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Similar in Switzerland and Zürich specifically. There used to be a horrible drug scene in Zürich (look up needle park), which was improved with similar techniques.
I’m like Walter White… When I see a junkie dieing on the street I kind of feel good inside
Even the Dutch way of handling things isn’t perfect though.
There are plenty of heroin addicted homeless who have to travel daily between shelter and those clinics. The problem is that they are on opposite sides of Amsterdam.
So they need to travel daily through the entire city without money to get their fix and be back to the shelter before evening. Most end up somewhere along the way to get an illegal dose instead.
Also the limit of 3 means a lot of full addicts still need to get the rest of their other fixes somewhere else.
But it is definitely better than most countries.
Glasgow (Scotland) has a single safe consumption room too, and Edinburgh is consulting on opening their own. Very slow progress.
UK’s first legal drug consumption room registers almost 600 users - BBC News
Dutch person here, yeah that mentallity towards problems works non-surprisingly across the board. Demonizing a problem is a way to ensure you never solve it.
“But if we treat these people as human beings and not trash who am I supposed to demonise for all of society’s problems?” - My boomer parents
And eventually…you as well.
Themselves?
Nah, that’d require introspection.
Yeah, not likely then. The first act of revolution is contemplation.
Along with most of lemmy, I agree that drug addiction should be treated as a sickness and not demonized. But I wonder how people who share the same opinion would feel about treating their own rage triggers that way. For example, if somebody said Russell Brand has a psychological problem we should help him with and hope he gets over it, the predictable response would be “Fuck you for defending rape, you piece of shit!” But people face the same challenge when they think of addicts as irredeemably evil.
This is much more about being pragmatic than anything else.
First for your argument to be true you would have to assume that people lack complete agency over their actions AND decide that they should never be punished for it ONLY helped. This would than go for every single crime no matter who no matter what.
I hope that we both agree that people do have agency and i hope we also agree that people have to pay their debts to society and that the threats of punishment is reflected in the desicions thst people make.
Further I hope we also agree that our solutions to problems in society should be effective.
When we help drug addicts we reduce the harm to society on all fronts and we can of course also make a moral argument that drug users hurt themselves the most and that addictions are mostly a complex beast that didn’t come into beeing purely bc the addict wanted this to happen. We DO NOT ABSOLVE THEM of the crimes they commited bc of their addiction, they are still legally and socially punished for stealing or robbing or whatever else but we also reduce the need for these crimes by having these programms.
Rape on the other hand is a completely differnt crime, not only because of the harm they are doing to others but also because there is no actual dire situation where you need to do it and as far as i know, there is no "illness’’ that makes you a serial rapist. Rape is about control, they want to hurt others, the hurt is the point and even if you want to classify this as an illness there is no real therapy for that. They COULD HAVE partaken in consensual rape play if they wanted to and when we have a rich guy they had all the money in the world to do so.
For an example, a pedophile should get all the help there is BUT as soon as they do harm to others they kinda lost that priviledge because they have proven they aren’t safe for society. A pedophile does not NEED to rape a child they can live their whole lives without ever touching one, they might not like it but they absolutely can.
Not every crime is the same and not every bad person is mentally ill just because you think a normal person would not have done this.
if somebody said Russell Brand has a psychological problem we should help him with and hope he gets over it
We absolutely should help him and hope he gets better. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t suffer the consequences of his actions, and be kept out of society until he has done so, and ideally is judged to no longer be a threat.
Those things are not comparable. We imprison people to safeguard society and most addicts are harmless to society. There is no rapist who is harmless to society.
People who think addicts are irredeemably evil are just irredeemably bigoted and hard of thinking. We should make that a crime.
The difference is that Russell Brand made people into victims. He harmed other people, and it’s an inherent product of rape. Same with murder and assault.
Addicts don’t inherently harm other people. In fact the addicts are the victims. Going after them is more akin to trying to demonize suicide victims.
The justice system should be about rehabilitation.
Drug addiction causes direct physical harm to the user. If you remove the monetary cost, the other social harms are mostly resolved. There is very little danger to anyone other than the user if we treat substance addiction as an illness in the way described in this Tumblr post.
Sexual assault, by definition, harms other people besides the person who has the psychological problem. There is not really a way to treat it as an illness that mostly resolves the social harms.
I think that violent offenders should be kept away from the rest of society to reduce their ability to harm others. I think some of them are truly remorseful and can be rehabilitated, and those people can and should receive treatment and be reintegrated after they are no longer dangerous to others. I think some offenders are psychopaths who cannot be rehabilitated, and the only way we protect our society is to keep those people imprisoned indefinitely.
All of these things can be true at the same time, but internet forums are usually not conducive to nuanced conversations about complex topics.
I haven’t followed Russell Brand’s legal case. Has he expressed remorse and sought help, or has he just denied having committed a crime? I don’t think we can help anyone until they admit that they need help.
Wrong on both counts - drug addiction harms anybody connected with the user, and sexual abuse behaviors harm the behaver, just in much less obvious ways. This is the exact kind of rationalization people create to deny reality.
edit: Every single response to this comment is “they aren’t the same thing” because drug abusers only harm themselves and sexual predators only harm others. Wrong on both counts. Drug addition hurts everyone involved with the addict, and any kind of violence hurts the attacker, just in different and much less obvious ways. Instead of trying to rationalize refusing to help perpetrators get over being the way they are - because doing that would just make you complicit, and you crave vengeance! - maybe try to get over seeing everything as a binary choice between good and evil.
Oh niice. Violence hurts the attacker, riight, yeah, sure
The harm to the people connected to the user, if you remove monetary aspects, is mostly grief about their loved one’s condition. Not physical harm (usually).
OTOH I don’t think addiction is an illness. It is a consequence of a poor decision which is hard to undo. Nobody is born an addict (unless your mother was a heavy addict too), and there’s no addiction germ. That said, consequences of a bad decision should be treated, not criminalized. If I decide to put my legs in the wood chipper, that’s a bad decision and I and my family will suffer from it. And I need medical treatment, not jail.
The harm to the people connected to the user, if you remove monetary aspects, is mostly grief about their loved one’s condition. Not physical harm (usually).
That was basically what I was going for in my reply, but it seems the person I was replying to was just looking for a straw man to attack. Thanks for reiterating.
I don’t know what to think in regard to addiction as an illness vs a series of choices. There’s so much we don’t know about our brains and our genes, and someday we may find that addiction is more attributable to biochemistry than to making choices. (Also, I’m a determinist, so I don’t believe “free will” can really exist. But I’m also a pragmatist, so I recognize that it’s useful for a society to operate under the assumption that people have agency and therefore can be held responsible for their actions.)
Drug abuse and sexual assault aren’t really comparable things, though. Typically drug users aren’t hurting anyone besides themselves.
Well he has psychological issues and should seek help for them…but a lot of people have psychological issues and don’t rape. Yes, even people with sex addictions. So they’re kinda two seperate things
Any rate, part of recovery for addiction includes acknowledging what you did to get your hands on it and how damaging it was, and doing so in a way that gives you ‘useful’ remorse instead of spiraliing out again
I support this idea, but isn’t #5 basically just what addiction is?
Former opioid addict here
Addiction can have a lot of layers number 5 is a single layer. Generally there are reasons underneath the withdrawal that is why they stick with it or go back after they kick it once. Most of those underlying problems relate to not being able to cope with life and that could be anything from neurodivergence to trauma.
An example I like to tell people is if you are a homeless addict that is forced to live in an environment with constant violence and suffering, your body is failing, and you have lost all hope, you getting a fix literally makes your day a good day. Doesn’t matter if you have limbs rotting off, and have abscessed teeth, that all goes away and you can exist without suffering for a few hours.
Drugs like fent and other opoids are so dangerous especially for the hopeless traumatized population. For some people it’s the better option between that and worse self harm
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for the very open answer. Hopefully you are doing well now.
Been off opioids for over a decade still struggle with the coping part but still light years better than being a slave to a chemical lol
Sweden is doing the complete opposite. It’s the one thing all of our political parties agree on; drugs are evil, people who do drugs are evil, and need to be put in jail (except if you work in parliament of course because politicians are good so their drug use is also good).
We also have some of the highest drug related deaths in Europe. That’s to say, currently drugs are winning the war on drugs.
What the fuck is happening in Sweden? You guys used to be cool!
We had a good reputation, but I don’t know if it’s entirely warranted. We had many years of social democrats and strong worker rights, but I’ve not seen that in my lifetime. We’ve been pretty right wing for the past two decades, and the social democrats are sliding right.
During WWII, our neutrality meant cooperation with the Nazis. We were also all-in on eugenics, which harmed our native population. Last time a eugenics law was overturned was back in 2013, which was regarding forced sterilisation of trans people. The neo-nazi party Sweden Democrats voted against that, and they were the second biggest party last election. This past election I think they slid down to third.
I think it’s similar to the whole mythos around the American dream and all the freedom Americans supposedly have. It’s just mythical.
You may have heard of the widely unpopular Chat Control bill? It was initially put forward by a Swedish social democrat. They’re heavily in favour of mass-surveillance.
Easy, all of our parents and grandparents were subject to government propaganda non-stop.
When we learned of propaganda in (American) Public Schools, it was always during the WWII lessons and Goebbels. Uncle Sam and Rosie the Riveter do not like talking about themselves or their family (nor do Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, for that matter).
I do remember learning the term “yellow journalism” in high school, in reference to fake news in the 1920s…but the lesson, as I remember it, compared it to modern conspiracy rags (i.e. The Enquirer).
Brace yourselves, because modern “yellow journalsim” is now individually curated based upon your purchases/browser history/driving habits/heartrate/what percentage of your oven cycles are 400F for 18-21 minutes/what color you set the mood-light to, and whatever else some billionaire put their grubby mitts into.
Man, we used to laugh at people who said “they” were secretly tracking us. The only crazy part turned out thinking that it’d be secret.
Americans are confused, vulnerable people are for exploitation, not compassion in America.
Well put! Took a few tries to read, perhaps add a
;there next time.So, poorly put. Like good sentiment but they did not ‘put’ it well since it took a couple rereads.
Not polite that way
Lol sorry had a late night last night
angry upvote
All drugs should be legal and regulated. The War on drugs causes more harm then the drugs they prohibit.
Same with giving condoms to teenagers. They’re not going to fuck more because the have condoms. They’re going to fuck the same amount but get pregnant less.
Is your Y key broken?
I had a zealot of a coworker saying teaching them sexual education and safe sex practices is giving them “permission” to engage in pre-marital sex. So instead, the increased risk of EVERYTHING sex related is better because apparently punishment?
That’s because nothing that comes from a religion makes any sense. Don’t try to understand it. It’s not possible to understand delusions.
Religious people I know, think that STDs are a good thing to punish bad people who have non-marital sex, especially young people.
In America, people are extremely sex negative, and anything outside procreative sex should be punished, not just discouraged.
I never understood this train of thought. If you go into ANY situation not knowing what you’re doing, chances are it will end in a fuck up. Be it sex, driving a car, working with electricity, whatever, if you are untrained you can screw up someone’s life.
you forgot drugs.
going in without knowing the situation is half of most the fun
I hear that’s quite literally and openly what certain types of religious people believe.
That’s like telling them to cross a busy street at night in block clothing and no illumination. She’s going to go sideways easily. Those people just seem like the opposite of logic and intelligence and it baffles me how one can revel in it.
no sex ed isn’t permission for premarital sex, there’s no need for permission for premarital sex as long as they do it safely
I’d say the only permission is for all parties involved to consent, but can you truly consent if you lack the understanding of what the act could cause?
You’re looking at it from a rational actor side of things though. This guy was immune to facts and logic, anything counter his viewpoint he shrugged off, ignore, or just made some weird bullshit argument. God, guy was an insufferable prick. I’m glad he got his comeuppance at work. Too bad for his kids though, he was vehemently anti-vaccine as well and modern medicine.
Without data from an intuitive standpoint I can see where she may think sex ed could lead to an increase in pre-marital (I assume teenage) sex, even if more but safer sex is still preferable to less but more risky sex. So I did a quick search and it appears that she’s just wrong anyway!
The premise still fails, it assumes teenagers are rational actors.
Are you really going to state that your Axiom is teenagers weigh risks and benefits from all available information?
It also assumes that people are dumber than the stupidest of animals. Who taught all of them to have sex? And some of them go at it like rabbits!
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090206081312.htm
teenagers consider the future less and prefer immediate rewards over delayed ones
I’m confused. What I’m saying is that without looking at data I could totally see someone imagining a teenager saying “oh, cool, I don’t have to worry about having a kid if I just use a condom” then having more sex because of that. And if I could imagine that for one teen, then I could imagine it for many. That doesn’t seem to be the case though based on the link I shared.
Are you saying teenagers are incapable of weighing pros and cons? Because that wouldn’t make sense. That’s exactly what they’re doing when they play CoD(teens still play that, right?) and decide using a shotgun is the best choice on the Cargo map. Just because their reasoning is less developed doesn’t mean it’s not there.
don’t have to worry about having a kid
No. The current situation is they
don’t worry about having a kid
Adding info doesn’t change the fact that they are not considering consequences, or value the consequences so low vs the immediate result.
His argument isn’t based on any facts or logic, in fact this man was immune to it.
“The young adults i made having sex is going to have sex!”
So tired of humanity
So she certainly never engaged in pre-marital right?
Oh no, he as sure was a horn dog as he would talk about in his youth. He’s one of those found again Christian types that I feel are MORE dangerous than those who grew up that way.
But think of all the money that the private prisons lose. Won’t people think of the corporations that require crime to survive?
If we treated corporate crime even half as seriously as drug offenses, we’d have plenty of prisoners to satisfy those corporations’ needs. It’s win/win!
But you can’t put companies in prison…
Why not? They’re “people” after all, at least according to my government.
Ah, but you can put executives in prison!
Just putting it out there that when Bulgaria made executives personally liable for prison time if their company committed tax evasion, tax collection went up by 15%.
Suddenly executives we’re a lot more concerned with whether their books were correct.
I mean, they are supposedly paid gor all the extra responsibilities they have to shoulder.
shareholders. or owners if it’s a private company.
Not with that attitude!
I think the main problem is that some countries have private prisons. Luckily, I live in a sane country where prisons are public.
I mean, what could possibly go wrong with privately owned prison system…
This can be offset by increasing penalties and enforcement of financial crimes by corporations and the wealthy.
Well of course, the Dutch are clever.
Handing out Methadone and in the harder cases even Heroin, with clean needles in protected spaces, is what finally properly solved the extensive drug issues in the 90s here in Zürich too. The repression approach they tried first just moved the scene from Platzspitz (known in English as “Needle Park” I believe) to Letten. Harm reduction approaches were the true solution.
Same thing in Portugal since 2001 by the way.
I was just about to mention Portugal. When you give people help and a safe option to quit then many do quit.
The British have had a system of heroin maintenance since the 1920s. For decades it supplied a few hundred addicts nationwide, most of whom were doctors themselves. It was de-emphasized considerably during the 1960s-1980s as a result of the U.S.-led war on drugs.
Yes that all makes sense but under our system people are supposed to get hurt. Where does that happen here.
Yeah, except #2 and a few notes:
Why get it on the street? Because 3 bags a day isn’t enough for a lot of addicts, especially those deeper in. I avoided it but most of my friends got hit, one that’s still alive said he used 3 bags a shot iirc, he bought it in bundles for sure.
And also another reason is because of the “it’s pure” thing. Bro, they don’t want pure, they want the fent. Like actively, they’re seeking it out now, there’s straight up fent dealers that don’t even try to hide it in H or pressies anymore. When a junkie dies and the rest of them hear about it, the dealer’s business is BOOMING because, literally, “well if it killed Jimmy it must be some good shit, and I can handle it unlike Jimmy.” Seriously, that is actually how bad the mind of the true junkie has been twisted by the brown, it gets pretty bad.
So that’s why they’ll often still seek it elsewhere, but the free bags are a nice bonus of course.
But for the most part, yeah it gets them near counseling, clean works, and narcan in the room. That stuff is still good.
