Let you sleep on the streets smoking crack ?

treatment for the chemical addiction, and psychological therapy for the trauma around addiction

I said above:

>I don't know much about this area.

What, those aren't the priorities of Jeff Bezos? Huh....

Surprised to learn that, given the rosy conditions at amazon warehouses.

Policy A: No forced treatment: 10% of addicts attempt treatment with a 10% success rate = 1% overall success rate.

Policy B: Forced treatment: 10% of addicts attempt treatment with a 10% success rate = 1% + 20% of addicts forced into treatment with a 5% success rate = 1% = 2% overall success rate.

Should she have been arrested and jailed for committing what I and many others would regard as depraved behavior? And if not, why the street addict and not the railcar ripper?

1) If someone's addiction leads to crime, then punish the crime when they commit it. Don't make the pre-crine a crime. Instead of preventing crimes, now you've multiplied them.

2) If drugs weren't ruinously expensive due to their illegality, there would be much less need for addicts to turn to crime. You don't normally hear about alcohol, cigarette or coffee addicts going on crime sprees to support their habits.

3) There's evidence that responding with properly funded support and treatment is cheaper and leads to better outcomes than a massive carceral complex.

4) We can discourage a practice with lighter punitive measures than prison. Running a red light is a rampant traffic infraction, and potentially deadly to boot, yet we don't typically punish it with jail time. It would be massively unproductive to do so. We typically fine people and/or give them "points" on their license. Similarly if needed, we could discourage drugs with fines, taxes, restricting privileges, mandated treatment or social shaming instead of incarceration.

Right, so let's punish people for those actual crimes.

If sleeping on the street is a crime, enforce that crime. Don't pretend that if we magically banned all of the hypothetical reasons people might commit that crime that it will eliminate that crime. We can't enforce every-fucking-thing - and we have proven conclusively that we can never effectively ban popular street drugs - so let's focus instead on crimes with victims and enforce them more aggressively.

Read up about the dangers of second and third degree smoking.

> The same way someone drinking a beer in public doesn't bother me. How could it?

Perhaps those who've had family or friends killed by drunk driving or drunken homicide might have something else to say.

A guy I used to date was rear-ended while waiting at a red light by someone who was texting while driving. It was an extremely serious wreck (the person who hit him did not brake at all, ge was so absorbed in his phone), and my ex was lucky to survive it.

But people texting on their phones in public places doesn't bother him. He is not in favor of making SMS illegal. That would be utterly absurd.

They're not interested in responsible driving, they're just looking for any excuse for their sadism.

Note that the discussion isn't even about dangerous driving, that's a complete tangent.

It's about whether drug use _per se_ is criminalized. Not even legal, just whether the remedy for drug use should be help or punishment. Portugal never decriminalize or legalised vehicular homicide.

But texting in public is legal, and having a beer in public is legal. Just because something is dangerous while driving doesn't mean it's harmful under all other circumstances.

The offence in that case isn't the drink, it's the driving. Maybe we should ban driving.

Maybe, but they aren't the folks we should be listening to. I don't drive: I'm pretty sure I'll be OK drinking a beer in public. My decision shouldn't be influenced by those folks.

I don't see many of those people pushing a robust, fare-free public transportation system to help with those either.

I suspect you think the cause is the alcohol: But realistically, it is that people don't always plan ahead. As far as drunk driving is concerned, robust transport would be a step in the right direction. Especially in the countryside and small towns - in the US, these are filled with bars but no transport.

The link with homocides isn't nearly as clear. More people drink alcohol than other drugs and from what I could find, it might be a part of a series of events than anything else, at least in the US. If it doesn't hold to other places, then I'll dismiss it. Prohibiting alcohol in public simply isn't going to help, and we've seen what complete prohibition does. Do you have an actual solution that doesn't drive it underground? I'd personally start with improving people's lives in general so that there is less stress all around - at least that stuff we can do something about.

Odds are there are no studies to reference because the entire idea is idiotic on its face and no one would ever both studying it.

It's entirely possible to have chaep prescription asthma medication regulated by low cost national health care subsidised doctors appointments.

Sure I do. A doctor has told me as much on at least two different occasions. Once when I was a young child and again later.

But because I lost my insurance I didn't get treatment in-between, so I have to get rediagnosed. Jim other words, I'm just going to be relying on caffeine when breathing gets hard.

Where I live pharmacists can diagnose and prescribe for some conditions. Other countries have similar systems that allow lower risk medications to be prescribed by people other than doctors for low risk conditions.

Ultimately, if you can't afford the doctors visit, I wonder if you can afford the medication. At least some asthma medication is expensive.

https://www.nationalasthma.org.au/understanding-asthma/treat...

AS I understand it you can get an inhaler most of the time w/out seeing a doctor, you can get an inhaler if you really need it, but you do need to see a doctor to keep getting an inhaler so that the progression of your symptoms can be checked.

Australia loves epidemiology and keeping tabs on treatments, progressions and outcomes.

It's very little to do with spying on individuals and very much to do with keeping tabs on broad health trends and tailoring bulk medication orders, etc.

If you're not in Australia then the intent of Australian health care procedures doesn't apply.

Either way you might consider actively lobbying to change the behaviour of whatever health care sytem you have.

I don't see the point in lobbying. I've long understood that any opinion I have about how society should be run is worthless because people might agree in detail, but they won't agree once the scope is broadened into actually doing something.

Somebody comes out with a story about how somebody was too stupid to use the thing correctly and ended up hurt, so it should've stayed banned and that's it. People see the negative sides of taking action, but they rarely consider the cost of inaction. I don't even think the problem is with politicians, but rather just people.

Do you think people feel safe on this street? Just because you personally may feel safe, consider that you may be personally blessed with youth and health. Does an elderly woman with a cane and a purse feel safe?

People high on crack are unpredictable. They may try to rob you because that was the last crack rock they had, and they are also out of money.

And if people don't feel safe on the street, then people who can start to move away. Then you have a 'drain' problem on a societal level.

Do you believe your own propaganda? That's the most simplistic, nonsensical, DARE-level logic I have seen in this comment thread yet.

Also, how about you present a counter position to the argument? Otherwise next time just type “u r dumb” and save yourself a couple of characters in typing.

Ban videogames too. And walking around with hockey sticks.

What a absurdly basic argument. And you thought it was poignant?

Btw, yes, public intoxication is against the law in many places in the world. Pretty standard rule.

My neighbours also are not particularly relevant to form a good argument. If my neighbours are all staunch believers in some deity, doesn't mean it's a good argument to believe in one.

> Btw, yes, public intoxication is against the law in many places in the world. Pretty standard rule.

So is homosexuality. Doesn't mean it's a positive thing or that it solves the problem it's supposed to solve for society. Unless you just want the "ugly people out of your way", in which case killing them could also work, but you probably would have some argument against that, but prison seems fine, right?

I can see the sad-faces all around, as journo's at the Oligarch's Daily Tribue lament that human rights are completely out of control now that cops can't roust people and smack them around for the crime of making their own personal choices, harming nobody.

"B..b..but what about property values?!"

You mean that thing around which the entire economies of the western world revolve around?

I don't know if you are mocking people who speak like this and satirising their beliefs that drugs are harmless, or if you genuinely speak like this and are mocking the people who wish to criminalize drugs.

Anyway, it's just more evidence for my campaign to criminalize sarcasm and get its users rousted and smacked by police.

They can be give a variety of punishments, like fine, ban from an area, associating with certain people, suspension of government support.