> needle exchanges... end up turning their neighborhood into the newest drug slum.

How do you suppose that happened? Do you think there was a severely addicted population that could not get their fix due to concerns of transmittable diseases? So were forced to quit cold turkey, at the height of their despair, for lack of sanitary injection paraphernalia? You surely realize how absurd that sounds, right?

Since you seem to be a well reasoned and articulate person, I'm genuinely curious how could a needle exchange program cause neighborhoods to turn into "drug slums"? Perhaps you are seeing a correlation with drug use that does not reveal any causality? Perhaps needle exchange programs induce normalization of drug use in a certain area, making addicts fell less rejected and thus attracting them there? But surely such a visible concentration of addicts in a certain area is just a symptom a much larger invisible problem and condemning those those affected to AIDS or Hep-C does nothing to solve the root cause?

Well, I have no way to prove my experience through data, since it's not being taken by any reputable sources I know of, sadly...

But what I can say at least is that I would suspect that the 'drug slum' aspect occurs because the drug users flock towards those needle exchanges and congregate near them for convenience sake. I say that, because that's what seemed to be the case when I lived in those areas. People I never saw in those neighborhoods before, suddenly practically lived there. So I suspect that is the case.

Anyways, it's getting late and my patience is starting to wear thin, so I should probably go now before nicer folk like you start to think of me as less well reasoned and less articulate a person.

I'm sure that you blame ghettos on the people that live in them rather than the systems developed to have intentional concentrative effects. It's funny how intelligent people stop thinking the moment their emotions kick in.

Actually, I think it's a problem that can be blamed on the entirety of society. But thanks for your kind comment. And yes, I agree with you about emotions and intelligence. Quite the phenomenon.

Isn't what gp is doing the opposite, and is in fact blaming the system developed (needle stations) for abnormally concentrating drug users on an area?

I don't know why such an admittedly anecdotal observation has generated such response... Its not that hard to at least entertain the idea that clean drug-equipment stations might have side effects and impacts to the surrounding community that haven't been properly studied yet, etc.

More funny when emotional people refuse to see simple cause and effect

The end there reminds me of the CS Lewis quote:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

I just told the other fellow I'm logging off for the night, but I would hate to seem rude and as if I am ignoring your apt comment.

Yes, CS Lewis has a lot of good quotes. I don't remember them all by heart or anything, but I do find myself somehow paraphrasing things that he and others have said before in more eloquent words.

What a weird way to use this quote. Tyranny is when someone does something oppressive. Offering a free service that no one needs to use doesn’t fit the criteria.

I do not really want to comment on whether it is an appropriate use, but obviously the tormented peasants in the comment are implied to be the residents in the area.

"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so." - Mark Twain

It's been the opposite experience for me, but where I lived doctors just give the addicts drugs that are similar to their drugs of choice. Man has to eat, addicts has to use. When you ruin the market economy around drugs by making them essentially free the criminal aspects seem to disappear.

Fair enough, as far as opposite experience goes.

Up here, doctors are notoriously difficult to get any kind of opiate from now unless you REALLY need it. Which in turn I would say has led to people relying on the grey market more and more, which has in turn led to our fentanyl crisis.

So I don't entirely disagree with you here, but I still don't want government being able to tax these things. We need a better solution.

You might find this post interesting:

> https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo...

It is about what can go wrong when "doctors are notoriously difficult to get any kind of opiate from now unless you REALLY need it".

It is been a while since I read it, I don't remember whether it touches on homelessness.

The government doesn't tax them here. They're free, because the cost of the drugs is less than the cost of the crime prevented by just giving them out.

"When you ruin the market economy around drugs by making them essentially free the criminal aspects seem to disappear."

California has legalized marijuana for many years and there's still a strong cartel presence in marijuana trafficking. Cartels still find a way to profit from marijuana, other drugs, and immigration.

I find the notion that making fentanyl available at no cost being good for society by removing cartel involvement to be completely nonsensical. The end result is still the same. You still have a substance on the street that is fatal in incredibly small doses, and being used as fillers in party- and counterfeit drugs.

Legalizing fentanyl isn't going to alter that dynamic nor change the drug's lethality.

So no, the criminal aspects just don't disappear. They merely adapt.

Legalized with high taxes and inconvenient supply. If people already have a tax-free source, then they will continue to use that, especially if the business hours and location are more convenient.

And it's worth pointing out that cannabis culture and opiate culture are not one and the same: cannabis is far less addictive and far more commonly used, even in areas where it is still criminalized.

It also costs significantly less - on the order of beer money or fast food - to afford a cannabis supply, than it costs to afford an illegal opiate supply. On top of that, you can often get the cost of prescriptions (alternative to illegal opiates) significantly lowered, especially outside the US.

So switching your cannabis supply from illegal to legal costs you more, but switching your opiate supply to a legal prescription can save you money. It's a totally different dynamic.

If opiate users have a reliable and affordable source, then they will not be motivated to commit crime to fund their addictions. If they are getting their drugs from a pharmaceutical source, with regular visits to a prescribing physician, then they can significantly lower the risk of overdose.

So yes, criminal aspects will be affected. So will mortality.

Legal state level, illegal federal and global means that there is a high incentive for diversion to both other states and other countries. There's a difference between going to a medical facility every day to get a 1-3 day supply and a free-for-all with drugs being handed out for $5 on every corner.

Which cities? What city did you live in twice? What time period are you talking about?

Sorry Genghis, but I don't believe I need to answer these questions about where I lived, as they are personal information. I will however tell you they were all Canadian cities, and they were all between the years 2008 and now. The one that was twice was one of the prairie provinces cities.

Take that as you will.

> [1] NIDA-funded research has found that syringe services programs do not increase drug use. In fact, program participants in these studies were significantly more likely to enter substance use treatment and reduce or stop drug use.

As an aside, this is the second time on this site in a couple days I've seen someone post something along the lines of "Absolutely no one will be able to convince me otherwise no matter what."

So why are you posting here at all? You've already proudly announced that your opinions are impervious to any new information. That is the exact opposite purpose of this site.

https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/syringe-services-progra...

Well, I said in my edit and some other comments I was going to sleep, but I decided to check here again for some reason... and here we are.

So I guess I will point out that (I am pretty sure) I never said it increased drug use. I said that it turned the neighborhoods that held these places into drug slums because of the increase in drug users that were now in those areas because of the needle exchange. To be fair to you though, that was elaborated on more so in another comment to another person.

And it is on that bit that I will not budge, because that is personal experience I have witnessed and secondary experience I have been told about by people I trust to not just make things up. It may not be the 'data' you want to see or hear, but it should matter just as much since what we see on a day to day is what influences us as a society.

So I think it's great that some of them are taking the chance provided to them to get clean. I love that. But again, I never said it increased drug use. I said it increased the number of drug users in the area. This is a glaringly different statement.

Now, I am actually off to bed now, and my computer is being turned off. You have a nice day/night. Thank you for the information.

Not trying to pile on you individually but this is an interesting line of thought in general, so continuing the thread here...

Let's say there are 10 nearby cities with drug addicts. Let's say 3 of them start running needle exchanges or other "drug friendly" policies.

By this logic, if those policies don't increase drug use, but do attract users, then maybe we just made 7 cities drug-free, and 3 cities into concentrated zones where social programs as well as law enforcement can be more targeted and more effective? If so, then very likely this will be a net-positive for the 10 cities as a whole, with neutral to slightly-worse outcomes for the target neighborhoods in the 3 cities running the programs.

Many programs/policies are not operated from a macro-enough perspective, or not optimizing for macro-level outcomes, or humans just aren't capable of macro-enough greater-good decision-making. If the 10-20 homeowners living directly next to the proposed needle exchange site can veto it, that might be better for them individually, but worse as a whole for the city/state/nation/world. See exhibit: NYC and proposals for new shelter sites.

On the other hand, seems like these sorts of debates always just end up becoming examples to prove out Churchill's "democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried" claim.

Your comment reminds me of a topic from "What We Owe The Future"[0][1], in particular an idea in ethics that is aptly called the repugnant conclusion[2].

This is not a perfect parallel but both the RC and your comment touch on the idea of how or when it is justified to make X people's life worse to make Y people's life better.

I would strongly recommend not to take an axiomatic approach to this topic.

[0] https://whatweowethefuture.com/

[1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-what-we-ow...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repugnant_conclusion

> How is it fair to those people living in those 3 other cities? Why should they have to put up with it?

Why do I have to pay taxes for schools when I don't have any children?

If everyone thought like this, then we would all be worse off. Yeah, it sucks for you.

Another thought experiment: You are the head of a hospital and can determine how funding gets spent. There is a five year old with a disease that can be cured if you spend all of your budget to do it. This would effectively shut down the hospital for everyone else, but the kid would live. Is it ethical to spend the money on the kid?

> Why do I have to pay taxes for schools when I don't have any children?

This is not a comparable scenario. Presuming you wish to live in a given locale for the remainder of your years, having a civilized, educated, and literate workforce available to you is surely preferred to not having one.

> Another thought experiment:

This is a waste of time thought experiment. Healthcare professionals triage all the time. Society prioritizes various goals all the time. The US could be spending the entire military budget to develop healthcare treatments, but it does not, for myriad reasons. In real life, the 5 year old has died in the past due to lack of sufficient resources, and will continue to die. It does not matter if it is ethical or unethical, politically, it will be unpopular to sacrifice a whole community’s access to healthcare so one 5 year old can live.

In any case, bringing up unrelated examples does not advance discussions.

I shall explain, if I must.

> Why do I have to pay taxes for schools when I don't have any children?

This is directly related because it is often brought up by people who argue similar things and used in the same way to say 'it doesn't affect me, so why should I pay the consequences'. Paying a tax that doesn't directly help you, and having to move or live in a neighborhood which has changed for the worse are directly comparable. You say "Presuming you wish to live in a given locale for the remainder of your years, having a civilized, educated, and literate workforce available to you is surely preferred to not having one", yet this is the very thing I am getting at. The person arguing 'why should they have to deal with it' is not taking in to account that everyone would have a worse quality of life because diseases like AIDS don't stop at junkies. Not having clean needles affects more than junkies.

> This is a waste of time thought experiment.

Really? You don't get how thinking about 'letting an innocent kid die so that many people can get helped' has anything to do with this? I really thought that one was self-evident.

If every single gas station the world over had syringe swap setups, nothing much would happen.

But if only certain locations have them, then things will congregate there.

Yep, I still wouldn't change my moral position from the other day you're complaining about. Posting my beliefs here doesn't mean I'm looking for someone to convince me to change my mind. I'm stating my beliefs!

To be frank, if you're shouting "Hey everyone, I'm so sure of my beliefs that nothing is going to change my mind", good for you, but nobody cares. There are plenty of other places where you can broadcast your obliviousness to new information. HN is not one of them, given that "curiosity" is highlighted as a prime motivator for this site.

Why state your beliefs? Are you hoping to convince someone else to change their mind? How arrogant.

Or are you simply shouting into the void? We are not the void, and we don't appreciate the shouting.

It was a discussion about culture and tradition. My statement was that I believe it's morally wrong to circumcise boys. 0 shouting. He's called me oblivious, and apparently I shouldn't have the right to comment if I'm not willing to change that belief.

There's a difference between "not increasing drug use" and concentrating drug use in specific areas, possibly in the open.

Want's to move drug users to "the country side". Doesn't like NIMBYs.