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Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by jyrkesh on Friday August 23, 2019 @02:39PM (#20780986)
I had a conversation with someone the other day who made many of the same arguments as you. I agreed with some of it--namely that around safe injection, harm reduction, methadone (et al) clinics, etc.--but I had a hard time stomaching the idea that "housing first" was a good idea, in that if you take a drug addict and put them in a home, they're still a drug addict who can't contribute meaningfully to society.

Would you mind pointing to some of those studies/evidence so I can be a little more informed about the whole thing?

EDIT: Found one further down, but would love to see any others you have: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.94.4...

Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by adt2bt on Friday August 23, 2019 @02:50PM (#20781136)
On the flip side, I have a hard time imagining how a homeless drug addict will be able to kick drugs while on the street and then somehow find a house and then become a 'meaningful' member of society without support. They basically have two problems: no house and a drug addiction. Fixing the 'no house' problem without tying it to drug addiction is a step towards normalcy.
Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by daseiner1 on Friday August 23, 2019 @03:35PM (#20781696)
Offering a choice of jail time or compulsory residence in drug treatment facility seems like a good compromise
Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by tehjoker on Friday August 23, 2019 @03:07PM (#20781356)
I don't like the framing of this premise that you need to "contribute to society" in order to not be exposed to the elements and have a safe place to retreat. Do people working on ads contribute to society? What about middle managers of middle managers? What about the people on golf courses that basically spend money to make other people do shit for them?

Furthermore, we cannot dehumanize our fellow humans even if they use drugs. The result of such framing is vicious savagery as is seen in America, the Philippines, and other places around the world.

Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by jyrkesh on Friday August 23, 2019 @03:24PM (#20781558)
You know, I actually paused after those words because I was afraid of a response like this, but I didn't rephrase because I just figured "they'll get what I mean".

In the context of my response, I really just meant it as shorthand for "not doing any of the negative stuff that Seattleites deal with on an everyday basis". Lots of homeless people are already doing that--namely, not putting the general public at risk with violence or needles sitting around--but many of the ones visible to us are making the city worse off.

So again, my OP should really be reframed as: "if you take a dangerous drug addict and put them in a house, they're still a dangerous drug addict".

And I do implicitly mean there that if you take a non-dangerous, knocked-off-their-feet homeless person and put them in a house, you now have a housed person, and that's a very positive thing :)

Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by vehementi on Friday August 23, 2019 @04:24PM (#20782202)
Yes, nobody says that just putting people into housing will magically fix them. That's why there's 30 other things on the list. Someone in housing is more likely to begin on their road to recovery than someone who has to live on the streets and have their stuff stolen all the time.
Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by joenot443 on Friday August 23, 2019 @03:18PM (#20781500)
I think it's pretty obvious he didn't mean "contribute to society" in the metaphorical sense, but in the idiom which typically means "hold a job".
Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by jyrkesh on Friday August 23, 2019 @03:24PM (#20781566)
See my response above, I really didn't mean either of those things, it was just a lazy end to the sentence.
Re:In effect, Seattle is decriminalizing the use of hard drugs by asdff on Saturday August 24, 2019 @02:03AM (#20785535)
How could you possibly battle drug addiction or mental illness while sleeping on concrete exposed to elements and crime? It's constant stress that makes these issues worse, not better, every single day you live on the street.