sure the theory behind it is bunk but that doesn't mean that they haven't managed to evolve useful techniques even if they don't actually understand why they work.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Perhaps it's more a question of what form the discouragement takes. The traditional conservative form is prohibition--treating drug users as criminals and punishing them. That works to deter some people from trying drugs and to scare some addicts into trying to detox. Prohibition doesn't seem to make much of a dent in general drug use in the population. The alternative is treating addicts as people suffering an illness that requires medical attention. That works better with addicts who want to make the effort to fight the addiction. I assume that the injection sites try to steer users into voluntary detox programs and rehabilitative services. Proponents claim that decriminalization works better than prohibition and criminal punishment, because it does a better job of encouraging them to recover from their illness.

For an awful lot of people it's an escape from a bad life. You can't hope to cure them until you fix what drove them to drugs in the first place. Look what happened with Vietnam--a lot of soldiers used opium over there and then quit on their own when they came home. The horrors they were escaping were over, they didn't need it anymore and many just quit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

Taxpayer money to special interests???

Safe injection sites reduce ER and hospital use amongst addicts. They save money!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

...You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

That's a bit vague. You seem to be suggesting that the government should just try to ignore addicts. Pretend they don't exist and that addiction is not a problem that needs to be dealt with. Is that what you are suggesting?

I think not.
The Portugal model, again.
The money that would have been spent on prosecution and incarceration (or some fraction of that bloated amount the "war on drugs" costs), is instead spent on support systems.

This. And even if you don't spend it on support systems you save money overall because of reduced crime and reduced medical system use.

 

[Oleg]

You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

Taxpayer money to special interests???

Safe injection sites reduce ER and hospital use amongst addicts. They save money!

These drugs cause health problems which will lead the addicts to the hospital, anyway. Meth destroys the heart. Unclear how we save money by keeping addicts on drugs? How is an addict going to hold down a job or pay rent? Yet, taxpayers on hook to pay for all these services; and in some places, housing. If society has a responsibility to take care of these people, then these people have a responsibility to get better.

 

[Oleg]

...You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

That's a bit vague. You seem to be suggesting that the government should just try to ignore addicts. Pretend they don't exist and that addiction is not a problem that needs to be dealt with. Is that what you are suggesting?

I think not.
The Portugal model, again.
The money that would have been spent on prosecution and incarceration (or some fraction of that bloated amount the "war on drugs" costs), is instead spent on support systems.

This. And even if you don't spend it on support systems you save money overall because of reduced crime and reduced medical system use.

Portugal model is a good model. No prison for personal drug use but drugs still confiscated with goal of helping people.

 

[Copernicus]

...You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

That's a bit vague. You seem to be suggesting that the government should just try to ignore addicts. Pretend they don't exist and that addiction is not a problem that needs to be dealt with. Is that what you are suggesting?

I think not.
The Portugal model, again.
The money that would have been spent on prosecution and incarceration (or some fraction of that bloated amount the "war on drugs" costs), is instead spent on support systems.

This. And even if you don't spend it on support systems you save money overall because of reduced crime and reduced medical system use.

Portugal model is a good model. No prison for personal drug use but drugs still confiscated with goal of helping people.

Oleg, I guess you didn't understand my post, because The Portugal model is exactly what I was suggesting when I said "The alternative is treating addicts as people suffering an illness that requires medical attention..." You seemed to be suggesting that I wanted to somehow abet addiction, which is not at all what these safe injection sites are about. In Portugal, there is universal health care, which we don't have here, and drug use is still largely treated as a punishable crime. Portugal also provides addicts with clean needles and counseling. More recently, Portugal seems to have been trending back to more punitive measures, but I admit that I have not done a lot of research on what is happening in that small country. It isn't at all clear that the model will work well in the US, especially since our health care delivery system is extremely diverse, fragmented, and riddled with profit-driven barriers to health care.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

Taxpayer money to special interests???

Safe injection sites reduce ER and hospital use amongst addicts. They save money!

These drugs cause health problems which will lead the addicts to the hospital, anyway. Meth destroys the heart. Unclear how we save money by keeping addicts on drugs? How is an addict going to hold down a job or pay rent? Yet, taxpayers on hook to pay for all these services; and in some places, housing. If society has a responsibility to take care of these people, then these people have a responsibility to get better.

That post is a marvelous job at pretending to care about the addict, and then swiftly deviating from compassion and empathy and ending with... 'but why do I have to pay for it?' It stuffs so many right-wing troupes into one teeny tiny post. *slow clap*

 

[Elixir]

It isn't at all clear that the model will work well in the US, especially since our health care delivery system is extremely diverse, fragmented, and riddled with profit-driven barriers to health care.

I’d love to find out how well it would work. Whatever factors might keep it from working here are probably things we should address.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

Taxpayer money to special interests???

Safe injection sites reduce ER and hospital use amongst addicts. They save money!

These drugs cause health problems which will lead the addicts to the hospital, anyway. Meth destroys the heart. Unclear how we save money by keeping addicts on drugs? How is an addict going to hold down a job or pay rent? Yet, taxpayers on hook to pay for all these services; and in some places, housing. If society has a responsibility to take care of these people, then these people have a responsibility to get better.

The drugs will do the damage whether or not they have a safe injection site. Your "solution" of "treatment" is like trying to solve hunger by saying "eat".

 

[Copernicus]

You can decriminalize without abetting drug use. A bit cynical, but seems there’s little concern in actually helping people and instead growing government programs which transfer taxpayer money to special interests.

Taxpayer money to special interests???

Safe injection sites reduce ER and hospital use amongst addicts. They save money!

These drugs cause health problems which will lead the addicts to the hospital, anyway. Meth destroys the heart. Unclear how we save money by keeping addicts on drugs? How is an addict going to hold down a job or pay rent? Yet, taxpayers on hook to pay for all these services; and in some places, housing. If society has a responsibility to take care of these people, then these people have a responsibility to get better.

The drugs will do the damage whether or not they have a safe injection site. Your "solution" of "treatment" is like trying to solve hunger by saying "eat".

I'm having trouble understanding what either you or Oleg are proposing here. It seems to me that he agrees with you in opposing safe needle sites and that both of you seem to go back and forth on what you actually favor. Oleg seems upset with the cost of the social programs to address addiction, but I suppose that is to be expected if he thinks safe needle sites are counterproductive. But you've both endorsed the Portugal model, which, from what I've read, also provides addicts with social services like counseling, medical treatment, and clean needles for injection. So that doesn't seem all that far from what these liberal-backed injection sites that you object to are all about. Do you favor the Portugal model or not? Or am I missing something here? Just saying to "starve" to addicts doesn't seem to work, since that is what the government has been doing for years without making any progress in the "war on drugs".

 

[Derec]

The Windy City sounds fun;

At least four people are dead and 35 others are wounded in weekend shootings across the city as of Saturday. Two of the victims are under the age of 18.

A teen is shot while attempting to break into a vehicle on the 1100 block of East 52nd Street Friday. Four to five males were attempting to break into a parked vehicle around 7:58 p.m. when a woman, 34, owner of the vehicle, confronted the offenders at which time one of the offenders pointed a gun at the victim, according to police. The woman is a CCL holder who discharged a handgun striking one of the offenders. The offender, a 13-year-old boy, was transported to Comers Children's Hospital by the Chicago Fire Department in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the neck area.

News

Result.

Apparently, the kid, one Dion Young, has died from his injury.
Police: 13-year-old dies after he was shot by car owner during attempted break in

Should be felony murder charges for the robber who was actually holding the gun.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here in Seattle it gets worse by the day. There has been a homeless camp outside the county court house for may years. At one point an entrance was closed because of risk of assauly.

Murders have occurred in the camp. Recently a person from the camp tried to rape a courthouse worker in a bathroom.

Gun violence is rising. Apparently random shootings of cars on the highway.

The local county and city govt appears helpless and unable to make any hard decisions for fear of being labeled biased in any way.

Our apparent new district attorney elect says she wants to tare down the entire justice system.

Wat is it like where you live?

Do you feel safe looking forward?

Are you for traditional 'law and order' meaning police are there to prevent and pursue crime, or do you favor what is being called community policing or some form of it.

In Seattle community policing means letting communities and neighborhoods taking care of crime and drugs. No courts or criminal jounce except for extreme cases. No police except for special circumstances.

I live in Scandinavia. The way we deal with problems like this is that we give them all apartments, rehab and free education. Then somehow the problem goes away and these people become productive members of society. Perhaps try that?

 

[Hermit]

Here in Seattle it gets worse by the day. There has been a homeless camp outside the county court house for may years. At one point an entrance was closed because of risk of assauly.

Murders have occurred in the camp. Recently a person from the camp tried to rape a courthouse worker in a bathroom.

Gun violence is rising. Apparently random shootings of cars on the highway.

The local county and city govt appears helpless and unable to make any hard decisions for fear of being labeled biased in any way.

Our apparent new district attorney elect says she wants to tare down the entire justice system.

Wat is it like where you live?

Do you feel safe looking forward?

Are you for traditional 'law and order' meaning police are there to prevent and pursue crime, or do you favor what is being called community policing or some form of it.

In Seattle community policing means letting communities and neighborhoods taking care of crime and drugs. No courts or criminal jounce except for extreme cases. No police except for special circumstances.

I live in Scandinavia. The way we deal with problems like this is that we give them all apartments, rehab and free education. Then somehow the problem goes away and these people become productive members of society. Perhaps try that?

Commie!

 

[DrZoidberg]

Here in Seattle it gets worse by the day. There has been a homeless camp outside the county court house for may years. At one point an entrance was closed because of risk of assauly.

Murders have occurred in the camp. Recently a person from the camp tried to rape a courthouse worker in a bathroom.

Gun violence is rising. Apparently random shootings of cars on the highway.

The local county and city govt appears helpless and unable to make any hard decisions for fear of being labeled biased in any way.

Our apparent new district attorney elect says she wants to tare down the entire justice system.

Wat is it like where you live?

Do you feel safe looking forward?

Are you for traditional 'law and order' meaning police are there to prevent and pursue crime, or do you favor what is being called community policing or some form of it.

In Seattle community policing means letting communities and neighborhoods taking care of crime and drugs. No courts or criminal jounce except for extreme cases. No police except for special circumstances.

I live in Scandinavia. The way we deal with problems like this is that we give them all apartments, rehab and free education. Then somehow the problem goes away and these people become productive members of society. Perhaps try that?

Commie!

Yes, I'm so busted!

edit: It's also how they deal with it in Germany. And Holland and Switzerland. France. So it's not like this is just a cultural thing. It's a tried and tested method that works everywhere.

 

[Hermit]

Here in Seattle it gets worse by the day. There has been a homeless camp outside the county court house for may years. At one point an entrance was closed because of risk of assauly.

Murders have occurred in the camp. Recently a person from the camp tried to rape a courthouse worker in a bathroom.

Gun violence is rising. Apparently random shootings of cars on the highway.

The local county and city govt appears helpless and unable to make any hard decisions for fear of being labeled biased in any way.

Our apparent new district attorney elect says she wants to tare down the entire justice system.

Wat is it like where you live?

Do you feel safe looking forward?

Are you for traditional 'law and order' meaning police are there to prevent and pursue crime, or do you favor what is being called community policing or some form of it.

In Seattle community policing means letting communities and neighborhoods taking care of crime and drugs. No courts or criminal jounce except for extreme cases. No police except for special circumstances.

I live in Scandinavia. The way we deal with problems like this is that we give them all apartments, rehab and free education. Then somehow the problem goes away and these people become productive members of society. Perhaps try that?

Commie!

Yes, I'm so busted!

edit: It's also how they deal with it in Germany. And Holland and Switzerland. France. So it's not like this is just a cultural thing. It's a tried and tested method that works everywhere.

Yabbut these countries turn citizens into subjects of tyrannous governments!

The price of freedom is leaving the homeless and millions of other disadvantaged people to wallow in their misery.

 

[Swammerdami]

The right likes Chicago, but not states. By far and away the state with the highest rate is Louisiana. A very red and very Christian state.

Louisiana is so very red that the governor is a Democrat.
Besides, the the high crime rate is in cities like NOLA. And NOLA is very, very blue. As in, the mayor and all members of the city council are Democrats. And it is 4th by murder rate, only behind St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit (all Democratic strongholds).
Baton Rouge (#5) is more of a mixed bag. Mostly Democratic mayors(uninterrupted since 2005) for sure, but more a mixed city council.

Most stats presented this way are opportunities for spinning or cherry-picking, rather than a quest for knowledge.

But that can be fun! Let's see how I can do!

Louisiana sends 8 Congresscritters to Washington DC; 7 of the 8 are GOP. The state Senate is 27-12 GOP; the lower House is 64-33 GOP; and the Lieut. Governor is GOP. So yes, Louisiana is rather Red.

Derec mentions St. Louis, Baltimore and Detroit. Detroit is in Michigan where both legislative houses are controlled by GOP; St. Louis is in Missouri which is completely dominated by GOP; and Baltimore is in Maryland where both Governor and Lieut. Governor are GOP. Now THAT'S how to cherrypick! Oklahoma, one of the Reddest states of all, also scores high in crime stats.

Ballotpedia provides a list of U.S. Mayors. There are 36 U.S. Cities with a population more than 500,000; of these five have Republican mayors:

• Jacksonville, Florida
• Fort Worth, Texas
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• Fresno, California
• Mesa, Arizona

Using  List of United States cities by crime rate, let's see how the five QOPAnon Utopia cities compare with two big Marxist shit-holes using Wikipedia's 'Total property crime rate':

3,841.40 Fresno
3,752.51 Oklahoma City
3,526.68 Jacksonville
3,215.32 Fort Worth
2,171.99 Mesa
1,842.97 San Diego
1,448.59 New York

Oooops! Fresno, the QOPAnon utopia snuggled in the California hellhole, along with Oklahoma City, had over 2.5 times the property crime rate of New York City. Let's look at 'Total violent crime rate':

787.34 Oklahoma City
631.32 Jacksonville
565.00 Fresno
560.21 Fort Worth
538.90 New York
415.83 Mesa
366.61 San Diego

Uh oh. Derec had better go back to the drawing board.