This account of Oregon's attempt to adopt an "enlightened" de-criminalized approach to drug addiction documents how its execution sabotaged its success. Its failure has been widely touted as proof that you just can't be too nice to addicts. Why it failed is a little more relevant. Just handing an addict a ticket, without making sure addicts have an alternative (rehab) is ineffective, and that's what the Oregon cops were doing.
This is reminiscent of the "enlightened" approach to mental illness. The Kennedy administration closed the big one-flew-over-the-cuckoo's nest federal asylums, saying they would fund alternative, smaller transitional housing...and then didn't fund the alternative. Reagan closed the big California asylums, too.Now
the homeless are demonized as addicts and mentally ill--and there are certainly addicted, mentally ill homeless--but the real
story for the majority of the homeless is that rents have been rising faster than incomes. The problem isn't one of resources, either. The US has more vacant homes than homeless. The resource distribution is misguided too.
People take note of these policy failures. One "Dead-Head" (hippie) Oregon woman who was a fan of decriminalization thought "it was wrong to respond to addiction with criminal punishment. But now she feels decriminalization 'wasn’t the best idea.' But why? Because America is not a place 'where there’s a lot of public assistance.' In other words, we’re too cruel and stingy to actually help drug addicts, so the only option is to throw them in prison!....
"But even if Oregon did increase addiction services and get the police to actually try to help people, there are still some foundational assumptions behind the state’s decriminalization plan that have to be questioned. First, the very idea of relying on police is questionable. I agree with the law’s critics that a system where police give meaningless citation tickets to drug users is not going to do very much. But why are police the ones we expect to deal with people affected by substance use? The system should be designed so that police aren’t interacting with these people at all, but rather unarmed aid workers who are actually trained in how to convince a person with a substance use problem to seek treatment. (Police are mostly trained on how to use force to ensure compliance with legal rules.)
"Second, even providing good, free services for substance use disorders and connecting people with them successfully doesn’t address some core reasons for widespread drug use. In his powerful book about the War on Drugs, Chasing the Scream, Johann Hari argues that it’s not just that drugs are made of addictive chemicals, but that being poor, lonely, and traumatized increases people’s likelihood of using:
"Legalization does not necessarily substantially reduce trauma and isolation, however, even though we know prison worsens these problems. We still live in a very isolating society. A strong social support system is important, and legalization alone doesn’t make America a less atomized society. We have a loneliness crisis in this country that makes it harder to address drug use crises." (from the initially linked article, well worth a full read)
"But even if Oregon did increase addiction services and get the police to actually try to help people, there are still some foundational assumptions behind the state’s decriminalization plan that have to be questioned. First, the very idea of relying on police is questionable. I agree with the law’s critics that a system where police give meaningless citation tickets to drug users is not going to do very much. But why are police the ones we expect to deal with people affected by substance use? The system should be designed so that police aren’t interacting with these people at all, but rather unarmed aid workers who are actually trained in how to convince a person with a substance use problem to seek treatment. (Police are mostly trained on how to use force to ensure compliance with legal rules.)
"Second, even providing good, free services for substance use disorders and connecting people with them successfully doesn’t address some core reasons for widespread drug use. In his powerful book about the War on Drugs, Chasing the Scream, Johann Hari argues that it’s not just that drugs are made of addictive chemicals, but that being poor, lonely, and traumatized increases people’s likelihood of using:
Chemical hooks are only a minor part of addiction. The other factors, like isolation and trauma, have been proven to be much bigger indicators. Yet the drug war increases the biggest drivers of addiction—isolation and trauma—in order to protect potential users from a more minor driver of addiction, the chemical hook. If we legalize, somewhat more people will be exposed to the chemical hook in drugs—but the even larger drivers of addiction, trauma and isolation, will be dramatically reduced.
"Legalization does not necessarily substantially reduce trauma and isolation, however, even though we know prison worsens these problems. We still live in a very isolating society. A strong social support system is important, and legalization alone doesn’t make America a less atomized society. We have a loneliness crisis in this country that makes it harder to address drug use crises." (from the initially linked article, well worth a full read)
Update #1: The Oregon legislature just re-criminalized drugs.
This misguided approach is not just confined to "justice-related" items. Here's an article demonstrating the sabotage, ignorance and arrogance infects even infrastructure development too.
Update #2: Sabotage is everywhere: Utility fraud and corruption are threatening the clean energy transition. Excerpt:
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