Meth Mayhem: When will it stop being treated as a "Mental Health Crisis" and be properly addressed as a "Threat To Society"?

[coop44]

I'll say it again, we don't have a homeless problem, we have a drug problem. The sooner politicians realize it and let law enforcement do their jobs, the sooner things will get better.
I wish they would stop pouring money down the rabbit hole of authorized homeless camps, needle exchanges, free phones, and stop the "social experimenting".
For all the money per homeless person spent, they coulda bought each one of them a car, bus or plane ticket, (maybe a passport) and sent them to somewhere else.

 

[Alexx1401]

A disturbingly high amount of crime in these parts are meth-fueled. Having seen those zombies plenty of times, I simply cannot wrap my head around why people would voluntarily use that crap.

I have to deal with it at work all the time. It can be sooooo sad. So many times see young women who when you look at their ID were very attractive, then you look at the zombie they have become in a matter of a few years and it's shocking. I keep saying instead of taking them to jail they should parade them through the schools, starting with grade school and up. Show the kids picture's of what they looked like a couple years ago, then let them get a good damn look at whats left of them. Tell the girls "this woman now give oral to guys for $10 a throw just to get the next fix. I can't believe it would not stop at least a few of them from taking that first bite of it.

 

[coop44]

I see them too, people who look like they are in their forties, but in reality are under thirty.

 

[Alexx1401]

I see them too, people who look like they are in their forties, but in reality are under thirty.

One guy I work with gets a kick out of this. I will see someone who is say 15 years younger than me, who looks like they are 80. Will say to him see that one there? They are 15 years younger than me. Or some that are his age, 30, and look like they are my age. Damn stuff just poisons them from the inside out and does it so damn fast.

 

[ma96782]

Before and After drugs.

Aloha, Mark

 

[Ura-Ki]

I had a Cousin who fell into Meth, She was quite something before her addiction, and it didn't take all that long before the changes couldn't be hidden! Her teeth rotted and eventually fell out, the skin color drained and was drawn out, and she became skin and bones! What was once a beautiful vibrant young lady with the whole world ahead of her died in the back of a van with all her worldly belongings stuffed into a 60 gallon garbage sack! Apparently she did "tricks" to supply her habit, and refused any help from every one! Her companions took a week to notice her passing and only after they dumped her body was she discovered!

 

[parallax]

In 2017 Oregon govenor signed a law that made posession of hard drugs a misdemeaner, instead of a felony. I often wonder if there a direct correlation with the rise in homelessness in Oregon. If there is no teeth in the enforcement of possession of meth/heroin/crack. there is no incentive for addicts to change their life around, at least the few that may still have enough brain matter left to decide to rehabilitate. Can you imagine an addict getting what amounts to a parking ticket for possession of meth/heroin?. appalling.

 

[asbtg]

In 2017 Oregon govenor signed a law that made posession of hard drugs a misdemeaner, instead of a felony. I often wonder if there a direct correlation with the rise in homelessness in Oregon. If there is no teeth in the enforcement of possession of meth/heroin/crack. there is no incentive for addicts to change their life around, at least the few that may still have enough brain matter left to decide to rehabilitate. Can you imagine an addict getting what amounts to a parking ticket for possession of meth/heroin?. appalling.

How do you take something from someone with nothing? Laws are followed by the lawful, but for those who aren't, the threat of losing something valuable is a useful deterrent. When those people have nothing, they fear nothing. Hence our current problem. What's a fine to someone who lives a cash-based life whose credit score is irrelevant and owns nothing on paper? These "solutions" are not working and getting worse. Is this on purpose? And really, it's a Brave New World for those who can afford the good life and it's closer to 1984 or Animal Farm for those slipping downwards. Both sides are worse off and it's a combined effort of the ruling class; Dem vs. Repub is a false correlation. They're both stripping the wealth from this country before it finishes its slide into the end of the Republic vis a vis Rome, and the current gun control and drug problems are keeping the citizens distracted and fighting ourselves rather than storming the gates of the palace and installing new guards for our future.

On July 6, 1775, the Continental Congress issued a "Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms," authored by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson. One of Jefferson's lines was: "Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them."

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is the duty to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

Dems are not our "Enemy." Politicians trying to remove our Rights and the super-rich raping our country while our elderly and children starve and die ARE.

 

[No_Regerts]

How do you take something from someone with nothing? Laws are followed by the lawful, but for those who aren't, the threat of losing something valuable is a useful deterrent. When those people have nothing, they fear nothing. Hence our current problem. What's a fine to someone who lives a cash-based life whose credit score is irrelevant and owns nothing on paper? These "solutions" are not working and getting worse. Is this on purpose? And really, it's a Brave New World for those who can afford the good life and it's closer to 1984 or Animal Farm for those slipping downwards. Both sides are worse off and it's a combined effort of the ruling class; Dem vs. Repub is a false correlation. They're both stripping the wealth from this country before it finishes its slide into the end of the Republic vis a vis Rome, and the current gun control and drug problems are keeping the citizens distracted and fighting ourselves rather than storming the gates of the palace and installing new guards for our future.

On July 6, 1775, the Continental Congress issued a "Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms," authored by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson. One of Jefferson's lines was: "Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them."

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is the duty to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

Dems are not our "Enemy." Politicians trying to remove our Rights and the super-rich raping our country while our elderly and children starve and die ARE.

Its the other consequences that the ignorant politicians aren't seeing. They don't realize that the first introduction to treatment and vocational rehab for these addicts comes when they are arrested. If you are cited and released, such as with misdemeanors, you don't get that access like you would if you got booked because you're no longer a captive audience in a place you WILL detox and be lucid for at least a little while.

 

[Camelfilter]

Its the other consequences that the ignorant politicians aren't seeing. They don't realize that the first introduction to treatment and vocational rehab for these addicts comes when they are arrested. If you are cited and released, such as with misdemeanors, you don't get that access like you would if you got booked because you're no longer a captive audience in a place you WILL detox and be lucid for at least a little while.

As well as not steel bubblegum, harm oneself, harm others...

 

[Ura-Ki]

They should adopt the Rhode Island Model and force addicts into the prison system where they Detox and then are given the choice, do time, or get treatment, and if you fall off the wagon, you do time behind bars for a few years, and daily outdoor time is spent on a work crew picking up the trash of their fellow addicts in the cities and cleaning the sidewalks of human waste! Put these people to work solving many of the problems they help create!

Or, do it Russian Style and ship them off to work camps where they detox and work for many years to pay for their on going care and housing!

 

[Hop Sing]

What's amazing to me is how pervasive this poison is - not in single town in Oregon is free from it, and it has been this way for a very long time.

 

[No_Regerts]

They should adopt the Rhode Island Model and force addicts into the prison system where they Detox and then are given the choice, do time, or get treatment, and if you fall off the wagon, you do time behind bars for a few years, and daily outdoor time is spent on a work crew picking up the trash of their fellow addicts in the cities and cleaning the sidewalks of human waste! Put these people to work solving many of the problems they help create!

Or, do it Russian Style and ship them off to work camps where they detox and work for many years to pay for their on going care and housing!

In WA, they have something like this. Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative (DOSA). If you get arrested on a non-violent felony that is drug related and its not your first rodeo and have used up court deferment, you do some jail time pending adjudication and sentencing to a DOSA sentence. If the sentencing guidelines say you don't qualify for prison, you go to a semi-secured in-patient treatment center for 30 to 60 days instead of your full jail sentence. When you get out, you are on probation where you have to give lots of UAs and get violations for screwing up. Screw up enough or bad enough, your sentence gets converted to prison.

If you qualified for prison at sentencing, you get 50% off your sentence plus another 33% for good conduct and do the treatment in prison. When you get out on probation and screw up, you do the remainder of the deferred sentence.

This program decreases court costs because offenders will plea out for the time off their sentences. It decreases jail and prison bed usage and costs.

It has an abysmal success rate.

 

[Ura-Ki]

In WA, they have something like this. Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative (DOSA). If you get arrested on a non-violent felony that is drug related and its not your first rodeo and have used up court deferment, you do some jail time pending adjudication and sentencing to a DOSA sentence. If the sentencing guidelines say you don't qualify for prison, you go to a semi-secured in-patient treatment center for 30 to 60 days instead of your full jail sentence. When you get out, you are on probation where you have to give lots of UAs and get violations for screwing up. Screw up enough or bad enough, your sentence gets converted to prison.

If you qualified for prison at sentencing, you get 50% off your sentence plus another 33% for good conduct and do the treatment in prison. When you get out on probation and screw up, you do the remainder of the deferred sentence.

This program decreases court costs because offenders will plea out for the time off their sentences. It decreases jail and prison bed usage and costs.

It has an abysmal success rate.

And it would be an easy fix too, if only someone would implement the real solutions and enforce them! Sadly the Kid Glove Treatment doesn't cut it!

 

[revjen45]

You get what you pay for...

 

[Ura-Ki]

How About we take all that money they have for housing and care and feel good stuff and spend that on getting these people off the streets and into a rehab program! Ho about we remove the options and diversions and instead we use a more strict guideline. first time arrest gets you "In the system" and gets you choices, get help on your own ( and here are the resources available to you) and a warning. NEXT time, gets you behind bars and forced detox and a work detail! Repeat gets you a full sentence and a full labor program! If your going to be a drain, your going to work to pay for it! Sounds harsh, but it's ether that or we keep what we already have and watch it get much worse! This winter is shaping up to be a bad one for the PNW, and I wonder how many will die before something more drastic is done? Scooping them up off the streets and putting them is a heated shelter and feeding them isn't enough, nor is there enough room for them all, so then what?

 

[MannyGlocks]

Or, give them the zombie treatment....

I'm sick of these 'po folk' who cain't hep themselves, they's not at fault, it's the system. It's not.

They 'decided' to become 'meth heads'...and want me/you to pay for their crap decisions and aftermath...no...

 

[CountryGent]

Its the other consequences that the ignorant politicians aren't seeing. They don't realize that the first introduction to treatment and vocational rehab for these addicts comes when they are arrested. If you are cited and released, such as with misdemeanors, you don't get that access like you would if you got booked because you're no longer a captive audience in a place you WILL detox and be lucid for at least a little while.

I know our county has something like that; first arrest for drug use or possession and they are given the option to complete rehab and vocational training if they need it. If they successfully do that charges are dropped. If they screw up they aren't. Or at least that is how I understand it works.

I was at the courthouse one day for jury duty when, evidently, they were all supposed to report in. Man alive, what a collection of mutants. Made the Star Wars cantina look tame by comparison.

 

[Resist_This]

Plastic straws bad. Plastic syringe good. What's wrong with you people?

 

[Ura-Ki]

Plastic straws bad. Plastic syringe good. What's wrong with you people?

It's that sticky part, that's what makes them different!