The time has come to cut Oregon's losses and repeal the catastrophic mistake that is Measure 110.
The seemingly unstoppable flood of fentanyl and meth makes a farce of all those nuanced philosophical justifications for decriminalizing the personal use of drugs. There is no such thing as a highly functioning meth or fentanyl addict. Meth and fentanyl destroy the individual. The high number of addicts and dealers on the streets are destroying parts of downtown Portland while sending shockwaves throughout the city.
As if this dystopian reality weren't bad enough, Measure 110's treatment provisions are fatally flawed. That is because they require that all funds for treatment be spent in accordance with harm reduction principles. Now, recent reporting shows that some M110 dollars are being spent on programs that have nothing to do with actual treatment for drug use. Instead they are being spent on community development and similar ends. If that isn't an illegal diversion of treatment funds, it should be.
Be that as it may, harm reduction is an antisocial form of activism that is bad for the community and bad for the user. Advocates for harm reduction pride themselves on their neutrality on drug use and addiction. "No judgment." In fact, that very abdication of a sense of right and wrong is what’s responsible for so much personal suffering and death among addicts and even casual users. Rejection of morality is not a bug; it is one of the principal features of harm reduction. In the harm reductionist's lexicon, "morality" is a dirty word.
Furthermore, harm reductionists' purported moral neutrality on drugs masks their extreme hostility to the moral values that produce healthy societies. The following quote from the Australian sociologist Helen Keane reveals how insanely and contemptuously out of touch harm reduction ideology is with the values of most Americans:
"Government strategies which aim to produce a population of healthy, enterprising and productive citizens, clearly require scrutiny AND ACTIVE FORMS OF RESISTANCE because they subjectify individuals and limit the possibility of different forms of existence." [1] (Emphasis added.)
If harm reductionists' coded double-talk doesn't sit quite right, it's because it is coming from a movement that actively resists the unenlightened majority's desire to see addicts become healthy, enterprising and productive people once again. Unfortunately, addiction is such a nightmare for addicts, their loved ones and the sober public under Measure 110 precisely because harm reductionists are hell bent on finding and honoring the miserable limits of Keane's "other forms of existence."
Harm reduction abets addiction while stigmatizing recovery and sobriety. What Oregon needs are treatment programs that promote detox, rehab and sobriety.
Shouldn't we respect the will of the voters who approved M110? Deals made under false pretenses are not binding. Measure 110's advocates misleadingly sold the initiative as a way to end prosecutions and incarceration for possession of drugs. The truth is that Oregon district attorneys long ago stopped prosecuting simple possession.
Yes, Measure 110's rollout was a catastrophe, but even if it had been implemented flawlessly the mechanism for referring users to treatment - which was one of the major selling points during the campaign - is an outrageously expensive failure because users face no real consequences for failing to follow through with an evaluation and referral.
Besides, because harm reduction is Oregon's drug policy, none of the coercive measures that Portugal employs in its decriminalization scheme to discourage drug use and promote sobriety could ever be implemented in Oregon. Harm reductionists wouldn't stand for it.
Invoking the war on drugs has outlived its usefulness as a tool for silencing and shaming advocates for reasonable drug control. In case the progressive advocates for decriminalization and legalization hadn't noticed, there is no longer a war on drugs. Drugs have declared war on us.
Now is the time for action to repeal Measure 110 as soon as possible.
You can't compare the two. Portugal had the infrastructure and outreach in place before they decriminalized drugs. Oregon has opened one new program in thirty four months while in the mean time we have had the largest increase in overdoses in deaths in state history.
Also, the Portuguese model includes a series of gradually escalating coercive measures that are intended to force drug users to stop using drugs.
You see, Portugal, unlike Oregon, doesn't take a brainless "no judgment" approach to drug use within the society.
The Portuguese recognize that the use of addictive drugs is BAD.
In contrast, harm reductionists totally reject the idea of making value judgments about addiction. Their ideology does not recognize society's right to take a stand and say that the use of addictive drugs is WRONG. As a result, the default position is that it's perfectly OK for anyone to decide to use addictive drugs. A society can't be run that way.
The mere testing of drugs for adulterants is not the problem.
The problem is the harmful ideology of harm reduction.
There's no consideration for addiction's impact on society, including families and the quality of life of the community.
There's the fiction that addicts have autonomy (they don't - drugs have stolen it).
There's the nonsensical idea that addicts are capable of managing their own lives competently. Meth and fentanyl make sure that they can't.
There's the demand that society must stupidly withhold judgment when people's drug use is clearly harming them and imposing very real costs on society. I'll be goddamned if I am going to go along with that.
There's the counterproductive messaging campaign to destigmatize drug use that doesn't make a distinction between weed, on the one hand, and heroin, meth and fentanyl, on the other hand.
There's the perverse attack on the legitimacy of morality, which leads to stigmatizing efforts to prevent people from using drugs and stigmatizing efforts to promote sobriety.
Some people are so credulous open-minded that their brains have fallen out. The rest of us need to work to get out of the hole that M110 and the meth/fentanyl epidemic have placed us in.
Also, it is impossible to compare Oregon and Portugal's experiments in decriminalization. That's because Portugal uses a series of escalating coercive measures to force users to quit. That could never happen in Oregon because harm reduction activists wouldn't stand for it.
This is shocking and so sad. The people who are facilitating this seem so removed from reality. I ache for the souls who are enveloped by their addiction and are only being enabled and pushed towards their own destruction. What can be done to end this?
Have a search for Mena, Arkansas and Barry Seal. This is only one instance. Obama’s “Fast n furious” scandal was the US government trading guns for drugs. The crack epidemic in the 80s was government caused. The government is working both sides of the fence. There are many more examples that the government is importing drugs. The Afghanistan war was for opium. The Iran contras and Manuel Noriega all drug related. Human trafficking is about drugs too. Look at what’s going on in Ecuador. The government has been caught red handed. Anyone with eyes to see the writing on the wall. We have a spiritual sickness in America. Nothing is what it seems and nothing is done for anyone’s good. The authoritarians push fear and division because their intent is not good. They don’t need more control over anything, they need less. No thank you on that. I’ll take my own sovereignty any day.
Recently I picked a fentanyl overdose prevention kit up from a sidewalk in Seattle. The poster in it is similar to the heroin one Kevin posted above--not as bad in terms of telling the person how to use the drug, but as bad in terms of not saying anything to support the person trying to stop using the drug.
I agree addicts need help, but the system depends on drug addicts for it to survive, but I also believe that we must err on the side of freedom when taking things into account. The government has no right to tell anyone what they can or cannot put into their body. Currently. the very highest levels of government are paying to have drugs imported into the country. This is why well known drug lords, like el chapo are kept in ADMAX Florence, Colorado. He knows state secrets.
The government capitalizes on the $trillions in black budget drug revenue and drugs give it a reason to spy on all communications in the name of "law enforcement." There is an entire industry built around prisons. Everyone makes money from many angles; prison unions, municipalities, private prisons, cops (via civil asset forfeiture, even though it may be legit cash not involved with drugs), courts, rehabs, hospitals, methadone, drug and alcohol programs, social work, etc. It also ensures votes for rigged elections. I say decriminalize drugs and stop paying social security and income tax too
This is some of the dumbest shit I've ever read. Harm reduction literally is social justice, always has been. People are going to continue to use drugs, harm reduction saves lives and prevents diseases like HIV or HEP C. Portugal decriminalized drugs, used harm reduction services and now they have one of the lowest drug rates in the world.
So much misinformation in one page. Pure horse shit.
Portugal seems to be a successful model and the reason why is they had the infrastructure and outreach in place before they decriminalized drugs. Oregon was unprepared. I will always support needle exchange to prevent HIV or Hep C, but handing a fentanyl addict straws and foil is inhumane.
The time has come to cut Oregon's losses and repeal the catastrophic mistake that is Measure 110.
The seemingly unstoppable flood of fentanyl and meth makes a farce of all those nuanced philosophical justifications for decriminalizing the personal use of drugs. There is no such thing as a highly functioning meth or fentanyl addict. Meth and fentanyl destroy the individual. The high number of addicts and dealers on the streets are destroying parts of downtown Portland while sending shockwaves throughout the city.
As if this dystopian reality weren't bad enough, Measure 110's treatment provisions are fatally flawed. That is because they require that all funds for treatment be spent in accordance with harm reduction principles. Now, recent reporting shows that some M110 dollars are being spent on programs that have nothing to do with actual treatment for drug use. Instead they are being spent on community development and similar ends. If that isn't an illegal diversion of treatment funds, it should be.
Be that as it may, harm reduction is an antisocial form of activism that is bad for the community and bad for the user. Advocates for harm reduction pride themselves on their neutrality on drug use and addiction. "No judgment." In fact, that very abdication of a sense of right and wrong is what’s responsible for so much personal suffering and death among addicts and even casual users. Rejection of morality is not a bug; it is one of the principal features of harm reduction. In the harm reductionist's lexicon, "morality" is a dirty word.
Furthermore, harm reductionists' purported moral neutrality on drugs masks their extreme hostility to the moral values that produce healthy societies. The following quote from the Australian sociologist Helen Keane reveals how insanely and contemptuously out of touch harm reduction ideology is with the values of most Americans:
"Government strategies which aim to produce a population of healthy, enterprising and productive citizens, clearly require scrutiny AND ACTIVE FORMS OF RESISTANCE because they subjectify individuals and limit the possibility of different forms of existence." [1] (Emphasis added.)
If harm reductionists' coded double-talk doesn't sit quite right, it's because it is coming from a movement that actively resists the unenlightened majority's desire to see addicts become healthy, enterprising and productive people once again. Unfortunately, addiction is such a nightmare for addicts, their loved ones and the sober public under Measure 110 precisely because harm reductionists are hell bent on finding and honoring the miserable limits of Keane's "other forms of existence."
Harm reduction abets addiction while stigmatizing recovery and sobriety. What Oregon needs are treatment programs that promote detox, rehab and sobriety.
Shouldn't we respect the will of the voters who approved M110? Deals made under false pretenses are not binding. Measure 110's advocates misleadingly sold the initiative as a way to end prosecutions and incarceration for possession of drugs. The truth is that Oregon district attorneys long ago stopped prosecuting simple possession.
Yes, Measure 110's rollout was a catastrophe, but even if it had been implemented flawlessly the mechanism for referring users to treatment - which was one of the major selling points during the campaign - is an outrageously expensive failure because users face no real consequences for failing to follow through with an evaluation and referral.
Besides, because harm reduction is Oregon's drug policy, none of the coercive measures that Portugal employs in its decriminalization scheme to discourage drug use and promote sobriety could ever be implemented in Oregon. Harm reductionists wouldn't stand for it.
Invoking the war on drugs has outlived its usefulness as a tool for silencing and shaming advocates for reasonable drug control. In case the progressive advocates for decriminalization and legalization hadn't noticed, there is no longer a war on drugs. Drugs have declared war on us.
Now is the time for action to repeal Measure 110 as soon as possible.
[1] Keane, Helen. "Critiques of harm reduction, morality and the promise of human rights." International Journal of Drug Policy 14 (2003) 227–232; 231-32. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395902001512
Harm reduction would test drugs for fentanyl and reduce overdoses. Please use logic. Portugal decriminialised drugs now look at the stats over there.
You can't compare the two. Portugal had the infrastructure and outreach in place before they decriminalized drugs. Oregon has opened one new program in thirty four months while in the mean time we have had the largest increase in overdoses in deaths in state history.
Also, the Portuguese model includes a series of gradually escalating coercive measures that are intended to force drug users to stop using drugs.
You see, Portugal, unlike Oregon, doesn't take a brainless "no judgment" approach to drug use within the society.
The Portuguese recognize that the use of addictive drugs is BAD.
In contrast, harm reductionists totally reject the idea of making value judgments about addiction. Their ideology does not recognize society's right to take a stand and say that the use of addictive drugs is WRONG. As a result, the default position is that it's perfectly OK for anyone to decide to use addictive drugs. A society can't be run that way.
The mere testing of drugs for adulterants is not the problem.
The problem is the harmful ideology of harm reduction.
There's no consideration for addiction's impact on society, including families and the quality of life of the community.
There's the fiction that addicts have autonomy (they don't - drugs have stolen it).
There's the nonsensical idea that addicts are capable of managing their own lives competently. Meth and fentanyl make sure that they can't.
There's the demand that society must stupidly withhold judgment when people's drug use is clearly harming them and imposing very real costs on society. I'll be goddamned if I am going to go along with that.
There's the counterproductive messaging campaign to destigmatize drug use that doesn't make a distinction between weed, on the one hand, and heroin, meth and fentanyl, on the other hand.
There's the perverse attack on the legitimacy of morality, which leads to stigmatizing efforts to prevent people from using drugs and stigmatizing efforts to promote sobriety.
Some people are so credulous open-minded that their brains have fallen out. The rest of us need to work to get out of the hole that M110 and the meth/fentanyl epidemic have placed us in.
Also, it is impossible to compare Oregon and Portugal's experiments in decriminalization. That's because Portugal uses a series of escalating coercive measures to force users to quit. That could never happen in Oregon because harm reduction activists wouldn't stand for it.
This is shocking and so sad. The people who are facilitating this seem so removed from reality. I ache for the souls who are enveloped by their addiction and are only being enabled and pushed towards their own destruction. What can be done to end this?
https://apnews.com/general-news-8d38935c5df89766049359a1c8a8aea6
Have a search for Mena, Arkansas and Barry Seal. This is only one instance. Obama’s “Fast n furious” scandal was the US government trading guns for drugs. The crack epidemic in the 80s was government caused. The government is working both sides of the fence. There are many more examples that the government is importing drugs. The Afghanistan war was for opium. The Iran contras and Manuel Noriega all drug related. Human trafficking is about drugs too. Look at what’s going on in Ecuador. The government has been caught red handed. Anyone with eyes to see the writing on the wall. We have a spiritual sickness in America. Nothing is what it seems and nothing is done for anyone’s good. The authoritarians push fear and division because their intent is not good. They don’t need more control over anything, they need less. No thank you on that. I’ll take my own sovereignty any day.
Recently I picked a fentanyl overdose prevention kit up from a sidewalk in Seattle. The poster in it is similar to the heroin one Kevin posted above--not as bad in terms of telling the person how to use the drug, but as bad in terms of not saying anything to support the person trying to stop using the drug.
I agree addicts need help, but the system depends on drug addicts for it to survive, but I also believe that we must err on the side of freedom when taking things into account. The government has no right to tell anyone what they can or cannot put into their body. Currently. the very highest levels of government are paying to have drugs imported into the country. This is why well known drug lords, like el chapo are kept in ADMAX Florence, Colorado. He knows state secrets.
The government capitalizes on the $trillions in black budget drug revenue and drugs give it a reason to spy on all communications in the name of "law enforcement." There is an entire industry built around prisons. Everyone makes money from many angles; prison unions, municipalities, private prisons, cops (via civil asset forfeiture, even though it may be legit cash not involved with drugs), courts, rehabs, hospitals, methadone, drug and alcohol programs, social work, etc. It also ensures votes for rigged elections. I say decriminalize drugs and stop paying social security and income tax too
Please provide proof of these extraordinary assertions.
Ask the author to do so first of this horseshit essay.
This is some of the dumbest shit I've ever read. Harm reduction literally is social justice, always has been. People are going to continue to use drugs, harm reduction saves lives and prevents diseases like HIV or HEP C. Portugal decriminalized drugs, used harm reduction services and now they have one of the lowest drug rates in the world.
So much misinformation in one page. Pure horse shit.
Portugal seems to be a successful model and the reason why is they had the infrastructure and outreach in place before they decriminalized drugs. Oregon was unprepared. I will always support needle exchange to prevent HIV or Hep C, but handing a fentanyl addict straws and foil is inhumane.
I might add, the system isn't worth saving.
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