Feces and syringes in San Francisco

[Captain O]

Sadly, Portland has "sucked hind teat" for about 20 years. It's amazing how quickly the Leftist/elitist governing bodies denigrate society. *sigh* "What a revoltin' development." - William Bendix from "The Life Of Riley".

 

[CoastRange57]

I live in a rural / residential area west of Portland. I was pushing some mud off the road from corn pickers last week with my tractor and in a 300 foot section of road saw 2 discarded "rigs" along the side the road. Tweaker dope house about a quarter mile away so they must toss them out after they shoot up. Got to watch where the dogs poke their noses.

There were 3 rigs discarded at the take out on the Trask river when my son and I pulled in there last week. Tweakers and horse addicts are shooting dope everywhere these day. My son was a paramedic for an ambulance company in Salem and was pushing Narcan at least 5 to 6 times a week. He is at a fire department in the same general area but farther north and has only pushed Narcan once in the last 2 months.

 

[Provincial]

And I should assume that the dopers pay for the health insurance that pays for the Narcan and the EMT expenses? Not likely. Taxpayers pick up that tab when no one can collect from the patient.

 

[mrblond]

 

[AMProducts]

Wow, I honestly did not know that. Free needles....to shoot illegal drugs.

Typically it's an exchange, you need to bring in a used one to get a new one. This means there's no "free needles" just clean needles. Even then, these are the same things my MIL uses for shooting insulin, which IIRC you can get at most pharmacies, but I think you need a prescription for 'em.

 

[Alexx1401]

Typically it's an exchange, you need to bring in a used one to get a new one. This means there's no "free needles" just clean needles. Even then, these are the same things my MIL uses for shooting insulin, which IIRC you can get at most pharmacies, but I think you need a prescription for 'em.

Do I really need to point out that the needles are paid for by tax payers? The dope heads coming in for "clean" do not bring in money with them. Do I really need to tell you this? So can I go to the store with the left overs from dinner and exchange it for fresh food? After all it's not free, I bought it right?
As for "needing" a prescription, if that was true there would not be piles of used needles all over where the homeless live.
Wonder if I can take my empty brass to the store and "exchange it" for loaded ammo? After all I'm not asking for free, just clean ammo.

 

[AMProducts]

Do I really need to point out that the needles are paid for by tax payers? The dope heads coming in for "clean" do not bring in money with them. Do I really need to tell you this? So can I go to the store with the left overs from dinner and exchange it for fresh food? After all it's not free, I bought it right?
As for "needing" a prescription, if that was true there would not be piles of used needles all over where the homeless live.
Wonder if I can take my empty brass to the store and "exchange it" for loaded ammo? After all I'm not asking for free, just clean ammo.

From what I know, most needle exchanges are done by non-profits, my friend's brother in law ran one of the largest needle exchanges on the west coast back in the 90's when the war-on-drugs was still arresting people regularly for running needle exchanges. He was funded entirely by donations and grants. I don't know if this is still the case or not, but it was for his operation, unfortunately he was killed in a car accident about a decade ago.

Given that it's so damn easy for addicts to find needles, I really see no reason why the government goes to all the trouble to control supply and if they are paying for clean needles for exchanges, why not just drop the prohibition and let the addicts and private sector give or sell needles as they need to, artificially increasing the price just leads to needle sharing, which leads to healthcare expenditures.

The war on drugs, much like everything else the government has declared war on for the last 50 years has made government more expensive, more intrusive, and drugs more available and cheaper. I kinda wish they would declare war on jobs.

I fully realize drugs are a blight on society, but so is a police state. We need to do a much better job of striking a balance that doesn't just fleece the taxpayers at every turn.

 

[Captain O]

From what I know, most needle exchanges are done by non-profits, my friend's brother in law ran one of the largest needle exchanges on the west coast back in the 90's when the war-on-drugs was still arresting people regularly for running needle exchanges. He was funded entirely by donations and grants. I don't know if this is still the case or not, but it was for his operation, unfortunately he was killed in a car accident about a decade ago.

Given that it's so damn easy for addicts to find needles, I really see no reason why the government goes to all the trouble to control supply and if they are paying for clean needles for exchanges, why not just drop the prohibition and let the addicts and private sector give or sell needles as they need to, artificially increasing the price just leads to needle sharing, which leads to healthcare expenditures.

The war on drugs, much like everything else the government has declared war on for the last 50 years has made government more expensive, more intrusive, and drugs more available and cheaper. I kinda wish they would declare war on jobs.

I fully realize drugs are a blight on society, but so is a police state. We need to do a much better job of striking a balance that doesn't just fleece the taxpayers at every turn.

Sometimes I think people are a "special kid of stupid" when it comes to hard drugs. They know that it's deadly, but they do it anyway. It enslaves thousands of minds and lives, while destroying them in the process. They pat the "victims" on the hand and tell them that it isn't their fault, but a disease, albeit a voluntary one.

Two attempts at habilitation should be the limit. After that, it's time for punitive measures. If you can break the voluntary addiction cycle once, great. After the first relapse, you get a final warning: "Let's not make a career of this". After that it needs to be either hard prison time, or burial.

I am so sick and tired of John Q Public paying for the drug addict's lack of intestinal fortitude. There are limits for compassion. The American people are tired of being played for fools.

I know I am.

 

[Alexx1401]

From what I know, most needle exchanges are done by non-profits

I fully realize drugs are a blight on society, but so is a police state. We need to do a much better job of striking a balance that doesn't just fleece the taxpayers at every turn.

Non profit is again tax payers. I have a far better idea. Put up camps with some wire. LOCK UP criminals who "claim" they can't control themselves. Let them live just like our troops live. Tents, feed them MRE's. No TV, NO internet. Let them be forced to work if they wish to eat. Do that a few times for longer and longer periods. See how many can suddenly control themselves when let out. Instead of constantly making excuses for them and PAYING for their every need.

 

[AMProducts]

Sometimes I think people are a "special kid of stupid" when it comes to hard drugs. They know that it's deadly, but they do it anyway. It enslaves thousands of minds and lives, while destroying them in the process. They pat the "victims" on the hand and tell them that it isn't their fault, but a disease, albeit a voluntary one.

Two attempts at habilitation should be the limit. After that, it's time for punitive measures. If you can break the voluntary addiction cycle once, great. After the first relapse, you get a final warning: "Let's not make a career of this". After that it needs to be either hard prison time, or burial.

I am so sick and tired of John Q Public paying for the drug addict's lack of intestinal fortitude. There are limits for compassion. The American people are tired of being played for fools.

I know I am.

I know where you're coming from, and to an extent I agree, one of the major problems we have with opiate addiction at the moment was a lot of people being habituated to powerful opiates, who the media freaked out the politicians with scare stories about kids getting into their parents drugs, so the DEA and the doctors yanked it back, and put a lot of people who were on long term pain management out looking for a replacement, in this case it was heroin.

Some people are just going to get into drugs, whatever the reason, as you point out, it's a loss in productivity, however I disagree that long term prison is the solution, as that has not only a cost to the productivity (which was lost anyways), but also costs society in terms of the court system, and the prison system. Then the prohibition also drives up the price of drugs, addicts since they're not really productive are then forced to turn to prostitution or theft to support the habit, which means you're out your stuff, the fence who buys your stuff gets paid, the drug dealer who sells the drugs gets paid, the cop who arrests the guy gets paid (if he's even caught at all), the judge and the court system gets paid, and then you and I are stuck with the bill. The alternative is lets say you're home, you shoot the guy breaking into your house, now you're arrested because of some stupid law passed by the politician who gets paid, by the cop who gets paid, into the court who gets paid, maybe if you're lucky your lawyer who you have to pay gets you off, but then the junky's family sues and you're back to square one.

Even then, I've made absolutely no cost assessment of the price we have paid both in hard currency, and in terms of liberty to the drug war. The politician who wants to ban your guns uses the violence of the drug war, either gangs shooting one another, shooting bystanders, or duking it out with the police as a predicate for taking your guns. So now you're out for all those cops, all those judges, all those politicians, the jailers, the clerks, the lawyers, the tax collectors, and you've still lost your gun rights. Oh, and the drug dealers are laughing all the way to the bank, and the junkies are really no better or worse off.

Running the calculations, I pay about $15/day in taxes (just income, SSI, etc). I would imagine if we cut out all the middle-men, and there were no prohibition, we could probably supply all of the junkies in the US with a shoebox apartment, food, and all the drugs they need for $.15 per day, and lets say it knocked $3 off my taxes. That would be a savings of $1045 per year.

I totally understand that drug use, welfare, and taxes are all emotional issues. However, I'm getting to be a serious pragmatist about it, in the end what's cheaper supplying these clowns with enough of what they need to just stop being a menace, or paying for the whole massive infrastructure we need to stop them?

 

[AMProducts]

Non profit is again tax payers. I have a far better idea. Put up camps with some wire. LOCK UP criminals who "claim" they can't control themselves. Let them live just like our troops live. Tents, feed them MRE's. No TV, NO internet. Let them be forced to work if they wish to eat. Do that a few times for longer and longer periods. See how many can suddenly control themselves when let out. Instead of constantly making excuses for them and PAYING for their every need.

Sounds like something the left wing lunatics want to do with gun owners. What's to say when they run out of drug addicts they won't put any of us in there? Claim you can't control yourself, and you're addicted to guns.

Even then your little fun camp is going to need guards, administrative staff, truck drivers, a construction crew to build it, a maintenance team and most likely a hospital and medical staff. How is that not paying for their every need? Even if you make them work, what are they going to do? Lick envelopes for political candidates? Will they dig holes on the property and then fill them back up? So now you need training staff to teach them to do a job, plus another level of administrators to oversee whatever production happens, and still more administrators to make sure those who deserve food get food, and then more administrators to see that those who are tired of being there can get out, and now some bus drivers to get people to and from.

If you really want to punish people it costs money, all I want to do is make sure they clean up after themselves and don't steal my stuff when I'm at work.

I think we should just bulldoze a moat around SF, knock down the bridges, and call it a day.

 

[Captain O]

I know where you're coming from, and to an extent I agree, one of the major problems we have with opiate addiction at the moment was a lot of people being habituated to powerful opiates, who the media freaked out the politicians with scare stories about kids getting into their parents drugs, so the DEA and the doctors yanked it back, and put a lot of people who were on long term pain management out looking for a replacement, in this case it was heroin.

Some people are just going to get into drugs, whatever the reason, as you point out, it's a loss in productivity, however I disagree that long term prison is the solution, as that has not only a cost to the productivity (which was lost anyways), but also costs society in terms of the court system, and the prison system. Then the prohibition also drives up the price of drugs, addicts since they're not really productive are then forced to turn to prostitution or theft to support the habit, which means you're out your stuff, the fence who buys your stuff gets paid, the drug dealer who sells the drugs gets paid, the cop who arrests the guy gets paid (if he's even caught at all), the judge and the court system gets paid, and then you and I are stuck with the bill. The alternative is lets say you're home, you shoot the guy breaking into your house, now you're arrested because of some stupid law passed by the politician who gets paid, by the cop who gets paid, into the court who gets paid, maybe if you're lucky your lawyer who you have to pay gets you off, but then the junky's family sues and you're back to square one.

Even then, I've made absolutely no cost assessment of the price we have paid both in hard currency, and in terms of liberty to the drug war. The politician who wants to ban your guns uses the violence of the drug war, either gangs shooting one another, shooting bystanders, or duking it out with the police as a predicate for taking your guns. So now you're out for all those cops, all those judges, all those politicians, the jailers, the clerks, the lawyers, the tax collectors, and you've still lost your gun rights. Oh, and the drug dealers are laughing all the way to the bank, and the junkies are really no better or worse off.

Running the calculations, I pay about $15/day in taxes (just income, SSI, etc). I would imagine if we cut out all the middle-men, and there were no prohibition, we could probably supply all of the junkies in the US with a shoebox apartment, food, and all the drugs they need for $.15 per day, and lets say it knocked $3 off my taxes. That would be a savings of $1045 per year.

I totally understand that drug use, welfare, and taxes are all emotional issues. However, I'm getting to be a serious pragmatist about it, in the end what's cheaper supplying these clowns with enough of what they need to just stop being a menace, or paying for the whole massive infrastructure we need to stop them?

"Clowns" is right. I have stopped "caring" about their "feelings". At what point do we stop waiting hand and foot on these fools? If they die (and their addiction will deplete their bodies and kill them over time) why should society be forced to support them?

It is time to begin eliminating the people that "go back to the trough" of hard narcotics. The can legally be eliminated from society through the death penalty. The evidence of their behavior is clear. They will do it again, and have no intention of controlling their behavior. It is time to physically "stop the cycle". Process them like the vermin that they are, and the "welfare state" will drop off commensurately.

 

[Alexx1401]

Sounds like something the left wing lunatics want to do with gun owners. What's to say when they run out of drug addicts they won't put any of us in there? Claim you can't control yourself, and you're addicted to guns.



If you really want to punish people it costs money, all I want to do is make sure they clean up after themselves and don't steal my stuff when I'm at work.

I think we should just bulldoze a moat around SF, knock down the bridges, and call it a day.

Cost yes. Does NOT need to cost even 10% of what it does. If it was real punishment a whole LOT of them would not come back for more. There is a good reason there is so many now. We made it too easy. We are already paying big time for letting the dopers run free. They steal what we don't hand them. Lock them up in camps for a while where they have to work to eat. Watch how few want to come back when let out. Society has trained these people to act the way they do. If you reward bad behavior you get more of it.

 

[3MTA3]

Typically it's an exchange, you need to bring in a used one to get a new one. This means there's no "free needles" just clean needles. Even then, these are the same things my MIL uses for shooting insulin, which IIRC you can get at most pharmacies, but I think you need a prescription for 'em.

No prescription necessary, they are strictly over the counter. You can buy from singles all the way up to a full box. At Fred Meyer's you can even join their discount club for a small percentage off each purchase. I do buy mine at Kaiser Permanente since my prescription price has a steep discount (still).

 

[AMProducts]

No prescription necessary, they are strictly over the counter. You can buy from singles all the way up to a full box. At Fred Meyer's you can even join their discount club for a small percentage off each purchase. I do buy mine at Kaiser Permanente since my prescription price has a steep discount (still).

Good to know if I ever take up a dope habit.

"Clowns" is right. I have stopped "caring" about their "feelings". At what point do we stop waiting hand and foot on these fools? If they die (and their addiction will deplete their bodies and kill them over time) why should society be forced to support them?

It is time to begin eliminating the people that "go back to the trough" of hard narcotics. The can legally be eliminated from society through the death penalty. The evidence of their behavior is clear. They will do it again, and have no intention of controlling their behavior. It is time to physically "stop the cycle". Process them like the vermin that they are, and the "welfare state" will drop off commensurately.

I don't believe I mentioned their "feelings" once. There are some big questions in my mind as to where we draw the line on the unrepentant drug user. What about the baseball player who wrecked his boat and died with a head full of booze and cocaine. Sure, we're talking mostly about heroin here, but cocaine and meth are both taken by the IV route also and they're both "hard" drugs, do we apply the same standard of "into the camp" for people who are drug users but are otherwise productive? Or do we wait for the long downhill slide to drop them into the unproductive class before we throw them into the camp? What if they're someone like Billy Mays who just happens to drop dead of a massive heart attack and that's the only way we knew his body was like 80% hard drugs?

Cost yes. Does NOT need to cost even 10% of what it does. If it was real punishment a whole LOT of them would not come back for more. There is a good reason there is so many now. We made it too easy. We are already paying big time for letting the dopers run free. They steal what we don't hand them. Lock them up in camps for a while where they have to work to eat. Watch how few want to come back when let out. Society has trained these people to act the way they do. If you reward bad behavior you get more of it.

The real good reason why there's so many now, and generally people are running amok is because the prisons are full, the court systems are overburdened, the medical establishment is in a shambles. People with felony drug convictions can't get jobs, they usually can't hold professional licenses, so we punish them with prison, then dump them back on the street, and now they're even worse off than they were before, they end up back on welfare, on the street, and then back to drugs.

I am making a strictly economic argument here, the question is, how do you take people who have a dependence on a chemical, and turn them back into people who at least won't rip you off the first chance they get, if not maybe turn them back into people who are useful and productive. Does the recovered heroin addict who gets out of your camp have a job waiting for him when it comes out? Does he have a place to live? Does he have enough money to buy food for himself until his first paycheck comes in? If you don't anticipate any of this, the first thing he's going to do, is come to your house, steal your hubcaps, fence them for some money, get some food in his belly, and probably a few hours later go score some drugs. And then the cycle will repeat, and you will be without hubcaps.

The thing about it is, most people don't want to make bad decisions, but if you back someone into a corner and a bad decision is the most immediate and easiest way out (probably the reason they got into drugs in the first place) that's the route they will go 90% of the time. I highly doubt you will find someone who will be like "wow, that work camp was horrible, I'm just going to starve for the next month until I can find a job, then starve for another few weeks until my first paycheck comes in, and I'll do all this while homeless, wearing my jail clothes" More likely they're going to rob the first person they can, at which point, their chances of getting a job while on the lam are 0% so they will keep robbing.

 

[Alexx1401]

Good to know if I ever take up a dope habit.



The thing about it is, most people don't want to make bad decisions, but if you back someone into a corner and a bad decision is the most immediate and easiest way out (probably the reason they got into drugs in the first place) that's the route they will go 90% of the time. I highly doubt you will find someone who will be like "wow, that work camp was horrible, I'm just going to starve for the next month until I can find a job, then starve for another few weeks until my first paycheck comes in, and I'll do all this while homeless, wearing my jail clothes" More likely they're going to rob the first person they can, at which point, their chances of getting a job while on the lam are 0% so they will keep robbing.

History has proved you wrong. I know you want to write a book on how we need to "take care" of these people. The problem is what you want only makes more of them. In the mean time we have Vets who fought for this county, and paid in. We have people who worked and paid taxes for 40 + years. Then we have the ones you want to take care of. The ones who have NEVER paid a dime. The 40 year old who has never worked. The 25 year old who had 5 kids from 5 fathers. You want to tell the ones who paid we can't help them because you want to give money to the ones who never paid a dime. It's real easy to give away other peoples money. Just keep making excuses for them and handing them money. Meanwhile tell those who worked and paid that they have to do without because you need them to pay for the trash.

 

[AMProducts]

History has proved you wrong. I know you want to write a book on how we need to "take care" of these people. The problem is what you want only makes more of them. In the mean time we have Vets who fought for this county, and paid in. We have people who worked and paid taxes for 40 + years. Then we have the ones you want to take care of. The ones who have NEVER paid a dime. The 40 year old who has never worked. The 25 year old who had 5 kids from 5 fathers. You want to tell the ones who paid we can't help them because you want to give money to the ones who never paid a dime. It's real easy to give away other peoples money. Just keep making excuses for them and handing them money. Meanwhile tell those who worked and paid that they have to do without because you need them to pay for the trash.

Let me rephrase everything I've said:

1) Government steals money from you and me to pay for bubblegum it wants to spend money on

2) Government will continue to prop up entitlement spending like medicare and medicaid, services that are for the poor, however also act as a catch-all for drug users, homeless, and people with severe psychological problems

3) The system as it stands now offers direct job security for those charged with enforcing your punishment regime, and does so with money from point 1.

4) The only two people who profit from this system are: A: The drug dealers B: The government employees

5) The existing system, and the one you have suggested do nothing but screw anyone who isn't in groups A or B. The drug addicts get locked into a cycle of perpetual recidivism, some of them may end up on methadone, You get to pay for all of it, and the proceeds taken by drug dealers go to fund unrest and criminality in mexico and south america, to which money is directed by government employees, to fight the drug dealers.

Now, to address point 6, the people who have worked and paid taxes for 40+ years have not paid enough to support the existing system, it's 20,000,000,000,000,000 Yes, that's trillion, in the hole. The system as it exists now is unsustainable, continuing the failed policy of the drug war is unsustainable. To the vets who put in some sweat equity, they got ripped off.

Now, we could just eliminate medicare and medicaid, we could wipe out social security disability and retirement, given that entitlement spending on these programs is about 60% of the annual budget (some years it's higher) that would largely cut the deficit so that maybe my grandchildren's grandchildren will see a united states that isn't in so much debt I have to use scientific notation to express how many zeros are after the significant digit. However, that would probably result in people, not just drug addicts literally dying in the streets after being turned away from hospitals because they couldn't pay. The alternative, is that under current law, if the hospital cannot refuse service, hospitals would go out of business.

The crux of my argument, is that we can use the money we have more efficiently, that the system as it exists now will continue on it's current trajectory until it has bankrupted you, me, and the rest of the country, and we will still have drug addicts. Your policy of internment is simply more of the same.

Realistically, we could buy the world's supply of heroin, cocaine, and meth, for probably half or less than we spend annually on law enforcement, aid to foreign governments to fight the drug war, and military assistance to fight the insurgencies that spring up around drug trafficking. That would be a much more efficient use of our money.

 

[Alexx1401]

Let me rephrase everything I've said:


Realistically, we could buy the world's supply of heroin, cocaine, and meth, for probably half or less than we spend annually on law enforcement, aid to foreign governments to fight the drug war, and military assistance to fight the insurgencies that spring up around drug trafficking. That would be a much more efficient use of our money.

Or we could force drug addicts to work to eat. You keep saying we need to give them everything they need to live. I say let them die if they don't want to work. If they want to steal make it open season on them. Thin them out. Feeding them just engorges more of them. Meanwhile you want to tell those who worked and paid in that they need to do without so you can give drugs to the ones who refuse to work.

 

[Mikej]

The thing about it is, most people don't want to make bad decisions, but if you back someone into a corner and a bad decision is the most immediate and easiest way out (probably the reason they got into drugs in the first place) that's the route they will go 90% of the time. I highly doubt you will find someone who will be like "wow, that work camp was horrible, I'm just going to starve for the next month until I can find a job, then starve for another few weeks until my first paycheck comes in, and I'll do all this while homeless, wearing my jail clothes" More likely they're going to rob the first person they can, at which point, their chances of getting a job while on the lam are 0% so they will keep robbing.

I'll tell ya', when I see the way people have to live that are on the street, for what ever reasons, I can't really blame them going for the fortified beer/wine/heavy drugs. What AMP says about getting out of that hole is so true. The resources available (Jobs?) are well below what is needed to really make a dent in the problem.

 

[etrain16]

I'll tell ya', when I see the way people have to live that are on the street, for what ever reasons, I can't really blame them going for the fortified beer/wine/heavy drugs. What AMP says about getting out of that hole is so true. The resources available (Jobs?) are well below what is needed to really make a dent in the problem.

And yet we have politicians and voters insisting we need to import tens of thousands of more refugees into our country every year. If we can't take care of our own, how the heck and we expect to bring in more and take care of them? From what I've seen we do it by ignoring those in need, such as the homeless, veterans, etc., and focusing our efforts on the immigrants. We have enough problems on our own not being solved, probably best to restrain the flow significantly until we can get things right at home. I don't think any reasonable parent with several kids on a shoestring budget would try and solve the budget problem by suggesting they need to add more kids to the mix - yet that's exactly how things are working in our government right now.